Welcome to Electrified, it's your host, Dylan Loomis, quick shout out to my newest patron, Chevy T. Thank you for choosing to support the channel. From Friday, I also wanted to follow up on my comments about this car wow review. Now for some reason, I thought that there was a separate YouTube channel for car wow UK. But as it turns out, the launch edition Model Y in the UK is not as good of a deal as it is in the US. No FSD, the colors are limited. You can only get the black interior and the list goes on. So given Matt's comments about the pricing, it does make a lot more sense and it's more accurate given that he was really only referring to the UK market so apologies for that.
Here we have what I believe to be a very important FSD 13 clip. Reminder 1 always remain vigilant no matter how good the software gets for as long as it still supervised. Second, if you've been following along with the channel, you may remember there was a user submission a few months back where they were driving straight down a highway of sorts and there was a big truck turning left and the back half of the truck was jutting out into the lane. And in a very similar situation, the driver had to disengage. And we should all remember that what shows up on the visualization really is not necessarily what the car is making decisions based on. Reasing the video here right before he disengaged, you can see it does show a semi backing up. But up to this point, which is maybe 3 or so car lengths, the car showed no intentions of slowing down. And yes, would it have been nice to see another second in this video clip to see if FSD would have eventually stopped? Yes, but always safety first and even if that was the scenario, what if there was a car behind Devon. Being any good driver would actually start slowing down way back here at the beginning of the video because you can see the truck bed and a line of cars that stopped. But FSD continues all the way until this point when Devon actually disengages. I know plenty of people like to argue that unsupervised FSD is already solved, but with clips like that and many others that I've seen, I would not go that far.
One more exciting FSD note, Chris Zhang said he received a 55 second FSD video and despite the blurring out of certain details, one remained and confirmed the video was filmed in China. So if this is true, it would be proof that Tesla is conducting public road testing and validation of FSD in China, which should not really be a surprise as there's no official green light for FSD approval, but the Chinese government has said that they'll partially support Tesla's trial of FSD in some cities. And Tesla has said its goal is to launch FSD in China in quarter one this year pending regulations. And of course, before they launch, they need to do extensive testing on those roads. The one major question we're still waiting for, will Tesla need a separate dedicated supercomputer built in China so that they keep all of the data in China. The last update we got about this was that Tesla was developing plans for a data center in China to train the algorithm needed for more autonomous vehicles. And to be very clear, this would be a new separate data center because Tesla already opened a data center in China back in 2021 for regular information collected from customers that buy Tesla vehicles. Plus, the CNEV Post recently reported that Tesla's timetable for launching FSD in China is likely to be delayed again. So Tesla's aiming for Q1, but sources have said it may not be that soon. The rollout progress is not expected to mirror the speed as the company itself planned. And as far as I can tell, we still haven't heard anything from the Chinese government about how they plan to handle Tesla's FSD data in China. So is FSD incredible 99% of the time? Absolutely, but as we've been saying, we're still on the March of the 9th. And sure, there's plenty of reason for optimism with FSD specifically in the US for this year, but when it comes to the global rollout, I think we all should temper our expectations a bit. No worries, we're not going to dive too far into the politics of this one, but I think knowing where the new anti-elon sentiment is coming from can be of some value.
First note, in a speech over the weekend given to about 4,500 people ahead of German elections set to take place February 23rd, Elon did say that the AFD party is really the best hope for Germany. Already in response to that and some other comments, a Polish minister is now calling for a Tesla boycott. He said there's no justification for any reasonable poll to continue buying Teslas. A serious and strong response is necessary, including a consumer boycott. For what it's worth, Tesla's sales in Poland in 2024 were under 7,500 for the year. Last bit on this topic, Bill Gates has now come out and been public about Elon's support for the AFD party and he literally said it's insane stuff. Gates said that Elon was guilty of overreach. It's really insane that he can destabilize the political situations in countries. I think in the US, foreigners aren't allowed to give money. Other countries should maybe adopt safeguards to make sure super rich foreigners aren't distorting their elections.
But listen to this, it's difficult to understand why someone who has a car factory in China and in Germany, whose rocket business is ultra dependent on relationships with sovereign nations and who is busy cutting $2 trillion in US government expenses and running 5 companies is obsessing about this grooming story in the UK. I'm like, what? Listen, the reason I'm sharing this is because I have strong feelings about this. The reason Elon's getting involved in German politics is because he has a huge hand in the German economy. Yes, Tesla only has one factory there, but we talk about the Tesla ripple effect all of the time and the German car industry is struggling largely thanks to the transition to EVs. There are obviously other factors too, but German politics definitely have an influence on Elon's business, so why wouldn't he be allowed to get involved in their politics?
And with this last statement, I had to like triple check that it was real because I mean God forbid that Elon would try to expose the horrific things that have been taking place in the UK when it comes to this grooming story. So Bill, why is Elon getting involved with that UK grooming story? Well, because apparently for decades, no one else has been willing to step up and say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. And look, apologies, I know we're slightly off topic here, but there are some things that are more important than Tesla stock. And I'm highlighting this because it won't be the last time we hear about Gates talking about Elon. And for what it's worth in my book Bill Gates is not somebody that can be trusted. And the fact that he basically just got mad at Elon for uncovering what's going on in the UK is actually the insane stuff.
So motion put out a new report saying that in 2024, 205 gigawatt hours of battery storage were installed around the world. That number was up 53% year over year. And part of the reason I like to say projects over one gigawatt hour are considered a big is this stat right here. In 2024, 17 gigascale projects were deployed compared to only four in 2023. These are set to become more common with 140 projects over one gigawatt hour planned for this year and next year, of which 30 projects are over two gigawatt hours. So it's not just the US market or a few European markets or the Chinese market, but the entire world is growing at a pretty rapid clip for battery storage. And when it comes to Tesla's earnings tomorrow, this is probably the thing I'm personally most looking forward to Tesla's energy deployment and the profits.
Quarter to quarter, the deployment number is definitely going to fluctuate up and down given the connection to the grid and how long that can take. But in quarter to Tesla deployed at 9.4 gigawatt hours and in quarter three that went down to 6.9 gigawatt hours. So it's possible we see another spike up in quarter four and just don't forget in quarter three, Tesla did have a good report for auto gross margins X credits at 17.1%. However, on the call, they did warn that sustaining that for quarter four would likely be quite difficult. Tesla's energy gross margin was 30.5% in quarter three. So we'll see if they can sustain over 30% for two quarters in a row. Lastly, in a bull case scenario, if everything comes together and goes well, there's a chance that Q4 was the first time Tesla energy generated over $1 billion in profit in a quarter. To be clear, that's not a prediction, that's not analysis, that's not anything actionable, I'm just saying it's on the table.
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Adam Jonas from Morgan Stanley said that while deep-seeking chat GPT live in the space of chatbots and VAs, it's embodied AI or physical objects harnessing AI to power functionality that could be of the most consequence in the AI race. More than any other factor, the growing investor interest in embodied AI has been driven by recent advancements in Gen AI and super computing. EVs are the sockets for the forthcoming physical embodied AI.
In our opinion, if the US wants to be a leader in autonomy, it must ultimately embrace electric mobility. This could enhance the market's appreciation for what Tesla brings to the table beyond the EV market. This company self did a study trying to find the least expensive vehicles to run every year, not just focusing on the upfront cost, which we've said is what more consumers should do, move away from the sticker price and think about the total cost of ownership.
Based on their research, the Tesla Model 3 was the number one least expensive car to run per year at $5,061 per year. I'll be honest, I do think a lot of these cost studies are flawed in that these numbers are going to vary by geography and many other factors. But for what it's worth, the breakdown for the Model 3 was $636 for annual fuel, $1,100 for maintenance, $2,200 for insurance, $1,000 for fees and taxes, for the total of just over $5,000 for the year.
But we've had our Model Y now for coming up on one year and our total cost of maintenance has really been $0. But in case you need something to share with your network, I'll have this link below. An interesting tidbit, Sawyer has said that the Tesla logo on the new Model Y will only be for the Chinese market when it comes to the logo on the front hood. It sounds like in all other markets there will be no logo on the front of the new Model Y.
In case you missed it, we did get an exciting update about Tesla's semi-factory over the weekend from Heinrich Zane. The other big thing that you should know, one of the key events for today, which is really a watershed event, the exterior of this building is complete. The last remaining portions in the far back right, which is the southeast corner of the building, has now been completed. As of our last flight last Sunday, there was still quite a bit to be done. The wall is complete. Starting in three days, January 31st, the Lucid Gravity will be shipping with an export native.
However, when it comes to the Lucid Air, there's still no word for when that vehicle will come with an export native. But with an adapter in quarter to this year, the Lucid Air will also have access to the Supercharger network. Lucid has said the gravity can charge at speeds up to 400 kilowatts on DC fast chargers with a 1000 volt architecture like Tesla's V4 locations. They're also claiming sustained speeds of 250 kilowatts on 500 volt chargers like Tesla's V3 locations.
But as we should all know by now, it's all about the charging curve, so we'll see what happens when these vehicles are out in the wild. And we get videos of real world testing. Honda is planning a new EV for North America under $30,000 as soon as early 2026. This is supposed to be part of their Honda Zero Series lineup and it's supposed to come after the SUV and the sedan, both of which are expected to be between $50,000 and $60,000.
正如我们现在都应该知道的那样,一切都取决于充电曲线。因此,当这些车辆在实际环境中使用并有真实测试视频时,我们会看到具体表现如何。 本田计划在2026年初为北美市场推出一款售价低于3万美元的新电动车。这款车被认为是他们Honda Zero Series系列的一部分,并且预计会在SUV和轿车之后推出,而这些车型的售价预计在5万到6万美元之间。
The Zero Series is expected to go into production in Ohio in late 2025 and the battery production is expected to be in North America as well. We should tip the cap to Stardust Power, an American developer of battery grade lithium here in America. Why? Because they broke ground on their lithium refinery in Oklahoma. The project will be developed in two phases with the first phase focused on constructing a production line capable of producing up to 25,000 metric tons per year. The second phase will add a second production line, bringing the total capacity to 50,000 metric tons per year. 25,000 metric tons is about 25 million kilograms and if you assume there's about 8 kilograms of lithium in each EV battery, that would be enough for just about 3.1 million EV per year at that 25,000 metric tons level. This refinery is about a $1 billion investment which is a similar level compared to Tesla's refinery in Texas.
The only thing we've heard from Tesla is that the refinery in Texas may produce up to 50 gigawatt hours of material per year. Which is 50 million kilowatt hours and if you divide that by an average battery pack of about 60 kilowatt hours, that's enough for about 833,000 vehicles per year. Those numbers are both just some back of the napkin math and both sites will take years to ramp up to those numbers. But of course, what's crucial here is that more lithium is set to be refined in America, slowly decoupling us from the rest of the world. GM called out that they achieved positive variable profit on their EV portfolio in quarter 4. Remember though, variable profit is not the same thing as regular profit because variable only considers variable expenses. Meaning in this metric, all of the fixed expenses are not yet included.
Further, if you read the fine print, you'll see EV variable profit includes vehicle variable profit, emissions credits, and advanced manufacturing tax credits. Translation, GM still has a long way to go to achieve actual profitability without subsidies on its EV business. But credit where it's due, this is a step in the right direction. Tesla is sending out correspondence to some customers in Washington asking them to send a message to their representatives in response to Senate bill 5377. Tesla said the bill attempts to force Tesla to close our numerous sales centers across the state and could impact in-state service offerings. As a result, Washington residents could need to travel out of state to complete their new Tesla EV purchase. There could also be impacts to Tesla's warranty and other service activities in Washington.
Washington should focus on increasing revenue in jobs in the state, not stifling competition and limiting consumer choice. Plenty of people out there are asking why is this happening and well, here is your answer. The primary sponsors of this Senate bill are Rebecca Saldana and Mike Chapman. And who would have thought but this Mike Chapman has emphasized the importance of the dealership model many times in the past. He has said the dealership model has benefited dealers, consumers and communities alike for generations, particularly in rural Washington. He said auto dealers play a large role in every community through charitable work, sponsorship of community events and most important the creation of family wage jobs.
And finally he said direct sales give one company an unfair advantage and provide a little to no accountability for the car buying public. So why is this happening? Well because this Mike Chapman is clearly in the pocket of the dealership associations in Washington. I have to say, time after time, these people cloaking this anti-competitive garbage in the guise of doing good for the consumer makes me ill. Tesla stock closed the day at $398.09 up 0.24% while the NASDAQ was up 2.03%. It was another very low volume day for Tesla trading about 40% below the average volume.
So for the past week, really all eyes watching Tesla will be on their earnings tomorrow. No video from me, enjoy the day, you'll see me again on Thursday. Don't forget if you're interested check out AG1 links below and I'll send you off with a new video from Tesla. 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.