A few years ago, my son, who was an electrical engineer, was interning at Tesla. Dad, why don't you own some Tesla? I worked there as an intern. And I said, I want to short that stock. It's such a joke. It's a car company trading at a ridiculous price. He said, no, you're the joke. You don't understand what Tesla does. I work there. It's not a car company. It's a data company. Every mile a Tesla drives, it goes into the database of mapping for autonomous cars. And I thought, I didn't know that. He said, no kidding. You have a ton of money. Why don't you buy some of this stock? So just before I went on the air, I took my phone out and I bought a black of the stock in my personal account. And I forgot about it. One day I opened up the thing and I was up like 1,000%. Dude, I just said, I just said, I just said, I just said, if there's going to be a super truck, it's going to be right here. And there it is. Oh my god. We're going to fall. And we're going to fall. Oh, it's in a high rate of speed. Now it's probably Elon. Yes. Let's go. It's Elon Musk. What? He's helping me. Woo! Look at that thing. Oh my god. Hey. Welcome to Electrified. It's your host, Dylan Loomis.
So at the time of recording Tesla stock up about 7% today, some are attributing it to a Baird Research Adding Tesla stock to their Best Ideas list. More importantly, they're reasoning. They cited the launch of the Cybertruck, wider adoption of FSD, and expansion into new markets. So groundbreaking new research, warranting a 7% jump.
Back in May, we talked about a data breach from Tesla and after the investigation, it turns out it wasn't inside job by two former employees that impacted about 75,000 people. The data that was leaked included names, addresses phone numbers, employment records, and social security numbers of current and former employees, where it is, Elon's social was actually leaked in this as well. But Hondlesblott actually got their hands on this information. The Tesla files as they were called at the time, and the outlet said that they would not publish the info and that it's legally prohibited from using it inappropriately. Tesla has filed lawsuits against the two former employees and that led to the seizure of the devices that were supposed to have that info, and Tesla obtained court orders that prohibit the former employees from further use, access, or dissemination of the data, subject to criminal penalties.
As far as we can tell, it sounds like the leak has been contained, and now Tesla is out to get justice on those two former employees.
据我们所知,泄漏事件似乎已经得到控制,现在特斯拉正准备对那两名前员工寻求正义。
Plenty of Cybertruck action over the weekend just wanted to highlight a few things, first of which, possible Cybertruck crash test vehicles. This image was shared by Gregor Truck, and you can see the checkered tape alongside the side body. We have some missing parts around the wheel, and then the front bumper is missing as well. I would just add, clearly, the Cybertruck is still undergoing tests of different sorts. It doesn't have to be crash testing. It certainly could be, but it's still just going to be speculation for now.
We also got this video from Adon Guajardo showing us for the first time for Cybertrucks on one transport carrier. And at this point, it's tough to tell for sure, but there's a chance we're now north of 60 different Cybertrucks out and about being tested and transported to various locations.
And some more images from S.E. Robinson show us. You can see the back of one, and then two, three, four Cybertrucks on this carrier. And potentially more, depending on what is further left in this image that we cannot see.
And this right here is not a real wrap yet, but remember when I said seeing all of the unique wraps, how much attention it will bring ultimately to Tesla? This is what I was getting at.
I was also posting on X recently talking about once the Cybertruck launches and we get some good high quality 4K footage of production vehicles that will then go viral on the internet. And it looks like Tesla is actually doing that first, recording some high quality footage, potentially for the actual release and or delivery event. And the internet is telling us this was filmed at the Glacier in Iceland.
And Deimah shared one more image of the Cybertruck in Iceland, clearly doing some level of production, getting ready for the launch. Here's the Cybertruck with the Range Rover that you just saw in the video that was filming the Cybertruck and some camera rig gear as well.
And because I've been very curious to see the lighting of the Cybertruck at night, here's a recent video showing us a decent example of what we might be seeing of both the fronts and ultimately the back with the whole light bar working and the turn signal as well. And then a quick one of the turn signal during the day.
Allegedly, Bill Wright is a Tesla employee, and here's what he said, but I'd put this in the rumor mill, so be careful. Employee Cybertruck delivery seem imminent. Word around the Speedboat Cafe, the company is soliciting interest of those to take early delivery, dual or tri-motor. Weeks, I'm told. So, possibly early employee deliveries as soon as September, which would check out for the last month of the third quarter.
So now the question becomes, would Tesla do this employee delivery event without an event to give the specs and price in all of that first? Sadly, I think there's a chance they do.
If you use the Shortcuts app on your iPhone in the latest Tesla app update, now they have some shortcuts that you can actually use and they're directly integrated with the Shortcuts app. And what's neat is this new update will now allow you to use Siri to actually control some of these Tesla shortcuts. I would imagine something like this may be rolling out to Android, but I have not been able to confirm that just yet. And yes, this also means if you have an Apple Watch Ultra, you can program the side button for any one of these Tesla shortcuts.
如果你在最新的特斯拉应用更新中使用 iPhone 上的快捷方式应用,现在它们有一些实用的快捷方式,并且直接集成到了快捷方式应用中。而且最棒的是,这个新更新现在允许你使用 Siri 来实际控制一些特斯拉快捷方式。我想 Android 可能也会推出类似的功能,但我目前还没有能够确认。是的,这也意味着如果你有一个 Apple Watch Ultra,你可以为这些特斯拉快捷方式中的任何一个编程侧边按钮。
Today, we have the driven reporting that in Australia, a customer service representative reached out to a Tesla customer with a Model 3 performance variant and asked them if they wanted to trade that vehicle in for an inventory vehicle or if they wanted to await the Highland refresh when it's available.
Chris Zhang then shared these images and said a Tesla China employee who had seen the real car commented these images are very close with almost no difference. Here's the first image and honestly it looks like a rendering, but I can't say for sure. However, it does look like that leak we saw a few months back, at least looking at the front. And because it's been a while, here's a picture of an actual leak of a real vehicle that we saw a few months back. And we have this second image that appears to have a bit taller of a front fascia.
Chris Zhang分享了这些图片,并表示一位在特斯拉中国工作的员工看过真车后评论说这些图片几乎没有区别,非常接近真车。这是第一张图片,老实说它看起来像是一个渲染图,但我不能确定。然而,至少从前面看,它看起来像我们几个月前看到的那个泄露图。因为已经过了一段时间,这是我们几个月前看到的一辆真实车辆的泄露图。我们还有这张第二张图片,前保险杠看起来稍微高一点。
And more speculation here squarely in the rumor mill, I say that because.3 talks about hardware 3.5 as part of this Highland update, there is no hardware 3.5, at least that we've heard about to date. It's gone from hardware 3 to hardware 4, nothing in between.
With that context, Tesla China analyst said trial production of Highland has ended. The production ramp up with stress testing will begin August 25th. By early September, the daily production capacity is expected to reach around 1200 units. On pricing, the manufacturing cost of the entire vehicle has significantly decreased compared to the older model, single piece casting, a significant reduction in wiring harnesses, and the use of more new materials. However, we still maintain our estimate the pricing will be around $27,000. In summary, the new model 3 is very impressive. If the pricing is close to what we anticipate, then this vehicle will surely be warmly welcomed by the market. And once again, lead to an explosive increase in orders.
And to top it all off, we have James Cat who shared a screenshot from a Jason Yang drone fly over of Giga Shanghai with a bunch of vehicles that are covered out in the parking lot, which we are assuming are going to be project Highland vehicles.
More Highland Rumors, it may actually go on sale after September 30th, when some of these insurance incentives are set to expire, clearing out that inventory, which would check out with the Highland being included in the next round of the CIIT list of approved vehicles that should come mid September.
Recently, I've had a lot of people ask me about what I think about the Tesla China situation, with China banning Tesla vehicles from certain areas. Just wanted you to know, I did share my thoughts on the matter over on X, if you're interested. But to save you the trip, you can go ahead and pause here, and then again right here.
In case you saw it this weekend, there were some new articles talking about the Giga Berlin expansion for Tesla. As far as I can tell though, it's everything we already heard about last month. The public has two months over there to actually respond to these expansion plans. That would take us to about September 21st, so we're only about one month into that comment period. So, high level, it's the same plans we heard about going from 500,000 to 1,000,000 production capacity, adding a solar farm and increasing the battery capacity from, they say, about 50 gigawatt hours up to 100 in the future. Honestly though, it's still a mystery what the 4680 production capacity is at Giga Berlin, because since hearing that they're transferring some of the focus there to the United States because of the inflation reduction act, we don't know how many, if any, batteries they're making at Giga Berlin. Either way though, the plans did say they wanted to expand to 100 gigawatt hours.
On Giga Mexico, we heard that Tesla has requested for a land use change in the forest area in Santa Catarina. This request was going to be for that warehouse on the adjacent land that they're dubbing the Mario Project in case you see it in the future. And as of August 16th, they said that request has been received, and now they're saying in accordance with environmental legislation, it will take at least 60 days from now. In general, it's 60 business days, and if due to the circumstances and the complexity of the project, it could take up to an additional term, it is 40 days, but it's true today the authorities are focused on seeing issues related to government works. And this generates delays in authorizations. And there may be some extra eyeballs looking at this request due to the proximity of the property to the Monterey National Park. So that's not great, but at least we've been told the evaluation process has begun. At this point, for me, it's unclear if this request for the warehouse is going to be separate from Tesla's ability to do anything with construction of the actual Giga factory. We'll keep watching.
Most of you know I love highlighting creators that are doing great work, and Roland shared this chart of the world's top 10 best-selling EBS the first half of this year, showing us both sales in units, the green columns, and the price in the yellow line. With no surprise, the Model Y and the Model 3 leading the way in first and second. And yes, 3 through 10 are all Chinese brands. But it gets even better looking at this chart, breaking it down in terms of revenue or the money these customers spent on these vehicles, the Model Y in the green and the Model 3 in the yellow make up almost 60% of all of that revenue. 58.9% to be exact.
I really wish that Elon and Tesla would have followed through with one of those mentions they were going to have a monthly podcast talking about the Optimus robot. As far as I can see, that never happened. But Roddamn did share this video of the Optimus getting up close and personal focusing on some of the hardware. And we know that basically the same software that Tesla is using, creating, and training for FSD will be almost a one-to-one transfer over to the Optimus bot, so it will then be able to understand the real world. However, Elon added responding to this, the hardware is actually extremely difficult. Again, this is a project where no surprise Tesla is heavily focused on vertical integration, making a lot of these parts themselves because they're just not available off the shelf anywhere else.
Better late than never right, this time around Honda and Acura have announced they will be adopting Tesla's Nax. The thing is Honda and Acura's next two EVs are actually using the Altium technology, meaning they are clearly dependent on GM, which probably not the best place to be, meaning they may not switch to the Nax design until 2025 or 2026.
Here's the updated list of who has confirmed to join the Nax movement, who's considering and who hasn't really said much on the topic at all.
这是已确认加入纳克斯运动的人的最新名单,还有谁在考虑中,以及谁对这个话题几乎没有表态。
Here we have Malaysia's Prime Minister on Tesla's impact in the region. The way we see things is not a structured blanket, procedures or policies, but to see the synergy, for example, if EV comes in, Tesla comes in and can benefit three or four local industries, to me, is as good as put in 30% equity. In fact, in terms of real advantage and returns to the economy, there is better. Yes, Malaysia does produce batteries, but is that the next step? Port Tesla going up the supply chain? Yes, the understanding is of course biobatries. And it's cheaper, it's produced locally, and it is the advantage, and that's what they say. Why should they bring on the batteries all over the world?
Here's the N game assembly then. It's a complete supply chain in Malaysia, Port Tesla. It's too premature for me to commit because they are doing it. But what is important is we do have the capacity to produce parts of battery, what is required in the car.
Ahead of a possible Gigafactory in India, we're hearing that there's been a Model Y at a testing facility in Mehendra, Pune, in India, meaning maybe the Model Y will be available for purchase in India in a matter of months.
The Hyundai Genesis Kia Group has committed $5.5 billion to build an EVN battery plant outside of Savannah, Georgia, they're dubbing the Metapplant, which is under construction now and expected to open January 2025. It'll partner with LG Energy for on-site battery assembly. Six models are planned for the plant, which has a capacity of around 300,000 EVs per year, and the ability to go as high as 500,000 depending on the demand. Three of those models are likely to be Genesis vehicles, and they're saying production of the Ionic 7 might move to Georgia in the future. And they're sticking with the first wave of Kia EV9s that go on sale later this year will be imported from South Korea.
Crews gets approved for 24-7 fare rides in San Francisco, and then things start going downhill after that. Auto investigators are now investigating recent concerning incidents involving crews in San Francisco, and they've been asked to take half of their robo-taxis off the road. At least until this investigation is complete, and crews takes actions to improve road safety. And remember when I said that the public vote being approved was good, but it was going to be followed by a lot of pushback? Well, here it is. The city attorney said, we've seen this technology is not ready, and poor AV performance has interfered with the life-saving operations of first responders. San Francisco will suffer serious harms from this unfettered expansion. This video was also circulating over the internet, and the community notes were saying crews has said their vehicle had a green light, and it was actually this gray vehicle that ran a red light running right into the crews, and that for some reason the crews' vehicle decided breaking was going to be the best way to try to avoid that accident when in reality had it just kept driving, it probably would have missed that gray vehicle. So at least to start, it's going to be a bumpy, autonomous transition.
Here we have Colin Campbell, who worked at Tesla for almost 17 years, most recently as the VP of Powertrain and Engineering, leaving to become the Chief Technology Officer of Redwood Materials, now going under JB's struggles leadership. So if Tesla has to lose some talent, I'm totally fine with it going to help out JB. And a company whose mission will absolutely come back around and help Tesla greatly end the years ahead.
In case you saw this post from the car dealership guy about a Ford patent where self-driving cars could drive away from owners who don't keep up with payments, doing some digging, Ford told NPR the company has no intention of implementing the ideas in the patent. And this actually came out months ago, but unless Ford chooses to license FSD from Tesla, I don't think Ford customers need to worry about this scenario anytime soon.
Interesting anecdote from Eric talking to an Audi purchasing coordinator who said, We have such great diesel technology, I don't understand why we're doing all this electric car stuff. Especially for the Germans, I think this thought and attitude is far more pervasive than they are leading on and letting us believe. And when you have a culture that's confused and keeping one foot squarely in the ice world and the other may be testing out EVs compared to Tesla's culture, you really just start to see why it's not even a fair comparison.
On LinkedIn, VW posted celebrating the beginning of production of the ID7, but they called it symbolic start of production and then said, Near production concept car. Either way though, they said this vehicle will be available at dealerships in Germany this autumn.
Rivian had the camp kitchen for the R1T that actually slid right into the gear tunnel, but then they took it off the market for a while while they redesigned it.
Now we get a patent for this camp kitchen in the R1S, but this time around it would actually go into the rear of the vehicle because the R1S doesn't have a gear tunnel.
So now the speculation is Rivian might be consolidating this camp kitchen into one design that would go into the beds of both the vehicles, the R1S and R1T, but that is pure speculation.