nearly four hours Heading into Tesla’s marathon investor day, someone in the audience was once again trying to bring Tesla (and Twitter and SpaceX) CEO Elon Musk back to the present day. On stage at the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, Musk announced an ambitious “Master Plan 3” to save the world. For a $10 trillion investment in manufacturing, the world could massively switch to a renewable grid to power electric cars, planes and ships, Musk said.
“The planet can and will transition to a sustainable energy economy, and will do so in your lifetime,” Musk declared. More details will be revealed in an upcoming white paper, he said. But the presentation didn’t detail one part of Tesla’s gift for the electric transition: the next-generation car it’s been teasing for years, promising something more affordable, more efficient, and more efficient than anything else. Its current lineup. That vehicle, or group of vehicles, is critical to Tesla’s goal of selling 20 million vehicles in 2030; it sold 1.3 million in 2022.
What would the car be, one investor asked company executives? Musk declined to say. “If we answered your question, we’d be too hasty,” he said, explaining that the company will hold a separate event to unveil the mystery vehicle somewhere on the production line. The slideshow shown during the presentation simply showed an image of the shape of a car under a gray sheet.
Instead, 17 company executives shared tidbits about the vehicle in a rotating presentation, focusing on everything from design to supply chain to manufacturing to environmental impact and legal matters.
Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of automotive engineering, said the next-generation vehicle will be more than just a car, but an approach to carmaking that focuses on “affordability and desirability.” It will be built at a new factory near Monterrey, Mexico, announced Wednesday at an event that will be Tesla’s sixth battery and electric vehicle factory. The next generation of vehicles will have a 40% smaller manufacturing footprint and 50% lower production costs, executives said.
Wall Street appears to be expecting more details. Shares of the company were down 5% by Thursday morning.
“The highly anticipated Master Plan 3 theme left me with more questions than answers,” Deepwater Asset Management managing partner Gene Munster said in a note to investors.
“Musk and company failed to put the cherry on top,” Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at auto industry research firm Edmunds, said in an emailed comment. — a practical look at a less expensive Tesla, even if only in concept.”
A truly affordable electric car has long been the company’s goal. Tesla’s first master plan, released in 2006, before Musk was CEO, was simple, but radical at the time: Build an electric sports car, then use the money to build more and more cars. Cheaper electric cars. The company touted its second electric sedan, the Model 3, as a battery-powered vehicle for the masses, but the car is only on sale for a limited time with a $35,000 price target. Its base model now sells for $43,000. Meanwhile, traditional automakers inspired by Tesla’s vision have filled the void: Today’s Chevrolet Bolt starts at $26,500, and the Nissan Leaf starts at $28,000.
A second master plan, released in 2016, promised to roll out self-driving cars and shared robotaxis, and boosted the automaker’s (now struggling) solar panel business. Robots on wheels are yet to come — though Wednesday’s event did include a cameo from Optimus, a still-hulking humanoid prototype also built by Tesla.
Musk has rarely met the deadlines he set himself, but he has always been adept at rallying others to his cause with grand statements and grand visions. Now he’s looking beyond cars, and even robots. “I really hope today involves not just investors who own Tesla stock, but any investor on Earth,” he said.
