Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis, quick shout out to my newest patrons, John E. and Paul H. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. A study was just done by the Americans for Tax Fairness, and it found that 35 major US companies paid their top 5 executives more than they paid in federal income tax between 2018 and 2022. Tesla is on that list, and now there are multiple organizations reporting that one of the worst offenders was Tesla. I just had to say, regardless of what you think about the tax code, it is what it is, and no human, no organization is going to willingly pay more money to the government than is required. So rather than using this data to paint Tesla as some terrible company, if they had any journalistic integrity, they would be taking it up with the tax code.
Rohan Patel said FSD version 12.3 is phenomenal. So much encouraging progress, my trip to work this morning was mind-blowing. He continued four roundabouts, construction issues, potholes, speed bumps, multiple unprotected left turns, 12.3 is the real deal and getting better and better. Tesla scopes said 12.3 has now expanded to the special access group, which includes some non-employee vehicles. The update has not yet been deployed to all eligible Tesla vehicles, but this is encouraging news. There's a lot of speculation out there that this could be the one that goes to a wider release. Some people are talking about this weekend, personally, I would not be so optimistic.
Also important to note, version 12.3 is still on the 2023 branch, version 12 has not yet made it to the 2024 branch. Holmar's catalog and AI driver have both gotten 12.3, and I believe AI driver is in California also. No video yet from AI driver, buddy said 12.3 understands no right on red. Lee commented only red arrow, I assume, and AI driver said nope, only sign was posted regular red lights. He also said first impressions, the harsh braking for no reason on an open road has been reduced significantly. Auto speed sometimes still does not reach the speed limit and sits slightly under it. Auto speed can be wild, it was going 70 miles an hour in a 55 zone, while people were passing him going 75 to 80. It seems to take the racing line through corners, even more than 12.2 had two unprotected turns, which felt less sketchy than before and handled them great.
He confirmed what we've been hearing from many other users as well, that on the highway, V12 still feels a lot like V11. It did what he can only describe as a shoulder peak move towards the inner lane as he was sitting behind a slow moving truck and traffic. As soon as the car saw the cars in front, it went right back behind, no turn signal, so human-like. High fidelity park assist seems improved. His 65 mile drive was a zero disengagement drive and he said he expects a wide release soon. Holmars does have some 12.3 videos out already, in one of them he said, version 12.3 is capable of perfect drives, people will experience them regularly. To bring us all back down to Earth, let's not forget, these folks are in California, we need to see how it does in other states as well.
Charlie Bolello gave us the update, we're now at 20 months in a row that the average price of a used Tesla has gone down. Currently we sit at a record low of $32,000. In case you're new to the Tesla story and wondering what's going on with that phenomena, here are the main reasons, go ahead and pause to read if you'd like. There's a lot of sloppy reporting going around right now when it comes to the Tesla Semi being built at Gigabrelin, specifically when it comes to the timeline. There are multiple sources and people out there now saying that Tesla Semi production is going to begin at Gigabrelin in 2024. However, if you track down the actual source from Hondlesblott, here's what we get from the translation. Skipping over what we already covered in yesterday's video, the next paragraph said Elon introduced the Semi in 2017. The truck is currently being developed in Nevada and is being built in small numbers. According to Elon, the goal should be to produce the Semi trailer at about the same price as a diesel truck. To achieve this, Tesla would currently optimize design and production. According to Elon, he is aiming for high volume production by the end of 2024. Notice how this entire paragraph is talking about the Tesla Semi in general, not the Tesla Semi being built in Berlin.
Then new thought, new paragraph, the Tesla Semi is still in the development phase and Matthias Schmidt from Schmidt Automotive said he definitely sees a market in Europe for the Semi. I have not been able to find any video of that specific part of Elon's speech. Here's what I see right now. We just saw the Gigan Nevada new construction site for where the Semi is going to be built in volume production. It seems like that's not going to be ready this year for volume production. So as I said, most likely Tesla Semi entering more volume production in 2025 in the United States first. Simply put, I think many people are just misinterpreting that Hauntles Blot article. Personally, I think the chances are near zero that we see a Tesla Semi produced at Gig and Berlin in 2024. I also think it's somewhat unlikely in 2025, but 2026 and beyond? Perhaps. I have no special sources for this one. I'm just reading between the lines with all of the data we have. Heinrich Zane said he would have a Tesla Semi update soon and one of the highlights would include imminent delivery to a customer other than Pepsi. He'll also discuss how Tesla might focus on the standard range Semi and his reasoning behind it. And here's a quick clip of that standard range Semi with some concrete blocks behind it. I'd also add before the Semi can roll out in areas of Europe, it will most likely need to build out a megawatt charging system, which does not exist right now. In January of last year, BP Pauls did build out six ultra fast 300 kilowatt charge points aimed at e-trucks in Germany. The 300 kilowatt charging stations are each capable of charging more than 20 e-trucks per charger each day. And one last reminder, Elon saying, I think it makes sense to do something is not the same thing as Tesla having concrete plans to do something. Based on some high level research, it does seem like the Tesla Semi could work in parts of the EU. There's this EU regulation where drivers must take at least a 45 minute break after driving for 4.5 consecutive hours, which could be perfect for charging. From ING, European new truck registrations in 2023 hit their highest level in 15 years. This article was one week into December of last year and at that point European registrations were just under 420,000 new medium and heavy duty trucks for EU, EFTA and the UK.
Wes, a cyber truck engineer, quote posted a picture of a pull through supercharger station with a cyber truck carrying a trailer. He said the supercharger team is always looking for opportunities to install these at new locations will show trailer friendly stalls on the in vehicle UI to make it easier when road tripping with a trailer. For a long time, I've really wanted to see more canopies at supercharger locations, but I'm kind of giving up that hope because the more I think about it, people don't stand outside their vehicle at supercharger locations. They either sit in their car or go grab a bite to each shop, whatever else. When interest rates come down, we may see more sites with solar canopies, but I'm not so sure we'll ever get to a point where they're really ubiquitous across all sites.
Matthew DR pointed this one out and the reporting on this one is so egregious. These are the cases where I wish Tesla would go on the offensive with its lawyers and put an end to stuff like this. Jalot Nick, who has been very anti-Tesla for years, the headline, a Tesla touchscreen mix-up killed Angela Chow. In the article, they say back in 2021, Tesla moved to a touchscreen interface for shifting its cars. The source article though from the Wall Street Journal said that Angela Chow's Tesla was a 2020 Model X, meaning she would have the stocks. Then Jalot Nick said everyone looking at the situation seems to throw some amount of blame on the Model X. Well, I'm not so sure about that Jalot Nick because in the source article from the Wall Street Journal, they literally said no one in the family blames Tesla. I don't want to waste too much of your time here, but Jalot Nick concluded their article saying it can't explain the details of how to figure out Tesla's dumb touchscreen shifter. You're on your own for that one.
马修 DR 指出了这一点,对这件事的报道实在是太过分了。这些是我希望特斯拉会派出律师积极应对,终结这种事情的案例。多年来一直对特斯拉持有敌意的 Jalot Nick,在标题中声称特斯拉触摸屏搞乱了安吉拉·周。在文章中,他们说在 2021 年,特斯拉开始将汽车的换挡功能移到了触摸屏界面上。然而,来自《华尔街日报》的原文中却提到安吉拉·周的特斯拉是一辆 2020 年的 Model X,这意味着她应该会有换挡杆。然后 Jalot Nick 说所有看到这种情况的人似乎都在对 Model X 投以一定程度的责备。对此,我对 Jalot Nick 的看法并不确定,因为《华尔街日报》的原文中明确表示,安吉拉的家人并没有责怪特斯拉。我不想浪费你太多时间,但 Jalot Nick 在文章中总结道,他无法解释如何弄清特斯拉愚蠢的触摸屏换挡器的细节。这个问题你得靠自己解决。
I didn't know swiping up and swiping down was so difficult. Then today, rather than correcting their original article, they went ahead and doubled down, saying Tesla's gear shifting problems have been known long before Angela Chow's death, saying it's a common problem with a vehicle among owners. So not only is Jalot Nick using a sensitive story in which somebody died, but they're also using it to maliciously spread disinformation about Tesla. It's this type of thing that should not go unpunished. I can almost guarantee you, there are now thousands of people that think Tesla's touchscreen malfunctions all the time, and it might just drive you right into a lake.
One part of Elon's speech at Gigabirlin we did get was him saying Tesla will enable doge payments at some point, doge to the moon. I have to say, Elon's handling of crypto has been very frustrating. He admitted in this video, the only reason he supports doge is because he had two factory workers make the request that Elon supports doge while he was walking the factory lines, and he said what the heck, it's the crypto of the people, that's the only reason he supports it. Not the monetary policy, not the code, not the programming, absolutely nothing foundational. Full disclosure, I'm somebody who fell down the crypto rabbit hole around 2018, studied it pretty extensively for about three years. I just find Elon's comments around crypto in general to be somewhat reckless, given that he has admitted he does not know much about the space.
The kilowatts on X posted a video with a cyber truck throwing multiple different balls and objects at the window, and they had some interesting results. They were throwing golf balls, baseballs, pool balls, different sized steel balls, and then toward the end they finally had a breakthrough. They threw this decent sized steel ball, which I think is the same one that Franz used multiple times and the window held up for maybe five or six different throws. Now, I mean, you're not going to find Ryan on an MLB mound anytime soon, but he's not just lobbying it either. Then finally, after about five or six throws, this happened. Wow, it's so it's laminated. So the outside broke, the inside's still not even cracked. I'm not seeing any cracking on the backside. I can just run my hand. Wow. That's insane. A lot of people are going to be worried about how you actually get out in an emergency. So let's go ahead and try the glass breaking tool in three, two.
This did nothing. Yeah, I mean, I can just, I can just poke a dot at basically, it'll crack it. And that'll help you get out in an emergency, but that one didn't even crack. As some of you pointed out yesterday, these window breaking tools may be no match for laminated glass.
Tom, why do you feel like things are going to turn for this company? Yeah, I mean, look, this company is in between two waves, this is what Elon calls it, right? You had the Model 3 in the Model Y, which is largely saturated. The next big catalyst is going to be the affordable car. Unfortunately, that comes in what, H225. So he doesn't think about things on a day to day or month to month period, as you probably know very well. He's looking at things from a year, if not decades perspective. So we're just in between this period of two moles. Eventually, we'll get this catalyst with this vehicle that'll come out. And there's some long-term tectonic things that people just aren't talking about, which folks like me will start writing reports about and get folks interested eventually.
So such as energy storage. Nobody's talking about this. This is a trillions of dollars of opportunity. Problem is it's like decades away potentially. These guys have 15% market share in this business. And the profitability is higher than the profitability of cars. And then of course, autonomy. Right? There's just a lot of negativity and autonomy today. You guys ever used FSD? I think it's a pretty amazing product. It's the most amazing product I've used since the iPhone.
We're finally going to get this version 12 this year, which could get the attach rate up. The problem is not even if people have tested this thing. Once you have people tested and the pricing needs to come down, that can change things dramatically. People look at it as a software stock, not just an auto company. Right. Yeah, you're right. Things could get worse before they get better. There's no doubt about it. My job is to say where this stock will be a year from now, not next week.
So yeah, you're right. And the other issue is while I think they'll hit the volume target that the sell side has, I don't think it's that aggressive actually for 24. I think that'll come from price cutting, which impacts profitability. And that's what everybody worries about. So you're right. Near term, definitely challenging. Elon says it all the time, right? But again, you got to have a broader view of it.
And I don't know about you. I can never time this thing. Right. So it pops when it pops, right? That was RBC Capital's Tom Narayan, who was recently talking about Tesla's Megapack business that could be worth substantially more than the car business, his current Tesla price target, 297. His tip ranks profile is solid. Four out of five stars ranked 1.4,000 out of 8.8,000 Wall Street analysts. Morgan Stanley put out a new Tesla stock note getting into the upcoming election and how politics may play a role in the EV movement, which unfortunately we're all going to have to deal with this year.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump in an interview expressed his willingness to use tariffs to encourage China auto companies to localize production in the United States. He didn't really say much in the rest of the note, but it's on the screen. So you can pause to read if you'd like. I just want to highlight this story of China potentially coming into the US auto market. This could be one of the biggest storylines in automotive over the next decade. And depending how this year's election goes, that may play out sooner than some are expecting.
Fiskar has hired restructuring advisors to assist with a possible bankruptcy filing. Technically, this one's not a done deal yet, but the writing has been on the wall for weeks. I think the contract manufacturing route for automotive and specifically for EVs is a questionable one at best. If this Fiskar goes bankrupt, that will be Henrik Fiskar's second bankruptcy in the automotive space as Fiskar Automotive went bankrupt back in 2013. Some people out there were jokingly saying that MKBHD ended Fiskar with his review of one of their cars. He said either a review calling the product bad killed the company or the product was so bad it killed the company.
There's a lot of chatter out there right now that figure AI is a scam and it's not just Warren, there are other people that think this is the case as well. I'm not here to argue one way or another, personally I just don't have enough information about this company. I did want to touch on this one point though because a lot of people were commenting and talking about this yesterday. Warren said chat GPT itself says it does not use filler words like ah and does not stutter.
But as far as I can tell with chat GPT, you can prompt it and or program it to actually speak more like a human with pauses and stuttering and the light. I said tell me about the stock market today but use normal human language including stutters and ums. The text response was oh I'm sure thing. So today in the stock market things were uh pretty mixed. Here's that same prompt for the audio version. The stock market today um had a bit of roller coaster ride. It started off um pretty strong with gains in the morning but then um things turned around in the afternoon and it ended up. You get the picture. Brett the founder of figure asked has anyone identified the person behind the robot voice? A text to speech AI was fine tuned. On X, Steven asked why the stammer, Peter Wielander chimed in the VP of product at open AI. He said our TTS system sometimes does that as it's trained to mimic natural speech. You'll hear it if you try chat GPT voice mode two, you can remove it with prompting. Again I am not trying to argue for or against figure being a scam. I just wanted to provide a counterpoint to this line of criticism.
One market to watch when it comes to EV and Tesla adoption in Europe is France. For the month of January, France recorded 20,000 full BEV deliveries that made up 16% of the overall market. We'll see how things progress as incentives were removed in France for EVs made outside of Europe at the beginning of this year. Then looking at the top 20 EV sales by model for all of 2023 in France, the Model Y was the best seller and the Model 3 came in third. Separating those two was the dossier spring. For this year, the Model Y will not lose access to the incentives given that it's made at Gigabirlin but the Model 3 has lost the incentives in France so that'll be something to watch for this year.
Jim Farley and some Ford executives are kicking off an engagement tour that will involve a dozen in-person sessions with about one-third of Ford's US dealer body. Farley and the team want to hear directly from dealers who don't typically participate in the company's regular counsel or committee meetings. The president of Ford Blue said for us, it's a great chance to sit with the dealers and discuss the challenges in the industry, whether they be compliance, regulatory issues, shifting EV curves or new competition. One dealer rep said he hopes the officials can better explain decisions around EV investments and what they're doing to improve vehicle quality and reliability. Our quality has gone down as much as our prices have gone up. That has to be addressed. Part of those concerns most likely stem from the fact the F-150 Lightning has been on hold for five weeks over an undisclosed issue.
VW has announced they're looking to produce the ID1, the vehicle that should cost around $21,000 in 2027. The VW brand boss said we're already in the middle of it, we know what the car should look like. This is extremely economically challenging and they still need to decide where they're going to build it. He said VW will make that decision shortly and VW is also in talks with Renault about building a small mass market EV. They're still forecasting 11 new VW brand models launching by 2027. The ID1 is set to follow the ID2, which that one would be around $25,000. They're saying 279 miles of range for the ID2 and that it'll launch in 2026.
S&P Global put out some data for the US market in 2023 when it comes to retail registrations which excludes fleet data. The number one selling model was the F series lineup with 380.7,000. The Model Y was in second with 375.1,000. And third was the RAV4 with 368.5,000. Five of the retail top 10 were pickups, two models came from Tesla and then three Toyota vehicles made it into the top rankings the most of any brand. Even if you look at total registrations which includes fleet data, the Model Y was still in the top 10 for 2023. It moved up to number five on the list up from number nine in 2022. Then for full battery electric only in the United States here were the top 10 best selling vehicles in order. The Model Y, Model 3, Chevy Bolt, Mach-E, the ID4, Hyundai's Ionic 5, Model X, Rivian R1s, Ford F-150 Lightning, then Kia EV6.
Nissan is considering entering into a partnership with Honda to jointly develop electric vehicles. Two companies that historically have been competitors now may be teaming up to build EVs. Both Honda and Nissan are considering cutting production capacity in China as sales decline. Nissan CEO just said the company is facing a tough business environment.
You may remember just last year, Honda was going to jointly develop affordable electric vehicles with GM but those plans were later put on the shelf. To everybody saying EV demand is dead, you can go ahead and put this one in your pipe. According to a new report, EVs are no longer a novelty and their uptake in Australia is booming with the industry recording 120% rise in sales over the past year. There are now more than 180,000 EVs on Australian roads with over 98,000 of those bought last year.
Tesla's Model Y and Model 3 by far outstripped the competition in the field of 99 EVs available in Australia. They were followed by the BYD-A2-3 and the MG-MG-4. The producer price index came in hotter than expected today, rolled in at 0.6% the consensus expectation was 0.3%. This hotter than expected inflation data throws some cold water on the hopes that the Fed will cut rates sooner rather than later. Looking at the CME Fed Watch tool, just one month ago, there was an 18% chance at the June meeting that they keep rates the same, fast forward to today, and we're now up to a 37% chance that the Fed keeps rates where they are all the way through the June meeting.
Right now, we sit at a 63% chance for a rate cut at the June meeting. Tesla stock closed the day at $162.50 down 4.12% while the Nasdaq was down 0.3%. All of Rivian, Lucid, and Polestar were all down over 6% on the day. It was a higher volume day for Tesla trading about 25 million shares above the average 30-day volume. Big shout out to SpaceX for another successful Starship test flight. Sawyer said Starlink enabled us to see the plasma field as the ship entered the Earth's atmosphere. Elon said, yeah, this was wild, we've never seen this super hot plasma grow in real time.
This video from Steven Shapiro driving some people around in the Cybertruck was one of those that just makes you smile. Warning, there is some swearing if you were to watch with kids. I'll have it linked below if you want to check it out. 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.