It's Thursday folks and we are running through the first week of March as we talk about the early results of Tesla’s Investor Day. We also summarize Auto Industry sales numbers from February, as well as Meta’s new cultural reports straight from Facebook and Instagram conversations.

• Yesterday’s three and a half hour Tesla Investor day was heavy on big picture thinking and light on the specifics as the company revealed some of its plans and challenges on the road to its target volume of producing 20 million vehicles per year worldwide
  • Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn said Tesla could need to spend $150 billion more to reach its long-term goals of that 20M number with a big focus on integration
    • Toyota is the current largest who sells just over 10M
    • Tesla sold 1.3 M last year
  • Plans to get there include 10 more factories, of which one was just announced in Mexico, as well as making the materials needed to produce its battery cells
    • It opened a lithium refinery in Corpus Christi and a is building a battery materials facility in the Austin area
  • No details on the Cybertruck or the much anticipated ‘low cost’ Tesla
  • The company has had 14 consecutive profitable quarters
  • Shares were down 5% in off hours trading following the event
    
    
    
• Sales reports are coming out this week. Some went up and some went down.
  • Hyundai, Kia, and Subaru went up for their 7th straight month while Toyota and Honda fell back
  • Not surprisingly, Increased demand and rising inventory played a big roll in the winners while tight supply continued to stunt the forward motion of the others
    • Toyota fell back 2.4 percent overall, however it’s Lexus division actually increased 6.1% breaking a 12 month streak of declines
    • Similar story at Honda falling 1.4% overall, but Acura rose by 12%
  • Ford and Volvo will be reporting numbers later today and the rest of the industry is on a quarterly reporting schedule
  • Meanwhile, as new car supply regulates, used car prices are declining moving some buyers back to the value
    • "We have diverging markets today," said Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive. "New inventory is slowly stabilizing while used supply is falling. With many affordability-seeking vehicle buyers leaving the new market for the used, dealers may find they have too little used inventory, and price declines may reverse. And [automakers] may find they have too much new-vehicle inventory and be forced to be more aggressive with incentives to boost sales."

• Meta has released its second edition of its 56 page ‘Culture Rising’ report, which looks at emerging trends, based on analysis of millions of conversations across Facebook and Instagram, alongside additional insights from a global survey into 20 key shifts.
  • Covers four macro areas: ‘Exploratory Identities’, ‘Refined Relationships’, ‘Assertive Aspirations’ and ‘Lived Values’
  • Each section has a breakdown of key topics within the segment that have seen substantial growth in t

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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