Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Lumis. First up today, huge shout out to Amy as she has obtained council to challenge the plaintiff's fee request in Elon's comp plan case. Remember that six billion with a B dollar fee that they were requesting? Well, Amy is now fighting back against that on behalf of all of Tesla shareholders. So Amy, Godspeed, the word is she has a pretty killer legal team, including the former SEC commissioner. If you want to follow along with the case, I'll have this link below. A user on the TMC forum shared a picture of the Model S in the new lunar silver color. In this case, I think it's fairly apparent that pictures are not going to do it justice, but for now, it's the best we have. Tesla board member Robin Denholm gave a new 15 minute interview to CNBC. Here are the highlights and we do have to read between the lines. If the pay package is not approved by shareholders, what do you think would happen? Yeah, well, obviously that's something the board has spent quite a bit of time deliberating. And when we were assessing all the different options after the January judgment came out. This is the best option ratifying the plan is the best option. Clearly, if it doesn't pass, then there are other alternatives, but none of them are as good from a shareholder position.
So, I think the perspective is actually ratifying the plan. There are some lawyers who have suggested, even if it is approved by shareholders again, that a court could strike it down and not accept this new ratification, if you will. Well, that is possible. But quite frankly, if you sit back, that's actually quite detrimental from a shareholder primacy perspective. And again, if this for some reason is not approved, or if a court were to try to prevent this from being approved, what would the next steps be? Is it possible that Elon Musk, by the way, could ultimately sue Tesla? Well, the good part about the legal system in the US is anybody can sue anybody. But by the same token, that's not something that he has talked to the board about or anything like that. It is possible. Is it probable? I don't know.
But from an option perspective, in terms of different alternatives, as I said, putting in a new compact package is an alternative. But none of those alternatives are actually as good as ratifying the plan for shareholders. Because as we talked about before, there'd be an increased cost, there'd be demotivation at the end of the day.
So when you read different questions about incentives, longer term, for Elon, which is, he's obviously enormously wealthy. How are you going to incentivize him in the future? I know we're really only six years into what is a ten year plan, and there's still five years of vesting that have to take place. And I'm not sure shareholders always appreciate that piece either.
So when we constructed the 2018 plan with outside help and also understanding the motivations, obviously big audacious goals are what drive Elon in terms of motivation. But we wanted to put this in for the long term. So it is a ten year plan. Even after he exercises the shares, he must hold them for another five years. And that hasn't even started yet. So he has not exercised one share under this, this program.
So we have a lot of runway under this existing plan, which is why we want it ratified. I think many people, including myself, were thinking, well, if Elon gets his 2018 comp plan back and settled in 2025, maybe they start talking about and announce a new pay package sometime in 2026. But from Robin's comments, it may not be until 2028 or later. This is not at all something I'm ready to predict, but for me, it was a slight shift in my expectations.
From a Tesla perspective, so we have built out a significant compute with GPU capability already. We have a second phase. We're actually building a new data center in Texas. As we speak, it won't come online until August. What do you tell him about speaking publicly about politics? Everyone is entitled to their own view. So from our perspective, we monitor. Do you monitor his tweets? Absolutely. How does that work? It's very interesting, actually. The range and breadth of tweeting that happens.
But definitely, if things that he talks about that are not associated with Tesla but are associated with politics or anything else. And we, as bored, aren't comfortable with the point of view or they've been misinterpreted or whatever, we'll lean into that conversation. Again, not in public because, quite frankly, that's not helpful to anybody.
Tesla has released a limited edition Mescal, Smoky and Flora with a smooth finish with a pretty slick looking black bottle. There are some differences between Mescal and Tequila, but typically, Mescal is a bit on the pricier side due to the limited production. Tesla's bottle is $450. For now, it's only available in select states. It'll be produced by Nesotros, Tequila and Mescal, and orders will begin shipping in three to six weeks.
As I said over on X, in a few years, I'll be ready to celebrate. Tesla's offering a new three-year APR of 1.99%, but this is for a limited time and only for the Model 3 and it excludes the performance variant. Cybertruck owners are getting a letter from Tesla telling them they're eligible to receive a $2,500 voucher to buy PowerShare home backup equipment.
If they don't want to use it for that, they can also use the voucher to buy items at the Tesla shop, but there are some stipulations. For the PowerShare install, it's only for owners who have a Tesla certified installer in their area. And for the voucher in the Tesla shop, the word is you're limited to one transaction. We don't cover X much on the channel, but there is no shortage of interesting developments happening at Elon's newest venture.
Content censorship is full of landmines, and given the current media landscape, no one is immune to being fed propaganda. And that's just part of why I'm such a big supporter of Ground News, the sponsor of this video. Ground News is how I get my breaking news because I can instantly discern any political bias.
For this story about YouTube censorship, 10 of the sources lean left and 4 lean right with the remainder in the center. One of my favorite things about Ground News though is it's not algorithm based, so there are no echo chambers. Every reader sees the same unbiased newsfeed. Many of you have reached out to me unprompted to tell me how much you've been enjoying the platform.
With the bias comparison feature within seconds, I can see what each side is emphasizing. Ground News gives you direct links to all of the sources, and they have these tags, so it'll tell you who owns each source, and it'll tell you the factuality, which helps me to avoid reading fluff pieces. I have a custom list for breaking Elon and Tesla news, but this year I found the most value in the election page.
This is where you can get the latest news on each candidate and check the blind spot feature to see what stories are being disproportionately reported by either side. You can head to ground.news.electrified linked below to get 40% off the vantage plan, which is what I use, or if it's easier, you can use the QR code right on the screen. In case you saw this post from Sawyer about Tesla's inventory discounts being back, he did correct himself, this was just a mistake. And checking the inventory confirms that there are currently no discounts. Greg on X shared a screenshot from Jeff Roberts drone flyover video showing some new eager equipment being delivered to Gigatexas. It's still just speculation at this point, but there is a good chance the new equipment is for the next gen vehicles. For warning, if you don't want your blood pressure to rise, just skip this chapter. Listen to what former Tesla board member Steve Wesley has to say. I assume you're still, and I might be wrong, a shareholder, but either way, I'm curious as to how you would vote on the compensation package. Yes or no? Well, I think I told him to vote. No. Look, Elon's done an extraordinary job. He's built one of the transformational companies in the age that asked him for a $55 billion pay increase, precisely the time when you've missed quarterly numbers, growth is slowing down, and you've laid off 15% of the workforce is, I'd say, cubers would say least. This is already factually incorrect from Steve. Elon is not asking for a pay raise. He's just asking to be paid.
The real story here is going to be that an awful lot of the world's pension funds, including CalPERS and CalSTRS, raised on the board. Highly likely to vote. No, I think that's what's likely to push a no vote. It's going to be pie-troll in the next week. I think everybody's going to be watching me first. So why, you know, why judge it now as opposed to think about, well, isn't he deserving of something that he was contractually due? Well, let me tell you exactly what. If you look at his performance over those years, it was spent. 2021 Tesla had 71% growth. 2022, 51% growth. These are software type numbers. That's why Tesla rocketed into the top 10 market cap companies of the world. And I think at that point, he probably deserved it. But if you look at what's happened with growth over the last few years, last year down to 19%, this year could well be in single digits. Profitability coming down. The facts on the ground have changed. And I think that's why you're likely to see shareholders coming back with a very different perspective.
The world is moving electric, but the world is increasingly and at a quicker pace moving to hybrid. The growth is not in high risk now or in the foreseeable future. If you're the fastest point segment in the EV market, it is still all in units. Look at BYD. The reason for that is the constant batteries continues to go down. I mean, how detached from reality can one be? There was no asterisk in Elon's 2018 comp plan that said after he hits those targets, if then things go south, well, then he's not going to get any money. There was a contract put in place, all of the targets were hit, and at that point the contract should be sealed...
Anything happening after that has nothing to do with this comp plan. And more minor, but Steve said currently growth is not in hybrids. Well, maybe he's not paying attention to the latest data because it actually is. And referencing BYD doesn't actually make his case the way he thinks it does because they're still selling 50% hybrids. But for a former Tesla board member to come out publicly with this take when he was at the company back in 2007 and watched Elon closely build it from what it was to what it is today, to me it's just crazy, but here we are.
China has granted approval for the first group of nine automakers to roll out level three automated driving. In the plan, drivers in the test vehicles are allowed to take their hands off the wheels with automakers and fleet operators taking responsibility for safety. The ministry said the trial would pave the way for further commercialization of more advanced automated driving. The only mention of Tesla in the article was reminding us that they're preparing to deliver FSD to China users within the year. I just wanted to say I would not take this news to mean this is bad news for Tesla because they were excluded, but Tesla's FSD is still technically level two, and this approval seems to be only for level three, the automakers ready to take that responsibility.
There have been a fair number of Tesla owners actually unsubscribing from FSD with the hopes that after they do that, then they'll be upgraded to the new spring software update since that's on a future branch. However, you may not need to roll the dice or wait any longer. Chuck Cook said 12.4.1 is going out to employees now is on build 2024.15.5. He said that's good news for catching up to the spring update, but it gets better as Sawyer said 12.4.1 includes the spring update. So maybe just another two weeks or so before a wide release of 12.4.1 which would include the spring update. With this one, if you're not familiar, Holmars has been known to be sarcastic at times so we can't always take him at his word, but he did say FSD has been achieved internally. If this were to be true, which is a major if just means that one of the future software updates Tesla is already testing, whether it's 12.5 or .6 or version 13, whatever it is, it would be looking so promising that the bleeding edge technology has it figured out, which is typically six to 12 months ahead of what the public is seeing.
Finally, I would add the major caveat that solving it internally is a very different thing than solving it publicly. In Tesla's API, you can also now see a rider quality score. For people that use a future Tesla ride-hill service, they can actually be given a rating. It also provides a username, email, and profile picture, which would pave the way for only accepting riders that meet certain criteria.
There are people out there complaining about how Tesla's handling the situation. Someone who just bought a Cybertruck separated from his wife, and he's now forced to live in an apartment with a parking garage that can't really accommodate the size of the Cybertruck. The word is, Tesla is refusing to let him return it or sell it. It would be great if Tesla could solve everyone's problems, but I think this is a simple case of opening the can of worms. If Tesla were to do something like this for one person, then that opens the door for them to have requests like this all the time. I understand I may be in the minority with that take, but I would be curious to hear what you guys think about this. Speaking of the Cybertruck, some accounts out there were saying that the first Cybertruck delivery in Europe took place, but that's just not accurate. First of all, I believe that technically Monaco is not an EU member state. But even if it was, Prince Albert II is just driving the Cybertruck for an event not actually taking delivery. The Cybertruck is just serving as an exhibit before it hits the road again for its European tour. So yes, the Cybertruck will be making its way around Europe, but no deliveries in Europe are not a thing.
Tesla's self-serve driving demo is now expanding to Canada. If you're not familiar, it's just a program where you can schedule a test drive only for a Model 3, Model S and X are currently not involved in the program. You do the whole process without the need for a Tesla employee. The first Canadian locations to offer the service will be in Quebec Monday through Friday 11 to 7.
Rivian has dropped the details for its refresh of its R1 line, the R1S and R1C. They're saying deliveries will begin immediately, but if you go on their website, it's actually saying between August and September for the refreshed version. There are actually hundreds of changes here, so we won't be going through all of them, but some of the major ones. These vehicles will now include a heat pump, and they will have a fully re-engineered suspension system.
As someone who's using FSD more and more, I'm always curious what the 8-ass on these new vehicles is like. These new Rivian vehicles will have 11 cameras, 5 radars, and 10 times more compute power than the previous system thanks to using Nvidia chips. There are new, more premium interior options for the 2025 models.
One of the most talked about is this electronically tinted glass roof that you can change with the touch of a button. They said the headlights have been redesigned to eventually include adaptive drive beam technology, which should be activated with a software update later this year. So now it's not just Tesla owners waiting for this, but Rivian owners as well. The new software UI does look pretty cool, almost like a video game, which makes sense because it's powered by Unreal Engine.
The new keyless entry option that can be added to your Apple wallet or some Google pixels. Sadly though, they're still using a CCS port, no NACs yet. Your range will obviously vary based on the trim level and wheels and all of that, but the new MAX range is 420 miles, which was up from 410 before. The highest end R1T now has 1,025 horsepower and does 0-60 seconds in under 2.5 seconds, and the Cyber Beast does it around 2.6 seconds.
These updates are really nice, but for Rivian it's still going to come down to when they can get close to making a profit because so far they're still not close. One thing not many people are talking about was that this refresh had a major goal of driving significant COGs reduction, so we'll wait to see what Q3 and Q4 look like. Part of that cost reduction will be driven with the battery packs, and now some of these vehicles on the entry level trims will use LFP packs.
And for the pricing, for the R1S, it'll start at $75.9,000, and for the R1T, it'll start at $69.9,000. I would love to see Rivian succeed and be thriving 5-10 years from now, but they're still losing $40,000 per vehicle sold, and anybody can make a great car. The question is, can you do it while making a profit before you run out of money or before you lose the ability to raise capital?
Overall, it's a great looking update. Things like the camera fidelity and quality has been improved significantly. There are new wheel and aesthetic options, the prior generation of radars have been replaced for new ones which are supposed to have better accuracy. They're now using a high pressure die casting system to improve the pack's structural integrity, and they're saying the autonomy platform will enable hands-free driving by the end of this year. The EV transition desperately needs more options, and I think these are very attractive vehicles.
As I said, let's see if Rivian can get their costs under control. We have GM with yet another EV-related delay. GM is now reassessing its timeline for production at its plant in Ontario, which is being converted to build electric drive units. They said we will continue with our long-standing strategy of building to demand for our propulsion technologies. Clearly, demand for their EVs is not where they had anticipated.
Adam Jonas and Morgan Stanley put out a new Tesla stock note, basically just using a lot of words to say that in the future, the data center electricity demand will be much higher than it is today. Their conclusion of how that's relevant for Tesla, they said Tesla's capability in distributed energy generation, solar and storage, power wall megapack, may hold some important cards in the evolution of the US grid as energy usage of compute and data grows. You know, not to be too harsh, but I'm thinking in my head, thanks for that one captain obvious.
Tesla stock closed the day at $177.94, up 1.68% while the NASDAQ was down 0.09%. It was another low volume day for Tesla trading about 15 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days, which has also been steadily on the decline.
We don't really cover SpaceX on the channel, there are many other channels that do it much better than I could, but all I have to say. Awesome stuff achieved by their team. What Elon said really gets to the core of one of the main reasons I started supporting Tesla over a decade ago, in the first place, he said nothing unites us more than working together towards inspiring objectives.
That right there is the focus we need back in the Tesla community. And don't forget the electrified newsletter is now live, it'll always be in the description below, or you can head to electrifiednews.com.
Don't forget check out ground news linked below, grab that 40% off the vantage plan if you're interested. 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. Thank you for watching.