Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. So first up today, clearly CyberTruck gearing up for the launch event later this month. And as you saw in that video, previously the front had these two bolts that were sticking out that you would imagine would be covered for the customer version. And now we see this updated, cleaner version and it does look like there are two little inlets down here that would allow you to remove this center panel. For what I'm not sure. Mike from Cyberowners.com did point out we don't see any outlet right now. Some people are saying maybe it's behind this panel. That doesn't seem like a great design choice to have to remove that every time you want to plug something in. We're still about one month away though, so there is indeed time left. I just had to share this one because I thought it was really cool this X account, ND Wood Art actually made this CyberTruck out of wood, which is incredible. He paired these images with a nice heartfelt message to Elon wanting to gift it to him and Tesla and Elon did actually end up seeing it saying sure much appreciated, things he love to see.
It sounds like starting next week, November 6th, Tesla will begin selecting winners for the CyberTruck delivery event lottery. To all of you guys that entered, best of luck. In case you missed Sean Fane's comments on Tesla, he said we can be anybody. It's going to come down to the people that work for him, meaning Elon, deciding if they want their fair share, or if they want Elon to fly himself to outer space at their expense. I believe it's doable, it being unionizing Tesla in the future. Fane said the UAW failed at unionizing Tesla before because there was corruption which we talked about at length, coziness with the bosses and bad contracts. Fane said hopefully we get down there, we organize them, Tesla and they become UAW members, and they can realize the full power of membership and get an even better contract.
Separately from auto news, Sean Fane said there could be a nasty fight ahead to organize workers at Ford's jointly owned EV battery plants. Stellantis and GM agreeing to these terms in effect buys them labor peace as we move forward, but at Ford in contrast, that could get ugly. Because the automakers set up joint ventures with their battery partners, those plants are supposed to be separate entities, not under the master contract that the UAW has with the Big 3. But there's some sort of hybrid deal in these tentative contracts that GM and Stellantis have agreed to. GM and Stellantis employees can be leased to these joint ventures while remaining employed by the Big 3, that way they don't take a pay cut in the future and they also agreed to making it quicker and easier for new workers at those joint ventures to unionize in the future. Then if they do at that time, they would be covered under the existing master agreement. So for now, it sounds like Ford is holding the line when it comes to its battery joint venture trying to keep that out of the UAW crossfire. But given that GM and Stellantis have already conceded on that front, it may be a tough road ahead for Ford.
Fane also said he's confident the UAW will have organized workers at all of the Detroit 3 joint battery ventures. By the time they reach the table again in 2028. Ford's holdout here on the battery front really doesn't surprise me at all given they're one of the only legacy companies to break out its separate EV financials. They clearly know what it's going to take to make EVs profitably, they're not anywhere near making that happen, and the UAW roping that joint venture into the master contract obviously is not going to help the matter.
However, when it comes to Tesla, this posturing by Sean Fane has already been met with some backlash. From business insider, workers at Tesla told insider they'd be hard pressed to join a union.
Nine Tesla workers told insider the strike was far from a topic of conversation at Tesla and few factory workers were even aware of the UAW's initial demands. So yes, on the surface it's good to hear, but the truth is most likely Tesla employees if they're smart, this isn't something you're going to discuss at the factory on the floor if you're going to discuss it at all.
Despite pay differences right now, seven Tesla workers told insider they would not want to work in a unionized factory and predicted the UAW would struggle to find footing at Tesla. One worker said Tesla still very much has a startup culture and that's a lot different than a union culture. I think people join Tesla because they want to work hard, they want to push themselves, they want to find ways to stand out by going above and beyond and that's difficult to do in a union.
Three workers said Tesla already probably knows how to weed out pro union employees. That kind of person probably would not even make it through the interview process according to a Tesla engineer. Other workers told insider they would not jump ship even for a better pay package at a unionized company. People are proud of what they do here, they believe in the mission of the company.
My sub 5% prediction from yesterday may have just ticked down to 3%. Giga Austin may be in line to feature the world's biggest rooftop solar array. That would of course be whenever it's complete, they finished phase one so right now they can pull roughly 10 megawatts but when it's done it'll be up to 30 megawatts.
For rough context, a 10 megawatt solar farm can power around 2000 homes for one day. When complete, Giga Austin will have 70,000 rooftop solar panels. Tesla is the first American battery manufacturing at scale, happening at Gigatexis and it's the first American cathode manufacturing which is the most expensive part of the battery, it's all happening at Gigatexis according to Rohan Patel.
Now if you're like me and you're wondering well what about Giga Nevada, if you go back to 2017, Tesla said they were going to have a 70 megawatt rooftop solar array at Gigafactory 1. But fast forward a few years and then we got an update that Tesla had changed its goal of 70 megawatts and dropped it down to 24 megawatts instead.
At the time though, Tesla said even with 24 megawatts it was still going to be the largest rooftop solar array in the world. So as far as I can tell, the latest public goal for Giga Nevada is 24 megawatts of solar on the roof and Gigatexis set to be at 30 when it's done, the biggest in the world.
Clearly this is not just for headlines and yes there will be larger upfront costs for Tesla installing these systems but of course over time whatever the payback period ROI ultimately is, there will come a time when this becomes financially beneficial for Tesla harnessing free energy from the sun.
This one goes in line with what we talked about yesterday, Tesla working on the world's largest virtual power plant in Puerto Rico. Well, at the same time we have the Department of Energy announcing $440 million in grants to install rooftop solar and batteries in Puerto Rico.
I just found this one kind of ironic and when you think about it slightly disappointing because what our government is essentially trying to do, Tesla is out here doing on their own without one word of approval from our government. Either way though, it looks like this $400 million will be given to Generac, Sonova and Sunrun for projects in Puerto Rico.
It has to be squeaky, squeaky, clean. Look, but we can read about every death where a person wasn't in control and in graphic detail. Yeah. And then those manufacturers would be liable. Right. So that's a whole other question that the policy world hasn't caught up with. Remember the division of labor that we have in this country is that we the federal government regulate the car and the state, the B.M.V. regulates the driver.
Our system does not contemplate things like liability if the car is the driver and that's part of what we need to work on in the policy. How does insurance catch up with that? There's a million. Yeah, but the other end of the pot of gold so to speak at the end of this journey is that we could have a radically safer country because frankly the track record of human drivers is murderous. Right.
Pretty encouraging to hear the transportation secretary still speak of the importance of autonomy despite all of the regulatory hurdles that lie ahead and everything that's taken place with Cruz over the past few weeks. I think he very easily could have come out and publicly pump the brakes on autonomy a little bit saying we need more oversight, more regulation so that what happened with Cruz does not happen again.
But by this clip, his eyes are still fixed on the prize exactly what we need to anybody out there that maybe mistakenly thought gig in Mexico was totally put on hold for now.
We do have some Tesla suppliers actually getting ready for the launch of gig in Mexico, not only Tesla suppliers, but other industry companies are planning to set up shop in Nuevo Leone as Tesla does what it does attracts other business development.
When it comes to Tesla suppliers, we have a shock absorption company investing $700 million and JL Mag Rare Earth Company investing $500 million in the region. Both of these companies expected to begin construction of their facilities next year.
In case you forgot, at the end of October, Gig in Mexico did get all of the federal and regional permits that it needs to be able to build Gig in Mexico.
如果你忘了,十月底,Gig in Mexico已经获得了建设Gig in Mexico所需的所有联邦和地区许可证。
This one's pretty cool, something I think Tesla should do, but we have the EPA launching an EV video challenge. Not huge prizes, but first place is 3000, second is 1000, third place $500. They're asking for 1-2 minute video submissions that showcase positive aspects of electric transport.
Pause if you'd like, but here is their methodology for how they plan to score and rank all of these submissions. The EPA said they will take submissions until January 23rd, 2024. The winners will be announced early 2024, so good to see the EPA looking for creative ways to push forward the narrative of EVs being the superior option.
This morning, Elon said at Gig in Berlin today to congratulate the team on their excellent progress. The factory looks amazing. We're going to cover all the concrete with art. Further, according to Gig in Berlin news on X, they said Elon announced today during his visit that the 25,000 euro or dollar next gen Tesla will be built at Gig in Berlin.
今天上午,埃隆在柏林的Gig(Gigafactory)上表达了对团队在进展上的出色工作的祝贺。这家工厂看起来令人惊叹。我们将为所有的混凝土上面覆盖艺术。此外,根据X网站上Gig in Berlin的消息,他们表示埃隆在今天的访问中宣布,将在柏林的Gigafactory建造将售价25,000欧元或美元的下一代特斯拉汽车。
This little anecdote of course will make any Gig in Berlin factory expansion talk a little bit more exciting. We've just been speculating in terms of what future vehicles they may make in addition to the Model Y. Now we have some insight.
So at least in terms of what we've had publicly confirmed, we have Gig Austin, Gig in Berlin and Gig in Mexico set to build the next gen platform. With Tesla always looking to localize production and these smaller vehicles selling very well in many European locations, this move definitely makes a lot of sense.
Elon also posted on X, Gig in Berlin, the jewel of Germany. Tesla Europe posted the Model Y now starts at 44.9 thousand euros in the Netherlands, making it eligible for the 2950 euro S.E.P. incentive.
Today we have more news trickling in confirming the brutality of the EV competition right now, especially in the Chinese market. BYD is temporarily cutting domestic prices on certain models by as much as 10% all month amid growing competition in the key market category.
This does include the popular BYD song. BYD said it's offering the discount to commemorate the sale of the million the vehicle under its ocean series. I would add though, there are many ways you can commemorate a milestone that do not include major discounts to your vehicle lineup. Although if that really is the only reason then hats off to them, that's a nice gesture. Julie seems to be doing the same thing with a ZEAKER 001 discounted 10% until the end of December. We also have NIO with job cuts and deferring and cutting some investment as it contends with widening losses in rising competition.
NIO CEO William Lee said they plan to cut about 10% of their positions. He said the company will also defer or cut project investment that won't benefit financial performance in the next three years. He apologized for the job cuts saying it's a tough but necessary decision against the fierce competition. We still have a gap between our overall performance and expectations. He said the next two years will witness the most intense competition during the transformation of the auto industry in an environment full of uncertainty. NIO had a net loss of $828 million in quarter two of this year and I'm just not sold that their new cell phone is going to be their ticket out of the red.
And it continues. Lucid also offering pretty significant discounts on the air specifically in Canada and the United States offering discounts of up to $13.4,000 in Canada and up to $10,000 in the US. Just like BYD though, they said these discounts are only valid until November 30th this year.
Lucid is set to report its Q3 financials on November 7th. Personally for all of these companies, I'll be very curious to see if they actually raise the prices again after these temporary discounts. Of course, offering a temporary discount is just a way to try to get consumers to go buy the car now and not wait. But the reality is if these companies don't like what they're seeing with demand now and things don't go well over the next 30 or 60 days again, are they really going to raise prices by $10,000?
We'll see. Monroe released a video on its first Model X battery pack teardown. Just want to play two quick clips. This is a 100 kilowatt hour version of this pack. There are 16 modules which are comprised of 18650 form factor cylindrical cells. So there are 16 modules total in this pack with the 75 kilowatt hour variant having 14. The two modules stacked on top of one another in this front compartment being absent from that 75 kilowatt hour variant. So they're physically decontenting the pack here in order to accommodate those different capacities. However, in the past they have done software limiting. So they've had common packs and then simply use the software and the vehicle to limit the available range and then you can later purchase an upgrade. They've discontinued that again as was present for this 2020 model year version. However, recently it's been confirmed that they are moving back to that sort of a setup. So we're now going to be seeing common battery packs for both capacities. The standard and extended ranges with a presumably option to purchase a range upgrade if you initially got that lower capacity battery pack.
One of the main things with these is that they were an absolute treat to remove from the vehicle. It's everything is done from the underside. So again, lending to that pack swap station, nothing cabin side needs to be affected. So no carpet needs to be removed, no trim, no seats, everything can be done strictly from the underside of the vehicle with a series of fasteners and then also moving some air shields out of the way. However, it's very, very easy to remove this pack from the vehicle. I think by the time we had done three or got to the fourth of this specific type of pack, it took 10 to 15 minutes only to disconnect all the fasteners and remove it with our lift table. So while the pack swapping might not be what that's primarily used for servicing these is certainly going to be a lot easier than a Model Y or even some others like a Lucid or what we'll be talking about in a few weeks here. We've also taken a look at a Porsche Taycan and that had its own set of considerations for the pack removal. So definitely like that aspect of this design.
These videos often serve as a good reminder. There are so many little changes at the micro battery pack level that oftentimes we don't even hear about that year to year Tesla continues to make totally in the silence. This was also from Monroe Live. It was two days ago, but in case you missed this video, there was this one slide I think is worth sharing maybe screenshotting real quick just going over some of the improvements when you actually move to gigacasting specifically compared to stamping and welding things you may not always think about floor space utilization 47% better with gigacastings investment cost 8% cheaper with gigacastings and your labor savings approximately 65% with gigacasts back to Tesla and the strike situation this time in Sweden. I'm going to report what I'm reading, but again, it's tough to really confirm what's actually going on because I'm hearing a lot of conflicting reports.
So far we've heard strikes have been taking place at mechanic shops for Tesla in Sweden, but then we've heard that not really that many workers are striking. I've heard none are striking either way. The word is Tesla Motors Sweden and IF Mattall some of the national mediation office on Tuesday and Tesla representatives withdrew from negotiations citing their corporate policy not to sign collective agreements in any country. In response, IF Mattall immediately expanded the strike notice to all repair shops that service Tesla vehicles in Sweden. This would be an additional 470 workers in 16 cities that would be affected by this next phase of the strike set to begin today. Honestly, from everything I'm picking up on this one, it's not even so much about the financial negotiations or demands of the IF Mattall in Sweden. It really might be more of a principal situation here for Elon and Tesla if they sign a collective agreement here, then that's only going to give more ammo to people like the UAW and E-Game at all in Berlin. It's also being reported that since Tesla Sweden is not playing ball so far that there may be some sympathy strikes of other surrounding unions because Sweden is basically 90% unionized that may actually try to help the IF Mattall in Sweden and block Tesla's operations.
Now we have dock workers in Sweden threatening to block deliveries of New Teslas entering the country. This blockade is planned to start November 7th and if it goes ahead, no Teslas will be able to enter Sweden. It's a pretty interesting situation because the workers at these ports clearly do not work for Tesla and they're doing it in solidarity of the workers at Tesla's Swedish shops.
Bloomberg has said that Sweden was Tesla's fifth biggest market in Europe so far this year with 16.3 thousand new vehicles registered in the first nine months. Here you have it though, conflicting reports. Some people are working despite the strike. Tesla has also restarted negotiations with IF Mattall. Talks were held yesterday and are due to take place again on Monday.
I'll be honest, I still have more questions than answers but as things unfold here, I'll do my best to figure out what's actually going on. And I know some of you out there watching are in Sweden so if you have the time and any insight and you want to shoot me an email, I'd be happy to hear what you have to say.
For those of you in the EU on the Tesla shop, there is a new Gigabrelin T-shirt for 40 euro in two colors. Elon and his lawyers are still battling with the SEC over this potential securities fraud in his takeover of X. Elon's lawyers accused the SEC of attempting to tarnish Elon with baseless accusations. The latest filing said this is just the latest chapter in a more than five year saga of agency harassment against Elon and related entities. The details may change but the story stays the same. Bad faith investigations conducted by officials acting in clear violation of the constitution. The SEC has proceeded in excess of its authority and contrary to the law and its application should be denied. Just a reminder that the things Elon deals with on a daily basis is quite staggering.
Listen, on this one, I cannot confirm this because where I'm located right now, this is not showing up for me but on Reddit, I found this image of a Kia EV9 Google search resulting in a sponsored Tesla Model Y ad as the first result. So if you have some time, maybe you want to throw in some keywords and see if you see any of Tesla's text based Google ads right now. And a good friend of mine, Peter actually sent me this. If you look at Tesla's ad words, you will see keywords currently for Tesla 292 when it comes to paid search traffic. So Tesla's testing of text based Google ads continues.
Hope you guys have a wonderful and a safe weekend. Please like the video. If you did, you can find me on X linked below and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.