Tesla shares tend to do well as the electric car maker grows like wildfire and Elon Musk gets fans excited about a brighter future.
The CEO shrugged off an unforgettable 2022 of sluggish expansion and Twitter distractions by slashing prices and planning another presentation of Tesla’s outlook for the next few years. The trains worked, at least for the time being. Demand has skyrocketed after Tesla slashed models in its lineup by up to 20%, and Musk supporters are furious over the masterplan he will deliver Wednesday at the company’s Austin, Texas, plant.
Tesla shares have risen from the two-year low they reached in early January, adding about $310 billion in market value and returning Musk to the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Never mind that the CEO warned he could sacrifice profit for volume, or that the company missed most of what it said in the latest version of Tesla’s guidance.
Predict the next move of a man who has posted on a post in the past day and a half fentanyl Crossing the US border, the end of the war in UkraineBerkshire Hathaway is”high from cokeand people occupy the moon, is a silly message. Nevertheless, here’s a taste of what’s to come:
master plan part trois
Musk spent at least 11 months creating his third Tesla Manifesto. The first effectively introduced the company to the world in 2006, and part two was the CEO’s best attempt at justifying a takeover he later regretted. In the latest plan, he teased a solar roof product that was a disappointment and self-driving capabilities and robotics that remain elusive.
For his next announcement, Musk will outline “the path to a fully sustainable energy future.” for the earthAlthough he predicted in 2019 that Tesla’s energy company would eventually match or exceed the size of its car company, the company has generated 88% of its revenue from cars over the past two years.
A cheaper Tesla
Musk said more than two years ago that the battery innovations Tesla was working on would enable the company to make a $25,000 electric vehicle.
It seems to have been a recurring endeavor. The CEO told investors in January 2022 that the company was not working on the car, saying nine months later that a next-generation platform that would cost about half of what the Model 3 costs to build is “the main focus” of our new vehicle development team.”
The earliest possible production volume of a model of this platform by Tesla is 2025, Toni Sacconaghi, a Bernstein analyst with the equivalent of a sell rating on the stock, wrote in a Feb. 22 report. The company was late to introduce the Roadster, Model S, Model X and Semi, and has yet to deliver the Cybertruck, which was unveiled more than three years ago.
musk to child last week that Tesla has specialized in making the impossible possible.
batteries
Another goal that Musk has trouble with is producing batteries in-house.
Tesla has long wanted to add its own cells with a diameter of 46 millimeters and a length of 80 millimeters to the range of Japan’s Panasonic and China’s CATL – which is why they are often referred to as 4680s.
Improving the performance of its own thicker, bulkier cells will be key to supporting higher production of both electric vehicles and energy products. The latter include Powerwall battery systems for household energy storage and the mega pack for business customers.
Coming up with plans to scale up its battery business could also mean Musk fleshing out its raw material sourcing strategy. The CEO has already confirmed plans to refine lithium in Texas, and Tesla is considering acquiring mining company Sigma Lithium, Bloomberg reported last month.
autonomy
Musk wrote in 2016 that all Teslas would soon have the hardware needed to navigate the streets on their own. Since then, the company has changed the equipment of its cars several times adjustments that musk said it would be free, then charged $1,000 for the performance. Tesla moved away from using radar years ago after its CEO said such sensors may have prevented a fatal crash, and it can now use it again.
Musk recently teased a custom robot taxi, casting doubt on whether models already on the road will ever be able to autonomously pick up passengers and earn their owners $30,000 a year, as he claimed in 2019.
Musk said in January that Tesla is planning multiple hardware iterations and will no longer replace the tweaks, risking the wrath of customers who have paid up to $15,000 for what the company calls Full Self-Driving, or FSD names. Tesla’s rollout of this feature – which supports drivers responsible for driving their cars at all times – has been suspended due to a recall of nearly 363,000 vehicles.
Musk will want to choose his words carefully if he decides to raise this topic on another investor day. The U.S. Department of Justice has asked Tesla for documents related to Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD capabilities, and Bloomberg reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its role in shaping the company’s self-driving car claims.
factories
Tesla has four car plants – in California, Texas, China and Germany – that are said to have the capacity to produce more than 1.9 million vehicles per year. Musk has set a goal of selling 20 million electric vehicles per year by the end of the decade, which would require much more investment.
Tesla has begun pilot semi-truck production in Nevada at its battery plant it is expanding as part of a $3.6 billion investment announced in January. Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday that the company will build a new factory in Monterrey.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo and members of his government also said they are in talks with Tesla about the automaker building a factory in the Southeast Asian country where key battery metals are found.
Everyone in the family
Musk tweeted a year ago that his third master plan would include some details about two of his other companies, SpaceX and The Boring Company.
While there isn’t much overlap between making electric cars and launching rockets, Tesla cars and charging stations could have the ability to use SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. The Boring Company uses Teslas in their Las Vegas tunnels.
While Musk has been considering creating a parent company for Tesla and SpaceX for at least a decade, he warned last year that it would be difficult to create one due to differences in the investor bases of his various companies. A week later, he formed a trio of holding companies as part of his bid to acquire Twitter.
Source: LA Times