Company Management
Elon Musk - CEO |
Karn Budhiraj - VP, Supply Chain |
Lars Moravy - VP, Vehicle Engineering |
Martin Viecha - VP, IR |
Zachary Kirkhorn - CFO |
Analysts
Colin Rusch - Oppenheimer |
Dan Levy - Barclays |
Emmanuel Rosner - Deutsche Bank |
Mark Delaney - Goldman Sachs |
William Stein - Truist |
Question-and-Answer Session
Martin Viecha
Thank you very much, Zach. And let’s go to investor questions. The first question on licensing FSD we’ve already answered. So, let’s go to the second one. The second question is, what is the status of 4680 cells? How far are you from the specs you laid out on Battery Day? When do you expect to achieve what you laid out on Battery Day?
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes. First, I’ll just start with a little bit of a production update. So, in Texas, 4680 cell production increased 80% Q2 over Q1, and the team surpassed 10 million production cells produced here in Texas. So, congrats to the team for that. Their focus on yield reduced our scrap bill by 40% quarter-over-quarter, and that resulted in a 25% reduction in cell COGS.
Here in Texas, we’re preparing to launch our Cybertruck cell, which is 10% higher energy density than current production. That was accomplished through process and mechanical design optimization. As we scale Cyber cell production through the end of the year and early next, we should be in a comfortable place on cost per cell.
Against our battery energy density targets, the Cyber cell is at our expectations on a like-for-like electrochemistry basis. We’re yet to integrate silicon or in-house cathode production, both reviewed on Battery Day, which do bring significant further energy density and cost improvements, but that is a topic for another day.
Lastly, it is important to remember that most of what we focused on a Battery Day was the Tesla-engineered 4680 production system and the improvements we strove to achieve on equipment, factory density, capital cost and utility cost reduction, all of which we are realizing in our Texas scale up to date.
Martin Viecha
Thank you very much. The next question is, can you talk more to the upcoming Tesla Energy products and how your thinking has evolved on the revenue model? Given Tesla’s AI capabilities, how do you see the long-term mix between hardware margin and recurring software margin from Autobidder as this segment accelerates?
Zachary Kirkhorn
We can’t comment on future product road map, but I can provide a quick energy and Q2 update. Megapack continues to show strong demand globally with Lathrop ramping successfully to meet our contracted projects in 2023. As stated last quarter, Megapack margins are in a reasonable place, in line with our target -- vehicle target margins.
The second final assembly line at Lathrop is progressing on schedule, eventually doubling Lathrop capacity ahead of our full factory ramp in 2024. We have several exciting large projects in construction or nearing completion, including the KES project in Hawaii, the Riverina project in Australia, several products in California and one here at Gigafactory, Texas that we’ll tour today, actually. We want to thank our customers, utilities and grid operators for trusting us with these projects.
On the Autobidder question, we continue to grow Autobidder contracts in wholesale markets like Australia, Texas, UK and California with over 6 gigawatt hours under Tesla’s dispatch next year. In the UK, our projects performed best in the industry in Q2. Autobidder does have software margins and is an enabler for hardware sales, but it’s a relatively small contributor to revenues, given how much deployment growth on the Megapack hardware side is occurring. It’s important to remember that these large projects -- these large capital projects have lifetimes of 20 years of recurring revenues on an annualized basis relative to upfront CapEx are small.
On the residential side, we have some fun things happening. We recently surpassed 0.5 million Powerwalls installed. Just this week, we are launching Charge on Solar, which allows Tesla Powerwall and vehicle customers to charge their vehicles using their excess solar and drive only on the sunshine that hits their roof. Yesterday, we began paying customers in Texas for participating in our virtual power plant to provide grid support to ERCOT. We expect these credits to lower our median customer’s annual bill by a third and to increase these credits over time as ERCOT expands market access. And today, we are expanding Tesla electric enrollment to new Model 3 owners in Texas, followed by all Texas vehicle customers over the rest of the quarter.
Unfortunately and somewhat similar to Tesla Insurance, bringing Tesla electric and BPP capabilities to our customers requires working through a fractured regulatory environment on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. In the long run, the value of residential energy software and hardware will be driven by the level of market access that utilities, market operators and regulators permit.
For Powerwall that’s eligible to provide the full stack of energy services, like peaker capacity and system buffering, such as in Australia, we can more than double the value of ownership relative to a typical system today.
Martin Viecha
Thank you very much. The next question is, could you quantify the benefits to COGS per unit from the IRA battery manufacturing incentives; and secondly, battery raw material declines year-to-date?
Zachary Kirkhorn
All right. I can take that. On the first part of the question for IRA manufacturing incentives, we provided previous guidance that we expect these to be for the course of this year in the range of $150 million to $250 million per quarter. We are staying within that boundary as we guided previously, so that was the case in Q2 as well. I will note, and I think we’ve mentioned this before, that this includes a 50-50 sharing of credits for qualified cells from our long-term battery partner, Panasonic.
On the commodity side, we are continuing to see improvements there, as we’ve discussed previously. Lithium is the most notable improvement so far. I think I commented on this on the last call, because typically, we see this coming about a quarter before it actually is realized in our financials. And also just as a reminder, we’re not fully exposed to the price of lithium. Our supply chain team has done a terrific job in partnership with another -- a bunch of other companies to put in place some long-term agreements here, but we do have some exposure that moves up and down.
We’re also seeing benefits in aluminum and steel, which I think is great. Not as large as the lithium impacts, but they contribute nonetheless. So, if we add up the total impact of this in Q2 relative to prior quarter, it’s about the same size and magnitude as the IRA benefits that we also received.
Just to put this in context, as you look at COGS per unit sequentially from Q1 to Q2, I think there’s two things to keep in mind there. The first is that our SX mix for deliveries increased quite a bit from Q1 to Q2. So, as you think about fundamental cost reductions, it’s important to adjust for that. And then secondly, as we continue to work on reducing our Austin and Berlin cost, which we did quite a bit of that from Q1 to Q2, these factories are still slightly above Model Y production costs elsewhere. And in the quarter, our mix of Austin and Berlin related builds increased. And so, that’s something to consider as you model out the impact on -- from Q1 to Q2 in terms of COGS per unit.
I do want to ask Karn if there’s anything else on the commodity side or just more generally, you want to add here?
Karn Budhiraj
Yes. As you mentioned, Zach, we’ve naturally been a little bit hedged from the lithium position because of the long-term contracts we have in place. But we have seen reduction in pricing across the board for all commodities that specifically go into batteries such as nickel, cobalt and graphite. And the reductions in pricing translate into thousands of dollars when you look at it from a per-vehicle impact. We’re taking advantage of the historically low commodity pricing and certainly I ask to kind of extend some of those fixed price contracts through the end of the decade. So it’s a playbook that we’ll continue to kind of go back to as we look to the future.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. The next question on FSD. Have you considered allowing FSD transferability as a lever to allow existing customers to upgrade to a new Tesla instead of being locked into an existing car due to the price of FSD?
Elon Musk
Yes. This is a question we get asked a lot. So, we’re excited to announce that for Q3, we will be allowing transfer of FSD. This is a onetime amnesty. So, it needs to be -- you need to take advantage of it in Q3, but -- or at least place the order in Q3 within reasonable delivery time frames. So yes, I hope this makes people happy. This is a onetime thing.
Martin Viecha
Right. The next question, when will we give more information about the Cybertruck orders, estimated delivery schedules, pricing and specifications?
Elon Musk
Demand is so far off the hook, you can’t even see the hook. So, that’s really not an issue. I do want to emphasize that the Cybertruck has a lot of new technology in it, like a lot. It doesn’t look like -- it doesn’t look like any other vehicle because it is not like any other vehicle. So -- and the production ramp will move as fast as the slowest and least likely elements of the entire supply chain and internal production. So, I wouldn’t expect -- I hope it’s smooth. We’re certainly better at production ramps that -- we’ve got a lot of experience with the production ramps. But first order approximation, there’s like 10,000 unique parts and processes in the Cybertruck. And if any one of -- it will go as fast as the least lucky, least well-executed element of the 10,000. So, it’s always difficult to predict the ramp initially, but I think we’ll be making them in high volume next year, and we will be delivering the car this year.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. The next question is critics of Gigacasting contended that process makes vehicles harder and more costly to repair, essentially pushing costs on to the customer. Can you share some details about the initial repair experience with Gigacast vehicles?
Elon Musk
That must be why everyone’s copying us.
Lars Moravy
Thanks, Elon. This is Lars. I mean, that’s like simply not true. There’s a misconception that traditional bodies are easy to repair, but they are made up of multiple materials and multiple joining methods. Spot welds and rivets have to be drilled out. Panels and structural adhesives have to be chiseled out. Dried adhesive has to be removed, stains, cut, blah, blah, blah.
Elon Musk
It’s a crazy patch of a quilt.
Lars Moravy
Yes. And so putting that back together means time and money. Using an example of replacing a rear cast rail in the Model Y, to do that versus like what we replaced it with from Model 3, it’s 10 times cheaper and 3 times faster to do it with the cast rail. Design team works with our collision repair team since we’re a closed loop on this with insurance, and we design specific parts that make it easier and faster to repair. And we have an incentive to do that because we have our own insurance and our own body shops. We expect that we’ll continue to do this, and collision repair will continue to become cheaper and faster over time. And we already make this available to all body shops or our Tesla-approved body shop training.
Elon Musk
Yes, closing loop on collision repair and factoring that into design is a big deal.
Lars Moravy
Crucial. I don’t think anyone else can do it with that ecosystem that we have, so.
Elon Musk
Yes. And we are actually able to change the details of the casting with inserts, and we actually do that all the time, so -- because the inserts actually wear out and need to be replaced anyway. So we can actually make design changes to the inserts and tweak the castings. But the cast --basically cast rear body or front body is lighter, cheaper, better noise vibration, harshness, much easier to manufacture. It’s better in every way. And that’s why so many other car companies are copying us.
Lars Moravy
Probably.
Elon Musk
Well, they certainly put out a lot of press releases about it. I think it’s basically going to be how all cars are made in the future.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. Next question, how many Optimus bots have been made? And when will they be able to start performing useful tasks?
Elon Musk
10 million. Yes. I think we’re around 5 or 6 bots. I think -- there’s -- we were -- look, 10, I guess. Depends on what -- how many are working and what phase. But it’s sort of -- yes, there’s more every month. There’s a lot of interesting things about the Optimus bot. We found that there are actually no suppliers that can produce the actuators. There are no off-the-shelf actuators that work well for humanoid robot at any price.
Unidentified Company Representative
Certainly not compelling.
Elon Musk
Yes. There’s not a humanoid robot that can do something -- the things that human could do. So, we’ve actually had to design our own actuators that integrate the motor or the power electronics, the controller, the sensors. And really, every one of them is custom designed. And then, of course, we’ll be using the same inference hardware as the car. But we are, in designing these actuators, designing them for volume production. So, they’re not just lighter, tighter and more capable than any other actuators wherever that exists in the world, but it’s also actually manufacturable. So, we should be able to make them in volume.
The first Optimus is that will have all of the Tesla designed actuators, sort of production candidate actuators integrated and walking should be around November-ish. And then, we’ll start ramping up after that. In terms of when we’ll be able to do some useful things, like we’ll first be trying this out in our own factories and just proving out its utility, but I think we’ll be able to have it do something useful in our factories sometime next year. I would be -- yes, I’m pretty confident of that. So yes, it’s going well.
I should say another cool thing about Optimus is that there’s -- just in the U.S. alone, there are 2 million amputees. And I was just talking to the Neuralink team. And by combining a Neuralink implant and a robotic arm or leg for someone that has had their arm or leg or arms and legs amputated, we believe we can give basically a cyber body that is incredibly capable, $6 million man in real life, before don’t want to cost $6 million. $60,000 man. This sounds impressive, but it will actually -- so that actually could be a really -- I think, would be incredible to potentially help people around the world and give them a robot arm or like that is as good, maybe long term better than a biological one.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. The next question is, how has the order intake trended relatively to production levels during Q2? And how has it trended in the quarter-to-date period? Conceptually, how does Tesla decide when is it appropriate to reduce prices or at other sales incentives to increase demand?
Elon Musk
Yes. I guess, demand has roughly tracked production. So which is what we aim for is that it’s something that we have that really -- I think no other carmaker has -- is that we have real-time demand and real-time production, like so seven days a week. I get an e-mail -- order generated e-mail, chose output from all factories and orders globally. So it’s like a real-time finger on the pulse of earth basically. And we adjust course according to what the mood of the public is.
Buying a new car is a big decision for vast majority of people. So, any time there’s economic uncertainty, people generally pause on new car buying at least to see what happens. And then obviously, another challenge is the interest rate environment. As interest rates rise, the affordability of anything bought with debt decreases, so effectively increasing the price of the car.
So when interest rates rise dramatically, we actually have to reduce the price of the car because the interest payments increase the price of the car. And this is -- at least up until recently, it was, I believe, the sharpest interest rate rise in history. So, we had to do something about that. If somebody’s got a crystal ball for the global economy, I really appreciate it, if I could borrow that crystal ball.
Unidentified Company Representative
DM us.
Elon Musk
Yes, exactly, DM me. It should be not on Twitter. So, I mean, one day, it seems like the world economy is falling apart and the next day, everything is fine. I don’t know what’s going on. It’d be totally fine. I wish I did. So, I mean that’s why I say like I was on Twitter, I posted like just really advising because I care a lot about the sort of small shareholders, especially ones that have stuck with us through thick and thin. I love you, guys. And so, we can’t control these macro shocks or the thematic depressive nature of the stock market. So, that’s why I recommend against margin loans in times that are turbulent. If times are not that turbulent, actually margin loan can be a smart move within reason. But we’re in, I would call it, turbulent times. Like I have very high confidence in the long-term value of Tesla. Like I see it -- I really see a path to a 10x -- call it a 5x increase in the value of the company, maybe a 10x. And -- but where things go along the way, the trials and tribulations and the mood of the markets, one cannot predict. And so, the old adage of buy and hold is right. For an investment advice, I’d say like identifying a company as products you love. See if they -- does it seem like they’ll continue to make good products or great products? Buy that stock and hold it. That’s it. You’ll win.
The reason companies exist is to make goods and services, ideally great goods and services. They don’t exist for any other reason. They shouldn’t. So, that’s why you should buy stock of a company that makes good products and has a great future pipeline. It’s common sense, actually.
And then generally, if you see -- if you provide your confidence about what that company’s products or services are, when the market panics, buy; and when the market is overly exuberant, you can sell. I’m not recommending you to Tesla, but yes, buy low, sell high.
Warren Buffett actually, I think has a saying -- I’m paraphrasing him, but a publicly traded company is like imagine living in your house and some crazy manic-depressive guy comes and stands outside your house and yells property prices at you, and it’s a different price every day. But the house is still the same house. So, this is a stock market. Credit that to Warren Buffett.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. Let’s go to the next question. With the emphasis of price cuts to drive volume growth eating into automotive gross margin, can investors expect to see automotive gross margin stabilize or even rise due to efficiencies outpacing the cuts? And if so, when?
Elon Musk
Where’s that crystal ball, again? If I may, look, the short-term variances in gross margin and profitability really are minor relative to the long-term picture. Autonomy will make all of these numbers look silly. I’d recommend looking at ARK Invest. I think their analysis is very good. It’s the best. And generally, Fintwit or the finance, Smart Finance people on Twitter, follow their accounts. They’re great. So that’s in my opinion where you’ll get the best info. So, I strongly believe Tesla is a big long-term investment. And don’t sweat when things go up and down. In fact, if the market panics, buy; if the market is a little too exuberant, sell at the time. But just generally, I’m confident we’ll deliver over long term, but can’t control short term. So -- and the autonomy is really where it’s at. I mean, Zachary?
Zachary Kirkhorn
I fully agree with you. I mean, I think the only thing in the short term that matters is what I said in my opening remarks, which is are we generating enough money to continue to invest. And the portfolio of products and technologies that the technical teams are investing in right now, this is intense. It’s intense in terms of investment; it’s intense in terms of potential.
Elon Musk
Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that we have positive free cash flow in a capital-intensive business, while investing massive amounts of money in new technology. That is super hard.
Unidentified Company Representative
And vertical integration. It’s not even just like new products, but also...
Elon Musk
Yes. We actually make our share...
Zachary Kirkhorn
And so, at least from my perspective, what matters is continuing to generate the cash to invest. That means continuing to be hyper focused on near-term cost reduction. Is everything we do in near-term cost reduction provides capital to reinvest? Hyper-focused on working capital management, which we’ve made quite a bit of progress there on the raw materials and with -- a set of that we’ve been very focused on accounts receivables as well to ensure that we can continue to reinvest the cash. This is what we’re focused on. And so, there’s a set of this that we control. We have a pipeline of cost reductions. We are getting tailwinds in the commodity space right now, as Karn mentioned, that’s helpful.
Variability around average selling prices goes back to Elon’s point. We don’t control interest rates. We don’t control macro consumer sentiment. But we have an obligation to be responsive to that to ensure that we’re matching supply and demand and keeping things balanced. And so, this is how we’re managing the next handful of quarters. Soon enough, these quarters will be behind us. They won’t be part of the present value of future cash flows of the business. And so, we want to make sure we keep that view and make sure that the long term business is exactly the way that we want it to be.
Martin Viecha
All right. Thank you very much. Now let’s go to analyst questions. The first question comes from Dan Levy from Barclays.
Dan Levy
I wanted to start first with a question about your efforts in AI and Dojo. It’s pretty clear it sounds like you’re accelerating your focus. Can you maybe provide us with a sense of what the process is of refining a product? Is it more machines? And maybe you could give us a sense of when the payout starts to -- when you start to see the payout and what the resource outlay is, what should we expect on the OpEx front as a result of this?
Elon Musk
Sorry. Are you saying how much are we going to spend on Dojo or…?
Dan Levy
Yes.
Elon Musk
R&D on Dojo?
Dan Levy
Yes.
Elon Musk
Well, we’re not going to be open loop on our Dojo expenditures. So -- but I mean, I think we will be spending something north of $1 billion over the next year on -- through the next year, it’s well over $1 billion in Dojo. And yes, so I mean we’ve got a truly staggering amount of video data to do training on. And this is another thing -- in order to copy us, you also need to spend billions of dollars on training compute. I mean, it’s like -- and it’s also hard to -- you need the data and you need the training computer. It’s like -- think, well, things needed to actually achieve this at scale toward generalized solution for autonomy, it’s -- this is one of the highest problems ever.
You see a lot of AI companies doing LLMs and whatnot. I would say if they’re so great, why can’t they make a self-driving car? Because it’s harder. That’s why. So -- but I do think -- I think there’s some great AI companies out there. But just fundamentally, the staggering amount of data we’ve got to process, it’s got to be processed somehow. And custom silicon is the best way to do that.
So that’s what Dojo is designed to do is optimize for video training. It’s not optimized for LLMs. It’s optimized for video training. With video training, you have a much higher ratio of compute-to-memory bandwidth, so -- whereas LLMs tends to be memory bandwidth choked. So that’s it. I mean -- but like I said, we’re also -- we have some -- we’re using a lot of NVIDIA hardware. We’ll continue to -- we’ll actually take NVIDIA hardware as fast as NVIDIA will deliver it to us. Tremendous respect for Jensen and NVIDIA. They’ve done an incredible job.
And frankly, I don’t know if they could deliver us enough GPUs, we might not need Dojo, but they can’t. So they’ve got so many customers. They’ve been kind enough to nonetheless, prioritize some of our GPU orders. But yes, the sheer magnitude of video training -- because like I said, we’re not trying to just get as good as human. We want to get to 10 times better than human, maybe 100 times better than human.
Right now, I believe there’s something on the order of 1 million automotive deaths per year. And then if you say permanent serious injuries, I think it’s probably closer to 10 million per year. And -- so it matters if you’re twice as good as human, 10 times -- like 10 times better than human would still mean 100,000 deaths and 1 million severe permanent injuries. So, it’s like, okay, we would rather be 100 times better. So there’s really -- it’s a march of 9s, and we want to achieve as perfect safety as possible. And that’s truly mind-boggling amounts of video and computer needed for that. And then, I do think there’s other applications for Dojo, but we just desperately need it for video training.
Zachary Kirkhorn
Just to add to what Elon mentioned. So, the numbers that he mentioned are between R&D spend and capital spend. And this is moving quickly. And so, we provide a three-year outlook on our capital expense. We are considering these expenses in that outlook. And as that moves up and down, we’ll continue to update our guidance in the Q.
Elon Musk
Yes. I want to say, the fundamental rate limiter on the progress of full self-driving is training. That’s -- if we had more training compute, we would get it done faster. So that’s it.
Zachary Kirkhorn
And it’s just difficult to predict how quickly we can execute on it.
Dan Levy
Great. Thank you. Just as a follow-up, I recognize there’s incredible macro uncertainty right now, but you’re sticking with your near term, your volume target of 50% CAGR. As we just think about sort of in the year ahead, Cybertruck is going to be some contribution. There’s going to be some help from further EV penetration growth. But to what extent are you willing to sacrifice on pricing to keep that 50% volume CAGR intact, or are you thinking differently about margins versus your prior commentary of willing to sacrifice on margins to get more share?
Elon Musk
It’s not about getting more share. It’s just that you can think of every car that we sell or produce that has full autonomy capability as actually something that in the future may be worth as much as 5 times what it is today. Because average -- vehicle is doing like maybe 10 hours of driving a week. If sort of -- if this says 1.5 hours a day on average, that’s 10 hours a week-ish. If you’ve got on autonomous -- if the vehicle is able to operate autonomously and use either dedicated autonomous or partially autonomous like Airbnb, like maybe sometimes you allow your car to be used by others. Sometimes you want to use it exclusively just like Airbnb -- doing Airbnb with a room in your house. The value is just tremendous.
So, I think it’s sort of, it would be -- I think it -- it does make sense to sacrifice margins in favor of making more vehicles because we think in the not too distant future, they will have a dramatic valuation increase. I think the Tesla fleet value increase at the point which we can upload full self-driving and is approved by regulators will be the single biggest step change in asset value maybe in history.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. Let’s go to the next analyst. The question comes from Emmanuel Rosner from Deutsche Bank.
Emmanuel Rosner
Two questions from me as well. First, following up on the autonomy. So before you start launching these dedicated robotaxi vehicles, on existing vehicles, you’re improving FSD incrementally. What is your latest targeted timing to essentially release a non-beta version or an eyes-off version that would trigger much higher take rates? And would Tesla benefit from lowering the price of FSD?
Elon Musk
Well, obviously, as people have sort of made fun of me and perhaps quite fairly have made fun of me, my predictions about achieving full self-driving have been optimistic in the past. The reason I’ve been optimistic is -- it tends to look like is the -- we’ll make rapid progress with a new version of FSD, but then it will curve over logarithmically. So first, logarithmic curve looks like just sort of fairly straight upward line, diagonally up. And so, if you extrapolate that, then you have a great thing. But then because it’s actually logarithmic, it curves over, and then there have been a series of stacked logarithmic curves.
Now, I’m the boy who cried FSD, but I think we’ll be better than human by the end of this year. That’s not to say we’re approved by regulators. And I’m saying that would be in the U.S. because we’ve got to focus on one market first. But I think we’ll be better than human by the end of this year. I’ve been wrong in the past, I may be wrong this time.
And the price of FSD -- so the great thing is the price of FSD is actually very low, it’s not high. When you go back to what I said earlier, the value of the car increases dramatically if it is actually autonomous. $15,000 is actually a low price, not a high price. And we will offer -- and we -- I think we do sort of offer FSD as a sort of monthly subscription, although most people don’t know that. So, I’d recommend like maybe trying it out as a monthly subscription so you don’t have to go with the $15,000 thing. But I think yes, yes -- obviously, if the car is worth several times its original price, $15,000 is actually a low price for FSD.
Martin Viecha
And the next question comes from William Stein from Truist.
William Stein
I’d like to ask about -- to stick on this AI topic. We’ve read with great interest the developments in Dojo today, and you’ve spoken about FSD, but you’ve also -- Elon, you started this x.ai company. And for investors that think that there might be quite a bit of value in the AI features and products of Tesla, it might be concerning to see you pursuing another endeavor where AI is the focus. So can you talk about how x.ai might overlap, might perhaps compete with Tesla or in other ways, perhaps it enhances the value of what Tesla does?
Elon Musk
Yes. I think it’ll actually enhance the value of Tesla. There were just some of the world’s best AI engineers and scientists that were willing to join a startup, but they were not willing to join a large sort of relatively established company like Tesla. So, it was like -- that’s actually how it got started. I was interviewing a few people and they’re like, no, we want to do a startup. I was like, and that’s well -- I couldn’t convince them to join Tesla. So -- so it’s like, okay, well, better to start up that I run than go work somewhere else. That’s kind of the genesis of xAI.
And xAI is focused on sort of AGI. Yes. So it’s -- like I said, I think there will be some value that xAI brings to Tesla. Also some of the best -- for the very best people in the world, they really just want to work on interesting problem. So if you take, say, a material science group, really what convinced Charlie Colman to leave Apple, where he was very happy and well compensated, and both at -- in both -- where we think is the best material science group in the world, was that he got to work at both Tesla and SpaceX. He wasn’t willing to leave Apple if it was just Tesla, but he’s willing to do it if it is Tesla and SpaceX. So sometimes you get the best talent in the world if that’s the kind of thing you need to do. And that actually has been very beneficial to Tesla.
William Stein
If I could squeeze one more mundane question in. I wonder if you think you can hit the 1.8 million unit number with current pricing, or do you anticipate needing to continue to lower prices because it seems like they’ve stabilized. The trends have stabilized in the last maybe 1.5 months. Should we expect sort of continued decreases or more stabilization for the rest of the year?
Elon Musk
Sure. We have sort of -- we started the referral program, which I think will be quite effective. As Zach was saying earlier, we don’t control the macroeconomic conditions. So, if interest rates continue to rise, that reduces the affordability of cars. And for a lot of people, they’re really -- they’re just really breaking even every month. In fact, if you look at the rise in credit card debt, they are, in fact, not breaking even every month. Credit card debt is looking scary. So, we just don’t control the market conditions. If market condition is stable, I think prices will be stable. If they’re not stable, then we would have lower prices. Yes.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. Let’s go to Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer.
Colin Rusch
As you’re building out Dojo and implementing what truly is going to be a highly complex set of software, can you speak to the maturity of the operating system and how much outsourced software you’re expecting to use in that system?
Elon Musk
This is a custom software stack, so. But it is designed such that you can run at a high level, PyTorch and JAX. But then we have to customize it to actually run on a custom silicon. So, the software stack is a combination of open source software and then Tesla software all the way to the bare silicon, which is the case for the inference computer in the car.
Colin Rusch
Okay. Thanks so much. That’s super helpful. And then can you speak to how you’re managing some of the geopolitical risks relative to your capacity expansion? Obviously, as you guys continue to grow at this rate, you’re going to be putting some folks out of business. And there’s going to be some impacts around regional economy. So, I just want to understand how you’re thinking about that in terms of some of your CapEx plans and how you’re managing some of those relationships with different countries and regions.
Elon Musk
Well, this is a period of unusual geopolitical risk. So, I think we’re -- the best we can do is have factories in many parts of the world such that if things get difficult in one part of the world, we can still keep things going in the rest of the world.
Martin Viecha
Thank you. The next question comes from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs.
Mark Delaney
Tesla has been making progress reducing costs and did so again last quarter. Can you give an update on when you think automotive COGS per vehicle could be under the historical $36,000 per vehicle level? And what are the key puts and takes to get there?
Zachary Kirkhorn
This is -- I think I was asked this in the past. This is very difficult to forecast. There’s a series of costs that we manage, the series of costs which we don’t control. And so particularly on the commodity side, where labor costs go, et cetera, it’s just hard to say.
Elon Musk
Yes. And we saw very inflationary -- like strong inflationary pressures for a while last year. And now -- which obviously makes it very difficult to reduce COGS. And now we’re seeing what seems to be deflationary pressures, certainly deflationary -- deflation isn’t pressure. But we’re seeing commodity prices dropping as was mentioned, as Karn mentioned a moment ago. I mean, I don’t know, what do you think? I mean, basically, the trends seem to be deflationary at the commodity level.
Karn Budhiraj
Definitely. There’s that. And then there’s also the unit economics improve as volumes grow. That’s the other thing we’re seeing. As we’re becoming a bigger and better part of a lot of suppliers, the economies of scale come into play. There’s equipment depreciation that comes into play, equipment that was commissioned 5 to 7 years ago. That used to be a part of the piece price. That’s completely amortized. So, we’ll see situation where piece price comes down because that equipment contribution has gone away.
And then just we continue to have this mentality of continuous improvement in terms of labor, reducing labor, improving automation, and just continue to get better at what we do. So we have seen -- I think every quarter, we have seen an improvement. Of course, the commodities spiked up and down. Just in general, the trend is towards being more efficient.
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes, I’m totally agreeing.
Elon Musk
Yes, lithium prices were absolutely insane there for a while.
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes. And they’re recovering now.
Karn Budhiraj
Cobalt -- the way it used to be.
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes. And we’re still early in the ramp -- well, not early in the ramp, but early in the cost down curve of Austin and Berlin. And so, it takes time to work the cost out it. First, it’s a focus on ramp -- ramp, it brings cost down...
Elon Musk
And quality costs…
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes. And then once that stabilizes, we can divert bandwidth to cost reduction. And so Austin and Berlin saw quite a decent amount of cost reduction on a fundamental basis from Q1 to Q2. We’ll continue to do that work that will be helpful. And so we’re just going to keep chipping away at it.
Unidentified Company Representative
Packaging is a big element to that.
Elon Musk
Yes, logistics…
Zachary Kirkhorn
Logistics is normalizing, which is great.
Unidentified Company Representative
[Indiscernible] utilization, something that the team has been very focused on. So, every bit of it.
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes, and it’s hard...
Elon Musk
Logistics is underappreciated. Yes, so sold saying goes like valves and with tactics as one with logistics.
Unidentified Company Representative
Yes. And we’ve made tremendous improvements in cost in all fronts on expired costs. We have done pre-pandemic expired cost levels now, and our goal is to go further down.
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes. So when we look at our progress from Q1 to Q2 on cost, the way that we look at internally, normalized for the impacts of mix shift with Austin and Berlin being a higher percentage of our mix, normalized for S and X being a higher percentage of our mix in Q2 versus Q1, the sequential cost reduction, it might be the largest we’ve had in a while. So, I think it’s great work on behalf of the Tesla team, and we just got to keep it up.
Elon Musk
Yes, it’s a game of pennies. It’s a Game of Thrones with pennies.
Martin Viecha
Mark, do you have a follow-up question? I think you’re muted.
Mark Delaney
Yes. Thank you very much for all the details on that. Maybe you could put a finer point on the downtime impact that you spoke about in your prepared comments in terms of production impact and then also to what extent there’s a margin impact from those factory upgrades that you’re planning this quarter?
Zachary Kirkhorn
Yes. The downtime -- we don’t know exactly the number of cars impacted because kind of the way that we go into downtime windows for upgrades is we set aside a period of time, but then the team is challenged to go as quickly as possible so that we can get the factories up and running again and minimize that. It’s not profound reduction. Hopefully, it’s small.
Elon Musk
I think we’re getting too much into the weeds here. I mean, like we’re asking for a level of precision that is not possible to answer. So, let’s move on.
Martin Viecha
Yes. I think this is unfortunately all the time we have for today. So, we’ll speak to you all in the next three months. Thank you very much.
Elon Musk
Thank you.
(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——首席執行官 |
Karn Budhiraj-供應鏈副總裁 |
Lars Moravy-車輛工程副總裁 |
Martin Viecha-IR 副總裁 |
Zachary Kirkhorn-首席財務官 |
分析師
Colin Rusch-奧本海默 |
Dan Levy-巴克萊銀行 |
Emmanuel Rosner-德意志銀行 |
Mark Delaney-高盛 |
William Stein-Truist |
問答環節
Martin Viecha
非常感謝,扎克。讓我們來談談投資者的問題。我們已經回答了關於許可 FSD 的第一個問題。所以,讓我們來看第二個。第二個問題是,4680 電池的狀態如何?你離你在 Battery Day 上設定的規格有多遠?你預計什麼時候能實現你在 Battery Day 上設定的目標?
Zachary Kirkhorn
是的。首先,我將從一些生產更新開始。因此,在得克薩斯州,第二季度4680電池的產量比第一季度增長了80%,該團隊在德克薩斯州的產量超過了1000萬個。所以,爲此向團隊表示祝賀。他們對產量的關注使我們的廢品賬單同比減少了40%,這導致電池COGS減少了25%。
在得克薩斯州,我們正準備推出我們的Cybertruck電池,它的能量密度比目前的產量高出10%。這是通過工藝和機械設計優化實現的。隨着我們在今年年底和明年初擴大網絡電池的產量,我們應該在每塊電池的成本上處於有利地位。
相對於我們的電池能量密度目標,Cybercell 在同類電化學基礎上達到了我們的預期。我們還沒有整合硅或內部陰極生產,這兩者都在電池日進行了審查,這確實帶來了進一步的能量密度和成本改善,但這是另一天的話題。
最後,重要的是要記住,我們在電池日上的大部分重點是特斯拉設計的4680生產系統,以及我們在設備、工廠密度、資本成本和公用事業成本降低方面努力實現的改進,所有這些都是我們迄今爲止在德克薩斯州的規模中實現的。
Martin Viecha
非常感謝。下一個問題是,你能否更多地談談即將推出的特斯拉能源產品,以及你對收入模式的看法是如何演變的?鑑於特斯拉的人工智能能力,隨着該細分市場的加速,你如何看待硬件利潤率和Autobidder經常性軟件利潤之間的長期組合?
Zachary Kirkhorn
我們無法評論未來的產品路線圖,但我可以提供快速的能量和第二季度更新。隨着Lathrop在2023年成功擴張以滿足我們的合同項目,Megapack繼續在全球範圍內表現出強勁的需求。正如上個季度所述,Megapack的利潤率處於合理水平,符合我們的目標——汽車目標利潤率。
Lathrop的第二條總裝線正在按計劃進行,最終在2024年我們的工廠全面投入使用之前,Lathrop的產能翻了一番。實際上,我們有幾個激動人心的大型項目正在建設或即將完工,包括夏威夷的KES項目、澳大利亞的Riverina項目、加利福尼亞的幾種產品以及德克薩斯州Gigafactory的一個產品。我們要感謝客戶、公用事業和電網運營商對我們進行這些項目的信任。
關於Autobidder問題,我們將繼續增加澳大利亞、德克薩斯州、英國和加利福尼亞等批發市場的Autobidder合同,明年特斯拉將派出超過6千兆瓦時。在英國,我們的項目在第二季度在業內表現最好。Autobidder確實有軟件利潤率,是硬件銷售的推動力,但考慮到Megapack硬件方面的部署增長幅度,它對收入的貢獻相對較小。重要的是要記住,與前期資本支出相比,這些大型資本項目 —— 按年計算,這些大型資本項目的週期爲20年的經常性收入。
在住宅方面,我們正在發生一些有趣的事情。我們最近安裝的 Powerwalls 已超過 50 萬個。就在本週,我們將推出Charge on Solar,它允許特斯拉Powerwall和汽車客戶使用多餘的太陽能爲車輛充電,並且只能在照射到車頂的陽光下行駛。昨天,我們開始向德克薩斯州的客戶付款,因爲他們參與了我們的虛擬發電廠,爲ERCOT提供電網支持。我們預計,隨着ERCOT擴大市場準入,這些積分將使客戶的年度賬單中位數降低三分之一,並隨着時間的推移增加這些抵免額。今天,我們正在將特斯拉電動汽車的註冊人數擴大到德克薩斯州的Model 3新車主,其次是在本季度的剩餘時間裏,德克薩斯州的所有汽車客戶。
不幸的是,與特斯拉保險有點相似,爲我們的客戶提供特斯拉的電動和BPP能力需要在分裂的監管環境中逐個司法管轄區開展工作。從長遠來看,住宅能源軟件和硬件的價值將取決於公用事業、市場運營商和監管機構允許的市場準入水平。
對於有資格提供全套能源服務(例如峯值容量和系統緩衝)的Powerwall,例如在澳大利亞,與當今的典型系統相比,我們可以將所有權價值提高一倍以上。
Martin Viecha
非常感謝。下一個問題是,你能否量化IRA電池製造激勵措施給每單位COGS帶來的好處;其次,電池原材料今年迄今爲止的下降?
Zachary Kirkhorn
好吧。我可以接受。關於IRA製造業激勵措施問題的第一部分,我們提供了先前的指導,我們預計今年的激勵措施將在每季度1.5億至2.5億美元之間。正如我們之前所指出的那樣,我們將保持在該邊界內,因此第二季度也是如此。我要指出,我想我們之前已經提到過,這包括我們的長期電池合作伙伴松下爲合格電池提供50-50的積分分享。
在大宗商品方面,正如我們之前所討論的那樣,我們繼續看到大宗商品方面的改善。鋰是迄今爲止最顯著的改進。我想我在上次電話會議上對此發表了評論,因爲通常,我們看到這在財務狀況中實際實現之前大約一個季度。同樣提醒一下,我們並沒有完全受到鋰價格的影響。我們的供應鏈團隊與另一家公司合作做得非常出色——許多其他公司在這裏簽訂了一些長期協議,但我們的風險確實在上下波動。
我們還看到了鋁和鋼的好處,我認爲這很棒。不如鋰的衝擊那麼大,但它們仍然起了作用。因此,如果我們將第二季度的總體影響與上一季度相比加起來,其規模和幅度與我們也獲得的IRA福利差不多。
簡而言之,當你按順序查看從第一季度到第二季度每單位的COGS時,我認爲有兩件事需要記住。首先,從第一季度到第二季度,我們的SX交付組合大幅增加。因此,在考慮基本成本削減時,調整這一點很重要。其次,隨着我們繼續努力降低奧斯汀和柏林的成本(從第一季度到第二季度,我們做了很多工作),這些工廠仍然略高於其他地方的Model Y的生產成本。在本季度,我們與奧斯汀和柏林相關的建築組合有所增加。因此,在建模影響時,這是需要考慮的問題,即從第一季度到第二季度,以每單位COGS計算。
我確實想問 Karn 在大宗商品方面還有其他問題或者更籠統地說,你想在這裏補充一點?
Karn Budhiraj
是的。正如你所提到的,扎克,由於我們簽訂了長期合同,我們自然會有點偏離鋰頭寸。但是我們已經看到,所有專門用於電池(例如鎳、鈷和石墨)的大宗商品的定價全面降低。從每輛車的撞擊來看,價格的降低可以轉化爲數千美元。我們正在利用歷史最低的大宗商品定價,我當然要求將其中一些固定價格合約延長到本世紀末。因此,在展望未來時,我們將繼續回顧這本劇本。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。關於FSD的下一個問題。你有沒有考慮過允許FSD轉讓作爲槓桿,讓現有客戶升級到新的特斯拉,而不是因爲FSD的價格而被鎖在現有汽車裏?
埃隆馬斯克
是的。這是我們經常被問到的問題。因此,我們很高興地宣佈,在第三季度,我們將允許FSD的轉讓。這是一次性的大赦。因此,必須如此 —— 你需要在第三季度利用它,但是 —— 或者至少在第三季度在合理的交貨時間範圍內下訂單。所以是的,我希望這能讓人們開心。這是一次性的事情。
Martin Viecha
對。下一個問題,我們何時會提供有關Cybertruck訂單、預計交貨時間表、定價和規格的更多信息?
埃隆馬斯克
需求太遠了,你甚至看不見鉤子。所以,這真的不是問題。我確實想強調的是,Cybertruck裏面有很多新技術,比如很多。它看起來不像 —— 它看起來不像任何其他車輛,因爲它不像任何其他車輛。因此,產量增長的速度將與整個供應鏈和內部生產中最慢、最不可能的要素一樣快。所以,我沒想到 —— 我希望一切順利。當然,我們在產量提升方面更勝一籌 —— 我們在生產坡道方面有豐富的經驗。但是一階近似值,Cybertruck 中大約有 10,000 個獨特的零件和工藝。而且,如果有的話 —— 它的運行速度將與 10,000 個元素中最不幸運、執行效果最差的元素一樣快。因此,最初總是很難預測坡道,但我認爲明年我們將大量生產這些坡道,而且我們將在今年交付這輛車。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。下一個問題是,對Gigacasting的批評者認爲,該過程使車輛更難維修,成本更高,這本質上是將成本推高給了客戶。你能分享一些關於Gigacast車輛初始維修體驗的細節嗎?
埃隆馬斯克
這一定是每個人都在模仿我們的原因。
Lars Moravy
謝謝,埃隆。這是拉爾斯。我的意思是,這簡直不是真的。有一種誤解,認爲傳統車身易於維修,但它們由多種材料和多種連接方法組成。必須鑽出點焊縫和鉚釘。必須將面板和結構粘合劑鑿出來。必須去除乾燥的粘合劑,污漬,切開,等等,等等,等等。
埃隆馬斯克
這是一塊瘋狂的拼接被子。
Lars Moravy
是的。因此,把它們重新組合起來意味着時間和金錢。舉一個替換 Model Y 中的後鑄導軌的例子,要做到這一點,而不是像我們從 Model 3 中取代它的那樣,使用鑄軌更便宜 10 倍,快 3 倍。設計團隊與我們的碰撞修復團隊合作,因爲我們對此有保險,我們設計的特定零件可以更輕鬆、更快地進行維修。而且我們有動力這樣做,因爲我們有自己的保險和自己的車身修理廠。我們預計我們會繼續這樣做,隨着時間的推移,碰撞修復將繼續變得更便宜、更快。而且我們已經將其提供給所有車身修理廠或特斯拉批准的車身修理廠培訓。
埃隆馬斯克
是的,在碰撞修復方面閉環並將其考慮在設計中是一件大事。
Lars Moravy
關鍵。我認爲沒有其他人能用我們擁有的生態系統做到,所以。
埃隆馬斯克
是的。而且我們實際上能夠用嵌件改變鑄件的細節,而且我們實際上一直都這樣做,所以 —— 因爲嵌件實際上已經磨損了,無論如何都需要更換。因此,我們實際上可以對嵌件進行設計更改並調整鑄件。但是鑄造——基本上是鑄造的後車身或前車身更輕、更便宜、噪音更好、振動更好、更刺耳,更容易製造。各方面都更好。這就是爲什麼這麼多其他汽車公司都在效仿我們的原因。
Lars Moravy
可能吧。
埃隆馬斯克
好吧,他們肯定發佈了很多關於它的新聞稿。我認爲未來所有汽車基本上都是這樣製造的。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。下一個問題,已經制造了多少擎天柱機器人?他們什麼時候才能開始執行有用的任務?
埃隆馬斯克
我想我們大約有 5 或 6 個機器人。我想 —— 我想是 10 臺。取決於什麼 —— 有多少人在起作用以及處於哪個階段。但有點像 —— 是的,每個月都有更多。Optimus 機器人有很多有趣的地方。我們發現實際上沒有供應商可以生產執行器。無論如何,沒有現成的執行器可以很好地適用於仿人機器人。
身份不明的公司代表
當然不引人注目。
埃隆馬斯克
是的。沒有人形機器人能做點什麼 —— 人類能做的事情。因此,我們實際上必須設計自己的執行器來集成電機或電力電子設備、控制器和傳感器。實際上,它們中的每一個都是定製設計的。然後,當然,我們將使用與汽車相同的推理硬件。但是,在設計這些執行器時,我們是爲批量生產而設計的。因此,它們不僅比世界上任何其他執行器都更輕、更緊湊、更強大,而且實際上也是可以製造的。因此,我們應該能夠批量製作它們。
第一個 Optimus 將配備特斯拉設計的所有執行器,集成了某種量產候選執行器,行走應該在 11 月左右。然後,我們將在那之後開始加大力度。就我們何時能夠做一些有用的事情而言,比如我們將首先在自己的工廠裏試一試這個然後證明它的用處,但我想明年某個時候我們就能讓它在我們的工廠裏做一些有用的事情。我會的 —— 是的,我對此很有信心。所以是的,進展順利。
我應該說 Optimus 的另一件很酷的事情是 —— 僅在美國,就有 200 萬被截肢者。我剛才在和 Neuralink 團隊談話。而且,通過將Neuralink植入物與機械臂或腿部或腿部截肢的人相結合,我們相信我們基本上可以提供一個能力令人難以置信的網絡身體,這聽起來令人印象深刻,但實際上 —— 所以我認爲,如果能幫助世界各地的人們,給他們一隻機器人手臂或者類似的機器手臂一樣好,也許從長遠來看可能比生物武器好,真是太不可思議了。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。下一個問題是,第二季度的訂單量相對於產量水平的趨勢如何?以及在本季度迄今爲止的趨勢如何?從概念上講,特斯拉如何決定何時應該降低價格或採取其他銷售激勵措施來增加需求?
埃隆馬斯克
是的。我猜,需求大致追蹤了產量。因此,我們的目標是,我們真正擁有的東西 —— 我想沒有其他汽車製造商能做到 —— 那就是我們有實時需求和實時生產,就像每週七天一樣。我收到一封電子郵件 —— 訂單生成的電子郵件,選擇了來自全球所有工廠和訂單的輸出。因此,它基本上就像實時觸摸地球脈衝一樣。而且我們會根據公衆的情緒調整方向。
對於絕大多數人來說,購買新車是一個重大決定。因此,每當出現經濟不確定性時,人們通常會停下來購買新車,至少看看會發生什麼。顯然,另一個挑戰是利率環境。隨着利率的上升,用債務購買的任何東西的負擔能力都會降低,因此實際上提高了汽車的價格。
因此,當利率急劇上升時,我們實際上必須降低汽車的價格,因爲利息支付會增加汽車的價格。這是 —— 我相信,至少直到最近,這是歷史上最大的一次加息。所以,我們必須爲此做點什麼。如果有人爲全球經濟準備了水晶球,如果我能借用那個水晶球,我真的很感激。
身份不明的公司代表
給我們發短信。
埃隆馬斯克
是的,沒錯,給我發短信。它不應該在 Twitter 上。所以,我的意思是,有一天,世界經濟似乎正在分崩離析,第二天,一切都很好。我不知道發生了什麼。完全沒問題。我希望我做到了。所以,我的意思是這就是爲什麼我像在 Twitter 上一樣說,我發帖就像在真正提供建議一樣,因爲我非常關心那種小股東,尤其是那些在艱難時期一直待在我們身邊的股東。我愛你,夥計們。因此,我們無法控制這些宏觀衝擊或股市的主題抑制性質。因此,這就是爲什麼我建議在動盪時期不要使用保證金貸款。如果時代沒有那麼動盪,那麼實際上保證金貸款在合理範圍內可能是明智之舉。但我稱之爲我們正處在動盪的時代。就像我對特斯拉的長期價值非常有信心一樣。就像我所看到的那樣 —— 我真的看到了通往 10 倍的道路 —— 稱之爲公司價值增長 5 倍,可能是 10 倍。而且 —— 但是前進的方向、考驗和磨難以及市場的情緒,人們無法預測。因此,買入並持有的古老格言是對的。對於投資建議,我想說的是將一家公司確定爲你喜歡的產品。看看他們是否 —— 看來他們會繼續生產好產品還是很棒的產品?買入那隻股票並持有。僅此而已。你會贏的。
公司存在的原因是製造商品和服務,最好是優質的商品和服務。它們不存在是出於任何其他原因。他們不應該。所以,這就是爲什麼你應該購買一家生產優質產品且未來渠道良好的公司的股票。其實這是常識。
然後一般來說,如果你看見—— 如果你對公司的產品或服務有信心,當市場恐慌時,買入;當市場過於繁榮時,你可以賣出。我不是在向特斯拉推薦你,但是是的,低價買入,高價賣出。
實際上,我想沃倫·巴菲特有句諺語 —— 我在解釋他的話,但是一家上市公司就像想象一下住在你的房子裏,一個瘋狂的躁狂抑鬱症患者走來站在你家門外對你大喊房地產價格,而且價格每天都不一樣。但是房子還是同一個房子。所以,這是一個股票市場。這要歸功於沃倫·巴菲特。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。讓我們來看下一個問題。由於強調降價以推動銷量增長吞噬了汽車毛利率,投資者能否期望看到汽車毛利率因效率超過降幅而穩定甚至上升?如果是這樣,什麼時候?
埃隆馬斯克
再說一遍,那個水晶球在哪裏?如果可以的話,你看,與長期情況相比,毛利率和盈利能力的短期差異確實很小。自主權會讓所有這些數字看起來很愚蠢。我建議你看看 ARK Invest。我認爲他們的分析非常好。這是最好的。通常,Fintwit或財務、Twitter上的Smart Finance人士會關注他們的賬戶。它們很棒。所以在我看來,這是你能得到最好的信息的地方。因此,我堅信特斯拉是一項巨大的長期投資。而且,當事情起伏不定時,不要流汗。實際上,如果市場恐慌,那就買入;如果市場有點過於活躍,那就賣出。但總的來說,我相信我們會長期交付,但無法控制短期內交付。所以 —— 自主權才是真正的用武之地。我的意思是,扎卡里?
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
我完全同意你的看法。我的意思是,我認爲短期內唯一重要的是我在開幕詞中所說的話,那就是我們籌集了足夠的資金來繼續投資。而且,技術團隊目前正在投資的產品和技術組合非常激烈。就投資而言,它非常激烈;就潛力而言,它非常激烈。
埃隆馬斯克
坦率地說,我認爲我們在資本密集型業務中擁有正的自由現金流,同時在新技術上投入了大量資金,這太荒謬了。那太難了。
身份不明的公司代表
還有垂直整合。它甚至不只是像新產品一樣,而且...
埃隆馬斯克
是的。實際上,我們分享了自己的份額...
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
因此,至少從我的角度來看,重要的是繼續產生用於投資的現金。這意味着要繼續高度關注短期成本的降低。我們在短期內降低成本所做的一切是否都爲再投資提供了資金?我們非常注重營運資金管理,我們在原材料方面取得了相當大的進展,其中我們也非常關注應收賬款,以確保我們能夠繼續將現金再投資。這就是我們關注的焦點。所以,其中有一組是我們控制的。我們有削減成本的渠道。正如卡恩所說,我們現在在大宗商品領域遇到了利好因素,這很有幫助。
平均銷售價格的波動可以追溯到埃隆的觀點。我們無法控制利率。我們無法控制宏觀消費者情緒。但是我們有義務對此做出回應,以確保我們的供需相匹配並保持平衡。因此,這就是我們管理接下來的幾個季度的方式。很快,這些宿舍就會過去。它們不會成爲企業未來現金流現值的一部分。因此,我們希望確保我們保持這種觀點,並確保長期業務完全符合我們想要的樣子。
Martin Viecha
好吧。非常感謝。現在讓我們來看看分析師的問題。第一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的丹·利維。
丹·利維
我想先問一個關於你在 AI 和 Dojo 方面的努力的問題。很明顯,聽起來你在加快注意力。你能否讓我們了解一下提煉產品的過程?是更多的機器嗎?也許你可以讓我們了解一下支出何時開始 —— 當你開始看到支出以及資源支出是多少,由此我們在 OpEx 方面應該期待什麼?
埃隆馬斯克
對不起。你是說我們要花多少錢在 Dojo 上還是...?
丹·利維
是的。
埃隆馬斯克
在 Dojo 上進行研發?
丹·利維
是的。
埃隆馬斯克
好吧,我們不會對我們的 Dojo 支出持開放態度。所以 —— 但我的意思是,我認爲明年我們將花費超過10億美元 —— 到明年,Dojo的支出將遠遠超過10億美元。是的,所以我的意思是我們有大量的視頻數據需要訓練。這是另一回事—— 爲了模仿我們,你還需要在訓練計算上花費數十億美元。我的意思是,就像 —— 而且也很難 —— 你需要數據,你需要訓練計算機。就像 —— 想想,好吧,要真正實現這一目標,實現自治的通用解決方案,需要一些東西,確實如此 —— 這是有史以來最高的問題之一。
你會看到很多人工智能公司都在攻讀法學碩士之類的。我想說的是,如果他們這麼棒,爲什麼他們不能製造自動駕駛汽車?因爲更難。這就是爲什麼。所以 —— 但我確實認爲 —— 我認爲有一些很棒的人工智能公司。但從根本上講,我們必須處理的大量數據,必須以某種方式進行處理。而定製硅片是做到這一點的最佳方法。
因此,Dojo 的設計目的就是針對視頻訓練進行優化。它沒有針對 LLM 進行優化。它針對視頻訓練進行了優化。通過視頻訓練,你的計算與內存帶寬的比率要高得多,所以,而 LLM 往往會佔用內存帶寬。原來如此。我的意思是 —— 但就像我說的那樣,我們也是 —— 我們有一些 —— 我們正在使用很多 NVIDIA 硬件。我們會繼續 —— 實際上,我們會像 NVIDIA 向我們交付一樣快地獲得 NVIDIA 硬件。非常尊重 Jensen 和 NVIDIA。他們做得非常出色。
坦率地說,我不知道他們能否爲我們提供足夠的 GPU,我們可能不需要 Dojo,但他們不能。所以他們有這麼多客戶。儘管如此,他們還是很友善地優先考慮了我們的一些 GPU 訂單。但是,是的,視頻訓練的規模之大 —— 因爲就像我說的那樣,我們不是想變得像人類一樣出色。我們希望比人類好 10 倍,可能比人類好 100 倍。
現在,我相信每年大約有100萬汽車死亡。然後,如果你說永久性重傷,我認爲每年可能接近1000萬人。而且 —— 因此,如果你是人類的兩倍,那很重要,比人類好 10 倍 —— 比人類好 10 倍仍然意味着有 100,000 人死亡,100 萬人嚴重永久性傷害。所以,就像,好吧,我們寧願好一百倍。所以確實如此 —— 這是一場 9 秒的行軍,我們希望實現儘可能完美的安全。而這確實是實現這一目標所需的視頻和計算機數量令人難以置信。然後,我確實認爲 Dojo 還有其他應用程序,但我們迫切需要它來進行視頻訓練。
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
再補充一下埃隆提到的內容。因此,他提到的數字介於研發支出和資本支出之間。而且進展很快。因此,我們提供了爲期三年的資本支出展望。我們正在從這個角度考慮這些開支。隨着這種情況向上和向下移動,我們將繼續在 Q 中更新我們的指導方針
埃隆馬斯克
是的。我想說,限制全自動駕駛進展的基本速率限制因素是訓練。也就是說,如果我們有更多的訓練計算,我們就能更快地完成它。原來如此。
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
而且很難預測我們能以多快的速度執行它。
丹·利維
太棒了。謝謝。作爲後續行動,我意識到目前存在令人難以置信的宏觀不確定性,但你堅持短期目標,即複合年增長率爲50%的交易量目標。正如我們剛才想到的那樣,在未來的一年裏,Cybertruck將做出一些貢獻。電動汽車普及率的進一步增長將帶來一些幫助。但是,爲了保持50%的交易量複合年增長率不變,你願意在多大程度上犧牲定價,還是你對利潤率的看法與之前關於願意犧牲利潤以獲得更多份額的評論有所不同?
埃隆馬斯克
這不是要獲得更多份額。只是你可以把我們銷售或生產的每輛具有完全自動駕駛能力的汽車看作是將來的價值可能高達今天的5倍。因爲平均而言 —— 車輛每週行駛大約 10 個小時。如果有點像 —— 如果這表示平均每天1.5個小時,那就是每週10個小時。如果你開啓了自動駕駛——如果車輛能夠自動駕駛並使用專用自動駕駛或像Airbnb這樣的部分自動駕駛,比如有時候你可能允許其他人使用你的汽車。有時候你想像愛彼迎一樣獨家使用它——在家裏有房間的Airbnb。其價值實在是太大了。
所以,我認爲有點像 —— 我認爲確實如此 —— 爲了製造更多汽車而犧牲利潤確實是有意義的,因爲我們認爲,在不久的將來,它們的估值將大幅提高。我認爲,在我們可以上傳完全自動駕駛並獲得監管機構批准時,特斯拉車隊的價值上漲將是資產價值歷史上最大的單一變化。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。我們去找下一位分析師吧。這個問題來自德意志銀行的伊曼紐爾·羅斯納。
伊曼紐爾·羅斯納
我還有兩個問題。首先,跟進自主權。因此,在開始在現有車輛上推出這些專用的robotaxi車輛之前,您需要逐步提高FSD。你最新的目標時機是何時發佈非測試版或會觸發更高接受率的令人眼花繚亂的版本?特斯拉會從降低FSD的價格中受益嗎?
埃隆馬斯克
好吧,很明顯,由於人們有點取笑我,也許相當公平地取笑了我,所以我過去對實現完全自動駕駛的預測一直是樂觀的。我之所以持樂觀態度,是因爲——看起來好像是—— 我們將在推出新版本的 FSD 方面取得快速進展,但隨後它會以對數方式曲線。所以首先,對數曲線看起來像一條相當直的向上線,對角線向上。所以,如果你推斷出來,那麼你就有好事了。但是由於它實際上是對數的,所以它會彎曲過來,然後出現了一系列堆疊的對數曲線。
現在,我是那個哭了 FSD 的男孩,但我想到今年年底我們會比人類更好。這並不是說我們得到了監管機構的批准。我的意思是在美國,因爲我們必須先專注於一個市場。但我認爲,到今年年底,我們會比人類更好。過去我錯了,這次我可能錯了。
而且 FSD 的價格——所以很棒的是 FSD 的價格實際上很低,並不高。當你回到我之前所說的話時,如果這輛車實際上是自動駕駛的,它的價值就會大大增加。15,000美元實際上是一個低價格,而不是一個高價格。而且我們會提供 —— 而且我們 —— 我認爲我們確實以月度訂閱的形式提供 FSD,儘管大多數人都不知道。所以,我建議你嘗試一下按月訂閱的方式,這樣你就不必選擇 15,000 美元的東西了。但我認爲,是的,是的 —— 顯然,如果這輛車的價值是原價的幾倍,那麼對於FSD來說,15,000美元實際上是一個低廉的價格。
Martin Viecha
下一個問題來自 Truist 的 William Stein。
威廉·斯坦
我想問一下 —— 繼續談這個人工智能話題。我們饒有興趣地閱讀了 Dojo 今天的進展,你談過了 FSD,但你也有 —— Elon,你創辦了這家 x.ai 公司。對於那些認爲特斯拉的人工智能功能和產品可能具有相當大價值的投資者來說,看到你以人工智能爲重點的另一項努力可能會令人擔憂。那麼,你能否談談 x.ai 會如何重疊,可能與特斯拉競爭,或者以其他方式競爭,也許它會提高特斯拉所做工作的價值?
埃隆馬斯克
是的。我認爲這實際上會提高特斯拉的價值。世界上只有一些最優秀的人工智能工程師和科學家願意加入一家初創公司,但他們不願意加入像特斯拉這樣相對成熟的大型公司。所以,就像—— 它實際上就是這樣開始的。我在採訪幾個人,他們說,不,我們想做一家初創公司。我當時想,沒關係 —— 我無法說服他們加入特斯拉。所以 —— 所以,好吧,好吧,我開始跑步比去其他地方工作要好。這就是 xAi 的起源。
而且 xAi 專注於 AGI。是的。就是這樣 —— 就像我說的那樣,我認爲 xAi 會爲特斯拉帶來一些價值。還有一些最優秀的人 —— 對於世界上最優秀的人來說,他們真的只想解決有趣的問題。因此,比如說,如果你選擇一個材料科學小組,那麼真正說服查理·科爾曼離開蘋果的原因是他得同時在特斯拉和SpaceX工作,在那裏他非常高興,報酬豐厚,而且在這兩者中,我們都認爲這是世界上最好的材料科學小組。如果只有特斯拉,他不願意離開蘋果,但如果是特斯拉和SpaceX,他願意這樣做。因此,如果這是你需要做的事情,有時候你會得到世界上最好的人才。這實際上對特斯拉非常有利。
威廉·斯坦
如果我能再問一個平凡的問題。我想知道你是否認爲按照目前的定價可以達到180萬輛的數量,還是你預計需要繼續降低價格,因爲價格似乎已經穩定下來。在過去的1.5個月中,趨勢已經穩定下來。我們應該指望在今年餘下的時間裏會持續下降還是進一步穩定?
埃隆馬斯克
當然。我們有點 —— 我們啓動了推薦計劃,我認爲這將非常有效。正如扎克早些時候所說,我們無法控制宏觀經濟狀況。因此,如果利率繼續上升,汽車的負擔能力就會降低。對於很多人來說,他們確實如此 —— 他們每個月都在實現收支平衡。實際上,如果你看一下信用卡債務的增加,它們實際上並不是每個月都實現收支平衡。信用卡債務看起來很可怕。所以,我們只是無法控制市場狀況。如果市場狀況穩定,我認爲價格將穩定。如果它們不穩定,那麼我們的價格就會降低。是的。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。我們去找奧本海默的 Colin Rusch 吧。
科林·拉什
當你正在構建 Dojo 並實現真正高度複雜的軟件集時,你能否談談操作系統的成熟度以及你期望在該系統中使用多少外包軟件?
埃隆馬斯克
這是一個自定義軟件堆棧,所以。但是它的設計是爲了讓你可以在高級水平上運行,PyTorch 和 JAX。但是接下來我們必須對其進行自定義才能在自定義芯片上運行。因此,軟件堆棧是開源軟件和特斯拉軟件的組合,一直到裸露的芯片,汽車中的推理計算機就是這種情況。
科林·拉什
好吧。非常感謝。這非常有用。然後你能談談你是如何管理與產能擴張有關的一些地緣政治風險嗎?顯然,隨着你們繼續以這種速度增長,你會讓一些人倒閉。而且還會對區域經濟產生一些影響。所以,我只想了解你在一些資本支出計劃方面是如何看待這個問題的,以及你是如何管理與不同國家和地區的一些關係的。
埃隆馬斯克
好吧,這是一個地緣政治風險異常的時期。所以,我認爲我們是 —— 我們能做的最好的事情就是在世界許多地方建立工廠,這樣如果世界某個地方的情況變得困難,我們仍然可以讓世界其他地方的事情繼續發展。
Martin Viecha
謝謝。下一個問題來自高盛的馬克·德萊尼。
馬克·德萊尼
特斯拉在降低成本方面取得了進展,上個季度又取得了進展。你能否提供最新情況,說明你認爲每輛車的汽車 COGS 何時可能低於每輛車 36,000 美元的歷史水平?而實現這一目標的關鍵看跌期權和期權是什麼?
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
這是 —— 我想過去有人問過這個問題。這很難預測。有一系列成本由我們管理,一系列成本是我們無法控制的。因此,特別是在大宗商品方面,勞動力成本的去向等等,很難說。
埃隆馬斯克
是的。而且我們看到了非常嚴重的通貨膨脹——比如去年一段時間的強勁通貨膨脹壓力。現在——這顯然使得減少COGS變得非常困難。現在我們看到了看似通縮的壓力,當然是通貨緊縮的壓力 —— 通縮不是壓力。但是,正如前面提到的那樣,我們看到大宗商品價格下跌,正如卡恩剛才提到的那樣。我的意思是,我不知道,你怎麼看?我的意思是,基本上,大宗商品層面的趨勢似乎是通貨緊縮的。
Karn Budhiraj
絕對是。就是這樣。此外,隨着銷量的增長,單位經濟性也有所改善。這是我們看到的另一件事。隨着我們成爲許多供應商中更大、更好的組成部分,規模經濟開始發揮作用。有設備折舊在起作用,這些設備是在5到7年前投入使用的。這曾經是計件價格的一部分。這已經完全攤銷了。因此,我們將看到由於設備貢獻已經消失而導致單件價格下降的情況。
然後,我們繼續保持這種心態,那就是在勞動力、減少勞動力、提高自動化方面持續改進,然後繼續做得更好。所以我們已經看到 —— 我想每個季度,我們都會看到改善。當然,大宗商品漲跌互現。總的來說,趨勢是提高效率。
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
是的,我完全同意。
埃隆馬斯克
是的,有一段時間以來,那裏的鋰價格簡直太瘋狂了。
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
是的。而且他們現在正在康復。
Karn Budhiraj
鈷——過去的樣子。
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
是的。而且我們還處於坡道的初期 —— 好吧,不是坡道的早期,而是在奧斯汀和柏林的成本下降曲線的早期。因此,計算成本需要時間。首先,它專注於坡道 —— 坡道,它可以降低成本...
埃隆馬斯克
還有質量成本...
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
是的。然後,一旦穩定下來,我們就可以將帶寬轉移到降低成本上。因此,從第一季度到第二季度,奧斯汀和柏林的成本大幅降低。我們將繼續開展這項工作,這將有所幫助。所以我們要繼續努力解決這個問題。
身份不明的公司代表
包裝是其中的一個重要元素。
埃隆馬斯克
是的,物流...
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
物流正在正常化,這太棒了。
身份不明的公司代表
[難以辨認] 利用率,這是團隊一直非常關注的問題。所以,其中的每一點。
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
是的,而且很難...
埃隆馬斯克
物流被低估了。是的,所以說話就像閥門一樣,戰術與後勤合而爲一。
身份不明的公司代表
是的。而且,在過期成本方面,我們在各個方面都取得了巨大的成本改善。我們現在已經達到了疫情前的過期成本水平,我們的目標是進一步降低。
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
是的。因此,當我們審視從第一季度到第二季度在成本方面的進展時,從內部的角度來看,根據混音轉移的影響進行標準化,奧斯汀和柏林在我們的組合中所佔的比例更高,第二季度S和X的標準化比例高於第一季度的連續成本降低,這可能是我們一段時間以來最大的一次。所以,我認爲代表特斯拉團隊做得很好,我們只需要繼續努力。
埃隆馬斯克
是的,這是一場幾分錢的遊戲。這是一部有幾分錢的《權力的遊戲》。
Martin Viecha
馬克,你還有後續問題嗎?我想你已經沉默了。
馬克·德萊尼
是的。非常感謝您提供有關此的所有詳細信息。也許你可以更詳細地說明你在準備好的評論中談到的停機時間對生產的影響,然後還有你計劃在本季度進行的工廠升級對利潤率的影響程度?
扎卡里·柯克霍恩
是的。停機時間 —— 我們不知道受影響的汽車的確切數量,因爲我們進入停機時間窗口進行升級的方式是留出一段時間,但隨後團隊面臨着儘快啓動的挑戰,這樣我們才能讓工廠恢復運轉並最大限度地減少這種情況。這不是深刻的還原。希望它很小。
埃隆馬斯克
我想我們在這裏陷入困境太多了。我的意思是,就像我們要求的精確度是無法回答的。所以,讓我們繼續前進。
Martin Viecha
是的。我想不幸的是,這是我們今天的全部時間。所以,我們將在接下來的三個月裏和大家談談。非常感謝。
埃隆馬斯克
謝謝。
(提示:此筆錄是通過錄音轉換的,我們會盡力而爲,但不能完全保證轉換的準確性,僅供參考。)