Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis, quick shout out to my new or updated patrons, Terry J and Alan J. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. We're just over one week away from Tesla's production and delivery report, and this might be the most watched release in some time for Tesla. Just prepare yourself for this release to be one of the most FUD-distorted releases in Tesla's history.
欢迎来到 Electrified,我是你的主持人 Dylan Loomis。先向我的新赞助者或更新的赞助者 Terry J 和 Alan J 致以特别感谢,谢谢你们选择支持本频道。距离特斯拉的生产和交付报告发布还有一个多星期,这次发布可能会成为一段时间以来最受关注的特斯拉报告。请做好准备,这次发布可能会是特斯拉历史上受到最多“恐惧、不确定性和怀疑”(FUD)影响的报告之一。
But on that point, this was a fun text that Matt Van Swole shared, he did convince his dad to buy a Tesla earlier this month. And here was a text from his dad. Okay, at this point, I have to ask, why do you own any other car other than a Tesla, and why don't you have full self-driving on all cars and use it all the time? It really is that amazing. Matt laughed and said, I told you so, and then the dad said, you're so right, sell that key, tell you ride right now, and buy a real car. And before the dad's Tesla purchase, he was not really an EV fan.
在这方面,Matt Van Swole 分享了一条有趣的短信,他在本月早些时候成功说服他爸爸买了一辆特斯拉。以下是他爸爸发来的短信:好的,现在我必须问一下,为什么你还要买特斯拉以外的其他汽车?为什么你不在所有汽车上使用全自动驾驶,并一直使用?这真的太棒了。Matt 笑着说,我早就告诉过你,然后他爸爸说,你说得对,赶快卖掉那辆起亚Telluride,买一辆真正的车。在他爸爸购买特斯拉之前,他并不是真正的电动车爱好者。
Elon ended up reposting that, the dad heard about it, and then he said, tell him it's true, I wish more people knew how incredible full self-driving is, I swear it's a better driver than me. So on the Q1 P&D report, we can all play the anecdote game. There are multiple reports of showrooms being overwhelmed with demand and even more reports of people sharing their Tesla purchases. Those that without the protests wouldn't have considered a Tesla, but the problem with quarter one for Tesla is going to be supply.
Tesla went into quarter one with low supply already, and production of the new Model Y is still ramping. I will say, I thought the launch series would have ended by now in the US. The fact that it hasn't either means demand for that variant is very good, or there are some supply limitations with the new Model Y. And that could be why they haven't opened up regular orders yet. Remember, about 70% of the parts on the new Model Y are new, which means new supply chains and tweaks to manufacturing lines, etc.
The localization at each factory will certainly help Tesla from a competitive standpoint when it comes to avoiding tariff impacts, but it also narrows your supply chain options. For me, it's too soon to pick a side on what's really going on with the launch edition, but my point with all of this is to say Q1 is not going to give us an accurate depiction of Tesla's demand. It's not going to be a clean quarter by any stretch. Even if the demand and daily order flow for Tesla is off the charts right now, which is possible given anecdotes like Google search trends showing potential all-time high marks, Tesla likely just won't have the supply and production rates to fulfill it in quarter one and be prepared for plenty of publications that will entirely omit the change over to the new Model Y and pin Tesla's lower Q1 deliveries on politics and brand damage.
And as we've said, sure, that does have a non-zero impact, but that's really not the main driver. So we're in the oaks of shady acres community in the heights and this was developed by utopia homes and they were partnered with Tesla to develop these eco-friendly living homes. Not only is it the first of its kind in Houston, but first of its kind in the nation according to Tesla headquarters and the developers. We have talked about this blueprint before being ideal for new home construction.
And that's exactly what we have in this suburb of Houston. All of these buildings were built with Tesla's solar roof and power walls. I will say I'm not really sure it's truly the first in the nation. Perhaps they're just playing the semantics game, but you may remember last year there was a neighborhood just like this new construction with Tesla solar roof and power walls back in the summer of 2024 in Texas. That community was being built by Brookfield asset management in Austin.
At this point, I really do wish we would be hearing a lot more about stories like this and perhaps some are happening that just don't get widely reported. But at this point, unless Tesla comes up with a breakthrough on the solar roof to dramatically lower the cost or make the install a lot easier, it really seems like new construction is going to be the only path to actually get the solar roof to some level of meaningful production.
Another PSA, if you will, I would just be prepared for more volatility in Tesla stock over the next few weeks at the very least. You may have heard over the weekend about some chatter on different forums that people were looking to organize to buy puts on Tesla stock. If you're not familiar, buying a put is equivalent to making a bet that Tesla stock will go down.
This is the post that many people were sharing explaining how to short Tesla stock, but it was later community noted saying that this user is actually a Tesla fan posting this as satire. But I would say most people probably didn't know that. So yeah, it's tough to tell what's real out there accounts like this saying they spent 140 grand on puts and it was half of their net worth. And then Elon amplified everything sharing a post from Laura Loomer where she said our Tesla takedown organizers getting paid by Elon's competitors to short his stock. To that, Elon said many of those doing these takedowns have also sold Tesla stock short, so they benefit financially from a drop in the stock. As a long term investor, no worries, you can still lay back and enjoy the ride.
But I know some of you like to play the options game more in the short term or swing trading, so to those of you that do just be prepared for a little extra market manipulation and exaggerated moves in the short term. Doing some simple math, Tesla stock was up over $29 a share today, which is just under 12%, and if you multiply the former by the number of shares outstanding, that means Tesla stock added over $95 billion of valuation today alone. And as you can see, that rally is being continued in after hours trading. The NDX was up over 2% today, so it had a strong day on its own, but still, Tesla outperformed the market today. Part of that could be explained by Trump potentially walking back some of these tariffs that were set to go into effect on April 2nd.
But yeah, just no, Tesla stock is one of the primary derivative plays in the stock market, and I'm guessing that's only enhanced over the next few weeks. Speaking of stock, in case you saw this, I would put precisely zero stock in this report, which is really just a rumor from Tesla Ming. They said Tesla's FSD subscription rate in the US hit 30%. The problem with that is their source was chatter on Weibo. And further, Tesla Ming said on the Q1 report for Tesla, we're going to know the actual number. But apparently, Ming does not understand that Tesla does not report that number at all. So, unless that changes in Q1, and Ming is basically a Tesla insider, I would put nothing into this report in case you saw it.
With that said, I will say I've had so much fun watching Tesla's FSD in China because the streets and the interactions are pretty next level over there. So here's a little montage of recent activity. I was able to ask the supervisor of that most recent video what the weakest or most problematic areas for FSD are in China right now, and he said it's not familiar with China's traffic rules and occasionally goes in the wrong intersection, which really just confirms what we've already heard. Before FSD launched in China, there were plenty of questions if FSD would be capable of handling the complexities of Chinese streets. And so far, based on all of the footage I've seen, I would confidently say the answer is a resounding yes.
So, if Tesla can crack the code for the local traffic laws, just think about what that means for FSD in the rest of the world. There's obviously a lot more going on behind the scenes, but from our perspective, this was basically a drag and drop situation for FSD going from North America to China. It does look like the free trial for FSD in China that was set to go for the next month is going to be paused. And the word is, it's because of those new pre-authorization rules for over the air updates that we reported on a few weeks back. It looks like we have confirmation that for future OTA updates tests the will have to get prior approval.
There was some reporting today about a new study on the most American-made cars. Just know this actually came out in December of last year if you go to the source. Either way, the study was done by American universities, Kogud, School of Business. The summary, Tesla continued its strong performance from last year, ranking in the top four spots on the index. The Model 3 performance took the number one spot, followed by the Model Y at number two, the Cybertruck at number three, and the Model SNX tied for the number four spot. Perhaps even more interesting, though, if we look at this table, we can see certain companies from 2015 to 2024 have actually seen a decline in their American-made parts.
Over that time, Stellantis has gone from 60% down to 46%. Ford has gone from 65 down to 54, and GM has gone from 66 down to 54. Tesla, on the other hand, has gone from 77% up to 81%. This is precisely what I was talking about earlier, because Tesla strives for these numbers at every factory around the world. As we've covered since I've started the channel, this localization doesn't happen overnight, it's something that you have to do over long periods of time. And then when you enter a season like we're in now where trade wars and tariffs become the talk of the town, this level of localization really does play an outsized role in insulating Tesla from things like tariffs. Because guess what, the localization numbers for Shanghai and Berlin are even better than the ones you're looking at for America.
Andre Teregg, the plant manager for Gigabrelin, just did a new interview. He is not concerned about the recent political climate surrounding Elon and Trump. Instead, he said the company is simply hyper-focused on making great vehicles. We focus on what we do best, namely to build cars, and very good and very many. He was asked about fears of future arson attacks to which he said, Gigabrelin has further improved its network for sharing relevant information in order to be able to respond more quickly to such attacks. I don't know what this means, but he also said employees on site would take action if necessary. He said the factory is not worried about sales, that's for the sales team, but he said we know our production figures and our production planning, and we're currently moving production even higher. Our delivery locations here and at the airport site are relatively empty so the cars are quickly entering the market.
And here you go, Teregg says the factory increased localization of suppliers with the recent switch over to the new Model Y, adding that 92% of components for the EV now come from somewhere in Europe. This makes us even more resilient to disturbances in world trade. In addition, we have a high level of vertical integration at the site, which has already paid off in recent years. Neither the turbulence and the supply chains during the illness, nor the chip crisis or the war in Ukraine, have led to production disruptions in our country. He said battery production in Grunhaida is still being converted to the new Model Y, but it will resume operations this year. We manufacture modules with imported cells, which we then incorporate into battery packs.
In cell production, we did begin manufacturing sub-components last year, which are shipped to Austin, again to take advantage of tax credits. We will expand this year. I can't say when we will begin full-scale cell production, but that remains the goal. He said we're well on our way to ramping up production to 5000 vehicles per week. We already hit that last year, and we want to get at least back to that level. And we have the opportunity to continue growing at the site. And despite 70% of the components being new for the new Model Y, he said so far, all of this changeover has been accomplished without delays and we're right on schedule.
And here's a very quick look at the latest progress on the Tesla diner. This might sound odd, but one of the things I am most looking forward to for Tesla's unsupervised is watching the reactions of people in the vehicle when they experience a robot taxi for the first time. Here's Chris Harris, a well-known figure in the auto space experiencing a WeMO for the first time. This is extraordinary. Relax and thank you for writing about us. This is absolutely extraordinary. I mean, look what's going on here. This is madness. And I wish I could play the audio on this one, but I would definitely get a copyright strike tech operator shared a video sharing his FSD experience and someone got to do it for the first time. It really was 45 seconds of pure joy and disbelief.
And what's funny is the car really was just going straight for the whole clip. And I think a lot of us would agree FSD still somehow even after years of using it awakes our inner child. A few years ago, when John Craft Chick was still the CEO of WeMO, he blew off Tesla as a serious competitor in the robot taxi space. He said Tesla was just a company with a really good driver assistance system, but fast forward to today and he's saying the same thing. Tesla has aspired to compete with WeMO for nearly 10 years, but they still don't. They're a car company with a driver assist system. They have not delivered a single fully autonomous revenue generating ride yet, something WeMO is already doing a million times a month.
If a company were serious about building a safe and accessible robot taxi business, it would look nothing like what was shown. That in response to the cybercab event, John is making the argument that safe and reliable autonomous vehicles will require LIDAR sensors. He said the cost of a robust sensor set, including LIDAR, is trivial on a per mile basis, even more so for mapping. And the safety benefits measured in human harm reduction are real and verifiable. Fun fact, John is actually on Rivian's board of directors now, and he said at the moment WeMO has no competition. He believes WeMO will stay ahead of the game for at least the next three to five years, saying they're the only company in the world successfully deploying an embodied AI replacement for a licensed human driver that can be integrated into any vehicle and doing this at scale with third party data verifying significant performance and safety advantages over human drivers.
It's like, you know what, John, I have a very simple question for you. If your technology can be easily integrated into any vehicle, why aren't you doing that? For me, I would add this to the list of comments I believe will age like milk. Over the weekend, Sawyer did some digging and shared that in 29 different states, the outgoing version of the Model Y in inventory was completely sold out. Given the bigger discounts from Tesla and all of the state level incentives that are still available, this really should not come as a surprise paired with what we said earlier that Tesla entered quarter one with limited inventory already.
Tesla has won yet another contract for megapacks, this time in New South Wales for 300 megawatt hours of battery storage. This project will use Tesla's auto bidder, and this Kalala Bess has contracted Tesla to provide 138 Tesla megapacks. It's true that many megapacks would be closer to 530 megawatt hours of storage, but there are two independent projects here, and if you add those together, that would be 500 megawatt hours. It's just that their wording made it seem like only one part was going to use Tesla megapacks. Either way, this project is expected to be fully operational by 2027.
I'm quite excited about this initiative, John shared that Tesla has partnered with the EV group, which is going to roll out Tesla superchargers under its own brand in the US. It will own and operate these chargers leveraging Tesla's hardware, software, and service. e.g. on the move shared 100 plus V4 supercharger stalls owned by e.g. on the move with many more to come. They run on Tesla hardware, software, and service and are open to all EV makes. And Max from Tesla confirmed this deal, saying, We want to be helpful to businesses that invest in charging, there's still too much waste in CapEx and OpEx in charging combined with poor experiences.
我对此项目感到非常兴奋。约翰分享说,特斯拉已经与一家电动车集团合作,计划在美国推出以该集团品牌命名的超级充电站。这个集团将使用特斯拉的硬件、软件和服务来拥有并运营这些充电站。例如,“e.g. on the move”公司已经拥有100多个V4超级充电桩,并将有更多充电桩陆续上线。这些充电桩使用特斯拉的硬件、软件和服务,并对所有品牌的电动车都开放。特斯拉的马克斯确认了这一合作,他表示:“我们希望能帮助那些投资于充电设施的企业,因为充电领域的资本支出和运营支出的浪费以及用户体验问题依然很多。”
Often, the culprit is a mix of different hardware, software, and service providers. This increases the cost stack, complexity, and finger pointing over accountability, whereas Tesla can offer an all-in-one solution as an option. Software in charging is challenging and constantly evolving, which is why some large charging station management software providers have stopped operating in recent months a concerning trend. But superchargers sold to third parties include the latest Tesla firmware, plug-in charge, downpost notifications, site outage, and maintenance alerts, in-app issue reporting, customer support, real-time wait time stalls available upon arrival, and more features always in development.
These superchargers can be featured automatically in the trip planner with dynamic rerouting, providing more options for drivers and increasing site utilization. To drive that point home, a new survey from Consumer Reports shared customers experience an issue at Tesla superchargers 4% of the time, 5% of the time at Rivian operated chargers, but then 48% of the time at Shell recharge, 43% of the time at EVGO, and 41% of the time at Blink. Those are absurdly high error rates. So far, the data really is making it abundantly clear most of these other charging operators should just be buying Tesla's hardware and software and rebranding it as their own. Even paying any margins to Tesla, I would still venture to guess their overall costs would be lower and we can guarantee that the customer experience would be better.
Hyundai has announced a $21 billion investment in US on shoring that includes a $5.8 billion investment in a steel plant in Louisiana. There they plan to make next-gen steel that will be used in Hyundai's EVs. Any further than that though, right now, details are limited. Just so you know, over the weekend, there were some pro-elon, pro-Tesla, pro-dose, rallies taking place as well. Unfortunately though, there is still ridiculous behavior as incendiary devices were discovered at a Tesla dealership in Austin, Texas this morning. A bomb squad investigated and removed the devices without incident. But my goodness, you wonder why I'm so adamant about punishing these criminals and making sure others don't follow suit. This is exactly why.
According to a new memo from Governor Newsom, California has now installed over 178,000 public and shared private EV chargers throughout the state. Most of those are level 2, only about 16,500 RDC. But in comparison, the estimates say there are 120,000 gas pumps in the state, meaning public EV chargers outnumber gas nozzles by nearly 50%. That is a huge milestone I would bet most of your friends and family don't know about, so one to tuck in your back pocket.
BYD's net profit for quarter 4 was up 73% to $2.1 billion for the quarter. For the whole of last year, profit rose 34% to a record $5.5 billion. Sales of autos and related products that accounted for 79% of operating revenue generated a 22.3% gross profit margin last year. BYD is considering Germany for a possible third plant in Europe. As I always say, it's really not apples to apples, but just for some context, Tesla's auto gross margin was about 18% for 2024. But Tesla's net income was still higher than BYD at $8.4 billion for the year. And even the gap number was still $7 billion for the year. And I know I'm well aware that BYD does have some goofy things going on when it comes to timing of paying its suppliers.
So we'll see if that materializes into bigger cracks in the future, but for now, it's fair to say that BYD is indeed profitable. But yes, without subsidies, I guess you could still make the argument if you wanted. Alex Potter from Piper Sandler said concerns about Tesla's brand damage may be exaggerated. Piper Sandler argues supply constraints played a bigger role in the first quarter shortfall. They're still overweight with a PT of $450.
With some more encouraging news on the Justice Front, the FBI has launched a new task force specifically for Tesla. The FBI has received reports of 48 instances so far this month related to Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations, and is investigating at least seven of them. The newly formed 10-person task force will deploy ATF personnel, which means special agents from the alcohol tobacco, firearms and explosives division, as well as personnel from the FBI's counter-terrorism division. ATF is also embedding personnel in FBI field offices starting with San Antonio, Texas, where some of the Molotov cocktail attacks have been carried out.
The FBI is looking over security camera footage and has gotten access to cell phone locations for some of the unsolved cases. The Bureau is looking into an anarchist blog being run out of Salt Lake City, Utah, and they are tracking the Tesla takedown mass protest movement. Director Cash Patel has been unequivocally clear the FBI will be relentless in its mission to protect the American people. Acts of violence, vandalism and domestic terrorism like the recent Tesla attacks will be pursued with the full force of the law.
Canon cord genuity just toured Gigah Austin and they said, We toured the cyber truck line and saw first-hand elements of the future unboxed manufacturing strategy that promises to materially increase production efficiencies. It's hard not to be impressed with how future forward Tesla is, whether it's vehicle design or manufacturing, consistently rethinking the status quo. And he also had positive comments about FSD, the new Model Y, and seeing the cyber cab in person.
Tesla stock closed the day at $278.39 up 11.93% while the NDX was up 2.16%. It was a higher volume day for Tesla trading about 60% above the average. 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.