Episode 534: Tesla Q3 Earnings Call Highlights and Analysis
Ride the Lightning: Tesla and EV Podcast
Episode 534: Tesla Q3 Earnings Call Highlights and Analysis
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Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is a fancy electric car that can go really far on a single charge. It's known for being fast and having cool tech features, making it a popular choice for people who want an eco-friendly car that feels luxurious.
Car
Tesla Model Y
The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV that is larger than the Model 3, providing more room for passengers and cargo. It's designed for families and those who need more space in their vehicle.
Car
Tesla Model 3
Term
leasing prices
Leasing prices are the monthly payments you make when you rent a car instead of buying it. You pay for using the car for a certain period, and at the end, you return it instead of owning it.
Term
MSRP
MSRP is the price that the car maker suggests for their vehicle. It's not always the final price you pay, as there can be extra costs.
Concept
left hand drive
Left hand drive means that the steering wheel is on the left side of the car, which is how most cars are made for countries where people drive on the right side of the road.
Term
full electric
A 'full electric' car runs only on electricity and doesn't use gas or diesel. This means it doesn't pollute the air like regular cars do.
Car
Renault Clio
The Renault Clio is a small car that's very popular in Europe. It's known for being stylish and efficient, but it's not sold in the U.S.
Car
Dacia Sandero
Car
Volkswagen T-Roc
The Volkswagen T-Roc is a compact SUV that's popular in Europe. It's designed to be sporty and practical, but you can't buy it in the United States.
Term
autonomy
Autonomy means that a car can drive itself without needing a person to control it. Tesla cars are built to eventually be able to drive on their own using special technology.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new electric truck that looks very different from regular trucks because of its sharp, futuristic shape. It's designed to be tough and useful, making it a great option for people who need a truck but want to go electric.
Car
Chevrolet Silverado EV
The Chevy Silverado EV is an electric version of the Silverado truck, which is well-known for its power and capability. This electric model aims to provide those same benefits but with an electric engine.
Car
Gmc Sierra
The GMC Sierra EV is an electric version of a well-known pickup truck that people use for work and play. It aims to give you the same power and features as regular trucks but without using gas, making it better for the environment.
Term
supercharger
Superchargers are special charging stations for Tesla cars that let you charge the car's battery much faster than regular chargers. This helps you drive longer distances without waiting too long to recharge.
Term
active safety features
Active safety features are technologies in cars that help keep you safe while driving. They can warn you of dangers or even help stop the car if there's an emergency.
Term
FSD
FSD means Full Self-Driving, which is Tesla's technology that helps cars drive themselves with minimal human input.
Term
powertrain
The powertrain is the part of a car that makes it move. In electric cars, it includes the electric motor and the battery that provide the energy to drive the wheels.
Term
battery pack
A battery pack is a group of batteries that store energy for electric cars. It helps the car run and determines how far it can go on a single charge.
Car
Tesla Semi
The Tesla Semi is a big electric truck made for transporting goods, like a delivery truck but without using gas. It's designed to save money on fuel and help the environment by reducing pollution.
Concept
first generation product
A first generation product is the very first version of something that a company sells. It's like the first model of a car before they make newer versions with improvements.
Concept
volume production
Volume production means making a lot of cars at once. Companies do this to sell more cars and save money on making each one.
Car
Tesla Model X
The Tesla Model X is a fancy electric SUV that has unique doors that open upwards. It's roomy inside and packed with cool technology, making it a great option for families who want an eco-friendly vehicle.
Term
EV
EV means electric vehicle. It's a car that runs on electricity instead of gas, which is better for the environment.
Car
Rivian R1S
The Rivian R1S is an electric SUV that can handle tough terrains and is great for people who love outdoor activities. It has a lot of space inside for passengers and gear, making it a good choice for family trips or adventures.
Term
roadside assistance
Roadside assistance is help you can call for if your car breaks down. They can tow your car, change a flat tire, or jump-start your battery.
Term
AI
AI stands for artificial intelligence, which is technology that allows computers to think and learn like humans. In cars, it helps with things like self-driving features and smart systems.
Part
winter tire and wheel package
A winter tire and wheel package is a set of tires and wheels made for driving in snow and cold weather. They help your car grip the road better when it's icy or snowy.
Term
summer tires
Summer tires are special tires made for warm weather. They help your car drive better when it's hot, but they're not safe to use in snow or ice.
Company
Abstract Ocean
Abstract Ocean is a business that sells extra parts and accessories for Tesla cars to make them look better and work better.
Car
Rivian R1T
The Rivian R1T is an electric truck that's built for adventure, with features that help you carry gear and tackle rough roads. It's designed for people who want a tough truck that doesn't use gas and is good for the environment.
LIVE
On this week's episode of Ride the Lightning, the Tesla and EV podcast, Tesla held its Q3
earnings call and as always, I've got a recap, highlight clips, and analysis of everything
the Tesla executives talked about on the call. Plus, Model S and X returned to Europe, Cybercab
gets a production start window, and more.
What's happening friends, Ryan McCaffrey joining you here for episode 534 of Ride the Lightning,
your weekly Tesla and EV podcast. I am surrounded by dogs, Daisy the Boxer to my left, Lily
the Silly Labrador puppy at my feet and just out of my view is mine of the future service dog.
It has been a very busy week in the world of Tesla because we had the earnings call
which I'll be digging deep into as I always do every quarter here in just a few minutes.
First a few housekeeping notes. First, I hope all of you enjoyed the interview with Frans von
Hulshausen last week. It is always a pleasure, always a privilege and a treat to get to go down
there and chat with him. Second, a little less happier than the Frans interview was the brief
shiver that I got sent up my spine which thankfully did not prove to be for the reason that I was
worried it was going to be and that was if you go to tesla.com right now you will see right at the top
that there is a Model 3 and Model Y when you're looking at those images for those cars it says a
price increase coming in November. Now at first I thought oh they're raising the prices of the cars
and that stinks that's no good the tax credit just went away now they're gonna get even more expensive
fortunately it as I looked further into it it actually turns out that it's not going to be a
price increase on the cars it is a price increase on the leasing prices so that's what's going up
next month not the car prices I mean either way I guess it's nice that they warn people but thankfully
it's not the bottom line MSRP purchase price it is the lease pricing so if you are considering
leasing a new tesla before the quarter ends just bear that in mind if you're able to move a little
bit more quickly and do so in the next week or so here certainly you can save a bit of money doing
that now I realize that not everybody can just move their timeline up on a big deal like leasing
a new car but I certainly wanted to mention it right here at the top of the podcast just in case
that information is helpful to anybody indefinite good news this week in Europe the Model S and
Model X are back the refreshed 2026 model year SNX are finally available in Europe the cars of
course hadn't been available there at all for a good number of months so this is fantastic to see
there is a downside to this and that is it's left hand drive only so teslas still not choosing to
make right hand drive versions of them which I know rules out a number of territories including at
least a couple in Europe I can't rule out the possibility that they won't do right hand drive
at some point but for now it is left hand drive only on the new S and the new X speaking of Europe
by the way this is some definite good news with no downside the Model Y has reclaimed its top spot
as the best selling car overall in Europe and yes that's car overall not SUV not EV not EV SUV
just best selling new car period in Europe I saw this reposted on Tesla's X account and the article
comes courtesy of AutoNews.com who writes the Tesla Model Y was Europe's best selling car in
September returning to the number one slot for the first time in nine months even though sales
fell 8% excuse me 8.6% to 25,938 units compared with the same month last year so year over year
it's down but it's still the number one car overall in Europe for the month of September
getting back to the auto news story it has been a year of dramatic swings for the full electric
mid-size SUV which slipped to number 60 in sales in July from second place in June
which right I mean that's just the Model Y changeover right there also they mentioned that
in August the Model Y finished 17th so it was climbing back after falling off because of course
of the the lag in deliveries of the new one once they went into into production on the new one
the Model Y let's see is the fourth model to finish a month at number one this year the others
are the Dacia Sandero which has been on top four times the Renault Clio which has won three
monthly titles and the Volkswagen T-Rock which was first in August quick aside I find it just
kind of interesting that none of those three cars are available in the United States just sort of
interesting I guess they're the European market clearly likes them though which which still which
almost makes it weirder that they're not here because well if Europe likes them a lot wouldn't
there be a market forum in the US but anyway that's neither here nor there for this podcast
autonews.com concludes by saying the Clio was Europe's number two seller in September
and then the top three rounding out the top three was the Sandero which was up slightly
so of course again the new Model Y just wasn't in full production for a lot of the last nine months
that's definitely a piece of it and yes there were some other shall we say extracurricular factors
affecting things at parts of this year as well kind of at the same moment coincidentally
as the new Model Y was debuting and ramping up in production but here we are with the fantastic
new Model Y back atop the charts as completely irrelevant to this story because this story is
about Europe and what I'm about to say is hyper focused on where I live here in the San Francisco
Bay area but I am seeing so so so many of the new Model Y now like it is proliferated just
everywhere here still seeing plenty of the generation one Model Y of course because that
was the number one selling car in the world the last couple years but the new one is no longer
a rare sight it is just every day many of them a day out on the roads at least in my neck of the
woods but you know if we look ahead to next year well actually let's finish up this year so I think
it's certainly unlikely for the Model Y to be the best selling car in the world not just Europe
but in the entire world for the third year in a row this year on account of the production change
over and probably the extracurricular stuff a little bit too but next year next year I think
the Model Y has a good chance because it will have a full year of full throttle production
from January to December including the Model Y L in China which has been selling extremely well
thus far and I hope that the Model Y L ends up being sold globally as well I tried to get Frans
to to give us something on that it didn't really uh didn't seem like I was very successful on that
one but the Model Y L which is selling great in China that's going to factor in to next year's sales
and thus the chances of the Model Y being the number one selling car in the world again next year
and of course the Model Y standard is going to be available all of 2026 as well the deliveries will
begin here in Q4 they're actually they've already started just a little bit but most of the deliveries
are going to be happening in the towards the end of this fourth quarter and thus end of the year
so again next year is looking like a really big one for the Model Y even if this one was a bit
down overall so we'll see if it reclaims the top spot in the world next year assuming that
I'm correct and it's it's going to fall from the top spot this year real quick before I dive
into the shareholder letter and then the earnings call itself I wanted to mention this week's Patreon
Lightning Round mini episode which I do exclusively every week for the very generous folks supporting
me over on Patreon this is a free podcast that always has been always will be but if you'd
like to support what I'm doing here you like what I'm doing week in and week out you can do so over
on my Patreon page found at patreon.com slash Tesla podcast or just click the link in the episode
description this week's lightning round mini episode was about celebrity Tesla owners just
had some fun with this one they're they're actually quite a number of celebrity Tesla owners so I
ran through a bunch of them in that one there are over 160 of those lightning round mini episodes
almost all of them 90 something percent of them are evergreen they're not topical so
if you join the patreon right now you'll have a ton a ton of extra content that you can dive into
at your leisure so again head on over to the patreon page to get all the information
patreon.com slash Tesla podcast the lightning round mini episodes that I'm talking about here
those are available at the ten dollar per month tier or higher that's the most popular tier but
at the five dollar tier the the base level tier you still get early access to each week's episode
and an ad-free version of each week's episode you also get those things at the ten dollar
tier all the perks stack so the higher you go the more stuff and rewards that you get so visit
the patreon page if you see it in your heart to do so time to dive into the shareholder letter
we start as always right here and here is the opening summary from that shareholder letter
Tesla writing in q3 the Tesla team achieved record vehicle deliveries globally showing
strength and growth across all regions while also achieving record energy storage deployments
across the residential industrial and utility sectors this strong performance resulted in both
record revenue and free cash flow generation in the quarter we continue to launch new products
that excite our customers across automotive and energy we launched the model yl and model y
performance and further expanded our vehicle offering with the model 3 and model y standard
our most affordable vehicles we also unveiled the mega pack 3 and mega block which will further
simplify large battery installations by reducing cost and time to deploy we believe our scale and
cost structure will enable us to navigate the shifting market dynamics across the globe more
effectively than our peers with advances in ai making our products the most compelling in the
market our focus remains on scaling our core hardware business by maximizing our deliveries
and deployments as these products will deliver increasing value to our customers over time
via services powered by ai every tesla vehicle delivered today is designed for autonomy while
every tesla energy storage product is capable of being enhanced and optimized by our virtual power
plant or auto bidder functionality we continue to deliver a fleet of products that brings ai into
the real world as we pursue a future of sustainable abundance as outlined in our master plan part 4
while we face a near term well excuse me while we face near term uncertainty from shifting trade
tariff and fiscal policy we are focused on long-term growth and value creation we are prudently
making the necessary investments in our business including future business lines
that we believe will drive incredible value for tesla and the world across transport energy
and robotics and you know all i really have to say about that opening statement is reading
we launched the model yl stung a little bit it really did i just let's get that car here in
america i just i know you've heard me say it before so i don't want to linger on it but
i really believe that it would check a lot of the same boxes for families who want a tesla minivan
because it's got a lot of those features and functions so maybe sometime next year if we're
lucky oh and from the same page in the letter by the way teslas cash reserve i always like to make
the scrooge mcduck silo of gold coins joke about this but teslas cash reserve went up another
4.9 billion dollars this quarter to 41.6 billion dollars plenty for a rainy day i would say
moving along in the shareholder letter total production is down five percent year over year
which is kind of a shame considering that a year ago the cybertruck first went into general
production at the very beginning of q3 2024 and as we all know every other tesla vehicle launch
has moved the needle in the upward direction as it goes you know the first year in production
so i think the question now becomes at least for me what's the future of the cybertruck i don't mean
to pick on it specifically here but the fact that their their total productions down five percent
year over year i think a lot of that is attributable to the cybertruck and the underperformance of that
vehicle yes the model y did change over that's certainly a root cause as well but with regard
to the cybertruck i just i can't help but wonder what is its future now i'm not at all suggesting
that tesla would kill it anything that drastic but until they can significantly lower the price
i have to ask are they happy with selling 20 to 25 000 units per year and if you're thinking wait
it's gotta be more than that that's kind of where it is right now the at least that's the
estimated number because i'll just segue real quick quick tangent but it's related so last week
while i had franz on and i was the one making the tesla news instead of reporting on it
there was a story that made its way around the ev community about ev pickup truck sales in the
us for q3 and while yes cybertruck i acknowledge was sold in canada and mexico in q3 those numbers
are not likely to materially add to the numbers that i'm about to read to you so real quick
here are the q3 ev pickup truck numbers i saw these courtesy of our tesla tipster friend soyer
merit who is reporting them from the source at cox automotive which is a data company that i've
mentioned here on the podcast plenty of times before so the number one selling ev pickup truck
in q3 was the ford f150 lightning at 1005 units is the again estimate from cox automotive that
number is up 39 percent year over year that's pretty good the lightning has been on the market
longer than cybertruck so the lightning being up 39 percent year over year is pretty good then you
have in second place the cybertruck at 5385 units so almost half just over half of the lightning
and that number is down 62 percent year over year in third the chevy silverado ev at 3940
units that's up 97 percent year over year but the silverado is new so i'm not going to put too
much stock in that i'm not trying to say anything disrespectful to chevy or gm here but that's i think
the silverado is new so the year over year number is a little less material than it is with say
the cybertruck or the f150 lightning same thing with the gmc sierra ev which of course is a sibling
a cousin or maybe however you want to whatever family analogy you want to use a sibling slash
cousin of the hopefully not both of the silverado ev so the sierra ev was at 3374 units up 771 percent
so again see you can't really put a ton of stock in that and then the rivian this number matters
because the rivian's been on the market longest of all of the ev pickup trucks the rivian r1 t came
in fifth place in the ev pickup truck category for q3 uh in the us specifically just to remind
in the us 2378 units of the r1 t that is up 13 percent year over year so as you can see
every other ev pickup besides the cybertruck was up and the cybertruck wasn't just down
it was way down and not just quarter over quarter but again that year over year number
which is honestly really surprising and unfortunately in quite an unpleasant surprising
kind of way 5385 units in q3 if you just multiplied that by four which i know that's not how quarters
work q4 tends to be the biggest and q1 the smallest but just for a rough sake of argument here
that is a pace of roughly 20 to 25 000 cybertrucks per year that is an order of magnitude less than
what elan musk had originally said when i when i first asked him i was the first person to ask him
what do you foresee as the the maximum annual production rate of the cybertruck now that was
back at gosh battery day 2020 i got to ask that question and he said 250 000 units so
they are uh an order of magnitude off of that right now which can't be anything but disappointing
which it's just too bad because it's especially those of you that own it or if you've at least
driven it but especially those of you that own it you know that is such it's such a great truck
it is just so unbelievably good and to see the numbers down where they are is uh is just a shame
so that's what i mean when i wonder aloud if tesla is okay with those numbers or if they might
have a strategy change in mind coming up to try and reverse that decline and get those numbers
coming up in the northward direction in better news energy storage deployed as mentioned in that
opening statement from the shareholder letter is up 81 percent year over year that is bonkers
in the best of ways supercharger connectors meanwhile continue to be up as well this time
18 percent year over year and just to put that into a little bit more of real world terms
tesla is adding around 3000 supercharger stalls per quarter not not entire stations but actual
individual stalls you know each station's got anywhere from eight to eighty stalls depending
on where it is but they're adding three about 3000 of them every quarter and in q3 it was actually
about 3500 of them that they added no changes this quarter at all in my beloved installed
annual vehicle capacity chart everything is still the same way it was before but we move now to what's
going on on the hardware side sort of the the region by region part of the shareholder letter
and in the us which of course is california nevada and texas they say in october we launched the
model 3 and model y standard each with over 300 miles of range and starting at 37 and 40k respectively
making our products more accessible to customers in the wake of the expiration of the eb tax credit
in the us even with their affordable starting price these models come standard with what makes
tesla so appealing including active safety features a 15.4 inch center touchscreen and heated first
row seats and steering wheel we also launched the model y performance zero to 16 3.3 seconds
and began offering leasing for certified pre-owned model threes and model y's
then in the apac region for shanghai they wrote we launched the model y l in china a longer wheel
based version of the model y with six seats and three rows expanding our product portfolio in
this critical market we achieved record deliveries in south korea taiwan japan and singapore and began
deliveries of the model y in india south korea is now our third largest market behind only the us
in china serving as validation of our competitive positioning in a robust ev market we launched
fsd supervised in australia and new zealand and continue to prepare for a broader launch in china
pending regulatory approval then for europe and the middle east they write model y is the best
selling vehicle in norway switzerland and iceland year to date in finland for q3 and in the netherlands
and denmark in september at giga factory berlin we produced the 100 000th refreshed model y
and started production of the model y performance we continue to pursue the launch of fsd supervised
in europe pending regulatory approval so the reason the really the thing that jumped out at me there
was the fun new bit of tesla trivia that if you had if you had posed this question to me i
absolutely do not think i would have gotten it right even if you gave me three or four guesses
so tesla's third largest market is now south korea again i would definitely not have guessed
that that's super interesting then in the battery powertrain and manufacturing section tesla writes
both model three and model y standard feature a new battery pack and powertrain designed for
energy and cost efficiency offering compelling range 321 miles at an attractive price point
we continue to localize and de-risk our battery and powertrain supply chains across regions
including progress on raw material intermediate and final assembly processes in the us and europe
for both the lfp and nickel supply chains we expect our lithium refinery in texas to begin
production in q4 of 2025 and our lfp lines in nevada to begin production in q1 of 2026
so on this one it's that last bit there that piqued my interest lfp lines in nevada
in q1 of 2026 so does that mean that those batteries are for the tesla semi since that's
where the semi is being built there at the semi factory right at giga nevada or are those lfp
cells for the cyber cab or perhaps both perhaps neither i mean if i recall correctly lfp batteries
have a lower energy density and a lower c rate so i think they probably wouldn't make sense for the
tesla semi where in that vehicle they need to cram as much energy into the space that they have as
possible in order to maximize range on the tesla semi but i think the lfp would make a ton of sense
for the cyber cab where you'd want to charge it to a hundred percent all the time and the charge
rate probably wouldn't matter as much because it typically charge overnight or when its quote
unquote shift is over and then finally before we get to the shareholder or the earnings call
pardon me at the end of the letter in the outlook section here's the product outlook which i always
look forward to reading and it reads we continue to evolve and augment our product lineup with a
focus on cost scale and future monetization opportunities via services powered by our
ai software we remain focused on growing our sales volumes through a differentiated and
efficiently managed product portfolio which includes leveraging and optimizing our existing
production capacity before building new factories and production lines cyber cab tesla semi and
mega pack 3 are on schedule for volume production starting in 2026 first generation product
production lines for optimists are being installed in anticipation of volume production so where does
this leave us in my opinion plenty to be optimistic about with tesla for sure i mean in terms of
vehicle launches tesla hit it more generally there but you've got the semi is already technically
launched so i don't even necessarily have to count that one but in 2026 we will see the launch
of the cyber cab 2027 based on what france told me in the interview last week is hopefully going
to see the next gen roadster finally start delivering although there won't be volume production of
that it's going to be low volume then as for 2028 as we look a little more long term with tesla
well if there aren't any new other vehicles there there aren't that's the thing it's not
an if there aren't any other new vehicles currently on the public roadmap unless maybe if tesla is
serious about actually putting the robovan or the robo van depending on how you want to say it i
guess the official tesla pronunciation is robovan but if they're actually serious about putting that
into production then maybe that could be in 2028 now if i do allow myself to to finish this thought
exercise presumably 2028 might be when the next model three refresh happens as well it'll be four
years since the gen two version so four or five years is about what it's probably going to be
from one refresh to the next so we'll see but anyway still plenty to be optimistic about like
i mentioned even if i do very much wish that the vehicle roadmap had more cars on it before i get
to the earnings call first a quick word climate exchange the raffle yes the raffle for charity
is back as many of you know ride the lightning me this podcast recently celebrated the 10th
anniversary and climate exchange is celebrating the same milestone and they have recently launched
their 10th annual ev raffle you may remember that you all helped raise money for a great
cause with them in each of the past couple years and this year they are doubling your chances to
win a fully customized ev so if you're looking for a top of the line vehicle i'm talking model x
plaid model s plaid cyber beast rivian r1s quad motor max pack their luxury raffles grand prize
is offering you any ev on the market up to 120 000 or if you're not interested in a luxury car
but you still want to go electric they're also hosting a more affordable mini raffle where the
prize is an ev up to 45 000 which can still get you a model three or a model y so that's two
raffles each giving you the chance to win a great new ev while helping out a great cause
and because they believe winning a prize should come with no strings attached
they pay all taxes on the evs that they give away so why buy your tickets now instead of
waiting until closer to the raffle drawing well here's a good reason any tickets in their luxury
raffle purchased by october 30th will be automatically entered into their bonus early bird drawing
for $10 000 cash a quick note that due to state regulations raffle tickets are not
available for purchase while located in and that's the key word there key phrase alabama
arkansas california hawaii new york utah and washington but if you happen to live in those
states but be elsewhere at the time of purchase that apparently will work enter today at carbon
raffle.org slash rtl that's c a r b o n r a f f l e dot o r g the climate exchange raffle the 10th
anniversary two chances to win also my friends at xcare a quick word from them your ev warranties
expiring well what's next dead battery flat tire roadside surprise hopefully none of those things
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time for your main course on this week's episode that is the earnings call recap highlights and
analysis we start as always with ceo elan musk's opening statement it is eight minutes and five
seconds long take a listen we're at a critical inflection point for tesla and our strategy
going forward as we bring ai into the real world i think it's important to emphasize that tesla
really is the leader in real world ai no one can do what we can do with real world ai i have pretty
good insight into ai in general i think that tesla has the highest intelligence density of any ai out
there in the car and that is only going to get better and we're really just at the beginning
of scaling at a quite massively full self-driving and robotaxi and fundamentally changing the
nature of transport i think people just don't don't quite appreciate the degree to which this will
take off um where the it's honestly it's going to be like a shockwave um so
it's it's a
because the cars are all out there they're you know millions of cars out there that with a
software update become um full self-driving cars and um and you know we're making a couple million
a year um and in fact with the advent of with what we see now as a clarity on achieving full
self-driving unsupervised full self-driving i should say um i feel confident in expanding tesla's
production um so that is that is our intent to expand as quickly as we can our future production
um so i was i was ready to do that until we had clarity on on uh achieving unsupervised full
self-driving but at this point i feel like we've got clarity and it makes sense to
um expand production as as fast as we reasonably can uh we're also making huge uh
um
making huge impact impact on the energy sector with uh with battery storage so with both the
power wall and especially with the mega pack uh we are dramatically improving the ability to
um generate more energy from the grid so let me sort of talk a little bit about that which is
if you look at total us energy um capability for example there's roughly a terawatt of
continuous power available in the u.s but the average usage over 24 cycles only half a terawatt
because of the big difference between day and night usage um if you buffer the buffer the energy
with batteries you can effectively double the energy output in the united states just with
batteries building no incremental power plants um and it's very difficult to build power plants so
that take a long time there's a lot of permitting and it's not an industry that's used to moving
fast so we see the potential therefore tesla battery packs uh to greatly improve the um the
energy output per year for any given grid u.s or otherwise we're also on the cusp of of something
really tremendous with optimus um which i think uh is likely to be or has potential to be the biggest
product of all time um and uh it's it's a difficult project um and it's worth noting that it's not
like it's it's just automatic um i'm unaware of any robot program by uh forward or gm or you know
in if i use kind of sort of car companies people like i think maybe think of tesla as as a car
company we mostly make cars um and battery packs uh but uh so it's not like it's not just like an
obvious full of a log thing to make optimus but but we do have the ingredients um with of real
world ai um and exceptional electrical mechanical engineering capabilities um and the ability to
scale production which i don't think anyone else has all of those ingredients um so uh yeah with
with version 14 of the uh of self-driving which people you can see the reactions of people online
um they're quite amazed um and actually anyone in the u.s can get uh version 14 if they just
go and select uh i want the advanced software in their car so if you're listening right now and
you'd like to try it out just go in um in settings and say i want the advanced software
and you will get version 14 um and uh yeah so on the mega pack front we we unveiled mega block
mega pack three um we also have exciting plans for mega pack four mega pack four will incorporate
a lot of the um a lot of what is normally in a substation uh and be able to output uh at
probably 35 kilovolts uh directly so this this greatly improves our ability to deploy mega pack
because it's not dependent on building a substation up through 35 kb for mega pack four so that that'll
be next that's the that's the engineering priority for mega pack um and uh we look forward to unveiling
optimus v3 um you know probably in q1 i think it'll be ready for uh to show off and uh that
that i think is going to be quite remarkable um if you it won't even seem like a robot it'll seem
like a person in a robot suit which is kind of how we started off with optimus um but it it'll
seem so real that you'll need to like poke it i think to believe that it's actually a robot
um and and obviously like the the real world intelligence we developed we've developed for
the car um most of that transfers to optimus so it's a it's a very good starting point
in conclusion uh we're excited about the you know updated mission of tesla which is sustainable
abundance um so going beyond sustainable energy to say sustainable abundance is the mission where
we believe with uh with optimus and self-driving um that uh you can actually create a world where
there is no poverty uh where everyone has access to the finest medical care um
optimus will be an incredible surgeon for example um and imagine if everyone had access to an
incredible surgeon um so so i think there's you know of course we make sure optimus is safe
and everything but but i do think we're headed for a world of sustainable abundance
and that i'm excited to work with tesla team to make that happen
elon addresses this later in the earnings call and i will play you that clip but when he said
that he thinks it's time to expand production as quickly as they reasonably can my first thought was
yes that's what i'm talking about but then my second thought was wait is there demand for that
particularly in the post tax credit era and i'm again i'm not trying to throw shade here it's just
it is a genuine question the sx and cybertruck are not selling super well i mean we just got
numbers to confirm that and as i mentioned at the top of the podcast tesla is uh raising leasing
prices so you know that's pulling a lever in one direction or another that does affect things
now certainly the side if you're thinking well if you're just yelling at your speaker right now
the cyber cab yes the cyber cab will certainly be part of this production level increase
but i also have to fairly wonder where the rest of the extra demand to crank up production is
going to come from unless tesla sees the order numbers so far on the standard three and the
standard y and they are incredible so maybe that's the case the energy side of the business
meanwhile continues to just crush as i went over before just tesla seems to be miles ahead of
their competitors there and they simply have a great product well products plural that make a
lot of sense for grid scale uses so i am glad to see that the energy numbers continue to be awesome
i was also struck in his opening statement there by his comment about being able to get fsd version
14 by just going into your car and setting your preference to advanced in the software menu well
unless tesla is going to be changing something that changing the behavior of that soon meaning
they haven't already done this by the time you hear this episode that doesn't work i've tried
it each of the last three days since this was said and it doesn't work so i i wish it did i wish
it did i mean i've been i my car has been set to advanced since forever and i know many of you
have had your car set to advanced for a while too and for the moment that doesn't seem to be getting
anybody the version 14 download any sooner uh my final comment on elon's opening remarks there
i love the idea of optimus ushering in a world with no poverty and great medical care for everyone but
that sounds about as realistic as the cars becoming appreciating assets when fsd unsupervised
rolls out i mean that's it's a it's a little much so all in all i would say and again plenty
more clips to play you here this wasn't the most newsworthy opening statement from elon on an
earnings call but nevertheless an interesting one it's always nice to hear from him and he
did keep it to a reasonable time this time as well he'd been making these longer and longer
and this one was only eight minutes so uh for the next clip here i'm going to skip the six
minute opening statement from tesla's cfo except to note that he did say that the fsd take rate
meaning people who have purchased it is currently at least i think it was just purchases and not
also including monthly subscriptions that take rates currently sitting at 12 percent so still a lot
of room to grow right there uh as such i would not expect the price on fsd to go up for quite
some time nor in my humble opinion should it so there we go let's move on now to the most
upvoted retail shareholder questions starting with one about the latest metrics on the robo taxi
service i'll start off with that and then shark can elaborate um but uh we are expecting to
i have uh no safety drivers in uh at least um large parts of austin by the end of this year so
within a few months uh we expect to have no safety drivers um at all um at least in parts
of austin we're obviously being very cautious about the deployment so um so our goal is to be
actually paranoid about deployment because obviously even one accident will be front page
headline news worldwide so um it's better for us to take a cautious approach here but we do expect
to have no no safety drivers in the car um in austin uh within a few months i think that's perhaps
the most important data point and then we do expect to be operating robo taxi in i think about
eight to ten metro areas by the end of the year um you know it depends on various regulatory
approvals um and um but you can actually i think most of our regulatory applications are online you
can kind of see them uh because they're public information um but we expect to be operating
in nevada and florida and and arizona um by the end of the year um shark we continue to operate our
fleet in austin without anyone in the driver's seat and we have covered more than a quarter
million miles um with that and then in the bay area where we still have a person in the driver's
seat plus other regulations we uh cross more than a million miles um so and we continue to see that
the fleet um robo taxi fleet works really well customers are really happy um and there's no
notable issues on the customer uh side we have customers have used fsd supervised for a total of
six billion miles um as of yesterday um so that's like a big milestone uh and overall the safety
continues to be very good and as ilan mentioned we are on um on track to remove the person from
inside the car all together starting with austin well ilan is absolutely right that even a single
accident will absolutely be front page headline news everywhere globally now has wemo had incidents
yeah do they get covered in the media sometimes but if and when and let's be honest it's when
because it's just math it's inevitable someday so when tesla has some kind of autonomous accident
with a robo taxi it is going to be blasted across every headline in every blog and media outlet on
earth unfortunately but it'll be exciting once the safety monitor does come out of the car in
austin that i'll tell you that is truly going to be a big moment in tesla's history like you do the
thing that i like to do of zooming out to that 10 000 foot view that will be a big big moment
in tesla's history because they've been working towards that for about a decade now i mean even
if you can argue that the cars are already going all doing all of the driving without any
interventions from the safety monitors now which is true still going totally driverless
when you can actually be in the car by yourself not in the driver's seat that is going to be a
really cool milestone in tesla's history all right our next clip is about solar panels from the
energy side of the business thanks demand for mega pack and powerwall continues to be really strong
into next year we received very strong positive customer feedback on our mega black mega block
product which will begin shipping next year out of houston and we're seeing remarkable growth in
the demand for ai and data center applications as hyperscalers and utilities have seen the versatility
of the mega pack product to increase reliability and receive and relieve grid constraints as elon
was talking about we we've also seen a surge in residential solar demand in the us due to policy
changes which we expect to continue into the first half of 2026 as we introduced a new solar
lease product and we also began production of our tesla residential solar panel in our buffalo
factory and we will be shipping that to customers starting q1 the panel has industry leading
aesthetics and shade performance and demonstrates our continued commitment to us manufacturing
the reason that i wanted to play you that clip was that very last part the new consumer solar
panel that is awesome i feel like we almost never hear about the residential solar business
at tesla anymore so this is just nice to hear about i'll be curious what this panel looks like
and how much juice that it can produce next up here is a long answer from elon about what the
challenges are in bringing optimus to market take a listen to this yeah i mean bringing officer
optimus to market is is an incredibly difficult task to be clear it's it's not like some walk in
the park um at some point i mean at this actually technically optimus can walk in the park right
now um and we do have optimus robots that walk around our offices uh at our engineering headquarters
in palo Alto california uh basically 24 hours a day seven days a week um so any visitors that come
by you actually um you can you can stop to stop one of the optimus robots and ask it to take you
somewhere and it'll literally take you to that meeting room or that location in the building
so um i don't want to downplay the difficulty of optimus it's uh it's an incredibly difficult thing
especially it's difficult to create a um a hand that is as dexterous and capable as the human hand
which is an incredible the human hand is an incredible thing um that the more you study the
human hand the more incredible you realize the human hand is and and why you need five you know
four fingers in the thumb why the why the fingers have certain degrees of freedom um you know why
the the various muscles are of different strengths um the fingers are of different lengths um and uh
it turns out actually that that all that those are all there for a reason um and uh
so making making a that the hand and forearm because most of the most of the actuator just
like the human hand the the muscles of that control your hand are actually primarily your forearm
the optimus hand and forearm is an incredibly difficult engineering challenge um it's i'd say
it's more difficult than the rest of from an electromechanical standpoint the forearm and hand
is more difficult than the entire rest of the robot um so but really in order to have a useful
generalized robot you you do need this you do need an incredible hand and and then you need the real
world AI um and you need to be able to scale up that production um to have it be relevant because
it's not relevant if it's just a few hundred robots um but so you need to be able to make
optimus robots at volumes comparable to vehicles um if not significantly higher um so
if you're trying to make a million or something per year a million a turn to make a million
optimus robots per year that manufacturing challenge is immense considering that the
supply chain doesn't exist so with with cars you've got an existing supply chain with computers
you've got an existing supply chain with uh with a humanoid robot there is no supply chain um
so in order to to manufacture that Tesla actually has to be very botically integrated and manufacture
um very deep into the supply chain manufacture the parts internally because there just is no
supply chain um so uh this is this is the kind of thing where i'm like if i put myself in the
position of a startup trying to make an off a humanoid robot i'm like i don't know how to do it
without um an immense amount of manufacturing technology um so that's that's why i think like
Tesla's in somewhat almost a unique i think i think unique position when you consider manufacturing
technology scaling um real world ai and the and a truly dexterous hand uh those are the generally
the things that are missing when you read about um other robots that they just don't have those three
things um so no i think we can achieve all those things those those three things with an immense
amount of work um and um and that is that is the game plan so um you know i like like my you know
fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control i have in tesla is if i go ahead and build
this enormous robot army can i just be ousted at some point in the future um that's my biggest
concern if i that's that that is that is really the only thing i'm trying to address with with this
so it's called compensation but it's not like i'm going to go spend the money it's just
if we build this robot army um do i have at least a strong influence over that robot only
not control but a strong influence that's that's what it comes down to in a nutshell um
like i don't feel comfortable building that robot army if i don't have at least a strong influence
well he's absolutely right the tesla is uniquely positioned to do a humanoid robot
i imagine that his repeated use of the phrase robot army might freak some people out though
and that he wants substantial influence over that robot army uh hopefully we're not about
to turn elan into an actual marvel comics super villain but anyway um yes we will see how all of
that shakes out very soon in fact on a related note from that clip you just heard this week's
patreon poll which is free for anybody to vote in you don't have to be giving me a dime on patreon
this week's patreon poll was about the big upcoming shareholder vote on elan musk's
proposed pay package i asked you simply do you think elan musk's compensation package will be
approved by shareholders so regardless of how you're voting i just asked do you think it will
pass do you think it will be approved and it was quite overwhelming 85 percent of the 325 votes
said yes that do you think it will pass and for what it's worth i agree i think it's going to
cruise easily in fact i like to the point where i'm honestly a little bit surprised at how much of a
full court press tesla's been putting on they've been doing ads on x ads on google they've been
sending out emails like they've been really hitting this pretty hard trying to get shareholders to vote
and i i don't know i think it's probably gonna pass easily but either they
they don't feel that way or maybe more likely as they just want to be sure like if there's
you know they think there's so much on the line of retaining elan potentially versus
potentially not retaining elan they just decided to to go all out with it but anyway
i'm in agreement with all of you i think it's going to cruise to a vote regardless of of how
any individual one of us votes so the next clip another pretty long one a fair warning six and
a half minutes from elan here this is him speaking to the ai five and ai six chips that are in
development with samsung take a listen to this one okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna give quite a
long answer to this question because it's because i have to unpack this question and then and then
answer the unpacked version so first of all i have nothing but great things to say about samsung
they're an amazing company and samsung is worth noting does manufacture our ai4 computer and does
make a point of clarification relative to some comments i've made publicly before which is
we're actually going to focus both tsmc and samsung initially on ai5 so the the ai5 chip
design by tesla is i think it's an amazing design i have spent almost every weekend for last
last few months uh with the chip design team working on ai5 and i don't hand out praise
easily but i have to say that i think i think the tesla chip team is is really
designing an incredible chip here this is by some metrics the ai5 chip will be 40 times better
than the ai4 chip not 40 40 times because we have a detailed understanding of the entire
software and hardware stack so we're designing the hardware to address all of the pain points
and software so i don't think there really isn't anyone that's doing this i think the entire stack
all the way through real world you know calibrating against the real world where you've got cars and
robots in real world that like we we know what the chip needs to do and we know what just as
importantly we know what the chip doesn't doesn't need to do um you know to sort of give you some
examples here um with the ai5 we we deleted the um the legacy gpu or that or the traditional gpu
which is it it's in ai4 um but ai5 does not have um we just just deleted the legacy gpu because
basically is a gpu um so we also deleted the image signal processor and
there's this like a long list of actually of deletions that are very important
as a result of these deletions we can actually fit ai5 in a half reticle
um and with with with good margin for the traces from the memory to
the the the trip the tesla trip accelerators um the arm the arm cpu course um and um and the pcix
sort of uh the pc i blocks so uh this this is a beautiful chip um
uh i've i've poured so much life energy into this chip personally um and i'm i'm confident this will
be this is going to be a winner next level um so it makes sense to have uh both samsung tsmc
focus on ai5 um and so even like the technically the samsung fab has slightly more advanced
equipment than the tsmc fab these will be both be made in um in the us that in one tsmc in arizona
samsung in texas um and uh but but it's uh it we're gonna make starting off just to be
confident of having our goal explicit goal is to have an oversupply of ai5 chips
because if we have too many ai5 chips for the cars and and and robots we can always
put them in the data center so we already use ai4 uh for for training in our data
center so we use a combination of ai4 and uh invidia hardware um so um we're not about to
replace invidia to be clear but but but we do use both in combination um ai4 and invidia hardware
and the ai5 access production we can always put in in our data centers um you know invidia keeps
keeps improving um that the challenge that they have is that they've got to satisfy a large range
a lot of requirements from a lot of customers but tesla only has to satisfy requirements from
one customer but tesla that that makes the design job radically easier and means we we can delete
a lot of complexity from the chip like i can't emphasize how important this is
so like when you look at the various logic blocks in the chip um as you increase the
number of logic blocks you also increase the interconnections between the logic blocks so
you can think of it like um there's highways like how many highways do you need to connect
the various parts of the chip um and especially if you're not sure how much data is going to go
between uh each uh you know logic block on the chip then you kind of end up having giant highways
going all over the place um it's a very it like it becomes an almost impossibly difficult design
problem and invidia's done an amazing job of dealing with almost an impossibly difficult
set of requirements um but in our case we we're going for radical simplicity
and the net effect is that i i i think ai5 will be the best performance per watt
maybe by a factor of two or three um and the best performance per dollar for ai maybe by a factor of 10
so you know that's uh you know what we'll have to the proofs in the pudding so
obviously we need to actually get this chip made um animated scale uh but that's what it looks like
i admit that i don't quite know enough about chip design to fully grasp everything that he
just said there but i know that i'm not surprised that tesla found a way to delete things it is
their way it is the tesla way this to delete stuff though i do know i think enough about chips to
know that deleting things off of them means that you can pack more onto one silicon wafer which
increases your yield which means your cost per chip goes down and thus hopefully helps keep the cost
of each car down well definitely the cost for tesla and if we're lucky it helps keep the cars
more reasonably priced for us as customers at the end of the line next up here is tesla's cfo
and a member of the ai team throwing a bit of a lifeline to my fellow hardware three owners take
a listen to this yeah we've not completely given up on hardware three however over the last year
we've offered the customers the option to transfer fsd to their new vehicle which at times we've
been running some promotions if if they got fsd they can get better preferential rates so we've been
definitely taking care of this but we do want to solve autonomy first and then we'll come back with
a way to take care of these customers these customers are very important they were the early
adapters for what it's worth my daily commuter is a hardware three car which i use fsd on a
daily basis so we will definitely take care of you guys great thank you addition once the v14
release series is fully done we are planning on working on a v14 light version for hardware three
probably expected in q2 next year i can't help but think of the money python movie
you've got hardware three saying i'm not dead yet i'm i'm glad that there will be at least
one more presumably notable upgrade on the fsd side for hardware three owners though it sounds
like we won't get it for at least six to nine months it's going to be a minute i sure hope that
hardware three owners in australia and new zealan get version 12.6 first in the very near future
and don't have to wait for this this v14 light all the way until next spring i don't think that
will be the case i think that they are going to get 12.6 since you know i'd already shared that
report with you a couple of episodes ago about tesla working on v12 for hardware three owners
in australia otherwise we heard the same thing there that we heard last quarter that tesla will
upgrade those of us with hardware three cars who've paid for fsd once tesla has successfully
delivered full self-driving unsupervised and then figures out exactly what our older cars need
in order to also be capable of full self-driving unsupervised but it is really nice to hear tesla
acknowledge that hey we're early adopters we deserve to be taken care of because it's true
we are and we do next up here is an admittedly small update from friend of the podcast and
engineering vp larz mary v on the tesla semis progress as well as fsd for the tesla semi
yeah so i guess i'll start with that in terms of the semi uh production plan and schedule so the
factory is going on schedule we've you know completed the building and are installing the
equipment now we've got our fleet of validation trucks driving on the road we'll have larger
builds towards the end of this year and then our first online builds in the first part of next year
ramping into you know the q2 timing with real volume coming in the back half of the year
so that's going quite well and that's the first step obviously getting autonomous trucks on the
road in terms of trains you know they're really great for long point-to-point deliveries they're
super efficient but you know that last mile the load unload can be better served for shorter
distances with autonomous semis and that would be great and so we do expect that to probably shift
in as we you know really as elon said change the way transportation is considered and so we're
looking forward to that timeline and ashok i know you can can take the the full self-driving part
currently the team is like super focused on uh solving for passenger vehicle autonomy
that said the same technology will uh externally quite easily to the semi truck once we have a
little bit of data from the semi trucks boy just just picture it in your head for a moment fsd for
the tesla semi that is going to be something really awesome to behold isn't it i mean in fairness
it sounds like it's not even really being worked on yet from that comment at the end by the uh the
person on the ai team which okay honestly makes sense that's not a criticism i can't blame them
there they are currently in a huge push with the cars and they are on the cusp of pulling off
unsupervised with the robo taxis and then after that unsupervised in our personal cars the semi
can wait especially considering that a it's not what tesla semi buyers are purchasing them for
first and foremost i mean sure it'll be a big selling point down the road on the tesla semi
but for now the first thing that people buying tesla semis are looking for is that total cost
of ownership and then b there are a total of what maybe a couple hundred semis on the roads right
now maybe less than that so again it's gonna be awesome to see that someday see a fully autonomous
tesla semi truck but for now it's definitely i can i can understand that it's not the priority
anyway let's move now to the analyst questions remember earlier when i said that we would
come back to the point about tesla increasing production capacity well is that number going to
be three million here's answers here's elan's answer to that well our capacity isn't quite
three million but it will be three million at some point you know aspirationally you know it
could be three million within we could probably hit an annualized rate of three million within 24
months i think maybe less than 24 months it bearing in mind like this like there's an
entire like supply chain like a vast supply chain that's got to also move in tandem with that
so i think we're gonna we're gonna expand production as fast as as as we can and as
fast as our supplies can can can sort of keep up with it and then we're going to think about
where do we build incremental factories beyond that like this the single biggest expansion
production will be the the cybercap which starts production in q2 next year that's
that's really a vehicle that's optimized for full autonomy it in fact does not have a steering
wheel or pedals and is really an engineering optimization on minimizing cost per mile for
like fully considered cost per mile of operation so that's you know for the for the for our other
vehicles there's still they still have a little bit of the horseless carriage thing going on where
you know obviously you've got if you've still if you've got steering wheels and pedals and
and you're designing a car that people might want to go you know very do right fast acceleration
and tight cornering like high performance car you know cars then you're going to design a different
car than one that is optimized for a comfortable ride but doesn't expect to go you know past sort
of 85 or 90 miles an hour and it's just aiming for a gentle ride the whole time that's what
cybercap is so yeah so so it's i do i think we'll sacrifice margins i don't think so i think the
demand will be pretty nutty like here's the here's the killer app really what it comes down to is
can you text it can you text while you're in the car and if you tell someone yes that the car is
now so good you can you can you can be on your phone uh and text the entire time while you're in
the car it's anyone who can buy the car will buy the car and it's in a story um so um that's what
everybody wants to do in fact not everyone wants to they do do that and that's why in fact the reason
you've seen like this there's been an uptick in accidents pretty much worldwide is because people
are texting and driving so autopilot actually dramatically improves the safety here because
if somebody's looking down at their phone they're not driving very well so that's that's really the
the game changer um and uh you know we do see like at this point i feel
you know essentially 100 confident i say not essentially 100 confident that we can set that
we can solve unsupervised full strut full self-driving at a safety level much greater than human
um so we've released 14.1 we've got a technology roadmap that's i think pretty amazing we'll
be adding reasoning to the car uh our world simulator for similar for reinforcement learning is
it's pretty incredible like our like our when you see that the tesla reality simulator
um it's you can't tell it on the screen the video that's generated by the tesla reality simulator
and the actual video looks exactly the same um so that that allows us to um you have a very
powerful reinforcement learning loop to further improve the tesla ai we're going to be increasing
the parameter count by an order of magnitude um that's not in 14.1 um there are also a number
of other improvements to the ai just um that that are that are quite radical um
so it's uh this this car will feel like it is a living creature that's how good the ai will get
with the ai4 computer before ai5 and then and then ai5 like i said is by some metrics 40 40 times
better um let's just say safely it's a 10x improvement um so it might almost be too much
intelligence for a car i do wonder like how much intelligence should you have in a car it might get
bored um actually um and then one of the things i thought like well if we got all these cars that
maybe are bored well while they're while they're sort of if they are bored we could actually have
a giant distributed influence fleet and say like well if they're not actively driving let's just
have a giant distributed inference fleet um you know at some point if you've got like tens of millions
of cars in the fleet or maybe at some point 100 million cars in the fleet um and um let's say they
had at that point you know um like i don't know uh a kilowatt of inference capability of you know
high performance inference capability that's 100 gigawatts of inference
distributed with with power and cooling taking with with cooling and power conversion taken care of
so that seems like a pretty significant asset first of all here is it news that cyber cab production
will be starting in q2 forgive me if that's been stated somewhere before but i believe that's the
first time we've heard that now as for demand being pretty nutty quote unquote for the cyber cab
i again i have to very politely wonder exactly where one million of them per year are gonna come
from that's basically model y that's almost model y production numbers for cyber cab because
i'm just not sure that a two passenger driverless car is going to be hugely appealing to a lot of
people at least at first now are fleet companies gonna buy them well maybe that's where a million
orders per year are gonna come from large quantities of orders from fleet customers
so we'll see on that and then the bit near the end there about the ai five cars getting bored
come on come on again like we're getting a little silly again let's let's bring it back
to real life let's bring it on back up next now uh still several more clips to play for you
up next was a good question about whether the safety monitor in the robo taxis is a
regulatory requirement or tesla's choice or as it turns out perhaps both well it's i think i think
even if the regulators weren't making us do it we'd still do that as the as the sort of right
sort of cautious cautious approach to a new market so just to make sure that we're being
you know paranoid about safety uh i think it makes sense to have a sort of a sort of either
safety driver or safety occupant in the car um when we first go to new markets to just to confirm
that there's not something we're missing um because all it takes is like one in 10 000
trips to go wrong and and you've got you've got an issue so um it's just to make sure like is there
some peculiarity about a city like a very difficult intersection um or i don't know something
that's that's an unexpected challenge uh in in a city uh for that one in 10 000 situation um so
i think we probably could just let loose and in the in these cities but we're just don't
we don't want to take a chance and and like you know what we're talking about here is um
you know maybe three months of safety driver in a new metro to confirm that it's good and then
we take the safety driver out that that kind of thing as a specific micro example i'm really
curious if the robo taxis are reading and correctly interpreting no right on red signs
and i bring that up because i know that version 14 still isn't doing that some of the influencers
that got it early have posted evidence of that and it's something that i've run into on version 13 but
anyway i do completely agree with the approach no matter whose decision it is to have a safety
monitor because you you just can't mess around with cars right i mean tesla might be the safest
car out there but we're still talking about 4 000 pound objects moving at speed so the old phrase
better safe than sorry is the right call for sure even though i do very much look forward to the
day when i can take a robo taxi somewhere as i was talking about a few minutes ago in which i am the
sole occupant of the vehicle and there's nobody in the driver's seat sounds like we'll have that
maybe in the spring uh of next year if austin ends up removing meaning here in the san francisco
bay area pardon me if austin removes them at about the end of the year all right i've got just two
more clips for you the pen ultimate clip here is the answer to a question about how version 14 has
a different feel like literally the question is how does it feel different now the first priority
when we release a major new software architecture for autopilot is safety so so it starts off with
safety obviously safety prioritized and then we've and then we solve comfort thereafter
which is why i don't recommend people take the the the initial version like like that's why i say
like you know most people should wait until 14.2 for before they actually download version 14
because by 14.2 we will have addressed many of the comfort issues the priority is is very much
safety first and then thereafter the comfort issues that's why most people are like yeah
i probably it'll be a little like it'll be safe but jerky and we just need time to kind of smooth
the rough edges and solve for comfort in addition to safety with a with a major news
uh the autopilot architecture change um but it really is uh i mean i i know what the
you know the roadmap is for the tesla real world ai and and for any granular detail obviously
ashoka's leading that um and i i mean i spent a lot of time with the team going you know in
like excruciating detail here on on what we're doing to improve the real world ai
and um like i said that's this car is going to feel like it is a living creature
and that's with ai4 before even ai5 yeah the roadmap is super exhilarating like it's like
so like waiting so much like release all the stuff we are working on in terms of like you know
what we ship to customers versus robotaxi uh it's more mostly the same obviously customers
have somewhat features like you know they can choose whether the car wants to park in a spot or
driver or something like that which is not super relevant for robotaxi uh but there's not really
a few minor changes like those ones but the majority of the algorithms and architecture
everything is the same between those two platforms yeah but as i mentioned earlier like
we'll be adding reasoning to um i don't know sure is that like reasoning in like 14.3 maybe
14.4 something like that yeah i know this year for sure yeah so with reasoning it's literally
going to think about which parking spot to pick uh at the so it's going to say this is the entrance
but actually probably there's not a parking spot right at the entrance if it's a full you know if
the if the parking light is fairly full the probability of an open parking spot right at
the entrance is very low um but actually what it'll simply do is drop you off at the entrance of
the store and then go find a parking spot um but it's it's going to get very smart about
figuring out a parking spot it's going to spot figure out it's going to spot empty spots much
better than human it's got 360 degree vision um and it's going to yeah like said just it's
going to re use reasoning to solve things i'm putting that all inside the computer that has a
for is the actual challenge that's what the team is working on because obviously you can do reasoning
on the server that takes whatever but then in car you need to make real-time decisions um so
putting all that into the computer that's in the car that's the challenge yeah that's why i say like
like i know i pretty good understanding of like ai you know the sort of the giant model level with
grok and with with tesla and like i'm confident in saying that tesla has the the tesla ai has the
highest intelligence density when you look at the intelligence per gigabyte um i think like tesla ai
is probably an order of magnitude better than anyone else um and it doesn't it doesn't have any choice
because that that ai has got to fit in the ai4 computer um but the the discipline of having that
level of ai intelligence density um will pay great dividends when you go to something that has an
order of magnitude order of magnitude more capability like ai5 now you have that same
intelligence density but but you got 10 times more capability in the computer if i may can i
make a humble request to the ai team as somebody who cares more than is probably healthy about his
cars so just like there's a hurry mode and a mad max setting for fsd may i please get a
picky car guy setting in which my fsd after it drops me off in front of whatever store i'm going to
goes to the very back of the parking lot and looks for a corner spot away from every other car now
you might think i'm joking around right now i am serious that is i don't want my car going
and parking itself directly between two giant suvs or something like that like i genuinely
want it to go far away from any other car and just go hide basically just minimize the risk of
door dings just go far away and then i'll call you when i'm ready for you so i am being 100
serious with that request we'll see how quickly versions 14.3 and 14.4 arrive they were mentioned
there i mean 14.1 went out a little a little wider this week as of this recording on late
friday night i have not yet personally received it and then 14.2 is supposed to be the one that
goes out to all fsd owners slash subscribers all right i've got just one more clip for you it is
about optimus with a little interesting tidbit about the ai5 chip in there take a listen um well
we're not the hardware design will not actually be frozen even through start of production um
there'll be continued iteration um because a bunch of the things that you discover are very difficult
to make you only find that pretty late in the game so we'll be doing rolling changes of of
for the optimus design even after solder production um but i do think that the the you know the new
hand is um an incredible piece of engineering and uh you know that's you know we'll actually
we'll have um a production intent prototype uh ready to show off in you know q1 probably february
march um and then we're uh yeah we're gonna be building a you know million unit optimus production
line um you know hopefully with the production start towards the end of next year um but that
production ramp will take a while to get to an annual annualized rate of a million because
it's going to move as fast as the the slowest dumbest least lucky thing out of 10 000 unique items
um but it will get to a million units and then ultimately you know we'll do optimus
four that'll be you know 10 million units optimus five maybe 50 to 100 million units i mean it's
really pretty nutty so after listening to that i'm curious did ai4 also get changes made to it
after it started production because if it did that would mean that my late 2024 my december 2024
build model 3 performance has ai4.1 if that's a thing i'm just i'm curious i don't know so
that really was the fascinating part of that clip for me it is cool to hear that we'll see
optimus version 3 near the end of q1 next year and when you think about it when we're gonna
do the ryan thing one more time in this episode we're gonna zoom out to that 10 000 foot view
tesla's got a lot coming up so q4 right now this quarter should be the roadster re-reveal
per france on last week's uh episode of this podcast q1 should be the optimus re-reveal if you
will q2 should be the start of production on the presumably final version of the tesla semi
as well as the start of cybercap production as we heard earlier so they are quite the busy
bees at tesla over the next year or so and well there you go that is your recap highlights and
analysis of tesla's q3 earnings call i know we're already at 90 minutes here for this episode so
i'm going to skip the ride the lightning hotline section of the podcast for this week but i promise
i will come back to it next week therefore if you've got a tesla or ev related question comment
or discussion topic for the podcast feel free to call in i'd love to hear from you and again
i'll play some calls on next week's episode there are two easy ways to call in either use your
smartphones built-in voice recording software then just record your question please try to
keep it to 90 seconds or less so that i can get to as many callers each week as possible
and then email that file to me at my podcast email address which is teslapodcast at gmail.com
alternatively you can simply call in and leave a message on the ride the lightning hotline
anytime day or night it's a toll-free number and that number is 1-888-989-TSLA that number again
1-888-989-8752 all right as for what is going on with me and my car well i had a funny little tesla
service experience today so uh the i was fortunate enough to have a little bit of leftover referral
credit that's going to expire at the end of the year and the thing i'd been eyeing in the shop
because i'm i'm very lucky i have a bunch of tesla shirts and i have all the upgrades that i can
have on both my cars so there's not a ton i can actually spend money on but what i what
i caught my eye was the model three performance winter tire and wheel package which i confess i
might never use it it's possible i might never use it but the car wears summer tires
most of the time all currently all of the time and if i ever wanted to take my family
up to lake tahoe in the winter time well summer tires are not a safe way to do that so okay
if i've got some leftover credit i would love to get the winter tire and wheel package for
the new model three performance which had been on the tesla shop but just showing as available
in fall of 2025 since it first went up like last year or something so i've been keeping my eye on
it keeping my on it and then about i don't know two three weeks ago i saw that it went up it
went it was available for sale so i grabbed it with my referral credit and scheduled a service
appointment well i tesla you could this uh maybe this is a a little learning experience here for
them they could have let me know that it turns out the wheels and tires were not in stock yet
so i got there and they checked with their parts department and nope no winter tire and wheel package
for the model three performance the guy was super nice about it you know i wasn't mad at him it wasn't
his fault um and it's i also just don't i have no urgent need for this whatsoever like i said
it might turn out that i never need it but in fact i wasn't even gonna have them put on the car
the appointment was to have them installed but i just actually i i bought some tire totes so i
and i just handed them the box and said i just want them bagged up and put in the back of my car
for uh for use later so um that's all i was looking for but anyway he said they'll be in
in about a week so okay that's totally fine but yeah ended up going to the going to tesla service
today for well it didn't turn out to be nothing because they said there was a service bulletin
on my car again this is the new one for uh to clean the the glass in front of the camera i don't
know if they have it like a special solution to help keep it to keep it from fogging up or what but
so they did that that took them about 15 minutes so at least there it was a somewhat productive
visit to tesla service and again since i'm not in any urgent need of those time those winter
tire and wheels at all i wasn't the slightest bit upset so um that was that was my little tesla
experience this week here's an entertainment recommendation for you new game i love it we
gave it an eight out of 10 at ig and i didn't do the review but uh the game is ninja gaiden 4
it's available for pc playstation 5 or xbox it's also on game pass for xbox or game pass for pc
it is a fast action game so uh there are not a lot of games that make me feel awesome while playing
them but the combat moves you do in this game it is just it's so slick i mean it's not easy there
is an easy mode if you're new to it so you know you won't get completely slaughtered by the by the
ai enemies but i'm a big fan of the ninja gaiden series and i'm really really liking ninja gaiden
4 so far so if that is of interest to you it's out now grab it on your platform of choice now
it is time for the tesla pro tip of the week it comes from osman in sydney hi ryan this is
osman speaking from sydney australia i'm a relatively recent listener but definitely a new tesla
owner as i've only had my um model wide juniper for about five months now my wife and i recently
took a long road trip and on the way back we had a six and a half hour drive um and it was it was a
monday which happens to be the day that your podcast drops for us here in australia i wanted
to listen to the podcast but my wife is a serial nappa and she was okay with me listening to the
podcast but in that moment i realized i could use the audio balance feature on my tesla to
minimize the disturbance to to my wife so my my pro tip of the week um is that if you want to
minimize disturbance to your passengers in the car you can go to the audio setting in your car
and click on the balance tab and on the balance tab it'll be an image of where you would want
the audio from your car to come out from and just tap on the driver's seat once that's selected
only audio will come out from the speakers around the driver and not around anyone else in the car
which should minimize any disturbance to your passengers i just wanted to share that thank
you so much for your podcast and um i look forward to listening to you moving forward thank you bye
hi osmond i want to say welcome to the tesla community and welcome to the ride the lightning
community i'm so glad that you found this podcast i love this pro tip and i appreciate
you calling in to share it it is definitely very considerate for sleeping passengers and i do
genuinely think that there are others out there that are going to want to utilize this
so i'm happy to play this pro tip thank you so much for calling in with it and a reminder if
anybody else out there has a good tesla or ev pro tip of the week please call in with it i would
absolutely love to hear it so i can add to my own knowledge base and share it with everybody else
listening as well to send in a pro tip of the week just send it in like you're sending in a regular
ride the lightning hotline call which i gave you the two easy calling methods for just a few minutes
ago i want to mention a couple friends of ride the lightning before i get out of here i know this
has been a long one uh but if you'll bear with me for just a few more minutes abstract ocean
dot com they've got so many great aftermarket accessories for all the teslas i want to call
out specifically their cyber truck armor protection the x spell pre-cut pieces for the
non-stainless parts of the truck so the tailgate the bumpers the wheel arches if you want to keep
those looking extra perfect extra nice the folks at abstract ocean have you well covered but they've
also got a ton of great stuff for s for x for three for y for rivian r1s r1t check them out
a lot of lighting kits the one of their biggest sellers the tempered glass custom fit screen
protectors for each of the cars just go take a look abstract ocean dot com and use the coupon code
rtl podcast at checkout to get 15 off of your first order that coupon code again has no spaces in it
it's just rtl podcast the snap plate and the newer stronger snap plate plus available for all the
teslas as well i'm a big fan of this because it is a nice clean minimalist design and it'll go on
safely and securely but also if you ever want to take it off for any reason at all it will come off
nice and easily and without leaving behind any tape residue or anything unwanted so it'll be
like it was never there but when it's on it's on there nice and snug and it's just again got a nice
clean minimalist look to get yours go to every amp dot com slash rtl and don't forget to use the coupon
code rtl as well for a discount on those they are both made from recycled made in the usa plastics
with stainless steel reinforcements good stuff on the snap plates immaculate reflections that's my
detailer here in the greater san francisco bay area and if you are in or going to be in this
neck of the woods with a car that you care about whether it's your tesla or something else in your
garage i encourage you prior to your arrival in the area to reach out to immaculate reflections
and schedule in an appointment for either ceramic coating so that you don't have to worry about
waxing your car for the next five plus years maybe you want to do paint correction to get all the
little flaws taken out of the paint maybe you want to do some paint protection film on the front
end of the car or all the key areas of the car or the entire car whatever you want to do there is
a discount waiting for you all you got to do is mention that you're a ride the lightning listener
so go to irdetailing.com and when you are done browsing around when you go to the the contact
link there when you reach out just mention in your message that you're a ride the
lightning listener and any work that you book in will have that ride the lightning listener
discount wait not approved apply there we go sorry my brain is failing it's getting late
and i need some dinner that is clearly what's happening right now finally my patreon i know
podcast that is the website to go to if you are feeling up for supporting me i would love it
i'd be humbled and grateful if you chose to throw me five bucks a month that'll get you
early access and add free early access to each week's episode if you jump up to that ten dollar
per month tier that's the most popular one you'll get the add free early access and all of those
lightning round mini episodes that i do as well so head on over to patreon.com
slash tesla podcast if the month to month thing isn't your isn't your thing but you'd like to
support me and you'd rather just pay once for an entire year of support there is an annual
pledge option as well as the labradors are rumbling on the couch over here if that's if
one of those about to fall off the couch oh no they they recovered before flopping onto the ground
anyway there's a uh there's a 10 discount on the annual pledge if you want to go that route
that's my way of saying thank you for committing to a full year of patreon support so again one
more time patreon.com slash tesla podcast or click the link in the episode description you
can follow this podcast on any of the big podcast feeds whether it's apple podcasts or spotify or
tune in or youtube podcasts just search ride the lightning tesla when it pops up click the follow
button and then you will be notified every time there is a new episode which in my case is every
sunday at nine a.m eastern six a.m pacific and lily that is enough little lady come on guys
i'm trying to do a podcast here daisy daisy hold on up us wait oh my goodness these guys are not
stopping hold on daisy my goodness okay mine off let's go let's go there we go all right just take
a little break here that's all we got to do uh where did i leave off ah you can follow me on x
and or on instagram my username is dmc underscore ryan you can also email me anytime and my email
address is tesla podcast at gmail.com before i say goodbye for this week let me say hello and
thank you to the top tier patreon backers i'll start with the maximum plaid crew they are
jonathan wales cameron clark daniel grummer seth capello nick and tony the galpin family
ryan from new york city darren nickle cos barns patrick wisneski gill cabrera
todd badger joe edgel kevin yank the tesla owners club of sandwalking valley willsteadman
justin pares jeremy harris chris beach tom mills choreo donnell erin jon cody joel sap
paul casarino chris osbourne kb adam lavoix jason chelukas travis krenzel bruce otterstein
tom behan josh pennington john from cream ridge new jersey
dustin hart derek finley charles clement daemon cline jeff brown jerry slinger
corbett brian bertoglio kim bae troy severs nick jacoby chip hooper
matt chinander robert moran rob and christopher man next up the roadster in space tier backers
huge extra thanks to these extra generous folks pete white lile austin steve radspinner
fernando cordero laughton from chicago shawn nightig neal weaver jackson wallis
rulf and jennifer evers howard anthony smith victoria aya coveto tesla hitchhiker 42 carol
weston robert from near philly american home contractors dug carry michael gallo and tony
figaroa and finally the grandfathered in plaid level supporters big thanks for your continued
support to george cassiopo logan willis peter chalet eric randolph dory and steve guberman
the tesla owners club of taiwan ron lee charlie gillespie jeff angwin chase cabaneas the lydia
family erin alchool jared brown gerome strack jamie dalton mike and barber from louisville
matt nixon the tesla owners club of wisconsin ish not elon musk in quotes peter and the bear
boys of colorado and that'll wrap it up for a very long these these uh earnings call episodes do
tend to be fairly long uh so i won't drag this one on any longer i will simply say thank you for
your time your attention the both of those things are are precious valuable resources that you we
all only have a limited quantity of in a given day in a given week in a given life so thank you
for listening i do appreciate it happy electric motoring my friends and i'll see you back here
next week
elon musk people don't like elon musk the guy founded paypal and tesla and people are like
climate change also have you been in a tesla have you been in a tesla my buddy let me drive
his tesla i laughed out loud at how fast it went been clinically depressed my entire life
on dozens of medications in a tesla for 13 seconds cured forever i mean i think a tesla
is the most fun thing you could possibly buy ever that's what it's meant to be our goal is to make
it's it's not exactly a car it's actually a thing to maximize enjoyment it's maximum fun
About this episode
Tesla's Q3 earnings call revealed significant updates, including record vehicle deliveries and energy storage deployments. The Model S and X are back in Europe, while the Model Y regained its title as the best-selling car in Europe. Discussions included the Cybertruck's production challenges and the upcoming Cybercab, set to start production in Q2 2024. Elon Musk emphasized the company's focus on AI advancements and the potential for unsupervised full self-driving technology. The episode also touches on leasing price increases and the future of Tesla's product lineup.
Original notes
Tesla held its Q3 earnings call, and as always I've got a recap, highlight clips, and analysis of everything the Tesla executives talked about on the call. Plus: Model S and X return to Europe, Cybercab gets a production start window, and more!
If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support my efforts, please check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/teslapodcast and consider a monthly or (10% discounted!) annual pledge. Every little bit helps and there are stacking bonuses in it for you at each pledge level, like early access to each episode at the $5 tier and the weekly Lightning Round bonus mini-episode (AND the early access!) at the $10 tier! And NO ADS at every Patreon tier!
Also, don't forget to leave a message on the Ride the Lightning hotline anytime with a question, comment, or discussion topic for next week's show! The toll-free number to call is 1-888-989-8752.
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BONUS: If you're in or going to be in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, bring your car to be professionally detailed at Immaculate Reflections! They're offering a Summer special: $200 off of any paint correction service, $500 off of any ceramic coating package, and 15% off of any PPF package. Check out his website at irdetailing.com
Ride the Lightning: Tesla and EV Podcast
Ryan McCaffrey
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