Hey everybody RobMower here, welcome back to Tesla Daily.
大家好,这里是RobMower,欢迎回到《特斯拉日报》。
Today we've got a handful of updates on the Cybertruck including more people being invited to order, an awesome new video from Saint-M-M-M-Roe going through some of the engineering details with some of Tesla's team, and a few other updates as well.
Alright, looking at the stock, slower starts the week for Tesla down 1.7% to $239.74 while the NASDAQ was up to tens of a percent on the day to day.
好的,看着股票,特斯拉以1.7%的幅度下跌至239.74美元,而纳斯达克在当天上升了几个百分点。
We'll start off with Cybertruck orders, so after a week or so of not really hearing anything on the progression of any orders from customers, Tesla has now started to send out those invitations to configure Cybertrucks, and this is only right now for the foundation series so we've already talked about the details and what those include, but basically a $20,000 premium and includes a number of options like FSD.
Thanks to one of our listeners who sent over the order screens, we can see all the details that Tesla has there, basically the all-wheel drive version for 100,000 or the cyber-based version for 120.
So far it seems like Tesla has sent out a few hundred of these invitations to order. It seems to be targeted in California and Texas for the most part, there have been some other reports of people in other states getting the invitation to, but then maybe a little bit of clarification that they had at the time of reservation then in California or Texas. So I think still a little bit of uncertainty around that, and in terms of the sequence of invites, it doesn't seem to be 100% sequential to reservation number.
Some people have noted that they were invited for a later reservation out of multiple reservations so we don't have a perfect understanding of how Tesla is handling this yet, but I would have to imagine it's in part based off of geography and part based off of sequence, and then maybe there's some other attributes that are getting mixed in.
So we'll try to get a better understanding of that, but either way very exciting to start to see these invitations open up a little bit more, which I think is a positive sign for the production ramp.
Not that this was ever going to be a Tesla semi situation, Tesla is very clearly further ahead on the production line with the cyber truck versus the semi, but any signs of progress like this, especially for non-employees to start to be invited is encouraging.
Additionally, some people that have placed their orders have had their status updated in their Tesla account for the cyber truck to prepare for delivery status, which although it doesn't give us a firm delivery date for any of those orders is also nice to see.
Next up, we've got a nice new video from Enro Live. This was around the time of the cyber truck delivery event, a conversation with Sandy and five of Tesla's top executives that we've heard from many times in the past.
We got some tidbits from that. This one I think was a little bit better executed.
我们从中得到了一些细枝末节的信息。我认为这个执行得稍微好一些。
We heard a lot of the engineering details from a number of these people. So this one I would put very high on the recommendation list to watch.
我们从很多人那里听到了很多关于工程细节的信息。因此,我会将这个推荐给大家,认为非常值得一看。
It is a lot of stuff that we've heard or talked about already, but just to hear them put it in their own words, I think is helpful.
这是我们之前已经听过或谈论过很多次的东西,但是以他们自己的话来表达,我认为是有帮助的。
That being said, try to recap the high points here.
话虽如此,尽量在这里概述要点。
A lot of the discussion and the design of the vehicle was intertwined. That's just how Tesla works, but one of the first big points of discussion was the 48 volt architecture just because that affects so many different areas of the vehicle.
They said this is very much going to be a forward going thing when new tooling needs to be purchased is basically when it makes sense to implement it.
他们说,当需要购买新的工具时,这将是一个非常前瞻性的事情,基本上是在实施它有意义的时候。
So going back and retooling for the Model Y or something like that tends to not make as much sense because the cost for the 12 volt architecture for that type of vehicle has already been born.
So for something like a Model Y Juniper, which would be the Model 3 Highland updates that we eventually expect to make their way to the Model Y as well, it's probably unlikely to see 48 volt there, but for the next generation vehicle, more likely.
对于像Model Y Juniper这样的车型,预计Model 3 Highland的升级将来也会应用在Model Y上,可能不太可能出现48伏特电压,但对于下一代车型,更有可能出现。
And that's where we've talked about the Cybertruck in general being a good test bed for a lot of the things that we'll end up seeing for Tesla and their products going forward.
我们讨论过,塞博卡车在很多方面都是特斯拉未来产品的很好试验基地。
Next, they talked about wiring. So of course, the 48 volt architecture helps reduce wiring. We've talked about that a number of times, but switching from CAN buses to an ethernet or an ether loop connection as Pete Bannon phrased it was also a fundamental change in the design of the vehicle.
So they talked about just the endpoints for connectors on the Model 3 being 273.
所以他们只谈到了Model 3上连接器的终点有273个。
And on the Cybertruck, there's actually more 35% more at 368, but more connectors allowed them to significantly reduce wiring, of course, alongside these other things. So they said for the Model 3, there were 490 cross car wires. And on the Cybertruck, there was only 155. So a 68% reduction there. They also said that high powered wire harness mass declined 84%.
They also talked about how the switch over to ethernet essentially gave them more robust control over the vehicle from a debug ability standpoint. They said that now they can pull out a laptop and make one connection. And that tells them every single thing from the vehicle versus before with multiple CAN buses, you'd have to go and plug into each of those individually. So a little bit easier to find and fix issues. And I would imagine a little bit easier to develop for and push things like over their updates as well.
They talked a little bit about the castings. Lars mentioned that the 9000 ton press that's being used for the rear casting, but the front casting actually works on a 6500 ton press, the same press as the Model Y. So it sounded like they have two 9000 ton presses for the Cybertruck rear castings, and then one dedicated for the front casting. But of course, there they could utilize the Model Y casting machines as well.
On power and motors, they kind of offhandedly mentioned that the 2.6 seconds 0 to 60 on the cyber beast version is traction limited. It sounded like it could do a little bit better with stickier tires. On the motors, they said they still have rear earth metals in the motor for the next generation vehicle. Remember, they said that they're going to remove those. It might be a performance need thing here, but they said that there are no more rear earth metals in this motor than there are in the Model 3.
They talked about charging and how they physically structured the battery to be able to accept either 400 volt or 800 volt charging, depending on which supercharger is being used. So pretty cool. I think we've touched on that though. Drew did also mention on Volkswagen being kind of the last to adopt North American charging standard. He said that that domino will fall eventually.
They talked briefly about the range extender just sharing their general thought that for most people, 300 plus miles is sufficient. So why waste the batteries if not everybody needs it? And if you do, you can get the range extender, which logically it does make sense. But I think ideal case it obviously be preferable from a consumer standpoint to just be able to pick which range you wanted without the compromise of sacrificing bed space. But of course, if it's the range extender or nothing, then I'm definitely glad Tesla is offering it.
And for towing, they said the cyber truck will sense the additional weight and step up the regenerative braking accordingly. Specific to the cell, Drew did say that these are the next generation cyber cell 4680 batteries, so 9% more energy density than the previous versions. And regarding the implementation of a structural battery pack, Drew said that this is about a grade B where previously on a Tesla earnings call, he described the Model Y structural pack at the time as about a grade C implementation of the future vision for that architecture. So some improvements on that, but Drew is still feeling like they've got more improvements to make in the future.
So those were my main takeaways. They talked about other things like suspensions, nearby wire, of course, but for those topics, I think mostly stuff that we have discussed before. Nevertheless, again, highly recommend watching this. It is linked in the description. A little bit more cyber truck fun.
The car while producers had some time with the cyber truck to test things at Giga Texas, one of the things they tested was a quarter mile against the Ford F-150 Raptor R. This is a $109,000 truck. Just a quick fun video here, not an extensive review of either vehicle, but they did do some quarter mile racing. No surprise, the cyber truck beat the Ford F-150 on that another positive though, they did a brake test and the cyber truck was able to stop a fair amount sooner from high speed than the Ford F-150. And then they thought, Hey, let's try one more test here. They actually tested the quarter mile with the cyber truck off road just on dirt versus the F-150 on pavement. And the cyber truck one, two out of three of those on the other one. It seemed like Matt Watson got a little bit of a head start on the F-150. So pretty impressive for the cyber truck, not that a quarter mile time is the be all and all of a truck, but nevertheless, the speed, acceleration and torque that allows for that. Nice to have.
All right, moving on from the cyber truck for the most part, we do have a couple of Giga Texas updates from Joe Tagmyer and his drone flyovers of the factory. He has spotted some new equipment going in where the 4680 lines are. So his belief is that this is equipment for those new lines that we expect to come from Tesla sometime pretty soon. And then in his video last week, Joe spotted some equipment that's just sitting outside around the factory, quite a bit of equipment, which he thinks is equipment for the next generation vehicle line. So all of this in addition to cyber truck, quite a few exciting things happening at Kiga Texas.
Next, we've got a couple quick updates on FSD, Prielle Jane on X, who is the head of planning decision making and control for the autopilot team at Tesla added on to recent comments from Elon Musk that we had discussed about Tesla working on a feature where the car will identify possible parking spaces. And he says V12 based smart summon and parking derivatives will finally be smart. Initial dev builds are fire fire here being a very good thing. I don't think we really need to add to the excitement for these types of features, but still, it's nice to hear the excitement around those initial development builds.
On a less exciting note, Tim Zaman, who formerly led the AI infrastructure team at Tesla and also worked at X has left those companies now working for DeepMind at Google, as he announced on X. So disappointing to see that Tim is one we've heard from a number of times at things like AI day.
在另一方面,前任特斯拉人工智能基础架构团队负责人、此前也在 X 公司工作的 Tim Zaman,现在已离开这两家公司,加入Google旗下的DeepMind团队,他在X上宣布了这一消息。很失望看到我们在一些活动中多次听到Tim的发言,他离开了。
Next, we've got a minor update on the union activity that we've talked a lot about over the last couple of weeks based in Sweden. The German trade union IG metal commented on this as we have seen other unions joining the efforts from IF metal in Sweden. IG metal has commented that they will not be joining because they say that it would be illegal for them to join. Noting quote, if IG metal got to decide Tesla's employees would have a collective agreement, but the initiative must come from the employees end quote. So this is kind of what we've been saying and questioning from the beginning, but perhaps a bit unexpected of a voice to hear this thought come from unless you're super familiar with label laws and things like that that require the statement from them. But I think pretty sensible and welcome comments and we'll continue to watch how this situation unfolds.
We do have a couple more items here. Some news from Ford will take a look at the calendar as well, but I know I'll get a lot of questions to Elon Musk reinstated Alex Jones onto X not trying to avoid the topic. I just don't find it particularly relevant to the scope of Tesla daily. I don't think that had any influence on the stock today. People like to point at that stuff and say this is why, but all the seven mega cap companies were down today. The others up in the NASDAQ seem like more of a result of things like rebalancing. And outside of that, I think I've shared my opinion on this in general. I like what Elon's trying to do with X. I like what he's trying to do with free speech. I wish the optics of how he was going about it. We're a little bit different. These are obviously divisive topics, and that doesn't mean that they should just be avoided completely. But unfortunately, I think people are pretty quick to form opinions off of their perception of situations, which may not always be fully informed. And reality matters more than perception, but somewhat circular here, people's perception is their reality. So some care should be given to what people's perception is, in my opinion. Hopefully that all makes sense.
All right, last couple of things for today. Some really big news on Ford being reported by automotive news today. They are saying that Ford plans to cut output of its electric F-150 lightning pickup by half next year because of quote unquote changing market demand. They are reporting that Ford has told suppliers that they should prepare for about 1600 lightnings a week versus current production capacity of about 3200 per week.
We of course recently talked about how Ford has had downtime on that one 50 lightning kind of throughout 2023. They just in Q4 got that additional capacity online and started seeing that come through in their US sales numbers. And now pretty much immediately after that, we're seeing reports that they're going to be stepping that back significantly starting already in January.
So this is yet another embodiment of the challenge we've been discussing throughout this year for companies that are trying to make EVs initially, you can lose a lot of money and sell these vehicles to a small set of buyers. And you get this growth rate that looks really nice because you're starting from nothing. And the money that you're losing doesn't really matter because you're supposed to lose money at initial production. So that's all fine and good.
But then you get to the end of that phase and you're sitting there and you're having to make these high volume vehicles that are competitive in the marketplace when you're competing with Tesla, who is willing to certainly put on pricing pressure and has spent the last two decades spending every single day putting their blood, sweat and tears into figuring this out. Taking that step is not so easy, especially in this type of a macro environment with interest rates that have increased. And then of course, for this product in particular, you've now got the introduction of the cyber truck to compete with. But even in the absence of that, I still think that this pressure would exist for Ford.
So difficult decisions will need to be made and there's no guarantee of getting to that next phase, which leaves us in a very interesting time right now.
All right, last quick one for today. Just a reminder calendar wise that this is a pretty big week. We've got the CPI tomorrow morning, consumer price index, and then the PPI producer price index on Wednesday morning followed that afternoon by the FOMC meeting, the interest rate decision and the press conference from Jerome Patwell. So a lot of activity this week, but that will wrap it up 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 Tuesday December 12 episode of Tesla Daily. Thank you.