Hey everybody Rob Maurer here and today we've got some updates on Tesla's advertising plans, some international updates and a few other things as well. Alright, looking at the stock, all the good runs have to come to an end eventually, of course today had to be the day for that, Tesla down 3.8%, closing at $233.59, Nasdaq up about a tenth of a percent again today. So as we saw the 13% run over the last few days, now reverting a little bit. Tougher day in general for the automotive sector though, as I flip over here, you can see results from Ford, GM, Rivian, etc. for the day. Lucid had a little bit better of a day, we'll talk a little bit more about them later on. But in general, it looked like this was something sector related, maybe not necessarily so specific to Tesla despite the underperformance on the day.
Alright, so getting into the news, the biggest item for today is an update from Tesla on their advertising strategy. So Trevor Scott on X first spotting this. Just like Tesla's begun, YouTube advertising. So this would be the first foray into video advertising for Tesla that we have seen. Of course over the years, we've seen a lot of good marketing videos from Tesla, but the first paid instance, this seems to be so. I'll let that play here. It looks like Tesla chose to focus on safety, talking about the technology that they use in their vehicles that helps assist in crashes.
Not so much on the electric vehicle architecture in general, but a little bit more on again that technology aspect of it. So as you can see, it is pretty much featuring a vehicle crash or a test crash of a vehicle from Tesla. For me, it does seem like this is pretty heavily, if you were going to give an advertising test to an engineer, I think this is probably where things would end up. Not too surprising coming from Tesla, but it is pretty technical and I think when you get screens like this, where you're looking at a lot of things here, it's probably a little bit overwhelming for the average viewer.
Sort of for the average viewer. I think over time, Tesla will kind of adapt their strategies and things like that, but that's just sort of my first impression. I think focusing on safety, that's an excellent thing to do. I think probably the core tenets of a Tesla advertising strategy should really be safety, performance, and total cost of ownership, just focusing on the difference between fueling an electric vehicle and gasoline vehicle and all the maintenance and things like that.
So Tesla does highlight, of course, the total price of the vehicle or the starting price of the vehicle after the tax credit here at the end, and they do link to demo drives as a part of the ad campaign. But again, I just think it's a little bit technical, maybe not as focused on some of the more emotional advertising aspects that might resonate a little bit more easily for some people. It doesn't mean it's a bad ad. I think it's a good starting point and again, focusing on safety, I think, is the right move.
Over time, Tesla will evolve based on how they see the impact of these ads working. They are also hiring a campaign manager, so again, a sign that this will continue to evolve. This job listing has been posted by Tesla. They say they are seeking an experienced campaign manager to join our dynamic growth and outreach team. Campaign manager will be a crucial figure in orchestrating campaigns for expanding our customer base, overcoming perception challenges, and enhancing the conversion rates of car buyers into Tesla ownership.
The ideal candidate will seamlessly integrate strategies, plans, and execution while fostering innovation and excellence in every campaign. You can see a little bit about what they would plan to do there. They do say they want some background in marketing and communications or a related field with media agency experience preferred. So as Tesla, presumably, starts to head down this path and do a little bit more of this type of advertising, it'll be a little bit more intensive than what we have seen so far with static ads. I think we've seen a couple in airports and then of course the Google ad campaigns with links being sponsored and lifted there.
This would be much more time consuming effort for Tesla and need to be a little bit more strategic about how it is done. So it looks like that'll be the responsibility here. But I think for those that are in favor of Tesla putting more effort and investment into this area, we're definitely seeing the signs of that here.
Next up, we of course, I'm sure everyone is aware that Xi Jinping has been visiting or has visited the United States in the recent days and yesterday. So Elon briefly met with him according to news reports, Elon sharing a photo of that meeting here. He did also comment on a post from Sawyer saying that China's president Xi Jinping told Elon Musk that he supports Tesla's development in China. And that was a statement that was posted on Tesla's Weibo account today. Elon did confirm this just replying. Yeah, to Sawyer's report there. So in general, it looks like it was some again, probably very brief, but a reiteration of that support probably in general, a good thing for Tesla in China.
Then we do have a little bit more news out of China, CNN, EV Post reporting that poll star has followed SAICGM to partner with Tesla for superchargers in China. As we had talked about when the SAICGM report was made, it's a little bit unclear exactly what these partnerships entail. It's obviously not the NACS connector since they do not use that connector in China, of course. But rather it seems to be more related to access and maybe things like plug and charge, although that has not been confirmed, maybe things like adding superchargers into navigation systems and things like that.
But we just again, not getting a whole lot of detail from the poll star announcement, just like we didn't from the SAICGM announcement either. So we'll wait and see if more, more comes of that. I would imagine that we'll see continuing partnerships. Poll star is not a huge brand in China at this point. They hope the poll star ship four will change that a little bit. They actually just lower the pricing on that as well today by about 14%. So we'll keep it out for more on any future partnerships on supercharging there in China.
And then kind of an interesting one today, as we can see it from this ex post, Senator Tommy Tuberville, not sure exactly how it's pronounced, but it was disclosed today that he actually bought put options against Tesla. You can see, zoom in a little bit here, but you can see strike price $190 per share expiration of December 15th. So about a month from now, these were actually purchased back on October 17th though. So this would have been right before earnings. May have just been a really short term playoff of earnings. I don't know the disclosure schedule. This may have been something that's already closed out at this point. If it was just again, something really short term for that earnings report.
There's a lot of conversation about whether or not these types of things should be allowed. I don't want to really get into a full debate on that in this episode, probably outside the scope certainly, but nevertheless, interesting to see that. But important to recognize that this was a little bit ago. All right, moving on from Tesla specific stuff, we got an update on GM's crews. So interesting what's been happening there since the DMV pulled their license to operate in San Francisco or suspended it, I guess.
So in the wake of this, there have been a few updates subsequent to that. The one today, Wall Street Journal reporting that Kyle vote, Voigt, again, still not sure how to pronounce that. If anyone knows, let me know so I can get it right. But they say that Cruz is suspending the internal program that allows employees to cash out shares of crews. Basically, this is a buyback program from GM. They'll buy up employee shares of crews at evaluation determined by a third party. So they have halted that for the time being as they, of course, probably revalue the company and just examine where things are going to go from here, pausing that that share purchase program.
So not terribly surprising to see that. Also not terribly surprising to see that they've also said that in this employee or in this employee email that commercialization plans and revenue targets have been pushed out in light of the recent setbacks. So we'll see, you know, doesn't seem to be, of course, it's not a good time for Cruz right now. How big these setbacks are, how impactful they are and how this affects GM's strategy with Cruz going forward, very much remain remain to be seen. And I think are also very much in flux at the moment.
Also got an update on the UAW ratification process with GM specifically, specifically we had talked before about how the vote was coming in a lot closer, according to automotive news, then votes for Ford or Stellantis were. It does look like it is going to pass though. They say that as of Thursday morning, the agreement was passing by about 2,400 votes with only about 1,400 people yet to report in. So overall support from about 53% of voters so far, which should be enough to ratify this contract agreement.
So it looks like it will pass pretty narrowly for the Stellantis or more like the two thirds in support. But nevertheless, it looks like that will go through for GM. Then we've also got an interesting update from Amazon today. They have announced in partnership with Hyundai that auto dealers will be able to sell vehicles for the first time on Amazon's US store in 2024 with Hyundai being the first brand that is available for customers to purchase.
They say that this will work by customers being able to search on Amazon for available vehicles in their area in partnership with dealers that you know, your search can include model trim, color features, etc. Use their car and then check out online with chosen payment and financing options all within the Amazon experience. So presumably somewhat comparable to something like Tesla's online storefront integrated into Amazon.
But what's interesting is that this, although it is in partnership with Hyundai here, it does sound like the kind of got reported that way. It does sound like the more significant announcement here is that this is a partnership with auto dealers as well. So not necessarily all auto dealers or anything like that, but building the infrastructure so that auto dealers could do this and presumably this will then expand in the future to brands beyond Hyundai as well. So just a new shopping option, how impactful that will be obviously remains to be seen, but should be interesting to see how that develops.
In the last couple of things, the Lucid gravity as expected was pretty much unveiled today. So it is going to have configurations that have over 440 miles of range, 0 to 60 under three and a half seconds. And again, some configurations that will start below $80,000, I would imagine, not for those specs, but that is their targeted opening price point for the Lucid gravity. You can see the vehicle there driving around in the background. And we'll look at a few photos here.
It's not my favorite. I think they probably could have done a little bit better design for my personal taste. But it'll be interesting to see how that does, although probably not super important. The more important thing for them is being able to manufacture these vehicles in general at a much more affordable cost against sold level. So I don't anticipate this being something that helps a whole lot with that, but we'll see how they do.
All right. And then last item for today. Unfortunately, Starship is pushed a little bit backward. Looks like they found a grid fin actuator issue. They needed to replace it. So de-stacked the booster in the Starship today and are planning to postpone the launch to Saturday. So as with any rocket launch, it's no earlier than timing. That would now be moved to Saturday. It could still be delayed again, provided, you know, depending on whether and things like that or if any other issues are found. But for now, looks like Saturday is the day.
Hopefully being a weekend that'll give more people a little bit more flexibility to tune in for that launch. But we'll see. All right. That'll wrap it up for today. 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, November 17th episode of Tesla Daily. Thank you.
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