Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. First up today, good news for you Canadians, the Powerwall 3 is now available to order in Canada. As if learning yesterday that Tesla running adds to encourage shareholders to vote was not enough to prove how important these votes really are, now we have Robin Denholm set to go on a trip around the world to try to encourage people to vote. Robin Denholm and others at the company plan to spend the next several weeks crisscrossing the globe to rally support from shareholders. She met with some investors in New York this week and plans to return in early June. Some big holders are taking a fresh review, not just repeating their 2018 votes.
The article also said that large asset managers, AKA institutional shareholders, currently hold about 46% of Tesla stock down from around 70% when the first vote took place in 2018. And for that 2018 vote, we can see how the institutional shareholders actually voted. Vanguard was against, BlackRock was 4, but then State Street, Geode, Capital Group, and Norja's Bank were all against. Thus, 5 out of the top 6 largest institutional shareholders in 2018 voted against Elon's compensation package. But as we just heard, some of these asset managers may be changing their vote this time around, hopefully it's not BlackRock.
They also said retail investors currently hold an estimated 42% of shares of Tesla stock, leaving the remainder for the insiders. I already did a detailed video a few weeks back, diving into the rationale for why I think this vote for Elon's comp plan is actually in jeopardy of not passing. But one thing I hope comes from this trip from Robin Denholm meeting with some of these institutional shareholders is allowing them to actually express their frustrations with the company, and hopefully Robin and whoever else is on this trip can actually provide some clarity and encouragement to these investors on what the future of Tesla could look like. Simple communication, just listening to the investor concerns, addressing them directly, and then painting the picture for the road ahead.
Remember, for Elon's pay package to be approved, Tesla is going to need a majority of the shares voted. To actually vote yes, and that will exclude both Elon shares and Kimball shares. Contrast that with what's required for Tesla to reincorporate in Texas. For that one, Tesla's going to need a majority of all of the shares outstanding to actually vote yes, which means all of the people that don't vote, those will all effectively be no votes. So at least for Elon's pay package, all of those people that decide not to vote, those will not effectively be counted as knows because they're only looking at the actual voted shares.
And not only are Robin and a few others going on this trip, but Tesla's board of directors has also hired a strategic advisor to try to win approval for Elon's compensation plan. The advisor is working with an outside law firm. It was actually this advisor in their team that set up the website for vote Tesla and put together all of these promotional materials. Reading the tea leaves here, I see two things. One, Tesla is not confident that they're going to win the votes for Elon's compensation plan or for the reincorporation into Texas, which is why they're going the extra mile with all of these activities.
And two, the outcome of these votes are going to have massive implications to the future of Tesla. It's critical to the future of Tesla. So as we've been saying, please vote your shares. Most of you already know where I stand personally, but just in case you're new, I want to say it again, voting against ratifying Elon's 2018 compensation plan, in my opinion, could have catastrophic impacts for Tesla's future. And if those large money managers are not excited already, I would just argue they're not paying attention.
Elon said, yeah, I'm seeing AI taking off everywhere. By the way, 12.4 goes to internal release this weekend and limited external beta next week, roughly five to 10 X improvement in miles per intervention, verse 12.3 12.5 will be out in late June. We'll also see a major improvement in miles per intervention and is single stack, no more implicit stack on highways. Let's contextualize this. So version 12.3 came out roughly a month ago. So in just 30 days time, we have a five to 10 X improvement in miles per intervention. Let's just say hypothetically, right now user has 10 miles per intervention. Well, with 12.4, that could go to 52 100 miles per intervention.
And again, that improvement is in 30 days. And now we know Tesla is no longer compute constrained. So this type of progress could continue. That's because Elon did say 12.5, which will roll out roughly another month after 12.4 is also going to see a major improvement in miles per intervention. And yes, I know as well as anybody else that Elon says a lot of things, but this is actually data that can be tracked. So if you extrapolate this rate of improvement over the next 12 to 18 months, that confirms what we said yesterday that Tesla's take rate right now doesn't really matter that much because the rate of improvement could be significant. And also coming with version 12.5 will be FSD for Cybertruck, meaning Cybertruck owners should have FSD sometime toward the end of June.
And in case you've forgotten, the nag is supposed to go away completely with version 12.4, which could start going out to customers as soon as next week. And the release number after 12.5 hasn't been mentioned publicly. So whether it's 12.6 or 13 doesn't really matter. But that could be the version we're actually on by the time we get to the Robo Taxi unveil event on August 8. Speaking of that, there was a Model 3 Plus spotted without any side mirrors and testing all new camera locations. The car was seen in Palo Alto. As you can see, the car does have a manufacturer's license plate from Texas, which is where Tesla is building the Robo Taxi platform. So these new camera placements could be simulating where Tesla would have cameras on a two door Robo Taxi. And clearly, a Robo Taxi would not need side mirrors because there's no driver in the car that would actually use them.
On X, Matt Smith said I recently had a talk with a friend who works for an auto OEM. He'd been trying FSD version 12 to do research for work and was really impressed. Without much prompting from me, he told me that their company strategy was just to wait and see what approach works best for solving autonomy and then to implement it more efficiently. I would have said exactly what Matt did. Good luck with that. Seriously though, for the last 15 years, there have been people saying, Oh, anything Tesla does, the rest of the OEMs are just going to do it better, faster and more efficient. Well, 15 years later, and I can't really think of anything that legacy OEMs do better or more efficiently than Tesla.
So for anyone to think that legacy OEMs are just going to snap their fingers and implement a more efficient version of FSD than Tesla is the height of stupidity. So yes, let's wait and see how good version 12.4 actually is. But I will say the next 12 months could be something very special in the history of Tesla. And it's true, it's a very serendipitous moment for Tesla because all of this FSD excitement is happening right in the trough of Tesla's growth wave when it comes to vehicle sales. But hopefully those more affordable versions are right around the corner. Elon did chime in on Tesla's FSD take rate. He said, I don't comment on everything as sometimes I don't see it and commenting on everything makes it easy to fish for information. The take rate is much higher than 2%. Please. Unfortunately, one of the problems with this comment, we don't know if Elon's talking about Tesla's general FSD take rate or specifically the take rate after these 30 day trials.
It is true that the post Elon was replying to was referencing that Yippet survey, which did indeed have to do with the 30 day trials. However, as we talked about yesterday, that Yippet survey seemed very suspect their website was even questionable. So we cast a lot of doubt on that figure to begin with. Now the question is, well, how much higher than 2% is it 10% is it 20% we're still in the dark. The good news is at least for now until we get more official numbers. Hopefully sometime later this year, we can throw that 2% take rate totally out the window. Just in case you want the tea of what happened with Tesla's supercharger team layoffs, basically Rebecca Tanucci had a meeting with Elon where she laid off about 15 to 20% of her team. Elon was not happy with that number. He wanted it to be more so in response, the meeting didn't go well. And ultimately, Elon decided to fire the whole team in the aftermath one construction contractor said Tesla staffers contacting his company since the layoffs don't know a thing.
Clearly, there's going to be a phase of turmoil and uncertainty for pending supercharger locations and companies that were relying on certain work from Tesla. So hopefully Tesla has not undone a lot of that goodwill that was built up over the years with the Tesla suppliers and utilities and contractors. And hopefully Tesla does right by any of those deals that were already in place. And Elon told us the supercharger network is still going to grow this year, but we're all waiting to hear what Tesla strategy will be for charging Robotaxes because that could be right around the corner.
As if we needed another sign of where this is all headed, the GM of Baidu's autonomous driving department told a reporter that for the Robotaxe, the shared taxi that Tesla will launch Baidu will use Tesla's specific application models and the pace of entering the Chinese market and will consider possible cooperation opportunities. We've already known that Tesla plans to use maps from Baidu, but this blurb would take us into something a little bit deeper than just that. And yes, Baidu does have its own autonomous suite as summer of last year. Baidu became the first in China to offer driverless airport rides. At the time, Baidu's fully driverless Robotaxe fleet was operating in five cities, including Beijing, Shenzhen, and Wuhan.
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At this point, it's not really clear what a further cooperation between Tesla and Baidu would look like, but something to keep an eye on. Seemingly out of the blue, Elon said optimists will be amazing. So naturally, the question becomes, did he see something specific? Then replying to an article from Electric, Peral Jain Chaim Dinh, saying had a great productive chat with Elon before leaving, I would have stuck around longer if I did not have the itch to chase a specific vision. I don't see any capacity eroding on his front like the article mentions. If it's not clear to you now over everything that's happened the past month or so that Fred and Electric certainly are coming at Tesla from an adversarial point of view, this would just be more proof.
At the end of the article, Fred said I think the way Elon handled the latest round of layoffs and the talent exodus that is happening now shows that this capacity is eroding. That capacity being the ability to attract top talent, and then we have one of Tesla's top AI engineers saying no, I don't think so, that capacity is still there. 24 7 Tesla uploaded a new video of the Tesla diner, so I'll show you a few quick clips of the update. If I had to guess, I would say this may open Q1 2025. We've had false starts on this a number of times, but Tesla's Megapack factory in Shanghai is finally actually under construction.
We also got a good update from Keys who is a great follow when it comes to European regulations for automated driving. At some upcoming meetings in June and September, the most notable are amendments to the DCAS legislation regarding system initiated maneuvers which makes up the gist of Tesla's FSD. And last but not least, the withholding of the hands on request, aka the NAG. One of the proposed amendments is to stop hands on requests on highways unless a system boundary is detected. He said to me this reads as a step in the right direction to get rid of the NAG.
The other is about those system initiated lane changes. The proposed amendments and comments by different countries are a really good step in the right direction. Because there are a lot of proposed situations where system initiated maneuvers will possibly be allowed under DCAS, aka positive news regarding FSD operating to its full capacity across Europe. Thus, the UNECE and some of the regulators may be waking up to what's happening with Tesla's FSD.
Auto news is saying that the Cybertruck has notched more US registrations in March than the Rivian R1T. The Cybertruck had 1,158 registrations in March and Rivians R1T only had 548. In case you're thinking, well wait a second Rivian's factory in normal Illinois was shut down, yes, but that was only for April 5th to April 30th. And really it's not a great comparison because the Cybertruck is still relatively new whereas the R1T has been out on the market now for some time.
However, with Cybertruck production pushing roughly 800 per week and continually growing, it may leave R1T sales in the dust for good. Roemotion put out some analysis on the new tariffs and they confirmed what we talked about yesterday. While Tesla does not export its EVs from China to the US, all of Tesla's US-bound LFP sales are currently sourced from CATL's Chinese plants. And given that those tariffs go into effect immediately, Tesla may not have time to work around the increased tariff. Luckily though, for battery energy storage and something like the megapack, those tariffs don't go into effect until 2026 so Tesla would have about two years to find a workaround for those LFP sales.
And that would be after some major best supporting LFP facilities are due to come online in North America like Friars Giga America, LG's Arizona facility, and Tesla's Nevada expansion using CATL equipment. And here's a handy chart if you wanted to screenshot this but it also brings into question what Europe is going to do in response to China trying to flood their markets. The US raising tariffs could give Europe more confidence to do something similar in the months ahead. The problem with that is the European market and some of their automakers have much deeper ties with the Chinese so it may not be that easy.
In Denmark and eventually other locations, Tesla is rolling out a new test drive concept called self drive test drive. This concept allows customers to test drive the cars in an easy and efficient way while they run other errands. The experience will be completely digital where the customer is guided through the entire process and the cars can be opened and started remotely using the Tesla app.
I won't go through country by country but the ACEA put out this document that's very helpful for tracking EV incentives across many different European countries. So if you'd like a great overview on the tax benefits and the incentives, I'll have a link to this document below. Influence map put out a new report from May, how automaker lobbying threatens the global transition to EVs. Here we have automakers 2030 EV forecasts and their climate policy engagement scores for 2024.
Tesla of course on track for 100% EVs by 2030 and an engagement score of a B. Tesla was followed by Mercedes in second BMW in third and Volkswagen group in fourth. Bringing up the rear from bottom working up Suzuki in last then Honda and Toyota. Honestly if you've been following along with the channel this really isn't going to be news but Tesla is of course in a league of their own. And the point of this report is that automakers continue to advocate against the key climate policies needed to rapidly phase in electric vehicles at the pace required to meet net zero targets.
Japanese automakers led by Toyota continue to lead negative lobbying efforts against policies to promote battery EVs. The three lowest scoring automakers all scoring D are from Japan Suzuki Mazda and Toyota. And this chart is very telling this is a summary of positions for selected light duty vehicle climate policies since June 2022. Clearly many of these automakers on the left have read four different policies which shows evidence of opposition to that policy.
No surprise Tesla is the only one with green evidence of support for each policy. Polestar officials have confirmed that an entry level Polestar 3 aka a cheaper version will be coming sometime later this year but they did not give us any details. Everything I'm hearing the car may start under $70,000. BYD has now launched its first pickup truck the BYD shark. This one is launched in Mexico. This is a hybrid pickup but it's going to start around $53.4,000. It's equipped with a blade battery pack with a capacity of about 29kWh. They did say the model will be available in more overseas markets to meet the needs of global customers.
Roemotion also put out an analysis on battery energy storage in the Chinese market saying the average price of these best systems in China has dropped 32% since quarter four 2022. This has primarily been driven by the falling cost of LFP battery cells. There's already been a lot of chatter out there that Tesla will have trouble competing domestically in the Chinese market with other battery energy storage providers. We know Tesla's megapack pricing has come down slightly over the past two years but I don't think it's been to the tune of 32%. Additionally this is going to be one of the primary reasons that Tesla's Shanghai megapack factory is most likely going to be primarily for exports.
Good news today from EVGO they announced the company will begin to deploy the North American charging standard connectors on its network beginning later this year. The stations included in this rollout will have both CCS and NACS. The overall utilization on the EVGO network in the first quarter of 2024 was 19% up from about 9% in the first quarter of last year. Today nearly 40% of EVGO's stalls are powered by a 350kW charger almost doubled a percentage just one year ago.
Tesla must now face a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that it misled consumers about its cars self-driving capabilities. Tesla has been accused of overstating in 2016 that all of its upcoming cars would have the hardware needed for FSD capability and would be able to drive themselves from LA to New York City by the end of 2017. Look Elon has absolutely made some statements over the years but the question is where is the line between predictions and promises.
Today Neo just launched the first vehicle in its new lower priced brand that they're calling Envo which is aiming to compete with Tesla's Model Y and Toyota's RAV4. Their L60 SUV is starting at $30.4k about 12% below the price of Tesla's Model Y. Neo is planning to start deliveries of the Envo L60 in September of this year. Their CEO said the bill of materials for the Envo car would be 10% lower than that of the Tesla Model Y. They're also saying that Neo has struck a deal to source batteries from BYD for the Envo lineup.
Chevy has also announced that production is finally underway for the Silverado EVRST first edition pickup. This truck is based on GM's Altium platform and it can travel up to 450 miles of range on a full charge with a 4WT version. The 3WT can go 393 miles of range and the vehicle supports DC fast charging up to 350 kilowatts. For the first edition we're looking at a 0-60 time of less than 4.5 seconds. It does have 4 wheel steering, automatic adaptive air suspension, a multi-flex mid-gate and a power-operated multi-flex tailgate with a 17-inch infotainment system, an 11-inch gauge cluster and a heads-up display. Chevy said it will soon launch additional trim levels of the Silverado EV for retail customers. But the first edition RST will start at $94.5k.
Unfortunately for Waymo it's sounding like thousands of their Robotaxes the company was planning to deploy in the US could be subject to these new large tariffs on EVs imported from China. That's because Waymo has a Robotaxi model that's from Glee and built on the ZEAKER platform. Right now Waymo has been using the Jaguar I-PACE but their plans all along have been for this ZEAKER platform to be a low-cost option. Waymo did say a small number of ZEAKER Robotaxes have begun arriving in the US in the past few weeks and they're now testing in manual mode in San Francisco.
Tesla stock closed the day at $173.99 down 2.01% while the NASDAQ was up 1.4%. It was also a red day for Rivian and Lucid as they were both down over 7%. It was a lower volume day for Tesla trading about 23 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days. Hope you guys have a wonderful day. 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.