Tesla Drops “Coming Soon” Qualifier on FSD, Highland Updates, Sales Reports

Hey everybody Rob Maor here and today we are talking about a pretty interesting change that Tesla has made to their marketing of FSD. We've also got news out of China updates on Project Highland and a few other items as well. After the long holiday weekend, nice bounce back for Tesla stock after the underperformance on Friday, Tesla today up 4.7% closing at $256.49 while the NASDAQ was down 1.10th per percent on the day today.

大家好，我是Rob Maor。今天我们将谈论到特斯拉在全自动驾驶（FSD）营销方面所做的一项相当有趣的变化。此外，我们还有中国项目高原的最新消息以及其他几个话题。在长假之后，特斯拉股票在周五表现不佳后有了一个不错的反弹，今天上涨了4.7%，收盘价为256.49美元，而纳斯达克当天下跌了1.10%。

Alright, we'll start off with China as we do have a handful of updates coming out of China first, a couple of new sales figures. The insured vehicle numbers for this week have now been published. So for the week ending September 3rd, the number of vehicles from Tesla that were insured in China was $11,800 for the week. This brings the quarter to date number for Q3 so far through 9 weeks up to 101,000. So as we can see from the chart, this number is a little bit lower than what we've been seeing from Tesla over the last few weeks. Seems like we may now be starting to get to that cliff that we kind of expected from Project Thailand and the impact that that may be having on Model 3 production while that changeover occurs. Model Y alone, even if all of the Model Y production is going domestically into China and not going to export, which is probably not the case, that would only support about 12,000 per week. So anything exceeding that level as we look at these week-to-week numbers as they continue to come in, that's going to have to come from inventory whether that's on Model 3 or Model Y. Back to that quarter to date number that 101,000 vehicles so far, that is still outpacing Q2. It's 95,000 through this point in the second quarter, but Q2 finished really strongly averaging over 16,000 per week for the last four weeks of the quarter. So while Q3 is outpacing Q2 so far quarter to date, Tesla will need to average just under 15,000 per week for the remaining four weeks of the quarter to set another record, but that could be tough given the current situation for the Model 3.

好的，我们将从中国开始，因为我们有一些来自中国的最新消息，其中包括几个新的销售数据。本周的中国特斯拉保险车辆数量已经公布。截至9月3日那周，在中国投保的特斯拉车辆数量为11,800辆。这使得第三季度至今为止的季度总数达到了101,000辆。从图表可以看出，这个数字比过去几周特斯拉的数据略有下降。看起来，我们可能已经开始触及这个预料中的巅峰，这与泰国项目以及模型3生产的影响有关，尤其是在转型期间。即使仅有模型Y的生产销往中国国内，而不进行出口（虽然可能性不大），每周也只能支持约12,000辆。因此，如果我们继续观察这些每周的数据，超过这个水平的销量必须靠库存，无论是模型3还是模型Y。再回到那个目前为止的季度总数101,000辆，相比第二季度的95,000辆，仍然是超前的。第二季度最后四周每周平均销售超过16,000辆。因此，尽管第三季度至今超过了第二季度，特斯拉在季度的剩余四周需要平均每周销售不到15,000辆才能再次创下记录，但考虑到模型3目前的情况，这可能会很困难。

Now the other new number that we have out of China is the wholesale sales figure for the month of August. Remember, wholesale sales is a combination of retail or domestic sales in China and vehicles that Tesla exported out of China during the month. For August, this number came in at just over 84,000 vehicles, which is a really nice bounce back to sea from the just over 64,000 vehicles from July. But remember July production was actually still pretty strong at just over 80,000 vehicles, so there was about 16,000 vehicles there added to Tesla's quote unquote inventory, which would contribute to the 84,000 wholesale sales figure that we're seeing here for August. We'll have to wait a little bit longer for the full breakdown of Model 3 versus Model Y retail versus export and of course production. We should get that within the next week or so. And as usual, that will probably be the most interesting number because we'll get to see Model 3 production and see how much of a hit that took because of whatever's going on with Highland. In isolation though, I'm happy to see the 84,000 number for August. I think that is a strong number.

现在我们在中国得到的另一个新数字是8月份的批发销售额。请记住，批发销售是包括中国的零售或国内销售和特斯拉在该月份出口到中国之外的车辆的销售额。而在八月，销售额达到了84000辆车，相比七月的64000辆车，这是一个很好的反弹。但请记住，七月份的生产实际上仍然相当强劲，达到了80000辆车，所以特斯拉的“库存”中多出了约16000辆车，这将为我们在八月份看到的84000辆车的批发销售额做出贡献。我们还需要等待更长时间才能获得Model 3与Model Y的零售与出口情况的全部细分，当然还有生产情况。我们应该在接下来的一周或更早时间内获得这些数据。通常情况下，这可能是最有趣的数字，因为我们将能够看到Model 3的生产情况，以及由于海兰的各种情况造成了多大的影响。然而单独看来，我对8月份的84000这个数字感到满意，我认为这是一个强劲的数字。

Alright, moving on to the other updates out of China. Interesting update to the design studio from the Model Y, Tesla has extended the estimated wait time for the long range Model Y in China from two to six weeks previously, now to six to eight weeks. This is only to the long range version, so the standard range and the performance Model Y remain the same at two to six weeks, but in a period of time where people are so laser focused in on demand, I think it'll be a welcome sign to see at least a little bit of an extension on one trim of the Model Y there in China. Of course, it might not be demand related at all. This could be because of production. Maybe Tesla is a little bit constrained on the long range for whatever reason at the moment, but could just as easily be from an uptick in orders, maybe a tension around Tesla and the Highland release has drawn more attention to the Model Y as well. Maybe people that were kind of holding off to see what the updates might be for the Model 3 now pulling the trigger on a Model Y. Who knows, the point is that it could be either demand or production related, and obviously we would hope for the former.

好的，继续中国的其他更新。特斯拉从Model Y的设计工作室中得出了一个有趣的更新。特斯拉将中国长续航版Model Y的预计交付时间从之前的两到六周延长到六到八周。这仅适用于长续航版，标准续航版和性能版Model Y的交付时间保持在两到六周，但在人们如此关注需求的时期，至少能看到一点Model Y这个款式的交付时间有所延长，这应该是一个值得欢迎的信号。当然，这可能与需求无关。这可能是因为生产原因。也许特斯拉目前在长续航版方面有一些限制，或者可能是由于订单增加而导致的，也可能是由于特斯拉和高地版本的关注度提高而引起对Model Y的更多关注。也许有些人之前一直在观望Model 3的更新情况，现在决定购买Model Y。谁知道呢，关键是这可能是需求或生产相关，显然我们希望是前者。

Now speaking of Project Highland or the updated Model 3, we continue to have new information come in, a number of press or reviewers have continued to post first drives with the updated Model 3, and as we talked about on Friday, so far these universally seem to be pretty well received, pretty positive, and a lot of the improvements that Tesla had noted that we had talked about on the night of reveal, they do seem to be coming through with reviewers, particularly in terms of things like interior quality, cabin noise, comfort, styling in general, etc. It does continue to seem like we got most of what was new, thankfully in that first episode after the Model 3 release, but Bjorn and Eiland did get a couple more tidbits of information here after speaking with one of the Tesla engineers at the Highland event.

现在谈到高地项目或更新的Model 3，我们继续收到新的信息，一些新闻媒体或评论员继续发布与更新的Model 3的首次试驾报道，正如我们在上周五所谈论的那样，迄今为止，这些报道似乎普遍反响良好，给出了较为积极的评价。而且，特斯拉提到的许多改进措施，我们在发布会当晚也提到过，似乎在评论员的评价中都得到了证实，尤其是在内饰质量、车厢噪音、舒适性、整体造型等方面。幸运的是，在Model 3发布后的第一集节目中，我们似乎已经获得了大部分的新信息，不过Bjorn和Eiland在高地活动上与特斯拉工程师交谈后，又得到了一些额外的细节信息。

So apparently, previously the Model 3 used one motor for the rear liftgate, now that is being updated to two, one on each side, which Bjorn said had the effect of making things quieter during operation and more reliable. He also mentioned that this Tesla engineer specifically noted that they spent a lot of time considering reverberation or echo in the vehicle, and that the choice of mostly soft materials throughout the vehicle helps with that, as opposed to places where you may have hard plastic or something before, which is going to cause more reverberation. So with the new materials, everything should be better sound wise, including the sound system, having conversations, having phone calls, and of course other effects from the environment. So we've known about some of those improvements, but interesting to hear a little bit more about the thought process going into it.

显然，此前Model 3使用一台电机控制后备箱开启，现在已更新为两台，每侧一台。Bjorn表示，这样的更新使操作更加安静、更可靠。他还提到特斯拉工程师专门花了很多时间考虑了车辆内的共鸣或回声问题，通过选择车内大部分采用柔软材料，与之前可能使用硬塑料等材质的地方相比，能够减少共鸣现象。所以，新材料会使声音和音响系统、对话和电话通话效果以及来自环境的其他影响都更好。我们已经了解到这些改进的一些信息，但听到更多关于思考过程的细节还是很有趣的。

Something else on Highland that is continuing to cause confusion is this front bumper camera, so we've now figured out that none of the press vehicles or the demo vehicles that Tesla showed had the front bumper camera. Then of course we saw it in the design studio on some of the promotional materials that Tesla uses on the Model 3 page. However, all of those have now actually been removed. So for whatever reason, we seem to kind of be back into that Model S Model X scenario where seemingly the vehicle would have hardware 4, but for now at least doesn't seem to include the front bumper camera. So it seems pretty clear that this is something that Tesla is working on including, we've seen it on the Cybertruck, we've seen it now in this promotional materials for the Model 3, we've seen the connectivity for it with actual hardware fork chip, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem like Tesla is quite ready to start shipping this yet. So whether it's hardware, whether it's software, whether it's both, hopefully it is something that Tesla gets resolved sometime soon, but for the time being at least it does remain a bit of a mystery.

在Highland上还有另一件事情让人困惑，那就是这个前保险杠摄像头。所以我们现在可以确定的是，没有任何一辆媒体试驾车或特斯拉展示的示范车上有前保险杠摄像头。然而，在设计工作室和特斯拉在Model 3页面上使用的一些宣传材料中，我们可以看到它。然而，现在所有这些都已经被移除了。所以不知道为什么，我们似乎回到了Model S Model X的情况，即车辆似乎应该有4代硬件，但至少现在看起来不包括前保险杠摄像头。所以看起来很明显，这是特斯拉正在努力解决的问题，我们在Cybertruck上看到了它，现在在Model 3的宣传材料中也看到了它，我们也看到它与实际的硬件Fork芯片有连接性，但出于某种原因，特斯拉似乎还不准备开始运送这个。所以无论是硬件问题，还是软件问题，或者两者都有，希望特斯拉能尽快解决这个问题，但目前至少仍然是一个谜。

Alright, last couple of things on Highland, of course we're hearing reports out of China about strong demand for it, for example there have been reports of tens of thousands of orders within the first day, the website crashing, etc. All that is great to hear, however, just take it with a grain of salt first we don't know if the reports are necessarily fully accurate, and while the peak is important it's difficult for us to contextualize that peak from the outside, and what is obviously much more important than the peak is the sustained ongoing demand, which again we can't really get a great sense of from the outside. So tons of things to be excited about here, of course, but things like that we just have to remember to keep in mind the context that we may or may not have behind it.

好的，关于高地威士忌，最后还有几件事情。当然我们听到了关于中国市场对其需求旺盛的报道，例如第一天就有数以万计的订单，甚至导致网站崩溃等等。这些消息听起来很不错，但我们首先要对此持谨慎态度，因为我们不确定这些报道是否完全准确。虽然销量峰值很重要，但从外部来看，我们很难对这个峰值进行全面的解读。而比峰值更重要的是持续的需求，而我们无法从外部获得关于这一点的清晰认识。当然，这里有很多令人兴奋的事情，但我们必须时刻记住需要考虑到可能存在的背景信息。

And then finally on Highland we do have an update from Tesla's scope which seemed to have some pretty good earlier information about the status of Project Highland, they're saying that they're hearing right now Project Highland tentatively scheduled for Q1 2024 in North America. I think that seems most plausible as Tesla pretty clearly not trying to draw too much attention to it in the US yet, which suggests that it's still going to be a decent amount of time before any update.

然后最后几点，关于高地项目，特斯拉的范围有了更新，之前的信息似乎对高地项目的进展状态有一些很好的了解，他们表示目前听说高地项目暂定于2024年第一季度在北美推出。我认为这似乎是最有可能的，因为特斯拉明显不打算在美国引起太多关注，这表明在进行任何更新之前还需要相当长的时间。

Okay next up we've got an interesting update on FSD after a long long time of auto steer on city streets being listed as a feature that is coming soon for full self driving in North America, that coming soon tag has now been removed. So although this doesn't necessarily mean that FSD is out of beta or something like that, it does mean that pretty much anybody that's buying this option should be able to immediately access FSD beta. I think that actually has been the case now for at least a little while. The versions and the staggering of the releases of different versions makes things a little bit confusing on that front, but I think that's been the case now, so the website would be more accurately reflecting that at this point.

好的，接下来我们有一个有趣的有关FSD的更新。在很长时间内，自动驾驶在城市街道上的功能被列为FSD在北美即将推出的一个特性，而现在这个“即将推出”标签已经被移除了。所以虽然这并不一定意味着FSD已经不再是测试版或类似的情况，但这确实意味着几乎任何购买此选项的人都应该能够立即使用FSD的测试版。我认为实际上至少有一段时间是这样的。不同版本的发布和版本的错位使这一点有点混乱，但我认为现在情况是这样的，所以网站现在应该更准确地反映这一点。

Elon did also reply to a post from Sawyer Merit that said this may seem like a small change, but it's a big one that indicates that Tesla is getting very confident in FSD's capabilities. Elon applying to that saying yup. And of course it's also interesting from a deferred revenue perspective, so something we talk about a lot, but as a reminder, there's about $3 billion of deferred revenue sitting on Tesla's balance sheet right now. That's revenue that Tesla has not recognized because it's a product or service that they have not yet delivered. Not all of that is from FSD beta, but a lot of it is. And last quarter Tesla said that they expected to recognize about three quarters of a billion dollars of that over the next 12 months. We've seen chunks of that be recognized over the last few quarters as Tesla has made progress with FSD. This update on the design studio might indicate that Tesla is now confident to recognize another, perhaps significant portion. It also means that for all FSD sales from this point forward in North America, Tesla is likely recognizing a bigger percentage of sales than they had previously been doing.

埃隆还回复了索耶尔·梅里特发的一篇帖子。这篇帖子说这看起来可能是一个小改变，但对于表明特斯拉对FSD的能力非常有信心而言，却是一个很大的改变。埃隆对此回应说“是的”。当然，从递延收入的角度来看，这也是很有意思的，我们经常讨论这个问题，但需要提醒一下，特斯拉的平衡表上目前有大约30亿美元的递延收入。这是特斯拉尚未确认的收入，因为这是他们尚未交付的产品或服务。其中并不都是来自FSD beta，但其中有很大一部分是。上个季度特斯拉表示，他们预计在接下来的12个月内将确认其中约7.5亿美元。随着特斯拉在FSD方面取得进展，我们在过去几个季度看到了其中一部分被确认的情况。设计工作室的这个更新可能表明特斯拉现在有信心再确认另一个或许是相当大的部分。这也意味着从现在起，在北美地区的所有FSD销售中，特斯拉可能确认的销售占比比之前更大。

Now the timing of this is interesting for a few reasons. Obviously we just saw the price decrease from $15,000 to $12,000, so hopefully take rate increases from that change. The impact of an increased take rate would be more fully felt if more of that revenue was being recognized. And as average selling prices, excluding software options like FSD, not that that's a line item that Tesla reports, but one that they obviously have visibility to, as that margin contracts during this period of time of ramping up volume and macroeconomic pressure, having the contribution margin of software be more fully considered, sure would be nice during a period of time like that. Plus, we now also have a new chief financial officer, obviously former chief accounting officer, but in that position, maybe the point of view has changed a bit on either how to manage or the recognition of the software option. So definitely an interesting thing to see, and of course we'll keep an eye on this and the impact that it has for the Q3 report in October.

现在的时机有几个方面值得关注。显然，我们刚刚见证了价格从15,000美元下降到12,000美元，希望随着价格变化，使用率增加。如果有更多的收入能够被认可，增加的使用率将产生更大的影响。在这段时间内，随着销售均价（不包括诸如全自动驾驶等软件选项，虽然特斯拉没有报告这一行项目，但显然有其可见性）在扩大产量和宏观经济压力的情况下收缩，充分考虑软件的贡献利润率，在这样的时期肯定是件好事。此外，我们现在还有了一位新的首席财务官，显然是之前的首席会计官，但在这个职位上，观点可能在如何管理或认可软件选项方面发生了一些变化。所以，这确实是一个有趣的事情，当然我们会继续关注这个，并关注它对10月份的Q3报告的影响。

Alright a few other updates here, there seems to be some rumblings about Tesla and a megafactory in China, of course this has already been announced by Tesla, but we haven't heard a whole lot about it in the last couple of months. However, a Tesla Chinese executive did comment on it a couple of days ago saying that quote, quote, we expect to start building the megafactory for energy storage products in the near future, and the products will be mainly used for export, end quote. So hopefully that is very soon, the reports that we had back in April was that construction might begin in the third quarter or in September, so maybe we'll hear something soon.

好的，在这里还有一些其他的更新，关于特斯拉和中国的超级工厂，似乎已经有一些传言，当然特斯拉已经宣布了这个计划，但是我们在过去几个月里并没有听到太多相关消息。然而，特斯拉的中国高管几天前确实对此发表了评论，他说：“我们预计将在不久的将来开始建造用于能源存储产品的超级工厂，而这些产品主要将用于出口。”所以希望很快就能开始建设，我们在四月份得到的报道是建设可能会在第三季度或九月份开始，所以也许我们很快会听到一些消息。

Alright, a couple of quick updates in Europe, as many of you know we don't always look at the individual country's sales for individual months or even for individual quarters since there are so many things that cause fluctuations in those numbers, but there are people on the Tesla Motors Club website that do a great job of tracking these things and from the available data, year to date it looks like Tesla Europe has now crossed the number of registrations for Tesla vehicles in Europe for the entire year of 2022 already here in 2023. So with four months left to go in the year that is a very nice milestone worth celebrating, not surprising as of course the ramp up of Kickabirlin, we've been expecting a big increase in Europe this year because of that, but of course still very nice to see that progress.

好的，在欧洲有几个快速更新。正如你们许多人所知，我们并不总是看个别国家每个月甚至每个季度的销售情况，因为有很多因素会导致这些数据的波动。但是，在特斯拉汽车俱乐部网站上有一些人非常擅长追踪这些情况，并根据可用数据，到目前为止在2023年，特斯拉在欧洲的注册车辆数量已经超过了整个2022年的。所以，在今年还剩下四个月的情况下，这是一个非常值得庆祝的里程碑，这并不奇怪，因为我们当然预计由于Kickabirlin的加速，今年欧洲市场会有大幅增长，但当然看到这一进展还是非常不错的。

So on Gigabirlin, Tesla's released a video celebrating the opening of their train shuttle at Gigabirlin, which can carry up to 400 riders per trip to and from the closest public train station to Gigabirlin. So nice to see that and I'm sure a welcome transportation option addition for those employees.

在吉加比林（Gigabirlin），特斯拉发布了一段视频，庆祝他们的火车班车在吉加比林开通。每趟班车可以运送多达400名乘客从最近的公共火车站到吉加比林，这真是太好了，我相信对于那些员工来说，这是一个受欢迎的交通选择。

Finally for today we've got a quick update from the Wall Street Journal on the status of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure funding, so we've talked about this for a couple of states, but the Wall Street Journal summarizing where things are right now.

今天最后，我们从《华尔街日报》得到了一份关于国家电动汽车基础设施资金状况的简要更新。虽然我们之前已经提到了一些州的情况，但《华尔街日报》总结了当前的进展情况。

So so far five states, Ohio, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Maine and Colorado have awarded $77 million of funds, so far Tesla's earned 8.5 million or 18% of that total, which is more than any other company.

到目前为止，五个州，即俄亥俄州、夏威夷州、宾夕法尼亚州、缅因州和科罗拉多州已经拨款7700万美元。截至目前，特斯拉已经获得了850万美元，占据总拨款的18%，这比任何其他公司都多。

Tesla's average bid as we talked about is coming in much lower than other bidders, Wall Street Journal is saying on average that's about half of the cost. We've talked about all this already so I don't think we need to go in much more detail, but we'll continue to keep an eye out as more of these decisions are made.

据华尔街日报报道，特斯拉的平均竞标价格要比其他竞标者低很多，平均只有其一半的成本。我们已经讨论过这些内容了，所以我认为不需要再深入详述，但我们将继续关注随着更多的决策的做出。

Remember a lot of states to go and this is going to unfold over the course of five years, so a lot of funding yet to go as well. Alright, that is it for today then, as always, thank you for listening, make sure you're subscribed and signed up for notifications, to also find me on X at Tesla podcast, and see you tomorrow for the Tuesday, September 6th episode of Tesla Daily. Thank you.

记住，还有很多州要执行，并且这将在五年内逐渐展开，因此还需要大量资金。好的，今天就到这里，一如既往地感谢你的倾听，请确保你已经订阅并开启了通知，也可以在特斯拉播客中找到我，明天我们会见面，第6号星期二，特斯拉每日更新。谢谢。