Welcome to Electrified, it's your host, Dilen Ummis, quick shout out to my newest patron, Helmut S, thank you for choosing to support the channel. Happy Tesla Earnings Week! Tesla will release the Q2 financial results this Wednesday the 19th after market close and then the financial call can be found on YouTube starting at 5.30pm EST. No video from me on Wednesday as I like to enjoy the day and take notes, read through the report and I'll have a recap for you on Thursday.
If you somehow missed it on Saturday, Tesla, Twitter tweeted out the first Cybertruck was built at Gigatexis, no they didn't specify if it was manually built by hand or coming off the production line, but given the official tweet, I would certainly assume the latter. It was November 2019 when this truck was unveiled and if you want to be a part of the Cybertruck gang, it looks like left thumb right index finger. Additionally, in perhaps what is the best clue toward Cybertruck pricing we have to date, replying to a tweet from Holmar's catalog sharing the news that Ford just cut its prices on the F-150 Lightning which we'll touch on later in the video, Elon said, the Ford Lightning is a good vehicle, just somewhat expensive, especially given high interest rates these days for any kind of loan. After these price cuts, the base model of the Lightning now starts at $49,9,000 down from $59,9,000 previously. The question now becomes, is Elon calling the Lightning expensive after or before these price cuts? Sadly, I think it needs to be said, this confirms nothing for the actual Cybertruck pricing, yes it may be a clue, but the Cybertruck could also be somewhat expensive, depending on the raw material cost and all of the new manufacturing techniques that Tesla will be implementing. All of that to say, this tweet does give me more confidence that the base level Cybertruck whenever it may be available which could be a while will start with a 4 rather than a 5 or a 6 like some people were expecting.
A quick word from Sandy Monroe on the Cybertruck. And this probably won't make me endear me to everybody at Tesla, but unfortunately if that's what it looks like underneath the skin, this would not be classified as an exoskeleton. You can see this big giant B pillar and quite a bit of other things there that tell me that the exoskeleton idea probably didn't work and that's probably why it took so long to get Tesla's Cybertruck into the marketplace. The good news is that if they did it, they probably did it because they needed higher crash worthiness numbers or they just wanted to keep us even safer. Tesla Phoenix shared some more images of the Cybertruck saying 2 holes in the back, maybe 4 electronics, maybe HVAC 4 camp mode, 3 child seat loops under the back window, asymmetrical firewall means no right hand drive yet, no surprise. Here are those 2 holes and of course this would be the vault area back here and then through there would be the cabin. This image appears to be the front of the Cybertruck, this is where the front would be and then the cabin would be in through these holes and the windshield would be right up here. At a more angle, the vault would be this area back here and the first thing I notice is really the size of this window in the back that hopefully will roll down but pretty small either way. Here's the last shot you can make of this one what you will.
Gregor truck also shared this video saying first production Cybertruck exiting Gigatexus into the wild. This was community noted for a time saying that it wasn't the first production truck because there were plates on it suggesting Tesla may be keeping it for in-house use. But in the comments he clarified that truck is production and planned to be driven in Texas that is a production truck. Looking at Google trends search data over the past 7 days you can see the Cybertruck in the blue has surpassed the Model Y which by the way is one of the best selling cars in the world.
A lot of people out there still like to bring up the idea that EV pickup trucks are not ready because when it comes to towing they just don't have enough range. But Alexander Edwards, the president of strategic vision, they do an annual survey of 250,000 different people and here are the results.
75% of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less. 70% of truck owners go off road one time a year or less and 35% of truck owners use their truck for hauling, putting something in the bed once a year or less. So obviously not all but indeed most people really don't tow with their pickup trucks that often.
When it comes to the Cybertruck, check with your accountant but if you use it for work over 50% of the time and it does end up having a gross vehicle weight rating or a GVWR over 6000 pounds, you may be able to deduct around $28,000 upfront rather than bit by bit year by year. Check with your professional but just ask them about the section 179 deduction.
Last thing on the Cybertruck for now, next year 2024 Wall Street is expecting about 91,000 Cybertrucks to be delivered and in 2025 they're expecting 160,000. That puts Wall Street here and if Tesla can actually meet their internal targets and some of that supplier data we've seen over the past few months that would have them at 375,000 per year once ramped of course but maybe they can actually hit that metric in 2025. That's a significant gap between where Wall Street's at and what Tesla could actually do. Could transition into built-in upside for Tesla stock.
Everybody's favorite senator is now coming after Elon, Tesla, and Twitter. She's urging the SEC to investigate Tesla and the board of directors over possible conflicts of interest, misappropriation of corporate assets, and other negative impacts to Tesla shareholders. All over the Twitter situation, Warren said taking Tesla employees over to Twitter could have compromised possible violations of state and federal labor law. She added Elon could decide to run Twitter to maximize badly needed revenue even if that includes great deals for Tesla's competitors and potential injury to Tesla or he could run Twitter to benefit Tesla through favorable algorithms or free advertising. I don't know about you guys but as a Tesla shareholder myself I would say I'm all set Liz but thanks.
In the rumor mill, Chris Zang said Tesla China has launched the occupancy network-based park assists on the new SNX vision only. They'll package the FSD beta in the software but users won't be able to see those settings from the screen for the time being until they get final regulatory approval. No update on any timeline for the FSD portion.
We got another cool video from Heinrich Zane on Twitter of the Tesla semi climbing uphill cruising past cars and other trucks. He did add yes the trailer is carrying a significant weight but he said he can't share how he knows but he does indeed know. I would also add if this were to be reversed and the Tesla semi going downhill remember that's going to be an asset with the Tesla semi having regenerative braking.
Autopilot on Twitter shared some images of Tesla semis at giga Nevada. 10 of them but now there are three different designs up from two previously. A large cab with a high wind deflector, short cab with a short deflector, now an extended cab with a lower wind deflector. Definitely cool to see this image to know Tesla is still working on different iterations and designs. We know long term they plan to have a short range and a long-range version. Even though production volume is not ramping up yet we're still waiting on the giga Nevada expansion and remodel. But as I've said in the past finding the silver lining this will give Tesla time to work on any updates and to fix any problems that they find before they enter mass production sometime in 2024.
We have whole Mars and James Stevenson over the weekend showing this image of a magazine with a page for the Model Y best-selling car in the world on display at Goodwood. So, if you'd like to argue Tesla is now doing print advertising I certainly wouldn't stop you but this seems like it might be more of a one-off situation just to promote attendance for this one event. Anyway, we'll all keep looking.
Speaking of one-off events in somewhat of a rare move Tesla has committed to being at the IAA mobility show in Munich later this year. Tesla will have some of its vehicles at this event taking place September 5th through the 8th. No word on which vehicles, no word on if there will be test drives or rides but they'll be at the event.
Replying to Sawyer quote tweeting somebody who is complaining that his hardware 3 car now is basically obsolete with the rollout of hardware 4 Elon said hardware 3 cars are actually more advanced than hardware 4 cars right now because it takes time to write software and neural nets to train for hardware 4. Definitely would have been nice to get an update from Elon on the timeline for hardware 4 actually being more useful than hardware 3 in the field.
Tesla is rolling out its charge on solar feature through the mobile app it does require having a Tesla vehicle, solar panels and a power wall right now only in the United States and Canada. It is what the title says the ability to charge your vehicle only using power from solar panels. Of course using only the excess solar from those panels to charge your vehicle will make the overall value of your solar system more valuable. The vehicle will adjust charge power every 10 seconds to match the excess solar power and power consumption elsewhere in your home. If you want to check out the instructions in the FAQ I'll have this blog post below.
Germany's E-Game at all has called on Tesla to improve staffing conditions at Gigabrelin ahead of its expansion plans to boost production output to 1 million units per year. Gigabrelin's expansion plans are expected to be published 4 feedback from the community this week. It will be accessible online into local residents this Wednesday July 19th. Things will have until mid September to file objections and the latest update of current employment figures at Gigabrelin, 11,000 of 12,000 expected for phase 1. From the Wall Street Journal, full approval of Berlin's expansion is pending completion of an environmental impact study that will be subject to input from local citizens. Public hearing could take place in October to discuss any issues. If history is any guide here there will undoubtedly be some public issues. The overlining note this time around the expansion wouldn't require additional fresh water from local sources because the plant has facilities to recycle wastewater to provide additional water for increased production and the proposed expansion would increase the factory's workforce to around 22,500. In the coming weeks we'll find out how much fight the environmentalists have left in them.
Tesla has updated its referral program yet again previously you were limited to referring to 5 people and actually earning credits as the referer. Now you can refer up to 12 referrals per calendar year and still earn the credits. Just like before after 12 you can still refer as many people as you want it's just you will stop earning credits but the buyer will still get theirs.
Also on the Tesla website you'll find this page Electric Summer where they will be celebrating from scenic drives to drive in cinemas join us in celebrating 10 years of supercharging in Europe. Just so you know no matter where you are globally you can always check the Tesla events page and search your location to see if there are any events taking place near you. Like this experience Tesla event coming up on July 28th in Milwaukee Wisconsin this link will be below.
From Reuters Tesla directors will return $735 million to the company to settle claims they grossly overpaid themselves in one of the largest shareholder settlements of its kind. So this lawsuit was actually from 2020 when a retirement fund challenged the stock options that Tesla directors started receiving back in 2017. There's a separate lawsuit still going on where people are challenging Elon's compensation package so this time around the directors including Larry Ellison agreed to settle to eliminate the risk of litigation to themselves and to the company. And apparently because this is a derivative lawsuit this settlement is paid to Tesla to benefit the company and this settlement is one of the largest ever for a derivative case. Maybe most important the directors also agreed to not receive any compensation for 2021, 22 or 23 and the board will change the way compensation is determined.
For more on the legal front this time we have Tesla doing the suing of CAPXX over some battery technology stemming from the Maxwell technology deal. Tesla is arguing this Australian company is using its supercapacitors that are used for storing energy in EV batteries are infringing on two US patents owned by a Tesla subsidiary.
You may remember Elon said Tesla will not sue anybody that in good faith wants to use their technology but this time around this lawsuit comes in response to a lawsuit CAPXX originally filed against Tesla subsidiary Maxwell Technologies in 2019. Tesla said Maxwell has a history of innovation that has resulted in its own patents now assigned to Tesla thus Tesla brings this suit against CAPXX to protect its IP rights. Tesla is asking the court for an unspecified amount of monetary damages.
It's interesting though because about two years ago Tesla sold a part of Maxwell to another company selling the supercapacitor part of the business because Elon said those were not required for electric vehicles Tesla actually retained the dry battery electrode tech from Maxwell. Summer 2021 Elon said it has required an immense amount of engineering to take Maxwell's proof of concept to high quality volume production and we're still not quite done. This is still somewhat true in 2023 as Tesla as far as we know doesn't have DBE yet worked out on both electrodes.
In case you're new DBE is a solvent free coating technology for the electrodes the anode and the cathode does not use any toxic chemicals also really reduces the complexities of the drying process getting rid of these huge ovens that cost a ton of money and take up a lot of space.
Back to the F-150 Lightning price cuts the base model has been cut 17% or around $10,000. Ford said it was able to cut prices following improvements in scale and battery raw material costs. Maybe that's true but I do find it interesting that those improvements seem to hit the market right around the same time Tesla Cybertruck goes into production. Looking at the price history for the base F-150 Lightning it opened at $39.99 did not stay there long at all. It went up as high as $59.99 and now we've essentially split the difference. All variants of the Lightning have been discounted between about $6,000 and $10,000.
A GM EV assembly plant in Canada is shut down for a month due to battery shortages. This is where GM makes the bright drop cargo van and they said they're all out at all GM plans. They need batteries and it stems from a raw material bottleneck. The Cami plant has about 4 years of orders on the books and GM is building more batteries but it doesn't happen overnight. Workers are slated to return to work on July 31st. A director from Auto Forecast Solutions said a recent fire at one of GM's Altium plants may have impacted production.
So yes, high demand for GM's Altium battery and limited production will shutter the plant despite strong sales. You can find me on Twitter at Dylan Loomis22. Hope you guys have a wonderful day. Please like the video if you did and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.