There was a lot of pomp, as is usual with anything surrounding Elon Musk. Tesla's share price fell, however, more than 5% just after more than three hours of speeches, questions and answers at the so-called investor day of the automotive company held this Wednesday afternoon at the factory near Austin, Texas.
Although the presentation was extensive in terms of vision, it was disappointing in terms of specifics. Musk confirmed the news, advanced the day before by the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that Tesla will build its fifth factory in the neighboring country, in the municipality of Monterrey.
This assembly plant should facilitate the manufacture of cheaper electric vehicles than the ones the company currently puts on the market. But, to the disappointment of stockholders and consumers in general, nothing was clarified about what this new model will look like.
The most expected from the presentation of the so-called Master Plan 3 was precisely that this car would be made known, which would allow the range of buyers and, therefore, income to be expanded.
Above all, foremost on Wall Street's mind is how and when Tesla will build a new, cheaper passenger car that will extend the company's market reach massively. His cheapest vehicle costs around $43,000 in the United States.
Franz von Holzhausen, leader of the design team, and Lars Moravy, vice president of vehicle engineering, were in charge of showing a series of plans for changes in production to improve efficiency. But Von Hozhausen was in charge of spoiling the event by stating that they were not going to reveal anything about the “next generation” of cars yet.
Musk did acknowledge that "small changes in prices have a big effect on demand", a way in which he stressed that reducing the buyer's bill is the way to go to expand the radar and that many more people have access to his product. He also remarked that they will introduce changes to reduce the cost of production.
In the act it was reported that this Wednesday a total of four million vehicles had been produced. “It took us 12 months to build the first million and about 18 months to build the second million. The third took 11 months and the third took less than seven,” said Tom Zhu, Head of Global Production.
But investors are seeking clarity about how Tesla intends to maintain momentum over the long term. The company has set the bar to sell 20 million vehicles a year in 2030, from 1.3 million in 2022. Toyota occupies the world ceiling with 10.5 million.
The key, according to experts, is to introduce more affordable electric cars, and that is where the announcement of the new factory in Mexico comes into play, where vehicles would be assembled at a cost of $20,000 to $25,000 for customers.
It was not until question time that Musk, again the richest in the world in the Bloomberg classification, confirmed that they will build that assembly plant in Monterrey, the first Tesla production plant in Latin America. Once up and running, it will be the fifth worldwide, after those already operating in Fremont and Austin (United States). Shanghai (China) and Berlin (Germany).
“Probably the most significant announcement of the day is that we are going to build a gigafactory in Mexico,” Musk stressed to the applause of the audience. The Mexican government advanced that the company will invest 5,000 million dollars.
At this plant, it is projected to build 3.5 million cheaper-priced vehicles per year, the company's executives said. Neither Musk nor his collaborators offered specifics about the construction and start-up of the next factory, although they recalled that the one in Shanghai was carried out in just nine and a half months.
Much of the Musk session was dedicated to the generation and storage of electrical energy, an issue that he considered essential to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.
“There is a clear path towards energy sustainability. It doesn't require destroying natural habitats, it doesn't require being austere and stopping using electricity and getting cold,” she theorized. "In fact, we can support a civilization much larger than Earth's, much larger than the eight million humans who could actually sustainably reside on Earth," she continued in his musing. Musk dreams of Mars.
