Hey everybody RobMower here and today we've got some new insights on the EV market from a survey from the Washington Post. We've also got updates on Thailand, India and a few other items as well. Quickly looking at the stock, the downtrend that we saw in the market after the FOMC meeting yesterday continued today, the NASDAQ down 1.8%, Tesla down 2.6%, so not bad with the macro, but finishing at $255.70 on the day.
Alright, we'll start off with a new survey from the Washington Post, this got some attention on X today, including from Elon, so I wanted to share my thoughts on it as well. And there is actually some pretty interesting data on a number of different topics in here. So this survey was conducted by the Washington Post in partnership with the University of Maryland using a panel put together in partnership with the University of Chicago. 1,400 participants that they feel was a representative sample, with the sampling error of about 3.5%. The survey was done in mid-July this year.
So the first question that we'll take a look at says regardless of how much they might cost, which type of vehicle would you rather own? Gas powered vehicle, a hybrid that does not plug in, a fully electric vehicle, or a plug-in hybrid. So 19% answered fully electric vehicle, 1% skipped or didn't know, the other 80% falling into either a gas powered or hybrid vehicle bucket.
So far as I tweeted to this, Elon replied to it, far as I'd said that this study backs up the notion that Tesla doesn't need to advertise they need to lower cost, 19% of US wants to own EVs, that's about 30 million cars, the current US EV fleet is about 1.7 million, hard to believe they aren't aware of Tesla, likely waiting for the right price. Elon replied to this saying, affordability is the top issue by far.
So here we go right back into the advertising debate. Obviously we heard Elon say at the shareholder meeting that Tesla would try it, we've seen a little bit of efforts from them, but those have been pretty minor so far. So to Elon's comment about affordability being the top issue, I would generally agree with that. But Tesla has come a long long way on that, especially if we include the impact of the EV tax credits, and obviously a lot of that has been offset by high interest rates, and there's certainly more work that can be done Tesla will continue to do that with the next generation platform, with FSD utilization, etc. Remember Elon thinks in first principles thinking, if a vehicle is better, and it's cheaper, then the majority of people are likely going to choose that, it's just a matter of developing the product enough to get it to that point.
So long term affordability being the top issue, definitely something I agree with. However, I don't agree that the results of this survey show that advertising wouldn't be something that could be beneficial. I think it almost shows the opposite, I mean the question says regardless of how much they might cost, which would you prefer, and only 19% are saying fully electric vehicle? I think that number is a lot lower than it could be, should be, or will be in the future.
And while 19% of the US car market is obviously a big market, that 30 million number shrinks significantly when you consider the frequency of purchases of new vehicles, which is quite low. Probably better to use US annual sales for new vehicles, let's say that's like 16 million, than you're talking about 19% of that number, that's about 3 million a year. And that's pretty much best case, not considering cost, not considering segment, etc. But even if you say, okay, that's the market 3 million a year, Tesla's US production right now, it's close to a million, it's probably not there, maybe two thirds of a million, that should increase to a million relatively soon.
So okay, Tesla needs to take a third of that total addressable market. It's achievable, there's no other automaker that has a third of the auto market right now. But all right, let's say Tesla can do that, no problem. However, to grow up 50% a year, you can't even go three more years before you overwhelm that entire market, even with 100% of what we're calling here this total addressable market. So that's a problem. The other problem here is that this is just a fallacy in general, there's no such thing as the EV market, there is the vehicle market, and right now these results are saying that 80% of that market prefers a gasoline vehicle no matter the cost.
So whatever math you want to put behind that, whatever you want to say that Tesla's total addressable market is and how that can support their production, it doesn't really matter because ultimately what you're saying is that Tesla is only selling into a slice of their actual total addressable market, which is the total vehicle market. If you're missing 80% of your customers, I think it's pretty obvious that in that scenario, you're going to need a lower clearing price to match supply and demand, then you otherwise would.
So on the product side of this argument, you have people saying that just make the product better and overtime this 19% is going to grow approaching 100% over time. And I do generally agree with that. That's why I think the advertising thing is a little bit more of a short term type of conversation.
Then the advertising side, you have people saying that, Hey, that 80% let's help inform them while we work on the affordability piece, because clearly that number should be higher than it is. So let's help get it higher. I think that's a very valid argument as well.
And that is supported by the fact that as later mentioned in this article, just over four in 10, 42% of Americans think that electric cars are cheaper to charge than gas powered cars. Well, that's a problem. There's no reason anybody should think that let alone the majority of people thinking that that certainly seems like a factor that would influence their consideration set. And it also has to do with affordability.
Another question in here on charging says in general, do you think gas powered vehicles or electric vehicles are better on each of the following? Or do you think they're about the same? First one is convenience of refueling slash recharging 75% say gas powered vehicles are better 13% about the same 10% fully electric vehicle. No surprise here, this has always been the criticism of EVs.
But it got me thinking if I could actually just have my car and it's all the same, all the same stuff, electric powertrain battery, etc. But instead of filling up the battery like I do now at superchargers are at home, I fill up the battery like gas cars do at a gas station. And it happens very quickly. But with the trade off of no longer being able to then charge at home, would I make that trade? And for me, it's not even a question. I would absolutely not do that because home charging is so much more convenient. Definitely offsetting the 10 or 15 minutes extra at a supercharger on longer trips. I asked the same thing on X and 75% responders said that they also would not change.
Now, yes, if you don't have home charging, you'd probably prefer gasoline style recharging. But my sense, along with these poll results is that most Tesla owners feel that an EV is actually more convenient for refueling. So instead of 75% of responders here saying that gasoline is more convenient, that should probably in reality be flipped the other direction, maybe more like 75% saying EVs.
If we dig a little bit more into these survey results, we see that 6% of respondents actually own or lease an EV. So that's actually pretty close to the 10% that are saying EVs are more convenient. Presumably for non EV owners, this question skews even further towards gasoline. So I think that's indicative of another information gap that exists, although this one admittedly a little bit more harder to just tell someone. It's a lot easier to show that charging an EV is cheaper than filling up a gas car, but convincing them that EVs are actually more convenient. That's a tougher sell and something that you may have to experience for yourself. I don't think it hurts though to plant that thought seat.
Last couple things here that also hammer this point home, 91% of respondents here that do not own or lease an EV thought that it would at least be somewhat difficult to regularly find EV charging with 50% saying it would be very or extremely difficult. Now for some people that may be true, but it's definitely not true for 91% of people, which is another I think information gap. And then this last one, I think this is pretty huge. It says that two thirds of people have heard little or nothing at all about revised EV tax credits. If two out of every three of your customers don't know that they could potentially save 15% on your product, that's probably going to hurt your sales a bit. And again, that goes directly back to affordability.
On the production side, actual affordability is what matters. Actually keeping costs down is what matters. But on the selling side, it's more about perceived affordability. You could have the best product in the world and you could be selling it for a dollar. But if everyone thinks it costs a million dollars, no one's going to buy it. The responses here indicating that 60% of people think that EVs are more expensive to fill than gas cars, and that more than 60% of people know little to nothing about the EV credits would seem to demonstrate that the net perceived affordability does not match actual affordability that likely reduces your customer base and likely reduces your clearing price.
So to me, the advertising question should be less about does this add costs, which obviously it does, and more about whether or not those additional costs help close this gap, increasing the potential customer base and therefore the clearing price of your supply in a way that more than offsets those advertising costs. Now over time, people get educated this gap naturally narrows, but if in the meantime you can accelerate that closing through advertising, and as a result earn more money, which you can use to buy more dojo chips or whatever else, then why not go ahead and do that, and then when this gap does narrow in the future, and this trade off no longer makes sense, then that's when you stop advertising.
Right now we just don't really have an answer on any of this because it's something that Tesla hasn't really fully tried. So that went more into the advertising conversation than I initially planned. I think a while back I had mentioned that I was gonna have an episode talking about advertising, and then we went in the shareholder meeting and Elon said they were gonna do it, so it kind of became moot. But there we go, that's probably not the entirety of my thoughts, but should kind of get the gist across.
Again, just to reiterate, I agree that affordability should be the absolute top priority, but I think coupling advertising costs which are optional and can be deleted at any time to affordability isn't necessarily how I would look at it. And again, I would reiterate that I do think that this is more of a short term in nature type of problem, which means that it's probably a little bit overemphasized, so even though this is most of the episode here, just add that context to, because once you get to the next generation vehicle, once you get to an actual RoboTaxi, stuff like this, it's really not that important, but there might be optimization opportunities in the meantime. We've obviously talked a lot about demand pockets that can be regional, that can be time-based. If we're in a time-based demand pocket right now or a product-based demand pocket, whatever else, advertising can be a tool for those periods of time, just like we have seen other tools be used like price cuts, like more promotional activities through the referral program that those have cost you, by the way, inventory discounts, any of those types of things.
So we'll move on, let me know your thoughts in the comments, I'm sure we'll get some interesting ones today, but we'll move on for now.
那么我们继续进行,你在评论中告诉我你的想法,我相信今天会有一些有趣的意见,但现在我们继续。
Next update we have is on NACS, so Jaguar has announced that they are going to be adopting the North American charging standard. Obviously not the biggest player in EVs, but they will be adopting this beginning in 2025 and offering an adapter for supercharger access a little bit before that, so basically the same agreement that we have seen for others that have adopted NACS, and always good to see another automaker get on board.
Next we've got a report on India, this is coming from Reuters, they say that Tesla has drawn up plans to make and sell battery storage systems in India, and submitted a proposal to officials seeking incentives to build a factory, according to two people familiar with the matter. It's not clear if this would be an alternative plan to an EV factory, or if it would be something that would happen in addition to, or just something that's completely separate from that proposal, from the article it sounds more that way, just a completely separate potential project, and then the article also mentions that Tesla did seek a number of different incentives to set up a battery storage factory, but the sources said that Indian officials had conveyed that that would not be something that would be happening, however the government could offer subsidies on the purchase of these types of energy storage products.
So obviously we get a lot of these types of reports out of India, definitely Tesla in talks on a lot of these things. Over the long long term, the energy storage market, the solar market in India, these both should be very strong, so it would be exciting if Tesla can find a way to make this viable.
In a continuation of all of the meetings that Elon has been having with foreign leaders, the Prime Minister of Thailand today posted on X that he had just met with Elon Musk and team during a trip to New York, says that they had a good conversation on Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink technology and that he's impressed what the advanced group has made for humanity, and that they share a common vision for a cleaner future. He also says that we look forward to further discussions.
Next up we may have some new insight on the updated Model 3, this is a report from Drive Tesla Canada reporting on information from the TFF Tesla forums in Europe, which I've noticed that according to the European type certificate for the Model 3, there's a new digit type in the 8th digit position of the VIN, it now lists the possibility of that place being a T, which is listed as dual motor performance. So I haven't had any time to research this yet, but it does sound like that would be a new indicator in the VIN, which would be obviously good news for the prospects of an updated Model 3 performance, which so far we haven't heard anything about. I wouldn't take that as confirmation of one yet, but possibly a good sign if this is the case.
下一步,我们可能会对更新的Model 3有一些新的了解,这是来自Drive Tesla Canada的报告,报告的信息来源于欧洲的TFF Tesla论坛。根据Model 3的欧洲型号认证,我们注意到VIN码的第8位数字类型有了新变化,现在列出了这个位置可能是T,被列为双电机性能版。所以我还没有时间去研究它,但听起来这可能是VIN码中的一个新指示,这显然对更新后的Model 3性能有利,目前我们还没有听到任何相关信息。虽然我不能把这个作为确认,但如果事实如此,这可能是一个好兆头。
Alright next we've got a new sighting of the Cybertruck, we haven't been talking about every single one of these lately, but this one's cool, this is from Kaju 11 on X, and it looks like it's a new wrap of digital blue camo for the Cybertruck, and there's a quick video of it as well. I think it looks pretty cool and most importantly demonstrates the customization possibilities that exist for the Cybertruck.
Next we've got a possible update on Giga Texas, this was a reply to Joe Tagmayer on X, who was actually saying something similar to what I was saying a couple days ago, that there is in fact a production pause right now at Texas, so just reiterating that. Anyway, somebody replied and looks like they've got some insight here saying EOL employees are returning to work already, production associates return next week, Joe replied to that saying that he could tell by the parking lot today being more active, that was already kind of the rumor, but this person does seem to have some pretty specific insight, so take it for what it's worth, maybe not a lot, but interesting nonetheless.
Another post on X that got some attention, this was from Chris Zhang, he said that the 4680 model wise off the shelves because the 4680 has made significant improvements with a new cell that has an energy density of nearly 290Wh per kilogram, Drew and his team have made awesome progress. There is no source cited here, we've gotten kind of mixed information in terms of accuracy from this account in the past, if we look at this one specifically, Jordan from the limiting factor has previously said that the current 4680 is somewhere around maybe 244Wh per kilogram, which would mean this would almost be 20% more energy dense, but Tesla actually just gave us an update on this on the Q2 earnings call, Drew said that they're currently working on the cyber cell and that is about 10% higher energy density than the current production, so maybe current production had already taken a step up from what we had previously seen with the 4680 cell, and then maybe that's jumping 10% up to where this 290Wh per kilogram figure is, but without that layer of assumptions in there, we'd probably be looking more at somewhere in the 265, 270Wh per kilogram for the cyber cell, so this one I'm not putting a lot of weight in.
Alright, last couple of updates, we do have a post on X from Elon about the ramp of the H100 cluster, GPUs that we had talked about. Elon did mention this before, but again, he is noting that bringing up a large training cluster of H100s is currently extremely difficult, same was true of A100s when they first came out, but now they run smoothly. So although Tesla has talked about turning this on, it's a good reminder that it is going to take time to ramp up, which actually fits a little bit better with the forecast that they had previously given us in terms of compute capabilities and the growth in that over time.
Last item for today then, an interesting update out of Australia, CATL has been awarded contracts for more than $1 billion worth of battery storage projects by the government of West Australia, so it looks like they're going to be doing an 800 megawatt hour project and another 2000 megawatt hour or 2 gigawatt hour project as well. So interesting to see this, I think the energy storage market is a little bit more difficult for all of us to track, and this serves as a good reminder that there are other players, including a company that's obviously major supplier for Tesla, that is in this space. So just when we think about margin expectations and things like that on the energy business, that is something that is definitely worth keeping in mind.
Alright, that is it for today then, as always, thank you for listening, make sure you're subscribed and signed up for notifications, and also find me on X at Tesla podcast, and we'll see you tomorrow for the Friday September 22 episode of Tesla Daily. Thank you.