Welcome to Electrified, it's your host, Dylan Loomis. So we've known previously that Tesla has worked closely with its Tesla semi-customers when it comes to the service side. Dan Priestley, the head of that semi-program, told us that they do something similar when it comes to charging for their customers for the semi. By leveraging Tesla's in-house built hardware common with Tesla charging and experience from deploying over 60,000 DC posts, we can often deploy fast charging for the semi at around $500 per kilowatt, fully landed cost to the customer. It's not uncommon for competing installations to be over two times that. Tesla's vertical integration, economies of scale, and developed construction techniques enabled the savings and helped make semi even more compelling. I think it's clear why that's so important, but to put some data behind it, according to the American Transportation Research Institute, fuel costs made up between 19% and 28% of fleet's average marginal costs from 2018 to 2022. The average cost of operating a truck in 2022 surpassed $2 per mile for the first time, while much of that increase was due to high fuel costs.
So Tesla offering this white glove service, if you will, to its customers for the Tesla semi to help them have the ideal charging solutions for their fleet is a huge deal. And shout out to James Cat for eliciting that response. Consumer Reports put out their American Experiences Survey for September of this year. This data is based on 2,146 interviews. For those that were at a dealership in the past 12 months, they were asked, were you interested in learning about electric or partially electric vehicle options? 34% said yes, and 66% said no. Then imagine you're shopping for your next vehicle at a dealership, would you be interested in test driving a battery electric vehicle, even if you're not currently interested in buying one. To that, 50% said yes, 37% said no, and 13% were unsure. Of course, it's a small sample size, but my biggest takeaway was that 34% that were at a dealership recently were actually interested in learning about electrified vehicles. That of course does not mean they're going to end up buying one, but given that the S&P is forecasting that 9% will be the market share of fully electric vehicles in October in the US this year, there are some encouraging signs that were likely to see continued growth ahead. That 9% figure is just fully electric vehicles, but if you go to the EIA, they tell us that when you consider hybrid electric and plug-in, that number is about 19% in the US into 2024. So we'll call it electrified sales total, make up about 19% of the US market as of the summer this year.
Based on the data from consumer reports that told us 35% of people that were at a dealership were interested in an electrified vehicle, that data point should give us some confidence that this number is likely to continue to increase. If of course, that consumer reports number was indicative of the larger population. You've been doing this for a hot minute. Have you ever seen a company like Tesla before? I've been doing this for over 25 years. I've never seen a company like this before. No, it's pretty impressive. I think when you look at what's going on at Tesla, you have, I mean, it's not Tesla, but you have Elon with SpaceX and everything that's going on in Tesla and XAI. I think we have a real innovator, whether you're like him or not, but it's really kind of shocking the world and bringing a lot to the table. We've had a lucky run here with Tesla with almost free capital for the better part of a decade, so he's been given tens of billions of dollars. But the reality is he's done something really amazing with it and is really pushing the envelope, which I think is going to be great for humanity over time. By the way, that free capital comment is likely referring to the regulatory credits that Tesla has received over the years.
So you have a buy rating on Tesla. Did it blow past your price target already? Well, it's moved a lot in the last two days. So it's moving quickly. We're going to have to reassess things as the stock takes off. And part of our thesis on Tesla is their access to low-cost capital. So the reality is if they raise 10% capital raise right now, it would be a bit dilutive, but I think shareholders would share it and you raise 80 to 90 billion dollars of capital that you could put on your balance sheet to execute on all these opportunities. So it is almost an auto-correlated financial instrument in a way that if you use it and leverage it, you really can accelerate growth. You may remember Tesla did two separate capital raises via stock issuance back in 2020. One was for $2 billion and the other was for $5 billion.
Personally, I think the chances of Tesla doing this anytime soon are quite low, but it is true that it's generally speaking better for companies to do this when the share price is higher. Doing it with that timing means it would be less dilutive because Tesla could raise the same amount by issuing fewer shares at higher prices. And the fewer new shares issued means less dilution for existing shareholders. So it was interesting that the Bank of America analysts thought Tesla's ability to raise capital like that was part of its investment thesis. The main reason I think Tesla won't do that anytime soon is because if they did that and raised an additional $80 billion, they'd have roughly $110 billion on the balance sheet and they just can't spend that type of money fast enough.
We know Tesla's CapEx guidance for this year is $11 billion so maybe next year that could jump to $15 to $20 billion but that would be quite significant. And don't forget, free cash flow is what's left over after capital expenditures. And Tesla has only had one negative cash flow quarter dating back four years to quarter two 2020. That one negative quarter was quarter one of this year when we had the Red Sea attacks and the Berlin fire that led to some inventory buildup. All of that to say Tesla's operations are still profitable enough to fund $11 billion in CapEx spend per year. But it's encouraging to know if Tesla really did want to ramp up AI spending here in the next few years and they did go to raise a new capital, Wall Street may actually view that favorably because they can trust that Tesla can put that capital to efficient use.
Tesla put out a new blog post titled standardizing automotive connectivity. Over the past 20 years, the cost and complexity of electronics across the auto industry has doubled. Today, a single vehicle typically requires over 200 connections and the number of electrical connectors and types across new vehicles is only growing. Thus, Tesla is simplifying the manufacturing process and electrical connectivity requirements for all our vehicles. This includes the implementation of our low voltage connector standard, LVCS. This allows Tesla to reduce the large number of connector types required to just six. Or as Elon would say, that's roughly a 1.52 order of magnitude reduction. These six device connectors are designed to meet the power and signal requirements for over 90% of typical electrical device applications.
LVCS expands upon the same 48 volt architecture used for Cybertruck. It meets the requirement for increased spacing for 48 volt operation and is available in industry standard light blue. Of course, Tesla has done that because they are inviting all device suppliers and vehicle manufacturers to join in this initiative. The 48 volt architecture is the optimal long term choice requiring one fourth of the current to deliver the same amount of power. Given that Tesla said they are looking to simplify all of their vehicles, the question now becomes when will the other vehicles get the 48 volt architecture. Don't forget, even if Tesla were to receive $0 in royalties for this technology, the more suppliers and manufacturers that are using this tech means lower prices thanks to economies of scale.
Don't forget, this won't just lead to simplicity in manufacturing and lower costs, but also you have to think about the service side as well. It will certainly take some time to grow the number of cars in the fleet using this LVCS, but from a long term perspective, just another way that Tesla is setting the standard. And because I'm guessing a few inquiring minds will wonder why 48 volt architecture requires increased spacing in vehicles. One is the higher arching potential, the increased voltage increases the distance that electricity can arc or jump through the air. There may be insulation needs because the higher voltage would require a more robust insulation between the conductors. And lastly, I would speculate to prevent interference because the higher voltage levels with 48 volts can lead to increased electromagnetic interference. So naturally, increased spacing would help to mitigate that problem.
Naralokesh is the Minister of IT for Andhra Pradesh, a state in India. He said, I visited the Tesla HQ in Austin and explained to Tesla's CFO Vibov the possibilities and advantages of investing in Andhra Pradesh in the field of making EVs internationally. Andhra Pradesh is aiming to achieve 72 gigawatts of renewable energy production by 2029. And they're seeking the help of top companies like Tesla to achieve their goal. So Naralokesh is arguing that their location is ideal for setting up Tesla EV manufacturing and battery product units. The problem here is we've seen now for years that Indian politicians publicly are doing what they can to woo Tesla to their region, but at the end of the day, they still want to protect their homegrown players.
Naralokesh did invite Tesla to participate in various projects like the installation of solar panels, Smart City and Rural Electrification projects, the development of EV charging networks, and the establishment of technology parks. I did a little digging on Andhra Pradesh and I found that they are offering subsidies on power consumption charges. They have some investment subsidies up to 15-20% of the fixed capital investment. They're developing new massive land parcels with infrastructure like power, roads and water, and their location is well connected to major cities like Bengaluru. I'm not expecting any new factory announcements for EV manufacturing from Tesla anytime in the next 6-9 months.
Tesla News Wire shared this video of the CyberCab at Giga Texas with the wheel hubs removed. As Joe Tett-Mayer shared, Tesla's CyberCab is now on display at the main entrance of Giga Texas. In the daylight, you can see that these vehicles really are more gold in color. It is roped off so you can't get inside, but if you're in the area, just an FYI. Dan Birkeland was asking about Tesla's adaptive headlight rollout for North America as he got to use it in the EU. He said on bumpy roads, I could follow my friends closely with the high beams on, never impairing their visibility once.
To that, over the weekend Lars Mirevi said almost there. As a reminder, if you want to check if your vehicle has the Matrix headlights, just look for the round projector dome. If you have that, your headlights are likely Matrix. Almost there is pretty vague, but there's at least a chance we see the rollout sometime later this year. Nick shared this video on X showing this pedestrian that stops walking his dog and does motion for the Tesla vehicle to go ahead. He said Tesla's FSD was beautifully recognizing a hand signal.
For now, I'm going to say it's possible, but we don't have official confirmation that FSD is doing this quite yet. Translation, it could just be that FSD knew to go because the pedestrian stood still. But we do know that in May, earlier this year, Elon said he would not count on FSD recognizing hand gestures at that time. But according to a Tesla employee, it was supposed to be included in an FSD update the following month. Also earlier this year, Elon said hand gesture recognition would be improved with version 12.4 and even better by version 12.5. Which is why I said there's a chance this feature is working, but I would not yet consider it a rock solid feature that we can all rely on all the time.
Some of you will remember a few years back, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Elon to take this post on X down, which clearly he never did. It said there's nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tomorrow if they wanted, but why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing. Our safety record is two times better than when the plant was UAW and everybody already gets health care. Well, fast forward to today and a US appeals court just ruled that the NLRB went too far by ordering Elon to delete that tweet. They said deleting the speech of private citizens on topics of public concern is not a remedy traditionally countenance to buy American law. The court also directed the NLRB to reconsider its decision ordering Tesla to reinstate a pro-union employee who was fired.
And all along Tesla has argued that tweet was not a threat and it merely reflected the fact that union workers at other auto companies did not receive stock options. The court decided that post amounted to free speech protected by the US Constitution's First Amendment. In a blog post today, Nvidia was highlighting the incredible work of the XAI team. They were of course talking about Colossus, the world's largest AI supercomputer that's in Memphis, Tennessee. They said XAI is in the process of doubling the size of Colossus to a combined total of 200,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs.
The supporting facility and state of the art supercomputer was built by XAI in Nvidia in 122 days instead of the typical timeframe for systems of this size that can take many months to years. Just so everybody understands, this is the biggest AI supercomputer in the world at 100,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs. And now Elon and XAI are in the midst of doubling that. And I'm not sure if this is still part of the plans, but Elon did say that they're looking at 300,000 B200 GPUs for XAI by next summer.
Of course if you like Grock, you should be very excited about these developments. But if you don't think that Elon and his team at Tesla is going to learn an incredible amount from this project at XAI, I would just say denial is a river in Egypt. Tesla has extended its 5-year 0% interest offer in China until the end of November. This further extends that incentive for car purchases that began in April. The alarm bells are officially going off at VW. VW is now planning to shut at least 3 factories in Germany, lay off tens of thousands of staff, and shrink its remaining plants in Germany.
VW said restructuring is needed and said it would make concrete proposals Wednesday. Management is absolutely serious about all of this. This is not saber rattling in the collective bargaining round. This is the plan of Germany's largest industrial group to start the sell-off in its home country of Germany. VW is facing severe pressure from high energy and labor costs, stiff Asian competition, I would add Tesla too, weakening demand in Europe and China in a slower than expected EV transition. VW also plans to cut salaries at the brand by at least 10% and freeze pay in 2025 and 2026.
A VW board member said the situation is serious and the responsibility of the negotiating partners is enormous. Without comprehensive measures to regain competitiveness, we will not be able to afford essential investments in the future. The head of the VW brand said German factories were not productive enough and were operating 25-50% above targeted costs. Meaning some sites were twice as expensive compared to the competition. Of course, Tesla is not the only reason that both VW and Germany as a whole are struggling right now, but they did say they're seeing its dominance challenged by more nimble and cheaper rivals in key areas including the auto industry.
Of course, E-Game at all is not happy about this at all, saying if VW confirms its dystopian path on Wednesday, the board must expect the corresponding consequences on our part. Strykes, which had been threatened before, are now likely. They said Berlin needs to urgently come up with a master plan for the German industry to ensure it does not go down the drain. This really is a nightmare of a situation for VW. It almost feels like a no win situation when you throw in E-Game at all. Competing with Tesla without that burden is already hard enough.
Just to circle back, if full EV sales do hit 9% in the US in October, that would be the first time we ever hit that mark. In North America posted 14 years ago, we opened our Fremont factory to produce the Model S. Today, it still makes sexy cars and continues to be the only large scale manufacturing plant in California and the most productive factory in North America. This might sound crazy, but I still remember the very first time I sat in a Tesla, it was in the back seat of a Model S and I saw the big screen and I thought, this is the coolest car I've ever been in. That's actually when I started making my own custom Tesla apparel and here we are 14 years later.
As Sawyer highlighted from some public filings, Tesla plans to complete its interior build out at Gigataxis by the end of 2025. Then Joe Tettmeyer, our resident Gigataxis expert said this is for ADA compliance and occupancy. It's the last step before these new areas can be used by employees. Basically, the TDLR is responsible for issuing licenses to protect the health and safety of employees. Which means the construction is nearly complete and ready for use, a very good sign. Ford did release its quarter three earnings and just skipping to the Model E division, their volume was down 11%, driven by competitive market dynamics, translation, competition with the Model Y and the Cybertruck, their revenue was down 33%, reflecting industry-wide pricing pressure and lower volume.
And they had a $1.2 billion dollar E-bit loss and their E-bit margin was negative 104.4% which was worse than quarter two when it was negative 99.5%. It was also worse year over year as Q3 last year it was negative 75.6%. If you go to their wholesale units for the Model E, you see 32,000 for the quarter. And a $1.2 billion loss for Model E, divided by 32,000 wholesale units, is a loss of $37,500 per vehicle. And look, that's not a bulletproof metric but it's the one that everybody likes to know after their earnings reports. And year to date, Ford's Model E division has lost $3.7 billion.
But frankly, it's about what we've been expecting all year and it's what Ford has been guiding for. Tesla stock closed the day at $262.51 down 2.48% while the NASDAQ was up 0.26%. It was another higher volume day trading about 25 million shares above the average volume the past 30 days. Hope you guys have a wonderful day. Please like the video if you did.