Company Management
Elon Musk - CEO |
Karn Budhiraj - VP, Supply Chain |
Lars Moravy - VP, Vehicle Engineering |
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations |
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO |
Analysts
Colin Langan - Wells Fargo |
George Gianarikas - Canaccord |
Pierre Ferragu - New Street Research |
Rod Lache - Wolfe Research |
Will Stein - Truist |
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
Now let’s go to investor questions. The first investor question comes from Craig. How many Cybertruck deliveries do you anticipate for 2024?
Elon Musk - CEO
It’s difficult to make an accurate guess at this point. Going back to what I said earlier that the ramp is going to be extremely difficult. And like I said, there’s no way around that. if we just try to do some copycat vehicle design, of which there are literally 200 models that are slight variations on a theme in the combustion engine world, distinctions without a difference, then it’s really not that hard. But if you want to do something radical and innovative and something really special, like the Cybertruck, it is extremely difficult because there’s nothing to copy. You have to invent not just the car, but the way to make the car. So, the more uncharted the territory, the less predictable the outcome.
Now, I can say that, where will things end up? I think we’ll end up with roughly a 0.25 million Cybertrucks a year, I don’t think we’re going to reach that output rate next year. I think we’ll probably reach it sometime in 2025. That’s my best guess.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
The second question is, can you provide a progress update on the 4680 cell, particularly progress towards performance improvements and cost savings outlined on Battery Day?
Unidentified Company Representative
4680 cell production in Texas increased 40% quarter-over-quarter. Congrats to the Texas team for producing their 20 million cell off of line one. Texas is now our primary 4680 facility. We’re heavily focused on quality. Scrap is down 40% quarter-over-quarter. With the increased volume and yield improvements, cell costs consistently improved month-over-month within the quarter, although we have a lot more work to do to achieve our steady state goals. And that is our priority.
The Cybertruck sell with 10% higher energy than our Model Y cell started production on line two in Texas. This quarter we convert to building a 100% Cybertruck cells to simplify and focus the factory as we ramp all four lines in Phase 1 over the next three quarters. Phase 2 of the Texas 4680 facility is currently under construction. The additional four lines incorporate further capital efficiencies over Phase 1, and our target is for them to start producing in late 2024.
Lastly, in Kato, we’re retooling to enable large scale pallet runs of our next generation cell designs. Kato’s long-term goal is to be the launch pad for new cells, one generation ahead of our mass production facilities, enabling faster iteration and smoother ramp ups of new designs.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
The next question from institutional investors. Could you please provide an update on capacity expansion plans for company’s factories in Berlin and Austin, and the opening schedule of Gigafactory Mexico?
Unidentified Company Representative
Berlin and Austin factories, the current priority is actually maximize the output from our existing lines, by laser focus on efficiency improvement. As always, maintaining a high quality and the reducing per unit cost will be as critical as growing the production volume. For Mexico, we’re working on infrastructure and factory design in parallel with the engineering and development of the new production that we’ll be manufacturing there. That’s I can share there.
Elon Musk - CEO
In Mexico we’re laying the groundwork to begin construction and doing all the long lead items. But I think we want to just get a sense for what the global economy is like before we go full tilt on the Mexico factory. I’m worried about the high interest rate environment that we’re in. I just can’t emphasize this enough that the vast majority of people buying a car is about the monthly payment. And as interest rates rise, the proportion of that monthly payment that is interest increases naturally.
So, if interest rates remain high or if they go even higher, it’s that much harder for people to buy the car, they simply cannot afford it. And we are tracking, I believe at this point for Model Y to be the best selling car on earth, but not just in revenue, but in unit volume. If you compare that to the other vehicles that are number two and number three and whatnot, they cost much less than our car. So, we’re just hitting law of large numbers situations here.
I know people want to us advertising, we are advertising. I think there’s something to be gained on the advertising front. But informing people of a car that is great, but they cannot afford doesn’t really help. So that is really the thing that must be sought is to make the car affordable or the average person cannot buy it for any amount of money or they can’t afford it. So, this is big deal.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
The next question is, when do you expect Model 3 Highland to be available in the U.S.? I just wanted to address that unfortunately we don’t answer product related questions and timings on earnings calls. So let’s go to the next one. Current sell side consensus assumes that Tesla will deliver 2.3 million vehicles in 2024, representing 28% growth versus 2023 guidance. Is this growth rate achievable without any mass market launches in 2024? And when does Tesla expect to return to its 50% long-term CAGR?
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
When we look at 2024, there are a lot of moving pieces. I just talked about what is happening in the macroeconomic environment. So, we’re focused on growing our volumes in a very cost efficient manner and are careful reviewing all our options, and we’ll be able to provide a much more meaningful update at our next earnings call.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. I mean, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is not possible to have a compound growth rate of 50% forever, or you will exceed the mass of the known universe. I think we will grow very rapidly, much faster than any other car company on earth by far.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
Next question is do you have an approximate time line in mind for the robotaxi driven or non-driven? What excites you most about how this project is progressing?
Elon Musk - CEO
Well, robotaxi is like necessarily non-driven. I’m very excited about our progress with autonomy, the end-to-end, nothing but nets self-driving software is amazing. It drives me all around Austin with no interventions. So, it’s clearly the right move and really pretty amazing. And obviously, that same software and approach will enable Optimus to do useful things and enable Optimus to learn how to do things simply by looking. So extremely exciting in the long term.
As I mentioned before, given that economic output is a number of people times productivity, if you no longer have a constraint on people, effectively, you’ve got a humanoid robot that can do as much as you’d like, your economy is wisely infinite or infinite for all intents and purposes. So, I don’t think anyone is going to do it better than Tesla, not by a long shot. Boston Dynamics is impressive, but their robot lacks a brain or like the Wizard of Oz, whatever. And then you also need to be able to design the humanoid robot in such a way that it can be mass manufactured. And then at some point, the robots will manufacture the robots.
Now obviously, we need to make sure that it’s a good place for humans in that future. We do not create some variance of the terminator outcome. So, we’re going to put a lot of effort into localized control of the humanoid robot. So basically, anyone will be able to shut it off locally, and like a software update, you can’t change that. It has to be hard-coded.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
The next question is, why was the price dropped on FSD if it is getting better and robotaxi is expected so soon?
Elon Musk - CEO
We just wanted to make it more affordable as more people try it. I think, over time, the price of FSD will increase proportionate to its value. So with regard the current price as a kind of a temporary low.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
The next question is again on FSD. Mercedes is accepting legal liability for when its Level 3 autonomous driving system drive pilot is active. Is Tesla planning to accept legal liability for FSD? And if so, when?
Elon Musk - CEO
Well, there’s a lot of people that assume we have legal liability judging by the lawsuits. We’re certainly not being let that off the hook on that front, whether we’d like to or wouldn’t like to do.
Unidentified Company Representative
I mean I think it’s important to remember for everyone that Mercedes’ system is limited to roads in Nevada and some certain cities in California, doesn’t work in the snow or the fog. It must have a lead car in plains, only 40 miles per hour. Our system is meant to be holistic and drive in any conditions, so we obviously have a much more capable approach. But with those kind of limitations, it’s really not very useful.
Elon Musk - CEO
No, I think some people understand the profundity of the Tesla AI system. It’s very, very few. It’s basically Baby AGI. It has to understand reality in order to drive.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
Thank you. The next question on Optimus. Will Optimus be working on Gigafactory lines next year? If so, how many would you guess will be deployed?
Elon Musk - CEO
I think at this point, we are not ready to discuss details of the Optimus program, but we will provide periodic updates online. So, as you can see, Optimus a year ago could barely walk and now it can do yoga. So, a few years from now, it can probably do ballet.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
Sounds good. And the last question from investors is Neural net path planning represents a significant advance in capability and safety for FSD. What steps is Tesla taking to make this technology available outside the U.S.?
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. Our approach has been to try to get it -- like the more places we’re trying to make it work, the harder the problem is. So, the reason we don’t do it in all countries simultaneously is that it would take much longer to make it work anywhere at all. That’s why it’s currently just North America. And also for most parts of the world, you have to get approval before deploying things, whereas in the U.S., you can deploy things at risk or at least you take liability for what you’re deploying. Most countries require some sort of extensive approval program, we only want to go through that extensive approval program when we think it’s kind of ready for prime time in that country.
I apologize it’s not in those countries, but we keep plenty of ways to make it better. And it really needs to drive such that it exceeds the -- even unsupervised, significantly exceeds the probability of entry of a human or significantly better, a lower probability of entry than a human by far. I think we’re tracking to that point very quickly. Obviously, in the past, I’ve been overly optimistic about this. The reason I’ve been overly optimistic is that the progress tends to sort of look like a log curve, which is that you have kind of rapid initial improvements that if you were to extrapolate that rapid fairly linear rate of improvement, you get to self-driving quite quickly, but then the rate of improvement curves over logarithmically as such to asymptote. That’s not happened several times. I would characterize our progress in real world AI as a series of stacked log curve. I think that’s also true in other parts of AI, like LLMs and whatnot, a series of stacked log curves. Each log curve is higher than the last one. So if you keep stacking them, keep stacking logs, eventually get to FSD.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
Thank you. Let’s now go to analyst questions. The first question comes from Will Stein from Truist.
Will Stein - Truist- Analyst
We learned earlier on the call, it sounds like you don’t think the truck will ramp to significant volume until its third year of production. Should we have a similar anticipation for the ramp of the next-gen platform, or is there any reason that we should be maybe more optimistic or pessimistic about the ramp profile there?
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. To be clear, it’s not really the third year of production. It’s kind of like the 18th month of production is roughly my guess. So, it’s just that it starts this year, spans next year and gets to 2025. So technically, there are three calendar years in there, but there’s actually only 18 months, not three years. I would be very disappointed and shocking if it took us three years. But 18 months from initial deliveries to reach volume and reach prosperity with an immense -- I can’t tell you how much the blood, sweat and tears level required to achieve that is just staggering. I have been through it many times. Then, here we go again.
Will Stein - Truist- Analyst
Similar path for the next-gen platform?
Unidentified Company Representative
I mean, there’s like unique complexity to Cybertruck.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. I mean we dug our own grave with Cybertruck. Generally, everybody digs a grave better than themselves. And so Cybertruck’s one of those special products that comes along only once in a long while. And special products that come along once in a long while are just incredibly difficult to bring to market, to reach volume, to be prosperous. It’s fundamental to the nature of the newness. So now the sort of high-volume, low-cost smaller vehicle is actually much more conventional.
Unidentified Company Representative
Yes. In terms of like the technologies we’re putting into it, we didn’t have to invent full hard stainless steel or have mega 9,000-ton castings or the largest hot stamping in the world or new [Technical Difficulty] are quite in the same way as the Cybertruck. I think it will be quite a fast ramp. As I was just saying, we’re doing everything possible to simplify that vehicle in order to achieve a units per minute level that is unheard of in the auto industry.
Unidentified Company Representative
I mean, the single location makes it easier to automate. It also makes it lower cost. Yes, that’s intrinsically lower cost.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. Let’s be clear, it will be cool, but it’s utilitarian. It’s not meant to be -- fill you with magic. It can get you from A to B. It will be still beautiful. But it’s utility.
Unidentified Company Representative
That’s not 14 inches of [indiscernible] suspension.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. So I mean, the Cybertruck has a lot of bells and whistles.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
All right. Thank you very much. Let’s go to Pierre Ferragu from New Street Research.
Pierre Ferragu - New Street Research- Analyst
I have first like a follow-up question on FSD and pricing and adoption. So, I agree with you that as FSD improves, we should see its value increasing. But I guess, like the ultimate values of FSD, which is to be able to handle like a robotaxi is not going to necessarily interest everybody, and you have a bit of a degraded version that would be like a chauffeur service where the car drives by itself, but you still have to be in the car and around. And then there is like the hands-on -- eyes-on version of the service. And I guess, there should be like much lower cost, lower feature kind of variance of the service that could have a very large penetration on your installed base and more expensive one that would remain at a lower penetration level. So, I’m just wondering if you’re taking that, like the simplest version of FSD available and are going to work from a technical perspective, probably before like the ultimate robotaxi version can work if ever. And so I’m wondering how you take that into account and how you’re thinking like the financial contribution of FSD over time and whether you could evolve your pricing along that kind of tiers to increase adoption.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. A fully autonomous vehicle, I think, sort of the economics of autonomous vehicle are truly astounding in a positive way. When you look at passenger vehicles today, they only get about 10 to 12 hours of usage per week. If you drive 1.5-hour a day on average, that’s roughly 10 hours a week out of 168 hours. And then there’s also you’re going to have parking and insurance. You got to take care of the car. It’s like there’s a lot of overhead.
It’s like the economics of the system are just insanely positive given that the car -- like all of the cars we’re making and have made for a while, we believe, are capable of full autonomy. If you’re able to say increase the utility of that car by a factor of 5, which only means that you’re -- it’s being used for maybe 50 hours a week out of 168, so you’re still assuming that less than 1/3 of the hours of the week is doing something useful. You’ve increased the value of that by 5, but it still costs the same, like you have something -- then we’re a hardware company with software margins.
Pierre Ferragu - New Street Research- Analyst
I have actually a follow-up on different topic for you that I have if that’s okay. It’s about like your gross margin in the quarter. Could you give us a sense of like in how the gross margin evolved sequentially, how much was the impact of idle cost? How much was like the sequential benefit, I imagine, of production ramping at Berlin and Austin? And then I saw like this massive jump in energy storage, very strong positive surprise. So, if you can give us the background on that and tell us how we should think about that gross margin going forward.
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
Thanks for the question. So, in terms of -- you have few different aspects of your question. So if I just look at from Q3 perspective, obviously, factory idle time had an impact. It did impact by -- and I won’t give you the exact percentage, but it had a decent impact for the quarter. And when you look at the other pieces, which we are trying to do, we did see certain of our other factories ramping up pretty well, right? And they actually contributed pretty well to the margin for this quarter. In fact, one of the factories came pretty close to in terms of per unit cost to where we are for our other established factory, which is Fremont. So that was a positive in the quarter.
When it comes to energy margins, Megapack deployment was the key driver there. And that product has done well. I mean, on the cost curve also, we’ve been able to do a lot there. But I do want to caution that Megapack deployments are a bit lumpy. So yes, we had a great quarter this period. But depending upon where we are trying to deploy that product in different markets, you would see periods where there would be downward pressure on deployment because of us trying to get the product to that base way…
Unidentified Company Representative
Yes, product in transit. Yes.
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
Yes.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
Thank you very much. Let’s go to Rod Lache from Wolfe Research.
Rod Lache - Wolfe Research- Analyst
Really nice to see the rate of vehicle cost improvement despite the downtime that you took. You’ve taken now about $2,000 out of the average vehicle costs over the past year. Can you give us maybe a sense of the rate of improvement that you see from the changes that you alluded to, the factory changes you alluded to? Is there a way maybe to convey the speed of improvement on your existing product from here? And then related to that, can you share the timing of your next-gen -- the lower-priced product that you talked about earlier this year?
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
Yes. So just in terms of product margins, there are lots of puts and takes when you look at this. There are certain things which we control, and there are certain things which we don’t control. We expect that we’ll get some benefits from our cost reduction efforts, which are all underway. So on the other hand, we just finished our factory upgrades late in Q3. Some of these factories are still in the early ramp phase in Q4. We’re still not up to where we want those factories to be. So, they will impact in the near term.
Plus, like Elon mentioned, we’re going to be ramping Cybertruck, which is going to be another headwind, which we will be dealing with. On top of all that, there’s overall uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment, which even makes it harder to predict precisely as to where we land. But yes, it’s an evolving thing which we’re observing every day and reacting to it on a daily basis.
Unidentified Company Representative
I would just say that on the cost reduction efforts, we are unflagging in our pursuit of additional cost downs for 2024. We do have a good pipeline of them and work on both the engineering side and the factory operations side. And our intention is to like maintain or exceed the trend that you saw, trying as hard as we possibly can.
Rod Lache - Wolfe Research- Analyst
The timing of the next-gen product, can you share that?
Elon Musk - CEO
Not at this time.
Rod Lache - Wolfe Research- Analyst
Okay. And just as a follow-up, price is also a driver of demand, but that’s obviously not happening in a vacuum. I think you mentioned that at some point during this call that you’re also maybe hitting the law of large numbers on some of your products. Can you just share how you’re thinking about price elasticity just at this point in this macro environment? And any thoughts along those lines?
Elon Musk - CEO
I think that there’s very significant price elasticity. To be totally frank, if our car costs the same as a RAV4, nobody would buy a RAV4 or at least they’re very unlikely to. It’s worth noting that a lot of these incentives, like the tax credit and whatnot, they’re actually very difficult for the average person to access because most people do not have $10,000 or even $7,500, burning a hole in their bank account. A large number of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and with a lot of debt. They’ve got credit card debt, mortgage debt. So, that’s reality for most people. It’s sometimes difficult for people who are high income like someone who’s earning over $200,000 a year to understand what life is like for someone who is earning $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000 a year, which is most people.
So like for a lot of people, like this tax credit just -- they can’t front $7,500 for 18 months or even 6 months to get -- for the tax credit, and they actually don’t, in some case, even have that $7,500 in taxes. So, it’s really just the best regard to people is how much money do they have to pay immediately and how much per month. I think you stop right there. And our car is still much more expensive than a RAV4 when you look at it that way.
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
Now one other thing which I’ll add, when you look at car buying in general, we’re trying to get to the next set of EV adapters.
Elon Musk - CEO
Not an EV adapter. Just who wants a great car.
Honestly, I would say it’s like somewhat correlates with why doesn’t everyone work from home crowd. I mean this is like some real Marie Antoinette vibes from people who say why is there no work from home. Like what about all the people that have to come to the factory and fill the cars or that all people that have to go to the restaurant and make your food and deliver your food. It’s like what are you talking about, how detached from reality does the work from home crowd have to be? While they take advantage of all those who cannot work from home.
You have to say like why did I sleep in the factory so many times, because it mattered. I just can’t emphasize again how important cost is. It’s not an optional thing for most people, it is a necessary thing. We have to make our cars more affordable that people can buy it. And I keep harping on this interest thing, but I mean it just raises the cost of the car. I mean, we’re looking an internal analysis, which we think is more or less on track that when you look at the cost -- or the price reductions we’ve made in, say, the Model Y and you compare that to how much people’s monthly payment has risen due to interest rates, the price of the Model Y is almost unchanged.
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
If you factor in the...
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes, which is what I’m trying to say. The thing that matters it’s how much money do they have to put down and do they literally have that in their bank account or their check balance and then what is the monthly payment. And it doesn’t matter how -- if that monthly payment is principal interest or whatever, it’s just a number, and that number has to not cause their bank account to go negative.
So going from near zero interest rates to kind of the current very high interest rates, the actual monthly payment is basically the same. It’s just a bunch more of it is going to interest. And there are some incremental challenges beyond that, which is the difficulty of getting credit at all has increased. And so, the number of people who simply cannot get credit, period, even if they’ve got a job and everything is solid, the banks are a little gun-shy on handing out credit given that a bunch of them kicked the bucket earlier this year.
Unidentified Company Representative
There’s also just fewer options, even if they planned out credit, there’s fewer banks to go there.
Elon Musk - CEO
Digital banks still exist. Well, if your bank does not exist, you have to establish a relationship with a new bank. And so a lot of regional banks are died, and I mean even Credit Suisse, that was a shocker. A 160-year-old-ish Swiss institution, it doesn’t exist anymore. And I think there’s still quite a few shoes to drop on the bad credit situation, commercial real estate obviously is in terrible shape. Credit card debt has been rising significantly, the credit card interest rates are usurious and over 20%, meaning like over time it becomes obviously extremely punishing because if somebody’s paying 20% interest on their credit cards, means they cannot pay them off. If you can’t pay them off and you’re still accruing interest of 20%, you’re at best headed to a bad place.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
Let’s go to next question from George from Canaccord.
George Gianarikas - Canaccord - Analyst
Just to focus on the cost per vehicle coming down in future quarters as you discussed in your written remarks. I’m curious as to what the levers of that could be. Is it more scale, more factory utilization? Is it material cost reductions? Are there things like gigacasting? Can you just kind of give us some data points to give us confidence if that’s going to come down over time. And if I can sneak one in, please, there are press reports -- and I know how perilous it is to believe some of these. But, they say that you’ve included radar as an option in some Model Ys in China. And I’m just here to ask if that’s true. And if so, why?
Elon Musk - CEO
We’ve not included radar. We have radar as -- a Tesla designed radar is an experiment in Model S and X. That’s it. We’ll see whether that experiment is worth it, but there are no plans to integrate radar into 3 and Y. Just as humans drive well, and in fact, an excellent human driver can drive with amazing safety simply with their eyes, the car will far exceed the average human safety just with vision, because, the car is looking at all directions all at once. We don’t have eyes at the back of our head. And the computer never gets tired and never gets distracted, get drunk, hopefully.
And so, radar is -- what really matters is how much does it affect the probability of an accident. And in order for the radar to be effective, you have to be able to do radar-only braking -- you have to do actions that are radar-only. Otherwise, you get this disambiguation problem between vision and radar. That’s why we actually turned off the radar in cars historically that we had shipped, all 3 and Y used to have radar, but we turned it off because the radar actually generated more noise than signal. Now the Tesla designed radar is a high-resolution radar that has some potential to be useful, but the jury is still very much out on whether that is in fact the case.
Unidentified Company Representative
On the cost question, I guess, from the vehicle side, like as Drew mentioned earlier, we are always trying to engineer our products to be cheaper to make and more efficient to make. That comes obviously on the engineering side as we come up with new innovations but as well on the supply chain side. With our partners, we work with them to automate some of their lines and move their bottlenecks and their high cost as well. On the logistics side, getting parts to the factory, it’s not like a one thing that -- you have to check cost everywhere and we do it ruthlessly at all times.
Unidentified Company Representative
Operations efficiency. All of the above.
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
Yes. I would say there’s a whole laundry list of things, which we are chasing. We internally call it the cost attack, where we’re literally going line by line and saying how can we make it better. And it’s a grind.
Elon Musk - CEO
It’s a grind. It’s like Game of Thrones but pennies. I mean first approximation, if you’ve got a $40,000 car, and roughly 10,000 items in that car, that means each thing, on average, costs $4. So in order to get the cost down, say, by 10%, you have to get $0.40 out of each part on average. It is a game of pennies.
Unidentified Company Representative
We play it.
Elon Musk - CEO
Willingly, yes. We’ve done it many, many times. And even something as simple as like a sticker, like there’s too many stickers internally in the car that nobody ever sees. There’s something as simple as a QR code. You may think, well, putting a QR code on a part. Why don’t just put them on there, it’s like, well, are we actually going to use that QR code?
Unidentified Company Representative
That’s a penny.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes, exactly. And then inevitably, sometimes the QR code doesn’t go on properly or you can’t read it properly, and it stops the line.
Unidentified Company Representative
More than a penny.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes, absolutely. So chipping away, with -- I mean it is trying to -- it does feel like digging a tunnel with a spoon at times.
Unidentified Company Representative
Very much escaping prison.
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
On top of it, like we said, we did some factory upgrades, so we expect volume to go up. That would also bring some savings from higher production. But then on the flip side, we’re going to be ramping a new product like Cybertruck, which we talked about. So, those are the real puts and takes what we are working for.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. But there’s not like some accidently some brick of gold that we go left in the car, unfortunately. We’re trying to be very rigorous about improving the quality and capability of the car because it’s like any fool can reduce the cost of a car by making it worse and just deleting functionality and capability and that’s how I call this sort of any fool -- like if you want to like lose weight and you’d say, well, I need to lose over 15 pounds right away, you could chop your arm off, but then you’re sitting with one arm. You’re still fat.
You actually have to eat less food and work out. That’s the actual way. It’s not super fun because food is delicious. And personally, I don’t love working out. I wish I did, but I don’t. Unless moving the mouse consists of working out, in which case, I love moving the mouse.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
All right. Let’s go to Colin Langan from Wells Fargo.
Colin Langan - Wells Fargo - Analyst
You said in the commentary that you’re not going full tilt on the plant in Mexico until there are signs that the economy is strong. Can you continue at a 50% CAGR without that plant? And where would that come from? And any color on what you mean sort of not going full tilt? Could that plant get delayed indefinitely, or what are you are kind of talking about?
Elon Musk - CEO
No, we’re definitely making the factory in Mexico. We feel very good about that. We put a lot of effort into looking at different locations, and we feel very good about that location, and we are going to build a factory there, and it’s going to be great. The question is really just one of timing. And there’s going to be a broken record on the interest front. It’s just the interest rates have to come down. If interest rates keep rising, you just fundamentally reduce affordability. It is just the same as increasing the price of the car. So I just don’t have visibility into it. If you can tell me what the interest rates are, I can tell you when we should build the factory. We’re going to build it. And I think we’ll start the initial phases of construction next year. But I am still somewhat scarred by 2009 when General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt. While that’s now 14 years ago, that is seared into my mind with a branding iron because Tesla was just hanging on by a thread during that entire time and with -- we closed a financing round in 2008 at 6 p.m. December 24th, Christmas Eve. And if we had not closed that financing round, we would have bounced payroll two days after Christmas. So we actually closed that around the last hour, the last day that it was possible, stressful to say the least, and then barely made it through 2009. So, I don’t want to be going at top speed into uncertainty. A lot of wars going on in the world obviously as well, so -- and we have room here.
Unidentified Company Representative
Like in Giga Texas. You said we still have room in this building. It’s not full with Cybertruck and the line. There’s plenty of growth opportunities still to have inside the building where our team already is.
Elon Musk - CEO
We also have 2,000 acres here.
We’re actually only occupying a tiny corner of the land that we have. We could technically do all the scaling, research just here. So, personnel is our biggest challenge and the greater Austin area only has generously the greater Austin area only has 2 million people. So people are moving here and they’re willing to move here, but there is somewhat of a housing crisis. They got to live somewhere.
So I don’t know. I’m just curious. I’m not saying things will be bad. I’m just saying they might be. And I think like Tesla is an incredibly capable ship, but we need to make sure like as -- if the macroeconomic conditions are stormy, even if the best ship is still going to have tough times, the weaker ships will sink. We’re not going to sink. But even a great ship in a storm has challenges. Now that storm will apply to everyone, not just to us and not just to auto industry. It will apply to everyone. So apart from necessary sort of staples, like food and stuff. If interest rates start coming down, we will accelerate.
Elon Musk - CEO
If anybody’s got any guesses on this, I’d love to be less wrong. And I apologize if I’m perhaps more paranoid than I should be because that might also be the case because I have PTSD from 2009, big time. And in 2017 through 2019 were not a picnic either. That was very tough going. So the auto industry is also somewhat cyclic because people hesitate to buy a new car if there’s uncertainty in the economy. So it’s car companies do very well in good economic times, and they don’t do as well in tough economic times. So, whereas if somebody is selling bread, then I think that people still eat bread. Yes, we need bread. We need food all time. But new car, you don’t have to have...
Vaibhav Taneja - CFO
Especially if there are wars going on and then that impacts your sentiment.
Elon Musk - CEO
Yes. I mean people are reading about wars all over the world. Buying a new car tends to not be front of mind.
Martin Viecha - VP, Investor Relations
All right. Unfortunately, that’s all the time we have today. Thank you very much for all of your good questions, and we’ll see you again in three months.
(Tips:This transcript is converted by recording, we will do our best, but cannot fully guarantee the accuracy of the conversion, it is for reference only.)
公司管理
Elon Musk——首席执行官 |
Karn Budhiraj-供应链副总裁 |
Lars Moravy-车辆工程副总裁 |
Martin Viecha-投资者关系副总裁 |
Vaibhav Taneja-首席财务官 |
分析师
Colin Langan-富国银行 |
George Gianarikas-Canacc |
Pierre Ferragu——新街研究 |
Rod Lache-沃尔夫研究 |
威尔·斯坦-Truist |
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
现在我们来回答投资者的问题。第一个投资者问题来自克雷格。你们预计2024年Cybertruck的交付量是多少?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
目前很难做出准确的预测。回到我之前说过的,坡道会非常困难。就像我说的,这是没有办法的事。如果我们只是试图做一些山寨汽车的设计,而在内燃机领域,有200种车型都是主题上的细微变化,没有什么区别,那么这其实并不难。但是,如果你想做一些激进的、创新的、真正特别的东西,比如Cybertruck,那就非常困难了,因为没有任何东西可以模仿。你不仅要发明汽车,还要发明制造汽车的方法。因此,越是未知的领域,结果就越难以预测。
现在,我可以说,事情最终会如何发展?我认为,我们最终将每年生产大约25万辆塞伯坦汽车,但我不认为我们明年就能达到这个产量。我认为我们可能会在2025年的某个时候达到。这是我的最佳猜测。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
第二个问题是,你们能否介绍一下4680电池的最新进展,特别是在电池日所概述的性能改进和成本节约方面的进展?
身份不明的公司代表
德克萨斯州的4680电池产量季度环比增长40%。祝贺德克萨斯团队在一号线生产出2,000万块电池。德克萨斯现在是我们主要的4680工厂。我们非常注重质量。废料季度环比下降40%。随着产量的增加和良率的提高,电池片成本在本季度内逐月持续改善,但要实现稳定状态目标,我们还有很多工作要做。这是我们的当务之急。
在德克萨斯州的二号生产线上,能量比Y型电池高10%的Cybertruck销售开始投产。本季度,我们转而建造100%的Cybertruck电池,以简化和集中工厂,在接下来的三个季度里,我们将在第一阶段的所有四条生产线上进行量产。德克萨斯州4680工厂的二期工程目前正在建设中。与一期工程相比,新增的四条生产线进一步提高了资本效率,我们的目标是在2024年底开始生产。
最后,在加藤,我们正在重新装备,以实现下一代电池设计的大规模托盘运行。加藤的长期目标是成为新电池的发射台,比我们的大规模生产设施领先一代,从而实现新设计的更快迭代和更顺利的量产。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
下一个问题来自机构投资者。请介绍一下公司在柏林和奥斯汀工厂的最新产能扩张计划,以及墨西哥 Gigafactory工厂的开业时间表。
身份不明的公司代表
柏林和奥斯汀工厂目前的首要任务是通过提高效率,最大限度地提高现有生产线的产量。一如既往,保持高质量和降低单位成本与提高产量同样重要。在墨西哥,我们正在进行基础设施建设和工厂设计,同时进行新产品的工程设计和开发。这是我可以分享的。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
在墨西哥,我们正在为开工奠定基础,并进行所有的长期准备工作。但我认为,我们希望在全力以赴建设墨西哥工厂之前,先了解一下全球经济的情况。我很担心我们所处的高利率环境。我怎么强调都不过分,绝大多数人买车都是为了月供。随着利率的上升,月供中利息所占的比例自然会增加。
因此,如果利率居高不下或更高,人们就更难买车了,他们根本负担不起。我相信,在这一点上,Model Y 将成为全球最畅销的汽车。如果与排名第二和第三的其他汽车相比,它们的价格比我们的汽车低得多。所以,我们在这里只是碰到了大数法则的情况。
我知道人们希望我们做广告,我们也在做广告。我认为在广告方面还是有收获的。但是,告诉人们一辆车很好,但他们买不起,并没有什么实际帮助。因此,必须设法让人们买得起车,否则普通人花再多钱也买不起。所以,这是一件大事。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
下一个问题是,你们预计Model 3 Highland什么时候能在美国上市?我只想说,很遗憾,我们不会在财报电话会议上回答与产品相关的问题和时间安排。那么我们来谈谈下一个问题。目前卖方的共识是,特斯拉将在2024年交付230万辆汽车,比2023年的指导目标增长28%。如果2024年没有任何大规模市场投放,这个增长率能实现吗?特斯拉预计何时才能恢复50%的长期年复合增长率?
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
当我们展望2024年时,会有很多变化。我刚才谈到了宏观经济环境的变化。因此,我们专注于以非常具有成本效益的方式增加产量,并正在仔细审查我们的所有选择,我们将在下一次财报电话会议上提供更有意义的最新信息。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,我的意思是,冒着说得很明显的风险,不可能永远保持50%的复合增长率,否则你就会超过已知宇宙的质量。我认为我们的发展速度会非常快,远远超过地球上任何一家汽车公司。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
下一个问题是,您对机器人出租车的驱动或非驱动有一个大致的时间安排吗?这个项目的进展情况最让你兴奋的是什么?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
嗯,robotaxi就像一定是非驱动的一样。我对我们在自动驾驶方面取得的进展感到非常兴奋,端到端,无网的自动驾驶软件令人惊叹。它带着我在奥斯汀到处跑,没有任何干预。所以,这显然是正确的选择,而且真的非常了不起。显然,同样的软件和方法将使 "擎天柱 "能够做一些有用的事情,并使 "擎天柱 "能够通过观察来学习如何做事。因此,从长远来看,这非常令人兴奋。
正如我之前提到的,鉴于经济产出是人的数量乘以生产率,如果你不再限制人的数量,那么实际上,你已经拥有了一个人形机器人,它可以做你想做的任何事情,你的经济明智地说是无限的,或者说是无限的。因此,我不认为有人能比特斯拉做得更好,远远不够。波士顿动力公司(Boston Dynamics)令人印象深刻,但他们的机器人缺乏大脑,或者像绿野仙踪之类的。然后,你还需要能够设计出可以大规模制造的人形机器人。到了一定时候,机器人就会制造机器人。
显然,我们需要确保未来的人类生活在一个良好的环境中。我们不能制造出终结者的变种结果 因此,我们将在人形机器人的本地化控制方面投入大量精力。所以基本上,任何人都能在本地关闭它,就像软件更新一样,你无法改变它。它必须是硬编码的。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
下一个问题是,既然FSD的情况越来越好,而且机器人出租车有望很快面世,为什么还要降价?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
我们只是想让越来越多的人尝试它,让他们更能负担得起。我认为,随着时间的推移,FSD的价格将与其价值成正比增长。因此,目前的价格只是暂时的低点。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
下一个问题还是关于FSD。梅赛德斯正在为其三级自动驾驶系统的驾驶先导功能处于激活状态承担法律责任。特斯拉是否计划承担FSD的法律责任?如果是,什么时候?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
从诉讼来看,很多人都认为我们要承担法律责任。不管我们愿不愿意,在这方面我们肯定不会置身事外。
身份不明的公司代表
我的意思是,我认为大家一定要记住,梅赛德斯的系统仅限于内华达州和加利福尼亚州某些城市的道路,在雪地或雾中不起作用。在平原地区必须有一辆领头车,时速只有40英里。而我们的系统可以在任何条件下全面行驶,所以我们的方法显然更有能力。但有了这些限制,它的作用就真的不大了。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
不,我认为有些人了解特斯拉人工智能系统的深刻内涵。它非常非常少。它基本上就是婴儿级的 AGI。它必须了解现实才能驾驶。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
谢谢。下一个问题是关于Optimus的。Optimus明年会在Gigafactory生产线上工作吗?如果是的话,你估计会部署多少条?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
我认为,目前我们还不准备讨论Optimus计划的细节,但我们会定期在网上提供最新信息。所以,正如你所看到的,一年前擎天柱还能勉强走路,而现在它可以做瑜伽了。所以,几年后,它可能还能跳芭蕾。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
听起来不错。投资者提出的最后一个问题是,神经网络路径规划代表了FSD在能力和安全性方面的重大进步。特斯拉正在采取哪些措施在美国以外的地区推广这项技术?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的。我们的方法一直是努力让它发挥作用,就像我们努力让它发挥作用的地方越多,问题就越难解决。因此,我们之所以不在所有国家同时开展这项工作,是因为在任何地方开展这项工作都需要更长的时间。这就是为什么目前只在北美地区实施。此外,在世界上大部分地区,你必须在部署前获得批准,而在美国,你可以冒着风险部署,或者至少你要为你部署的东西承担责任。大多数国家都需要某种广泛的审批程序,而我们只有在我们认为它已经准备好在该国投入使用时,才会通过这种广泛的审批程序。
很抱歉,我们的产品在这些国家并不适用,但我们有很多方法可以让它变得更好。它确实需要发展到这样的程度:即使在无人监管的情况下,它也能大大超过人类进入的概率,或者更好一些,远远低于人类进入的概率。我认为,我们正在快速追踪到这一点。显然,过去我对此过于乐观。我过于乐观的原因是,进展往往看起来像一条对数曲线,即你有一种快速的初始改进,如果你要推断这种快速的相当线性的改进率,你会很快实现自动驾驶,但随后改进率会像这样以对数曲线渐近。这种情况并没有发生过几次。我会把我们在现实世界中的人工智能进步描述为一系列堆叠的对数曲线。我认为在人工智能的其他领域也是如此,比如LLM等,这是一系列堆叠的对数曲线。每一条对数曲线都高于上一条。因此,如果你不断堆叠它们,不断堆叠对数,最终就会达到FSD。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
谢谢。现在请分析师提问。第一个问题来自Truist的Will Stein。
Will Stein - Truist 分析师
我们在早些时候的电话会议上了解到,听起来你们认为卡车在生产的第三年才会大量投产。对于下一代平台的量产,我们是否也应该有类似的预期,或者说,我们是否有理由对其量产情况持更乐观或更悲观的态度?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,说白了,这不是真正意义上的第三年生产。我的猜测大概是生产的第18个月。所以,它只是从今年开始,跨越明年,一直到2025年。因此,从技术上讲,其中有三个日历年,但实际上只有18个月,而不是三年。如果我们花了三年时间,我会非常失望和震惊。但是,从最初交付到实现批量生产和繁荣发展,18个月的时间所需的血汗和泪水是惊人的。我已经经历过很多次了。然后,我们又来了。
Will Stein - Truist 分析师
下一代平台也是这样吗?
身份不明的公司代表
我的意思是,Cybertruck有其独特的复杂性。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,我是说我们在Cybertruck上是自掘坟墓。一般来说,每个人挖的坟墓都比自己挖的好。因此,Cybertruck是那种千载难逢的特殊产品。而这种千载难逢的特殊产品很难推向市场,很难实现批量生产,也很难取得成功。这是新产品的基本特性。所以,现在这种高产量、低成本的小型车实际上更符合常规。
身份不明的公司代表
是的,就像我们投入其中的技术一样,我们不必发明全硬不锈钢,也不必拥有 9000 吨的大型铸件或世界上最大的热冲压件或新的[技术难题],这些都与Cybertruck完全相同。我认为这将是一个相当快的坡道。正如我刚才所说的,我们正在尽一切可能简化这种车辆,以达到汽车行业闻所未闻的每分钟生产一辆的水平。
身份不明的公司代表
我的意思是,单一的生产地点更容易实现自动化。同时也降低了成本。是的,这本质上就是降低成本。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的。让我们把话说清楚,它会很酷,但它是功利性的。它不是为了让你充满魔力。它可以把你从A地带到B地。但它是实用的。
身份不明的公司代表
这不是14英寸的[难以辨认]悬挂。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,所以我的意思是,Cybertruck有很多钟声和口哨声。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
好的,非常感谢。非常感谢。下面有请新街研究公司的Pierre Ferragu。
Pierre Ferragu - 新街研究公司分析师
我想先跟进一个关于FSD、定价和采用率的问题。我同意你的观点,随着FSD的改进,我们应该看到它的价值在增加。但我想,FSD的终极价值,也就是能够像机器人出租车一样行驶,并不一定会引起每个人的兴趣,而且你还有一个有点退化的版本,就像司机服务一样,汽车会自动驾驶,但你仍然必须在车里四处转转。还有一种是 "手把手 "的服务。我想,应该有成本更低、功能更少的不同服务,可以在你的安装基础上有很大的渗透率,而更昂贵的服务则会保持在较低的渗透率水平。所以,我只是想知道,你们是否会采用最简单的可用FSD版本,并且从技术角度来看,可能会在终极机器人出租车版本之前投入使用。因此,我想知道你们是如何考虑到这一点的,以及你们是如何考虑随着时间的推移,FSD的财务贡献的,以及你们是否可以沿着这种层级来发展你们的定价,以提高采用率。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的。我认为,完全自动驾驶汽车的经济性确实令人震惊。看看现在的乘用车,每周的使用时间大约只有10到12个小时。如果你平均每天驾驶1.5小时,那么在168小时中,每周大约使用10小时。此外,还要支付停车费和保险费。你还得保养汽车。这就像有很多开销。
这就像系统的经济性是非常积极的,因为汽车--就像我们正在制造和已经制造了一段时间的所有汽车一样,我们相信,是能够完全自动驾驶的。如果你能把这辆车的效用提高5倍,这只意味着你每周使用这辆车的时间是168小时中的50小时,所以你仍然假设每周只有不到1/3的时间是在做有用的事情。你把它的价值提高了5%,但它的成本还是一样,就像你有一些东西 -- 那么我们就是一家有软件利润的硬件公司。
Pierre Ferragu - 新街研究公司分析师
如果可以的话,我想跟进一个不同的话题。是关于你们本季度的毛利率。你能告诉我们毛利率是如何连续变化的,闲置成本的影响有多大?我想,柏林和奥斯汀的产量提升带来了多少连续性收益?然后,我看到储能业务的大幅增长,非常令人惊喜。所以,如果你能给我们介绍一下这方面的背景,并告诉我们应该如何看待未来的毛利率。
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
感谢您的提问。您的问题涉及几个不同的方面。如果我从第三季度的角度来看,工厂闲置时间显然会产生影响。我不会告诉你确切的百分比,但它对本季度产生了相当大的影响。而从其他方面来看,我们正在努力做到,我们确实看到其他一些工厂的产能提升得不错,对吗?实际上,这些工厂对本季度的利润率贡献很大。事实上,其中一家工厂的单位成本已接近我们在弗里蒙特建立的另一家工厂的水平。因此,这也是本季度的一个积极因素。
说到能源利润率,Megapack的部署是关键驱动因素。该产品表现良好。我的意思是,在成本曲线上,我们也做了很多工作。但我要提醒的是,Megapack的部署有点不稳定。所以,是的,我们在本季度取得了很好的成绩。但是,根据我们在不同市场的产品部署情况,你会发现在一些时期,由于我们试图将产品推广到基础市场,会出现部署压力下降的情况......
身份不明的公司代表
是的,产品在运输途中。是的。
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
是的。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
非常感谢。下面请沃尔夫研究公司的罗德-拉奇(Rod Lache)发言。
Rod Lache - 沃尔夫研究公司分析师
很高兴看到在停工的情况下,车辆成本仍有改善。在过去的一年里,平均车辆成本降低了约 2000 美元。你能不能告诉我们,从你提到的变化、工厂的变化中,你看到了多大的改善?是否有一种方法可以让我们了解现有产品的改进速度?与此相关的是,你能否分享一下你今年早些时候谈到的下一代--低价产品的上市时间?
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
是的,就产品利润率而言,有很多风险。有些事情我们可以控制,有些事情我们无法控制。我们希望我们的成本削减工作能给我们带来一些好处,这些工作都在进行中。另一方面,我们刚刚在第三季度末完成了工厂升级。其中一些工厂在第四季度仍处于早期投产阶段。我们仍未达到我们希望这些工厂达到的水平。因此,它们将在短期内产生影响。
此外,就像埃隆提到的,我们将对Cybertruck进行扩产,这将是另一个不利因素,我们也将应对。除此之外,宏观经济环境也存在整体不确定性,这甚至让我们更难准确预测未来的走向。没错,这是一个不断变化的问题,我们每天都在观察,每天都在应对。
身份不明的公司代表
我只想说,在降低成本方面,我们将继续努力,争取在2024年降低更多成本。我们在工程和工厂运营方面都有很好的计划和工作。我们的目标是保持或超越你们看到的趋势,尽最大努力。
Rod Lache - 沃尔夫研究公司分析师
下一代产品的时间安排,你能分享一下吗?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
目前没有。
Rod Lache - 沃尔夫研究公司分析师
好的。另外,价格也是需求的一个驱动因素,但这显然不是凭空发生的。我想你在这次电话会议中提到过,你的一些产品可能也遇到了大数法则的问题。你能否分享一下,在目前的宏观环境下,你是如何考虑价格弹性的?有什么想法?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
我认为价格弹性非常大。坦率地说,如果我们的汽车价格与RAV4相同,没有人会购买RAV4,至少他们不太可能购买。值得注意的是,很多激励措施,比如税收减免什么的,普通人实际上很难享受到,因为大多数人的银行账户里没有1万美元,甚至没有7500美元。很多人都是靠工资生活,而且负债累累。他们有信用卡债务、抵押贷款债务。所以,这就是大多数人的现实。对于年收入超过20万美元的高收入者来说,有时很难理解年收入为5万美元、6万美元或7万美元的人的生活,而这正是大多数人的生活。
因此,对于很多人来说,这种税收抵免只是--他们不可能在18个月甚至6个月的时间里提前支付7500美元来获得--税收抵免,而实际上,在某些情况下,他们甚至没有那7500美元的税款。因此,对人们来说,最好的办法就是立即支付多少钱,以及每月支付多少钱。我想你就到此为止吧。从这个角度看,我们的车还是比RAV4贵得多。
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
现在我还想补充一点,当你从总体上看汽车购买时,我们正试图吸引下一批电动汽车适配者。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
不是电动汽车适配者。只是想要一辆好车的人。
老实说,我觉得这和为什么大家都不在家工作有点相关。我的意思是,那些说 "为什么不能在家工作 "的人,好像真的有玛丽-安托瓦内特的影子。比如那些要去工厂给汽车加油的人,或者那些要去餐馆给你做饭送饭的人。你在说什么呢?"在家工作 "一族到底有多脱离现实?他们利用那些不能在家工作的人。
你不得不说,为什么我在工厂里睡了那么多次,因为这很重要。我再三强调成本的重要性。对大多数人来说,这不是一件可有可无的事情,而是一件必要的事情。我们必须让人们买得起我们的汽车。我一直在强调利息问题,但我的意思是,利息只会增加汽车的成本。我的意思是,我们正在进行一项内部分析,我们认为这项分析或多或少是正确的,当你看到我们在Model Y等车型上降低的成本或价格,并将其与人们因利率而增加的月供进行比较时,Model Y的价格几乎没有变化。
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
如果考虑到...
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,这就是我想说的。重要的是,他们需要首付多少钱,他们的银行账户或支票余额中是否真的有这笔钱,然后月供是多少。月供是本金利息还是其他什么,这并不重要,这只是一个数字,而这个数字必须不会导致他们的银行账户出现负数。
因此,从接近零利率到目前的高利率,每月的实际付款额基本上是一样的。只是多了一大笔利息。除此之外,还有一些额外的挑战,那就是获得信贷的难度增加了。因此,无法获得信贷的人越来越多,即使他们有工作,一切都很稳定,但由于今年早些时候有许多银行倒闭,银行在发放贷款时也有点畏首畏尾。
身份不明的公司代表
选择也少了,即使他们计划发放贷款,可去的银行也少了。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
数字银行仍然存在。那么,如果你的银行不存在,你就必须与新的银行建立关系。因此,很多地区性银行都死了,我的意思是,即使是瑞士信贷银行,也令人震惊。一家拥有160年历史的瑞士银行已经不复存在了。我认为在不良信贷方面还有很多问题要解决 商业地产的状况显然很糟糕 信用卡债务一直在大幅上升,信用卡利率高得离谱,超过了20%,这意味着随着时间的推移,这显然会变得极具惩罚性,因为如果有人的信用卡要支付20%的利息,就意味着他们无法偿还。如果你无法还清,而你还在累积20%的利息,那么你最多只能走向一个糟糕的境地。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
下面请Canacc的乔治提问。
乔治吉亚纳里卡斯 - Canacc分析师
我只想关注一下您在书面发言中提到的未来几个季度每辆车成本下降的问题。我很好奇降低成本的杠杆是什么?是扩大规模、提高工厂利用率?是降低材料成本吗?还有像千兆铸造这样的东西吗?你能不能给我们提供一些数据,让我们对随着时间推移成本是否会下降有信心。请允许我插一句,有媒体报道--我知道相信这些报道有多危险。但是,他们说你们在中国的一些Y型车中加入了雷达选项。我想问这是否属实?如果是,为什么?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
我们没有配备雷达。我们有雷达,特斯拉设计的雷达是在Model S和 X上进行的实验。我们会看看这个实验是否值得,但目前还没有计划将雷达集成到3 和Y车型中。就像人类开车一样,事实上,一名优秀的人类驾驶员只需用眼睛就能实现惊人的安全驾驶,而汽车仅凭视觉就能远远超过人类的平均安全水平,因为汽车会同时观察所有方向。我们的后脑勺没有眼睛。电脑永远不会疲劳,也不会分心或喝醉,但愿如此。
因此,雷达的真正作用在于它对事故概率的影响有多大。为了让雷达发挥效用,你必须能够做到只用雷达制动 -- 你必须采取只用雷达的行动。否则,就会在视觉和雷达之间产生歧义。这就是为什么我们关闭了历史上已出厂汽车的雷达,所有3和Y型车都曾配备雷达,但我们关闭了它,因为雷达产生的噪音实际上大于信号。现在,特斯拉设计的雷达是一种高分辨率雷达,具有一定的实用潜力,但是否真的如此,目前还没有定论。
身份不明的公司代表
关于成本问题,我想,从车辆方面来说,就像德鲁刚才提到的,我们一直在努力设计我们的产品,使其制造成本更低,制造效率更高。这不仅体现在工程设计方面,因为我们有新的创新,而且也体现在供应链方面。我们与合作伙伴合作,使他们的一些生产线实现自动化,消除他们的瓶颈,降低他们的高成本。在物流方面,将零部件运送到工厂并不是一件简单的事情,你必须检查所有地方的成本,我们在任何时候都会严格把关。
身份不明的公司代表
运营效率。以上皆是。
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
是的,我想说的是,我们正在追逐的东西有一大堆。我们内部称之为 "成本攻坚战",我们逐条逐项地研究如何才能做得更好。这是一项艰巨的任务。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
这是一种磨练。这就像 "权力的游戏",不过是几分钱的游戏。我是说第一近似值,如果你有一辆价值40,000美元的汽车,车上大约有10,000件物品,这意味着平均每件东西的成本是4美元。这是一个一分钱的游戏。
不明身份的公司代表
我们在玩这个游戏。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
愿意,是的。我们已经玩过很多次了。即使是像贴纸这样简单的东西,比如车内有太多贴纸,但从来没人看到过。还有像二维码这样简单的东西。你可能会想,好吧,把二维码贴在零件上。为什么不直接贴上去呢?我们真的会用到二维码吗?
身份不明的公司代表
那是一分钱。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,没错。然后不可避免的是,有时候二维码贴不上去,或者你无法正确读取,就会导致线路中断。
身份不明的公司代表
不止一分钱。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,当然。所以,我的意思是,这就像是在用勺子挖隧道。
不明身份公司代表
非常像越狱。
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
除此之外,正如我们所说的,我们对工厂进行了一些升级,因此我们预计产量会上升。这也会从更高的产量中节省一些开支。但从另一个角度来看,我们也将逐步推出新产品,比如我们提到过的Cybertruck。因此,这些都是我们正在努力争取的。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,但不幸的是,我们并没有意外地把金砖留在车里。我们正努力严格地提高汽车的质量和性能,因为任何傻瓜都可以通过降低汽车的成本,让它变得更糟,只是删除功能和性能,这就是我所说的傻瓜的做法,就像如果你想减肥,你会说,好吧,我需要马上减掉15磅以上,你可以砍掉你的胳膊,但你只能用一只胳膊坐着。你还是很胖。
实际上,你必须少吃东西,多锻炼。这才是真正的方法。这并不有趣,因为食物很美味。就我个人而言,我不喜欢锻炼。我希望我喜欢,但我不喜欢。除非移动鼠标的过程就是健身,在这种情况下,我喜欢移动鼠标。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
好的。下面请富国银行的科林-兰根发言。
科林兰根 - 富国银行分析师
您在评论中说,在出现经济强劲的迹象之前,您不会全力以赴在墨西哥建厂。如果没有墨西哥工厂,你们能否继续保持50%的年复合增长率?从何而来?你说的 "不全力以赴 "是什么意思?该工厂会被无限期推迟吗?
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
不,我们肯定会在墨西哥建厂。我们对此感觉很好。我们花了很多精力去考察不同的地点,我们对那个地点感觉很好,我们将在那里建厂,而且一定会很棒。问题其实只是时机。在利息问题上,我们会打破记录。只是利率必须下降。如果利率持续上升,就会从根本上降低可负担性。这和提高汽车价格是一样的。因此,我对此并不了解。如果你能告诉我利率是多少,我就能告诉你我们什么时候应该建厂。我们会建的。我想我们会在明年开始初期建设。但我仍然对2009年通用汽车和克莱斯勒的破产记忆犹新。虽然那已经是14年前的事了,但我仍然记忆犹新,因为在那段时间里,特斯拉一直苟延残喘,我们在2008年12月24日下午6点(圣诞节前夕)完成了一轮融资。如果我们没有完成那轮融资,圣诞节后两天我们就会跳票。因此,我们实际上是在最后一小时、最后一天才完成了融资,可以说压力很大,然后勉强撑过了2009年。所以,我不想以最快的速度进入不确定状态。显然,世界上还有很多战争在进行,所以--我们这里还有空间。
不明身份公司代表
就像在Giga Texas一样。你说我们这栋楼还有空间Cybertruck和生产线还没满。我们的团队在这栋大楼里还有很多发展机会。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
我们在这里还有2000英亩的土地。
实际上,我们只占用了一小块土地。从技术上讲,我们可以在这里完成所有的扩展和研究工作。因此,人员是我们最大的挑战,而大奥斯汀地区只有200万人口。所以人们搬来这里,他们也愿意搬来这里,但这里多少存在住房危机。他们总得找个地方住。
所以我不知道。我只是好奇。我不是说情况会很糟。我只是说可能会很糟糕 我认为特斯拉是一艘非常能干的船,但我们需要确保,如果宏观经济条件是暴风雨,即使是最好的船仍然会有困难的时候,较弱的船会沉没。我们不会沉没。但是,即使是风暴中的大船也会遇到挑战。现在,这场风暴将适用于所有人,不仅仅是我们,也不仅仅是汽车行业。它将适用于所有人。因此,除了必要的主食,如食品和其他东西, 如果利率开始下降,我们就会加速。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
如果有人对此有任何猜测,我很希望不会错。如果我可能比我应该的还要偏执,我道歉,因为这也可能是因为我有2009年的创伤后应激障碍,非常严重。而在2017年到2019年,也不是野餐。那段日子非常艰难。因此,汽车行业也有一定的周期性,因为如果经济存在不确定性,人们就会犹豫是否购买新车。因此,在经济形势好的时候,汽车公司的业绩非常好,而在经济形势不好的时候,它们的业绩就没有那么好了。因此,如果有人卖面包,我认为人们还是会吃面包。是的,我们需要面包。我们一直都需要食物。但新车,你不一定非得有......
Vaibhav Taneja - 首席财务官
特别是如果有战争发生,那就会影响你的情绪。
Elon Musk - 首席执行官
是的,我的意思是,人们正在阅读世界各地的战争新闻。购买新车往往不会被放在心上。
Martin Viecha - 投资者关系副总裁
好吧。很遗憾,我们今天的时间到此为止。非常感谢各位的提问,我们三个月后再见。
(提示:此笔录是通过录音转换的,我们会尽力而为,但不能完全保证转换的准确性,仅供参考。)