We’Ll start off with the price cut tesla today in the us has lowered the base price for both the long range and the performance version of the model s by three thousand dollars, meaning the starting price has dropped from about seventy five thousand dollars before to about Seventy two thousand dollars now and tesla has similarly cut the price in china for the model s by about three percent. I don’t believe it has been updated in europe, but all the pricing in those markets are different, so let me know otherwise if it has changed in your market. This is the second price cut on the model s this year, following a five thousand dollar price cut. On the vehicle back in may, which also applied to the model x at that time. Interestingly, this update is only for the model s, not the model x. That means the base price spread on both the long range and performance versions of these vehicles is now eight thousand 000. I don’t think this is terribly surprising, given the fact that we are now in q4 and tesla does still have a shot at hitting 500 000 vehicle deliveries this year, but it’s going to take every single vehicle to do that. I think, and on the snx combined. Unfortunately, tesla doesn’t break those out individually anymore, but on those two vehicles combined, they have been producing and delivering under the capacity tesla in their q2 update letter said that they had a current installed annual capacity out of fremont for snx, combined at 90 000 per year.
That’S 22 500 per quarter, but tesla hasn’t delivered more than 20 000 snx combined since the end of 2018.. Excluding the first two quarters this year due to production shutdowns tesla, since that point in time has averaged production of around 16 000 s x per quarter. So they certainly seem to have some additional capacity, and that should be the case for batteries as well, because these use the 18650s from panasonic in japan, which have previously accommodated snx, run rates. Around 25 000 per quarter in q3 tesla produced around 17 000 s and x. In our previous conversations about potential q4 production, i just held that steady at 17 000. I now think that will actually increase this quarter. Q4 is naturally a stronger quarter for automotive demand. Tesla now early in the quarter stacks, this price got on top of it and we also had the plaid model s announced at battery day, which i think could have removed some doubts for some buyers that may have been waiting for battery day in anticipation of potentially Other updates to tesla’s lineup, so i think q4 should be pretty solid for model s and not to be outdone entirely by the model s. We may actually have a range update for the model x, tmc member coldweather ev last night posted an update that they had just taken delivery of a 2021 vin model x, and they were surprised to see that on the monroney sticker, which is that sticker in the Vehicle comes with all new vehicles and has things like efficiency smog rating and one of those things is epa rating.
This person was surprised to see that the epa rating for the model x was 371 miles. That is higher than the previous rating of 351 miles of range, which is what tesla still lists on their design studio, so we’ll have to wait and see if we hear this from more people. Obviously this just is one source at this point in time, and this user also does say quote i haven’t charged to 100, but when i extrapolate my current state of charge percent to miles it should give miles at 100 and quote so. Maybe it is still 351 miles, or maybe the software just hasn’t been updated for this new version. Yet i think the latter is more likely but again, we’ll, wait and see. This would be a 5.7 increase to range, which i think brings to mind a couple of things we earlier this year had a similar increase in range to the model s which took it from around 380. I don’t remember the exact rating up to 402 miles per charge, but when that happened, the model x actually stayed constant, so this could be the x catching up with those s updates previously, or we do also know that panasonic has been working to improve energy density. In nevada, by about five percent, five plus percent – so maybe they made similar changes to the 18650s that supply the model x from japan and then maybe those new cells would be adding this five percent plus range.
If that were the case, we would expect to see this also happen in the model s probably so anybody that is taking new deliveries of either the s or the x. Please take a look at what your menrone sticker says and let us know next up. We have an update on tesla’s autopilot. Rewrite elon on twitter yesterday said: quote: limited fsd beta releasing on tuesday next week as promised. This will at first be limited to a small number of people who are expert and careful drivers. End quote: we last had an update on this about a month ago, when elon said quote: releasing private beta in two to four weeks. Public beta early access owners are opt in four to six weeks. After that, then all u.s tesla owners mid december above schedule, is contingent upon not encountering major. Unexpected setbacks. End quote so: this new tweet it’s a little bit less clear on which step we’re in if it is that first private beta that elon is talking about here or if it’s, that limited public beta for early access owners. But to me it does sound like that. First, step of being a private beta, so that’ll come out next week, one week from today on october 20th, apparently if that’s the case it’s about a week and a half out from that previous timeline. But i think everybody can be pretty happy with that. If we extrapolate from that same timeline before using these new dates, we’d be four to six weeks out from early access, which would put a date range for that from november 17th to december 1st, depending on how wide this initial release is, that early access program update That might be the first time that we actually start to see youtube videos and things of the sort pop up for the new rewrite, though it is possible that we may see some of that as early as next week.
The tuesday release date next week is also interesting because that’s one day before tesla’s q3 earnings report so having the beta out before that will be a nice thing for tesla to mention and perhaps share a little bit more detail on. Although i guess i’m not really sure what detail we don’t already have elon on twitter yesterday, replying to tesserati, said quote with fsd, we got stuck in a lot of local maximums, which wasn’t clear until we hit the ceiling. This time, it’s right end quote, which i think that statement in and of itself is a little bit paradoxical, which elon seemed to acknowledge in a later tweet yesterday, replying to someone that said quote just to be clear when he says it’s right. What elon, musk really means is it’s a lot less wrong and quote elon said quote at least. Success is in the set of all possible outcomes. This time end quote next we’re again catching up on a story. From yesterday, the s p global has updated their credit rating on tesla’s unsecured debt from the previous b plus rating now to bb minus now i know those rating scales are a little bit confusing, but if you’re watching here on youtube, you can see that that goes From a highly speculative grade to a non investment grade, speculative and those non investment grade ratings are still referred to as junk ratings. Tesla will now need to climb three more ratings from bb minus to bbb minus, not kidding to be referred to as investment grade, but this is actually the second credit rating increase from the s p for tesla over the last few months.
At the end of july. They increased the rating two notches from b minus up to b, plus just as a reminder for anyone that thinks this might have an impact on s, p, inclusion sure maybe, but if we rewind the clock a little bit and we go back to that july. Increase people were saying that at that same time, so i’m not reading too much into it. From that angle, all right. Moving on to some news from china, kelvinyang7 on twitter has, let us know that an lfp lithium iron phosphate model 3 has now been delivered in china. This is the new cheaper standard range version of the model 3 in china, and because this was a clear update, people had been wondering and speculating on if a heat pump design would be included similar to the model y for this version of the model 3. But kelvin here is saying no heat pump, so that may put a damper on some of the speculation that perhaps a heat pump has been included in the updated version of the model 3 that seems to be coming out of fremont. But again, we’ll just have to wait and see quick update on tesla in india, a story that we had talked about. I believe last week, tesla club india on twitter again asking for a little bit more detail on the rollout to india and elon said quote: will release order configurator, probably in jan end quote, so i would guess that means that tesla at least initially does plan to Import some vehicles, which will make them quite expensive in india until tesla, is at least doing some assembly or local production for the next story here, we’re going to hop over to the eu.
Something pretty interesting here. Autocar out of the uk is reporting that quote automotive industry researcher. Mattaya schmidt has obtained documents from the european commission that show renault filing a declaration of interest to form open pools. Pursuant to article 6, section 5 of regulation, eu 2019 631 for passenger cars – end quote autocar says that simply put that means that renault is seeking interest from other oems to pool their emissions requirements like tesla has done in the eu with fiat chrysler renault will likely Come in significantly below their emissions requirements, so they would then pool with another manufacturer that is over in exchange for some compensation so that the combined entity from a regulations perspective still meets those emissions requirements. So my understanding of the situation is that tesla and fiat chrysler could together add somebody to their combined entity if they were to do that, tesla could perhaps receive more income from regulatory credit sales through whatever agreement was struck between those entities again saying that hypothetically, but If there are other automakers that are coming in significantly below to the point where they can actually partner with the other oems, that may reduce the likelihood of some other sort of beneficial relationship striking up for tesla, potentially adding more credit revenue. On the other hand, emissions requirements are going to continue to get stricter, so that possibility does still exist, but that’s, why? I think we should keep an eye on how these partnerships sort of unfold all right.
Last quick thing: for today this is just sort of an fyi deadline.com is reporting that quote. Hbo is developing a limited series about the rise of spacex elon musk’s private rocket company, that is in the midst of reviving the united states space aspirations. End quote: they say this would be a six episode series that quote, tells the story of musk, as he hand, picks a team of engineers to work on a remote pacific island where they build and launch the first manned spacex rocket into orbit. The falcon 9 on may 30th, 2020 end quote. They also say it will be based on the ashley van’s biography on elon musk. So something i’m super excited about personally i’ll be keeping an eye out for more details and i’ll pass them along. If i see them but that’ll wrap it up for today, as always, thank you for listening, make sure you’re, subscribed and signed up for notifications. You can also find me on twitter at teslapodcast and i’ll, see you tomorrow for the wednesday october 14th episode of tesla daily.odSACztDM1U
