Hey everybody Rob Maer here, welcome back to Tesla Daily. Today we've got some interesting side by side comparison photos for the Cybertruck with some very interesting vehicles.
We've got new details potentially on the Model 3 Highland and the release potentially in the US and a new market for Tesla that seems to be on the horizon. Looking at the stock, Tesla today up 1.1% so decent start to the week, finishing at $253.92 although the NASDAQ actually outperforming with a strong day up 1.2%.
Of course the most interesting thing for this week will be earnings, so a couple days away from that that'll be after market close on Wednesday. We did get an updated note from Piper Sandler, Alex Potter over the weekend. They have lowered their price target a bit from $300 down to 290 based off of the Q3 delivery results, just as well as updated expectations for earnings as we head into that.
So estimates moving slightly downward but they do point out that Cybertruck and other growth initiatives are on the horizon. They view that there could be a reasonable likelihood that margins bottom in Q3 but still wouldn't be surprised if Tesla trades sideways at best in coming months as looking at 2024 delivery growth could slow according to them ahead of things that would re-accelerate that in the future.
So always nice to hear from Alex Potter and get their expectations as we head into earnings. And then getting into some of the news, we'll start off with this update from Tesla.
So a new job listing today or over the weekend from Tesla on their careers page. This is for a general manager position. What's most interesting about this though is that this is for a country general manager in Chile. They say that this is to help launch the market.
So obviously, Chile, you know, in terms of what it would be in terms of the impact to Tesla overall, a relatively small market. But what's most interesting about this is that this would actually be their first launch in South America.
So if we look at the total South American market, it's a pretty sizable market. According to Statista, the market is about 4 million vehicles per year, maybe a little bit less than that overall between South America and Central America.
Now obviously Tesla can't play in the entirety of that market today. Over time they'll expand what they can address in terms of that total share. But still in terms of overall vehicle volume, pretty significant. And we look, if we look specifically at Chile, kind of battling with Argentina for the number two slots, of course, after Brazil for those regions.
So pretty exciting to see for Tesla. Obviously, you know, there's probably a lot of pent up demand over the years in these markets waiting for Tesla to start an official presence. And this seems to be one of our first indications that Tesla is going forward with that.
So I'm excited to see that, especially ahead of the next generation vehicle, which should be much more impactful versus obviously today's lineup for Tesla in these markets. So I think it's good to lay the groundwork now ahead of that program. So nice to see that.
And then kind of some fun new images of the Cybertruck over the weekend just kind of happened all at once it seemed. But we've got comparison photos against the Model 3.
So Cybertruck parks side by side with the Model 3 at a supercharger here. This was shared on Reddit by Chris DH 79. So kind of cool to see that. It gives us a little bit of perspective. Always got to keep in mind that there could be a lens distortion, you know, beating a dead horse on that one, but just something to keep in mind when we look at all these photos.
And then the next one we have on X from OMG Tesla slash Rivian, of course, a great combo here, because there's a sighting of a Rivian R1T next to the Cybertruck. So we get a few really pretty good images here of that comparison.
So just kind of click through those, not quite side by side. And I think the, you know, don't let the perspective from the lines of the parking spaces throw you off too much because they're not necessarily parked in the same spot relative to those lines, but still nice to see the comparison shots here.
And then perhaps the most interesting one is a Cybertruck next to a DeLorean. So obviously, you know, Tesla's, I don't think they said that it was officially inspired by DeLorean, but it was if we have seen some of those photos of Franz and Elon looking at sort of the design concepts of it.
I think the DeLorean was one of them that was up there and shares a lot of similarities, of course, with the design aesthetic of the Cybertruck as we can see, but just kind of fun to see these two very unique vehicles parked side by side.
This coming out to us on Reddit from Blade Bronson. So kind of cool to see that. We've got a short video here. So I'll just play some of that. We can see obviously the DeLorean with its doors. Pretty nice, you know, pretty similar to the Model X, obviously differences there, but just kind of fun to see these vehicles side by side. So again, nice to see all these and kind of interesting that that all happened in the same weekend.
So do seem to be more and more release candidates than ever. Joe Taggen my hair today on X posting some photos of the outbound delivery lot at Giga Texas, and we can see nine new Cybertrucks being staged there allegedly new. So again, we continue to see more and more of these out there. And we're getting closer. I'm sure we'll hear more on Wednesday about what the plans are in terms of the delivery event.
All right. Next, we've got kind of an unexpected update from Motor Trend here. They actually got a test driver, first drive of the Model 3 Highland. So obviously we've seen more promotion of this internationally in Europe and in Asia, but not a lot in North America yet. So looks like Tesla at least now starting to do a little bit of that ahead of any updates that we've officially heard about from the company.
So overall, Motor Trend very impressed. They say that the Model 3 is making real improvements with this update. Overall their feedback was essentially that Tesla listened to their customers and affected a lot of changes that customers were wanting. So they were overall very impressed, very happy with the updates. They did mention something that I think we had talked about before, but kind of confirmed the cars, batteries, and motors are not changed. No changes to the powertrain despite some of the efficiency improvements that we're seeing. Again, we knew that before, but good to have some secondary confirmation of that.
They do say that in terms of the updates, the vehicle, obviously one that gets a lot of potential criticism is the removal of the stocks. Motor Trend said that they didn't actually see much of an issue with that. They said normally we'd rage against touch sensitive buttons on steering wheels and the deletion of physical controls, but we be grudgingly give these a pass. Tesla's new controls all work well enough that we don't have much to complain about. So good to see that. Again, a lot of discussion on whether or not that's the right move. They did actually talk about how they think that one of the things that could be improved is not having so many controls or so much information on the center screen they wish for a heads up display or something like that. But they also noted that customers don't actually have a problem with that. They just think that prospective customers would, which was kind of interesting. It shows that current customers not having issue, but prospective customers might kind of shows that you shouldn't always necessarily listen to what the customers are wanting because sometimes you'll make a change and it's better in reality than what they would have expected. So hopefully we find the same thing with the stocks over time, although I don't think quite as many people would initially agree with that.
All right, so they also said that the Model 3 is much, much quieter on the inside night and day difference from the old version. They say that the improved ride quality, they improved the ride quality enormously compared to the older version, both things that we've heard but good to have reiterated and just highlighted by Motor Trend. We talked about the center screen stuff already. And then one of their big criticisms was on FSD. So separate from Highland, obviously, but they did say that the FSD is a waste of $12,000. I don't know if they said something about unusable or something like that or let's see. I didn't highlight that piece, but overall, their criticism was pretty strong for FSD. They are not fans in the current iteration. And then they did also just say that kind of wrapping things up that the new Model 3 is substantially better car than the already go to outgoing model. So again, despite some of those very limited criticisms, they felt like almost all areas were improved that customers had maybe had any issues with the Model 3, which obviously the Model 3 has been a tremendously selling vehicle. So for us to be in a phase now where we're getting even improved versions of that, I think is very exciting.
And then finally, the last detail on here that got maybe the most attention on this. Originally when this article was published, Motor Trend had listed the on sale date as January 2024. So we haven't really heard anything about that again from Tesla. And now in this most recent version of the article, they have actually updated this to Q1 2024. So they say this has been updated from January to Q1 2024 at Tesla's request. So that could still be January. Obviously that'd be January to March. But the fact that Tesla has specifically requested this update, I think gives us a lot more confidence in this actually being correct than something like January would have, while that would have been certainly interesting to see listed, they could have just been doing that based on their expectations of this being sort of a 2024 model year vehicle. So that seems to be again, the most significant update in terms of the release of the Model 3 in the US or in North America that we have seen so far. So again, maybe we'll get more information on that. I'm not sure if that's one of the top questions right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla talks a bit about that on their earnings call.
All right, and then we also of course had the minor updates, the Model Y out of Giga Shanghai. It's not minor, but minor relative to the Highland updates. Tesla has filed for that new Model Y in China. And one of the interesting pieces of this is that they indicate radar as an option on this vehicle. Obviously previously Tesla's removed this from the Model 3 in the Model Y, but still includes it on the S and the X. One of the details from the Isaac's in biography was that Tesla was including that as sort of a test or sort of a proving ground for their new Phoenix radar that they developed. So right now it's on the S and the X as Tesla kind of experiments with that. So I think they've probably left the option open for the Model Y. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's got a radar right now, but potentially with these filings and with the design of the vehicle, they might have included the possibility of that program working successfully and expanding to other vehicles. So that's kind of my thought on the radar being optional as indicated by these filings, but we'll continue to keep an eye on that.
Alright, next we've got a couple supercharging updates. So the first is from not a Tesla app. They have noticed that in the software version 2023.38 Tesla's implemented a change in supercharger availability. So in current or in previous versions, you could click on a supercharger, see how many cars are charging, that's very helpful if a station is congested and you might have to wait, but you could be planning that 30 minutes or an hour out from that destination and things are of course going to change during that period of time. So what Tesla is now doing with this latest release is predicting how many supercharger stalls will be available. So that would obviously be based off of things like how many vehicles are in route based on Tesla's navigation and likely how long they expect vehicles at the supercharger to stay based on their state of charge and things like that. So I think that's a great update. It's a difficult problem to solve because sometimes people can reroute, sometimes people can stay longer than expected, things like that. But if anybody can give a good prediction, obviously Tesla's got the most data to do that. Now a complicating factor of this would be that Tesla obviously expanding this to other automakers, they're not going to have quite as much information presumably, certainly in terms of vehicle routes that they would with an all-Tesla fleet. But hopefully over time that's something that Tesla can still do a pretty good job of in terms of their prediction model to help people best understand wait times and best routing information with the supercharger network. So I think that's a great change. I've actually wondered if Tesla was going to do that before, so I'm excited to see them implementing that.
And then finally just as we keep an eye on superchargers, just as we keep an eye on the V4 expansion. The technology 869 on Reddit has noticed a new supercharger going up and I believe Atlanta here. So we continue to see these roll out, which is again very exciting.
Alright, now we've got a couple of quick things on Ford. So Ford has actually commented on the strike. I think this was, yeah, Bill Ford here said that I think this was a memo to company employees. Sorry, I don't have the full context on this. I should have the full context on it, but the quote here is that this should not be Ford versus the UAW. Toyota, Honda, Tesla and others are loving the strike because they know the longer it goes on, the better it is for them. They will win and all of us will lose. So just kind of, you know, we've seen very combative language from UAW in relation to these strikes for trying to take a little bit of a positioning, whether it's PR or directly to the employees that it really shouldn't be Ford versus the UAW should be more about Ford versus their competition, which is definitely a valid case and should be something that the UAW considers. But obviously that's all this stuff is, you know, kind of putting pressure on, I think, both these groups through these negotiations. So not surprising to see Ford try to highlight that and, you know, spend the narrative a little bit again, both with employees and I think with the public.
And then kind of an interesting update on the Ford F-150 Lightning, as we've talked about over the last few weeks, there's been, you know, production downtime, then they got it restarted. It looks like they are now dropping a shift. So according to the Detroit Free Press here, Ford has informed about 700 employees that they'll be laid off temporarily for the Ford F-150 Lightning third shift. They say that we're, you know, a Ford spokesperson said that quote, we are adjusting the schedule at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center because of multiple constraints, including the supply chain and working through processing and delivering vehicles held for quality checks after restarting production in August. So basically after they restarted, now they're saying that they have, you know, supply chain constraints, processing and vehicle deliveries for quality checks, also delaying them. So as they work through those things, temporarily reducing the shift count.
So that's kind of the official word. But interestingly, the Wall Street Journal had an article over the weekend that said that a UAW official who is the Union's local chapter lead for the area that represents the factory that's making the F-150 Lightning's said that said in a letter on Tuesday that they were considering this change and said, quote, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that our sales for the Lightning have tanked and quote. Now it's a little bit unclear if that means orders or if that means sales. Obviously, we talked about F-150 sales being down in the third quarter, 45%, roughly in that, you know, roughly that figure. But the big reason for that, at least it seems like the big reason for that would be six or seven weeks of production downtime during the quarter. And Ford did say that they expected year over year increases to resume for the F-150 Lightning in the fourth quarter. So he could just be, you know, referring to the official sales figures that have been published that have dropped or it could be some more insight in terms of actual demand and orders on the F-150 Lightning. So I wouldn't necessarily take it so far to say that that's what it is and that's why we're seeing Ford, you know, step back a shift on the F-150 Lightning line, but definitely interesting to hear some of that from Ford. So somebody keep an eye on theirs will continue to do as we get more figures on that.
And then the last couple of things, just a quick merchandise update here for Europe. Tesla has introduced the cyber quad for kids. These got recalled in the US and they stopped selling them here, but it looks like now they're taking them over to Europe. So those are in the shop for around just under 2000 euros. Tesla's also got a cyber quad for kids jacket. It's kind of see that available as well. I'm not sure if that one's new, but I assume that it's probably in line with the cyber quad for kids being added.
And then just quickly on Starlink, a couple of major partnerships announced for Starlink Qatar Airways has announced that they have partnered with SpaceX for Starlink to offer this seamlessly to their passengers complimentary for all passengers on flights that are offering Starlink. So I don't know if it's every single flight right now or intention to be every single flight very soon for Qatar Airways, but it sounds like it'll be a significant number of their flights, if not. And they say that this will offer passengers up to speeds of 350 megabits per second for gaming VPN access, sports streaming and more. So this becomes the largest airline to partner with Starlink so far, which is very exciting to see. I'm personally very excited to see this roll out to more airlines as this will obviously be a much, much better experience on those flights. So if any roll out there is always good to see.
And then we've been talking or we've mentioned a couple of times about partnerships for sea fairing vessels. So we've got another one of those from MOL. This has been announced today that they are partnering with Starlink for 233 of their ships. I believe a variety of different ships. They've got cruise ships, they've got rowaros and multiple other things. So pretty big partnership. I don't know if this is all of their ships. They say I think it's all of their ships that they can do it on right now. And then they would be doing more in the future, I believe.
So a couple of big and exciting announcements there for Starlink. All right, that'll wrap it up for today. And not for the week or just starting the week, but tomorrow we will do an earnings preview. And then of course on Wednesday we'll do the earnings report as usual. So I'd expect maybe a couple of quiet news days here as we kind of get through that outside of earnings, obviously, but we'll see. Anyway, that'll do it for today. 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 October 17th episode of Tesla daily. Thank you.