Hey everybody RobMower here, happy Friday today we are going to be talking about some new features that Tesla has announced related to the holiday update and some visualizations, which are pretty interesting.
We also got some news on Tesla in China, Thailand, and a few other items as well. By looking at the stock, Tesla basically tracking the NASDAQ again today up about a half percent, closing at $243.84, the NASDAQ up about a half percent as well.
We'll stay on the stock for a second. We got an interesting note from Bernstein analyst Tony Sakanagi today, long coverage, or long time covering Tesla for Tony Sakanagi and has pretty consistently been bearish on the stock. He is saying that Tesla is one of their best or actually is their best idea, shorting Tesla stock is their best idea for 2024. They see nearly 40% downside for the stock. Again, they have consistently seen 40% downside for the stock, probably as far back as I can remember, but a $150 price target on the stock and saying at a fundamental level, 2023 has been a very difficult year for Tesla with 2023 EPS, 50% below consensus estimates at the start of the year. Yet amazingly, the stock has nearly doubled year to date. Of course, all of us know that that doubling year to date happened because January 1st happened to be a low point for Tesla. If you go back even a couple more months, Tesla is actually down from October of last year.
A little bit disingenuous to frame things up that way. According to analyst estimates, Tesla is expected to grow volumes by over 400,000 units, so call it 2.2 million units next year, maintain flat prices, improve auto gross margins by more than 200 basis points, and asks why now what will be different in 2024? If these analysts estimates were missed for 2023.
And honestly, that list is even way too long to go through. We're going to be in very different situations with downtime with Highland or with the Cybertruck. We've got interest rates where in 2023 interest rates were increasing and suffered a significant rate of change over the past six months prior to that. For 2024, that could be inflecting in the opposite direction. That alone is a huge change in the auto market. 4680s. We can just go down and on and on the list of what things are going to be different in 2024. It doesn't mean that these things are all going to come to fruition by any means. But the analyst should be giving us these answers to these sort of questions rather than just saying, hey, the stock missed estimates last year and it doubled, so we should short it. That analysis is not super helpful as opposed to things that would answer these types of questions. Obviously, in their analysis, they've got opinions on that. But again, historically, they have not quite gotten the Tesla story right most years. So we'll see, but obviously a pretty big headline there from Bernstein today relating to the stock.
Right getting into the software updates or new features that are coming, we've talked about this. We talked about the release notes that we had seen already. A couple of features though with this holiday update from Tesla that will be coming.
Custom lock sounds, we're not going to spend much time on that, but you know, when you lock your car, it'll make a sound with the horn. You can now change or you will now be able to change that to a number of different preset items or Tesla. And Tesla employees confirm that you'd be able to upload your own. So that'll be pretty interesting to see what people do with that.
But more interestingly, aside from other features that we had already gone through previously, Tesla is going to be adding a high fidelity park assist where you'll be able to see a 3D reconstruction of your surroundings while parking. So a lot of people have asked for sort of an overhead 360 camera view. I think Nissan has the patent for that. So I don't think Tesla is willing to license that. This could be their solution or answer to something like that. And hopefully something that ends up ultimately being even better someday, probably not going to be there initially, but it will be interesting to see the implementation of this. And there's a lot of promise with a feature like this for Tesla to make a very good system and something that can be superior over time in my opinion. So of course, we'll have to wait and see how good the implementation is. This was one of the things that Tesla's co-pad said. There was more to come with the software update, so this is one of those items. They also say that when you see the visualizations in person, they will absolutely blow your mind. And it's just a tease at what they've been experimenting with in terms of visualizations.
A couple more things here. They say everything you thought was possible with visualizations changes next year. And they talk about this being related to FSD version 12 a little bit, saying that until version 12, V12 drops, the wiper stuff won't be fixed, but they're saying that version 12 now delayed until mid to late January at the earliest. So it kind of sounds like there was originally some intent for version 12 to maybe be a part of this holiday update. I'm sure Tesla pushed hard for that, but it is now a little bit pushed back. So they're saying mid to late January again at the earliest. So that could obviously change, probably is likely to change at some point.
Elon also added an interesting comment on this sort of comparison with 360 view or birds eye view parking. Homar said unpopular opinion, this feature is completely irrelevant in a world where cars drive themselves. Of course, we're not quite to that world yet, but I would agree with that when we do get there. The question is how long Elon says true, we are working on a feature where the car identifies probable viable parking spaces, you tap on one exit the vehicle and it parks there. So this would effectively create something like a reverse smart summon, hopefully a reverse actually smart summon, which of course we are still waiting on updates on that. Hopefully that'll coincide a little bit with version 12.
But I think the feature in general is interesting and interesting to think of in the context of a Robo taxi, because I doubt Tesla would spend too much time on a feature like this if it wasn't something that they had in mind to utilize for a Robo taxi type of future. You could imagine this interfacing with something like a fleet manager where they're, you know, utilizing a lot of different robots, actually vehicles and have to kind of, you know, make those logistics work with parking and all of those sort of things. If there's a way for that communication to happen, which it sounds like is something that they're kind of working on building here, that helps.
And of course, in the interim could be valuable even before, very valuable even before a full Robo taxi type of situation could be helpful for directing a vehicle when it's picking up a passenger or something like that, just so the passenger can help aid on where exactly the vehicle should be going. And you could also think of it in terms of, you know, integration with a large language model like Groc, we have talked a little bit about, you could integrate that and maybe give these sort of commands in natural language and then they could interpret it with this sort of software that is built in. So a lot of interesting things that this could develop into someday. And I think those are the most interesting parts about it because again, Tesla's probably not going to spend much time on something that they don't view as important in that context in the future.
So in general, again, we'll wait and see how this feature comes to be. But I think people will welcome it. Hopefully it improves on what we've seen some complaints on with the removal of ultrasonic sensors and park assist and the current iteration. Of course, the idea there was for always always for that to improve over time. So hopefully this can be a step towards that.
All right, next up, we've got some new China numbers. I do want to point out production here. We're going to talk a little bit about in a second. Those numbers are coming from Roland Percher on X. I didn't actually get the production numbers yet. So I can't verify them. I'm not sure what his source is. Usually he gives pretty accurate information, but I just want to disclaimer on that that I don't know for sure if these are correct yet.
好的,接下来,我们有一些新的中国数据。我想在这里提一下销量。我们马上会谈论一下。这些数据来自 Roland Percher 在 X 上的报道。我实际上还没有得到销量的数据,所以无法验证它们。我不确定他的消息来源是什么。通常他提供的信息相当准确,但我只是想做一个声明,我目前还不能确定这些数据是否正确。
So first, we'll just talk about sales here quickly. Of course, we previously had wholesale sales. So that was 82,000 and a half almost. We now know the breakdown of that from Model Y to Model 3. Pretty similar to what we had seen or what we tend to usually see in terms of that split. Nothing crazy there. And then retail sales versus exports, 65,500 for retail. So that's domestic sales in China and just about 17,000 exports. So retail sales up significantly month over month. No surprise as we track the insured vehicle numbers weekly, those are retail, domestic sales, retail or domestic sales export, of course, down a little bit as Tesla working off of fixed production. So as retail rises, exports going to fall. I would imagine that this will level out a little bit, be closer to a 5050 split for next month, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Elon did comment on this on X today saying that monthly numbers aren't meaningful as cars are manufactured in batches to minimize complexity, switching between parts for China, EU, et cetera. So still doing still commenting a little bit about batching in terms of production there.
And this was in context of EV market share changing month over month, increasing to 12% from 6%. So although we saying monthly numbers are not meaningful in this market share perspective that's very much the case as we see, obviously a lot of volatility here month to month in these numbers. But when we're talking about production and things like that, it is still very interesting and important to look at.
So that brings us to production again, Roland Percher saying that production was 90,800 vehicles for Tesla at gigashang high in November. If we confirm this is accurate, which we should be able to do in the next couple of days, that's going to be a production record record for gigashang high. If we look at the split, we've got almost 36,000 Model 3 Highland vehicles, about 55,000 Model Y, which right around the average that we've seen over the last few months for the Model Y. But this would again be a record or would also be a record for Model 3 production. And this is just, you know, two months, three months after the downtime, hard to even call it downtime, but after the transition from the old Model 3 to the Highland Model 3. So extremely impressive.
Again, we got to wait for confirmation of this. But if this number is right, that is going to do really good things for Q4 financials for the Model 3 Highland and the overall, you know, impact on the business, especially because those vehicles are selling at higher average selling prices than what we were looking at in the Model 3 for the Model 3 and Q3.
So I kind of bring this back to what's going to be different. Well, things like this are going to be different. And of course, we'll see. Hopefully that transition happened in the US at some point next year as well. I doubt it'll happen quite as quickly for the US, but if it can be anywhere close and also improve production numbers and costs and maybe get a higher average selling price for Model 3 in the US, that would be great for the business as well. So again, we'll keep an eye out for that to try to confirm that number and we'll come back to that when we do.
And we've also got a quick update on China. They have announced on their Waybo accounts, I believe that the Model Y standard range is sold out for the year. Of course, we've only got a few weeks left in the year. So it doesn't mean a whole lot at this point. But if you do remember, there was that insured, you know, insurance subsidy or partnership that was about 8000 RMB off of the price. So I think that promotion is now removed with this being sold out again, just the standard range version, but that was the only one that the promotion was eligible for as well. And we do actually see pretty long wait time still on the long range version of the Model Y. So interesting to see that and probably good news in general, since we had just seen that insurance boost added.
And we've also got another update in Asia. The prime minister of Thailand said that they said that he had met with Tesla executives, says I went out of my way to entertain them. So they would fall in love with Thailand. They're looking for 2000 Ray, right? Not sure exactly of land. So that'd be about 320 hectares, around 790 acres. But again, don't forget about significant digits on this. You know, probably best to just say, you know, a few hundred acres relating to that. So it'll be interesting. You know, we've just heard these reports that Tesla's expanding plans to expand Kigushang high for the next generation vehicle, what they would be doing that in Thailand, maybe additional production. Who knows, we're waiting to see what they do there, waiting to see what they do in India. They do energy plants and or some part of the supply chain. But nevertheless, interesting to see that these sort of visits and explorations are continuing elsewhere.
All right, then a quick one here. KBB is reporting that the Model Y has now jumped to the second most registered vehicle in the United States following the Ford F-150. So just barely surpassing the Toyota RAV4 year to date through the first nine months. So exciting to see that. Hopefully this will continue. The F-150 is pretty decent step up there. And of course, there's a lot more variance of the F-150 than there would be for the Model Y, certainly in terms of price point and just kind of what the vehicle represents. But nevertheless, nice to see the Model Y surpass the RAV4. Of course, we've seen that in California for a long time, but nice to see that. Now, take place for the United States as a whole.
One quick thing on Tesla purchasing, you can now pre-qualify to finance your purchase with Tesla. So they'll do a soft credit inquiry, not a hard poll. So it won't affect your credit. I just put in a few things like income and of course your information so that they can check your credit. And then you'd be pre-qualified presumably pretty quickly, maybe instantly, with that information. So that's the process there a little bit smoother.
Then last couple of things for today. The three reviewers that had the Cybertruck, so Top Gear, MKBHD, and Jason Camisa from Hagerty, they had a podcast today for Top Gear, just a 40 minute discussion about the Cybertruck. Nothing too new that we haven't talked about. They spent a lot of time on the steer by wire and just how that was one of the most impactful things. Getting into operating the vehicle, one of the things that stuck out the most to them and takes a little bit of getting used to. They talked about the quickness of the steering ratio and how people might have different preferences for that. I think Jason Camisa mentioned that that's something that Tesla engineer mentioned, that they're just shipping one version of it initially, but over time they can pretty easily add software updates to make that more customizable for people that maybe have different preferences. So again, mostly stuff we've heard, mostly positive stuff from all these reviewers, which I think reflects the reviews in general. But I did link that down in the description if you do want to check it out.
And then lastly, just a quick look ahead at the calendar for next week. Again, we talked about this earlier this week, but a couple of big items coming up, the CPI report on Tuesday morning, the PPI or producer price index report on Wednesday morning, and then we do have the next FOMC meeting on Wednesday afternoon. So no interest rate increases expected. I don't think it decreases expected everyone just kind of expecting it to stay stagnant, but the most interesting thing will be the statements and of course, Fed chair drone palace comments afterward. So keep a close eye on those things for next week, but that'll wrap it up for today. 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 on Monday for the December 11th episode of Tesla daily. Thank you.