Justin Sullivan
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) held an investor day event on Wednesday at its Gigafactory in Austin, Texas with a strong focus on sustainability and the company's future trajectory.
Elon Musk started off the event talking about the "clear path" to a fully sustainable Earth. He highlighted the dirty and wasteful energy economy that is currently in place and noted sustainable sources could power the current population of the world through the expansion of energy storage, as well as renewable power and manufacturing investment. The master plan to eliminate fossil fuels includes repowering the existing grid with renewables and a switch to all-electric vehicles by consumers and businesses. Electric planes and boats are also part of the long-term plan, although Tesla's involvement on that front is unclear. In terms of resources, the company is convinced there are enough nickel, lithium, and cobalt sources to power a sustainable economy.
Looking ahead, the Tesla (TSLA) master plan also includes a new manufacturing platform for building next-gen EVs in a more efficient manner. The new platform is expected to reduce costs and have a reduced manufacturing footprint at scale. The powertrain will feature a permanent magnet motor that will not use new rare earths. As expected, Tesla (TSLA) confirmed that the Cybertruck is coming this year, but there was no sneak preview of the next-gen vehicle that is in the works.
Tesla (TSLA) disclosed that it broke ground on a lithium refinery plant in Corpus Christi, Texas with output expected within 10 months.
The company announced that a new Gigafactory will be built near the northern Mexican city of Monterrey. Tesla (TSLA) has stated in the past that it will need to build eight new Gigafactories in order to achieve a goal of producing 20M vehicles a year by the end of 2030. The EV giant currently has the capacity to produce about 1.9M vehicles a year if all lines are running.
The future for FSD, a robotaxi network, and charging infrastructure was discussed in broad strokes. TSLA also showed off the dock that will be used to open the Supercharger network to other EV brands. The Optimus robot also made an appearance at the event and showed improvement in mobility from the underwhelming performance at Tesla's AI Day. Musk maintained that there will be household uses for Optimus.
As for numbers, potential Tesla CEO successor Tom Zhu said Tesla has now produced 4M cars just seven months after passing the 3M vehicle mark for production.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) were down 5.61% just as the Investor Day wrapped up to put a dent in the +80% year-to-date run. Rivian Automotive (RIVN) and Lucid Group (LCID) dipped around 1% in the postmarket session, while Detroit auto heavyweights General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) were slightly higher.
Seeking Alpha contributor Long Term Tips has already broken down what Tesla's new master plan means for competitors.
The article will be updated as the Tesla event progresses.