Tesla Delivers, Harvard's President to Step Down - podcast episode cover

Tesla Delivers, Harvard's President to Step Down

Jan 02, 202415 min
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Speaker 1

Good morning. I'm Doug Krisner. Here are the stories we're following today. We begin now by looking at what's happening in the electric vehicle space. Tesla delivering more evs than expected in the fourth quarter. However, that wasn't enough for the company to stay ahead of its Chinese rival BYD in global EV's sales. Here is Bloomberg's ed ludlow.

Speaker 2

In the fourth quarter four hundred and eighty four thousand, five hundred and seven evs delivered by Tesla. That was ahead of estimates, and it does mean that Tesla exceeded its target of one point eight million vehicles in twenty twenty three. Go back to a year ago January twenty twenty three, the first earning score of the year, where Elon Musk said that two million units would be possible

in the full year. So they beat the one point eight million official guidance, but it fell short of that kind of higher bound target that Elon Musket outlined.

Speaker 1

That is Bloomberg's ed Ludlow. So now BYD is the new number one in EV's globally, driven mainly by the company's much broader lineup of cheaper models in China, Incidentally, we're going to be taking a closer look at the Tesla story with Bloomberg's David Welsh. That's coming up. Tesla shares were down today by just two tents one percent, Paul, and it was.

Speaker 3

A disappointing final quarter for another one of America's largest electric vehicle makers, Bloomberg's Tom Busby has.

Speaker 4

More despite ramping up production over the past year. The Los Angeles area based electric engine vehicle maker Rivian Automotive Source shares tumble on Tuesday after missing deliveries for the fourth quarter only by about one hundred and forty vehicles. Rivian makes an ev pickup truck and a sport utility vehicle for consumers, but also a battery electric delivery van for Amazon, the etail giant. Its biggest single shareholder, Tom Busby Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 1

We moved to Apple next. The company shares were down more than three and a half percent today, the biggest drop we've seen since September. This is after analyst over at Barclay said they are expecting softer demand for the iPhone, so they have downgraded Apple stock as a result. By the way, it's the first time Barclay's cut Apple to underweight since twenty nineteen. But as Bloomberg's Man Deep Sing tells us, don't count Apple out. As artificial intelligence gains traction.

Speaker 5

We are going through a massive refresh cycle and cloud companies are the major beneficiaries of that. We still don't know when that will happen, but we.

Speaker 3

Know it will happen. It's a matter of time.

Speaker 5

The large anglid models, the technology, the copilots will run on your phones, and right now there is no alternative device except for your Apple ecosystem, whether it's your phones or your PCs.

Speaker 1

That is Bloomberg's Man Deep Sing. Now it's not clear exactly when Apple will become the big beneficiary of artificial intelligence.

Speaker 3

Paul, the president of Havard, is stepping down. We've got more from Bloomberg's and kites.

Speaker 6

Clouding Gay's exit. NDS are brief and tumultuous tenure, marked by allegations of plagiarism and a campus controversy over antisemitism following the October seventh attack by Hamas on Israel. She got her start in July as Harvard's first black president and had the backing of the university's governing Council as

recently as mid December. Since then, new questions have surfaced, a batter academic work, and a donor revolt has worsened over criticism of Harvard for not speaking out after more than thirty student groups blamed Israel solely for the violence in Washington and Kates Bloomberg Radio, we.

Speaker 1

Go to China next, where the Central Bank has injected nearly fifty billion dollars into policy oriented banks as a way of stimulating the economy. The story from Bloomberg's Juan Wong In Hong Kong.

Speaker 7

The fifty billion dollars worse of low cost funds is the largest increase via the Central Bank's Pledged Supplemental Lending program. This takes the outstanding amount of the PSL program to four hundred and fifty six billion dollars. The program is seen as an important tool for Beijing to shore up the property sector and stabilized growth this year. Markets have been expecting the central banks to use the money to drive construction of public housing to alleviate a property slum

that's hammered consumer confidence in Hong Kong. Joanne Wong, Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 1

Let's move on to Global news next, and we have Hamas saying that Israel has killed a senior leader in Beirut. At Baxter has more from the Bloomberg newsroom.

Speaker 8

Mattie, all right, thank you, Douglas.

Speaker 9

Yeah.

Speaker 8

The leader sale Al Arori, saying that to have been a mastermind behind the militant arm in the West Bank, the Israeli attack and a parent drone strike in beirut southern suburbs, the first such attack on the Lebanese capital of nearly two decades. Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najeeb Mataki says that mccatti says that the attack is a new Israel crime and that aims to drag Lebanon into a

new phase of confrontations. Hager Shanali, Greenwich Media CEO, says, actually, the action was pretty predictable.

Speaker 10

You saw today, for example in Beirut. Is not totally surprising, and I don't expect to explode into some kind of full scale war. And the reason for that is that that strike was specifically to hit as a Hamas leader, in particular Salruri, who has funded and directed operations in the West Bank and who has been tied to kidnappings hijackings and other terrorist.

Speaker 8

Attacks nationally on Bloomberg's A balance of Power. There's been no official comment from Israel. Harvard University President Claudine Gay has resigned today, involved in two issues that she says made her a distraction. The first when she was called before Congress in December to testify about Harvard's anti Semitism policies. This was in December.

Speaker 11

We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful. It's when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying.

Speaker 6

Does that speech not cost that barrier?

Speaker 9

There?

Speaker 8

With congress Woman Elaine Stefanic and Bloomberg's David Weston says. The second issue accusation of plagiarism.

Speaker 12

About some of the work that President Gay had done for her dissertation for her PhD, and allegations that she had improperly used sources that she did not identify. Initially, the Corporation of Harvard, which is what they call the Board of Trustees of corporation, said there'd be an investigation and they had totally exonerated her. There was no problem, But now she said she slipped on it.

Speaker 8

And David says he takes out a word distraction. We'll have more on this in just a few minutes. Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit seeking to restore his name to Mainz presidential primary after the state disqualify because of attempt to reverse the twenty twenty election. Politically, Bloomberg's Gregory Corte says, any activity like this always helps his polling.

Speaker 13

And look, every time an issue like this has popped up, at least in the short term, former President Trump gets a little bit of a blip in the polls among Republican likely voters. It's not a permanent blip. It always just sort of reverts back to the mean. But there is sort of a rallying around Trump effect that happens every time that Republicans feel like he's being picked on.

Speaker 8

Trump's stud allegias Secretary of State of Shenna Bellows is a biased decision maker. Horrific airline collision in Japan's Saneda Airport has left five people crew members of the Japan Airlines Airbus sc three point fifty nine hundred. They all got out. The crew of japan Airlines Airbus is being characterized as heroes today because all three hundred and seventy nine passengers managed to escape after their plane hit the

japan Coast Guard plane on the runway. Now, five of the six crew members on the Coastguard crew were killed. Authority say the jial was cleared to take off, they kept.

Speaker 14

Going on down the runway. The airplane eventually came to a stop, skid into a stop. You can see at least the right engine is still turning. The deployed the emergency evacuation slides and everybody got off safely. But that wouldn't have happened if that Japanese Coastguard aircraft had hit.

Speaker 1

Just a few feet closer in towards the fuselaw.

Speaker 9

That is ABC.

Speaker 8

Steve Kanyard has heard here on Bloomberg and Global News twenty four hours a day and whenever you want to. With Bloomberg News Now in San Francisco, I met Baxter. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Asia.

Speaker 1

We're about eleven minutes past the hour as we take a closer look now at Tesla with Bloomberg's David Weldshe is our Detroit bureau chief.

Speaker 9

David.

Speaker 1

It's always a pleasure. Thanks for being with us. Was this really a surprise that Tesla kind of fell behind BYD.

Speaker 9

Not really, Tesla's growth rates have been slowing. Still a growth company, but it's really come way down. And BYD just keeps building sales all the time. It's kind of a hot company right now. I think it's d I D relies on the Chinese market for sales growth. In China, EV sales are not only growing faster just because the market's bigger and it's really the thing there, but the

government mandates this. Practically, you can't even get new vehicle registrations in some of the big cities lessons an electric vehicle. They are heavy incentives for it. It is the EV market in the world. So if you're the dominant EV player in the Chinese market and you're a Chinese domestic brand, also, how right now you're going to keep growing. Tesla's relying in significant degree in the US market or EV sales

aren't doing that well. They're still growing in the I don't this myth that they're going in reverse is not really true, but they're not growing as fast.

Speaker 3

So it sounds like you're describing a new normal for Tesla. What does the future look like for this company?

Speaker 9

Again? Tesla is still growing, but the idea that they were going to hit two million vehicle sales, they're probably not going to reach that. It sounds like from what they were saying with the sales report, that they're looking at sales growth rates at twenty percent range. It wasn't that long ago. Twelve eighteen months ago they were still talking about fifty percent growth rates. Last journings call, Elon

Musk said they can't grow at fifty percent anymore. They've given up the ghost on that, but I think it's still significantly less. In fairness, one of the reasons the stock didn't do too badly today is because you know what the car company's growing at eighteen twenty percent, and if that's the projected growth rate for Tesla, it could still be better than that. With the cyber truck. That's still very good. It's just not the meteoric growth company that it has been for years.

Speaker 1

David, I'm wondering about the overall market for evs given the fact that yesterday in the US, that would be January first, the government issued some new rules for a seventy five hundred dollars consumer tax credit, and now the total number of vehicles eligible is only thirteen. That's down from about two dozen earlier. What is this going to mean for not just Tesla but the overall market.

Speaker 9

It's going to make it tougher. We sort of thought, I think six months ago, eight months ago, that every vehicle out there would be getting these seventy five hundred dollars credits. Some of these vehicles will in the very in near future be added to that list. General Motors said some of its vehicles they're in the process of resourcing some of the battery ingredients for those vehicles and they will be qualified, they said, sometime in the first quarter,

maybe second quarter. So you're looking at a few months where some of the GM vehicles, Cadillac Lyric, I think the Blazer and Silverado won't get the credits, but in a few months they will. But still, we really thought this was going to be the big shot on the arm and it's something that all the companies are going to have to work harder to get that money for their EV buyers. So that's not going to you know, that's not automatic, and we're going to need to get

that momentum. And I think in the US we're still in this issue where luxury buyers, early adopters have the revs, and now we're kind of moving into the mass market. And even consumers who spend a pretty good amount of money on new vehicles, they're not convinced the charging network is there. They're not convinced that they need to spend fifty eight thousand dollars on a Chevy Blazer with a battery in it when they can get one with an engine in it that costs thirty five or forty thousand dollars.

Still a lot more money to spend on some of these vehicles and consumers. Eaveis have captured the imagination, they just haven't captured the wallet yet in the mass market.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and to your point, I mean Tesla has been heading that high niche market. I mean here in Australia. It's certainly not a cheap car and attracts luxury car tax. In fact, is Tesla working on the future models? Cheap the models and that smaller models they are.

Speaker 9

But the thing with Tesla is Elon Musk always promised is a very low sales place and they usually don't quite hit it. We're supposed to have a cyber truck under forty thousand, and it's considerably more than that. The cheap vehicle is the model too, which is supposed to be well under thirty thousand dollars. We'll see when that comes out and where he ends up pricing it, because that vehicle could be like a lot of other Teslas, where not only is it not on time, the cyber

truck was at least a year late. It ends up being priced more than they say. You know, General Motors had the Chevy Equinox. They said it was going to be priced at thirty thousand dollars. Coming in at thirty five thousand to start, that's still a pretty good price considering where new vehicles sell in the US market today, and that thirty five thousand dollars Blazer gets three hundred and twenty miles of range instead of the two hundred and fifty that they were talking about with a thirty

thousand dollars model. But you see what I'm saying. Every time we knew EV comes out, it's more expensive than they told us it was going to be a year ago. And Pricematics, well.

Speaker 1

You mentioned the Tesla cyber truck. How does it go head to head with Ford's F one fifty lightning that ev pickup.

Speaker 5

I think you know.

Speaker 9

GM's Silverado V is in the process of coming out right now. I think for those buyers you're talking about, these are two different calculations. I mean GM and the Chevy and Ford truck buyers. Some of them will use this thing as a work vehicle. For those who buy it as kind of a statement or a fun vehicle, the cyber truck really could be a competitor, But I would see the cyber truck going more head to head with Rivian's pickup because neither one is a work truck.

They're both of fashion statements in a way, very very different fashion statements, mind you, but they're more of a recreational fashion truck for somebody who's not going to use the bed that much and isn't going to be towing and hauling a lot of stuff.

Speaker 3

Is this why we didn't see cyber truck numbers included in the release of this quota.

Speaker 9

Well, look, this is Tessa. I think we didn't see cyber truck numbers because they were very low. You can bet when, if and when the numbers are very good, they'll be headlining the Cyberstar sales number.

Speaker 1

We'll leave it there. David Always pleasure. David Welsh, Bloomberg's Detroit bureau chief. This is Bloomberg day Break Asia, your morning brief on the stories making news from Hong Kong to Singapore and Wall Street. Look for us on your podcast feed every day, on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else

you get your podcast. You can also listen live each day on Bloomberg eleven three to oh e New York, Bloomberg ninety nine to one in Washington, Bloomberg one oh six y one in Boston, and Bloomberg nine sixty in San Francisco. Our flagship New York station is also available on your Amazon Alexa devices. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty plus. Listen coast to coast on the Bloomberg Business app, Sirius XM Channel one nineteen, the iHeartRadio app,

and on Bloomberg dot Com. I'm Doug Chrisner. Join us again tomorrow for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg day Break Asia.

Speaker 5

Mm hmm

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