Welcome to Electrified, it's your host, Dylan Loomis. First up today, the Department of Energy put out the Argonne National Lab projects. Battery cell production in North America will exceed 1.2 terawatt hours of capacity by 2030, enough to supply 12 to 15 million new EVs every year, assuming average battery capacities of 80 to 100 kilowatt hours per vehicle. Looking at the map, these pink dots are vehicle assembly locations, so most of the battery cell production is close in proximity to those. Doing a bit of digging Argonne said the existing capacity of lithium ion batteries is modeled to be around 74 gigawatt hours for 2023. The three largest of these plants are Panasonic and Nevada with Tesla, 39 gigawatt hours, Altium in Ohio at 11, and SK Innovation in Georgia at 7 gigawatt hours. And they do list Tesla's Pilot Facility in Palo Alto at 7 gigawatt hours.
Right now, the state with the largest production is of course Nevada with Tesla and Panasonic, but they're estimating by 2028 Michigan is forecast to surpass Nevada's battery production capacity. Just know, this report is based on announcements because for Gigana Vata, they said that factory has made an announcement for an additional 100 gigawatt hours per year. They did say if this future expansion at Gigana Vata comes to fruition, it will be under the Tesla nameplate. The 100 gigawatt hour expansion of Gigana Vata is the largest contribution to Tesla's future production by the end of the decade, but the timing is still unclear and they said Tesla's plant in Austin has been rumored to be of similar capacity, but Tesla has not made a formal announcement.
Here's a table by company looking at Gigawatt hours by year, and for Tesla out to 2032, they have Tesla sitting at 120 gigawatt hours per year. And yes, I'm sure right now many of you are thinking back to Battery Day when Tesla said their long-term plan was one terawatt hour of cell production from Tesla. We know Tesla is going to continue scaling 4680 production without needing to make an official announcement, but there's a chance it's lower than their Battery Day predictions, especially if we're talking about by the end of this decade.
Over the past few months, there have been more and more reports both in the US and overseas that Tesla has been using empty lots effectively for either outbound logistics or vehicles they haven't yet sold. Tesla has not given any official announcement and I'm expecting this to be a balance of both. We know that sales are down and they're operating below max factory capacity globally. Honestly though, zooming out, even if all of these vehicles were cars that Tesla just could not find buyers for, it's still not the end of the world; we're tracking their sales data, we're about to get Q2 numbers, and we already know sales are flat or down in most regions. But I'm guessing at least a portion of these vehicles are indeed part of Tesla's logistics waiting to be delivered.
But it is true that Tesla may currently have a slight overcapacity problem as they've already shifted down Model Y production in Texas. It's likely just a season, but we'll know soon enough with the Q2 numbers. Here we have multiple executives from different legacy companies stressing the importance of software-defined vehicles. These companies are going to need to break some rules and change processes to adapt to the radically new landscape of software-defined cars. The head of strategy at Mercedes said it's important to collaborate with the best technology partners like Microsoft or OpenAI to offer the best technology experience. I'm not sure about you guys, but Microsoft and OpenAI would not be the first two companies I run to for in-car software.
But all of the execs from VW, BMW, Stellantis, and others were focusing on one thing. The aim of these software features will be to get customers to pay extra to get them. And that right there I think is where the dichotomy lies between Tesla and legacy OEMs. I really believe Tesla's focus from day one has been focusing on the customer experience and then figuring out a way to reverse engineer that in a profitable way. It has felt like and it's now confirmed publicly that most of these legacy companies are focusing on the profit first. They also said Chinese automakers are asking suppliers to develop products for a new car in 12 to 18 months rather than 3 to 4 years. Exactly what legacy OEM should be doing as well.
Ferrari just said its first fully electric car will cost at least around $535,000 and should be launched sometime late next year. They also said a second EV model is also under development, but it's still at an early stage.
Two years after receiving federal funding to build EV charging infrastructure from the NEVI program, Louisiana has yet to ask for bids from companies that might want that money. So that roughly $74 million they got has been sitting idle for the past two years. It's not just them though, Louisiana is one of 15 states that have still not asked for bids to use that NEVI money.
Louisiana is claiming the delays are the result of mismanagement or of labor requirements within federal rules. They said the EV charger grants will pay for the construction of infrastructure for which the ownership and operation will be transferred from the state in most cases to a private entity. And they're saying this contract scenario is very different than how they're used to operating.
It is true there's currently no hard deadline to complete these NEVI projects, but Louisiana is building a workforce of technicians who can install and repair EV chargers and supply equipment. It's just frustrating that this is all moving so slow and no surprise the government is mismanaging something else, but it's also frustrating because had Tesla been given more of this money, they would have gotten so much more done with the supercharger rollout.
Scotty size on YouTube has proven that driving a Cybertruck you can tell another Tesla while using the Cybertruck to charge that other Tesla. With all that, with all that uh, cable length sticking out there. So use a couple of cable straps, zip ties, tie it down, put the bed up. We're going to start the charging and we're going to hope that this works.
Right? So the car is at 58% when we start. So we get 64% as 30, 40 minutes, can't remember how long. We have we went 23 miles, used 22 kilowatt hours of energy with an average of 966 watt hours per mile, which towing a Model 3 while charging the Model 3 and using less than a thousand thousand one hours per mile, I think it did really well.
Now you know, an Australian outlet shop for cars has said the Tesla Model 3 tops two categories. It's the most popular electric car in Australia, but more importantly, it's found to be the most reliable EV in Australia for 2024.
Today, a US judge has said vehicle owners can pursue a proposed class action against Elon and Tesla, alleging that they were monopolizing markets for repairs in parts. She said owners can try to prove Tesla co-wares them into paying high prices and suffering long weights to have their vehicles fixed. The judge found evidence of a repairs monopoly in Tesla's alleged refusal to open enough authorized service centers and its designing vehicles to require diagnostic and software updates that only the company could provide.
Tesla has said the complaint is based on an illogical theory that Tesla intentionally degraded repairs in parts, jeopardizing its far more profitable business of selling and leasing vehicles. We've been over this in the past, just because Tesla wanted to keep its customers safe by not having unauthorized third parties work on these Tesla vehicles when they don't actually know what they're doing, does not mean they were forcing a monopoly.
As we know, Tesla's not like Legacy Auto, it does not get a majority of its profits from its service. And relatively speaking, for a newer company like Tesla, it'll take them time to develop a robust parts distribution network. And Tesla has done so much over the past few years, making service manuals public and service mode in the cars. And authorizing third party shops, so this lawsuit seems bogus to me.
Is Tesla's service perfect? Absolutely not. But was Tesla busy trying to build a monopoly for its service department? Also, absolutely not. Brad Sloane on YouTube got some nice drone shots of the Gigatexus expansion and specifically the new data center and the cooling system, so have a look.
Before I even talk about this, Dominic on X shared some concepts for what a possible Tesla van could be. This is not from Tesla, but I thought it was cool and well done, so I wanted to share. This one is an example of a commercial van. Of course, I think we're all hoping that Tesla would have a consumer van as well, and I'm not expecting anything about the Tesla van on August 8th, but wouldn't it be nice if this was a one more thing?
And Dominic, if you happen to see this, well done. Elon did give a new talk today at Con Lions, which is the festival of creativity and it was summarized well by Doge designer. The talk was mostly about X and advertisers, but a few quick takeaways.
Elon said I do shoot myself in the foot from time to time, but at least you know it's genuine, not from the PR department. Elon clarified his GFY remark saying it was not to advertisers as a whole, it was with respect to freedom of speech. It's important to have a global free speech platform where people with a wide range of opinions can voice their views. In some cases, there were advertisers who were insisting on censorship. He said every human will have a humanoid robot. I think there will be 20 billion humanoid robots. Companies that will succeed are those that most effectively use AI. He said there will be a crisis of meaning with AGI and robots. What is our purpose when we don't have to work? We are heading to an age of abundance. I think the most likely outcome is one of abundance where goods and services are available to anyone. There's no shortage for any one of us. It would be a universal hike. Work would be optional. Well, AI keep you alive and what do you do with your money? Well, I have a big money, Ben, when I swim, I do swimming in it. You've got to get exercise somehow.
Brendan Carr, the commissioner of the FCC, said $42 billion and years later, the current administration has not connected even one person to the internet with that money. A couple days ago, Brendan also said that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at the earliest. Part of the reason I'm sharing this and why this news is so brutal is that you may remember back in 2022, the government revoked an award to Starlink that would have delivered high-speed internet to 642,000 rural locations. What we have here is effectively the current administration being out to get Elon, whether it's weaponizing government agencies or avoiding his companies and products at all costs. Now we have hundreds of thousands of citizens that are basically being punished thanks to the administration's antics. As Holmars pointed out for $42 billion, they could have bought Starlink dishes for 140 million people. To which Elon said, wow, that's crazy. Surely some people should lose their jobs over this. If wasting billions isn't enough, what does it take?
And as Elon continued, the program is utterly failing to serve people in need. They're saying lawmakers and internet companies blame the slow rollout on burdensome requirements for obtaining the funds, change mandates, preferences for hiring union workers, and the requirement that eligible companies prioritize the employment of justice-impacted people with criminal records to install broadband equipment. And all the while, we have Starlink and incredible innovation from an American company being spurned for, I think we all agree, political motivations. I could say a lot here, but for now, I'll just leave it at, I think it's criminal. Human robotics will be as common as cars are today. You gotta imagine what a car looks like 100 years ago on the street. What a strange instrument going down the street by itself without a horse in front of it. And so I think 100 years from now, it's very clear. We'll have human robots everywhere. It will likely be the largest volume mechanical system the world makes. And of course, the common sense, the ability to understand us, all of that technology is evolving very, very quickly. And I think that over the next two or three years, you're going to see quite significant breakthroughs. I missed this one the other day, but in response to that, Elon said, they robots will be 10 times more common than cars.
From the Energy Information Administration, solar and batteries will make up 80% of new power capacity in 2024. In 2023, the US added a record 19.3 gigawatts of utility scale solar capacity. By the end of this year, the US is expected to add 37.5 gigawatts of capacity, up 94% year over year. In 2024, the US is expected to add nearly as much battery storage capacity as the country did over the past 10 years. Also for this year, power producers will build less gas capacity around 2.8 gigawatts than they have any year since 1998.
But it's not all rainbows for renewables as this year, developers are planning to build half as much wind capacity for 2024 as they did in 2020 and 2021. And just so you know, part of that charting was from Michael Thomas on X at Curious Founder. If you're into that type of data, you can opt into his clean view. It's currently in beta.
Heinrich Zane on X gave us an update on Tesla's semi-factory out in Giga Nevada, and we're just going to scrub through it real quick because as you can see, progress is being made, but it's still not much. So far, it's been mostly drainage work and as you can see, there really isn't anything yet laid for the actual foundation. Two things Heinrich Zane has been well ahead of the curve on multiple different Tesla semi news stories, so I would highly recommend following him on X. We want Heinrich's to be our dedicated drone guy for this semi-factory build out, so support him in any way you can. This is not sponsored or anything like that.
Heinrich Zane 在 X 平台上更新了特斯拉在内华达州超级工厂(Giga Nevada)的半卡车工厂建设进展。我们将快速浏览一下,因为如你所见,虽然有一些进展,但仍然有限。目前主要在进行排水工作,实际上地基还没有开始铺设。 Heinrich Zane 在多个特斯拉半卡车新闻报道上表现出色,所以我强烈推荐你在 X 平台上关注他。我们希望 Heinrich Zane 能成为专门报道这个半卡车工厂建设的无人机拍摄专家,所以请大家尽可能地支持他。这不是赞助或类似的广告。
From Dirty Tesla, just an FYI, and this could change at any time, but right now Tesla is not giving trade-in values for the Cybertruck. And given that you're not supposed to sell it, for a time, you may be somewhat stuck. Michael Dell posted on X, we're building a Dell AI factory with NVIDIA to power Grock for XAI and Elon Musk. Elon did clarify to be precise, Dell is assembling half of the racks that are going into the supercomputer that XAI is building. And on X, Elon said that the other half will be built or assembled by SMC, but I think he means SMCI. That's because SMCI is Super Micro, and they're known for their close ties with companies like NVIDIA and for its liquid cooling technology. Elon has said he wants this supercomputer running by the fall of 2025.
Tesla Chan has shared a Chinese source saying that Tesla signed a lithium carbonate supply deal with the YHUWA group, which will run from 2025 to 2027. Further details were not shared, but Jordan from the limiting factor said Tesla usually uses this lithium carbonate for LFP chemistries. And that an alternative lithium hydroxide is usually used for high nickel chemistries. Thus, this new lithium deal could be for Tesla and CATL, working together out at Gig and Nevada on that new factory, which we've heard may build LFP cells for the megapack, at least to start.
Tesla stock closed the day at $184.86 down 1.38%, while the NASDAQ was up 0.03%. It was an average volume day trading about 6 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days. Pierce Morgan has said that a new chat with Elon will be live soon. 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.