Hey everybody Rob now we're here and today we've got a couple updates on Cybertruck and Project Highland. We also have an interesting new job posting from Tesla a couple things on charging and more. Looking at the stock pretty much a repeat of yesterday Tesla down 2.8% closing at $219.22. The NASDAQ yesterday was down 1.15% today down 1.17% so the rough past month continues.
I did have somebody today on X ask me to talk a little bit more about the share price. I don't think there's really a whole lot to talk about that we haven't covered but it's always helpful to put things in context. So over the last month yes very tough for Tesla down about 25% the NASDAQ only down about 7% during that period.
So a couple things obviously the market hasn't been great but during a normal period where the NASDAQ is down 7 we'd maybe expect Tesla to be down I don't know 12 15% or so. So definitely still underperforming but yet again bringing in more context if we look at growth and automotive a couple of proxies we can use for that. I like to look at ARK as a proxy for high multiple stocks not because of any particular affinity to the fund but just based off of what they invest in I think it does a decent job of capturing the sentiment around growth type of names at the moment.
So that's down 19% over the last couple months and then bringing in automotive Ford and GM those are both down in the 15% range as well. Part of that could be attributed to UAW negotiations but that was easily anticipated well before this and because things trade in baskets and underperformance for other US automakers could contribute at least in part to an underperformance from Tesla not saying that's all of it but just pointing out that Tesla is not alone in US automaker underperformance over the last month.
So it's been a tougher market it's been tougher for growth stocks it's been tougher for automakers and then coming out of earnings like we talked about that very day there just wasn't much to be excited about from that call for the third quarter specifically short-term speaking with Tesla talking about production downtime no specific date set for a Cybertruck event with margin and demand questions left a little bit open so my view on the last month you've got a combination of a tough market additional underperformance in segments that Tesla falls into and although earnings did beat expectations Tesla didn't give a whole lot to be excited about specifically for this quarter which I don't mind but short-term trading rules the day and the month oftentimes so in the absence of much other news in the presence of a tougher market I don't find it to be too surprising and of course let's not forget that we were coming off of a big run.
Alright let's move into some other news really quick update first on Elon he has announced that he has just arrived in Japan we don't seem to have any reports yet on potential reasons for that but obviously those international visits have come with news in the past so we'll keep it out for anything more on those travels which could have interesting implications for SpaceX Tesla etc.
Next we've got some updates on the adventures of Cybertruck fleets that we had talked about yesterday. Ryan from the kilowatts on X posting a photo of what appears to be about nine cybertrucks having arrived at Fremont. So yesterday when we talked about some in Arizona that were heading eastbound, that was a misstatement on that post. Those were actually headed westbound, which makes a lot more sense. So probably heading from Texas to Fremont via Arizona, probably along that same route that Tesla wants to build Tesla semi-chargers on. So if we've got nine heading to Fremont, we've got six I believe heading through Arkansas. Now I believe those are up in Illinois. Even sounds like there's at least 15 or something in that ballpark that are being transported at the moment. For what reason exactly remains unclear, but exciting nonetheless and starting to get up to numbers that could potentially portend a delivery event. I think if we don't end up seeing that happen this quarter, my current expectations based on what we're seeing would be for that to only be slipping a little bit from that third-quarter target given in the second quarter to the early fourth quarter.
All right moving on from Cybertruck to Project Highland, Bloomberg is finally jumping on the reporting train for this update to Model 3. Their report is that mass production of Tesla's revamped Model 3 may start in China as soon as next month, people familiar with the matter said. Now, it's important to note that they did start that sentence saying mass production supposed to start next month. I think a lot of the confusion in the rumors or reporting has to do with whether people are talking about sort of trial production, test production, start of production, start of mass production, all of these things are different things. So it's already confusing enough and then you add translation errors on top of it which probably particularly affect that type of communication probably not surprising that it's all been a little bit confusing. But Bloomberg goes on to report that they are in the final stages of producing display vehicles which will be shipped to Tesla showrooms later in August. They say mass production set to follow, beginning as soon as September, output will ramp up through China's National Holiday which starts September 30th. And regarding the design, they say that the exterior and interior components have been changed to make the car sleeker, one of their sources said, and that the overall cost would be lower than the current iteration once production is at full capacity. So overall, I would say at least pretty similar to some of the reports that we have heard so far. The timing if this is close to accurate is definitely interesting here. With vehicles potentially being in showrooms late in August, are they gonna hold those vehicles for a whole month? Are they gonna produce these vehicles for a full month before putting them on sale? And then what about Model 3 production out of Fremont? Is that timeline gonna match? Because all of those things would add further pressure on top of what is already probably a pressured Model 3 sales figure for the third quarter, which is historically something that you would try to do at the beginning of a quarter versus the end of the quarter. Obviously, over the course of a year, a few years, it doesn't matter, but that's just kind of how the business game works sometimes. And Tesla does try to manage around that as best they can, but those quarterly deadlines also help incentivize the workforce and things like that. So I don't know. I know it's been a few tough weeks since earnings, but we should be heading into some pretty interesting weeks to come.
Now the other thing people were questioning today whether or not it was related to project Highland was some international design studios for their new inventory vehicles. They have a little text message there that says new vehicle coming soon. So if you're looking at a Model 3 page and you see that, it's a little bit eyebrow-raising. Is Tesla for some reason on those pages of letting people know that a new version is coming soon? Well, no, that's not the case. If we flip over to a Model Y, we can see the exact same thing. If we flip to a demo vehicle, it says demo vehicle coming soon. So this is just a description of the type of vehicle it is and that the inventory isn't actually on-site available right now but is coming soon. Tesla should probably update how that's being phrased but it doesn't have anything to do with any vehicle updates.
Next today we've got an interesting job listing from Tesla. Not sure who first spotted this but Tesla has listed a job in Austin for a program manager for business development and in the what you'll do section they say that this person will be responsible for leading the launch of the Tesla rental program in Texas. So hmm, that's kind of interesting. Is Tesla planning to do direct rentals, take on companies like Hertz or Turo? Seems like that could be in the works and maybe Tesla uses that to learn a little bit more about an eventual robot taxi business I think for that purpose it makes a lot of sense but for just Tesla running this themselves in the absence of that I'm not sure it would be too attractive but either way it'll be interesting to see what Tesla has planned here I think so your merit notice that Tesla's staff program manager posted on LinkedIn saying big things are happening leading to this job listing perhaps tempering expectations a little bit there does seem to be a lot of other work that is included in this job listing there's a lot of mentions of collisions and collision team talks about cost and process optimization for the collision team talks about trying to reduce repair time for all glass repairs and collision and while those things are obviously relevant for a rental business it would seem weird to combine those with the lead of the rental business if it were any other company this would make me think that those plans aren't too big but it's Tesla these employees do wear a lot of hats so can't really rule that out
all right next we've got a couple of updates on charging Tesla owners UK sharing some photos of the first UK version 4 supercharger being installed nice to see that rollout continues seems to be picking up pace and then also on charging we do have an update from JD power they have published the results of their 2023 EV experience public charging survey and unsurprisingly Tesla has again crushed the competition for DC fast charging with a survey score of 739 compared to second place charge point all the way down at 606 however for level 2 charging so Tesla destination chargers full to actually slightly edged out Tesla for that top spot 665 score versus Tesla in a close second place at 661 so probably pretty much within the margin of error but looks like there may be some opportunities for improvements specifically with destination chargers for Tesla although as we know from other surveys from JD power it's a little bit difficult to tell exactly what's causing scores to end up where they do so without seeing those full results it's a little bit difficult to understand exactly what's driving Tesla to a little bit lower score than Volta
and then the last couple of things for today core lithium has announced that they've received a notice from Tesla over a supply agreement in 2022 for 110,000 tons of lithium spodramine which did not materialize within the deadline for that supply agreement we don't have much information outside of that but Tesla's notice reportedly said that Tesla is prepared to take all available legal remedies unless a further agreement can be reached and then the last item for today Ford has announced via the Ford Mustang account on X that they will be making an announcement tonight at 830 p.m. Eastern time so whatever that announcement is will probably be out by the time many of you are watching this not sure if it'll be EV related or not so I'm gonna keep an eye on though Ford has teased it by saying it's time for something audacious
all right that'll wrap it up for today then so as always thank you for listening make sure you're subscribed and signed up for notifications you can also find me on X at Tesla podcast and we'll see you tomorrow for the Friday August 18th episode of Tesla Daily thank you