Welcome to we electrified it's your host Dylan Lumis quick shout out to my newest patrons Timothy a and Ken Z thank you for choosing to support the channel all of the outro screens should now be updated and due to some unfortunate changes on patreon's end going forward I'm just going to update those screens once at the end of every month so if you were to join in the future and you don't see your name there for a few days or even weeks that'll be why end of the month updates now going forward.
First up today we have an update on 4680 production at gigatexis this morning I was actually messaging with Joe tett mire and let's just say from people that would know they are feeling very optimistic and excited about some of the developments with the 4680 production at gigatexis which makes that Reuters article we talked about a few weeks ago look like even more nonsense.
So here's some of that info that Joe has received at the end of 2023 the 4680 chemistry was nmc811 which is 80% nickel it's 10% manganese and 10% cobalt. However now tesla is finishing the process of transitioning to nmc955 now that we're in 2024 so this would mean 90% nickel 5% manganese and 5% cobalt. I'm speculating here but I'm fairly confident that reducing the cobalt content would also lead to lower cell costs. They're also trialing asymmetric lamination but we'll come back to this Joe said with both of those changes tesla will be able to increase the capacity of the 4680 battery that was used in 2023 by a further range of between 10 and 20%. At this point it's fair to question what he meant using the word range did he mean vehicle range increasing 10 to 20% did he mean energy density increasing 10 to 20% at this point it's really not clear.
Back to the chemistry front tesla is also testing nickel manganese cobalt 973 which would be 90% nickel 7% manganese 3% cobalt which we may see at some point later in 2024 but again for right now the final transition meaning away from nmc8112 nmc955 is underway.
Joe said here I believe since this is just a chemical composition change that the process to upgrade to newer cells should happen relatively quickly with little to no drop in production. Now that may be true but I would just push back a little bit and say sometimes switching chemistries can actually be a very tricky process.
He confirmed tesla is in the process of expanding the production area for 4680 production preparing to go from the current four lines which are now either at or in the final process of ramping to full capacity to 8 in the latter half of 2024.
The cathode plant at gigatexis is nearing the end of the initial construction and equipment installation we may see some initial tests in small scale production in the first half of this year. And Joe is not expecting any operational capabilities at the lithium refinery until the second half of 2024.
Finally he said all 4680s right now are being directed to the Cybertruck no model wise from gigatexis are currently using 4680s.
Then on this new asymmetric lamination that tesla is experimenting with we have this from Jordan at the limiting factor.
Typically with the cathode and the anode you have them both being coated. He said these coatings are done of equal thickness on both sides of the electrode foil.
Why would tesla want to coat each side of the foil with a different thickness of material? He can think of two reasons.
They may allow them to make one side thicker and more energy dense and the other side thinner and more power dense that could maximize power and energy density within the same cell.
I'm pretty confident Jordan would want me to make the disclaimer that he's just speculating here this is a brand new technique that he was not even familiar with so he's just thinking out loud.
Into the electrodes are rolled up when they're put into the battery cell. Coding the inside of the spiral thinner and the outside of the spiral thicker might allow them to avoid bunching on the inside of the spiral and increase the cohesion of the stretched material on the outside of the spiral. That might allow them to increase the amount of active material in the battery cell without causing bunching or cracking of the coating. That is the overall goal would be to increase the energy density of the cell.
But he did say his gut instinct would be that would make it a lot more difficult to manage things like lithium plating in the cell during charging and could negatively impact the cycle life through thermal and chemical hotspots. But again as he admitted he's already out of his depth.
So there are some of the technical updates but again I want to emphasize the giddiness and the excitement around some of these battery engineers working on the 4680 line specifically with what they have coming up in quarter one and into 2024.
The word on the street is they have some big developments with 4680 production coming this year and it can't come at a better time. You'll know why here shortly.
Replying to Jordan Shirley Meng a professor of energy materials said on the energy density numbers I can confirm the cathode improvement is the most effective strategy for this purpose. I do want to say even if Tesla pulls off these improvements that doesn't at all guarantee that the Cybertruck is going to immediately have more range available Tesla could just include less cells. Ultimately there are no promises these improvements ever make it to the end consumer in any meaningful way. But of course on the back end it would be helping Tesla with production rates and cell costs and things of that nature which in the long run will help margins. And this is just another silver lining if you're way in the back of the Cybertruck line by the time you're able to get yours hopefully Tesla will have worked through all of these 4680 improvements and for the usual you'll be getting an even better vehicle the longer you wait.
In case you happen to see this post or any articles talking about it where Tesla Chan shared this picture saying it's an upgraded Model Y I am here to tell you that if anything this is just a fake photo this is not a Model Y it might just be a distorted image of a Model 3. So as far as I'm concerned you can just disregard this news for now.
In the overall Australian market for 2023 it was a record year for car sales and we have the Model Y coming in as the sixth best selling vehicle of any kind for the year. The Model Y did 28.7000 sales for the year and in first place overall was the Ford Ranger sitting at 63.3000. For the year full battery electric vehicles made up 7.2% of overall sales putting Australia very in line with where the United States currently sits for EV market share. Toyota was the top selling car brand with 17.7% of the market followed by Mazda Ford and Kia Tesla came in as the number 8 brand.
The Upora Police Department in Mississippi is set to become the first in the state to incorporate an EV into its patrol fleet. They said the city was fortunate enough to receive state funding for a police vehicle and we realized our current fleet of 6 aging gas powered cars could be more efficiently replaced. We're estimating about $6,000 in savings per year compared to a gas powered vehicle. The Model 3 they're now incorporating will be a primary patrol car and they said this will be a great pilot program for cities like Upora. We aim to demonstrate the cost effectiveness and efficiency of such an initiative potentially guiding other cities in their fleet modernization efforts. They talked about safety being a key factor and how the Model 3 offers features like GPS tracking and an always active camera system. This is crucial for officer and citizen safety as it ensures incidents, chases or any other events are recorded providing valuable data.
Today we have a group of 33 senators urging Tesla and 12 other automakers to remain neutral in ongoing efforts by the UAW to organize the non-union plants. This letter went to Tesla and Elon as well as executives at Toyota VW Hyundai Rivian Mercedes Honda Nissan BMW and others urging them to pledge not to interfere in any organizing activities. The letter raised concerns about reports that management of numerous automakers has acted illegally to block unionization efforts. It also cited findings that Tesla employed multiple illegal tactics aimed at stopping organizing efforts including online harassment, employee interrogations and retaliatory firings. VW refuted the claims made against it that it engaged in union busting by destroying pro-union materials and a break room but they argued it was just cleaned by maintenance staff. I really don't think Tesla will need to do any union busting anyway. We saw last month that they raised wages for workers at Nevada in an attempt to keep the majority happy.
Here we have a study from IC cars for looking at the most popular used EVs in the United States for 2023. This column is the percent of total 1-5 year old used EV sales, the Model 3 and the Model Y, the two most popular used EVs.
You have to keep in mind with studies like this it will depend on how many of these vehicles are actually available in the used market. IC cars did point out compared to 2022 the Model S and X have declined in popularity especially relative to the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf.
You can see for 2022 that the Model S and X were actually more popular in terms of a percent of all of those used car sales than the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf but for 2023 that is no longer the case. This phenomenon could just be more customers opting for more affordable EVs, it could be more people opting for newer Model S and X vehicles given the refresh and now the significant price cuts. Plus the base Model X qualifies for the full tax credit for a new model.
In case you were wondering here's a look at the list for non EVs, the Ford F-150 the most popular used car last year. Honestly though I'm not sure with some of these studies that are done by these brands because in the write up listen to what they said. While major updates to Tesla's most expensive vehicles, the S and X, they're likely to continue dropping in popularity. This was a used car study so how do they expect Tesla to update these used vehicles? And if they meant update the new vehicles, well Tesla just did that within the last two years.
The out of spec motors YouTube channel dropped a 5 hour plus video live streaming the Cybertruck highway range test at 70 miles per hour starting at 100% full charge and going all the way to zero. This was an all wheel drive variant with the all terrain tires remember those all season tires that should yield better range won't be available until later this year. Either way the result 254 miles on this test. The test was done in Texas with cold temperatures of 45 degrees fahrenheit some people were saying it was in freezing weather and technically it was not.
So if you start with the listed range of 320 miles this would have been about a 20% range loss. For some context when Kyle and out of spec did the same test with the Rivian R1T granted it was a quad motor variant so not apples to apples and that Rivian test was actually done at altitude and the higher up you go the less dense the air becomes. During that test the Rivian traveled 289 miles but it was also a warm day and we know cold temperatures have a pretty large impact on actual range.
I'm just guessing here but I would assume that the all terrain tires could contribute to between an 8 to 12% range hit specifically relative to the all seasons that again will be available later this year. Thus I'd be fairly confident in saying in warmer temperatures and with better tires the Cybertruck could easily hit 280 plus in this same test. It's true that some people are going to be disappointed with a result like this.
Honestly though we have to remember the 4680s are still in very early days as we just talked about they're continually going through new design changes, new chemistries, new manufacturing techniques so we have to give Tesla at least some grace as they work through all of these upgrades. There's also a pretty good chance right now Tesla is limiting these 4680s to some degree to avoid reaching the extremes.
Kyle also pointed out that the CCS adapter did not work with the Cybertruck due to the plastic wheel arches but then they actually took those off and it still wouldn't work however I would say it's still not clear if that was just a one off situation or they're not going to work at all going forward. That being CCS. I think it's too soon to say for sure that the Cybertruck will never work with a CCS charger but of course in the long run given all the NACS announcements many more NACS ports are coming and in the years ahead not being able to use CCS should not be that big of a deal.
T Sportline has been giving us plenty of eye candy for the Cybertruck lately this time around we have a satin white wrap. So of all of the colors that you've seen which one is your favorite. Personally I'm still probably going with matte black black is my favorite color but the white one is indeed pretty clean.
T Sportline最近为Cybertruck带来了许多令人眼花缭乱的装饰,这一次是一层缎面的白色包裹。所以在你看到的所有颜色中,你最喜欢哪个?就个人而言,我可能仍然会选择哑光黑,黑色是我最喜欢的颜色,但白色确实非常干净漂亮。
Here we have Ford's US sales data for the fourth quarter and 2023 we're just going to focus on the year. Evie sold 72.6000 for the year putting them as the number two electric vehicle seller for the year. However it was not stellar growth from 2022 as they only grew 17.9%.
Ford saw bigger growth in its hybrid division nearly doubling up their full beev sales. Having a look at the Mustang Mach E it did 40.7000 for the year only up 3% as in 2022 it did 39.4000. In fairness to the Mach E the production plans were down for retooling for a significant part of the first half of the year. But more than that throughout the year they did have stop sales they had some software issues they dealt with some recalls so it was a pretty bumpy year for the Mach E.
For the F150 Lightning for the full year 2023 it sold 24.1000 up 54% compared to 2022 when it did 15.6000. For the fourth quarter the Lightning did 11.9000 sales which is roughly 4000 per month so keep that number in the back of your mind as we head into 2024. And Ford's commercial vehicle the E Transit did 7.6000 up 18% for the year.
So for 2023 Ford did about 72.000 EV sales in the United States. GM was right around 62.000 so the question becomes for 2024 will either manufacture hit over 100.000 EV sales for the first time.
All of the world's biggest car makers have been lobbying the UK government to try to weaken or delay rules to accelerate EV car sales. Toyota, Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan were among the companies to ask for delays in the ZEV rules. But VW Ford and Tesla actually argued the ZEV mandate should be tougher. Under the ZEV mandate as it stands 22% of new cars sold in 2024 must be zero emission, a figure that rises to 80% by 2030. Of course Toyota said that it was extremely concerned by the UK targets up to 2027 which could be challenging for manufacturers like Toyota and could cause financial and brand damage. VW said the targets were ambitious but seemed to be generally feasible. And the person who got their hands on these documents said clearly a lot of car makers while being enthusiastic about the EV transition in public had reservations about these trajectories in private.
Meanwhile, we have Washington DC also moving forward with some EV mandates. These are the ones that require automakers to sell only ZEVs starting in 2035. The Department of Energy and Environment said EV prices continue to decrease over time and the EPA projects when considering all of the economic incentives available. The average EV will cost $400,000 to $4,000 less than a gasoline equivalent by 2032. Even greater cost savings occur when the maintenance and fuel savings of approximately $10,000 that the average owner will save over 8 years of ownership are considered. In addition to Washington DC, some other northeastern states listed here are also currently pursuing EV mandates.
Here we have a research firm Energy Trend predicting a global surge in large-scale battery storage for 2024. Energy Trend is predicting up to 128GB hours of utility-scale installations for the year and if you factor in residential as well, that number jumps to 167GB hours. For context, you would need more than four Tesla Megapack factories in Lathrop running at full capacity to satiate this demand. Of that number, they said China should account for 55GB hours of that capacity. I think most of us here know the demand for this battery energy storage is massive. However, as we saw this year, it does not come without challenges. 2023 deployments were below some expectations thanks to these three reasons, supply chain disruptions, long lead times for items like high-voltage transformers and grid connection delays.
Mobile iStock was down almost 25% today, thanks to their 2024 revenue guidance coming in at $1.9 billion down from expectations that were $2.6 billion. They blamed the outlook on their customers having built up inventories on their advanced driving assistance chips. Saying, we've become aware of excess inventory at our customers.
Using data from Tesla and Troy Tesla, we have Clean Technica saying that unofficially, the Model Y has passed the Model 3 in cumulative sales. Cumulatively, for the Model 3 at the end of Q4, the number was $2.295 million compared to cumulatively for the Model Y at the end of Q4 being $2.493 million. That means it took roughly about 6 years for the Model 3 to hit that 2 million cumulative mark and it took only about half that time or roughly 3 years for the Model Y to do the same thing.
Fisker has decided to abandon the direct-to-customer model, the one that Tesla employs, saying that it was too expensive, now they're shifting to the traditional dealership route, hoping to sign at least 50 this year.
The Chevy Blazer EV is not off to a great start, now we have GM announcing that sales of the Blazer EV are going to be temporarily suspended while they work on resolving owner reported software issues. They said our team is working quickly to roll out a fix and owners will be contacted with further info on how to schedule their update. Right now though, it's unclear exactly what they're trying to fix as the GM reps will not go into detail.
As it stands now, there's currently no timeline for a fix and they're saying it seems to require a visit to the dealer as opposed to an OTA update, but that's not set in stone. Within the last two weeks, we talked about that Chevy Blazer report from Motor Trend with a long list of problems for a brand new Blazer EV.
Met God in the wilderness did a drone fly over of Fremont and as you're looking at right now, we see some Model 3 highland vehicles in the parking lot right now. So just one more anecdote of confirmation that test production of the new Model 3 seems to be underway at Fremont.
In that out of spec Cybertruck video, they showed that in service mode, the Cybertruck has an interior cabin radar that can actually detect if certain seats are occupied or not.
Tesla charging posted some nice photos saying 55,000 superchargers around the world and counting. One theme I think a lot of us are still waiting for is going to be when these third party developers think Tesla has enough of a network effect to begin developing third party apps that integrate directly with Tesla's API. Tesla has confirmed they're already working on setting up that ecosystem to make this all possible and now we have Tesla Energy saying fleet API supports Powerwall, Solar and Wall Connector enabling devs to access data and interact with these devices.
I think some exciting things should be ahead this year. Hope you guys have a wonderful day, you can find me on X linked below. Please like the video if you did and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.