Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. Quick shout out to my newest patrons, Lafe J and GodW. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. I've decided to put the daily Tesla stock and any macro commentary at the end of each video. Think that'll be a nice way to encapsulate each day's news. As always, timestamps will be below.
Heinrich Zane on X did some good work and he found out that they had an unofficial groundbreaking event for Tesla's new dedicated Tesla semi-production line on Wednesday, January 17th. This was not a groundbreaking ceremony that was open to anyone in the public. The word is it was just for Tesla employees, but the main takeaway, as you can see in this shot right here, ground is officially being moved roughly one year after the announcement of this new Tesla semi-factory. This is supposed to be a $3.5 billion expansion with potentially two facilities, one for semi-production, one for 4680 production, and it's supposed to add around 4 million square feet. The official guidance on Tesla semi-production in volume has always been toward the end of 2024, so hopefully we see progress move quickly over the next few quarters and they can hit that goal.
Sawyer shared a walkthrough of what you actually see when you go to place an order for a foundation series cyber truck. I just wanted to highlight the range extenders estimated to cost $16,000 and they're saying production should begin late 2024.
Alexandra has been doing a great job on ex-checking with Tesla careers and new job postings. Here, she shared one for a radar signal processing engineer, just wanted to add two things. One, remember, if Tesla adds back a radar to the vehicles, it's most likely going to be a high definition radar, which is actually very different than what they used to have. That would presumably be for exterior purposes, but right now Tesla does actually have an interior cabin radar for occupant sensing. I think the most important takeaway with this one is that behind the scenes, Tesla is still testing and developing new algorithms for multiple different sensing technologies, including radar, ultrasonics, GPS, and IMUs to enable autopilot features. So just because they're testing and developing maybe cross-referencing different technologies does not mean that these will definitely end up in a Tesla vehicle, although many indications have pointed to Tesla bringing back an HD radar at some point. Some Tesla hardware for vehicles over the past year did end up with this HD radar that's called Phoenix, but it was mostly just SNX vehicles and as far as we know, new model-wise do not have it.
Alexandra also highlighted 30 new Dojo jobs for Palo Alto, California, at least, some of which are new in the past week. Between those new jobs at Palo Alto and what we've heard that Tesla is working on a bunker-like structure at Gigah Austin, also for Dojo and a new data center, clearly Tesla is doing what it can to eliminate one of the main bottlenecks right now for autonomy, which is compute power.
As was highlighted by Charlie Ballello, the average price of a used Tesla has dropped for 18 months in a row, now sits at $35,844, down 47% from the all-time highs in the summer 2022. We already covered the different reasons for this phenomena, so I won't repeat myself there, but I did see people mentioning the Hertz situation and them offloading some of their EVs. Bear in mind, it may only be a few hundred or a few thousand Teslas that are actually being sold, around $20,000 or less. Over the next few weeks, that could have some impact, but it may not be as material as some people are thinking. One other thing to keep an eye on when it comes to Tesla's Q1 earnings are going to be the shipping cost right now from Asia to Europe, already with what's going on in the Red Sea, the prices have effectively doubled in a very short amount of time. Just last week, we talked about how an industry expert was saying there's no real end to this fighting in sight at the Red Sea, so something to keep an eye on.
As Sawyer pointed out, if you're looking at a three year lease for a Model Y, right now Tesla has roughly 8% cheaper Model Y lease options. The monthly prices are down anywhere from 20 to $39 per month, and this is with only $3,500 down compared to 4,500 before.
Auto line just put out a really good video with the CEO of CARESoft. If you're not familiar, think of them like Monroe Live. They do tear downs and they mainly focus on the design of vehicles. They've bought Model Y's from all different factories around the world. They've been studying Tesla closely now for many years, and they talked direct to some of the biggest OEM players in the industry, and we got some great insight.
Auto Line刚刚发布了一个与CARESoft首席执行官的非常好的视频。如果你对他们不太熟悉的话,可以把他们当作像Monroe Live那样的机构。他们进行汽车解析,主要关注车辆设计。他们从世界各地的不同工厂购买了Model Y,多年来一直密切关注特斯拉,并与行业中一些最大的原始设备制造商进行了直接对话。我们得到了一些很棒的见解。
Going back to France principles, and when we look, let me give you an example of how we think the leaders think. And here in this case, the leaders undoubtedly Tesla. So when they came out of the vehicle with no floor, what the question I think they asked was, hey, why do we have floor, and why do we have under a piece of metal on the top of the battery, and two pieces of metal with some air in between? Why can't we replace it at one? So they ask these fundamental questions.
We have laid out all three assembly lines. That is the legacy OEMs assembly line, the Tesla Y assembly line, and the future Tesla assembly line. And we care from a financial perspective, and with Tesla's announcements that they want to build 20 million vehicles by 2030. The savings in investing, just in manufacturing plant investment is around $11 billion, and that's based on the amount of equipment that they have purchased in Austin, which they have filed with the county in Austin for their manufacturing, for their building permits.
We've talked in the past, and Tesla has said in the past how this new unboxed manufacturing process is going to save Tesla billions, but it's great to hear an unbiased third party saying the same thing. Matthew, the CEO, was saying how there are some OEMs that are eager to work with Kairsoft and to buy the data from them to try to learn what they need to do to compete with Tesla going forward. He also said there were a number of OEMs that don't even think the unboxed method is going to be possible, and understandably with that framework, they're reluctant to even try it. Matthew also reiterated Tesla's advantage when it comes to having green field sites, meaning they're oftentimes starting with brand new manufacturing footprints, not having to deal with a brown field site, which is an existing plant. Right now, Kairsoft is in the process of trying to figure out, do the modeling in the simulation, to see if this unboxed method can even work with a brown field site.
My two main takeaways from this video are this. Number one, Matthew highlighted many of the reasons that are actually going to allow Tesla to build a $25,000 EV and do so profitably. He then encapsulated Tesla's advantage pretty well by saying legacy OEMs are currently thinking in terms of incremental improvements, whereas Tesla is thinking in terms of exponential improvements. He also emphasized the need for automakers to move fast with how much is changing in the auto industry right now, and as we watch companies like Ford, Toyota, and GM, they're not exactly moving fast. Matthew confirmed it's really only Tesla and BYD and some other Chinese automakers that are actually moving fast when it comes to manufacturing innovations. Forget the auto industry mindset. This is part of the unlearning that I had to do.
It does not think like an automobile company. They think like this iPhone here, every day make a change. Okay, so that's why if you see the three, they have a new highland which we have already toned down, which has a different shape. But if you look, the vehicle is changing every day, it's continuously improving. They don't have the, because they don't have a dealer network, they don't have to, like one of the reasons why at least I felt it, when I came from we had model errors and we had release dates for new changes, coordinated changes at a particular point in time and years, because we had to train, if we made a change every day, just imagine the nightmare with the dealer network.
So one vehicle would be this and next vehicle and the technician would look and say, look at this, oh yeah, everything is different. So because they don't have a dealer network and they're such a technology enabled company, I envision that they have systems where every vehicle serial number maybe even has its own service manual or description and so on. So they're the resistance to implement change is very less. So they don't have this mindset of model, they have changed, it's a continuous improvement. And if you look, they went from two piece giga casting on the Y to a single piece to two gig castings and no floor, they did that in 24 months. Okay, that's what they did that in 24 months.
A leg or even less, because we get the vehicles and we, with the legacy OEM, I don't know, some of them may not even able, may not even be able to make the decision in 24 months. Matthew did touch on the unboxed process, paving the way for robots to play a significant role in the manufacturing process. And he posed the question right now that the market may be asking, are these OEMs going to survive in 10 years, not just the next three years? The full video will be below.
If you're looking at the Tesla Model Y, you need to look at the Ford Mustang Mach 8. It takes you where you need to go, where you wanna go. It has a lot of storage. 59.7 cubic feet in the back, 4.7 cubic feet in the front. Almost every EV feels quick. In unbridled mode, this is a different kind of quick. Mustang quick. You can also charge it a bit home, or take advantage of the Blue Overcharge Network, the largest public charging network in North America. Stay connected to the Mustang Mach 8 from almost anywhere, through the Ford Pass mobile app. Did you lock the car? Right.
Now, when you get back into the Model E, your phone can wirelessly connect to a center touchscreen with Android auto compatibility. You can't do that in the Model Y. And with Ford Blue Cruise hands-free driving, you can let go of the wheel and hold on to what matters. Still considering the Model Y, this is the kind of EV you want, the kind of Mustang you want. What do you think? If a Ford customer was not considering a Model Y before, they might be now.
Honestly though, the head-to-head comparison for the Mach 8 to the Model Y is a very tough one for Ford, especially given the Model Y qualifying for tax credits. All in all, I did think it was a solid ad given what Ford has to work with. It just goes to show how much market and mind share the Model Y is actually occupying. And touting the Blue Overcharge Network as the largest public charging network in North America is some creative semantics if I've ever seen it.
We just highlighted how Tesla would be featured at the Montreal Auto Show. We also have Tesla with some vehicles on display at the Washington Auto Show, also from January 19th to the 28th. In case anybody is in the DC area, wanted to ensure it was on your radar. Jerry Rig everything just posted a video towing 11,000 pounds with the Cybertruck. Fast forward to the results. He got about 90 miles of range going from 100% state of charge down to 2%. For context, he did a very similar test with the Rivian. The Rivian made it 109 miles.
Towing 11,000 pounds isn't really a mainstream activity, but for whatever it's worth to you, he did say the Cybertruck performed slightly inferior when it comes to the Rivian and the F-150 Lightning. Those two vehicles did also offer more towing information in the user interface, but I would guess that eventually Tesla will roll out a software update, adding more information. He did say the Cybertruck is a blast to drive. It's an incredible vehicle, but the more he drives it, the more he likes his Rivian. It was 32 degrees out for this test. It was on all terrain tires. It was in all-wheel drive variant.
I don't think we need to go much further into the weeds, so I'll just show you the data screen. Total energy used 108 kilowatt hours. Average energy 1,193 watt hours per mile.
It has not been a banner week for the Tesla Supercharger Network as we have out of spec reporting on a fire at a Supercharger location. What we saw here is that there were sparks coming from that AC distribution cabinet. Looked like it was coming on the backside. It was a little hard to tell, and this site actually has two of those two features that we've been having given the scale. So many sites will have one, and you can see kind of arc flash. It's really hard to tell exactly what's going on, but it looks like something shorted out. You're getting that arc flash. It's impressive that they caught it unless it kept arcing, because normally you would just get kind of one boom, and then that would be it unless it kept making contact and kept sparking. It's hard to say exactly what happened, but maybe something worked its way loose. With thermal expansion and contraction, you can have things that work loose over time, and a lot of times those incoming connections are coming in from the bottom, and then they're just clamped. In theory, those should never come undone, but you would have gravity working against you if they did get loose, and then you could potentially have an arc of that. An incredibly rare scenario, but it was with a cabinet, not an actual dispenser or stall.
Cadillac just announced that their halo vehicle for EVs, the Celeste has begun production. They've started building one of these units they're only gonna make between 100 and 150 each year. They have yet to begin any deliveries. These vehicles start at $340,000, but are going to go way up from there due to the level of customization that they're allowing customers. They'll have 111 kilowatt hour packs, zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds. I've seen it argued out there that GM is doing this to build up some margin in their EV portfolio, even if they get 40% margins on this vehicle, if the ASP is about a half a million dollars times 150 per year, that's $75 million in revenue per year, slap a 40% gross margin on that. That's only $30 million, so I'm not sure that really checks out. This might just be a brand builder, or just a terrible decision all around on the design, certainly not my cup of tea.
This one from Ford is not news, just official confirmation, they're scaling back F-150 Lightning production. They're also moving some employees from the Rouge plant to actually ramp up production of the Bronco and the Ranger. They confirmed rather than the original 3,200 units they were planning to produce of the Lightning, they're dropping it down to 1,600 per week for 2024. Farley said, we're taking advantage of our manufacturing flexibility to offer customers choices while balancing our growth and profitability. He did mention these vehicles having access to Tesla's Supercharger network, beginning this quarter. Ford will continue to match production to customer demand. In line with this, Ford is cutting two thirds of the jobs at the Michigan plant that builds the F-150 Lightning. In April, Ford will make 1,400 workers from Rouge either retire or move to other facilities.
Stellantis plans to launch eight EVs on a flexible new platform through 2026, starting in North America this year with Dodge and Jeep. Other brands that'll use this platform, Alpha Romeo, Chrysler and Maserati. The platform dubbed STLA will accommodate very different ground clearances for off-road and highway usage of the different products. They say the platform can house a sedan and SUV across over getting up to 500 miles of range. It'll be on a 400 or 800 volt architecture and they will have both hybrid and ice vehicles on this platform.
What's that saying about jack of all trades, master of? They're also talking about securing 400 gigawatt hours of battery capacity, a massive number from six different plants in North America and Europe. Carlos Tavares, the CEO, said Stellantis, must avoid being caught in a price cut to bloodbath, which would destroy its profitability. I'm trying to avoid a race to the bottom, which means yes. I need to keep on making money to invest in more efficient solutions to reduce the cost of EVs for our middle classes, to be able to pay for them at a price where I can make profits.
关于jack of all trades, master of的说法是什么?他们还在讨论如何确保从北美和欧洲的六个不同工厂获得400 千瓦时的电池容量,这是一个巨大的数字。首席执行官卡洛斯·塔瓦雷斯表示,Stellantis必须避免陷入价格战残杀,否则将摧毁其盈利能力。我正试图避免陷入价格竞争的下限,这意味着是的。我需要继续赚钱,以便投资更高效的解决方案,降低电动汽车的成本,以使我们的中产阶级有能力以能够盈利的价格购买它们。
Some good reporting from Nicolas on the Tesla Sweden situation, Tesla has found a way to use replacement plates in a way where the customers don't actually have to order these replacement license plates. Tesla can do it themselves. So if post Nord continues to not deliver the actual plates, Tesla has found a workaround. The Swedish Transport Agency said this has never been done before this new loophole, and they were going to review the rules, but they just announced they are not going to investigate the matter further. Tesla still solving problems, thinking outside of the box.
The TLDR of this one, a judge is criticizing Tesla for Tesla asking for an arrest warrant, because this individual is breaching a court order and actually leaking Tesla documents, some of which are reported to have Elon's Social Security number on it. But apparently an arrest warrant is not the traditional method for proceedings like this. Tesla said the company was gravely concerned that this individual was going to continue defying this court order and continue to leak these documents on different social media platforms. The judge, Beach said Tesla had obvious remedies, including requesting that meta in Google and other platforms actually remove each individual post that this person is making. Translation, Tesla would basically have to play the whack-a-mole game every time this person leaks something. If you follow Tesla for a while, you may remember this individual's name, Keith, Keith Leach. He's done wild things like this before. As the kids would say, this guy is sus.
Just a heads up, the new Model 3 Plus owners manual for North America is officially published. I'll have it linked below. Same story for the parts catalog. Just one anecdote from somebody on Reddit, but when it comes to the supercharging situation in Chicago, they said, the issue I think is the 250 kilowatts are using liquid coolant and a water-cooled jacket. Tesla did not anticipate the temperatures in the area being significantly below average, and the coolant blend in use froze solid, killing the flow rates and causing a safety-lint mode. They observed 17 kilowatts from those chargers, but did not stay longer than 30 minutes. The cables were stiff, but after working them for a bit, they were fine. Thus, different coolant blends could be one more small part of this story.
Spotify has officially confirmed in a forum that playback of certain podcasts is currently not supported in Tesla cars. They have, however, passed this onto their team so they can investigate further. They recommend keeping the app up to date to ensure you get the latest features and fixes as soon as they launch. Another Reddit user has created a custom library of new Tesla lock sounds as we now have that optionality. I'll also have this linked below. Your Tesla is lock, sir. Sentry mode activated. Let's go! And yes, he said you can also request your own custom sound.
The NASDAQ ended the day up 1.7% and Tesla ended the day up 0.15%. Another slower volume day, about 7 million shares lower than the 30-day average. I hope you guys have a wonderful and a safe weekend. Please like the video if you did. You can find me on X linked below and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.