Elon Musk speaks at Tesla’s 2023 investor day on March 1.
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Electric vehicle maker Tesla hosted a 2023 Investor Day presentation in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. CEO Elon Musk took the stage to share his “Master Plan 3,” and to discuss how Tesla plans to scale up in the face of increasing competition.
The presentation was long on vision and general statements about moving to sustainable energy sources, but short on new specifics about how Tesla would help society achieve that vision.
Near the beginning of the presentation, Musk said, “There is a clear path to a sustainable-energy Earth. It doesn’t require destroying natural habitats. It doesn’t require us to be austere and stop using electricity and be in the cold or anything.” He added, “In fact, you could support a civilization much bigger than Earth, much more than the 8 billion humans could actually be supported sustainably on Earth.”
Musk was initially joined on stage by Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Energy Engineering at Tesla, Drew Baglino. They discussed a future in which the company would play a role in “re-powering the grid with renewable fuels” as they ramp up battery production, both for Tesla’s electric vehicles and for the company’s utility-scale energy storage systems.
Tesla’s goal is to produce 20 million electric vehicles per year by 2030, executives reiterated. The company reported full year deliveries of around 1.31 million vehicles in 2022.
The company’s charging leader, Rebecca Tinucci, said that in 2022 Tesla provided 9 terawatt hours across charging methods, including AC home charging and away-from-home charging points, including 40,000 Superchargers. The entire U.S. consumes about 4,000 terawatt hours of electricity per year. Tinucci also noted that about half of the company’s Superchargers in the EU are open to other vehicles, and that the company just opened 10 Superchargers in the US to other vehicles.
Tesla design leader Franz von Holzhausen and vice president of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy took the stage to show off a number of planned manufacturing changes meant to improve the efficiency of Tesla vehicle production. But von Holzhausen said that Tesla would not yet reveal its “next gen” vehicle.
The company’s powertrain vice president, Colin Campbell, said that Tesla’s next powertrain factory will be 50% smaller than the one in Austin, Texas, but will have the same capacity. He also said the company is working on a new kind of drive unit that is compatible with any battery cell type, and a motor that will be built without any rare earth metals.
Ahead of the 2023 Investor Day, at a press conference on Tuesday, Mexico president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tesla had agreed to build a large factory in Monterrey, Mexico. He said Tesla agreed to use recycled water and take other initiatives to cope with water-scarcity in the region.
Tesla shares have rebounded from declines during 2022, and are up more than 60% for the year so far. However, the stock dropped 1.43% on Wednesday prior to the event, and nearly 3% after hours.
According to Ortex, a short interest tracker, “After delivering $4.5 billion in profits to short sellers in January, TSLA’s 19% rise in February has helped pile on losses for TSLA bears. ORTEX estimates that TSLA shorts incurred $3 billion in losses for February, the biggest short loss of the month by a meaningful margin (#2 was NVDA with a $1.5 billion loss for shorts).”
Mizuho Securities analysts maintained a buy rating on shares of Tesla ahead of Investor Day, seeing Tesla in a leadership position in a growing market for fully electric vehicles. They wrote, in a note earlier this week, “Near-term, we see continued strength in TSLA’s market share, but see cheaper competitor EVs coming to market as potentially dilutive to TSLA’s share of the US EV market.”
Currently, the lowest-priced Tesla available is the Model 3 sedan, which starts at a price point of around $43,000, they wrote. Seven models from other automakers are currently priced below that, Mizhuo noted.
Musk’s ambitious Master Plan Part Deux was published in 2016, and has not been completely fulfilled. It included four main objectives:
- “Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage”
- “Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments”
- “Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning”
- “Enable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it”.
— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
