Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. Quick shout out to Charles S and Daniel W. Thank you for using my Tesla referral link and congratulations on your new Tesla. Elon gave a remote interview for CES and he did touch briefly on Tesla. On FSD, Elon said we feel confident in better than human driving in about three months, so basically quarter two of this year. The probability of accident will be better than the average experienced driver and will keep going from there. Ultimately 10x and 100x safer than a human to the point where it just won't crash. The real question is what does that mean for Tesla?
I say that because I don't think it means Tesla's pulling forward Robotaxy deployment in Austin or California to April of this year. It's just that certain technical milestone is expected to be passed at that point. A milestone, by the way, that we still don't know exactly what it is. But what Elon said about Optimus is arguably more exciting. For Tesla, we're in our Optimus robot really is it's unless somebody's got something secret we don't know about. The Optimus robot is the most sophisticated human robot in the world. It's got a hand that has 22 degrees of freedom. It looks and feels like a human hand. We're aiming to have several thousand of those built this year.
Initially we'll test them out at Tesla factories. But then assuming things go well, we'll 10x that output next year. So we'll aim to do maybe 50 to 100,000 human robots next year and then 10x at a gain the following year. It's like 500,000 robots in three years. There's a lot. So as I clarified on X, the expectation for Optimus production for 2025 should be a few thousand possibly as high as 5,000 starting production in Q4 this year. But now we know Elon's expectation for 2026 is between 50 and 100,000 and potentially as high as 500,000 for 2027.
That would be two years of 10xing Optimus production, which is also 900% annual growth. As always respect for Gary, but here's how you should not be thinking about Optimus valuation for Tesla. He said assuming those numbers that 70 cents in incremental EPS for Tesla by 2027 assuming a $30,000 ASP and a 20% gross margin per robot. First of all, Elon has said numerous times that $30,000 selling price is a long term target when Tesla is at high volume production likely millions per year. My point for the next few years, the retail cost of Optimus is likely to be north of $50,000 and to start possibly much higher than $100,000. And of course a company would be willing to pay if they can actually replace an assembly line type worker making maybe $50,000 a year.
In that scenario, it's not going to take that company very long to turn a positive ROI. Second, and arguably even more important, there's likely to be a subscription cost with Optimus as well. Just think about FSD and Tesla vehicles. You buy the vehicle, but then you still have to pay monthly for FSD. Or yes, you can pay for the FSD package up front, but that's an additional cost. As far as I can tell, Gary's calculations leave that second part out altogether. One thing I will say in Gary's defense at some point, Tesla is going to have to start showing an earnings per share increase because at the end of the day, that's the only reason we own stock in these companies.
When you really boil it down, that's all share ownership is if you own 10 shares of Tesla and their EPS is $3 per share, that means you figuratively have claim to $30 earnings. Looking at the Bloomberg terminal, this red line has been tracking Tesla's 2025 earnings per share expectations. That's the Y axis on the right, so early 2023, Tesla's 2025 EPS expectations were north of $6 per share. And over the last two years or so, that numbers come all the way down to just north of about $3 per share.
Tesla's actual results in 2022, they did $4.07 in earnings per share, non-gap. In 2023, that number came down to $3.13 non-gap. And through the first 3 quarters of 2024, Tesla has done $1.69, so they're likely to finish the year below $3 per share. And yes, obviously that's all in the past, looking through the rearview mirror, but Wall Street is waiting for Tesla to prove that it's going to send its earnings per share positive again.
My point here, Sederis Paribus, when these EPS expectations start being revised upward again, and Wall Street shows confidence that Tesla can start earning more profit per share, that would absolutely help to remove the lid if you will on Tesla's stock price. And this conversation has not even touched on proper valuations, but what I will say is if Tesla's trading right now at about 123x 2025 expected earnings, if Tesla proves it has a new business line, optimists growing at 900% per year with nearly an unlimited addressable market, investors are most definitely going to be willing to pay a higher valuation multiple. Now what that is, is conversation for another video, just know that the directional trend for optimists is certainly up.
Naturally, I spent a decent amount of time today covering the leak photos and all of the rumors around the web about when it was actually going to be launched, it being the new Model Y in China. Well, just now it has officially launched in the Chinese market, you're looking at the Chinese configurator. Here it is, looking at the base version and the base set of wheels. In my opinion, it's a lot better than the leaks we saw earlier today, which I kind of knew was going to be the case. And on the back, here's a zoom in of the new light bar and the rear of the vehicle. At least for the Chinese market, they have a new blue color that they're calling Glacier blue, at least through the translation. And to compare, let's throw on the 20 inch wheels to see what that upgrade looks like. If it looks familiar, it's because it is, I believe it's just the same Nova wheel that Tesla has been using in the US for some time. For now in the Chinese market, there are two options, a rear wheel drive, first edition, and a long range all wheel drive, first edition. For the Chinese market, deliveries are expected to begin in March, pending regulatory approval, long-range new design, a higher quality interior, and a quieter driving experience. I think some will be pleased to see a regular steering wheel. Again, who knows the US market could always be different, but for the Chinese market, they're sticking with a regular wheel. It's the same center console as the new model three, the same interior lighting. For this first edition model, that's only going to be available for a few weeks. It appears as though it'll have a special badge. And so I can stop repeating myself, just know that everything I talk about right now doesn't have to carry over to other markets around the world. This could just be specific to the Chinese market. It also has a rear liftgate badge, a puddle light badge, a door sill plate, a charging console wordmark, some vegan suede for the black interior, and the all-wheel drive variant comes with an acceleration boost. The redesigned front and rear light strips reduce wind resistance, improve efficiency, and endurance. The touchscreen will be the same size as the new model three at 15.4 inches, and it does have those ventilated front seats. There's the same fold-down functionality for the second row, along with the screen for the rear passengers. There are some soft touch materials on the interior, and they touch briefly on the updated speaker design. When it comes to the range, I think most people know converting from CLTC over to EPA is definitely an art not a science. But the new Model Y appears to have between three and seven percent more range depending on the trim. That's compared to the outgoing Model Y. The new base Model Y has 593 kilometers of range, and the outgoing one had 554. So there's a chance in the US the new Model Y could have a range north of 350 miles. However, those figures are really just guesstimates because remember, the US version will likely use a different battery pack anyway. I did not see it on the website, but Sawyer said the peak charging rate is 250 kilowatts. Also, just FYI, I'm going to edit and delete out that entire portion I already recorded earlier talking about the leak from today. This news obviously renders that whole section moot.
When it comes to timing for a US launch, all we know is that Tesla is now on the clock, the word is out there, so people will most likely be waiting for this new vehicle. And for the future, the inventory reduction we were tracking the past few weeks turned out to be a signal. The new Model Y does have powered rear seats, and look at this, the new Model Y does indeed have a front bumper camera, and I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit disappointed, my new Model 3 does not have this. The new Y also has an updated suspension and new wheels and tires. In a surprise turn of events, the new Model Y does have a turn signal stock. Looking at the wheel, there are no turn signal buttons, and you can see the stock right here. I do not, however, see a gear shifter stock, so that appears to have moved onto the screen like the new Model 3.
And it's being reported that this is already live in Singapore, and apparently in all of Asia Pacific as well. Back down to the 19 inch wheels, there you have it. So, what does everybody think about the long awaited Project Juniper, the new Model Y? Now some analysts from UBS are coming out and estimating Tesla may receive more than one billion dollars in regulatory credits, just from European automakers in 2025. Which really isn't a surprise given that Tesla earned over $2 billion in regulatory credits in 2024, but somebody from the European Parliament said, our European brands are forced to check whether it's a smarter idea to give money to Tesla or BYD. This is not the best approach, and he's not wrong, but these companies should have thought about that years ago.
A heads up, depending on what region you're in, the non-foundation series Cybertrucks are now available in inventory. Both the all-wheel drive and cyber beast variants, again, non-foundation are now available in inventory. Mercedes put out a press release today saying that beginning February of 2025, Mercedes drivers will have access to the Supercharger network, and they will have plug-in charge capabilities. The Supercharger network will be integrated into Mercedes' own knee charge, which does include other locations like IANA, EA, EVGO, Chargepoint, and others. And don't forget, Mercedes is rolling out some of its own charging stations as well. To enable this, customers have to schedule a software update through authorized dealers. The adapter for CCS1 vehicles is $185. It'll be available for purchase in the US in quarter one of this year, and in Canada in Q2.
And starting later this year, Mercedes will integrate the NACS port natively. I was pleased to see this one. Ray for Tesla shared some dash cam footage, and in his case I would trust him that he was actually on FSD, but it treated it just like a four-way stop as it should. So no problems at all seemed pretty smooth, not really any hesitation. And Ray actually did say in the comments that he's only on version 12. You may remember a lawsuit brought against Tesla's directors back in 2020 by the City of Detroit's Police and Fire Retirement System. Well, those nine Tesla directors had a settlement offer approved in court. It's worth up to $919 billion. The up to is because part of this settlement is these directors giving back stock options. It's not listed in the settlement what each individual director has to give back.
从今年晚些时候开始,奔驰将原生集成NACS接口。我很高兴看到这一消息。Ray for Tesla 分享了一些行车记录仪画面,在他的案例中,我相信他确实使用了全自动驾驶(FSD),并且它正确地将情况视作一个四向停车,过程非常顺利,没有任何问题,也没有犹豫。Ray 还在评论中提到,他只使用了版本12。你可能还记得,2020年,底特律警察和消防退休系统曾对特斯拉董事提起诉讼。这九位特斯拉董事在法庭上已经批准了一项和解方案。该和解方案的金额最高可达9190亿美元。这一数额的“最高”是因为和解的一部分包含这些董事归还股票期权。和解方案中未列出每个董事需要归还的具体股票期权数量。
They just talk about it collectively. In total, they'll be returning $277 million in cash, $459 million in stock options, and they'll be foregoing options worth about $184 million from 2021 to 2023. Individually, it would work out to about $100 million per director, but again, it doesn't have to be the same amount for each person. For all we know, Larry Ellison could just step up and say, hey, you know what? Here's $900 million. What's that to somebody that's worth over $200 billion? However, in this excessive paycase, the directors did not admit to any wrongdoing. In addition to that settlement number, Judge McCormick, yes, Kathy McCormick once again involved with Tesla, also awarded the plaintiff's attorneys $176 million in fees, which is the fourth largest in the history of shareholder litigation in Delaware.
I think it's important context that during the time that was covered for this lawsuit, Tesla stock ended up doing a 10x. It's not clear how Tesla will handle getting this money in compensation back, but honestly, it's really not that big of a deal in the long term anyway. Just so you know, Elon was not included in this lawsuit. The nine directors were Kimbal Musk, Brad Bus, Ira Aaron Price, Antonio Gracias, Steven Jervitsen, Linda Rice, Kathleen Wilson Thompson, Hiro Mizuno, and Larry Ellison.
Sticking with legal battles as of yesterday, Tesla has now officially appealed Judge Kathleen McCormick's decision in Elon's 2018 pay package case. Again, though, we likely won't have a resolution on this until closer to the end of 2025. Just because of all of the hurdles that Tesla has faced in Sweden this year, I wanted to share this one officially now.
The Model Y was the country's most popular vehicle for the second year in a row. They sold over 18,200 for the year, which was up from over 16,400 in 2023. I was watching some videos about Baidu's Apollo Go, its Robotaxi program that's similar to Waymo, it started in Wuhan but has since expanded to roughly 10 other cities in China. But the Australian actually reported, and it's the first time I had heard about it, that they were going to expand to around 4000 driverless vehicles in Wuhan.
Model Y连续第二年成为该国最受欢迎的车型。今年销量超过18,200辆,高于2023年的16,400辆。我看了关于百度阿波罗Apollo Go的几个视频,这是类似Waymo的无人驾驶出租车项目,最初在武汉启动,现在已扩展到中国其他大约10个城市。不过,《澳大利亚人报》报道称,他们计划在武汉扩展到约4000辆无人驾驶车辆,这是我第一次听说这个消息。
But the Australian reported in this video that Baidu was actually looking to expand its Robotaxi service in Wuhan from 400 vehicles up to 4000. However, the taxi drivers in that region actually put on a protest and since then, the expansion has been put on pause. Honestly though, from everything I've been able to gather, it seems like most of the users are quite pleased with the overall experience. I'd also note that JP Morgan predicted Baidu would break even in a few cities in China by the end of 2024.
But even if they do, we might not hear about it because Baidu still has not broken out any of the financials for its Robotaxi division. But what people don't mention is Baidu's most recent vehicle still has 40 different sensors, 5 of them are actually LiDAR. Honestly though, I'm not sure that matters too much in the Chinese market given the cost of labor and how much the government is subsidizing this entire industry.
I wanted to touch on that briefly because after Nvidia's keynote, I did some digging in all I'll say is that most of China's premier EV players are racing to get Nvidia hardware to deploy level 2 plus advanced driving features. To date, generally speaking, they've been lagging in that department but over the next few years, that's likely to change. Not for generalized autonomy but localized or really good level 2 and level 3.
Ford hit a big milestone in 2024 that not many are talking about but the Mach-E actually outsold the gas version by 8000 units last year. Mach-E deliveries jumped 27% for the year over 51,700 while the ICE version saw sales drop 9% down to 44,000, the lowest level in two decades. On the Aephela 1 from Sony and Honda, the one I'm quite skeptical about just starting in California, their plan is to start direct to consumer bypassing the dealer network. But given that this vehicle is supposed to be built at Honda factories, we now have some Honda dealers saying, wait a second, is this legal?
I won't be surprised if this ends up challenged to buy those Honda dealers just like we're seeing with VW and the Scout brand. Tesla North America said to support people evacuating from the fires in the LA area, all autopilot and FSD supervised strikes are being forgiven in California. On X, Phil Duwan, a Tesla engineer responded to a complaint from Dan about the Yo-Yo speed, sometimes with FSD on the highway. In Dan's case, he set the max speed to 9 miles an hour over and even with a clear path, sometimes FSD would slow down 3 to 5 miles per hour.
Phil said the highway speed and the lead vehicle following distance will be improved with version 13.3. The stock market was closed today so Tesla is still at $394.94 as of Wednesday. Hope you guys have a wonderful day, please like the video if you did, you can find me on X-linked below and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.