Welcome to Electrified, it's your host Dylan Loomis. Quick shout out to my newest patron, Jose Deaf. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. With Tesla's quarter to numbers right around the corner, I think this is the chart that more people should be focusing on in contrast to what we talked about toward the end of last week, which I think was a bit misleading. This chart shows Tesla's registrations by year for 15 different European countries. The purple line is 2024 so far and this baby blue line was 2023. Through June of 2023, Tesla was at around 163.4 thousand registrations. We still have one more week for June 2024, but we're currently sitting at about 97.7 thousand. So let's just call it 60 thousand units less, so far through 2024, or down about 40%. That's partly why UBS just dropped their expectations for quarter to deliveries for Tesla to 420 thousand. As always, the Wall Street consensus is likely too high.
It currently sits around 445 thousand, but they typically update their models closer to the end of the quarter. As a reminder for quarter to of last year, Tesla delivered 466.1000. Thus, for quarter to of this year, Tesla is trending to be down materially year over year. All that to say, just be careful who you listen to online because there are a few uber bulls that do seem to be a bit detached from reality. Canada is now considering some tariffs for Chinese made EVs. The federal government announced a 30 day consultation period to examine Beijing's trade practices in the EV sector. Their finance minister said Canadian auto workers and the auto sector are facing unfair competition from China's intentional state-directed policy of overcapacity. That's undermining Canada's EV sector and its ability to compete.
I'm fully aware that cheap Chinese electric vehicles are a major threat, not just to domestic automakers in the US, but Canada and other locales as well. However, every time I see these leaders pointing the finger at China saying that what they're doing is unfair, I have to admit it rubs me the wrong way. It just feels like China has invested money in the right markets and the right companies and now they're experiencing some success and the rest of the world is saying hey wait a second, that's unfair. When the reality is, most European and United States automakers have just been dragging their feet on electric vehicles for the better part of a decade. In Canada, Chinese built vehicles currently face tariffs, but they could be looking at adding a surtax on top of the tariffs. This consultation period will also look at adjusting federal incentives. Right now, Canada is not that reliant on Chinese made EVs, but they are largely reliant on China for batteries and battery production.
I think some people are a bit over their skis talking about Uber's CEO selling roughly $70 million of Uber stock. I'm aware, back in May of this year, he sold an additional $33 million of Uber. But if you actually read the form for his most recent transaction, you will see this was made pursuant to a 10B51 plan created in February of this year. There are plenty of people on X saying that Dara is selling all of these Uber shares because of the Tesla RoboTaxi event in August. So look, is Dara concerned about what Tesla may unveil in August? To some degree, sure, but let's not forget Tesla and Uber have been working closely together now for a few years. Plus, Dara still owns about 1.2 million shares of Uber worth over $80 million plus some options in addition to that. But again, this selling is part of that 10B1 plan. And yes, that plan was put together before Elon mentioned the RoboTaxi event.
There's a big conversation happening across Australia right now when it has to do with the idea that nuclear and renewable energy mainly rooftop solar cannot really coexist together. The thrust of the problem, almost everyone involved in the Australian grid recognizes the system design is moving on from base load and always on power to variable renewables and dispatchable power, the latter being battery storage. The thing with nuclear is typically the upfront costs are pretty high, which means you actually want to run that plant as much as you can. But if these nuclear plants are forced to ramp their production up and down, essentially in tandem with what's being generated from renewable sources, that can lead to problems. There has been a nuclear reactor in Germany that actually showed damage that was caused directly from ramping production up and down. In other words, major changes in output would cause wear and tear on the plant. There are some newer promising technologies out there, but given the massive size of the rooftop solar market in Australia, this will certainly be a story to watch.
A cyber attack on software provider CDK Global, which provides software for thousands of dealers across the US and Canada, is still going on. This all started five days ago on June 19th, and now many of these dealers are being forced to rely on spreadsheets and pen and paper. CDK provides software to around 15,000 car dealer locations nationwide, and they're saying it's a ransomware attack, which typically means the hackers will threaten to release customer data unless they're paid a sum of money. It's not just affecting sales, but service as well, and the dealers are saying we're going to have to go back and reenter everything that we did through CDK, so it's eventually in the system. And one consumer who is notified about the situation, saying they'd have to do the deal pen and paper said if you guys are reporting everything by hand, God knows how long it's going to take.
CATL has provided a bit more information about their zero degradation tenor battery cells, which are for battery storage. Part of how they're pulling it off, they said it's a combination of pre-lithiation combined with reducing the consumption of lithium ions during battery cycles themselves. Pre-lithiation is a process that involves adding extra lithium to a battery during its manufacturing stage by pre-loading the battery with additional lithium. This process helps to mitigate those initial losses. There are different ways to do it. You can pre-lithiate an anode or a cathode, or you can add lithium-containing compounds to the electrolyte. One thing battery storage developers have to consider is the augmentation of these systems, which typically happens after three or five years, but they're saying these new cells can push that back to seven or eight years. Just so you know, the augmentation of these systems can be done in two ways. The first is DC shuffling, which prioritizes the internal distribution of energy within the battery stacks to ensure balance charging and discharging of individual cells and modules. Then the other method is AC augmentation, which primarily focuses on external interactions between energy storage systems and the grid, which is why if CATL really does have a zero degradation cell that would drastically alter these battery degradation management practices, which would make the projects more cost effective.
We also heard that Rolls-Royce via its power systems business is among the first system integrators to announce a partnership with CATL. Rolls-Royce and CATL have signed a long-term agreement for more than 10 gigawatt hours of storage capacity to deploy projects using tenor cells. It's planning projects in the EU and the UK. The reason these tenor cells are being applied to battery storage first is that the market demands more improvements around a long lifetime for the batteries compared to the EV market. They said these cell improvements could be applied to EV batteries, but it will be done in line with customer demand.
Last week, we talked about that former chancellor from Delaware that was criticizing Judge McCormick and one other. Well, here's the video of that happening with some additional context. Right now, the market, the corporate market is not feeling good about Delaware. It's not feeling good about Delaware because of the uncertainty and unpredictability of a few decisions by just two judges. And remember, that's not a court of two judges. That's a court of seven judges. But only two judges are telling you that there's some concern about this legislation affecting their decisions. As chancellor, I will tell you, I was taught judges need to stay in their own lane. Judges need to be judging cases in the courtroom, applying the law that you give them. Judges don't need to intrude upon the process of making all because if they do, they now have become really powerful. Do you think that both of these sitting members of the court are wrong and that you're right? I do. Thank you. I've served longer than both of them. Thank you.
Come on. I have no further questions for the witness. On X, Warren was talking about how the attorney suing Elon and Tesla claimed to be acting on behalf of Tesla stockholders. When in reality, we know that they're likely acting solely for their own benefit to collect a billion dollars in fees that will be taken from the stockholders. Elon quoted this saying exactly a class action lawsuit by definition should represent the class. Yet this one and many others do not serving simply to enrich law firms at the expense of the people they falsely claim to represent. The law should be changed to require at least 10% of the members of the supposed class to vote in favor of a class action suit. If they can't even muster 10%, it's obviously bogus. The fact that that's not a requirement already is interesting to say the least.
As you heard in the video, there's a lot of pressure on Judge McCormick right now as that former chancellor called her out saying that many corporations are not feeling positive about the Delaware courts. In that post, Elon shared from Warren, he said Delaware lawyers, accountants and related businesses and state government revenue will all suffer massively as corporations flee a state that has demonstrated it does not support founders, corporations, boards, execs or shareholders. Warren has also highlighted some hypocrisy in that professor Charles Elson who has criticized Tesla's board over Elon's compensation. himself happens to be on the board of a company that's been struggling to say the least. With Elson on the board of this company, he was partly responsible for the CEO getting paid above $10 million per year the past two years while struggling to stabilize this company. I did fact check all of this, it's a company called inhabit. In a letter to stockholders, they just said, neither our financial results nor our stock performance has satisfied your expectations. And it's true, the company's CEO has over $20 million in company stock and in addition makes over $2.4 million per year as the president. Finally, here's the confirmation that Charles Elson is indeed a director of inhabit home health. replying to Warren's post about Charles Elson, he said such a creep over the weekend.
正如你在视频中听到的,目前麦考密克法官面临很大压力,因为那位前大法官公开批评她,称许多公司对特拉华州法院不感到乐观。在那篇帖文中,埃隆分享了沃伦的观点,沃伦表示,由于特拉华州向公司展示了不支持创始人、公司、董事会、高管或股东的态度,特拉华州的律师、会计师及相关业务以及州政府的收入都将遭受巨大损失。沃伦还指出了一些虚伪之处,比如查尔斯·埃尔森教授,他以前就埃隆的薪酬问题批评特斯拉的董事会。然而事实上,埃尔森自己却恰好是另一家严重经营不善的公司的董事会成员。在埃尔森担任这家公司董事期间,他对公司CEO过去两年每年超过1000万美元的薪酬负有部分责任,而这家公司却在努力维稳。我确实核实了这些事实,这家公司叫Inhabit。在给股东的信中,他们说:“我们的财务结果和股票表现都未满足您的期望。”确实,这家公司的CEO拥有价值超过2000万美元的公司股票,同时每年还以总裁身份获得超过240万美元的报酬。最后,这里有确认信息,查尔斯·埃尔森确实是Inhabit Home Health的董事。回应沃伦关于查尔斯·埃尔森的帖子,他在周末表示,“这种人真是个混蛋。”
Warren really was putting his lawyer background to great use as he pointed out a lie from the plaintiffs in a recent paper from last week. The plaintiffs lawyers are arguing that Tesla said the opinion from Judge McCormick after the trial was a final judgment on the merits, rescinding the grant. Saying Tesla can only challenge that judgment at this juncture through appeal and thus the purported ratification cannot reinstate the grant. Has no effect on the court's judgment and is irrelevant to the July 8th fee hearing. But as Warren pointed out, Judge McCormick herself said the post trial opinion is not a final appealable judgment. That's because generally speaking, a post trial opinion is not final and appealable under Delaware law until the court resolves any related application for attorneys fees and expenses. Elon did respond to this post from Warren with an exclamation mark. I know that's all a bit noisy, nothing has really been decided at this point, but I think it's important to highlight some of the shenanigans that are taking place with this whole situation.
I want to provide a quick update on the different EV charging companies and the progress they're making with their rollouts, specifically in the United States. The Charge Point network has more than 1,800 stations with more than 3,000 plugs as of early June. Charge Point is the company behind the Mercedes charging network. When it comes to the Mercedes network with Charge Point, they have 13 sites with 43 ports as of early June. They have a site in Georgia and some others in Alabama, Florida and Texas. Mercedes plans to have more than 2,500 chargers in 400 locations by 2027. Charge Point still is not profitable, but last year EV drivers spent 180 million hours at their stations in North America, which was up 63% from 2022. As of early June, Electrify America has more than 900 charging stations with more than 4,000 ports. They plan to reach 5,000 ports by the end of this year, and they have chargers across 47 states. EA has already replaced more than 680 underperforming legacy chargers.
我想快速更新一下美国各个电动汽车充电公司的进展情况。Charge Point网络截至六月初拥有超过1800个充电站和3000多个充电插口。Charge Point是奔驰充电网络的幕后公司。关于奔驰与Charge Point的合作网络,截至六月初,他们有13个站点和43个充电口,分布在乔治亚州、阿拉巴马州、佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州。奔驰计划在2027年前在400个地点提供超过2500个充电器。Charge Point 目前还没有盈利,但去年电动车驾驶者在他们的北美充电站共花费了1.8亿小时,比2022年增加了63%。
截至六月初,Electrify America拥有超过900个充电站和4000多个充电口。他们计划在今年年底前达到5000个充电口,并且他们的充电站覆盖了47个州。EA已经更换了超过680个表现不佳的旧充电器。
EVGo has more than 3,000 plugs at more than 1,000 sites across 35 different states. They're also not yet profitable, but their charger utilization is up to 19% up from 6% two years ago. You may recall EVGo has that large partnership with GM for GM branded chargers at locations like Pilot and Flying J's. In that partnership, GM Energy plans to open up to 2,000 fast chargers at as many as 500 different locations, with 200 set to be online by the end of this year. And Rivian's Adventure Network has about 80 sites with more than 470 chargers so far. As we said last week, IANA is about to enter the mix as well, so it may be slow, but progress is being made. Michelin CEO just said that they've started talks about testing its up-tiss airless tire technology on Tesla vehicles. Before you get carried away, just know this technology has been out there for years.
Back in 2021, Tesla was actually testing it with the Model 3. That was a good year tire, but it was a similar airless technology. Michelin is also testing these tires on the Chevy Bolt, but so far it's just prototypes. These tires are supposed to be puncture proof, and they're saying they expect them to last about three times longer than conventional tires. Airless tires would of course be lighter and more aerodynamic, but they've said they may be limited to certain types of applications. It's good to hear Tesla is doing more testing, but this type of technology to date has had some trade-offs, so I'm not holding my breath on this one. Would a tire that can't pot be great? Absolutely, but some of the drawbacks are one, the price. Two, the contact surface is usually larger, so that leads to a greater rolling resistance, not good for EVs. And people have often said airless tires lead to a more bumpy and uncomfortable ride.
The New York regulator has signed off on a new roadmap to achieve 6 gigawatts of energy storage by 2030. It's true California already has over 10 gigawatts of battery storage connected to the Kaizo grid, but it's a start for New York. What's cool about this roadmap, it provides for 35% of overall program funding to go towards deployments that benefit disadvantaged communities and target reducing the use of fossil fuel power peaker plants. Our next energy, which was once a darling in the investment space when it comes to LFP battery cells and production in North America, they just announced a new partnership with FoxCon and it sounds like it's going to involve a cash infusion, taking an ownership stake in the company, but it's not an acquisition and it does not represent a change of control of the company.
It was FoxCon that got in a very messy legal battle with Lordstown Motors, but FoxCon is the world's largest contract manufacturer and they've announced they're now focused on EVs and battery storage. It was an hour next energy battery that powered a BMW to over 600 miles on a single charge. That was on the WLTP test cycle, so let's just call it something like 475 miles of EPA range. But as we've all learned, prototypes are easy and it's production and in this case, commercialization, that's much more difficult. The US is in desperate need of LFP battery cell production, so I'm rooting for this one to succeed. I'm just not sure if FoxCon will be the right answer.
Beijing, of course, wants the EU to scrap their plans to impose those preliminary tariffs on Chinese-made EVs. The two sides are still negotiating and those talks will continue this week. China has floated lowering its existing tariffs on large engine cars in return for the EU, scrapping those EV tariffs. Beijing currently imposes a 15% fee on passenger vehicles from the EU. Right now, the EU is set to make a final decision on those tariffs by November 2, but it sounds like they may negotiate something a bit sooner. James Downer answered a question many were asking, why release version 12.4 when 12.5 is in the pipeline? Wouldn't it make more sense to skip 12.4 and go straight to 12.5? Wouldn't that be faster and less effort?
The summary? No, 12.5 does not come faster if 12.4 is skipped. It probably comes slower and 12.6 gets slower too. He basically said the new features in version 12.4 actually have to go fleet-wide to be tested and validated, and he thinks there's really no substitute for that actual fleet testing. So in a sense, these periodic updates actually help get to the next version. But Elon has said in the past that 12.4.5 and .6 are basically entire rewrites. So from that statement, it would seem like if Tesla tries to smooth things out with 12.4 and it's not going well, they can just throw that away and jump to 12.5. Which in theory may be possible, but I think what James was saying was that with 12.4, then you actually lose out on the potential to validate and improve some specific new features.
So it's almost like Tesla wants to see what they have with version 12.4 and fully test it, and then any improvements they do make can effectively be a groundwork for 12.5 and further releases. On X, Elon said long-term return on Tesla will, I believe, be exceptional. In the actual post, he was replying to Baron Capital said when Tesla shares have underperformed during a discrete period, they have shortly afterwards reflected the strong growth of the underlying business and the stock has appreciated considerably. We believe that will be the case again.
The Cybertruck is continuing its international tour and it'll be in Thailand until September. California is offering new EV incentives up to $14,000. To participate though, you have to have an income of $93.6,000 or lower for a family of four. But if you qualify, you can get up to $7,500 and then in addition, if you scrap your vehicle, that number jumps to $12,000. Then in addition to that, they throw in a $2,000 charging card. South Korean battery manufacturers are gearing up to begin mass production of 46mm diameter cylindrical cells in the second half of this year. One of those companies is LG and they'll begin production of 4680s at its Ochang plant in August. Excluding Tesla, LG will be the first major global battery manufacturer to begin mass production. To anybody frustrated with Tesla's 4680 progress, don't forget that LG launched a pilot 4680 battery line back at the beginning of 2021.
This pilot was for 4680 production at that very plant in Ochang. So three years later, LG, a company that makes batteries for a living, is now just getting around to actually commercializing its 4680 production. And the truth is, we don't know if LG is doing DBE for the anode or the cathode. So I'll repeat, what Tesla is doing is incredibly difficult. The battery production line at the Ochang plant produces around 9 gigawatt hours per year. And as we've said, LG's 36 gigawatt hour capacity factory in Arizona should be operational by 2026. The industry is expecting LG to supply Tesla and some other companies with these 4680s. Samsung is also expected to begin mass production of cylindrical batteries with a 46 millimeter diameter within the year. Their currently negotiating product specs with several automakers.
Heinrich Zane gave us an update on the Tesla semi-factory saying in addition to grading, drainage and storm water management, all of the underground utilities have been run out to Milan Ave. This includes water, sewer, fiber optic, and underground drainage. So there is more progress than meets the eye, mostly underground. As Sawyer pointed out, on Tesla's Nax page, under coming soon, they have GM, Volvo, Polestar, and now they have Mercedes Benz also listed. Sawyer also highlighted that on Tesla's inventory page, there's a new toggle for tax credit eligible vehicles, meaning some Model 3 and Model Y's do qualify...
...and others don't. But now if a buyer opts in and qualifies for the incentive, they'll be matched with vehicles that are also eligible. So of course, doing it this way, any vehicle that's actually going to qualify will be paired up with a customer that also qualifies. It doesn't make sense for Tesla to give a vehicle that's eligible to a customer that doesn't qualify for the credit. So with this change, Tesla should certainly come out ahead. And Tesla has officially launched free FSD transfers for the sexy lineup until August 31st, this year, stackable with existing incentives. And you do not have to trade in the existing VIN with FSD. Time will tell, but it might be the last time Tesla makes this offer as Elon did said it adds unnecessary complexity to the sales process.
RJ Scoringe and Rivian gave a tour to Reuters on Friday and PR some takeaways. RJ said Rivian removed over 100 steps from the battery making process, 52 pieces of equipment from the body shop, and over 500 parts from the design. The result is a 35% reduction in cost of materials for vans and savings of similar magnitude for its other lines. The changes have pushed the rate of assembly on the manufacturing line up by 30%. Their VP of manufacturing said all of that together leads to us being able to get to our path of profitability and to be gross margin positive. Tesla stock closed the day at $182.58 down 0.23% while the NASDAQ was down 1.09%. It was a lower volume day for Tesla trading about 11 million shares below the average volume the past 30 days. Hope you guys have a wonderful day. Please like the video if you did. You can find me on X links below and a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.