Hey everybody Rob Bauer here, happy Friday. We've actually got quite a bit of news today. We've got updates on the next generation vehicle plans on XR from the upcoming biography that gives us some details on that. We've also got an interesting shot of a lot of Project Highland Model 3s and updated Powerwall. So quite a bit to go through today. Start off with the stock Tesla down 1.2% today while the NASDAQ was up a tenth per percent. So not the best performance falling off a little bit in the afternoon or late morning today to end the week. So we'll jump right into the next generation vehicle updates here.
大家好,我是Rob Bauer,祝大家周五愉快。今天我们实际上有相当多的新闻要分享。我们有有关下一代XR车辆计划的更新,来自即将发布的传记书籍,给我们提供了一些详细信息。我们还有一张有趣的照片,展示了许多Project Highland Model 3和更新后的Powerwall。所以今天要讨论的内容还挺多的。首先来说说特斯拉股票,今天下跌了1.2%,而纳斯达克指数上涨了1%。所以今天下午或者中午稍晚的时候表现并不是最好的,这是为了结束这个星期。那么我们就开始谈谈下一代车辆的更新吧。
So this is from an Axios article which again is based off of excerpts from the Elon Musk biography that's upcoming from Walter Isaacson. So I have pasted a link to this in the description today. I would recommend everyone just goes through and reads this article because I think they've kind of just reformatted basically an excerpt from the book. So this should be straight from the biography for the most part. And it details kind of the evolution of the planning thought process behind Tesla's next generation vehicles. And I say vehicles remember at Investor Day, Tesla had said that they're working on two next generation vehicles simultaneously. So this gives us finally a little bit more insight into what those plans are.
So it kind of starts off walking through how Tesla was debating internally whether they would be doing a $25,000 car. It sounded like Elon had kind of put those plans on the back burner in favor of just developing a full Robotaxi rather than focusing on a lower price car that could be sold to customers. So it was kind of a debate, do we go that $25,000 car route? Do we go straight Robotaxi? Which obviously I think we can guess what camp Elon fell into. But that debate was going on internally for a long time.
It sounds like in the summer of 2022, it kind of came to a head they had to make a decision. And when they were discussing it, Elon finally just said no, we're not doing steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors. This is me taking responsibility for this decision. So kind of putting it, you know, putting his foot down on the discussion, making the decision to only move forward with development and design of a fully autonomous vehicle again with none of those features. It says must got into one of his very cold foods and said, let me be clear, this vehicle must be designed as a clean Robotaxi, we're going to take that risk. It's my fault if it screws up, but we are not going to design some sort of amphibian frog that's a halfway car, we are all in on autonomy.
So that's where things stood. I think this was around August of last year. And then things, you know, developed, we'll skip over a bit of the story here, but things develop the design team and other members of the Tesla team, executive team weren't necessarily convinced of this path yet. So they decided to continue kind of working on this. They were able to discuss this further with Elon. And at some point, sort of won him over. So the quote from the excerpt says that Franz said that we convinced him that if we build these factories and we have this platform, we could turn out both Robotaxis and a $25,000 car all on the same architecture. So eventually that won him over, it sounds like the reasoning for getting Elon on board with that plan was that even if they did develop this Robotaxi, they wouldn't necessarily have a guarantee that autonomy would be allowed in enough jurisdictions or there would be enough jurisdictions rather that didn't allow autonomy initially that the $25,000 car would still make sense. And there would still be a massive market for it justifying pursuing both, both paths.
So that's kind of what the logic was presented as and it sounds like that eventually won Elon over, even though initially he wasn't super excited about that $25,000 car.
However, at a design review in February of this year, Franz presented models of the Robotaxi, the $25,000 car next to each other. Walter here says that both had a cyber truck futuristic feel and Elon loved those designs saying that when one of those comes around the corner, people will think that they are seeing something from the future.
So this is getting a lot of attention today. This cyber truck futuristic feel people are, I think making the assumption that this means that this is like a smaller cyber truck or something like that design with similar aesthetics. It's obviously possible that definitely could be the case, but that's not exactly what this says. This says that it has a futuristic feel that is similar to a cyber truck. It doesn't necessarily mean that it shares the same design aesthetic aside from looking futuristic.
So people have come to that conclusion. I'm just saying that it's a little bit too early based on the words that we've been presented with to completely conclude that again, that could be possible, but it's also possible that it's just futuristic in other ways, but still reminiscent of the cyber truck, which obviously looks futuristic in and of itself.
So as a reminder on that point, this is what Tesla showed us at investor day. That's the teaser for their next generation vehicle. So obviously here we've learned that there's a Robotaxi there's a $25,000 car. This could be either they don't necessarily have to look similarly to each other, although I think it's more likely than not. But obviously this would not have the sort of cyber stainless steel aesthetics with the curved panels that we're seeing here in this sort of teaser image.
Now Tesla could do this and then go a different route doesn't necessarily mean the vehicle would even end up looking like this. But again, just a reminder that we don't necessarily know for sure how things are going to look quite yet.
So anyway, going forward with this, it says, you know, we talked about Tesla's production plans for this being in in Gigamexico. I don't know if they ever actually said that that would be the first place that it would be built. I'm kind of recalling that they may have said that that would actually kind of start elsewhere.
But obviously Gigamexico kind of in the plans for the next generation vehicles or significantly in the plans for the next generation vehicles. We talked yesterday about how there may be some delays going on with Gigamexico from reports from Reuters from Chinese suppliers. This may give us a little bit more context on that.
So this says in May of this year, so just a few months ago, Elon decided to change the initial build location for the next generation vehicles to Austin. This is to have Tesla's engineering talent there on site, which is something that Elon talked a lot about when Gigamexico was being built initially.
You know, they said where would people want to be if not in California, Austin was kind of the, you know, the primary response. So they decided to build it there and be able to attract talent very easily, obviously with the factory in Mexico, that's going to be presenting more challenges on that front.
So with this information, it kind of looks like, you know, why wouldn't wouldn't have that been the decision from the beginning? It seems almost intuitive, but it seems like that's where, you know, the plans are now falling. And again, this could be related to some of the news that we're hearing about Gigamexico. Maybe that's just going to come a little bit later after Tesla sort of proves the concept out first in Austin.
So that's kind of where things stand right now. And then it says throughout this summer, Elon has spent hours each week working with the team to design each station of the line for the next generation platform, finding ways to shave just milliseconds off of each step of the process.
So, you know, a couple of things there obviously shows that kind of where they're at in the development of this working through the production line. And shows that Elon has been very involved in that.
所以你知道,显然有一些事情表明他们在生产线开发方面的情况,也表明埃隆在其中起到了非常重要的作用。
Obviously people, you know, have questions about how involved Elon has been through the course of this Twitter now x acquisition. And I think this book in general will give us a lot more insight on what exactly has gone on through that period of time. But at least gives us a little bit of detail here in this, in this excerpt.
So definitely a lot of information there. I think nothing, not to say nothing that we couldn't have known, but we, you know, we kind of knew there was two vehicles. It gives us a little bit more context on how the plans came to be. And again, I don't think it's necessarily surprising that Elon's kind of been all in on the robo taxi. That's sort of been, he's alluded to that, I think with every version, since the Model 3 that, you know, maybe we're not going to have a steering wheel comments like that. So it's obviously been in the design, you know, thought process for a long time.
But I am glad to see that, you know, some other executives on Tesla were able to kind of make a convincing enough case that Tesla is going to also have a vehicle that is not necessarily going to be reliant on being fully autonomous right off the bat. Because again, you know, we don't know when or if not, you know, I don't think that if is super relevant, but we don't know when Tesla's going to be able to solve this. So I think having a backup plan is certainly prudent to get through there. But you know, people like Elon, one of the things that has made him so successful is his ability to kind of push people in a direction that maybe not everyone is comfortable with, right?
Like, yeah, I can sit here and say feels better to have a backup plan. But you've got a backup plan, you're going to be putting a little bit less effort into that first plan. You may be distracted with the second plan and things like that. So I'm ultimately glad to see it. But you kind of get to respect the willingness to again, put all the chips on the table as we've heard from a different excerpt and kind of make that decision, those difficult decisions that, you know, maybe not everyone agrees with. So again, interesting to hear some of that context. If you want to read the full article, that is linked down in the description.
So we've got a post on the Tesla Motors Club forum. I believe this was yesterday last night from Andy 92 72. And he is saying that Tesla has installed a Powerwall three. So the next generation Powerwall product at his house. So we've got a few details here, not perfect information. Yeah, but quite a few details.
This is the Powerwall three unit right here. So obviously it looks like, you know, a little bit less aesthetically designed, at least on the sides here, obviously the front front panel looking similar to what we've seen from Tesla on the Powerwall before. And maybe this isn't finished. I'm not 100% sure on that. But overall, you know, it's going to be a pretty similar product.
He says that this does have the inverter contained within the unit. So that compares to the Powerwall plus that we can see here that has the inverter sort of as a secondary part of the unit. And then the Powerwall two, of course, no inverter. So we'd be looking at that Powerwall plus product basically integrated into this single unit.
This says that the size is approximately 43 inches by 24 inches by seven inches. You may be tempted to compare the two of these and think that this is an old Powerwall. I'm almost 100% sure that that is not an old Powerwall. I believe that is the backup gateway to product. So that's a lot smaller than a Powerwall. So don't be tempted to compare those if we look volumetrically, if these dimensions are accurate, which I've never reason to believe that they would not be, this would mean that the Powerwall volumetrically, the Powerwall three here is 6% less volume than the Powerwall two and 39% less volume than the Powerwall plus. So those two products comparing here. So the Powerwall plus 39% less volume than that, 6% less volume than this.
And then from a weight perspective, actually, this poster shared the spec sheet. So we get a little bit more detail. Weight perspective, it's 130 kilograms, it's about 286, 87 pounds. So weight wise, it's 14% heavier than the Powerwall two. And 17% less weight than the Powerwall plus. And again, it does have the inverter.
So a pretty significant reduction there and weight, the energy capacity listed at 13 and a half kilowatt hours for both of these products. This is also a 13 and a half kilowatt hour unit. So you've got lower or higher volumetric energy density plus the inclusion of the inverter, you've got less weight than the Powerwall plus product that has the converter, the inverter. So looks like energy density has improved. The big question is if this is going to be a lithium iron phosphate product or still something that is nickel based, and we don't, as far as I know, we don't have an answer on that quite yet.
Elon did comment on this and said that the goal for Powerwall three or rather the Powerwall three is optimized for ease of installation and high power, which means that a single power wall can serve as an uninterruptible power supply for most homes. This is a big deal for ensuring that the lights stay on and you can power all your devices in the event of a power outage.
So on the sort of spec listing here on the side of the unit, we do get details on the power capacity. It looks like this is, you know, 600 volt 13 amp right here for max for each of those, which would mean I believe 7.8 kilovolt amperes, which potentially slightly less than in terms of the, you know, continuous power draw. That seems to be maybe stated up here. You've got a few different options. I'm not sure exactly which one of these would be correct. So you can kind of see the differences there. But again, this is not my area of expertise. So I definitely welcome any comments on this today to kind of help out with what the power capacity, both from a peak perspective and from a continuous perspective, which are going to be different, what those are looking like for these units. I know that's probably a little bit hard to read too. But we're working with the information that we've got so far. So overall, it looks like a smaller unit. As Elon said, more effectively designed for installation, which should be nice help keep costs low, all in costs, and higher energy density.
So, you know, we'll see on the lithium iron phosphate piece, and we'll see on cost, no cost details have been provided so far. I would imagine right now, Tesla's just kind of pricing it the same as as the current product and over time that will evolve as this ramps up. So exciting to see that. And hopefully we'll get some more, you know, more conclusive details on this though. This is a good start, pretty soon. He said that this is just the third power wall that this installer has installed. So it is obviously pretty new.
All right, let's move on to project highland. We've got an update here from WUWA doing some drone flivers near Giga Shanghai and kind of spotted the jackpot here for Highland. This is a lot that is filled with, I don't know, looks like probably hundreds of these updated Model 3s, which is really exciting. We've talked about how the production capacity rumors of 600 units a day or 1200 units a day might be a little bit aggressive. But obviously would be very exciting if true. We've talked about how the production in August seems like it was probably pretty strong based on wholesale sales. So if both of those things are happening and you know, this gives us a little bit more evidence that maybe that's the case, it looks like we could be looking at a pretty quick conversion for Tesla far different from what we saw with the update to the Model S and the Model X, which of course, I'm sure we all remember took quite a bit of time and much longer than Tesla sort of anticipated. So super exciting to see all of these sitting out there and hopefully has strong implications for how the conversion and the production of the update Model 3 is going so far. So definitely excited to see that.
And then we do have a little bit more information on the sales data for August for China. So of course, we talked about wholesale sales for August previously. That was about 84,000 units, which as we said was probably higher than what we would have guessed based on the situation with the Model 3. So we can see now the breakdown between retail and export. Almost 65,000 were sold as retail sales or domestic sales in China, a little bit less than 20,000 being exported. And you can see the split for Model 3 and Model Y there. So about 13,500 sold for the Model 3 in China and 5,000 exported. And then you can see the Model Y there as well.
So what's interesting here, I mean, the split in general, you know, it's much higher towards retail. But I think the thing that I want to focus in on is the trailing three months. So there's something that we kind of talked about before just looking at how this, you know, comes in and seeing what those best three month periods are, because as we know, Tesla, Stegers deliveries a bit based on the export schedule and things like that. So month to month, it might not give us a great picture of, you know, what the demand might be. But if we look at kind of a rolling three month average, it might give us a little bit better idea of how orders are coming in, because, you know, Tesla over that period of time that the allocation strategy becomes a little bit less impactful to the numbers that we're seeing.
So anyway, the rolling three month total now, including these August numbers, for sales just in China is 170,000 units. That is a significant improvement over the previous rolling three month average record or rolling three month record of 159,000 back in May, which was again, just a little bit higher than November. So to see this, that's a 7% increase. Again, basically just in a quarter, I think, you know, speaks to the demand. And this is an period of time where everyone's kind of wondering what's going on with the Model 3 is they're going to be an update and a lot of rumors around that. So it looks like a pretty strong sign for demand overall and orders and sales in China. So I'm definitely glad to see that record for Tesla.
All right, next we've got just a quick update, I guess, on the Detroit Auto Show. So we talked a couple of days ago about how Tesla was going to be participating based on this announcement from from the show, including Tesla there. So we talked about that. There's a new announcement that now omits Tesla from basically the listed participants of the show. But this does then say that Tesla is going to be a part of the, you know, powering Michigan EV experience, which is actually what this initial announcement was about. So it's a little bit confusing. The Detroit news has said that Tesla will not be at the show, but the organizers managed to get the Austin based automakers full Model S three X and Y lineup for the test track, which then I think they're including in this sort of, you know, powering Michigan EV experience. So what seems to be going on here is that the show organizers are just bringing in Tesla vehicles themselves. And Tesla's not an official participant is kind of my read on it. This has kind of been presented today as Tesla has has changed course and pulled out of the show. Based on the information that we have here, that's definitely not clear to me. I think what is more likely the case is that this has just kind of been reported that Tesla vehicles were going to be a part of this, which is still the case. But Tesla's not actually participating in the show, which I don't think I guess technically, although it might have been implied, or maybe misreported. I don't think it's the case where Tesla, you know, has changed their mind or something like that over the last couple of days, more likely just something got lost in translation with these reports. So that's just my best guess based on the information. I don't know for sure. But you know, if you kind of see the narrative out there of Tesla having pulled out, I just don't think that that is quite confirmed as of this moment. So kind of interesting to see that a little bit disappointing. But again, this is something that Tesla historically has not really participated in. So I suppose also not all that surprising.
All right, we talked yesterday about the FSD visualization starting to possibly include police vehicles. So Marcel Zimmer on X sharing a photo that looks like this is now happening. So you can kind of see what looks like a police truck here, maybe an SUV looks more like a truck to me, but looks like it's got those lights on there kind of indicating that this would be an emergency vehicle. So, you know, we kind of knew this was coming, but pretty cool to see it kind of show up here. And hopefully other people can can start to see that and we get some more reports of that visualization from others.
And then just a couple of quick things to kind of wrap it wrap it up for today. Gregor Chuck shared a video on X of a couple of cyber trucks on the road together, which I don't think we have seen previously, especially at night, they kind of look cool here, driving together. So I'll just kind of play that video. So fun to see. And I'm sure we'll, you know, see more of this, it would be great, even if we had or be great to see even more of these on the road at the same time, but definitely looks pretty cool there. So kind of a fun video.
And then on that similar note of that, Tesla shared a video or a photo here of their entire vehicle lineup from semi to model three to cyber truck, all on the trailer for the for the semi. So pretty cool shot there as well. And a great way, I think, to wrap up the week, we will also just take a quick look at the calendar for next week. So we do have CPI and PPI coming up on Wednesday and Thursday. After that, we will have the FOMC meeting the following week. So not next week yet, but a couple of big reports there with implications for the FOMC meeting next week.
Alright, that'll wrap it up for today and for the week, 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 on Monday for the September 11 episode of Tesla daily. Thank you.