come and oy aah bubbling Night a Ahh Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis, quick shout out to my newest patrons, AJV and Neil C. Thank you for choosing to support the channel.
First up today, customer deliveries of the Model 3 Plus or the new Model 3, whatever you want to call it, have begun in Germany. As we speak, it's actually arriving in multiple European countries as well. The word is Model 3 Plus deliveries will actually start in China at the end of this month and then again North America, Q1 next year. Here's a picture of the vehicle arriving in Italy.
So in the weeks ahead, as we get some customer reviews and the word starts to spread about the refresh, hopefully we'll see an uptick in Model 3 sales. It's a bit of a double-edged sword though, we will have the Osborne effect for some North American customers as they're just going to choose to wait until next year to get the refreshed model. As Esther reported on X, deliveries have begun in the Netherlands as well.
You guys may recall a few months back, Reuters had that exclusive report about Tesla owners complaining that the range estimates in Tesla vehicles were not accurate, specifically in cold weather. We talked about it at length at the time, but now in Tesla's 10Q which we got today, more on that in a second, we have the Justice Department seeking documents from Tesla when it comes to their vehicle driving range as well as autopilot concerns.
All you really need to know for now, here it is right from Tesla's third quarter 10Q. We receive requests for info from regulators and governmental authorities like NHTSA, the NTSB, SEC, DOJ and various local state federal and international agencies. We routinely cooperate with such regulatory and governmental requests, including subpoenas, formal and informal requests and other investigations and inquiries. I think oftentimes people can see these headlines and get somewhat spooked, but just wanted to remind everybody this is completely routine, it's been going on for years, these authorities are really just looking for more information and looking back, there really hasn't been anything that's developed from these that's had a material impact on Tesla financially.
When it comes to the range estimate situation, remember the EPA actually sets those public ranges and then Tesla can do its own testing. There are rules of the game that Tesla can manipulate a little bit when it comes to the range estimates, but again, as far as we know, Tesla wasn't doing anything illegally, just playing by the rules of the game. And they said to our knowledge, no government agency in any ongoing investigation has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred. Then you add that every company is going to experience more range loss in colder weather and there are many other factors that impacted the range estimate and what you actually get in the real world. So I'd be shocked if anything really came of this, but the government agencies want more info.
This report from the Highway Loss Data Institute came out earlier this year, but it was circulating earlier today. The purpose of this current analysis is to quantify the extent to which whole vehicle theft varies by vehicle size and class and make and series. It presents whole vehicle theft losses under comprehensive coverage for passenger vehicles produced during model years 2020 and 2022 results in this report were standardized to control for the effective demographic and geographic variables to accurately assess the contribution of the vehicle to insurance losses. We don't need to dive into the methodology here, just know that this table is for whole vehicle theft claim frequencies and we're going to focus on this column relative claim frequency, the higher the number, the more likely that vehicle is to be stolen. The two worst offenders both from Dodge, the SRT Hellcat and the Charger Hemi. I'd also point out that four out of the top 20 are also from Kia 20%.
And here we have the other end of the spectrum, the best of the bunch, the two least stolen vehicles, the Model 3 and the Model Y relative claim frequencies of three compared to over two and six thousand for the Hemi and the Hellcat. You'll see the Model X is fifth on this list and then the Model S is the last vehicle on the top 20 least stolen vehicles list. The more the general public becomes aware of things like Sentry Mode and Dashcam and mobile app viewing and tracking, the more likely Tesla is to remain at the top of these lists when it comes to the least stolen vehicles.
Replying to James Stevenson, Elon said, I said we would advertise, we are doing so at small scale and we'll do so at larger scale as we figure what works best. I know a huge portion of the Tesla community is very excited to hear this because this is the first time that we've heard Elon talk about a larger scale when it comes to advertising.
Right now, we know Tesla is running a few hundred text-based Google search ads. Here and there on X we've seen a few Tesla ads in traditional print magazines and we saw that one in an airport where they had it on the wall with that QR code. But what many people want to see are video ads on platforms like YouTube X and maybe even on television or the Super Bowl. I'd caution it may be another three to six months before we see larger scale advertising from Tesla as figuring out what actually works does indeed take time.
It's fairly obvious though with a purchase as big as a vehicle when somebody sees an ad they may not go buy a vehicle that day. It may take three, six, nine months for that ad to actually transition or convert into an actual purchase. I'm pretty much where I've been the entire time.
Do I think Tesla needs advertising to succeed in the long run? No, but do I also think that Tesla could benefit from targeted educational advertising to the right target market? Absolutely. I think it's people that understand advertising maybe have dabbled with it a bit really understand the value and the benefit of doing it. Those that don't have that experience and just think of advertising in a more traditional sense may not be able to see the value as easily.
I'm not going to lie though, I am pretty excited for Tesla to get more into this one because I have faith that they're going to figure it out like they've done with everything else and two it is getting harder and harder to argue that certain people with enough money to buy a Tesla are either uneducated or misinformed about Tesla and EVs in general. So hopefully this larger based advertising can start to change some of those wrong narratives.
Last thing I'll say while I don't love taking Tesla's price cuts and then multiplying that by sales and then extrapolating what Tesla just lost every time they do these price cuts, namely because that does not account for how many vehicles Tesla would have sold without those price cuts. I do think it's worth mentioning especially for those with limited experience with advertising with a pretty small budget relatively speaking of $100 million even $50 million for Tesla which is pennies for them. That budget can go an incredibly long way if it's targeted to the right person on the right platform at the right time which is what Tesla has to figure out for anybody in the area.
A new Tesla sales and service center in gypsum Colorado is about ready to open they're just filling the last few positions now so hopefully in the next few weeks it will officially open. It's passed all inspections and now it has all of its licenses.
Today Tesla released the 10Q for quarter three and I just want to go through a few of my first main takeaways. At the end of quarter three Tesla's deferred revenue which consists mostly of FSD sales sat at 3.27 billion dollars. Of that amount they expect to recognize 815 million dollars of revenue over the next 12 months. Again I would caution this guidance is not always the actual number that Tesla eventually recognizes.
From the end of 2022 Tesla's deferred revenue balance only grew about 300 million dollars most likely because most of those FSD sales are now flowing right to revenue not having to go to deferred revenue first because most of the features are actually being offered. Tesla has the same deferred revenue situation on the energy storage side at the end of quarter three that balance was 1.05 billion dollars of which they expect to recognize 709 million dollars over the next 12 months.
To anybody that likes doing earnings per share calculations the new diluted weighted shares outstanding 3.493 billion. At the end of 2022 Tesla had 8.2 billion dollars invested across these financial instruments fast forward to the end of quarter three that number is now up to 11.29 billion. Tesla has reduced the amount it has in money market funds, increased the amount it has in US government securities, decreased the amount in corporate debt and increased the amount in CDs.
As I alluded to last week an extra 3 billion dollars earning 5% per year is 150 million dollars per year in net interest income for Tesla doing basically nothing.
Maybe my favorite part of the 10q looking at Tesla's revenues by geographic area. For the nine months ended this year Tesla had 46.7% of the revenues come from the United States. This compares to 50% for the first nine months last year.
Back to this year 21.8% of Tesla's revenue came from China compared to 23.7% over the same time period last year. And for the rest of the world this year Tesla's revenue was 31.4% up from 26.2% last year. So quarter by quarter Tesla continues to become less and less reliant on the Chinese market.
To verify the claims I've made about why Tesla is trying to eliminate the delivery wave they said were committed to reducing the percentage of vehicles delivered in the third month of each quarter which will help to reduce the cost per vehicle.
Tesla did say we currently expect our capital expenditures to exceed 9 billion dollars in 2023 but then go back to their prior guidance of between 7 and 9 billion dollars for each of the two following fiscal years.
Translation this year Tesla plans to spend more than they originally thought which highlights a big theme I talked about in the video after Q3 that Tesla is still spending aggressively in capex and rnd to continually push forward its future business lines which will only help them come out of this tough season stronger.
In case you were wondering what that 2.5 billion dollars was for that Tesla raised from issuing debt it was Tesla issuing a new round of asset backed securities which were backed by its leases.
And because I know you all love Tesla owning Bitcoin so much Tesla's fair value of the Bitcoin it owns at the end of quarter three was 311 million dollars their carrying value 184 million which means Tesla has an unrealized gain of 127 million dollars from its Bitcoin holdings that only actually hits the financials if they choose to sell but it's there for the taking.
Alexander shared a great chart helping us to visualize what Tesla is doing when it comes to its captive financing or its direct financing the loans it offers right to customers cutting out the bank toward the end of last year a lot of people were thinking Tesla was going to start to ramp up this figure but it's not what we're seeing clearly over the past few quarters Tesla has been deciding more and more that it does not want this exposure to retail credit in its financials in the months ahead.
There was a barons article out there that shared some data when it comes to Tesla recalls and how from 2022 that number has significantly decreased Tesla is down to 2.7% of all recalls 430,000 vehicles recalled year to date this year compared to 3.8 million last year.
The problem with his data is it does not distinguish between physical Tesla recalls and the Tesla recalls that are really just OTA updates despite that oversight it is still valuable information to know this overall trend as it is a pretty significant decrease from last year to this year and I know 2023 is not over but the pace right now would still be about 550,000 vehicles recalled well short of the 3.8 million last year.
I believe it was Ben Zinga India that actually broke this news today but Nitin Gagari said that Tesla is welcome to set up shop in India but the terms will be dictated by the Indian government he clarified Tesla will receive concessions only if it agreed to local manufacturer not for selling units produced in China nothing new he reiterated any slashing of import duties potentially from 100% to 15% that's been reported would be dependent on Tesla making vehicles locally and sourcing those components locally as well.
Simply put the negotiating and the public posturing continues.
简而言之,谈判和公开夸夸其谈还在继续。
From the Tesla Motors club forum the v4 site in Sparks Nevada is up and running one user said the display on the stall is off except for the white Tesla logo it sounds like it'll be that way on a per-site basis depending on when Tesla is ready to test out stall payments presumably these v4 could be activated for non-Tesla's even without the display but right now this site is not a charger non-Tesla supercharger choice yet we also got an image of the Cybertruck charging at v4 with the three foot longer cable much more comfortable and a more comfortable distance away from the stall itself.
I could certainly be missing something and this is developing in real time but there are headlines out there that this v4 is now open to non-Tesla's I have not been able to actually confirm that for now it may be more accurate to say the first v4 location is up and running remember this site is a retrofit meaning they do not have the v4 cabinets active yet thus charging speeds are the same as v3.
I wanted to share this because I know a few of you are in the region Tesla mechanics in Sweden may walk off the job October 27th if Tesla does not sign a collective wage agreement the union.
Said over a long period of time we have attempted to discuss with Tesla the signing of a collective agreement without success now we see no solution other than to take industrial action the strike would affect 120 mechanics at seven workshops across Sweden there's still a few days so we'll see and there's not really reliable public information about what the union specifically is looking for for these mechanics so it's hard for me to comment on what Tesla may or may not do in this situation but we will be tracking it in the week ahead.
Another reason to switch to EVs a new study has found that newer ice vehicles are now polluting more than ice vehicles from a decade ago why consumers have been increasingly buying suvs instead of cars and those vehicles are heavier and burn more fuel I won't dive into this one because it was a UK based study but if you want to learn more I'll have a link below
the uaw has finally done it they're striking at a stellantis plant where they make the ram 1500 pickup truck the money making bread and butter today the uaw ordered 6800 workers to strike at this plant saying stellantis has the worst proposal on the table regarding wage progression temporary worker pay conversion to full time cola and more fane said they had talks through the weekends we just felt like it was time to turn it up now more than 40 000 uaw workers are on strike fane did say we can get a deal done this week but the companies got to get serious and get down to business this plant accounted for about 16 percent of north american production forced to lantis over the weekend
you may have seen that toyota is set to show off a concept vehicle of an upcoming epu electric pickup at the tokyo auto show set to begin this thursday the 26th toyota not exactly looking to rolling the dice much with his design you'll notice a yoke steering wheel and the gear shifter somehow embedded into the screen we don't have any technical specs yet but hopefully in the week ahead we get some
for now there you have it we're also set to learn about toyota's upcoming eevee land cruiser this will be a three row s u v i honestly don't mind the look of this one but like i always say talk to me about production
porches design chief is now publicly admitting that their design choices are being influenced by chinese eevee makers he said these startups with no heritage they can do things completely different i consider it a positive thing actually as a designer because that makes the decision makers the management board more open-minded these eevee brands are making designers in germany more receptive to risky vehicle concepts he said i always have this image in my head of this stone that you throw into the future the question is how far do i throw it hitting that sweet spot exactly going far enough into the future but not too far is a real challenge the takeaway he said i believe the german auto industry in particular has potential to be better
dealers are now saying that the mercedes eq electric vehicles are just not selling as quickly as its other models in september it took mercedes dealers an average of 82 days to sell their eq models more than double bmw's 38 day turn rate and significantly higher than the luxury average of 57 days mercedes retailers that were interviewed by auto news blame their bloated stockpiles on the product and on the brand's unwillingness to respond to increase competition with sales programs one anecdote but a mercedes store operator said he has more than a six month supply of vvs compared to about a 50 day supply of ice vehicles the evs are coming whether or not you asked for them or earned them there's too much of a price premium especially at the top end of the eq lineup and almost no lease support the executive said the evs lack the lust factor of mercedes ice vehicles saying our cars need to be want cars the s-class has maintained good loyalty because it's aspirational in eq s is not something most people aspire to own in response mercedes plans to slow production of higher end eq variants while dialing up allocations of lower priced evs plug-in hybrid and full combustion engine vehicles the boss of mercedes in the u.s. said we are with a new lineup in a new world there's no past there is no experience with evs
of course right now everybody likes dumping some of the blame onto the suppliers but in this case it doesn't seem like supply is the issue if anything it's over supply we can now add mercedes to the list of legacy oem's that are dialing back their ev production we now have Hyundai signing a deal with Saudi Arabia to build a 500 million dollar plus car assembly plant joining lucid in making cars in Saudi Arabia this will be a joint venture with Saudi's public investment fund which will own a 70% stake in this venture. as they look to build 50,000 vehicles per year they'll look to start operations early 2026 but they'll also be making ice vehicles not just electric lucid has introduced a new referral program for new customers who use a referral link and you can get a variety of discounts on different vehicles if you want to learn more lucid does have a referral program page on its website in the event you are in Texas test las may now qualify for a $2,500 rebate so i'll be sure to have this link below if you want to go check and apply and see if you qualify hope you guys have a wonderful day you can find me on x linked below please like the video if you did and a huge thank you to all of my patreon supporters