Welcome to Electrified, it's your host, Dilunumus, quick shoutout to my newest patron, Eric S, my man. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. We now have some Nordic brokerages that are actually allowing retail investors to vote their Tesla shares, something that historically they haven't done. This departure from their regular practice is thanks to significant interest from investors and online comments from Elon. Two Swedish platforms of Onza and Nordnet have said they've decided to let investors vote after many customers requested to do so. A Nordnet spokesperson said Elon made it clear it's important for him that the shareholders of Tesla make their voice heard on this year's AGM. Avonza said its decision was based on requests from its customers and the fact that Tesla was one of the most owned stocks on the platform.
As we talked about in the newsletter yesterday, there are certainly some positive developments when it comes to the voting. However, there are still plenty of retail shareholders that are having all kinds of problems with the ability to vote, especially overseas. This news will definitely help with that though, as these two brokers together count nearly 150,000 Tesla shareholders among their clients. We got the breakdown from the CPCA for domestic and exports for Tesla China for May. Domestic came in at 55,215, leaving exports at 17,358. If we just look at Tesla's domestic sales in China year to date, we're currently down a 0.4% relative to last year. Thus, domestic sales are flat year over year and wholesale sales, which is domestic and exports, are down 7.7% year to date. It's true, the domestic number for May of this year came in higher than May of last year, which was 42,5000. But it's also true the wholesale number from May of last year, 77,7000 was higher than this year, which was 72,5000. Honestly though, I think those one month comparisons are usually just noise, so all I'm really focused on are the year to date figures.
The Tesla account on X shared a lengthy post year by year dating back to 2018 of some of Tesla's major accomplishments, of course, under Elon's leadership. We're not going through all of these, but I want to highlight one or two for each year. In 2018, the Model 3 became the best-selling EV in the US and the best-selling EV in the world. In 2019, Tesla was celebrating delivering 367,000 vehicles globally. Now they're doing more than that each quarter. In 2020, the biggest one by far, at least when it comes to Tesla stock, was Tesla achieving full-year profitability for the first time in company history. And that was the year of the official launch of FSD Beta. In 2021, was when Tesla unveiled Optimus for the first time. In 2022, Tesla insurance was expanding to multiple US states, which I was talking about on X this morning. We haven't had an update on that really since November of 2022. In my opinion, it's a long past time we get an update on what's going on with the Tesla insurance rollout. In 2023, the Model Y became the world's best-selling car, and the Tesla charging connector was adopted as the next. And casually, for 2024, they slipped in there at the end, deployed to Optimus Bot's performing tasks in the factory autonomously, and it's only June. On the Q1 call, Elon said we're able to do simple factory tasks, or at least I should say factory tasks in the lab. We do think we'll have Optimus in limited production in the natural factory itself doing useful tasks before the end of this year. And then I think we may be able to sell it externally by the end of next year. These are just guesses. So potentially, with the posts from Tesla on X, Optimus is already doing useful tasks in the natural factory as Elon calls it. And for me, that is the way I would interpret this post, so Tesla may actually be ahead of schedule when it comes to deploying Optimus in Tesla's factory. Before anybody gets too excited, we still need to learn exactly what Optimus is doing, how consistently it's doing it, how often and for how long and how reliably. But I think we'd all agree, as a society, many of us are of the camp, what have you done for me lately, and it's very easy to forget how much progress Tesla has made over the past six years. Looking back at where Tesla was in 2018, it's understandable to get excited about where Tesla could be another six years from now.
We have a Tesla Megapack project going live in Japan, but the Megapack is not the news of this story. It's a smaller project, 43 megawatt hours, and it's in Sendai, Japan. The real news, this project will enter Japan's newly opened and silary services markets through which assets will participate in helping balance the frequency of the electricity grid. Just so you know, up until around 2015, the Japanese electricity market was basically 10 distinct markets that had very limited interconnection. And these markets were controlled by large, vertically integrated monopolies effectively. Now, these monopolies still play big roles, but the market can now be considered national with regional pricing.
One major feature of this new setup is a countrywide market that's the national procurement of and silary services to manage that supply and demand balance. The reason it's a big deal is because this will provide the Japanese market with further revenue streams and Japan was already roughly the world's fifth largest electricity consumer. So what we're going to have now is many developers, investors, and traders actually looking to the Japanese market. That's all happening at a pretty convenient time as Shanghai's megapactory should be producing megapacks by Q2 next year.
If you go to Tesla's careers page and you just search for the United States, you will see plenty of new jobs actually posted across departments to we have everything from service to AI and robotics manufacturing. As you can see, many are in service sales and customer support, engineering and IT and the main takeaway, I'm still scrolling. So the hiring freeze seems to be officially over. Hopefully that means most of the layoffs and the job cuts are actually done. Tesla has had a brief period of time to see where the problems crop up and now they can fill those gaps and continue growing. There's over a hundred job postings alone just for vehicle service. A small portion of those are however for Tesla's internship program.
The auto dealership advisory firm HEG partners has written an open letter to Tesla and Elon basically trying to encourage them to start using the dealer network. They had the audacity to say Tesla has grown without dealers but this strategy may have reached its limit. By partnering with dealers, Tesla can achieve higher profits while massively reducing the amount of capital required for further growth. They also said new buyers prefer to physically interact with the vehicle, receive in-person explanations of features and test drive before purchase. Which makes this firm feel a bit out of touch because Tesla customers can already do that at Tesla showrooms.
It's just they may be a little more sparse than some customers would like which is fair. They highlighted an improved service experience for Tesla customers which really just boils down to having more locations. They argued Tesla could make higher margins because the dealers would actually make their margin by providing other benefits that customers value. Which as many of us know really is the financing and warranty shenanigans that happen after the sale. Finally they said dealers have been adding value to the auto industry for over a hundred years. Partnering with these entrepreneurs could enhance Tesla's customer experience and provide Tesla with massive benefits. In fairness Tesla having more physical locations and customers having to drive shorter distances to actually experience a Tesla vehicle and to have their Tesla service would absolutely be a good thing. But would that alone be worth all of the other trade-offs that come with going the dealership route? Namely the haggling and the price markups and not being able to buy in just a few seconds online.
Elon came to a similar conclusion replying to the story saying better to just buy things online, our stores are just for test drives and answering questions. This open letter from this dealership advisory feels like a case of if you can't beat them, try to join them. Check this out from PubMed. The prevalence of fatigue in the general population has been reported to range up to 45% and a recent study found 38% of US workers reported being fatigued. That can certainly be attributed to different factors but I'm confident in saying at least part of it is driven by a general lack of nutrition which is part of why I've partnered with AG1 the sponsor of this video.
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If you didn't know Travis Axelrod, no relation to Bobby, may be the new unofficial head of Tesla's investor relations. Sawyer got access to a new Tesla stock note from JP Morgan and they said the head of Tesla's IR said there's some misunderstanding around Elon's desire for 25% control of Tesla's voting shares. Travis was suggesting that desire is motivated primarily by the wish to protect humanity from the potentially negative implications of imprudent or improper use of AI technology. He continued Elon is focused on having a strong enough voice at the company such that he could ensure a proper governance structure and the use of AI given the not unreasonable assumption AI could surpass human level intelligence in the next several years, to which Elon replied exactly the distinction we don't have to get Elon owning 25 percent of the company value we just need Elon with 25 percent of the voting control with people out there like Ross Gerber in Leo Koguan who would probably try to initiate a hostile takeover of Tesla if they could. It's important to see why Elon would want greater voting control throw into the mix judges like Kathleen McCormick and the proxy advisory firms and it's clear that the pressure around Tesla is building Elon having that 25% should significantly reduce the chances that that pressure that's building ultimately leads to a hostile takeover of Tesla.
And when it comes to some people thinking that XAI is competing with Tesla somehow in the AI space, it was said in the meeting with JP Morgan that XAI was pursuing a fundamentally different AI opportunity set that does not conflict with Tesla's mission. As we said on the channel over the past few weeks, Tesla is focused on real world AI and XAI by contrast is pursuing a very different approach to AI which is more generalized and focused on scientific discovery. Thought this was good confirmation so you know I'm not just making things up. Green the only has found in Tesla's code that with an upcoming software update there's a new voyage. This seems to be a full rewrite of the trip planner functionality. The trip planner incorporates things like super charger stops, elevation, the wind traffic and all of those features. Sadly though for exactly how voyage is different, we don't know. There may also be some changes coming to Tesla's maps, don't think anything like Baidu version 20 in China but Green found that Tesla's using a new Google places API that's used for points of interest. There may also be some improvements to Tesla's towing mode specifically when it comes to range prediction and possibly a new recording mode for karaoke.
On X Warren said calling it now X will partner with Samsung to manufacture an X phone. The X operating system will be open source, the phone would be optimized for the use of X. It would seamlessly integrate with Tesla cars, robots axes and optimists. He also talked about possible integration with Starlink and overall it would sound pretty appealing. And for whatever it may be worth Elon replied to that saying it is not out of the question. So a Tesla phone is nowhere on the roadmap but maybe at some point we get an X AI phone. I'll be honest though personally I think this is very unlikely and it feels like this would just be Elon's way of putting pressure on Apple and open AI after everything that just came out with their partnership and how they may be handling data. Also from Elon's gaming livestream somebody asked if Tesla could have a feature to avoid highways for navigation to which Elon said alright sure.
Some Canadians are having their Model 3 performance delivery date pushed back and some as far as November. The reason being currently the Model 3 performance for Canada is actually coming from Shanghai. Not all customers will be waiting until November as some other users are reporting having their dates pushed back into mid July. Some US lawmakers are calling for an immediate block on shipments of products from both CATL and Gotion. The reason being these companies are being accused of using slave labor. Both CATL and Gotion have already come out and vehemently denied these allegations. We just talked about how Tesla was working with CATL on faster battery charging and how Tesla is setting up a new battery factory out in Nevada using some of CATL's equipment and IP. Now this one certainly might not amount to anything as the lawmakers actually have to prove that CATL and Gotion are actually guilty but something to note. Sean Faint, the President of the UAW is currently under investigation. Honestly though right now these are just allegations. This federal organization is accusing union leaders of obstructing and interfering with attempts to access information.
有些加拿大用户的特斯拉 Model 3 Performance 车型交付日期被推迟,有些甚至推迟到了十一月。目前加拿大的 Model 3 Performance 车型实际上是从上海发货的。并不是所有客户都会等到十一月,因为一些用户报告他们的交付日期推迟到了七月中旬。
一些美国议员呼吁立即阻止来自宁德时代(CATL)和国轩高科(Gotion)的产品运输,原因是这些公司被指控使用奴工。宁德时代和国轩高科都已强烈否认这些指控。前不久我们还讨论了特斯拉与宁德时代合作加速电池充电,并在内华达州建立新电池工厂,使用宁德时代的设备和技术。尽管如此,议员们需要证明宁德时代和国轩高科确有罪,所以目前这件事尚无定论,但依然值得注意。
此外,联合汽车工会(UAW)主席Sean Faint目前正在接受调查。不过,目前这些也只是指控。据说这个联邦机构指责工会领导人阻碍和干扰获取信息的尝试。
The only other thing I'd highlight for now this investigation does not appear to involve criminal allegations. GM is now trimming its expected sales and production of all electric vehicles this year as US adoption of EVs occurs slower than expected. Their CFO said the company now expects production of 200,000 to 250,000 EVs this year which was down from their prior estimate of 200,000 to 300,000. Translation, their bull case has come down by 50,000 units. He said that GM expects to be profitable on a contribution margin basis once it reaches production of 200,000 units. A milestone they're still expecting to hit in the fourth quarter of this year. Remember though, contribution margin is very different than actual margin because contribution margin only takes out the variable cost it does not subtract for the fixed cost. AKA it's a lot easier to have a positive contribution margin than it is to have a positive gross margin. GM has been telling us now for years that the Altium platform is going to transform the EV business and bring them up to a scale like Tesla. They're also now producing cars like the Blazer and the Equinox and the Silverado and the Lyric yet they're still bringing down their targets. As Elon said on X replying to this story, it is tough sledding out there.
Looking at this chart from AJ on X, GM's full BEV sales in the US have failed to reach 21,000 in any quarter ever. Just so you know on X, I believe Sawyer made a mistake. He said GM was expecting 100 to 150,000 EVs this year but it's really 200 to 250,000. Not only that though, GM also announced a new $6 billion share buyback in addition to the $10 billion buyback they announced last year. Their CFO said they're on track to deliver its $2 billion cost reduction plan but they did not give a time frame for the latest share buyback but they said the move will allow it to opportunistically repurchase shares after the completion of the existing plan. Everybody knows you do share buybacks when you don't know what to do with the money that you have meaning you can't find places to invest in and actually get an ROI. Boiling it down, this really means that GM doesn't know how to spend the money on the EV side to actually reach profitability or to actually start selling some EVs at scale. We also learned that GM will be injecting $850 million into crews, basically to keep it afloat. This will be to help cover the company's operational costs and the company says it's also looking for new external investors to help bolster its financial situation. Typically, you want to go find investors when you're coming from a place of strength.
Right now, crews is in the polar opposite situation. GM has lost $8.2 billion on crews since 2017 and $3.5 billion of that was lost in 2023 alone. Responding to this news item, Elon said they're not making the right moves to succeed. It may sound crazy but I think if Mary Barra were to reach out to Elon and ask for some general high level guidance, he may actually give it to her. Reason being, it would be aligned with Tesla's mission.
This organization Brand Keys puts out an annual release talking about the most patriotic brands. Keep in mind, this is not the same thing as the most American made brand. Two things to note though, one, Tesla was nowhere to be found on this list meaning they're outside of the top 50 and two, Jeep has taken the number one spot for over two decades. These results are from a sample of over 7400 consumers. The company doesn't share much about their methodology but in Jeep's defense they have worked with United Service organizations for the past 16 years. Jeep also has a military incentive program. Ford actually came in second and then no other vehicle brand made the top 50.
Tesla last appeared on the list in 2021 and GM has not been among the top 50 since 2013. Remember that charging joint venture between seven different automakers they were calling Iona? Well, that was announced over a year ago and they're just now getting around to assembling a leadership team. They also picked their headquarters which will be in Durham, North Carolina. Of course, the executives did not disclose the locations or the number of chargers planned for deployment this year but they're laying the groundwork to open chargers soon. We have sites secure today in various stages of pipeline including the first sites that have gone into permitting already.
For Iona to hit its goal, it has to deploy somewhere between 5 and 6,000 chargers per year for the next six years. Real quick, some of you out there have been asking me to comment on or push back on some of Trump's FUD when it comes to EVs so I'll either do it on the channel or over on X so just stay tuned. The real reason I haven't already is because the way I see it, it's mostly just political nonsense and noise and the arguments that he's making I think are pretty easily debunked by the majority of this audience. But I understand it could be valuable to have some data and facts in our back pockets when certain talking points come up so I've noted it.
Tesla stock closed the day at $170.66 down 1.8% while the Nasdaq was up 0.88%. It was a lower volume day for Tesla trading about 9 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days which itself has come down by over 25 million shares over just the past few weeks. Don't forget check out AG1 links below if you're interested. 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.