Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis, so it's now official from Energy.gov for the first time ever in the United States. ED sales did over 1 million units in 2023. The total number for pure BEV was around 1.1 million, then add another roughly 300,000 plug-in hybrids for 1.4 million total electrified vehicles.
We have a rumor of sorts from Think Your Car on X, an account which provides insights into the Chinese automotive industry. They're saying the new Model 3 Plus performance is expected to launch in China in quarter two, priced around $56,000, mass produced at Giga Shanghai. By the end of March, and it should hit the market for sale, rumors are saying it'll be a tri-motor powertrain system. Clearly, no promises with this rumor about a tri-motor setup, but that would certainly be news because historically the Model 3 performance was a dual-motor setup.
我们从“Think Your Car on X”这个账号上得到了一条传闻,该账号提供中国汽车行业的见解。他们说新的Model 3 Plus性能版有望于第二季度在中国上市,售价约为56,000美元,由上海超级工厂进行大规模生产。据传闻,到3月底,该车应该会上市销售,有消息称它将是一款三电机动力系统。显然,对于这个传闻中的三电机设置没有确切保证,但如果属实的话,那将是重大新闻,因为从历史来看,Model 3性能版一直采用的是双电机设置。
Here's my problem with this post, though. If you read carefully, they say it'll be mass-produced at Shanghai by the end of March, which would mean they would start producing this sometime in March, which is actually quarter one. Typically, mass-produced implies at least a few weeks of a ramp up to get to that phase prior, meaning that this vehicle would be launching sometime in quarter one if this were to be a solid source. Thus, take it for what you will. If this vehicle were to be launched in China, maybe toward the end of Q1, I would then expect it to hit the North American market sometime, of course, in quarter two.
Speaking of the Model 3 Plus, at current locations across the United States, dependent on availability, you can actually take a 30-minute demo drive. Not only that, though, you can also book an overnight test drive for the Model 3 Plus. You can drive it up to 200 miles, but you have to bring it back in the morning. Based on everything I'm reading online, the availability of this overnight test drive for the Model 3 Plus is still pretty limited, but keep it in the back of your mind and be checking with your local Tesla showroom if you're interested.
Luca Greco on X, our resident Gigapress expert, said, I've tracked over 120 Gigapress orders above 6,000 tons. The vast majority of which are from Chinese Tier 1 suppliers, there are still legacy OEMs with no plans to switch to Gigacastings.
AJ on X put together a chart for European auto sales comparing 2022 market share to last year. The biggest winner for the year? Tesla gaining over 1% of new market share, and the biggest loser was Ford losing about 67 basis points of market share. The second biggest grower for the year was VW's brand, Skoda, gaining 49 basis points of market share.
Tesla's annual report for 2023, the 10k, came out today and naturally there are some people out there saying Tesla was hiding some things in this report, so spent most of the day today going through this and let's get to the takeaways. Perhaps most importantly though, now that this report is out, it actually means Elon can hold that company talk that he had mentioned on X. He said he'll recap the talented team's amazing accomplishments for 2023 and describe exciting plans for 2024 and beyond. Hopefully, he stays true to this and we see it in the next few days or weeks.
Tesla now has 140.4,000 employees, up 9.9% year over year, that's compared to 127.8,000 at the end of 2022. Tesla's new forecast for capital expenditures for 2024 and 2025 is between $8 and $10 billion. In 2023, their actual cap expend was $8.9 billion compared to $7.16 billion in 2022.
One of the more overlooked aspects of the 10k from what I've seen so far, of Tesla's about $29 billion in cash and cash equivalents, Tesla has $13.2 billion of that actually invested. This primarily in government securities like T-bills, CDs, money market funds, etc. This figure is actually up $5 billion from the end of 2022 and what this means is let's say Tesla invests that $13.2 billion at roughly 5%, which is what you can go get for around one year, that would be $660 million per year in interest earned. For some context, last year, Tesla's services and other line of business did $489 million in profit for the year. Now of course that's going to grow for 2024, but even if the services business grows beyond this figure, this would still effectively be almost like another business line for Tesla.
I always like to take a look at where Tesla's revenue is coming from geographically, doing the math for 2023, 46.7% of revenues came from the USA, 30.8% international, 22.5% from China. Those figures compared to 2022 in the United States, that number was down about 3%, international was actually up roughly 3%, and China was mostly unchanged.
Going forward, Giga Shanghai is now going to be subject to the regular statutory 25% corporate income tax rate. From 2019 to 2023, Tesla was actually granted a beneficial rate of 15%, that has now gone away. There was no meaningful update when it comes to the 2018 CEO Performance Award litigation that took place in 2022. All it said, post trial briefing and argument are now complete. This is the verdict Tesla's board of directors is waiting for as they put together Elon's next compensation plan.
Tesla's energy generation and storage gross margin was 18.9% for 2023, that's up from 7.4% in 2022. Tesla's deferred revenue balance for things like FSD and free supercharging increased about $600 million, ending 2023 at $3.5 billion. That was up from $2.9 billion, ending 2022, and last year, Tesla recognized $595 million from this balance, and that number was $580 million for 2022.
On the Tesla energy side of the business, that deferred revenue balance ended 2023 at $3.4 billion, of which they expect to recognize about a third or $1.05 billion in the next 12 months. As of January 22nd, Tesla now has $3,184.7 million shares outstanding, and for those of you that like to do EPS calculations for business lines, the diluted share count sits at $3.485 billion.
Naturally, I saved the one for last where I've seen multiple people talking about what Tesla's been hiding in this 10k, and it's such a terrible result. They were painting Tesla's warranty cost incurred for 2023 of $1.2 billion, up 49% a year over year as something that was effectively awful. They were saying, as the first time that figure was ever over $1.000, which then means Tesla is still bad at making cars because they have so many warranty costs they have to pay for. As you may have guessed though, it's total nonsense.
If you go back to 2021 and 2022, you understand why. As Tesla grows its business and has more vehicles covered by warranty, this number is of course going to go up. For 2022, Tesla's warranty repair costs were $803 million, which was up 53% year over year, which was actually a faster growth rate than it was in 2023. Then in 2021, Tesla's warranty costs were $525 million. The simple takeaway? Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for this specific metric.
On X, CERN Bashir put together a helpful chart comparing Tesla's reported revenue, the green, and Tesla's indicative revenue that he's calling it as the yellow. Effectively, indicative revenue is really just the reported revenue then you add in the deferred revenue and Tesla's unsatisfied performance obligations. Thus, it's actually this yellow line that represents the growth of the balance of revenue Tesla is going to recognize at some point in the future. Which over the past three quarters has grown at a much faster clip than Tesla's reported revenue.
Last week, Morgan Crapz, the director of public affairs at Redwood, said on LinkedIn Redwood has officially broken ground in South Carolina at their second battery materials campus. If you've watched the channel for a while, you may remember that this site was actually supposed to break ground originally in quarter 1 of 2023, so they're roughly one year behind that timeline. People are calling South Carolina the battery belt now and the plan for Redwood is to spend about three and a half billion dollars at this location and eventually it's set to make 100 gigawatt hours of cathode and anode materials per year which would be enough for about 1 million EVs per year.
Tesla continues to be a fan favorite among EV drivers here despite the fierce competition by local brands. One of the criticisms though of Tesla is that it doesn't refresh its models quickly enough, especially when compared to some of its Chinese rivals. Now for this Cybertruck, Tesla has not officially announced that the Cybertruck would come here to China. In fact, Elon Musk has gone on recorders to say that it's going to be difficult and one of the issues has been the regulatory environment, especially around trucks. But one point that was really interesting and picked up upon by a lot of the fans is that the name of the Cybertruck in Chinese avoids the word truck. So that's seen as a way for Tesla perhaps to eventually launch the Cybertruck here.
Right, well it's interesting because here you really can't get a pickup truck or if you do, you're not able to drive into the city, like into some of that kind of more packed areas. So there are a lot of regulations around it and that's why it's interesting that in the name people, you know, people love to see these big cars, they love driving them. That's what they were talking about. Does everyone is impressed by the size? They love the look. They were talking about how it looks like an armored vehicle. People loved it. But the regulations are such that they don't allow what would be considered a pickup truck into the kind of more packed parts of the city. So, the fact that it was called an urban traveling wagon, maybe not so catchy, but maybe it could get you around some of the regulations.
Right now with the Cybertruck in China, there is all kinds of hype around the vehicle and some reporters saying that Tesla may be working on ways to bring the Cybertruck to the Chinese market getting around the current regulations. Is there a hint to be extracted from Tesla apparently changing what they're calling Cybertruck in the Chinese market to then say that in the future they're going to bring a scaled down version of this vehicle to that market? It's possible.
At least for the foreseeable future, the way I see it, Tesla is going to focus on building this vehicle at scale for the United States. They will have sufficient demand for at least the next two to three years in this market alone. I'm pretty sure Tesla would agree bringing the next gen compact vehicle to market in China as fast as possible is priority number one. With that said, it's pretty tough to deny how popular the Cybertruck has been in the Chinese market for the past few days.
As I've said before, if Tesla ever plans to send the Cybertruck to the Chinese market, that's just going to be icing on the cake, but long term it's not a market that is required for the Cybertruck to have success. I do think it's worth mentioning, I've heard that right now only certain organizations are allowed to use pickup trucks in certain cities in China, meaning individuals in some cities cannot. I'm also hearing that some of the major Chinese automakers have been lobbying the government to allow individuals to actually own pickups. From that lobbying angle, let's not forget that a few years ago, Tesla played a pivotal role in the government actually changing its stance when it comes to these green license plates for EVs.
A Reddit user shared a picture of a V4 supercharger in Norway with the touchscreen actually active. This is the first time I've really seen this. While this may seem like a step backward for Tesla, you have to remember this is due to regulations in certain countries and really is for these non-Tesla owners that are using these V4 sites. As I understand it, these screens are effectively irrelevant for actual Tesla owners.
ChargeMap just came out with its 2023 ranking of the best charging networks in Europe, where they have over 112,000 users sharing their charging experience, generating over 390,000 ratings on the charge map platform. And the winner is… no surprise, the Tesla supercharger network followed by FastNet and Electra. When it comes to the best rated networks in terms of value for the money in Europe, the Tesla supercharger network was actually in fourth. Then in terms of infrastructure reliability, the supercharger network was actually in second behind the first place FastNet.
FastNet might be a new name here in the UK, but it's actually one of the biggest rapid charging networks in Europe and it's expanding out of its native Holland 12 just about everywhere really. You can spot them by their distinctive solar canopies. They provide a welcome cover from the elements, which is something we really like. It's also well-licked here and it just feels safe, which again is a big plus point in my book.
This is one aspect of Tesla's business Tesla Electric in Texas that I would love to get more information on what Tesla is planning in terms of a future electric rollout. I think many customers would be interested in having the option to pay $25 a month for unlimited charging at night between 10pm and 6am. Limited charging for less than $1 a night with electricity provided by Tesla Electric. Right now it's only in certain locations in Texas that allow the individual to choose their own electric provider, then if you're one of those people and you have a Tesla vehicle or a power wall, you may be eligible. With this plan, customers can sell energy to the grid if they need energy from the grid, it's going to come from 100% renewable sources. Plus everything I've seen Tesla will actually pay customers more for selling that energy to the grid than some of the other competitors would. On that front, I wonder what are Tesla's plans for Tesla Electric rolling out into other states and what might the timelines look like?
What about Tesla Insurance? It's now been over one full year since we've got one new state eligible for Tesla Insurance, so I would have loved one question on the conference call to be about that.
Don't forget Tesla's shutdown of Gigabrelin due to the problems in the Red Sea and shipping is actually beginning today. We also have this from the Nikkei Asia today that companies are preparing for a new norm characterized by longer transport distances. The VP of Maritime Affairs at S&P is saying he expects the process of companies adjusting to the new reality to take a few more months, assuming the current hostilities continue in the Middle East. About 90% of the container ships sailing through the Red Sea have been forced to divert from the crucial trade route since mid-December. Beyond just the added costs and the time of shipping, this could create new challenges like insufficient port capacity to handle this volume of shipping activity and the risk that bunker fuel shortages could create additional bottlenecks along the route.
According to an analyst, about 70% of components in the European automotive sector imported from Asia come through the Red Sea. There have already been companies on the east coast of North America switching from ocean to air freight, but now we have air freight rates rising due to the increased demand. Hopefully Gigabrelin's two-week shutdown for production is only two weeks, but for now things really are not looking great.
Toyota Industries, which is effectively a subsidiary of Toyota Motor, has been found by an independent panel to have falsified horsepower output tests for diesel engines used in seven Toyota industrial vehicles and three car models. In response, Toyota is going to suspend shipments of some cars whose engine parts were found to have irregularities during certification tests. Toyota Industries, which is commissioned by Toyota Motors, cheated on the certification tests for three diesel engine models. The committee is not in a situation to say whether Toyota Motor was at fault for this, and the extent to which Toyota should check the results is decided based on trust between the two companies. This comes shortly after another Toyota subsidiary, Dihatsu Motor, was found to have flaws in safety tests for its products, and after Hino Motors was found to have falsified its truck's emissions data.
Say what you will about Tesla, but in about 20 years of existence we've never had anything about Tesla outright falsifying or cheating or actually lying. Sure, Tesla may have played within the rules of the game I would add to have better listed ranges for their vehicles, but they've never outright lied falsified data or actually cheated. Not to overreact here, but just understanding human nature if this type of thing is allowed into the culture, it's most likely happening in other parts of the business as well, which as a consumer just makes it very hard to want to support companies like this or VW with things like dieselgate. As I was looking up the connection between Toyota Industries and Toyota Motor, I also found that Toyota was involved in an investigation with forklift and construction machinery engines, in which an investigative committee also confirmed misdoing. Case in point. Either way, Toyota holds around a 25% stake in Toyota Industries, and Toyota Industries in turn owns about 8% of Toyota shares itself.
Ford is trying out a new policy allowing dealers to rent out 2023 Mustang Mach-E's through their dealer Daily Rental Program. This started January 15th and it aims to manage excess inventory with the goal of increasing the number of EVs in loaner service. To incentivize dealers to participate in this rental program, Ford will offer $1,750 off invoice credit. Ford allowing its dealers to loan out these Mustang Mach-E's may drum up some extra EV interest, but at the end of the day, this really just highlights the very difficult position the Mustang Mach-E is in relative to the Model Y that still qualifies for the full credit the Mach-E does not.
Some influential GM dealers are pressing them to introduce hybrid models, worried they're losing customers who aren't ready for fully electric vehicles. GM executives have acknowledged the dealer's views, but they have not made any commitments to future hybrid options.
There are two glaring problems for GM when it comes to hybrids. First and foremost, their entire business model for the future is based on this Altium EV platform, fully electric, not focusing on hybrid. Plus, about 20 years ago, GM tried to bring some hybrid options to the market of vehicles like the GMC Yukon and the Cadillac Escalade, some of their more profitable vehicles and within a few years, they discontinued those because they didn't sell well. Then in 2010, they tried it again with the Chevy Volt, which had a bit more success, but that was also discontinued by 2019 because it was a money loser. Thus, when it comes to GM and hybrids, history has not been kind to this company.
On X-luise, otherwise known as Lula, the president of Brazil, has confirmed that BYD is taking over a former Ford factory, taking it over for full EV production. This will be BYD's first factory outside of Asia in Brazil, inching closer and closer to the West.
We talked about it last week, Rivian's hiring spree and poaching of some pretty solid talent is continuing. DJ Navatny, who worked at Apple for almost 25 years, has now left to work at Rivian where he will serve as the senior VP of vehicle programs. In DJ's new role, he'll lead product management for products and engineering, making him one of the company's most critical executives. DJ was also part of the team at Apple who helped to start efforts for Apple's own EV, which we talked about last week so far has been a complete disaster.
Tesla stock closed the day at $190.93, up 4.19%, compared to the NASDAQ up 1.12% on the day. Tesla shares traded nearly 12 million shares over the average 30-day volume. It was a green day across the board for our auto and AI list, but I do think it's calling out Lucid up 27% on the day. In part, this could be driven by the fact that this morning, Motley Fool, issued a BY-alert for Lucid stock before the market opened.
We haven't talked much about Neuralink on the channel to date, but Elon dropped some pretty major news, saying the first human received an implant from Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well. Initial results show promising neuron spike detection, so now in the days and weeks ahead, hopefully we can get a lot more information. When you talk about potential life-changing technology, this type of thing comes to mind as something that's not actually hyperbole using that wording.
I hope you guys have a wonderful day, you can find me on X-linked below, please like the video if you did, and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.