Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. So first up, if you zoom in on that Cybertruck video, we can see some things on the UI. The terrain and the topography feature the way it blends in with the map is pretty cool but this vehicle was actually charging at the time, currently sitting at 71% state of charge, 55 minutes remaining. We can also see the charge limit was set to 100% and it appears as though it was charging at 77 kilowatts, 75 miles per hour and then it listed plus 50 kilowatt hours.
It's somewhat faint but you can see a line right here with the bottom portion lit up green. I'd also add it seems like an interesting design choice to have this font sideways rather than just put it right here so people can read it normally. I do feel like I need to mention there are some people out there talking about the Cybertruck having a 250 kilowatt hour battery pack but as far as I can tell, they were doing some extrapolations from this data on the screen but failing to account for whatever the charge curve might be on the Cybertruck as we get up over 80% and then toward 100%.
So if you'd like to do some creative math here be my guess but I definitely don't want to add to any speculation this close to the delivery event but there are the numbers for you if you wanted to play around. I'm not expecting it per se but I really do hope we get at least a quick demo of the UI and some of the new features you can see on the screen, Tano open and close at the delivery event but if we don't get it then in the weeks ahead customers will start posting videos.
Real quick Bloomberg put out a report that turned out to be false. They were talking about a Starlink IPO as soon as next year which I'm sure would get many people including myself excited. Elon quickly chimed in saying it's false. Jeff put together a great video. It's something I've touched on a few times in the past when it comes to Tesla's supply chain and the leverage that they already have when it comes to EV volumes and suppliers actually fighting each other to try to win some of Tesla's business.
One talking point that's gone overlooked is what the $25,000 car for Tesla will mean not only for that supply chain but for its current supply chain negotiations for the Model Y3 and others right now. Simply put with this upcoming platform expected to do 2-3-5 million vehicles per year it's a chunk of business all suppliers are going to want to win.
What do suppliers really want? It's high volume and consistency. Now pair that with most of the industry now pulling back some of its EV plans or shifting to hybrid Tesla is in a very unique position to capitalize on these trends not just when it comes to vehicle sales and market share but also when it comes to the supply chain leverage.
Meaning over the next few years it's just another tailwind when it comes to Tesla's margins. Myer shared some images of Tesla's Lithium Refinery at Corpus Christi. It's been about 2 months since our last update. We'll have to watch Joe's video to get some more detail but just comparing visually what we saw from last time it doesn't look like a ton of progress but it's not nothing either.
The last update we got from Tesla's senior manager of operations was they'll begin commissioning the assets roughly at the start of next year. This momentum will continue in earnest during the first half of the year. Production will ramp up in the last half of 2024. Friendly reminder on Elon's comments he said I'd like to once again urge entrepreneurs to enter the Lithium Refining Business.
There are software like margins to be made in Lithium processing. You can't lose. It's a license to print money. So technically Tesla's variants of this money printer will be turned on sometime next year but I'm expecting sometime into 2025 and beyond where it may actually have a material impact on Tesla's margins. However, to keep us rooted in reality Elon also said it's quite difficult and requires a massive amount of machinery and it's a hard thing to scale.
I think it's time we talk about it briefly when it comes to the EV transition being different than we expected. For a while over the past year or two there was so much momentum in corporate investment when it comes to batteries and EVs. As we've all heard over the past few weeks that sentiment has changed pretty drastically.
Now we have a lot of companies shifting their focus to hybrid technology. It becomes pretty obvious why when you look around anyone not named Tesla or BYD are struggling mightily to make full EVs profitably. Simply put it's much easier for these companies to make an actual profit on hybrid vehicles compared to full BEV.
And no I'm not going off of just one post from CDG. Today we also got pretty big news that Toyota has decided to make its ever popular Camry hybrid only next year. We have Toyota doubling down on hybrids and they also just unveiled a new hybrid SUV, the Crown Signia, also going on sale next year. Toyota's head of sales in North America said hybrids are more sought after and in shorter supply. Earlier this month Toyota reported record breaking profit thanks in part to sales of hybrid vehicles. Toyota executives also said the company is now making a profit on hybrids that's comparable to that of purely gasoline powered vehicles.
The new Camry will have all wheel drive available and the head of the brand said it was a big decision because of the volume. In cars where we sell a hybrid and an ice, usually the hybrid is selling faster and at a faster turn rate. Toyota does have experience converting a model to all hybrid as they did this in 2021 with the Sienna minivan. The Camry is Toyota's second best selling vehicle in the United States trailing only the Rav4.
Hybrid sales of the Camry represented only 11% of the nameplates overall volume. And the Camry remains the top selling midsize sedan in the US through the first 9 months of 2023. This is effectively Toyota making a pretty big bet that the other 90% of Camry customers are going to be willing to shift to hybrid only. And here's a quick look at the 2025 redesign.
It's not just Toyota doubling down on hybrids a high volume automaker we have Ford planning to double production of their hybrid F-150 for 2024. Ford said it's tooling up to equip 20% of the F-150 lineup to gas electric powertrains for next year. And we just talked about BYD with its huge volumes about half of which are hybrid vehicles and their higher gross margins on the hybrid lineup.
I think most of us would agree though how this is ultimately going to play out. Hybrids were really only meant to be a bridge to electric vehicles. Hybrids certainly serve a purpose but they have extra parts and extra complexity from a first principle standpoint it does not make the most sense. And the longer these companies focus on hybrid technology it means they're not focusing all of their resources and R&D on full battery electrics to ever be able to compete with Tesla.
Speaking of competing with Tesla, Alex Sheridan excerpt from an interview with VW CEO Thomas Schafer, head of passenger cars. He was asked are you worried about Tesla soon to be building a $25,000 car. He said not really, especially as there has been an extreme drop in prices for some models. Adding these are negative effects for customers which definitely spoil the residual values of the vehicles. Personally I don't know too many customers that don't like lower prices. He said we think it makes more sense to adjust production capacity and balance things out in this way.
在谈到与特斯拉竞争的话题上,Alex Sheridan引述了大众汽车CEO Thomas Schafer(乘用车部门负责人)的一段访谈。他被问到对特斯拉即将生产一辆售价为25,000美元的车是否感到担忧。他的回答是没有特别的担忧,特别是因为有些车型的价格下降得非常厉害。他补充说,这些对消费者来说是负面效应,因为这肯定会使车辆的残值贬值。我个人不知道有多少顾客不喜欢价格更低。他说,我们认为更有意义的做法是调整生产能力,通过这种方式来平衡各种因素。
The way I read this though, it's like VW just said they're looking to keep their prices high because if they were to lower prices they themselves will run into problems on their balance sheet when it comes to their own residual values. Just a quick one I've had a few other people from Sweden reach out letting me know that there are only about 6 or so Tesla employees that have actually joined in on the strike. In the summary of what Nicolas has been reporting is that so far Tesla has been doing a pretty good job of getting around these blockades and ensuring that operations continue.
A federal appeals court has ruled that Tesla's ban on employees wearing union t-shirts is not a violation of federal labor laws, overturning a decision from the National Labor Relations Board. It sounds like Tesla's rule on employees not being able to wear union t-shirts will go back into effect. In case you've missed it, check in for the Cybertruck Deliver event is 1PM Central Time. Let me know if any of you are lucky enough to be attending, we also have Martin Vieja saying he will float the idea of getting a bigger venue at some point in the future for their annual meeting.
Today the DOE announced up to $3.5 billion to boost domestic production of advanced batteries and battery materials nationwide. This will include a focus on retaining and creating good paying union jobs. With this round of funding, the DOE is prioritizing next-gen battery technology and battery chemistries in addition to lithium tech, full applications will be due March 19th, 2024.
I've seen some pretty interesting takes on this one today from GM buying one of Tesla's suppliers. This company, TEI, tooling and equipment international, we have sources saying will be a key part of GM's strategy to make up ground on Tesla. The EI specializes in sand casting techniques. We talked about this a few weeks back when it comes to the single-piece casting potentially for the upcoming $25,000 Tesla. This sand casting process really has to do with the prototype development phase. It effectively allows faster iteration in a much cheaper fashion to design and create these molds that are then later used for the gigacasting.
我今天从GM购买特斯拉的供应商中看到了一些非常有趣的观点。有消息源称这家名为TEI(Tooling and Equipment International)的公司,将是GM迎头赶上特斯拉的关键策略。TEI专门进行砂型铸造技术。几个星期前我们讨论过这个问题,可能用于即将推出的25,000美元的特斯拉单块铸件。这个砂铸造过程真的与原型开发阶段有关。它有效地以更便宜的方式允许更快的迭代,设计并创造这些随后用于大型铸件的模具。
The extent to which Tesla has relied on TEI is not going to be clear, but soon enough, I'll tell you why I don't think it's that big of a deal. They did say Tesla is leaning more heavily on three other casting specialists in Britain, Germany and Japan. We have people saying Tesla is scrambling to find other casting specialists to fill TEI's role, or to develop crucial expertise in-house to cut reliance on outside suppliers.
TEI started helping Tesla in 2017 and they're saying they helped develop the gigacast mold prototypes for the Model 3, Cybertruck and the Semi. But this company was actually put up for sale last year. Meaning, if Tesla really wanted this company, if they were really that crucial to Tesla's operations here, Tesla could have easily afforded and bought this company and made the highest bid.
How do I know that? Because this source is telling us that GM paid less than $100 million for the company and $80 million at most. TEI will remain its own business entity with GM as its parent company, but this deal actually closed back on July 1st. I'm not an expert, but it seems pretty obvious two very crucial aspects of success with gigacast techniques, one having the actual gigapress machine itself, and then two the special alloy or the molten that is used to be injected for the casting.
As far as I can tell, this company, TEI has nothing to do with either of those directly. That's not at all to say that TEI has not been helpful to Tesla or that this isn't some sort of a setback for Tesla because I'm sure that it is. But Tesla has other suppliers doing the same thing, Tesla might be working on something in-house, and the way it sounds if Tesla really wanted or needed to buy this company, they had the option to.
Right now when it comes to GM, it looks like the UAW voting is too close to call. A majority of UAW members at several GM plans voted against the pact, but approval today this morning by a larger SUV plant in Arlington, Texas has given the deal a lifeline. Before the approval of this Texas plant today, the agreement appeared on pace for rejection. We do not have all of the latest votes accounted for in this number yet, but so far what we do have, they said the agreement has a 52% approval.
They added Ford and Stellantis so far have received higher voter approvals. Now if the GM deal is ultimately rejected, everything really is back on the table, they can go back to the negotiating table or they can go back to striking. I found this pretty interesting, some UAW members have been citing Sean Faines inflated expectations, specifically him talking about a 32 hour work week basically getting people's hopes up.
I wanted to clarify something with this one, we have VW saying they have not yet made a decision on a $21,000 EV, but Oliver Bloom is convinced the company can get there by the second half of the decade, in part because of their plans to produce a unified battery cell that it says will reduce battery costs by half. I saw some people interpreting this as VW is backing away from their ID to all vehicle that they unveiled earlier this year for $25,000. However, if you remember at the time VW was also talking about a separate $20,000 EV and I believe that's what they have not yet decided on. So if I'm interpreting this correctly then the ID to all is still in VW's plans.
For what it's worth, Oliver Bloom did say that inflation, the removal of subsidies and a lack of charging infrastructure are what's holding back EV demand. Renault's EV unit Ampere is still on track for an IPO in the first half of 2024. Seemingly in a way to hype up investors they're saying they're expecting revenue of $10.8 billion in 2025 and break even in the same year with operating margins of at least 10% by 2030.
This next line gives us an insight into the legacy way they said their IPO they would use those funds to accelerate development but also pay dividends sooner. This is not at all the Tesla way and I would argue not a good strategy for any growth company. Right now Ampere has about 11,000 employees a third of which are engineers. They have three factories in northern France, they're aiming for 300,000 EVs in 2025, up from 45,000 this year and they have plans for six EV models by 2030.
The IPO is not a foregone conclusion, Ampere wants the valuation somewhere around $10 billion or north of that but UBS analysts have said it may be closer to $3 billion to $4 billion. So if they don't think they can get the valuation they want they may have to look at alternative funding options like maybe selling part of its stake in Nissan.
Here you're looking at the first Mercedes Benz charging hub in North America specifically in Georgia. In a press release they talked about this location in sandy springs and they said they have plans to deliver 2500 chargers over 400 hubs across North America by the end of the decade. They'll have some of the fastest charging around with 400 kilowatt chargers provided by ChargePoint. They will be open to EVs of any brand. They will of course have a lounge with restrooms and food. They do have solar canopies and they have these indicators that are 15 feet high that from the road you can see the status of the charger in use free or reserved.
They also said that several hubs will open at Bucky's travel centers in Texas, Florida, Alabama and Georgia by the end of this year with of course further expansion next year. These sites will feature both CCS1 and the NEX. Polestar has officially started production of the Polestar 4 and first customer deliveries in China are expected before the end of this year. This is the first Polestar to feature that virtual rear window with a digital rearview mirror.
This is somewhat confusing with the 4 because this vehicle actually slides in between the 2 and the 3 in terms of size and price. All they said was official launch in other Polestar markets is planned for early next year with customer deliveries in those markets the same year. We've heard for the North American market this vehicle will start at $60,000 so between that and the fact that it's made outside of North America it would not qualify for the IRA credits.
A Reddit user shared an image of the Model 3 Plus out on the streets in San Francisco. Honestly for a few seconds it looked like a Model S to me from this angle. I'd love to get some clarity on their North American timing whether it's going to be early Q1 or later Q1. Here are the release notes for FSD beta 11.4.8. I won't read them to you so pause if you like but I did want to highlight one.
They have improved geometric accuracy of Vision Park Assist predictions by 16% by leveraging 10 times more hardware for data, tripling resolution and increasing overall stability of measurements. This will undoubtedly be a welcome sight for many as this has been one of the bigger complaints when it comes to the lack of ultrasonic sensors. And to everybody that's asking why is Tesla working on FSD 11 at all when FSD 12 is going to be a rewrite of sorts. Let us not forget it's actually FSD 11 and all of those prior versions that are leading to and have fed FSD 12.
So not only is FSD 11 still feeding and helping with FSD 12 development but it's the actual customer version that people are paying for and using. So until V12 is ready and here they should still be making FSD 11 better as well. Things are continuing to deteriorate for crews. They just said they'll pause all supervised and manual car trips in the US and expand the scope of investigations saying we'll continue to operate our vehicles in closed course training and an active simulation.
In addition to crews hiring a permanent safety officer that they said they were going to do they're also going to hire an outside safety expert. Let's go back in time to 2019 when the EU made speed limiters mandatory. That's because now we have the NTSB calling on all automakers to install anti-speeding technology. The NTSB actually wants NHTSA to make this a requirement and NHTSA has been gathering public feedback about these systems and if override systems should be allowed in vehicles.
It's not clear if this technology would be more of a warning system or something that would actually limit your speed in certain situations. Either way though NHTSA said they're still reviewing public comments and their final decision notice will come later this year.
Potentially one of the biggest battery storage projects in Europe has been approved. This one a 275 megawatt hour project in Germany. The developer said this would exceed the current largest facility in Europe by 50%. However, if you include the UK there are indeed some bigger projects in progress like one from Inova that's 2 gigawatt hours. But more importantly at the same time we have current legislation that exempts energy storage assets from grid fees if they go online before August 2026.
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That deadline has been extended by 3 years to August 2029. That of course is good news because we need time for Tesla's Megapack factory in Shanghai to get scaled up.