Hey everybody, Rob Maurer here. Happy Friday. Today we've got some updates on the Cyber Truck, of course. We have exciting news on Tesla Energy. We've got a couple of pieces of news on the Swedenite, Swedenite, and I say, it's an effort. The unionization efforts in Sweden, rough start today, and a couple other items as well.
Alright, looking at the stock, Tesla today down about three quarters of a percent to close at $252.54. And as deck today, up to tens of a percent. So under Performance for Tesla to close out the week. From a macro perspective, we did have the PCE Personal Consumption Expenditures report released this morning, slightly below expectations. So month over month, core PCE increased one tenth of a percent year over year, up 3.2%. So year over year, that was one tenth of a percent lower than expectations. The headline numbers largely in line with expectations. PCE actually did decline one tenth of a percent. Month over month from a headline perspective, so including food and energy, and up 2.6%. The number for PCE that a lot of people have looked at today too is the six month annualized rate, which has now fallen below 2% since the first time for the first time since 2020. So a lot of people excited about that, of course, 2% being the benchmark target for the FOMC.
In terms of FOMC and interest rate expectations with the PCE report this morning, and of course, some other economic reports, expectations for an interest rate decrease have increased pretty significantly from where they were a week ago, certainly from a day ago as well. So we're looking at the March expectations right now, current rate 525 to 550 basis points. There's only a 7% expectation that rates remain at that level, 0% for increase versus you know, 93% for a rate cut by that point in time. Yesterday that would have been 83% a week ago, that would have been at about 70%. So you can see with the recent news that we've got, including PCE, more expectations for a rate cut, at least by March, and perhaps even in January though, expectations there. If we look quickly at that, are a little bit lower in terms of cutting that early. So obviously the market is going to be happy about rate cuts, depending on what the other context is and that can vary in importance day to day.
Alright, getting into Tesla energy, got an exciting update from CNEV Post and other media today. That Tesla has officially launched its new mega factory project in Shanghai. So you can see the signing ceremony here for the land acquisition for this project for Tesla. This is going to be very similar to the mega factory that Tesla has in Lathrop in California. So the targeted capacity for this is going to, at least initially, who knows longer term, if it could expand, but at least initially 10,000 megapacks a year, right around 40 gigawatt hours a year for energy storage products. So very exciting. This does happen a little bit later than we initially expected. Originally, a construction was expected to begin in the third quarter this year. Obviously now at the end of the fourth quarter, that third quarter date had production lined up for somewhere in the second quarter or so of 2024. So we may be looking at some time in the second half, maybe the third or fourth quarter next year, depending on if they can expediate things and or expedite things and get a little bit closer to maybe that initial target. I wouldn't put it past this project because as we saw with Gigashang High, if there is one place where a factory can ramp up and be constructed very quickly, China seems to be that place. Tesla has experience with the Lathrop Gigafactory already, sorry, the Lathrop mega factory already, and with Gigashang High ramping up a factory in China. So hopefully they've got experience in the two things that are going to be required to build this factory up, which should put things in a good spot. And again, we saw Gigafactory Shanghai ramp up in an incredible quick pace, incredibly quick pace. So hopefully we'll see the same thing with the mega factory here.
Now one of the reasons this is so exciting is that we've seen a lot of growth in Tesla energy recently. If we just flash back to the Q3 earnings report here, you can see energy generation and storage revenue over the last six months, $3 billion energy storage deployed in that period of time is about seven and a half gigawatt hours. So we're talking about a 40 gigawatt hour project here, Lathrop being of similar size. This annualizes out right now to about $6 billion a year and also about 15 gigawatt hours in terms of energy storage deployed.
So if we're talking about 40 plus 40 from these other two factories or at 80 gigawatt hours, we could be looking at five times the capacity that Tesla is putting in place right now over their current run rate, which that should be online and sort of the next, I would say 18 to 24 months or so, depending again on how quickly Tesla can ramp up. So for them to be implementing this on the business that's already growing incredibly quickly, you can see the 40% growth rate year over year for Q3 in revenue. And this has now started to contribute significantly to Tesla's earnings with gross margin on this business line actually exceeding automotive. So tons to be excited about what Tesla energy right now. And hopefully we'll see this ramp up quickly like we saw with gigashang high.
All right, moving on, we'll get our daily Cybertruck updates in here. We've got an update from Joe Tagmire, did the drone flyer for today and another new record for vehicles or Cybertruck vehicles spotted at Giga Texas. He saw more than 80 at the factory today. So really exciting to see all these. Hopefully again alludes to progress in the ramp. About 40 of these have been added since maybe yesterday. It doesn't necessarily mean the daily production rate is 40. Maybe that could be a peak or a burst rate where they're doing 40 and then adjust some things and then a couple days of downtime, maybe 40 again or maybe 50 after that. Hopefully we see this ramp quickly. Just want to keep expectations and check to as we do see these numbers increase and it could be a matter of relocating things. Maybe there are Cybertrucks in the factory that then get moved outside that weren't necessarily produced that exact last day. So we'll be hopeful, but also keep those things in mind when we see things like this as well.
We also saw the completion of what I believe is probably the first aftermarket wrap for the Cybertruck. We've seen Tesla's matte black version. I don't think we've seen the white one yet, but here we've got a pine green metallic from Tesbro. So one of these first deliveries that they have completed the wrap on just gave us a few images of that today. I don't think we've seen this color. Of course, you know, from any of the Tesla prototypes and kind of exciting just to see customers get their hands on these and start making adjustments and customizing them a little bit, which we should see a lot of with the Cybertruck. So fun to see that. They also gave a little bit of a demo of the front camera washing system on the Cybertruck. So we can get a little bit of a shot of that, which I think is, you know, something that is going to be very important, especially if you're doing things like off-roading in the Cybertruck with that location, that's likely to be put to get a use. So nice to see that in action.
All right. Next couple of things. We've got an update from not a Tesla app here on X saying that Tesla has added a new feature, software feature in China, which is a traffic light countdown. So my interpretation of this is that if you're at a stoplight, you now see a countdown for when that stoplight is going to change. Apparently, this comes from government provided data where they've got this, that information available that can be received by the car and shown on the display. So a nice feature, obviously reliance on that data. So it's going to be localized in only regions that would offer that, of course, but still kind of nice to see. Of course, reminds me of, you know, pedestrian walking timers and things like that that are pretty competently steer in the United States. So not the biggest game changing feature, but still nice to have.
We've also got another recall here. Quote unquote recall. This is 120,000 model S next vehicles. This is another software update though. So nothing of significance, but it relates to a cabin door latching mechanism that's later or that inadvertently excluded block out functionality in the case of a crash, which may have increased the risk of injury during a crash. So Tesla diagnosed that themselves and is pushing this over the air update as well. So again, nothing major, but some more recall headlines today.
All right, the last couple of things. We've got two updates here on the unionization efforts in Sweden. Got it right that time. This one is from Bloomberg. They say that Tesla has lost an appeal in Sweden against the country's postal service. They can not it's been confirmed by the court, at least for this period of time, that they cannot receive license plates intended for new EVs or rather, they can't force the post office to give them those things.
So as we see here, postal workers in Sweden are refusing to handle any Tesla related mail, which would include license plates. So that complicates things for Tesla. They've tried to circumvent that in other ways, but there were there have been rulings against Tesla being able to directly pick up those plates as well, which they're continuing to challenge.
This particular court ruling is also something that can be appealed, which Tesla has until January 18 to do. And I'm sure they will pursue that option. So we'll keep an eye on it, but not in favor of Tesla at that point.
Someone on the other side, we've got a response from the BA. I'm not going to try to pronounce that. You can see it there. This is essentially the counterparty to the Swedish Swedish Transport Workers Union. So this represents this group represents the employer side. They have sent a notice of objection to the Swedish, the Swedish Transport Workers Union's efforts for a sympathy strike. If I can get all those words in there.
They are basically saying that the criticism is unclear, difficult to understand as a whole and potentially impacts other companies or businesses that would be outside of the dispute, which would of course be with Tesla. So they are right now saying that this is something that should not be occurring.
I don't know how much sort of leverage or authority they have regarding the Swedish Transport Workers Union. So if someone in the comments can fill in any gaps on that, that would be helpful. But it does sound like at least it's a decent amount of, you know, leverage or sway that they would have.
So again, we'll continue to keep it on this as the situation evolves. We're right around that timeline where a lot of these sympathy strikes were set to go into action. So we'll see.
All right. Last couple of things. Cummins has agreed to pay a $1.675 billion penalty relating to truck engine emission defeat devices. So we've heard a lot about these in, you know, a couple of years prior to now, but these settlements, you know, these penalty agreements still coming in. Cummins being the latest one. This was for 630,000 ram vehicles from 2013 to 2019, which had defeat devices controlled on them to essentially under report emissions on emissions tests.
They did say as a part of this agreement that the company has seen no evidence that anyone acted in bad faith and does not admit any wrongdoing. So of course they're going to say that from a legal perspective. It's a bold claim though.
And then as we wrap up for the week, just a quick look at the calendar for next week. Of course, we've got Christmas on Monday. So happy holidays to everybody as we go into next week. Not too much action in terms of economic reporting should be a relatively quiet week. My schedule personally is going to be a little bit up in the air. So I'm not 100% percent sure what it's going to look like yet. Probably be an episode on Tuesday or Wednesday. And I think we'll kind of go from there. But again, thanks for just bearing with me through as I kind of figure out my schedule. I appreciate that. But that'll wrap it up for today and for the week. So 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 at some point next week for the next episode of Tesla Daily. Thank you.