Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. Quick shout out to an updated patron, JB. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. From the times of India, the Indian government is now aiming to have all necessary clearances in place by January 2024 when it comes to Tesla's potential factories in India.
At a recent meeting, they emphasized the need to expedite approvals for Tesla's proposed investment in India. As we've heard in the past, Tesla has expressed interest in bringing its supply chain over to the Indian market. And right now, the Indian government has been tasked with eliminating any differences between the two sides.
One of the biggest points of contention has been on import duties. They're saying Tesla has sought a 40% import duty on fully assembled EVs when right now it's 60% on cars below $40,000, any car above that threshold it's actually 100%. To address that issue, the Indian government is considering introducing a new import policy category that would lead to lower taxation for environmentally friendly vehicles.
But officials have said any potential incentive here would not be exclusive to Tesla, but for anybody looking to set up shop. We know the Indian government wants Tesla and really everybody else to set up local manufacturing, though the government is now encouraging Tesla to apply for the production linked incentive scheme offering direct subsidies to manufacturers in place of those customs duty concessions.
The problem however is that all along Tesla has wanted to try selling their vehicles in the Indian market before they actually commit to building a gigafactory in the region. Given that most Tesla vehicles are over that $40,000 threshold to have those customers paying $80,000 for a $40,000 car because of the 100% import tax, obviously somewhat of a non-starter.
In India when it comes to these import duties, it's actually the importer of the goods, aka Tesla in this case that would pay those taxes, however most companies then ultimately pass those on to the end consumer. Good to see the government pushing to have these approvals ready by January of 2024, but again this does not guarantee that any construction would begin in the first half of next year or even that India is the next factory for Tesla. But as I've said all along, even if it's not the next one, it most likely will be one at some point in the future.
We have a Swedish article reporting the strike against Tesla has been expanded. Right now there are 10 service facilities in Sweden on strike and around 20 workshops. So far this has mostly been affecting service centers and Tesla mechanics, but not all employees have been joining in on this strike.
Now we have a transport union saying that there's going to be a blockade against all loading and unloading against Tesla cars in four Swedish ports as of noon today. Now they're saying this blockade will apply to all Swedish ports from November 17th if no deal is reached. With further sympathy strikes we now have another union saying they will not clean the company's premises which will also go into effect November 17th.
But for the first time as far as I can tell Tesla actually made a public comment on the situation saying it's unfortunate IF Mattall has taken these measures. Tesla follows Swedish labor market regulations but like many other companies has chosen not to enter into a collective agreement. We already offer equivalent or better agreements than those covered by collective bargaining and find no reason to sign any other agreement.
The Swedish unions are now also calling for the support of the local electricians and they're saying all Tesla charging stations throughout Sweden are affected by this industrial action which would be 213 locations. I'll be honest this article did not make it clear if this had anything to do with the operation of supercharging locations or if it would just be for some sort of service to these supercharger sites.
Tesla also said it was committed to remaining available to our customers during the strike and the New York Times is confirming that Tesla is seemingly bringing in other workers to replace those that are on strike. The word on the street was that Tesla was actually routing shipments into Sweden to different ports so that's why now they're trying to extend the blockade to all of the ports. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
I've seen a few people suggest that Tesla should just leave Sweden entirely to send a message and it would certainly do that. However, Sweden is normally around the 5th largest market for Tesla in the EU. I'll be honest though I do struggle to see Tesla and Elon actually signing a collective agreement even though it wouldn't change that much financially it would set some type of precedent again for the UAW and IG Mattall in Berlin to have more firepower.
And of course you would never want to lose an entire market altogether but with Elon and Tesla having such grand global plans the truth is in the long run they could actually do without Sweden. Hopefully this does not come to that but we'll see.
As if Legacy Auto didn't have enough on the cost front to worry about, now we have a new report saying that having AM radio and electric vehicles could end up costing automakers almost $4 billion. That would be over the next 7 years. Why? Because they would have to address the interference that disrupts AM radio reception and electric vehicles. Researchers have said that you can just delete and analog AM radio and replace it with something like digital, AM and FM radio or streaming and satellite services. However there have been legislative efforts on both sides of the aisle to prevent automakers from getting rid of AM broadcast radio in new vehicles because it's often used for emergency services. Here they listed 7 automakers that currently don't offer AM radio in their EVs, Tesla being one of them. One automaker estimated shielding costs to allow AM radio to work in EVs would be between $35 and $50 and filtering costs of $15 to $20 per vehicle. So if you add up the rough midpoints and get about $60 times, we'll call it 5 million vehicles per year, that's $300 million in costs just to make sure AM radio works.
There have been a few different sources out there saying that Tesla is going to raise the price on the Model Y sometime this week. And now we have more sources saying that Tesla actually confirmed it's true. Now I have to say some of you will remember last year there were rumors of Tesla cutting prices and Tesla came out and said they were not going to do it and then a few weeks later they went ahead and cut prices. I can't comment on the validity of this source that Ray for Tesla shared however translating that image you will see the price will be adjusted accordingly. And Tesla plans to increase production, the product price responded that the news was true. So I'm not sure if this is a good idea to be a good idea to be a good idea to be a good idea. I'm not sure if they'll go up at all. And as I've said before, not every price hike means great things for demand. Why? Because this could be in response to many things. It could be due to the partial Model Y refresh. It could be due to a supply chain component price going up. It could be a temporary measure to pull demand forward and get people off the sidelines that may still be waiting for further price cuts. You get the idea.
有一些不同的消息源声称特斯拉将在本周提高Model Y的价格。如今我们又有更多的消息源称特斯拉已经确认了这一消息是真实的。我必须说,你们中的一些人可能还记得去年有传言称特斯拉会降价,但特斯拉出面否认了这一说法,然而几周后他们还是降价了。我无法对Ray for Tesla分享的这个消息来源的真实性发表评论,不过通过翻译那张图片你会发现价格将会相应调整。而且特斯拉计划增加生产,产品价格也对此消息作出回应,这表明消息是真实的。所以我不能确定价格是否会上涨。正如我之前说过的,不是每次提价都意味着需求的增加。为什么呢?因为这可能是对很多事情的回应。可能是因为部分Model Y的更新换代,可能是供应链组件的价格上涨,也可能是为了暂时推动需求并吸引那些仍在等待进一步降价的消费者。你明白我的意思吧。
We may have one of the first countries worldwide to come out publicly and say who is going to be responsible when a self driving vehicle gets in an accident. Britain just came out and said automakers rather than the owners of self driving cars will be legally liable for any crashes in the UK. The legislation will create powers to find companies and give people immunity from prosecution if they're in a self driving vehicle. And the manufacturers of these self driving vehicles could face criminal action in the UK if their vehicles fail to meet safety standards. The bill will also prohibit misleading marketing, which begs the question how it will Tesla be impacted if at all, where they are indeed still offering FSD for $8,300 in the UK. This is also where a customer from the UK just got his money back for FSD from 2019. Honestly though, for the industry at scale, this is a great first step because they really need clarity and that's exactly what a rep from AXA Insurance said for insurers. It provides crucial clarity for establishing liability for self driving. The bill will set the threshold for what is classified as a self driving car, something I think all of us will be looking forward to see how they define it. You would guess the natural reaction for the companies would be to maybe slow down their plans to rush out any self driving vehicles now that they're going to be fully responsible. But again, the big question will become at what point does a vehicle become classified as a self driving car? For example, will it be closer to when adaptive cruise control is engaged or when there's no steering wheel in the vehicle?
There's a fancy looking new Tesla showroom coming to West Bloomfield Township in Michigan, where the construction is expected to be done July 2024. Tesla will be taking over an old Barnes and Noble site, but they will also be constructing a new building to actually house their vehicles because in this area they're not allowed to keep them outside.
Again, just a quick anecdote to throw out to friends, families, coworkers, let them know right now could be a good time to look into buying an EV. Yes, interest rates are high, but many automakers are offering discounts and incentives in various forms. These are cash rebates, aggressive lease deals, or low interest rate promotions. Two examples, Ford is offering a $7,500 cash rebate on top of the federal tax credit of some F-150 Lightning models, and VW is advertising an ID for lease with no down payment.
I saw some people today talking about this Tesla position program manager for collision readiness saying that this was going to be for a cyber truck. I'm just speculating here, but given the cyber truck is going to go to customers here in just a few weeks, this role will most likely be for future product lines, maybe the new Model 3 and why, maybe the next gen platform, maybe the semi, but it seems like it's too late for the cyber truck, given customer deliveries are right around the corner, and they still actually have to hire for this position. My point, cyber truck is most likely already pretty collision ready at this stage.
We got the Testachana weekly insurance data that came in at $14,000. Taking that number in for the week if you wanted to compare it to the same week last quarter, that number was $12,000, and looking cumulatively at the first 5 weeks in quarter 3, we were at $44,000, over the same time period in quarter 4 were at $41,000, slightly behind the pace, but that was to be expected given the Model 3 Plus changeover. Going back to the beginning of July this year, there's only been one better week, and that was in August. I'll be honest, I usually have no expectations for these weekly numbers, but right now I am kind of curious to see how it plays out the next few weeks, because I am expecting some level of pent up demand for the Model 3 Plus. Now that Tesla can finally sell them in the domestic market, I'm lowkey excited to see the next few weeks.
This is a pretty interesting one, we have the Remots Navera setting a Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest top speed in reverse of 170 miles per hour. Personally, I think the driver deserves his own separate award, because we'll say you have to have some courage to pull off this stunt in the first place. You'd imagine any slight turn of the wheel going that fast in reverse could have some pretty bad consequences.
Tesla Europe posted our Powerball fleet in Europe just surpassed 1 gigawatt hour. This is enough stored energy to power an average of 41,000 homes for 12 hours. For some context, if you take that 1 gigawatt hour, that's equivalent to 1 million kilowatt hours, then if you divide that by the average capacity of a Powerball, that would be 74,000 Powerwalls currently live in the fleet in Europe. And don't forget the Powerball 3 is expected to be launching in select markets in Quarter 1, 2024.
The first did actually publicly confirm some of the information that was flying around out there about its driverless operations. Halvoat said cruise autonomous vehicles are being remotely assisted 2-4% of the time on average in complex urban environments. A spokesperson said a remote assistance session is triggered roughly every 4-5 miles, not every 2.5 miles. They added more than 98% of sessions are answered within 3 seconds. A session is basically when the cruise vehicle actually asks for guidance. There was plenty of chatter about the ratio of workers to actual vehicles. They did clarify, during driverless operations, there was roughly one remote assistant agent for every 15-20 driverless AVs. That metric that there were 1.5 workers for every 1 cruise vehicle that would obviously defeat the purpose of having driverless vehicles in the first place may not have actually been accurate, at least according to cruise. But as we've learned in the past few weeks, they may not be the most trustworthy company at the moment, so not sure what really to believe. And all of this may ultimately become moot if cruise goes the way of companies like Argo AI and ultimately folds up or morphs into a shell of itself.
Neo has said it will make EVs for the American market in China saying that setting up shop in America is just too expensive even with the tax credits. Neo is aiming to sell its first EV in the US by 2025. And for the future and other Chinese companies coming to the American market, they did say for Neo products there are a lot of local suppliers in China who exclusively provide to us, they don't do business in the United States. It sounds like Neo may bring a high-end model to the US first as it would be too expensive to qualify for the credits anyway, but they finished by saying this. One asked if Neo would launch in 2025 for sure, Iyer, the CEO for their US operations, said, that's what we said two years ago, but things are changing.
We know Tesla is looking to reduce its dependence on rare earth elements and in their next drive train they plan to remove them altogether. Coming at a good time, as China will tighten export controls on rare earth elements requiring companies to do more reporting. These restrictions are set to run through the end of October 2025 and China accounts for 70% of the world's output of rare earths.
We know there's plenty of foot out there about end of life batteries in electric vehicles and recycling the whole nine. I'm sure we're going to get questions about battery energy storage, what happens at the end does it just sit in the landfill or stay there unused. Well neither and here's exhibit A we have redwood materials actually decommissioning and recycling a battery storage project from Hawaii that's at the end of its useful life. It's a smaller project at 4.6 megawatt hours, but you have to start somewhere.
Speaking of battery storage, the CEO of Sunrun just said they're rapidly transitioning to a storage first company moving away from solar. Now yes, this will make a lot of sense with interest rates where they are because they can tend to make solar actually less economically viable, but we should also be familiar with the massive demand for battery storage. Interestingly, Wood McKenzie said in the first quarter of this year only 11% of all new residential solar systems in the US were built with battery storage.
We just talked about how Tesla might leverage its compute power on its fleet of vehicles to do some distributed computing in the future. Now we have Volvo cars looking to do something similar, except with its battery packs. Volvo launched a new business division focused on smart and bidirectional charging solutions for EVs. An initial pilot project of vehicle-to-grid applications is being established in Sweden. They'll also focus on vehicle to home and vehicle to load. There are of course warranty considerations and practicality considerations for the actual real-world utility of these features, but you do have to try it to see if it'll actually work long term.
Ford's EV plans right now are somewhat in a state of disarray. Here we have them talking about pausing, they said $12 million in investments, but I believe they actually meant $12 billion. Why? Because I'm pretty sure they were referring to this recent news article. And not only that one, but this one as well. Originally, Ford said they would have three battery production facilities in the US. Now they're saying at least one of those will still be built, but to start it's not actually going to be used for anything. Additionally, they're delaying construction of a separate battery factory in Turkey. This factory was expected to begin by the end of this year, but a source said given for its recent decision to cut EV investments, the industry slowdown, and local circumstances, there's little incentive for the stakeholders to proceed quickly. However, they added nothing has been decided concerning the construction site and the ground breaking timing. This site in Turkey was going to start at 25 gigawatt hours, eventually potentially growing to 45. That entire project, however, may be delayed.
Delantis just announced a new EV truck, but with an on-board gas generator. They're calling it the Ram 1500 Ram Charger. The truck can operate as an EV until its battery dies, and then an electric onboard generator, powered by a 27-gallon V6 engine, kicks on to power the vehicle. Ram CEO said this is the ultimate answer for the battery electric truck. No one else has got anything else like it. This is going to be a game changer for battery electric trucks. This is expected to go on sale in late 2024, alongside their actual full EV truck, the Ram 1500. So they're saying this Ram Charger is the ultimate answer for electric trucks while they roll out their own electric truck. Delantis is estimating the range of the Ram Charger will be up to 690 miles, including up to 145 miles powered by a 92-kilowatt hour battery when fully charged. Which yes, would of course be great for towing applications. Delantis had said the truck will be exclusively propelled by electric motors, not the vehicle's engine once the battery dies. It will have bidirectional charging, and they said don't call this a plug-in hybrid. It's a battery electric truck with its own onboard high-speed charger.
The EV pickup market is going to be very interesting the next three years. Holestar is offering a new lease program with a five-month opt-out clause with no penalty. Right now this is available on the Polestar 2, but they said it applies to upcoming Polestar models as well. Honestly, not a bad option to let somebody try out an electric vehicle without committing for the full three years.
Lucid announced its Q3 financials, and they said the Aston Martin transaction has been closed which is good and hopefully in the future Lucid remains more than just a drive train and technology provider.
The gravity is still set to make its debut on November 16th, and as expected, Lucid did cut its production guidance for this year down to 8,000 to 8,500 from 10,000 previously.
They said the gravity remains on track to begin production in late 2024, and they ended the third quarter with $5.4 billion in liquidity, which they expect to lead them to their next major milestone, gravity production, and beyond in 2025.
For Q3 of this year, Lucid's revenue was actually down compared to Q3 in 2022, and Lucid actually lost more from operations this quarter than they did Q3 last year. Their gap net loss also increased year over year.
Potentially relevant to Tesla, they said we are seeing results from our targeted marketing approach as the majority of new demand came from customers who had their first contact with Lucid in the quarter.
The way things are going, I would absolutely expect Lucid to need to raise more capital in the next two years. This all boils down to how long the Saudi Investment Fund will want to fund this Lucid project. They clearly have billions of dollars to throw at Lucid and giving that they own around 60% of the company, how long do they want to try to see this through, and at what point if ever will they cut their losses.
Rivian also reported Q3 financials today. He learned Rivian has ended its exclusivity agreement for its EDVs electric delivery vans to Amazon only. Effective immediately, Rivian will be allowed to negotiate new deals to sell its EDVs to other fleet operators. Rivian does still plan to honor its original deal with Amazon to deliver 100,000 vans by 2030.
In contrast to Lucid cutting guidance, Rivian has increased its production guidance for the year, expecting to build 54,000 EVs this year, up from 52,000 back from guidance in August, which is actually up from 50,000 for 2023 guidance back in February.
Both Rivian and Lucid did actually beat the consensus expectations for earnings per share. Rivian came in with a loss of $1.19 per share, better than the $1.32 expected.
They did say compared to the second quarter of 2023 gross profit per unit delivered in the third quarter, improved by approximately $2,000 despite a reduced change in lower of cost or net realizable value, LC-NRV, right downs on inventory and losses on firm purchase commitments.
We expect to see continued benefit going forward due to further improvements and R1 material cost per unit from the reduction in commodity costs, the introduction of new tech, and ongoing negotiated supplier price reductions. They actually said those inventory write downs were $292 million for the quarter and losses on firm purchase commitments were $160 million totaling $452 million for the end of Q3.
Most importantly, they said we forecast reaching positive gross profit in 2024. The easiest way to think about this inventory thing, if a company is carrying inventory at a certain level and it's actually higher than the realizable value or what it can actually convert that inventory into in terms of cash, then companies can actually have write downs.
And in Q3, Rivian did set records for production and deliveries. Rivian had a negative gross profit of $477 million in Q3, which was down from negative gross profit of $917 million in Q3 last year. Rivian ended the quarter with $10.2 billion in total liquidity.
Rivian's growing production, growing deliveries, cutting costs, increasing its guidance, and reiterating it expects gross profitability into next year. Exactly what you'd want to see as an investor.
Tesla's diecast Model Y is now available on the Tesla shop for $195 coming in three different colors with functioning doors and carpeted trunk and interior.
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