Hey everybody Rob Maurer here and today we've got quite a few exciting updates on the Cyber Truck, some news on Texas and Tesla's virtual power plant programs, reports on GIGABER LIN and a few other items as well.
First we'll start off with a quick look at the stock Tesla up a little over 1.5% today to close at $236.86, a NASDAQ with a strong day up 1.6%. And interestingly, as we talked about going into after market close today, NVIDIA did report earnings, they beat expectations pretty handily, so they're up 6.5% after hours, meaning that Tesla is up as that sends the TENS to lift the whole tide, Tesla up 1.7% after hours today as well.
So NVIDIA, as I said, we're not going to spend a ton of time on it, but you can see beat expectations $2.70 per share versus $2.09, speed revenue expectations, and more importantly guided for higher than expected results for Q3. They also announced a up to $25 billion approval for share repurchases in the future, which they would make over time. So as we said, you know, something to keep an eye on for the markets in general, and obviously with that success is going to be a little bit more helpful than had they come in with a little bit of a disappointment.
Alright, so getting into the Cyber Truck news, we've got a few things here, some of which have just come out very recently in the last few minutes. That's why I was a little bit late for the stream today, but we did have a tweet earlier from our post now, I guess, from Elon earlier today saying that he just drove the production candidate Cyber Truck at Giga Texas. So definitely an exciting milestone. This would presumably mean that this is a vehicle that is used to test the production process in its entirety. Maybe a little bit more progress than the release candidates that Tesla had previously mentioned. That was the terminology used. Of course it's going on here. Not sure.
When Tesla had the Q2 earnings call, they had said that they had continued to build release candidates of the Cyber Truck. So with this being a production candidate, again, different terminology and more presumably further progressed from where we were at on the Q2 call. No surprise with the amount of Cyber trucks we've seen Tesla producing.
Elon also commented a couple of things on this saying he thinks it's our best product ever. We've heard him say that in the past, so nothing new there, but reiterating it as we get close to production is exciting. And he did also give us a little bit of details on the delivery event, things like that. I guess commented on it not really more details, but in response to just asking for specs pricing, estimated delivery of end date, etc. Elon said we're ready. When we are ready to do so, we will. While I think it's our best product ever, it is an extremely difficult product to build. We are in uncharted territory because it does not like anything else. So those of you that have followed Tesla a long time may bring back memories of the Model X launch and some of the struggles that came alongside that.
There was also what appears to be a leaked email today. YYDS on X sharing this with Elon, apparently emailing the Tesla team saying due to the nature of the Cyber truck, which is made of bright metal with mostly straight edges, any dimensional variation shows up like a sore thumb. All parts for this vehicle, whether internal or from suppliers, need to be designed and built to sub 10 micron accuracy. That means all parts dimensions need to be to the third decimal place in millimeters and tolerances need to be specified in single digit microns. If Lego and Sutter cans, which are very low cost, can do this? So can we precision predicates perfectionism?
So we've seen Elon emails like this before. We've seen comments from him various periods of time like this, including during the launch and ramp up of Giga Berlin and Giga Texas here talking about extreme precision targets with Model Y talking microns not millimeters. So in this case, thousands of millimeters or one one thousandth of a millimeter would be a micron. So shows, you know, the kind of precision that they're targeting again, but nothing new for Tesla, although I think just with the comments here and this email combined, it should just, I think temper expectations a little bit. I know we're all very excited about the Cyber truck right now.
We're seeing a lot of progress. But if you've been through a ramp up a new product from Tesla, again, going back to dating back to the Model X, you know that this can be slow. It can be a lot longer than what we hope it to be from the outside. You know, we've since 2019 had the Model Y ramp up, which is obviously it had a lot of new things involved in it, but it was a derivative of the Model 3. So they had, you know, at least some experience with parts of the vehicle. And then from there, obviously expanding with Giga Texas, with Giga Berlin, even with Shanghai, sort of again, not replicating it, but starting with not necessarily a clean slate. So really the last sort of clean slate, I would say would be the Model 3 ramp, which again, differences there, but took a long time. And prior to that, obviously, the Model X, which was excruciatingly long for anyone that kind of remembers that. So again, just kind of keep that in mind as we, you know, get very close to the start of production here for what it seems.
Now, what just came out before this episode is that Tesla to the Tesla app and the Tesla loot box has added a new prize. So this is a delivery event invite in the loot box as a part of the referral program. The Cybertruck delivery event invite will cost 30,000 credits, which would be the equivalent right now of three referrals. Tesla says that you can redeem referral credits for an invitation to the upcoming Cybertruck delivery event in Austin, Texas invites are first come first served and are valid for you and one friend travel accommodations not included. If you missed a chance to claim check back later, additional tickets will be released as the event approaches limit one per Tesla account, 18 years of older to redeem all attendees, most pass security screening, et cetera. And then they say event date to be announced. So we don't get the full date here, but definitely starting to get close with Tesla, you know, publishing this event invite path. So interesting to see that the Tesla has this, you know, as a part of the referral program, obviously it's a no cost thing for them and helps redeem some of those credits that people have generated. I would imagine the take rate on this is going to be, you know, pretty decent for people to have that amount of credits. So I think it's an interesting implementation and obviously just very exciting that we are getting close enough for Tesla to even put this in the loot box at this point. So hopefully we hear more.
There were some rumors here. Not going to go super into detail on it, but some rumors on X today from spotted model on X saying that a few things. First of all, Tesla right now making about, oh, sorry, Tesla right now making about 10 cyber trucks a day, you know, from what we see that seems to be maybe roughly in the ballpark. They say that they're distributing them not covered during transport. There's going to be a live stream delivery event, which will take place in Austin. Obviously, we just talked about that so no surprise. But they say that after the events or during it, there will be service centers or stores all over the country that will simultaneously deliver a handful of cyber trucks and that these have already been allocated to customers which have been contacted to ask if they want to take delivery or not. So obviously we, you know, so far have not heard of anyone in that scenario, at least to my knowledge, but definitely something to keep an eye on if people do start talking a little bit more about this, which could happen if this is the case. But it sounds like during the delivery event, they would have been delivering it to a number of different people's not necessarily directly based on reservation number, but potentially other factors which also probably not too surprising given the, you know, what we've seen in the past where Tesla delivers those early vehicles to specific customers. They say the first builds are all the same high end configuration. They said that the final price has not been given, but they've been told to expect it will be made to high 70s. That would be a great price if Tesla gets there for the high end configuration because that would be under the $80,000 cap for the federal EV tax credit. And they said that they've been told to expect deliveries in the next three to four weeks and to begin making preparations. So no idea on the credibility of this, but felt specific enough and interesting enough to at least kind of run through really quickly, especially in combination with this delivery event, invitation path being posted today.
In the last couple of quick things on the Cybertruck, just a nice shot of the Cybertruck in downtown Austin. We've been seeing a lot on car carriers, which they're great to see, but you can only kind of look at so many of those before they all start to look kind of the same. But this one's nice because so throw away barista 69 on Reddit sharing this. And I think it's a nice photo just because it shows the Cybertruck in, you know, on the road in an urban environment where we don't, we haven't seen quite as many photos of those. And just the perspective of this, it's a little bit higher up, you know, again, not necessarily what we normally see. I've cautioned people of, you know, from over emphasizing the looks of the Cybertruck and photos because it definitely feels different seeing in person. I think this picture does a better job of capturing kind of that feel. One of the better ones that I've seen so far. So, you know, thanks for this person for sharing this photo. And it's a little bit more exciting than some of the other ones that we've seen, although those are exciting for the implications that they carry.
All right. So Tesla stock obviously did pretty well throughout the day. We did start much lower than where Tesla was trading in the pre-market early on. Part of the reason for that was a report from a business insider in Germany that Tesla has slowed their production rate at Kigabirlin. Two schools of thought on this. First just going into the report, we know that Tesla on the Q2 call mentioned that there would be production downtime in this quarter for upgrades. This report doesn't indicate that this is the reason for that. So there could still be some question marks around what the reason behind this is. But business insider said that they threw pictures of the scene, indicate that Tesla lowered their daily targets for July and August to 870 cars per day. So those are from the photos. And then they say that internal targets has since been adjusted further down to 750 cars per day, which they say would be less than 4,000 per week. Obviously, if you had a seven day work week, 750 a day, it would be above 5,000. You'd be down to 4,500 with a six day work week. Five day work week though, you get under that 4,000 per week mark, which previously in I think June, yeah, June 15th year this report, there was a report that Tesla had reduced shifts at Kigabirlin, which I believe means they're now in a five day work schedule. I don't fall that quite as closely. But that would be kind of where these numbers are combining to end up at below 4,000 per week at 750 a day. So again, there's not a whole lot of information on what's necessarily driving this. Obviously, the question is always, is this a demand related thing without a little bit more information? I think it's premature to say that. And like we've talked about before, Tesla could be focusing their efforts at Kigabirlin, at Kigatexas on making sure that costs are controlled well, especially during this period of time, where margins are a little bit compressed, which obviously suggests that Tesla's not quite as supply constrained as they've normally been. So during that period of time, it might make sense to taper back production a little bit and just make sure that you're laser focused on getting costs of production under control. Obviously, scale helps with that, but sort of a little bit of a chicken egg situation where you need to get those costs down first before you, you know, well, first or simultaneously to ramping up to them, you know, more significant scale. So again, not saying that's the reason it could just be Tesla deciding to taper back production for other reasons, for demand related reasons or whatever else, but without a little bit more information, kind of tough for us to gauge. But just keep that in mind as we head into, you know, about a little over a month from now into a Q3 delivery and production report.
All right. Next, we've got an update on Texas. So this is something we've talked about a couple of times, but the Public Utilities Commission of Texas has announced that they have approved two virtual power plant projects Tesla is actually both of the approved projects for this sort of pilot program for virtual power plant programs connecting to Urquat, the grid in Texas.
So Drew Biglino commented on this. He said today's launch of the first phase of the Tesla virtual power plant is a milestone for Texas residents, Texas distribution utilities and the Urquat grid. Our collective work has allowed Tesla to build a decentralized energy ecosystem that seamlessly integrates storage solar energy for power walls onto the Urquat grid.
So like I said, we've talked about this before. We knew this was coming, but exciting to see it now approved again, very much a pilot program at this point in time. But hopefully something that goes well, tests well in Texas.
Obviously, the grid there is in need of some help, some stability and programs like this can go a long way in providing that and also, you know, earn some, some money back for those that are participating in the program and potentially for Tesla as well. So great to see that.
And then the last couple of things, green, the only on X has noticed that Tesla is sort of merging the FSD beta branch with the main software branch, which has, you know, over the course of time and at various points in time become disconnected with the software features in the main branch versus the FSD beta branch. So it looks like with 2023 dot 26 dot 10, Tesla is bringing these back in line, which means that FSD beta sort of early accessors would be able to have those newest software features like Spotify update, et cetera, some of the other ones that we have talked about. So exciting to see that. Hopefully that'll roll out broadly pretty soon.
And then just quick SpaceX update. So SpaceX has been tweeting about the progress with, with Starship with super heavy booster kinds specifically, sorry for those noises. But Elon also quote, tweeting matter, quote, posting that and saying next Starship launch soon. So definitely someone to keep an eye on.
We talked previously about the sort of similar warnings that were given for August 31st. Obviously that would be sort of a best case scenario. So definitely expected after that, but exciting to see the progress for SpaceX for the second orbital test flight.
All right. Exciting day, but that'll wrap it up for today. So as always, thank you for listening. Make sure you're subscribed and signed up for notifications. You can also find me on X at Tesla podcast. And we'll see you tomorrow for the Thursday, August 24th episode of Tesla daily. Thank you.