Welcome to Electrified. It's your host, Dylan Loomis. Quick shout out to my newest patron, Paul F. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. According to the Department of Energy, in 2030, they're expecting level one and level two EV charging to account for 80% of all EV charging. This certainly does not mean that DC fast charging isn't as important given how much of the public conversation is focused on that. It's just a good data point to have in mind when this conversation comes up. And the primary locations for that level one and level two charging, single family homes, multifamily homes at the workplace, and then of course at places of business.
Wu Wua uploaded a video of the field where the Tesla megapack factory is to be built, and it looks like finally we have at least some early activity of construction beginning. They're just barely beating the buzzer with this one as the last update was that construction was set to begin in quarter one, so we can check that off. And then they also said production was expected to begin from this factory in quarter four. Given that we're one week away from quarter two, we're really going to need that China speed to come through on the construction of this one. There was an email from Elon going around today to everybody that said going forward it's mandatory in North America to install and activate FSD 12.3.1 to take customers on a short test ride before handing over the car.
Almost no one actually realizes how well supervised FSD actually works. I know this will slow down the delivery process, but it's nonetheless a hard requirement. There is a valid question out there, how will this work? Because most new cars are still delivered with the 2024 software branch and as we've been talking about, so far FSD version 12 is only on the 2023 branch. That would mean one of two things has to happen, either one Tesla brings FSD version 12 to the 2024 branch or they installed 2023 on these new vehicles, which would be a departure from what they've been doing. Honestly, even mentioning that FSD exists and that it's a potential software upgrade down the line among other software upgrades would have been a wise thing for Tesla to do when we picked up our model Y not that I needed the explanation, but they didn't say one word about any of those features available for upgrade. So for the hundreds of thousands of people that are not plugged into the Tesla bubble, this should be a great thing.
I don't think we need to overanalyze this, but the fact that Elon is choosing to do this now with FSD version 12.3.1 is of course a good sign. Overall, there's still plenty of great feedback coming in on 12.3, but a quick PSA, some testers are noting rim or tire damage as a result of tight curbs, so be careful. Also, the object detection seems to be a mixed bag. In this case, there was a paper bag blowing in the road that FSD apparently actually swerve to avoid. A shock also shared a funny video of FSD respecting some chickens that wanted to cross the road, so object detection another check and proceeding when the path was clear. However, do not get too comfortable out there as we had tech geek Tesla on X share some instances of version 12.3 not slowing down for a ladder in the road. Time after time, it would approach the ladder and he would have to disengage to get the car to actually stop. For what it's worth, this was a car with ultrasonic sensors and as you just saw in this case, when he engaged FSD, it drove right over the ladder on its side.
Holmar said 12.3.1 still cannot handle those flashing red lights disappointing. It's still doing the lurch forward move each time the light flashes off of red. As far as we can tell, there are no new release notes for version 12.3.1, but this did start going out to customers as of yesterday. Dave Lee said Tesla FSD is going to get bonkers when it can back out of a parking spot in a busy lot, drive to your destination and then park at your destination's lot. To that, Elon responded saying probably only a few months. So possibly sometime later this year, we have FSD actually using the reverse function in busy parking lots and also parking in parking lots. Yes, FSD is already parking to some degree on version 12.3, but it's more of a secondary behavior, not really something that it's been trained on. That functionality is obviously critical for any Robotaxi scenario, and it may be a bit trickier than some are expecting as one in five or 20% of all accidents happen in parking lots. That's according to the National Safety Council, which found on average around 60,000 people are injured and 500 or more die in the 50,000 plus crashes in parking lots or garages every year. Let's see if it'll park there.
Okay, I think it's going to back in. Yeah, I don't know if it'll pull in forward at this point. But look at that, we're pulling forward, we're annoying everybody in the parking lot a little bit, including this car in front of me trying to back out. That's okay. Wow. Okay, even in the snow and not ideal conditions, it has parked. This version of Auto Park will back into spots whether they're on the left or the right hand side, but so far it's only backing into spots. It's not pulling head first into any spots. A shock shared a video of version 12 saying handling many real world situations like construction requires understanding and reasoning about the scene semantically and not just geometrically. That's why self driving is an intelligence problem and not a sensor problem, i.e. needing LiDAR radar, etc. That was a pretty confusing scene even for most human drivers and that was in Salt Lake City. With this one, I'm guessing mileage will vary, but some users have been reporting that with version 12.3, the forward collision warning has been kept at bay and thus these users' safety scores have been going up.
CATL is in talks with Tesla and other unnamed automakers to license its battery tech in the US instead of building its own plant here. The scale of cooperation and details about what technology Tesla would license from CATL are still being discussed and will depend on Tesla's cash flow. CATL's existing partnership with Ford will be the model for similar cooperation with other US car makers. The problem with that is that factory has faced a ton of pushback not only from local residents but from the government as well. Thanks to that pushback, Ford has already scaled back its plans for that joint factory.
CATL is also working on faster charging batteries for Tesla and supplying machinery to Tesla in Nevada. Robin Zhang, CATL's CEO confirmed this in a recent interview and he described Elon as super energetic saying I am way behind him. More importantly though, he said CATL and Tesla are working together on battery technologies, in particular new electrochemical structures to allow for faster charging. Thus Tesla may be licensing some tech from CATL for battery manufacturing but they may be co-developing some new chemistries for faster charging. In that interview, Zhang also said there is always room for cost reduction depending on what the $25,000 car's aim is. If it's for robo-taxes, we don't have to worry about the cost reduction for each cell as our batteries have a longer life cycle and so their average cost is actually lower.
Zhang did say that CATL planned to train some of these Ford engineers in CATL factories and that CATL is in talks with around 10-20 other automakers in the US and Europe regarding a similar arrangement. The Ford and CATL joint venture is on track to start production by the end of 2026 but as mentioned it's been shrunk down to 20 gigawatt hours from 35 initially. We talked last month how Tesla was working on a project at Gig in Nevada where they were using some of CATL's older machines to reportedly build LFP battery cells for Tesla megapacks. It's sounding like that project could easily expand to building LFP cells for the next gen platform which obviously would have huge implications when it comes to tax credits and cell availability. It's unclear how the licensing deal may work but for that project for LFP cells for megapacks the word was Tesla will have full control over the facility and cover 100% of the cost. CATL will be uninvolved other than helping to set up the equipment.
Some of you may recall back around March 2018 delete Facebook was a trending thing and Elon got mixed up in the conversation and ultimately decided to delete both the Tesla and SpaceX pages from Facebook. He said don't think I'm some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also we don't advertise or pay for endorsements so don't care. Well six years later and only one day off from being exactly six years Tesla is back officially on Facebook. Reason being the time has come for them to start running ads on the platform. There are some video ads up and running on the platform and I'm sure it's painful for Elon to hand some money over to Zuckerberg. But if you're going to advertise Facebook is a great platform to do it on as 37.2% of all of people on earth use Facebook. Facebook ads reach 33.3% of the global population over the age of 13. Facebook ads reach 62.2% of all Americans age 13 and up.
I would add experientially there's enough accounts on X and with Elon owning the platform that the truth about Tesla can make its rounds but on Facebook Tesla does not have nearly the same pro army that it has on other platforms. You can absolutely make the argument that Facebook has the cohort of users that are the least educated when it comes to Tesla. Depending on how you view the world this is either going to be awesome news and Tesla tapping into a relatively new market or a sign that things are so bad Elon is now stooping to giving one of his main enemies advertising dollars. I'll let you decide. There were actually a lot more positive comments about Tesla under some of these ads than I would have been expecting. There were some more leaks when it comes to the Model 3 ludicrous over the weekend and they're now touting three different drive modes, chill sport and insane. The leaks also suggest an active suspension system with two different modes standard and sport. And in this image you can see that the traditional pedals and steering settings tab has now been renamed to dynamics just like the Cybertruck.
As we said last week reportedly the media has been invited to come check out the Model 3 ludicrous so in the next few weeks we may get an official announcement. There was a Cybertruck accident that happened in Florida we didn't really get a lot of information but you can clearly see that the other vehicle got shredded when it comes to the front and the Cybertruck seemed to hold up fairly well. It's unclear exactly what happened in this situation but here are some close up pictures of the Cybertruck and you can see the other car in the background. Gregor truck also shared a quick video showing a 75 inch TV in the box fitting perfectly inside the Cybertruck bed and the vault closing safe and sound. It looks like the box fits perfectly at the bottom of the bed so just a good frame of reference to have.
Late last week Tesla did add a few new colors on the configurator to the Cybertruck color paint protection film some of which like one of my favorites crimson red are already out of stock. Zane Blur gave us another good update on Tesla semi-production. I think they've tuned the design and they are now starting to produce more Tesla semis at the production facility and this this video is near certain evidence of that. What I see in this video and we'll focus on in a little bit is a one short faring several crates with leaf springs with heavy-duty leaf springs for a semi as many as 16 crates with axle housings wheels and tires. Looking at his most recent flyover of Giga Nevada where the new semi-factory is going up the only thing so far they've done is added this new concrete section to make for a new access road to Giga Nevada. Outside of preparations for this new access road though all of the progress really just has to do with grading and drainage.
Kyle Field on X shared some videos and pictures of a Tesla semi at a recent event in California. For you engineers here's the front part of a semi opened up but what I wanted to highlight was in the video he quickly displayed the trip screen and for a distance of over 13,000 miles the average energy consumption was 1.7 kilowatt hours per mile. Unfortunately we don't know what that mileage looked like across what terrain and what type of weather what were the loads like but I thought it was an interesting data point nonetheless. From Charlie Belello the trend continues when it comes to the prices of used Teslas were now at a record low of 31.7 thousand dollars. In case you're new on the screen are some of the reasons for this recent trend. Then if you look at new data from Cox Automotive you can see the days of supply for legacy OEMs and the average right now is 76. There are also four automakers Ram, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge who are not on this list because their days of supply is at least twice the industry average so it's off the chart. For comparison Tesla's been around 16 to 17 days of supply so even if they were to jump up into the 20s just so you know it's certainly not the end of the world. Plus as Tesla continues to grow around the world they need to have more vehicles at their showrooms available on site when customers go to visit.
24 7 Tesla on YouTube gave us an update of the Tesla diner that's under construction still making progress. The exterior of the building has some new finishing potentially for waterproofing but as you can see no construction has really begun on the inside of the building. I'd still say an opening later this year is definitely reasonable. There's another job on the Tesla careers page for a technical writer for the Tesla bot. They'll be responsible for creating comprehensive and user-friendly documentation for our robotic systems including service manuals, troubleshooting guides, maintenance procedures and training materials. They'll also produce instructional materials and training modules for service text covering topics like installation, maintenance and repair procedures. So look I'm not saying optimists will be repairing your Cybertruck later this year but I think 2025, 2026 for Tesla are shaping up to be very exciting times. That's because even if Tesla can have one real-world use case in-house for optimists during that time the market perception about what's possible will absolutely change. Until that point most of Wall Street is just going to write it off.
Fisker said today their talks with that large automaker that people were speculating was Nissan have been terminated. Additionally trading of Fisker shares have been halted. The termination of talks has led the company to search for strategic options including in or out of court restructurings and capital market transactions. Fisker also said it will be unable to meet a closing condition related to its attempt to raise $150 million. As we've been saying all along despite some opium, bankruptcy remains the most likely outcome. Nissan just dropped its own plans that they're calling the arc for their midterm goals through roughly 2027. To begin they tout solid state batteries so not off to a great start. They're also looking at cost parity between EVs and ICE by 2030. Their CEO said we must make radical changes to become a sustainable company. They do have plans to unveil a new electric sedan in 2026 followed by a crossover EV in 2027. Nissan's goal is to deliver an operating profit margin of more than 6% by 2027. A big part of their plan was this new e-power system for hybrid vehicles that they said the US market will get by 2027. Nissan will also study joint development of a next gen one-ton pickup with Mitsubishi. They said EVs will be developed in families with integrated powertrains using next-generation modular manufacturing. Obviously not in apples-to-apples comparison but this is the same idea that arrival had and at one time they were valued at about $13 billion and now they're bankrupt.
In a press release, Lucid has said an affiliate of the Saudi public investment fund will purchase $1 billion of newly created convertible preferred stock. This $1 billion should be able to bridge the gap to get Lucid to gravity production. VW's plan in Tennessee is going to hold a UAW vote between April 17th and 19th. The UAW got their super majority of employees to sign union cards so we'll see if they can close the deal.
Just to confirm the trend of Chinese automakers continually rolling out new vehicles at cheaper prices on Weibo, BYD touted the new seal honor edition for under $25,000. For comparison, the Model 3 in China starts at $34,000. Sawyer shared a screenshot saying Tesla is now offering at-home demo drives of new vehicles for Tesla owners that have mobile service appointments. The message to the customer said we have the new upgraded Model 3 along with Y, S, and X models. Tesla stock closed the day at $172.63 up 1.05% while the Nasdaq was down 0.27%. Lucid was up over 5% on the cap raise news.
It was another low volume day for Tesla stock trading about 22 million shares below the average 30 day volume. Look at what we find in the newest music video from Future and the weekend. Hope you guys have a wonderful day, please like the video if you did. You can find me on X linked below and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.