Welcome to Electrified, it's your host, Dylan Loomis. So first up today, there was a battery show last week in Detroit, and the main takeaway, a lot of these companies throughout the supply chain are now changing their plans. A CTO at a battery startup said people thought batteries were easier than they are, so there was a lot of irrational exuberance over the last decade. The article goes on to talk about some of these companies working on moonshot battery ideas, things along the lines of next-gen battery tech. But now, given the realization that those projects are harder than they thought, paired with many OEMs slowing down with EV plans, suppliers are now prioritizing low-cost materials and efficient manufacturing. Why that wasn't the focus initially is beyond me. The head of EVs at Boston Consulting Group said we have all the innovation we need to do the normal stuff. We'll get to the next-gen stuff down the road. It's not dead, but it has been deprioritized. The article then went on to talk about some different partnerships in the battery supply chain space, but the main point many companies are realizing they can't do everything in-house. And I think you know where I'm about to go with this, this article really just highlights the magnitude and difficulty of what Tesla has pulled off with its in-house 4,680 program. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for next-gen battery breakthroughs, but right now we just need low-cost manufacturing at scale. This article is a good sign for that to come.
AutoNews put out this article saying there's a big problem with Tesla's CyberCab and that's US rules will not allow it. They said automakers must secure permission from NHTSA before putting cars on the road that don't have a steering wheel or other controls required by US auto safety rules. And even if Tesla was able to overcome that hurdle, it could only put a few thousand robotaxes on the road in a given year. NHTSA has long permitted manufacturers to deploy 2,500 vehicles per year under a granted exemption. NHTSA has long permitted manufacturers to deploy 2,500 vehicles per year under a granted exemption. You may remember back in 2022, Cruise actually applied for this exemption for its origin project, but two years later, and NHTSA still didn't respond, and given all of the problems Cruise had, they withdrew that application. NHTSA confirmed yesterday Tesla has not yet requested an exemption for the CyberCab. So that's more at the national level, and then we have Missy Cummings, who said I think the bigger question are the state permits. She said until Tesla provides the state with testing data, they are years away from obtaining the necessary permits in California. We all know Missy's adversarial role in tone toward Tesla over the years, so keep that context in mind, but that's what she's still saying.
To date, NHTSA has only granted one such exemption for a company NURO back in 2020 for their driverless electric delivery vehicle. About one year later, after that exemption, NURO announced to deal with Domino's for pizza delivery. The past few years, the company was very quiet, but earlier this year, we did learn that they're actually looking to license their autonomous suite to mobility providers and auto manufacturers. And credit where it's due, over the past few years, this R2 vehicle has a perfect safety record with zero at fault accidents. They said their expanded autonomy capabilities include both surface streets and highways. They're now aiming to use this technology for level 4 consumer vehicles. But last year, NHTSA announced a proposal that would be an alternative to just that one exemption for vehicles without wheels and pedals, etc. It was called AV-Step for safety transparency and evaluation program. It was meant to eliminate caps on the maximum allowable number of vehicles using various forms of advanced driving systems up to and including full self-driving, where the control of a human in the driver's seat is unnecessary. But in return, NHTSA wants the company's deploying these vehicles to share data regarding operations. It is true that currently, the maximum number of driverless vehicles allowed on the roadways of the US is 2,500. But with this new program, that number was expected to jump significantly.
This new program, however, still hasn't defined the number of vehicles that will be allowed on the road. However, this AV-Step program still has not defined the new vehicle cap. And just so you know, the exemption that these automakers have to request through NHTSA for these vehicles without wheels and pedals, is an exemption from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, FMVSS. NHTSA was supposed to publish its plans for AV-Step in November of last year, but by the end of last year, they still hadn't done it. And I couldn't find anything that shows they published it yet this year. Something we also have to keep in mind when Tesla does get around to actually requesting these exemptions, there's likely going to be plenty of public pushback. We had Teamsters, one of the biggest unions in America, actually calling for GM not to get the exemption for its origin project. Now granted, crews did have some public safety problems, but the Teamsters' President said we already have too many examples of the chaos these vehicles cause in our communities. The AV-Step program is still largely a mystery, but we do know that under this umbrella, NHTSA would allow companies to apply. To deploy non-compliant vehicles equipped with automated driving systems like those lacking mirrors, sun visors, windshield wipers, and other equipment needed for human drivers.
For years now, at the federal level, lawmakers have been considering legislation to establish a nationwide regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles. However, more than 20 safety groups have urged lawmakers not to advance legislation that will turn our nation's public roadways into private testing grounds and turn the public against this technology. Back at the state level, in April of this year, Kentucky became the 25th state to have an AV deployment statute. A milestone that effectively means half of the US states now welcome autonomous vehicles. These state statutes provide a policy roadmap for autonomous trucks, robotaxes, zero occupancy delivery vehicles, and autonomous shuttles. The most recent news I could find about this AV-Step program was from real clear policy and they were saying May of this year, NHTSA should move forward with its AV-Step program.
It's worth noting the only exemption that's been granted for NURO was for a low speed autonomous vehicle, which of course would be different for the cybercab. Would it be nice to see Tesla already have submitted for this exemption? Absolutely, but they obviously know a lot more about where the policy stands than you or I based on public info. And who knows, maybe Tesla is just waiting for after the election to see how the dust settles because that definitely may change some of these policies around autonomous vehicles. Personally, I still don't think Tesla will face any delays launching unsupervised FSD at least in a few select cities where they already have statutes in place. But to have a true, generalized solution for autonomy, meaning across all 50 states, Tesla definitely has some work ahead beyond just getting the technology to work. Karan Driver put out a very positive review of the new Model 3 saying a 3 decibel reduction at 70 mph is unheard of for a facelifted vehicle. And this is the first Model 3 to go more than 300 miles in our highway range test.
While the 2024 updates to the Model 3 lineup may look like a typical facelift, there's nothing typical about how much quieter the highland Model 3 is over the road. Their test of the decibel levels in the new Model 3 was 67, 3 lower than their 2019 Model 3 test. And remember, the decibel scale is logarithmic so a change of 3 is actually a major deal. Tesla credits that improvement to the acoustic laminated or double-paying glass all around the vehicle before only the windshield and the front side glass were laminated. Plus, they reshaped the hood to help the airflow over the vehicle and not hit the windshield. And they cited the new tires and the lower rolling resistance. It's good to see Tesla get some of the credit it deserves for this refresh because plenty of people still think the Model 3 hasn't changed at all for years.
虽然 2024 款 Model 3 车型的更新看起来像是一次普通的改款,但在行驶中的高地版 Model 3 的安静程度却非同一般。新款 Model 3 的分贝测试结果为 67,比 2019 款 Model 3 低了 3 分贝。要知道,分贝等级是对数制,因此变化 3 个单位实际上是一个重大差异。特斯拉将这种改进归功于全车窗都使用了声学夹层玻璃或双层玻璃,而之前只有挡风玻璃和前侧窗使用了夹层玻璃。此外,他们重新设计了车前盖,以帮助气流更顺畅地流过车辆而不是撞击挡风玻璃。他们还提到了新轮胎和更低的滚动阻力。看到特斯拉因为这次更新而获得应有的认可是件好事,因为很多人仍然认为 Model 3 多年来没有任何变化。
Back in March 2018, Elon shared this video of a people mover going underground that would travel through tunnels. So all of that speculation out there that the robo van could be the perfect vehicle for the boring company is certainly not unfounded. At the time, he said all tunnels will prioritize pedestrians and cyclists over cars. We'll still transport cars, but only after all personalized mass transit needs are met. The Cybertruck account gave an update on PowerShare saying enabling PowerShare for your Cybertruck may take up to a week. I know some customers out there are rolling their eyes because they've been waiting months for their PowerShare to actually work. They said if you have solar, PowerShare will be enabled by the end of the year. Also, if you have a backup switch installed, you should be up and running by the end of the year. And for Powerwall owners, PowerShare will be enabled in 2025. If you need more detailed information about PowerShare, I'll have this Tesla blog post below. But for now, if you don't have a Powerwall, you do need a universal wall connector and a PowerShare gateway. It's the gateway that actually controls the connection to the grid and detects the outages. But again, if you have a Powerwall, you do not need any additional equipment.
Functionality for which should arrive later this year, and they said all Powerwall models will be compatible with PowerShare backup in the future. We get our next Tesla earnings day next week on Wednesday the 23rd, and Barclays is sounding quite optimistic. They said given our expectation of a 3rd quarter beat and reminder of stabilized near-term estimates, we believe 3rd quarter results could be a positive near-term catalyst. We expect Tesla to post upside driven by margin improvement, OPEX reductions, and potentially also from solid regulatory credit revenue. More broadly, after a run of sharply negative revisions to earnings estimates, Tesla estimates have largely stabilized. And they also noted that margins have troughed and are set to improve. Despite intense pushback from many automakers and industry players, Brussels is sticking to its plans for curves on combustion engines in the EU in 2035. The industry body A.C.E.A. has also warned the sector could face millions of euros and fines when stricter rules come into force next year aimed at cutting overall emissions from cars in Europe by 15 percent compared to a 2021 baseline. Italy's industry minister has warned that this ban in 2035 is a crisis for European car manufacturing. Then Austria's climate minister said the future of the automotive industry is electric. Europe cannot afford to fall behind on this technology the way it had in smartphones despite it having an early mobile phone champion in Finland's Nokia. I think that's a fitting story right after what Barclay said about feeling optimistic about Tesla's regulatory credit revenue, not just for this quarter but the quarters ahead. Nissan just put out a new press release about its Nissan Energy Charge Network and the My Nissan app. In that press release they said later this year, Nissan will make available to Aria drivers, a NACS adapter, which will allow Aria drivers to conveniently charge at Tesla supercharger locations. In 2025 Nissan will begin offering EVs for the US and Canadian markets with a NACS port. Of note though in the press release they said this functionality is not currently available to Nissan Leaf owners. And the only EVs Nissan has in the US right now are the Leaf and the Aria.
Milan Kowatz, an engineer for Optimus, shared a post on X. We had about 20 active bots at all times walking through the crowd, dancing, taking selfies, pouring drinks. While of course they were human assisted to some extent to help showcase our vision of an amazing future, they walked, balanced and danced on their own for around 4 hours straight with only one single fall someone's handbag caught a bot's hand. Making nice demo videos is not easy but ensuring a safe live operation of many humanoids for hours in a public outdoor environment imposed a much higher bar. Through this push we made significant improvement across full body controls and locomotion, hardware stability and infrastructure. And most excitingly further progress towards bot autonomy has also been made in the background which we'll share very soon. Don't forget around 3 years ago Optimus was a random person in a body suit.
Also reflecting on the event, Ashok said we had 19 cybercabs and 29 model-wise driving themselves, 1300 trips transporting over 2000 guests, continuous operation over 3.5 hours and every trip was perfectly safe. The best part was that almost all of the autonomy demonstrated was using close to the production AI software or we'll ship soon in version 13. It took an immense amount of effort from a very talented team to pull this off, the event was super motivating for the team and we're looking forward to bringing this to the real world as soon as possible. And as Sawyer pointed out Ashok has been promoted at Tesla to the vice president of AI software, job description, anything and everything required to get self-driving four-wheeled robots widely. For the past 5 and a half years Ashok has been the director of autopilot software.
According to some on-chain metrics Tesla has transferred almost all of its bitcoin around $760 million worth to unknown wallets. Tesla first bought around $1.5 billion of bitcoin back in 2021 but then sold some throughout 2021 and 2022. And according to bitcointreasuries.net, Tesla is actually the fourth largest company to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet. It's still not clear exactly what Tesla's doing with the bitcoin though because the reporting is saying none of the funds were linked to crypto exchanges meaning it's not a guarantee that Tesla is selling it right now. And we likely won't find out next week at earnings either because this transaction wouldn't need to be reported until quarter four financials.
Tesla charging on X shared that they have installed the first two superchargers in Chile. One of these chargers is in Santiago where Tesla already has two stores and is working on a service center. This really does mark the beginning of Tesla's entry into South America so quite an exciting milestone. And don't forget they're saying battery storage will play an important role in reducing curtailment issues in Chile. Estimates for the full year 2024 taking into account numbers from last year suggest Chile could end up with 4.5 terawatt hours of curtailed renewable energy by the end of this year. If you're not familiar, curtailment basically just means it's wasted. In response, the government is putting together some policies for battery storage and earlier this year they opened a public land bidding auction for land capable of housing 13 gigawatt hours of battery storage projects.
GM is aiming to move to a fully virtual design development and validation system for vehicles by next year. They said program timings are speeding up and it needs to move faster with development. I wonder what company caused that realization. They said GM will not make hardware and vehicles available for development and testing once it moves to a full virtual process. A GM engineer said we have to keep pace with the rest of the industry. Hardware tests are always limited in scope. You go to prototype vehicles, you go out and you test them, one fails and the other doesn't, what do you do? Do you react to it? Do you not react to it? What caused the one to fail and not the other? It's a great plan in theory but as always it'll boil down to their execution.
Chris from Dirty Tesla said FSD12.5.6 is insanely good. I've been happy with the last few version 12s but whoa, wow, whoa, 12.5.6 needs to be sent wide immediately. This version on the hardware 4 Model Y is clearly better than 12.5.5 on the cyber truck. It's not even close. He was asked if he would ride in a vehicle unsupervised. Legally if I could, yes, after what I experienced the last few drives. The safety and smoothness is just becoming off the charts. As always though, different people in different regions can have very different experiences. Holmars said seeing some hard-breaking events needs another point release but overall, very good.
Something is going on for Tesla in Thailand. They posted this teaser on X with a date of October 18th and 717. Maybe something to do with a 7-seat Model Y but we'll find out in two days. Just to heads up, that Rove EV charging station we talked about recently is now officially open in Santa Ana, California. They're also planning to open 10 more sites like this one in Southern California by the end of 2026. As expected, the canopy for the Model Y is now available in the United States for $150. The say website is now live for Tesla's Quarter 3 earnings so if you want to submit a question or vote for others, you can do so now.
The most voted question is Tesla still on track to deliver the more affordable model next year. Second, what is Tesla doing to alleviate long waiting times on service centers? What's going on with a Tesla Roadster and when will Tesla incorporate X and Grok in all of the Tesla vehicles? A question I'll be voting for when will Tesla Insurance be available in Florida or how about an update at all on Tesla Insurance anywhere? Lucid announced today they're doing a cap raise of common stock in all they said for the use for general corporate purposes which may include CapEx and working capital.
It's a public offering of over 262.4 million shares of its common stock. Additionally, the Saudi public investment fund has said they intend to purchase 374.7 million shares of common stock from Lucid in a private placement concurrently with the public offering. Just rough math if you take all of those shares about 636 million times $3.25 per share, that's roughly $2 billion for Lucid. We don't know the actual terms of the deal or the share price so that's just a very rough estimate.
Tesla stock closed the day at $221.33 up 0.8% while the NASDAQ was up 0.28%. It was a low volume day for Tesla trading about 31 million shares below the average the past 30 days. So far, after hours, Lucid is down 11.9%. 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.