Hey everybody Rob Manward here and today we've got some new details on Cybertruck from initial owners. We've also got more insights on Q4 relating to China and Model 3 Highland. We've also got updates on EV tax credits and a few other items today as well. With lots of news to catch up on from over the weekend as well.
Right, looking at the stock Tesla today, tougher day down 4% closing at $238.45. The Nasdaq today down 1.2%. Yesterday after the delivery report, Tesla was about flat on the day the Nasdaq was down pretty significantly. So far in these days Nasdaq down about 3% Tesla down about 4%. Relative over performance I would say, even though it is underperforming, relating to Tesla's beta. We've done okay, but I think largely with deliveries coming in a little bit above expectations, maybe production a little bit below, although we don't have analysts consensus for that. We're now seeing Tesla move with the markets over these couple of days.
In terms of the general markets, the Fed meeting minutes did come out today. It looks like there were maybe a little bit more hawkish or less dovish than people would have expected relating to the possibility of rate cuts. If we just look quickly at the CME Group interest rate tracking expectation tool, the expectations from a week ago for a rate cut for either January or March have declined. You can see from 19% to 9% for January. And then for March, you can see the combination of these two have both declined. Here as continuing at the current rates have increased from 10% to 27%. Over the last week, just some changes there in terms of expectations that can relate to some of what we have seen in the markets.
Specifically for Tesla, we did have some analysts come out since the delivery report. We're not going to spend too much time on those, maybe most notably in terms of changes. Jeffries increased their price target on Tesla to $255 a share from 210 previously, but they do still reiterate a hold rating on the stock.
Even quick correction to that I wanted to make as we talk about a few Q4 related items here at the beginning. The automotive news and Bloomberg had reported something about Tesla guiding towards 2.2 million vehicles in 2024. This was in a Bloomberg article that was posted by other platforms like automotive news. This is not accurate. Tesla is not given guidance. Bloomberg did appear to remove this from their article. It is still in some of these other articles that cross posted that though. If you did happen to see that, we don't have guidance from Tesla yet. That will come presumably on January 24th with the Q4 earnings report. So I just wanted to point that out quickly.
Then as we head into a couple more items for Q4, we did get the last week of insured vehicle numbers for Tesla in China. This was $15,800 for this last week. Still a very solid week, well above average, a little bit lower than we had seen in the last couple of weeks prior to this final week. This put the total quarter these 13 weeks for Q4 at just over 172,000 vehicles insured for Tesla in China during the quarter. This was up 26% from Q3. So quarter over quarter jumped pretty significantly. Up 8% from the previous record for those 13 weeks in Q2. Up 22% from Q1. So really nice progress there in China and they rounded that quarter out pretty strong in these last final weeks as we can see.
We do also have wholesale sales figures. So this would be retail sales or domestic sales plus exports. We'll get those breakdowns as well as production a little bit later on. But those came in for December at 94,139 vehicles. This is I believe the second best month of wholesale sales figures for Tesla ever second to 100,000 back in November 2022. But you can see that was a significant inventory draw down there during that period. Of course, we'll see what it comes in for December. But I think this likely reflects relatively strong production here for the last month of the quarter. I believe this was a record for the quarterly wholesale sales figure as well and should point to pretty easily a record production quarter for Tesla in China as well. But again, we should get that information in the next couple of weeks or in the next week rather.
Another headline relating to China that has made the rounds quite a bit over the last couple of days. BYD has now surpassed Tesla as the highest be V seller in the world.
So this was something that has been, you know, this gap has been closing for a long time. As we can see from the chart here from CNEV post reminder, this is just their battery electric vehicle sales. They do also have plug in hybrid electric vehicle sales. Those are separate from this. So this is just pure BV's. They have now surpassed Tesla on this quarterly figure mark for the year.
Tesla will still be up. We'll see how that changes the next year. But of course, if we look at revenue, Tesla is going to far exceed a BYD on the BV sales figures line due to the average selling price by ID, of course, playing in much lower market segments than Tesla. So congratulations to BYD for making that progress. But of course, a lot of headlines trying to diminish Tesla about that as well.
One other item relating to the Q4 report. I think many people were already aware of this as it happened on or was reported on Friday, but there was a ship that was carrying Tesla vehicles to Australia from China that had reports that there was a little bit of an infestation of bugs. So they had to reroute that back to China and get that all cleaned up. And then those vehicles presume we can return at some point. But that's potentially up to 6,500 vehicles. I don't think we know for sure how many were on the ship. That would be the capacity though that could have been non delivered that might have otherwise been there at the end of the year, which could have influenced the Q4 numbers, of course, not from a production standpoint, but from a delivery standpoint with that 485 ish 1000 report.
Now another thing that we talked about relating to the report was the possible impact of any updates to the Model 3 that may have happened in the fourth quarter. I think a lot of us expected that initially to happen in the first quarter at Fremont after of course the changeover to the Highland Model 3 in Shanghai. We are getting a little bit more reporting on this.
So there's a few photos of Model 3 Highlands that have now been spotted in the US without the camouflage on. Of course we've seen them with camouflage many other times in the past, but lavishness think 6831 on Reddit here posting a couple photos of these Model 3s at Fremont apparently. You can see some China badging on the back of these. So it's not 100% clear that these would actually have been produced at Fremont. Same thing with another one that was spotted here also posted on Reddit covered by drive Tesla Canada, China badging on the back, but they did capture the vehicle identification number, which from the five YJ and the first three digits here, that tells us that this vehicle was actually produced at Fremont.
所以,在美国发现了几张没有伪装的Model 3高地版的照片。当然,我们以前也看过很多次它们带着伪装,但现在Reddit上的用户lavishness think 6831发布了几张在弗里蒙特拍摄到的Model 3的照片。你可以看到这些车后面有中国标识。所以并不完全清楚这些车是不是真的在弗里蒙特生产的。同样,在Reddit上另一位用户也发了一张照片,被Drive Tesla Canada报道,车后面也有中国标识,不过他们获取到了车辆识别号码,从这个号码的前五个YJ和前三个数字来看,这辆车实际上是在弗里蒙特生产的。
So a little bit confusing, but maybe Tesla just throwing those badges on there for, I don't know, to be confusing throughout people off a little bit or maybe some other reason. But nevertheless, it looks like these were produced in Fremont as indicated by the VIN. And as we can see the manufacturing date 120723. So December 7th very recently produced at Fremont. And maybe a little bit of a suggestion that Tesla has started to convert over some of their Model 3 production a little bit earlier. Obviously, as we talked about, that is something that could have influenced the production numbers for the fourth quarter.
Now Tesla scope also saying that they can confirm that initial production of the performance variants of the updated Model 3 began in early December. Expectations for the official transition remain firm in Q1 pending any delays. So a little bit of a confirmation of what we're seeing here, potentially from Tesla scope. So again, we'll continue to keep close eye on that. But that is something that could have affected for sure production in the fourth quarter. And likely we'll affect production here from Fremont for the Model 3 in Q1 as well.
Now also relating to Model 3, we do have now Tesla's sort of official guidance on updates to the EV tax credit. As we expected, they have been removed for some versions of the Model 3. The only version of the Model 3 that retains the EV tax credit for 2024, at least at this point in time, is the performance version.
So this actually puts things in a little bit of a complicated spot for the Model 3 from a number of different perspectives for the Model Y. The all trims are retaining the full EV tax credit. So full $7,500. We weren't 100% certain that that would be the case or if that would get reduced at all.
And then for the Model X, the opening price point trim of the Model X, that is also retaining the credit, not as surprising on that front. So for the Model 3, I think I've got the Model Y page up here, but let's just switch that over quick.
We can see that this now sort of complicates the lineup a bit because you could potentially be receiving a performance Model 3 for a lower price than the long range Model 3 is available for. It also puts the opening price point for the Model Y, I believe below the opening price point for the Model 3, if you are able to get the tax credit.
Now doesn't mean it's the end of the world, doesn't mean that there's not going to be any demand for this. Remember, there are people that aren't going to qualify for various reasons, particularly from the income restriction. So there is still some sense to having this lineup be in this way.
But I would imagine that there are changes that will happen with the refresh to Highland. That Tesla will probably take into consideration how the EV tax credit affects the lineup and the applicability of it across. So we'll see. I'm not worried too much about it at this point in time because we do have that pending update, but definitely something to keep an eye on.
The IRS has also posted the list of all the EVs that are eligible for the tax credit. So we are seeing again, a reiteration of what we see on Tesla site here for the Tesla vehicles, full $7,500 for all the Model Y and then for the one version of the Model 3 and the Model X, nothing for the Model S as that falls above the $5,500 cap as it did previously.
The Caribbean, that credit has been reduced to $3,500 and then notably here, the Ford Mustang Mach-E completely removed at this point in time, though it does remain at least for some versions. I'm not sure if this is all versions, but I think all versions of the F-150 Lightning obviously below the $80,000 cap on that.
And then for GM, the Bolt is also retaining the $7,500 credit. I think the Cadillac Lyric right now is not eligible, but they are. GM is offering or saying that they will provide the $7,500 off the price for the EVs that became ineligible until they are able to make them eligible again. So GM basically for the time being just passing that on to customers through their own cost.
Now on the Ford F-150 Lightning, not specifically related to the EV tax credit, but they did increase prices today on this. Again, this does retain the credit, but the opening price point versions have been increased $5,000 to $10,000 for the pro on the XLT.
Some of the higher trim versions like the Platinum and the Platinum Black have actually had price reductions, but in terms of the average selling price, I would imagine that this ends up increasing it for the F-150 Lightning. Remember, there was a period where this rebounded a bit to having strong sales and then it seemed to fall off a little bit towards the end of the year, so it'll be interesting to keep an eye on this as we get new monthly data on that.
And also, of course, the Mustang Mach-E with the removal of the tax credit. That's going to make it extremely difficult to compete with obviously the Model Y, which was already a very challenging competition in the first place. So we'll keep an eye on those Mustang Mach-E sales as well.
All right, a few other details, a few new details, rather on the Cybertruck from the Channel R Cyberlife, which we've talked about their delivery before. They give us some really nice data on the Cybertruck charge curve, so they took it to a V3 supercharger. Remember not V4 yet, so we'll have to wait and get more data on that in the future. That'll have a higher max charge speed.
But for V3, they did a preconditioning test here. They preconditioned for 20 minutes and then charged from 14 up to 90% roughly. If we go over there. So notably, you can see for the charge speed, it did peak at 255 kilowatts. That's about the max that a V3 supercharger can put out.
That peak rolled off at about 22% state of charge, and you can see how that changes across time or across percent state of charge here. And overall, it took them about 30 minutes to go from 14% state of charge.
Find that over here, where they began up to about, just make sense of this a little bit, up to about 70% in 30 minutes, and then up to about 80% in 40 minutes, as of course, your charge speed starts to taper off pretty significantly towards that point in time.
So overall, not too bad of a performance. Remember these are 4680 cells, the Model Y that had 4680 cells, the charge speed there was not quite up to the level of other Tesla vehicles. This is closer, but maybe still not quite there.
Cyber truck owners club forum put together. I don't know what to use her, but put together a little bit of a comparison here for the state of charge versus the rate of charge versus state of charge for the cyber truck charging on, of course, the V3 400 volt chargers.
So you can see how that compares. It's relatively similar to what a model Y would look like across a state of charge. But what you would maybe hope for is because the cyber truck has a larger battery, maybe seeing a higher or a more extended peak, which would be something that if this were longer would be able to be more improved by the version four superchargers.
Because of course, version four, we're going to see a benefit where this can maybe come up to 350 kilowatts here very early in the charge band. But once the taper starts, there really shouldn't be too much of a difference between a V3 supercharger and a V4 supercharger in the future.
Now that being said, again, this is an early cell for Tesla, although it is version two of the 4680s, you know, the quote unquote cyber cell, Tesla may still be playing these charge curves a little bit conservatively initially as they kind of gather and collect data with these cells out in the field.
So certainly something that could change over time, something that would keep an eye on to see if it does, and we'll definitely be curious to see how it compares when we do get version four supercharger data, which again, hopefully we'll have that higher peak.
Quick, a quick charging update, then we do have another thing on the cyber truck as well. But Tesla charging did reply to someone that was given some feedback on the V4 superchargers saying that minor things matter, cable dock and stiffness improvements will be coming soon.
So we haven't seen a whole lot of V4 superchargers deployed yet, probably for this exact reason. So this is probably implementing some, taking in some feedback, seeing how the real world use is, and then implementing some changes before they start to roll these out more broadly. I would imagine once they get comfortable with that, it will probably happen pretty quickly with lots of superchargers deployed.
Back to cyber truck, we also got a Monroni sticker. So this is the information sticker that is required to go in all vehicles, new vehicles that are sold. This was from UTEC Pia on YouTube. So from this, probably one of the most interesting points is the domestic content breakdown. So we can see 65% of parts in the cyber truck are US or Canadian parts, 25% in Mexico. So 90% in aggregate there would be in North America.
If we just look at that 65% and compare that to, you know, the Ford F 150 or the Ford F 150 Lightning, which obviously sort of make a brand around, you know, being American, you know, built forward tough and things like that.
Ford F 150 is 30% US and Canada content. The F 150 Lightning is 38%. So a little bit around half or a little bit less than half of what the US content here would be US or Canada content here would be for the cyber truck.
So as Lars had previously mentioned, this should be also a Tesla vehicle. Sorry about the sirens. Also a Tesla vehicle that falls very highly on the perhaps the top five of the most American vehicle index when we do see that again. So nice to have confirmation of that with the Monoroni sticker.
On the less nice side, there was a cyber truck crash. This was posted on Reddit by Bodhia. If we got there, right, but a cyber truck crash in California. It looks like this was a Tesla vehicle, likely with Tesla engineers driving. There was a crash report on this.
So auto PN reported that the California highway patrol in a statement that they were able to see said that their investigation indicated that a Toyota Corolla, which was also involved in the crash. For some reason, turn to the right. Subsequently, struck a dirt embankment on the right shoulder.
Toyota then re-entered the roadway crossed over the double yellow lines into the north pound lane and crashed into the Tesla cyber truck. So it looks like something we're probably not avoidable from the cyber truck and likely the fault of the Toyota driver. But you know, always sad to see a cyber truck out there in a crashed state.
It didn't sound like there were any major injuries. I think just a minor injury to the driver of the cyber truck. So good to see nothing, nothing too major resulting from that. All right.
Last couple of things here. So we've got a report on FSD beta version 12.1 from Tony Tong on X. Sounds like this was a spouse of an employee that got to experience the vehicle from the employee fleet. So they said that they were really happy with the performance in terms of the car driving much more like a human.
They specifically mentioned that for highway driving, there were scenarios where it just felt a lot more natural in terms of how it was approaching lane changes and being in the fast lane, exiting the fast lane and things like that. They mentioned four city streets. One of the difficult things that they had seen with older versions of FSD beta. FSD beta was the wide lanes and sometimes a little bit of maybe ping ponging or probably not ping ponging is that's a very specific move, but just a little bit less comfort or confidence in handling those wide lanes from previous versions of FSD beta. They said that that was really much really well improved in this version 12. They also said that the handling of bumps is excellent. I assume that that would mean speed bumps. They said that it reduces speed very smoothly to about 10 miles per hour while going across the bumps, making the ride super smooth.
Tesla a long time ago, it actually had that implemented at one point and then it seemed to go away for whatever reason. But of course with this being relying on neural networks only makes sense that that would reappear as that would be a natural driving behavior. That Tesla would just presumably have implemented through the training process. So kind of nice to hear about some of those things. In terms of areas for improvement, no surprise, they said stop signs. This is a perpetual frustration as the car does seem to wait quite a long time at stop signs. It does on NHTSA in terms of enforcing that more restrictive than what human drivers would be legally required to do, but not expected to do certainly. So I think that's going to continue to be something that is a challenge. But overall, nice to hear some of these first impressions and hopefully we'll see more of these soon and see Tesla start to roll this out a little bit more broadly.
Then we've also got an update from a member of the Tesla Optimus team, Milan Kovac on Twitter, just sharing some of his thoughts and kind of recapping the progress that Tesla has made on this for the year of 2023, saying they've improved their locomotion stack. They've built a very low latency and high fidelity teleoperation system, design trained and deployed some of the first end to end neural networks for humanoid robots to autonomously perform tasks. They've designed and built another upgraded version of the bot with Gen 2, adding an articulated neck revamped hands with tactile sensing and a tighter integration of harnesses and actuators and electronics. Just talking about how the team all made this possible and some of the unique structure of Tesla of the organization that we've talked about many times, but nice to see that highlighted. And then kind of closing by saying that when the time is right, our manufacturing lines will be added to that list. So a nice little exciting teaser there towards the end of this recap, but always nice to hear from the team on Optimus.
And then finally, a couple updates from Elon. This isn't related to that last post, but Elon is replying to a post here that was talking about the progress for Tesla stock throughout the year, of course, starting off from the very low point at the beginning of the year. But Elon commenting saying, I stand by my prediction that if Tesla executes extremely well over the next five years, that's a long term value you could exceed Apple and a Ramco combined. I haven't checked this recently, but that's somewhere in the ballpark of $5 trillion. So Elon still viewing that, that upside case as a possibility for Tesla as he has mentioned before.
And then finally, Elon did say that this was last Friday, that next week, so this current week, he would do a company talk for SpaceX, followed later by a company talk for Tesla after the 10k. So these will be really interesting to look forward to you for both of these companies. For Tesla specifically, this the 10k that is the annual filing that comes after the earnings report. So that should be out within a few days of January 24th. And then some point later on after that, we should have this company talk from Elon. So of course, we'll expect to hear from him on the earnings call as well, but it'll be interesting to see what they highlight on that company talk.