Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. Tesla App updates has decompiled a future Tesla software update and there are some interesting findings. It looks like there will be a Tesla Diner button now in the UI so this site may be opening soon-ish. Not only that, but there will be a whole UI interface for when you're at the Tesla Diner to order food and perform other services right from the Tesla app. For Tesla insurance, the safety score may be getting an update so if you're using that, there could be the possibility for more discounts in the future. If you're getting roadside assistance from Tesla in the app, there may be a new live widget with updates. In the code, they found has automatic Tano so the speculation is the cheaper rear-wheel drive Cybertruck may be getting a manual Tano cover. Android users may be getting ultra wideband support and they're also guessing the rear-wheel drive Cybertruck will not come standard with AC outlets. And finally, the charging filter will now be 0-72 kW and then 72 all the way up to 325.
There is a significant battery fire at the Moss Landing Battery Storage Facility in California. However, there are two separate parts of this facility. One is V-Stru Energy and they do not use Tesla Mega Packs. They actually use batteries from LG and those are the ones on fire. To be clear, this fire has nothing to do with Tesla or their Mega Packs. There are some evacuation orders and highway closures but the main reason is for air quality. Naturally, this story will get a lot of attention because it is the biggest battery storage facility in the United States and one of the biggest in the world. The portion of Moss Landing that's operated by V-Stru Energy that uses those LG batteries is actually a 3-gigawatt hour project. Then the other portion that's operated by PG&E that does use Tesla Mega Packs is just under 1-gigawatt hour. Of course, there are some headlines out there saying things like Tesla Battery Fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant and in response Elon is understandably fed up here saying to reiterate the legacy news headlines are false. This fire has nothing to do with Tesla and our Mega Packs are operating well. In these situations, I think it's always helpful to know the cause of the fire and so far as far as I can tell, it has not yet been determined. Back in 2022, one single Tesla Mega Pack did have a fire issue at the Moss Landing location. But the word was that was caused thanks to a sprinkler head malfunction that caused some overheating. And at the time, the built-in safety systems worked as designed, automatically disconnecting the Tesla batteries from the grid when the fire was detected.
With Serendipitous Timing, Bloomberg today also put out an in-depth article highlighting all of the benefits of these battery storage systems. A few notes, one executive from the California grid says it would have been extremely difficult to have gotten through some of these events without the battery fleet. Global prices for large-scale energy storage systems have dropped 73% since 2017. They talked about how many of these projects can be up and running in a year, if of course they can get connected to the grid efficiently. And the COO of Urcott in Texas for their grid said without the batteries, we would have been in some pretty bad situations there, specifically talking about the Texas summer heat. So far on this channel, we've mostly talked about Lithium ion batteries for storage, but there are some zinc-based batteries that can last for up to 16 hours set to hit the market, as well as some iron air batteries that can discharge for 100 hours straight. The latter is from form energy, they just raised over a billion dollars, opened a factory near Pittsburgh, and utilities in Colorado and Georgia have already signed contracts for installations with the first scheduled this year.
On the topic, Colben, a Chilean utility company, has begun construction of a 228 megawatt or just under 1 gigawatt hour battery storage project in Chile. This is set to be a $260 million project for Tesla, and the expectation is it'll be up and running mid-2026. We got some more official data for Norway car sales for 2024, 88.9% were fully electric. And further, if you include plugins and hybrids, that number jumps up to 96.9% of all new car sales were electrified. As you can see, the Model Y in the Model 3 were the two best-selling vehicles in the country for the year, and if you total up all Tesla sales for 2024, it made up 18.9% of all new passenger cars sold. However, for some context, in 2023, Tesla's total market share was actually 20%.
The Biden administration has been busy, as they're on their way out, as they finalized a new rule this week that will prohibit imports of certain Chinese software and hardware. This move effectively bans passenger cars coming from China. The truth is, there aren't many of those here anyway, but certain automakers will definitely have to find new suppliers for certain components on the hardware side. But here's what our Commerce Secretary said. Cars today aren't just on wheels, they have cameras, microphones, GPS tracking, and other tech that are connected to the internet. Through this rule, the Commerce Department is taking a necessary step to safeguard US national security and protect Americans' privacy by keeping foreign adversaries from manipulating these technologies. In my opinion, this is the ultimate facade, and really, when you see through that facade, it becomes the height of hypocrisy.
So, our government can be all up in arms about China maybe doing something nefarious with consumers' data, but in reality, we have the FTC actually taking action against GM for illegally selling their consumers' data without their consent. We'll touch on that more next week, but my point here is what about all of the big tech companies here in America that are already spying on American consumers, and yet the government doesn't really seem that concerned about any of those companies. The way I see it, this is obviously just protectionism and a means to try to protect legacy auto here in America from having to compete with these Chinese automakers. This rule goes into effect in the middle of March this year. The software prohibitions under the rule begin for 2027 models, and the hardware prohibitions take effect for 2030 models. It's too early to have an exhaustive list of what companies will be impacted, but I do know that Polestar is already moving some production away from China.
On the Cybertruck, Mrs. Dirty Tesla shared that on their way home from Jacksonville, they did not use the tarp in the back of their Cybertruck, and some of their belongings got wet. She said, we hit some very heavy rain in the Jacksonville area on our drive. As far as I can tell, it seems like this problem is very specific. It does not apply to all Cybertruck vehicles, but certain ones are indeed having some water issues in the vault. And real quick, on the Cybertruck from my commentary yesterday, I want to make it very clear, in no way am I trying to articulate that the Cybertruck is some failure or destined to be one. The only point I've been trying to make the past few weeks, if you've been following along, is that there have been multiple signs out there that demand may be a bit lower than Tesla was expecting at this point. In short, 2024 was a very solid year for Cybertruck sales best-selling ED pickup in the US. I'm more focused, however, on 2025. So we'll see in the next two quarters, if Tesla can make the jump from about 13,000 to 15,000 in a quarter, up to 20,000 and above.
This video was awesome. Stig and Electrified Community members shared a video of his 86-year-old mother using FSD for the first time. At the end, FSD did end up parking successfully at the church on its own. I share this because my mother-in-law has been hinting that she may now want a Tesla having experienced version 13 in my wife's Model Y when they're out shopping together. And hopefully, this is the year the floodgates open on the one thing she said, I don't know why everybody doesn't want this. And if you did not see it, somebody shared this video clip with Sawyer of FSD 13. No lead car, nothing else it really would have been stopping for and waited long enough until the stop sign was retracted to go. Well done.
Back to the Biden administration staying busy, they actually opened up federal land for construction of large-scale data centers and they're promising to cut bread tape to make sure projects move ahead in a speedy fashion. The DOD and the DOE will be tasked with identifying at least six federal sites that can be leased to private sector companies to build gigawatt scale AI data centers. And the developers selected to build on these sites will be required to bring online enough clean energy sources to meet the full electricity needs of the data centers. In turn, the government will employ the fastest form of review to permit the infrastructure. The director of the White House Economic Council said we simply cannot have a new China shock in AI. And something I agree with Biden said we must not offshore AI as we once did with computer chips and other critical technologies. Paired with the export controls for the AI diffusion rules we talked about earlier this week, the trend right now is build it here and keep it here. And the cherry on top do so with clean energy.
In the Chinese UI for navigation, they just released some new feature options. For your route, you can now choose the fastest time, the least congestion, which might make the drive or ride a bit safer. You can prefer highways, still no option to avoid highways, or you can choose the lowest tolls. There was some conversation over on X about the cyber truck cameras and specifically the rear camera actually needing a better self cleaning option. Tesla AI said on a more serious note, a more comprehensive cleaning solution is being worked on. For what it's worth that was replying to Chuck Cook and he was talking about a more general solution for unsupervised so this might be rolling out to all vehicles, not just the cyber truck. But all of the questions are still valid. Is this hardware? Is it software? Will there be a retrofit? For now we just don't know.
SETI Park shared a new patent published by Tesla talking about a new method of manufacturing LFP Drew Baglino came out of nowhere replying to Jordan at the limiting factor saying the patent describes a more scalable lower capital investment and lower process cost means of making LFP than traditional precursor CSTR, which is continuous stirred tank reactors followed by RHKs which are rotary hearth kilns. It's also flexible to a variety of iron and phosphate inputs. It would be prudent for the new LFP supply chains developing in the US and Europe to adopt this approach when localizing. Fully scaled can be lower cost than unterreft LFP from China. It's important to note fully scaled means this is likely years away to hit this cost price point. But that's still very encouraging because right now the tariffs on LFP cells from China coming into the US is set at 25%. So this new way of making LFP cells won't just be cheaper than cells coming from China because of the tariffs, they'll be cheaper from the cells from China without any tariffs.
SETI Park 分享了特斯拉发布的一项新专利,该专利涉及一种新的LFP(锂铁磷酸电池)制造方法。德鲁·巴格里诺意外地回复了The Limiting Factor的乔丹,说明这项专利描述了一种比传统的前驱体连续搅拌罐反应器(CSTR)和旋转加热炉(RHK)更具扩展性、需要更少资本投资且工艺成本更低的制造LFP的方法。同时,这种方法对多种铁和磷酸盐原材料都具有灵活性。在美国和欧洲正在形成的新LFP供应链在本地化时采用这种方法是明智的选择。完全扩大规模后,这种方法的成本甚至会低于从中国进口的LFP。然而,需要注意的是,实现完全规模化可能要经过数年,才能达到这种成本价格点。但这仍然是一个很鼓舞人心的消息,因为目前从中国进口到美国的LFP电池关税设定为25%。因此,这种新方法生产的LFP电池不仅会因为关税问题比中国进口的更便宜,即使没有关税,它们的成本也会低于中国进口电池。
I found this study scaling up high energy cathode materials for EVs. The way LFP cathodes are made now, the traditional way that Drew is talking about uses that CSTR system. In doing it that way, the growth of particles is uncontrollable and result in relatively large particles which degrades battery safety and performance. Just think of the CSTR process as the step where you mix some of the raw materials in a slurry like substance. And then of course the rotary hearth kilns are the part where you apply the heating treatment. Thus it sounds like with this new patent Tesla has better options than those traditional methods. As Drew said the new method will be flexible for a variety of iron and phosphate inputs. And honestly so far that's been my biggest takeaway looking through the patent.
This phrase in some embodiments is found in the patent description 366 times simply put with this new method there seems to be a lot of flexibility which could open up some supply chain efficiencies. And it's pretty clear that these stars are aligning for Tesla to begin working on their own in-house LFP cells as we talked about over the past few months that Tesla has already bought equipment from CATL and they've been planning a small facility at Giganovada to use this equipment. And just like everything Tesla does it seems like they've been waiting to do this until they have a better new method of doing so. It now makes a bit more sense that Tesla will have full control over this facility and cover 100% of the costs. And CATL personnel will not be involved beyond helping set up the equipment. So yet another trick up Tesla's battery sleeve that will certainly take some time but there is some hope that Tesla can have a more cost competitive sell than what's coming from China.
And further in this scenario Tesla would not have to pay any of these margins to any other suppliers. I know all eyes are on FSD and Optimus and AI but I think it's time for another battery day maybe in 2026. Unfortunately, poll stars' struggles are continuing their CEO just said it's going to take longer for them to be profitable and they're delaying the expansion of sales to more countries. They're now expecting positive free cash flow after investments in 2027 later than what they said before which was the end of this year. They're also considering a reverse stock split and they're expecting a mid-teens percentage decline in revenue for 2024 and of course negative gross margin.
The way I see it, poll stars not really at risk of going out of business or going bankrupt anytime in the next few years. I think they have solid access to capital. They have been raising money over the past year or so and Glee has said that they will continue offering financial backing for poll star. But like effectively everybody else not named Tesla and maybe BYD they're struggling to turn a profit making EVs. VW came out and said it's considering ways to deepen its partnership with Rivian. The CEO said for example we're thinking about sharing modules and bundling purchasing volumes. The VW group offers great opportunities for a small brand like Rivian.
I hate to say it but it's starting to feel like Rivian is putting the pieces in place to prepare for an eventual acquisition of Rivian if Rivian can't figure it out on its own. But for now it's still just a partnership that does make sense. VW offers some capital and Rivian offers its tech. Rivian did also just secure up to $6.6 billion from the loan program office for its upcoming factory in Georgia. Construction is set to begin in 2026 and vehicle production is expected in 2028. That will be the primary facility for the R2 and R3 lineup but R2 production is expected first at their plant in Illinois in 2026.
Tesla stock closed the day at $426.50 up 3.06% while the NASDAQ was up 1.66%. The volume was 8% higher than the average the past 30 days. Hope you guys have a wonderful and a safe weekend. 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.