Hey everybody Rob Merr here and today we've got some really nice numbers for Tesla in China, updates on hardware 4 project Highland, a letter from NHTSA 2 Tesla, and a couple other items as well. Great day for Tesla stock today, finishing up 7.7% closing at $257.18 while the NASDAQ was up 1 3.4% on the day today.
Overall the market is seemingly reacting to some job news out in pre-market. In short, job openings came in lower than expected and declined more quickly than expected. And although that might seem like bad economic data, of course there's always the counterbalance that affects the market right now, of poor economic data making it less likely for further interest rate increases to occur. We are about 3 weeks out from the next FOMC meeting where that next decision will be made. The CME Group FedWatch tool today showing an increase in expectations for a rate pause at this meeting. That was the favored outcome before but that's now increased from a 78% expectation up to about 86% expectation. That's about where it sat a week ago so nothing too crazy but I guess enough for the markets today on top of a similar report coming out for consumer confidence.
So as we mentioned PCE later this week on Thursday that will be something to keep an eye on as well. If that comes in lower than expected that should continue to drive the expectation for no increase at the next meeting, even higher the markets could like that as well.
In addition to the overall markets rising today off of those macro reports we did have a positive report for Tesla in China. This is insured vehicle numbers for the week. This jumped this week to 17,000. As we can see from the chart that's basically tied for the third best week so far this year.
From a quarter to date perspective this now moves Tesla to 89,200 vehicles insured in the first 8 weeks of the quarter and this number again improves the quarter to date trend. This is up 11% over the 80,200 vehicles through the first 8 weeks of Q2. For Q1 through this point it was 57,800 for Q4 72,900. Now remember Q2 did go on to set the record of about 160,000 for the quarter. There are now 5 weeks left in Q3 so for Tesla to set another record it's going to need to average about 14,000 here per week over the next 5 weeks. So still plenty of work to be done that's because Q2 closed so strongly averaging about 16,000 over those last 5 weeks of the quarter. But as the weeks go by it's looking more and more attainable. So I'm really happy with this 17,000 number it's ahead of my expectations.
Production and Model 3 and whatever's going on with Project Highland. This could put some pressure on these numbers as we move forward. But we should get a better idea of how that's looking if we don't hear something before this with the production numbers that come out in hopefully a little bit less than 2 weeks from now.
Speaking of Project Highland from Esther Kockmans on X, it looks like we've got two different sightings of based on the front rear coverings like we have seen before. Vehicles that are presumably Project Highland Model 3's in Europe. One of these sightings was in Germany, the other in France and it's one of the first times we've seen sightings like this in Europe. There was a report a couple weeks ago about a similar sighting in Spain. Hopefully a sign that things are getting closer but obviously we'll just wait and see what comes to be here over the next few weeks.
Alright next up today we've got an update on Hardware 4. Of course yesterday we talked about Elon's comments on X that Hardware 4 would lag behind Hardware 3 by about 6 months. But right after that comment, it looks like FSD beta is now rolling out to Hardware 4 vehicles. A number of different reports on this. I'm not sure if it's all Hardware 4 vehicles or if this is going in waves. But definitely interesting to see after Elon's comments I think a lot of surprise for a lot of people. Although a very welcome surprise. If we look back at Elon's comment now, it seems more likely that he would have been talking about the performance of FSD beta rather than the release of FSD beta. And or just talking more specifically about FSD beta version 12. We haven't seen that released to Hardware 3 yet so he may be talking about version 12 that making its way to Hardware 4. Maybe that takes a little bit longer than when we see it introduced on Hardware 3. Glad to see this starting to roll out though to Hardware 4 especially with a likely higher concentration of FSD take rate this quarter because of the FSD transfer option. More of those Hardware 4 vehicles are going to be FSD beta cars because of that. Therefore more customers affected by not having it so happy to see it.
Alright, some more news on FSD today. There is a new letter from NHTSA to Tesla. This is a special request from NHTSA involving their investigation that's been ongoing in autopilot for a long time. In the letter, they say that recently NHTSA became aware that Tesla has introduced an autopilot configuration that when enabled allows drivers using autopilot to operate their vehicles for extended periods without autopilot prompting the driver to apply to work to the steering wheel. So we had talked back in June about a post from Green the Only on X that there was an Elon mode that was hidden in the software, not inableable but still in the software that would disable the nags for the wheel. So that was mid June. This letter from NHTSA is dated July 26th to Tesla. They allow Tesla to respond by August 25th. We don't know for sure if that's what NHTSA is referring to specifically or maybe just videos of FSD beta out there. Who knows, but the timing does kind of line up and again this is not a feature that any customer can just go in and enable. You'd have to have pretty decent technical knowledge to be able to even know that that exists or be able to do anything with it. So I don't think this is too big of a deal, but nevertheless NHTSA asking Tesla for a lot more information on it. You can see the number of different requests here they have about this. Doesn't mention Elon mode specifically, but asks about what vehicles may have any feature that reduces or eliminates nags. Now I'm not sure that that inherently would even be an issue in and of itself. I mean we've all seen I think advertisements for I think I don't know super cruises or blue cruises whichever one they've advertised ends free for their ADAS systems which of course then use I monitoring. FSD beta is now using I monitoring. So I'm sure NHTSA would prefer more monitoring, but there are others that have done no hand nagging requirements. So again, Tesla had until the 25th of August to reply. We don't have any information on whether or not Tesla has replied, but either way I don't think this specifically is likely to be very material, but we'll keep an eye out for any other updates on it.
今天关于FSD的更多消息。NHTSA给特斯拉写了一封新信。这是NHTSA对他们长期进行的关于自动驾驶的调查的特殊要求。信中提到,最近NHTSA获悉特斯拉引入了一种自动驾驶配置,启用后允许使用自动驾驶的驾驶员在长时间内不需要转动方向盘。我们在6月份曾经讨论过Green the Only在X上的一篇帖子中提到,软件中隐藏有一个Elon模式,无法启用,但仍然存在于软件中,可以禁用对方向盘的提醒。那是在6月中旬。这封NHTSA致特斯拉的信件日期是7月26日。他们要求特斯拉在8月25日前做出回应。我们不能确定NHTSA具体指的是什么,也许是有关FSD beta的视频,谁知道呢,但时间上是相符的。再次强调,这不是一个任何客户都可以进入并启用的功能。你必须要有相当不错的技术知识才能知道它的存在并对其进行操作。所以我认为这并不是一个太大的问题,但不管怎样,NHTSA要求特斯拉提供更多关于此事的信息。你可以看到他们对此的各种不同请求。信中没有具体提到Elon模式,但问及哪些车辆可能具有减少或取消提醒的功能。现在我不确定这本身是否会成为问题。我们都见过关于其他ADAS系统(当然还包括使用眼动检测的系统)的广告,如supercruise或blue cruise。FSD beta现在也开始使用眼动检测。所以我相信NHTSA可能更希望有更多的监控,但也有其他厂商不要求手握方向盘的要求。再次强调,特斯拉在8月25日前必须做出回应。我们没有任何关于特斯拉是否已作出回应的信息,但无论如何,我并不认为这个问题本身会对特斯拉产生太大影响,但我们将继续关注相关的更新。
Alright, handful of other quick things here. Elon has commented on X that they will soon be making an app to allow you to see the latest from X on Tesla car screens. Pretty obvious that that would be happening at some point, so we'll see what Tesla's got in mind for that implementation. And then we've got a report from Bloomberg that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg among others are going to be invited to participate in a panel that is led by Senator Chuck Schumer sometime in September to discuss AI and presumably AI regulation. So I'm glad to see that Elon will have a seat at that table. I think Schumer has interacted a little bit with Elon before on this, so we'll see if we get any more reporting on that as that meeting occurs.
I did also want to briefly touch on a topic that we talked about yesterday and that was the changes in megapack pricing. I had talked about how it might be able to be premature to judge how those price changes might impact Tesla's financial results for megapack and a commenter brought up a really great point that I thought bared repeating today on that topic. And that was that last year Tesla did actually significantly increase prices on megapack. And of course at that time the backlog was already pretty long for megapack judge based on that estimated delivery date in the design studio that likely stretched into 2023 at that time. So I think it's pretty likely that orders that have been being fulfilled were probably made prior to that price increase. Which would be basically exactly what we saw Tesla do with car pricing. They add these lower prices long backlog and then they raise prices to very high levels, but they were likely delivering very few of those higher price cars, which although obviously didn't completely mitigate the effects of the price decreases that we then saw this year, but it did reduce that impact versus what you would strictly see on the design studio. And that was something that Zach had specifically talked about on the earnings calls during those price changes. So good to remember that that's probably something that's also happening right now with megapack and just like with cars, maybe that doesn't cover the entirety of the price change, but maybe it's less significant than it would appear just based off of the design studio.
Alright, and then last item for today, just an interesting report from Bloomberg. They have noticed that Sinopec has started to guide that they are expecting gasoline demand to have peaked in China this year. That's two years earlier than their previous forecast. Obviously, that's a huge milestone for electric vehicles and the impact that they are having on that gasoline market.
So pretty cool to see that and wanted to pass that along as well. But that'll wrap it up for today.
很酷的是看到这个,也希望把这个消息传递出去。但今天就到这里。
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 Wednesday, August 30th episode of Tesla viewing.