Dealership Profits Begin Decline, Tesla Leaves Little Room for GM, Exxon Looks to Supply Tesla

Hey everybody Rob Merritt here, welcome back to Tesla Daily, it's been a quiet couple of days for Tesla, but today we do have some very interesting industry news and a couple of Tesla updates as well. Not much action in the stock market Tesla today up a third of a percent closing at $267.43, the NASDAQ up too tens of a percent, and the last few days have been pretty low volume in general for Tesla stock.

大家好，我是Rob Merritt，欢迎回到特斯拉日报。特斯拉公司最近几天比较平静，但是今天我们有一些非常有趣的行业新闻和几个特斯拉的更新。今天特斯拉在股市表现不太活跃，上涨了0.3%，收盘价为267.43美元；纳斯达克指数上涨了0.2%。近几天特斯拉的交易量普遍较低。

Quickly looking at the calendar for this week, a pretty normal week for economic reports, but of course earnings continue, we've got Toyota, Amazon, Apple, and Airbnb could be interesting as well the rest of this week.

快速浏览本周的日程安排，经济报告方面相对正常，但当然还有企业的财报发布，我们有丰田、亚马逊、苹果，而且本周还可能会有一些有趣的关于Airbnb的信息。

Alright, I want to start off today with an article from Automotive News about dealerships profits, a lot of dealers have just reported this, and I think it's an interesting topic right now because we have seen reports from automakers that have been pretty strong financially, at least relative to expectations, Ford and GM, they both raised their guidance for the year last week. So in general it seems like the automotive industry is actually kind of doing okay, which is a little bit surprising because there's obviously the headwind for legacy ice manufacturers of EVs, both the cost to develop them and then also the market share that they are starting to take. And then of course like anything else, although particularly relevant to automotive, this is a high interest rate environment which should be a headwind for automakers as well.

好的，我今天想开始讨论一篇来自《汽车新闻》的关于经销商利润的文章，很多经销商刚刚报告了这个问题，我认为这是一个现在很有趣的话题，因为我们已经看到汽车制造商的财务状况相当强劲，至少相对于预期来说是这样的，福特和通用汽车上周都提高了他们今年的预期。所以总的来说，汽车行业似乎实际上还不错，这有点令人惊讶，因为对于传统燃油车制造商来说，显然存在电动汽车所带来的问题，无论是开发成本还是市场份额他们都开始占据了一部分。当然，像其他任何行业一样，尤其是与汽车相关的，这是一个高利率的环境，这也应该给汽车制造商带来不利影响。

One of the elements that makes analyzing these legacy automakers a little bit trickier though is because they sell vehicles to dealers, dealers are their customers, so slower sales in the industry could take a long time to funnel all the way back into the legacy automakers numbers. And of course during COVID inventory ran really short so dealers have been building their inventory back up, creating additional sales for these periods for legacy automakers. But that should be a temporary thing because you can only build back inventory so far. So that inventory piece largely seems to be coming back into balance now, definitely still some pockets, but that should mean that dealer orders from this point forward are going to be more reflective of their current incoming order rate rather than orders plus some figure to build back inventory. So we may soon start to see some of that effect reflected in the sales for the OEMs.

分析这些传统汽车制造商的一个比较棘手的因素是，它们将车辆销售给经销商，经销商是他们的客户，所以行业销售放缓可能需要很长时间才能完全反映在传统汽车制造商的数据上。当然，在COVID期间库存非常短缺，所以经销商一直在增加库存，为传统汽车制造商创造了额外的销量。但这应该只是一个暂时的事情，因为库存只能建立到一定程度。因此，目前库存情况似乎基本恢复平衡，虽然仍有一些区域尚有影响，但这意味着从现在开始，经销商的订单将更多地反映他们当前的订单接收率，而不是订单加上一些用于补充库存的数字。因此，我们很快可能会看到这种影响在汽车制造商的销售数据中得到体现。

And then on the dealer side it's going to be very interesting to see what happens because as a result of low inventory, dealers have been adding markups and significantly increasing their profitability off of that constrained supply. So if supply comes back in line, does profitability then fall? That would seem pretty logical. And automotive news reporting that five of the six major publicly traded franchise dealership groups reported double digit percentage declines year over year on new vehicle gross profits during the second quarter. Hmm.

然后在经销商方面，将会非常有趣地看到接下来会发生什么，因为由于库存不足，经销商们一直在对有限的供应进行加价，并从中大幅增加了他们的利润。所以，如果供应重新回到正常水平，利润是否会下降呢？这似乎是相当合理的。汽车新闻报道称，在第二季度，六家主要上市特许经销商集团中的五家报告了新车毛利润同比下降的两位数百分比。嗯。

All right. So maybe we are now starting to see the pendulum shift back in the other direction. They put together a nice table that on the left shows their average vehicle profit in Q2 and then compared to Q1 on the right and then Q2 last year. And we can see pretty sharp declines in all these numbers from Q2 this year from those comparables. However, some much needed context is also provided here and that is Q2 2019. So pre pandemic and you can see gross profits that used to be two to $3,000 per vehicle are now four to $6,000 per vehicle. So even with a sharp decline this quarter, these numbers are still well above historical levels.

好的。也许我们现在开始看到钟摆回归另一个方向。他们制作了一张漂亮的表格，左边显示了他们在第二季度的平均车辆利润，右边与去年同期和第一季度进行了对比。我们可以看到今年第二季度相较于那些可比数据，这些数字都出现了相当大的下降。然而，这里也提供了一些非常需要的背景信息，那就是2019年第二季度，即疫情爆发前。我们可以看到，每辆车的毛利润从每辆车2,000至3,000美元增加到每辆车4,000至6,000美元。因此，即使本季度出现了急剧下降，这些数字仍然远高于历史水平。

So okay, no problem then what these declines, they'll just continue to decline back to normal levels and everything will be all good. But the problem is that dealers may have become accustomed to these type of profits. They may not be quite as amenable to those profits getting cut in half from a couple of comments from CEOs of these franchise dealerships that kind of seems to be the case. One said quote, but we continue to believe that the new normal level of new vehicle GPU gross profit per unit will remain structurally higher than it was pre pandemic end quote. Another CEO said we're not going back to the 19 levels of gross profit and we certainly don't see that anytime in our near future.

所以好吧，没问题，那么这些下降将继续下降到正常水平，一切都会好的。但问题在于，经销商可能已经习惯了这种利润。对于由于几位特许经销商首席执行官的评论导致这些利润减半，他们可能不太愿意接受。其中一位首席执行官说：「我们继续相信新车单位毛利的新常态将保持比疫情前更高的结构性水平。」另一位首席执行官说：“我们不会回到19年的毛利水平，我们当然不会在不久的将来看到这种情况。”

All right. Very clearly they want to maintain these higher levels of profitability, but the question is why? What have they done in these three years to justify having a higher profitability than they have had historically? How have all of these car dealers made so much progress in their business in the last three years that they've all been able to double their profitability? It certainly doesn't seem like it's innovation that would be driving this, especially if it's happening to all of these dealers obviously seems much more likely to be a result of some sort of macro economic situation, which it sure would seem like when that situation resolves itself, things would return to a more normal level. But they're both here saying, no, we don't think that's going to happen. We don't want that to happen.

好的，很明显他们想维持这种更高的盈利水平，但问题是为什么？他们在这三年里做了什么来证明他们拥有比过去更高的盈利能力？这些汽车经销商在过去三年中如何取得如此大的业务进展，使他们的盈利能力翻倍？显然，这不像是创新所驱动的，尤其是如果所有这些经销商都出现了这种情况，更有可能是某种宏观经济情况的结果。当这种情况解决时，情况似乎会恢复到更正常的水平。但他们两个都说，不，我们不认为会发生这种情况。我们不希望发生这种情况。

Well, just as much as you were responsible for these increases in profitability, you'll have control over the declines in profitability that you're likely going to be subject to seeing that is to say probably not a whole lot. And if they do want to maintain this profitability, obviously that's directly coming out of the pockets of customers or the OEM. We've talked about the pressures that are mounting for both the OEM from electric vehicle development and for customers from high interest rates, so why do the dealers who are sitting directly in the middle of those two parties and probably providing the least value out of any of them think that they're just going to be fine and maintain these record profits? At some point, something has got to give, so I think this metric is going to be one that will continue to be interesting to watch.

嗯，就像你对这些利润增长负有责任一样，你也将对可能发生的利润下降拥有掌控权，也就是说可能不会有太多控制权。如果他们确实想要保持这种盈利能力，显然这会直接从客户或原始设备制造商的口袋中扣除。我们已经讨论了来自电动汽车开发的压力以及来自高利率的压力，那么为什么那些坐在两个利益相关方之间、并且可能为他们提供的价值最少的经销商认为他们只会安然无恙并维持这些创纪录的利润呢？在某个时候，肯定会有些妥协，因此我认为这个指标将继续成为一个有趣的观察对象。

Next and somewhat related, Chevy has announced that they have started production on the Chevy Blazer EV. This is built on the Altium battery platform, so one of the next generation EVs, 4GM, and as a part of start of production, they have announced the official MSRP for at least the current versions that they are manufacturing, and they have come in quite a bit higher than their initially announced targets for MSRP, which for some reason are still showing up on their website, so it seems like they still have aspirations of getting to lower prices in the future, but for now, at least the vehicles that they are producing, I don't know if these are just top of the line trims or something like that, but the current versions are roughly in the $57,000 to $60,000 price range, compared to the initially announced MSRPs of $45,000 up to the low 50s. Those original prices were probably still going to be a little bit tough as they compared directly with the Model Y, and I think in most regards, the Model Y would probably compare favorably at the same price, so for these prices to come in $7,500, $10,000 more expensive than those initial announced prices, make it really tough to see why someone might want to buy this vehicle. Plus, when we look at prices or compare prices, that's only half the picture, probably not even half the picture, because it doesn't account for gross profitability, gross margin, which we know from Ford's reporting is a long, long way from becoming profitable, and I'm sure GM is not in any better of a situation. So these scenarios where these vehicles are priced around or above the Model Y and still not able to even be close to being profitable really should be a lot more eye-opening than it seems to be for most people. People seem to just say, well it's early, they'll get to scale and it'll be a lot better, which completely takes for granted that actually getting to scale is probably the hardest part of any of this. There's no guarantee of that happening, especially if the vehicles just aren't competitive, even when they are priced with negative gross margins.

接下来，与此相关的消息是，雪佛兰宣布他们已开始生产雪佛兰Blazer EV。这款车是基于Altium电池平台构建的，因此是下一代电动车4GM的一部分。作为生产开始的一部分，他们已宣布了至少现有型号的官方建议零售价(MSRP)，而这些价位比最初宣布的目标要高得多。不知何故，这些初始价格仍然显示在他们的网站上，所以看起来他们仍然希望在未来降低价格，但是就目前而言，至少他们正在生产的车型，我不知道这些是不是最高配置的车型之类的，但现有型号的价格大约在57,000美元到60,000美元的范围内，相比最初宣布的零售价在45,000美元到50,000美元左右。这些原始价格可能仍然有点困难，因为与Model Y直接比较，我认为在大多数方面，Model Y可能会更有竞争力，所以这些价格比最初宣布的价格高出7,500美元到10,000美元，真的很难理解为什么有人会想购买这种车型。此外，当我们看价格或对比价格时，这只是一部分情况，甚至可能不到一半，因为它没有考虑到总利润率、毛利润率，我们从福特的报告中知道，这离盈利还有很长的路要走，我相信通用汽车的情况也不会比福特好。所以，这些车型的定价大致在与Model Y相当或高于它的水平，并且仍然无法接近盈利，这应该比大多数人认为的更加引人注目。人们似乎只是说，嗯，现在还早，他们会扩大规模，情况会好很多，这完全不考虑实际上达到规模可能是任何事情中最困难的部分。无法保证会发生这种情况，尤其是如果这些车辆在定价时甚至具有负毛利率时仍然不具备竞争力。

So I don't know, with the dealership stuff, with this, it just seems like we continue to inch closer and closer to something breaking, it just doesn't seem like this can continue forever, it just takes so long with the nature of the auto industry. I guess we'll keep waiting to find out. Quick last one on this topic, Mazda has announced that they are discontinuing the all-electric MX-30 in the United States, not surprising, it only had 100 mile range they sold less than 1,000 vehicles life to date.

所以我不知道，对于经销商的事情，对于这个问题，似乎我们越来越接近某种破裂的状态，似乎这种情况不可能永远持续下去，考虑到汽车行业的本质，这需要很长时间。我想我们只能继续等待看看会发生什么。最后一个关于这个话题的问题，马自达宣布他们将停产全电动MX-30在美国销售，这并不令人意外，它只能行驶100英里，到目前为止销售不到1,000辆车。

Alright, next up we've got a bit of news on the Lithium front, Bloomberg today reporting that Exxon is in talks with Tesla, Ford, Volkswagen, and other automakers to potentially become a Lithium supplier for these companies. Bloomberg says Exxon is looking to secure buyers to bolster its push in a Lithium extraction as the EV boom boosts demand and threatens its core oil production and refining business. So I think it's easy to root against the oil companies, but if they are redirecting resources into areas like this, they obviously have a vast amount of those that should then be a positive as long as they aren't using those resources to then slow things down. So we'll keep an eye out for more news on that, but it certainly would be an interesting partnership if it does come to be.

好的，接下来我们有一条关于锂的一则消息，彭博社今天报道，埃克森公司正在与特斯拉、福特、大众等汽车制造商进行谈判，有可能成为这些公司的锂供应商。彭博社称，埃克森正在寻找买家，以加强其在锂提取领域的推动，因为电动汽车的兴起增加了对锂的需求，威胁到其核心的石油生产和炼油业务。所以我认为，我们很容易对石油公司持反对态度，但如果他们将资源重新配置到这样的领域，显然他们拥有大量资源，只要不利用这些资源来减缓进展，这应该是一个积极的方面。因此，我们将继续关注这方面的更多消息，但如果真的合作起来，这肯定会是一个有趣的合作伙伴关系。

Alright, next up we've got a couple of transportation services updates, the first is from Uber Japan, which has announced a partnership with Tesla to deploy a fleet of 100 Teslas under an Uber premium brand in Tokyo, starting in 2024. So it's obviously not the biggest order ever, but still kind of cool to see, particularly because this will feature a dedicated menu where users can specifically request a Tesla Model Y. Usually with Uber you don't have that level of specificity, so interesting to see and of course could expand in the future to other areas. Separately, Tampa Florida has announced a new program called Dash or Downtown Area Shared Hubs, which will feature low cost rides from hub to hub, there will be 20 different hubs in Tampa, provided by Tesla Model Y vehicles. They say that this will begin in October and the trips will cost just a few dollars per trip. They didn't specify how many Model Ys they'll have in this fleet. So to me this pretty much sounds like the concept for the boring company, just obviously above ground. But when we see Tesla's used for things like this or for the Uber Japan service, I think it just highlights the value proposition that Tesla is able to bring, especially in the case of high mileage uses. Always nice to hear about those.

好的，接下来我们有几个交通服务的更新。首先是Uber日本，他们宣布与特斯拉合作，在东京部署一支由100辆特斯拉组成的Uber豪华品牌车队，计划于2024年开始投入使用。这可能不是有史以来最大的订单，但看起来还是挺酷的，特别是因为这里将提供一个专门的菜单，用户可以特别要求一辆特斯拉Model Y。通常情况下，使用Uber时没有这样的具体要求，所以这很有趣，当然未来也可能在其他地区扩展。另外，佛罗里达州坦帕市宣布了一个名为Dash或Downtown Area Shared Hubs的新计划，该计划将提供特斯拉Model Y车辆在不同枢纽之间的低成本乘坐服务，在坦帕市将有20个不同的枢纽。他们表示这将于十月份开始，并且每次行程只需要几美元。他们没有具体说明这个车队将拥有多少辆Model Y。对我来说，这听起来很像无聊公司的理念，只是显然是在地面上。但当我们看到特斯拉被用于这类事情，或者用于Uber日本服务时，我认为这只是突出了特斯拉能够提供的价值主张，特别是在高里程的使用场景下。听到这些消息总是令人开心。

Alright, last couple of things, some new Cybertruck videos as we tend to see frequently, these days the first shows some new wheels, looks like more of an aero style here, so not sure if that's something that Tesla has in mind for production, or just for testing. And then the other video, just a walk around, but a walk around of what seems to be a release candidate vehicle, and maybe most interestingly it does have the rear windows completely rolled down so we can see that those won't stop halfway. Which we may have seen previously, I can't recall, but either way nice to see it in a later stage.

好的，最后还有一些事情。最近我们经常会看到一些新的Cybertruck视频。第一个视频展示了一些新的车轮，看起来更像是一个空气动力学风格，所以不确定这是否是特斯拉在生产中考虑的东西，还是只是用于测试。而另一个视频，只是一个环绕一圈的拍摄，但似乎是一个发布候选车辆的环绕拍摄，可能最有趣的是，它的后窗完全摇下了，所以我们可以看到它们不会在一半的位置停下来。我们可能之前已经见过这种情况，我记不清了，但无论如何在后期阶段看到它还是很好。

And then last item for today, some nice recognition for Tesla and for SpaceX from Mikaylo Fedorov. He's engaged with Elon before on some of SpaceX's actions in Ukraine, and he today sent a post thanking Elon Musk for his contributions. He has now sent 500 plus powerwalls to Ukraine, and he also mentions that SpaceX has sent 40,000 plus Starlings. So nice to see that for Ukraine, and that'll wrap it up for today. As always, thank you for listening, make sure you're subscribed and signed up for notifications. You can also find me on Twitter slash X at Tesla podcast, and we'll see you tomorrow for the Tuesday, August 1st episode of Tesla Daily. Thank you.

然后，今天的最后一项内容是关于Mikaylo Fedorov对特斯拉和SpaceX的赞誉。他之前与埃隆进行过一些有关SpaceX在乌克兰的行动的互动，今天他发帖感谢埃隆·马斯克的贡献。他已经向乌克兰发送了500多个Powerwall，并提到SpaceX已经发送了40,000多颗Starling卫星。很高兴看到这对乌克兰来说是一个好消息，今天的内容到此为止。一如既往，感谢您的聆听，记得订阅并打开通知。您也可以在Twitter上找到我，用户名是Tesla Podcast，我们明天会再见，届时是8月1日星期二的特斯拉每日更新。谢谢！