Welcome to Electrified, it's your host, Dilamumus. On today's episode, it's going to be an express version as I'm meeting up with some family this evening, so for those of you missing the 10-15 minute videos, today's your lucky day. From yesterday's video, I received this comment. I have not been able to confirm it, but I think it's worth passing along. He said that Marcy, from Calpurs, clarified she spoke to her team after and found out they did not vote for Elon's comp plan in 2018. Again, though, so far I have not been able to verify this, but I thought it was worth passing along because if Calpurs did indeed vote no in 2018, then at least they would be consistently voting no. I'll do what I can to verify this, but for now, either way, Marcy's lack of preparation for that segment was… interesting to say the least.
I want to briefly take us back in time to when Elon said XAI is not raising capital and I have had no conversations with anyone in this regard. Quote posting XDailyNews saying XAI is seeking investments up to $6 billion for evaluation of $20 billion. This post from Elon was January 26th earlier this year. Well, as we know, exactly 4 months later to the day, XAI announced a series B funding round for that exact number $6 billion. I like to give Elon the benefit of the doubt and there's a chance that at this time the conversations for this funding round had not begun, but even more alarming, the rumor will call it at the time had the number exact $6 billion. So it's fair to ask the question, was Elon lying about this to some degree? I wanted to provide that context because today, replying to Herbert on X, Elon said there have not been any discussions of a role for me in a potential Trump presidency.
For now, I would just add, there does not have to be a formal role for Elon to be able to play and advise a role to whoever the president ends up being, but if it's Biden, that role seems even more unlikely. As many of you pointed out yesterday, during Trump's prior term, Elon said in June 2017, I'm departing presidential councils, climate change is real, leaving Paris is not good for America or the world. Thus, Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement led to Elon stepping down from his post in an advisory role. On the Elon and Trump front, Elon said, pretty sure I've never discussed crypto with Trump, although I'm generally in favor of things that shift power from government to the people which crypto can do.
So look, in this regard, I don't know if Elon was lying or not, but he did say XAI was not raising capital and exactly four months later, they did exactly that, so whether it's lying or things changing, I thought that was important context. From the Department of Energy, they put out this chart showing us light duty EV models with a range of 300 miles or greater for the model year 2016 to 2023. In 2016, there was one vehicle fitting this category fast forward to last year and we had 19. Yes, progress, but still a number we'd like to see much higher. I'm very familiar with the daily driving statistics and that 300 miles a day is really not required, but I'm also familiar with people wanting their vehicle to be ready for a road trip if they decide to take one.
We have Brookfield, a Canadian investment management company looking to invest in the Yohan and they're looking to buy 53.32% of the company. You should recognize the name Nioin as one of the biggest renewable energy players in Australia. They were also behind the project, the Hornsdale Power Reserve, which is better known as the Tesla Big Battery. An exec from Brookfield said we're excited to build on Brookfield's expertise track record and access to capital to further accelerate Nioin's growth while preserving its culture and identity. Nioin has significant expertise in battery storage tech, which will become an increasingly important part of the energy mix going forward. Brookfield sees the investment in Nioin as an opportunity to scale Nioin's portfolio of diverse high quality assets in a context of accelerating clean power demand. And as we've said before, the growth of AI and cloud computing continues to drive higher demand for renewable sources of power.
布鲁克菲尔德(Brookfield)是一家加拿大投资管理公司,计划投资于Yohan公司,并准备收购该公司53.32%的股份。你应该知道Nioin是澳大利亚最大的可再生能源公司之一。他们也是Hornsdale Power Reserve项目的幕后公司,该项目更广为人知的名字是“特斯拉大电池”(Tesla Big Battery)。布鲁克菲尔德的一位高管表示,我们很高兴能利用布鲁克菲尔德在专业领域的业绩记录和资金支持,进一步加速Nioin的增长,同时保留其文化和身份认同。Nioin在电池储能技术方面具有重要专长,这在未来的能源组合中将变得越来越重要。布鲁克菲尔德认为对Nioin的投资是一个机会,可以扩大Nioin多样化、高质量资产的组合,以应对快速增长的清洁能源需求。正如我们之前所说,人工智能和云计算的增长将继续推动对可再生能源的更高需求。
This is not a done deal yet, but Brookfield is offering $10.2 billion for that stake in Nioin. So if this goes through, that gives Nioin a big infusion of cash, a company that so far has really enjoyed working with Tesla. A program manager for the Department of Energy's technology incubator says US entrepreneurs should stop fretting and start inventing an EV that approaches the BYD price. The manager has suggested a competition to develop a high quality American made EV that would cost about $12,000 to make and sell for roughly $16,000. He said among other steps, US automakers can bring robotics and 3D parts printing more aggressively into factories. We are being beaten and we're being beaten badly. We need to do something differently. His other idea was to let utilities pay for and own the battery, reducing the car's sticker price. He said the utilities would go for it thanks to vehicle-to-grid, which is not a widespread technology yet. If I've learned anything the past few years, it's that our supply chain in the United States for batteries and resources for the batteries is nowhere near being ready for something like this. Our labor costs here in America are just too high relative to the rest of the world.
And third, I'm not sure what the demand would be if it's going to be a super small little car that only gets 100 or 200 miles of range. America likes big and excess, so something like this seems like at least a few years away at the earliest. This one explains a lot about right now and where we're headed the next few years. Jim Farley said their hybrid models have become more profitable than their gasoline-powered counterparts. He said one year ago we were not covering the cost premium for hybrids with the price that customers paid us. We are now. Customers are voting. They like these in between solutions. Ford's US hybrid sales jumped 47% this year through April, and Farley said one out of every four F-150 sold today is a hybrid. Ford said each of its North American nameplates will include a hybrid variant by the end of the decade. He said I think we should stop talking about it as a transitional technology on the power train side. It's 25 years old now.
He added a diversified lineup is one factor that automakers need for future success. Consolidation is likely in the coming years as Chinese manufacturers threaten to up end the market with low-cost EVs. I don't think everyone makes it through. On Ford's Skunk Works team in California working on their low-cost EV platform, he said we have to get to a radically different engineered product with a different supply chain that's manufactured radically more efficient. That's a necessity. Now we have Ford's most profitable powertrain being a hybrid. We have customer demand for hybrids high for whatever reason, so the development of full EVs at Ford is likely to fade into the background for the next few years. They'll continue to say publicly they're still working hard on full EVs and how important they are, but watch the vehicles they release for the next few years.
Ashley and I just got back from a little mini road trip this past weekend. FSD autopilot on the highway is awesome. To adjust the speed with the scroll wheel and using the manual turn signal to change lanes was super responsive and smooth, but Zippy was due for a quick clean and phantic. The sponsor of this episode has another new vacuum, the V10 Apex. Don't forget Father's Day is right around the corner, so if you're looking for gift options, this could be a solution. With the V10, if you wanted a bit more power, yet with the flexibility and options of something smaller, the V10 may be a good option. It easily expands and folds down, it charges with USB-C and has an LCD screen. There are two power settings and it's really easy to empty the canister and to change the filter. Plus it comes with all of the attachments you may expect from a phantic product. If you haven't grabbed one already, my favorite phantic product is still the X8 tire inflator which I classify as a must-own if you drive and my family agrees. And if you're looking for a smaller vacuum solution, phantic still has the V8 Apex with all of the attachments and plenty of suction power. If you'd like, you can check the links below in the description to get between 23 and 34% off these phantic products. As always, thank you for considering supporting the channel in this way.
From Reuters, Tesla is preparing to register its full self-driving software with authorities in China. They said Tesla is also considering selling the software as a monthly subscription. After Tesla successfully registers the software with China's Ministry of Industry and IT, it'll be able to have its employees conduct internal testing of FSD on public roads in China and then offer it as an upgrade to Chinese customers in the coming months. The CNEV Post is reporting that the monthly subscription price should be very similar to what it is in the United States.
Tesla has already been offering the one-time purchase of FSD in China for roughly $800,800. Tesla also currently offers the enhanced autopilot for about half the price in China. It'll be interesting to watch in China if and when FSD gets official approval, how fast Tesla decides to roll it out to actual customers beyond just employee testing. For many reasons, they'll probably be a bit more cautious than with their rollouts in the United States, but with this related news story, you may remember that woman from China that stood on the car to protest Tesla.
Finally, today, a court decided that she was guilty of defaming Tesla, she was ordered to apologize and to pay about $24,000. Now, plenty of brand damage has been done, but hopefully this will go to restore some of that. Back to Tesla's FSD in China, these are key developments because there were also reports that Tesla may license FSD to some Chinese customers and Huawei and X-Pang have said publicly they're already working on their own end-to-end neural nets. Holmar shared a good reminder, all Elon's 2018 Comp Plan does is give him the option to buy just south of 304 million shares of Tesla stock at a strike price of $23.34 from Tesla.
Thus, when it comes to Tesla's balance sheet, it's not like they're giving him cash, it would actually be Elon giving Tesla cash. Sawyer added, if Elon gets those options back, he has until 2028 to exercise them and once exercised, Elon cannot sell those shares for five years. To which, Elon said, that's a crucial point, the shares cannot be sold for five years, so it's impossible to cash out. I saw some people confused in the comments though, if Elon gets these options back, he could in theory exercise them right away and it's from when he exercises them that he can actually not sell those shares for five years.
So whether he decides to exercise right when he gets them back or he has the option to wait to exercise until 2028. So, in that latter event, he wouldn't be able to sell those shares until 2033. But let's say he gets those options back in early 2025 and exercises them right away, that means he could actually sell them then in 2030. As they should be, Redwood Materials was named as one of the most 100 influential companies by time for 2024.
We talk about auto accident deaths fairly often to highlight the importance of Tesla's FSD. Well, pedestrian deaths hit a 40 year high in 2022 with 7,500 people killed by drivers. That number is a 75% increase from 2010. According to a German source, Porsche cannot bring itself to build a large battery cell factory in Brandenburg. Porsche's board has its doubt as to whether the planned gigafactory for battery cells is necessary since many industry players are talking about oversupply.
It's not just Porsche though, as S-Volt and CATL have also folded plans for battery factories in Germany. CATL's decision was in part due to VW deciding to stop making EVs in Zwickow due to a lack of demand. Unfortunately, Berlin's fiscal woes that led to canceling those EV subsidies early is now having many unintended ripple effects. They said for battery makers, Germany's industrial electricity and personnel costs are considerably higher than those in Eastern Europe. A director of automotive research said those tariffs would artificially increase the price of electric cars for European consumers, and I've already heard that auto parts suppliers are stopping orders for EV production, and that combustion engine plants are being spruced up for a few more years.
We now have VW dealers test driving some Chinese EVs to see what they're up against. Across Europe, analysts in the region are expecting EVs to broadly stall out in the region this year after a strong run of market share gains, and the organizer of these test drives said it's not that we're saying there's an insurmountable competition, but you can understand why a customer who has a choice like this in their potential shopping cart will think about it. But his main takeaway was saying people sometimes think these are low quality or cheap vehicles, and that's where you have to say no, these are full-fledged high-quality cars.
Not that this matters a whole lot, but Carsley shared this picture of a brand new Model 3 sitting in a lot waiting for delivery with this sticker on the seat. If you zoom in, you'll find the word Highland right on the sticker. Elon has said in the past the Highland name was not real, but this sticker would imply otherwise, it may be real for at least somebody inside of Tesla.
Tesla has completed the addition of another one megawatt solar capacity project at Gig and Nevada. The rooftop construction is complete, but the project is not commissioned yet. Tesla is also reported to have two other solar arrays totalling 1.9 megawatts each that are under construction at Gigataxis, and Tesla has a third one megawatt solar installation taking place at the Austin HQ. All of these Austin projects are under construction, but less than 50% complete.
You may recall though, back in 2017 Tesla's plan was to have a 70 megawatt solar farm powering Gig and Nevada. Seven years later and they're less than one-tenth of the way there. Tesla stock closed the day at $178.79 up 1.48%, while the Nasdaq was down 1.08%. It was another lower volume day for Tesla trading about 16 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days.
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