Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. Rohan Patel said there is instead a tendency when it comes to regulators to create artificial blockers to progress either because of media inflated anecdotes or protectionism of the incumbent industry. With this one, what's happening with the UNECE over in Europe comes to mind. Rohan was then asked, do you think Tesla will have the data to prove that FSD is overwhelmingly safer than human drivers, to which Rohan said yes and we will not be shy. It would be awesome to have some public Tesla FSD disengagement data.
I think the problem with that is think about your own disengagements. A lot of mine happened because of route choice or something else, a non-critical disengagement. So the way I see it, Tesla would most likely want to differentiate between critical and non-critical disengagements before making any of that information public. Plus, in addition to poor route selection, I'm also often disengaging just to avoid a pothole or something else, not something that necessarily deserves a critical disengagement.
It's likely Tesla faces regulatory hurdles in China and in Europe based on how things are going, but in the United States, keep in mind, there are only about 10 states that actually limit autonomous vehicles in some capacity. The rest, whether by default or a specific legislation, do actually allow for AV testing in their borders. Now, there may be some accidents along the way, and that of course could change things, but I don't think the regulatory hurdle at least in the United States is as high as some other people are making it out to be. Globally, though, that's a separate conversation.
Last night, FSD version 12.3.4 started rolling out to employees. Fast forward just a few hours and some customers are now getting it as well, the software 24.3.15. As far as we can tell for now, there are no new release notes for this version. As EdgeK said on X, one of the most common reasons for him disengaging with V12 has been wrong lane selection. And to that, I would say I concur. That's one specific thing I'll be looking for with dot four for me with V12.
There's been more than a handful of times where it's completely missed the lane it needed to be in and thus ultimately missed the turn, not only that, but oftentimes when it goes to change lanes, it'll start to change lanes and get over the line and then it'll go back and then it'll change lanes, which just makes everybody around you uncomfortable. The last thing I want to say, there's some prominent Tesla people out there that have been saying version 12 is a better driver than they are. Now, sure, there are some bad human drivers out there, but the way I see it, I'll be honest, I consider myself to be an S tier driver and there is nothing that version 12 does better than me.
And let me be clear, I'm obviously not expecting it to be right now, but it's not smoother, it's not more decisive. I just think anybody out there that's saying that is either one, a bad driver or two is being a bit disingenuous. And look at what we have here as I was recording, it turns out the new model three plus is finally getting FSD version dot three dot four. That's most likely the lower hanging fruit down. Now we wait and see about Cybertruck. And the word is legacy model SNX owners are getting this update as well. So if you're out there, just stay patient.
For a time, there was a job posting at Tesla for an engineer for the optimist program, but it appears as though that posting is gone. And when you search for all jobs in Vancouver, BC, you will see nothing for the optimist bot. So the options are they already hired somebody or the posting was an accident. Reuters said Elon has plans to visit India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the sources said Elon is expected to make an announcement on investment and a factory in the country. Elon and Modi will meet the week of April 22nd in New Delhi and will separately make an announcement about Elon's India plans. Elon will be accompanied by other executives during his visit on X Elon said looking forward to meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India.
This back and forth between Elon Tesla and India has now gone on for almost a decade. Things started publicly back in 2015. The import tariffs coming down from upwards of 100% to 15% is certainly a win, but that's still 15% on a $50,000 car. That's the amount of the EV tax credit $7,500. Then you add in EV sales were only about 2% of the market share in India in 2023 and it'll be interesting to see how things unfold.
There's also some reporting again from Reuters saying Tesla may be scouting for a local partner to set up its operations in India. They're saying Tesla is in talks with Reliance Industries for a possible joint venture to build the manufacturing site in the country. Talks are at initial stages and have been ongoing for over a month. The source said the move should not be construed as Reliance Industries entry into the auto space. RIL's objective in the joint venture is to build capacities for EVs in India. The role of the RIL has not been crystallized yet, but it's expected that the Indian conglomerate may play a significant hand in establishing the manufacturing facility and the allied ecosystem for Tesla in India.
We had heard Tesla was considering setting up the factory in three different cities. Now the sources are saying Maharashtra could emerge as the preferred location. Tesla plans to use the facility for domestic and export purposes, and hence it may prefer a location suitable for port facilities. Since the joint venture talks with RIL are not exclusive, Tesla may scout for another domestic partner if things don't work out. On the Reliance website, it seems like they are exactly that, just a giant conglomerate.
They're touted as the largest private sector corporation in India. Their main business lines, energy, retail, new energy and new materials, petrochemicals, digital services, media and entertainment. Reliance is one of the largest taxpayers, direct and indirect in India. Their site says they're investing about $7.2 billion to construct world-scale state-of-the-art facilities to manufacture and integrate critical components of the new energy ecosystem. They mention a fully integrated solar manufacturing complex and advanced energy storage systems for integrated cells, battery packs and control manufacturing.
They're aiming to set up a battery gigafactory by 2026, where they would make LFP cells and they're also working on sodium ion tech. I'll be honest though, scrolling through the website, I'm just thinking to myself, what is this company? It seems like they do literally every single thing under the sun. Just my speculation here, but the way I see it, Tesla doesn't really need anything from a company like this. I would imagine the Indian government would want Reliance to be involved, not only to boost the global awareness of this conglomerate, but to have a front row seat and a hand in everything that Tesla may ultimately do over in India.
Perhaps this Reliance company could help Tesla when it comes to expediting certain parts of the supply chain or putting Tesla in touch with the right people in the right places. We've known for years now that India is really pushing for Tesla to start relying on domestic Indian players throughout the supply chain. We know Elon just said India is now the most populous country in the world based on population. India should have EVs just like every other country has electric cars. It's a natural progression to provide Tesla EVs in India.
Sources are also saying that both Maharashtra and Gujarat have presented attractive land proposals to Tesla for an EV manufacturing site. Plus, discussions with the Telangana government are reportedly underway for a similar arrangement. Fun fact, Telangana is the youngest state in the union of India founded in 2014. If this joint venture were to happen, Elon would be working closely with this gentleman, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. We may finally get that announcement about Tesla's next Gigafactory sometime this summer, the one that we were waiting for at the end of 2023.
We're approaching a new milestone in Norway. Some new data has some experts predicting the number of BEVs on Norway's roads will exceed that of petrol vehicles by the end of this year or early 2025. That, by the way, being the year in which Norway will officially end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. This researcher is also predicting that BEVs will overtake the number of diesel cars on Norway's roads in the next 3-4 years. Remember, this is fleet data, not new car sales data, so EVs about to take over petrol and hopefully diesel in the next few years. Thanks to favorable EV incentives that Norway started rolling out back in the 90s, they're really beginning to reap those rewards.
Tesla has now opened its first in-house collision repair center in Australia with two more on the way, the three sites in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. The first one that's now open is in Sydney and they said body repairs performed by our train Tesla team aimed to ensure the functionality, safety and longevity of your Tesla. Up until now in Australia, Tesla has been relying on third-party external Tesla-approved collision centers. More vertical integration for Tesla and just so you know, on Tesla's collision support page, you can actually search for different types of these centers, whether Tesla collision in-house or those third-party Tesla-approved variants.
You may recall last year unplugged performance was modifying some model-wise for the South Pasadena Police Department. Fast forward to now and unplugged is turning this into a full fledged business. They'll make electrifying your police fleet easy with full planning support and turn key vehicle upfitting. And for their upfit tactical line, it looks like they'll be using the Cybertruck. If you're interested, there's a lot more information on their website comparing an upfit model-wide to the Ford Police Interceptor utility, which is a hybrid vehicle. I just thought this one was cool because they're doing some other things like fleet planning, management and training for these police departments to help them electrify their fleet.
Taking a look at EV sales across the industry for Quarter 1, we have VW in Europe that was down 24% year over year. Zooming out to a global number for VW, their EV sales were down 3% year over year to 136.4.000. Their EV sales in China were up 91% but that was offset by being down 24% in Europe and down 16% in the US. The Mercedes passenger car division sold 47.5.000 EVs in Q1, which was down 8% compared to Q1 2023. Thus for Q1 globally, the Mercedes BEV share was 10.3%. Then we have BMW, who in Quarter 1 hit a nice milestone of 1 million fully electric vehicles sold. The BMW brand excluding many delivered 78.7.000 fully electric vehicles in Quarter 1 up 40.6% from last year.
As I always say with this type of data, just tread lightly with the conclusions you draw because unless you go and do the homework, you don't know what type of base these companies were operating from in Q1 last year. Also, I think it would be fair to say that BMW is focusing on a more volume-based strategy with its EVs than a company like Mercedes who is squarely targeting the luxury market. But I have to say, during a time when so many legacy OEMs are pulling back from EV ambitions, some credit needs to be given to BMW for posting some solid growth. Yes, they were coming from a low base but at least they're going in the right direction.
The 2024 Mustang Mach-E is getting some updates. One of the bigger ones is a new rear motor across the lineup that's supposed to boost the range by 10 to 20 miles. Depending on the battery size, the charging time from 10 to 80% is supposed to be improved by between 6 and 9 minutes. Ford is also getting rid of the GT Performance variant and instead they'll be offering a performance package upgrade that's going to bring the 0-60 time down by 0.5 seconds to 3.3. Ford is opting to keep wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto across the lineup and Ford's Blue Cruise will be on every Mach-E. The Mach-E now starts at $39.9 but the Mach-E does not qualify for any tax credits.
We have two whistleblowers who used to work at Faraday Future that have now brought some lawsuits against the company saying that they were faking early sales. There were some other allegations as well but given Faraday Future claimed to have sold about 10 vehicles for all of 2023, probably not worth our time as this company is also in shambles and may not be around much longer. According to a bulletin that Ford sent to dealers to 2024, Ford Lightning is getting a price cut by as much as $5,500. The base model entry price remains unchanged at $54.9,000. It's the flash that's down by $5,500. As long as the variant stays under that $80,000 MSRP limit, the F-150 Lightning will qualify for the full credit.
This is the new 2025 Mercedes EQS sedan. The only real exterior change is the black grille is now getting some chrome accents. They've also bumped up the size of the battery pack from 108 to 118 kilowatt hours but did not talk about the new EPA range. Ford released some new blueprints for their battery factory in Michigan where their licensing technology from CATL originally they were planning on a 2.3 million square foot facility. That's now come down by roughly 50% to 1.2 million square feet. Construction is indeed underway but protesters are still gathering twice weekly downtown and there is litigation pending.
There was a pretty informative webinar on the Powerwall 3 on this claim solar YouTube channel. The presenter never exactly mentioned who he was but when he talked about Tesla he did use the word hour so could be an employee, could be a third party contractor. Either way on this slide they confirmed what we thought to be true the Powerwall 3 is indeed using lithium-iron phosphate cell chemistry LFP. Lower cost, charging to 100% most likely longer cycle life, all the benefits of LFP in the Powerwall 3. If you're interested in learning more about Powerwall 3 I'll have this video below.
The inflation data came in a bit hot today with core inflation sitting at 3.8% the expectation was 3.7. What that means is rate cuts are most likely now pushed back, the CME FedWatch tool is now showing us the first likelihood of a rate cut won't come until September. For now inflation is much stickier than the markets would like and the possibility of a rate cut in June is most likely now off the table.
Tesla stock closed the day at $171.76 down 2.89 while the NASDAQ was down 0.84%. It was a slower volume day for Tesla trading about 13 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days.
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