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Volvo: Safety Beyond the Star RatingsTesla’s Investor Day 2023: Building an Electric Future
Coverage of Tesla’s 2023 Investor Day including Elon Musk’s Master Plan 3, global energy ambitions, and the latest Cybertruck updates.
Tesla’s Investors Meeting
Tesla, ever the disruptor, continues to make industry waves with its recent Investor Day presentation and an uptick in activity of the long-anticipated Cybertruck. For sure, the March 1st Investor Day at Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas was not your average automotive dog and pony show. In fact, those hoping for hard details on the company’s next vehicle were left disappointed as CEO Elon Musk was more focused on the big-picture perspective.
As noted in a tweet preceding the affair, he was “looking forward to Tesla Investor Day…By this, we mean the broadest definition of investor, as in the people & life of Earth.” And though Mr. Musk has a reputation for goofing around, he was quite serious about this bold statement.
Tesla’s Master Plan 3
Investor Day was the platform for sharing Tesla’s Master Plan 3, following the first iteration in 2006 and the second in 2016. The crux of this latest strategy is broad, to say the least, with a goal of transitioning the current global economy from fossil fuel power to one run on electricity.
Tesla has put numbers to this plan with an estimated $10 trillion of manufacturing investment needed to get there. Specifically, this would enable 240 total terawatt hours of energy storage – in the form of batteries and electric vehicles – plus 30 terawatts of renewable power generation according to Tesla. The company also notes residential heat pumps and hydrogen-powered industrial concerns will be a part of this picture.
Naturally, Tesla’s EVs – like the Model Y that we review here – are a pillar of this plan with the automaker projecting sales of 20 million vehicles annually versus the current total of just under 2 million. On the road to this target, Tesla intends to implement a host of major updates across all facets of its current business.
An Unboxed Approach to Car Making
One of those changes is scrapping the traditional method of assembling vehicles in a linear fashion. Instead, Tesla will be using what they call an “unboxed process”, which involves parallel and serial assembly that they expect will result in more operational density and higher overall efficiency.
Supply chain cost reduction is another aspect of making good on the Master Plan promise. To that end, the automaker is projecting their next-generation drive unit will see a 75% drop in silicon carbide content, a 50% smaller factory footprint, and an overall drop of $1,000 in cost. Along with that, Tesla says their next-generation vehicle will use exactly zero rare earth materials and see a 50% reduction in overall costs compared to present products.
All of this should result in a lower Tesla starting price and in that vein, the company notes that it has reduced the cost of the Model 3 by 30% over the past five years – a car we compare to the Kia EV6 here. As well, the Model 3 is already cheaper to own per mile, over five years, than a Toyota Corolla per the presentation.
Unfortunately, the specifics of Tesla’s next vehicle were kept under wraps. However, the company said this future model would be one of many to share a new platform and that it would be built at a planned Gigafactory in Mexico. This follows the recent opening of an assembly plant in Germany as we cover here.
Big Energy Goals for the Future
The wide-ranging event also touched on Tesla’s Megapack industrial-scale energy storage system, a lithium refinery slated to open in Texas this year, and Tesla Electric, which is a burgeoning electricity subscription plan for Tesla Powerwall owners.
Key components of the automaker’s ambitions, the Supercharger networks and Tesla Autopilot, were also included during the presentation. Rebecca Tinucci, charging infrastructure lead at Tesla, noted that the company has reduced per kWh Supercharger network costs over the last two years by 40% and cut customer wait time in half. Some of this has been driven by the Trip Planner tool, which Tesla envisions becoming the “air traffic controller for all EV charging across all infrastructure on a global basis.”
Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Tesla, took the stage to outline progress on the system and its Full Self-Driving (FSD) capability. He noted that FSD is a critical part of a sustainable future partly because, according to Tesla, users of the software are five to six times safer than the typical US driver. He also shared that some 400,000 customers have purchased FSD to date.
Is the Cyber Truck Coming Out in 2023?
The other big Tesla news these days is more frequent sightings of the fabled Cybertruck in the wild. Tesla has indicated they are closer than ever to production, so are busy testing beta prototypes on the streets of California. Recent spy footage shows a full black tonneau cover – perhaps with embedded solar panels – and a mammoth windshield wiper.
The truck was also on display during the March 1st Investor Day with highlights including new “full-hard cold-rolled stainless steel” body panel construction, a yoke-style steering wheel, and flip-up rear seats. First revealed in 2019 with an original production date of 2021, the Cybertruck is now said to be coming this year.
