san francisco Tesla boss Elon Musk has presented his plan for making the earth no longer dependent on fossil fuels. “There is a clear path to a fully sustainable earth with plenty,” Musk said at Investor Day Wednesday in Austin, Texas.
Musk said that 240 terawatt hours, or 240,000 gigawatt hours, of batteries would be enough to meet that goal. This number includes both batteries for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage. That’s about 480 times the amount of batteries that will be produced worldwide in 2022.
Observers had previously assumed that Musk could make one or more surprising announcements. The Tesla boss announced on Twitter that he wanted to present his “Masterplan 3” on Wednesday, “the path towards a fully sustainable energy future for the earth,” Musk said in a convoluted way.
Tesla presented its first master plan in 2006. It covered the construction of an entire family of electric cars, “including affordable family cars,” and was ahead of its time: Tesla presented the first car, the Roadster, in 2008.
The second master plan followed ten years later, in 2016. In it, Musk outlined his plans to expand the model range and bring battery storage into the homes of users, in conjunction with solar panels on the roof. The most important topic, however, was automated driving. Musk said that within a few years, he wants to come up with a workable autopilot that will “allow your car to make money for you when you’re not using it.”
According to Musk, the associated robotaxi fleets should be “functionally available” by 2020 at the latest – a promise that prompted prominent investors such as Cathie Wood to buy Tesla shares. As of today, however, a rapid introduction is not to be expected. Tesla’s approach of only relying on cameras instead of additional radar and lidar sensors is viewed critically by US regulators, among others. The autopilot that Tesla is selling as a “Full Self-Driving Beta” for $15,000 is still making numerous mistakes.
Quarterly figures fall short of expectations
From a shareholder perspective, Tesla can use new impetus. The group earned more in 2022 than ever before in a fiscal year and increased profits by 128 percent to $ 12.6 billion (11.5 billion euros). According to the analysis company Factset, profit and sales in the final quarter (3.7 and 24.3 billion dollars) remained slightly below expectations. Tesla also missed its 50 percent growth target in 2020.
The quarterly figures in the last quarter fell short of the expectations of experts.
(Photo: dpa)
Wall Street is concerned that Tesla is hitting a ceiling after years of rapid growth. Recent price cuts had also fueled concerns that demand for Tesla cars could dwindle and the long-hyped company could become just one carmaker among many.
The current model generation is showing its age, and hopefuls like the Cybertruck pick-up have been a long time coming. It should not be delivered on a larger scale until 2024, as Musk had explained. Meanwhile, the competition is not sleeping: classic car manufacturers such as Ford and GM are celebrating delivery records with fully electric variants of their popular pick-up trucks, for example.
Tesla lost around $675 billion in market capitalization last year. The course had collapsed by 65 percent – a negative record. Since the turn of the year, the share has recovered significantly and has risen by around 89 percent to $205. By the end of 2021, it was over $400.
Investor Day Speculations
What exactly Tesla will present at the investor day is open. In investor circles it was discussed that Musk could initiate a partial correction of his autopilot strategy. Tesla is already sending test cars with advanced sensors onto the road in California, and the corresponding photos are circulating on the Internet.
It is considered likely that Musk could make an announcement about the autopilot’s sensor equipment, the automotive investment manager of a large sovereign wealth fund told the Handelsblatt. According to the manager, Tesla was under pressure, at least since the critical comments by the US regulator NHTSA on the car company’s actions. “Musk has to deliver.”
Tesla recently filed for a radar patent. Unlike new versions of the autopilot software, however, Tesla cannot simply distribute radar sensors to cars that have already been sold via software updates. They would have to be upgraded. Should Tesla make a technological U-turn and only offer highly automated driving for vehicles with radar sensors, the group would have to recall millions of cars to the workshops.
In addition, there has been speculation in analyst circles and on Wall Street whether Tesla could offer a new entry-level model below the Model 3. Musk originally promised a $25,000 car, but said the 2022 project was not a priority.
“The idea of a Model 2 would correspond to Musk’s claim to make electric mobility available to everyone. In view of the high raw material and battery prices, however, the margins for such a vehicle would be very small, so the project is extremely ambitious,” says Christian Koenig. The car expert has worked for Porsche in North America and runs an electromobility consultancy in Atlanta. Other projects were also waiting to be implemented.
Tesla boss Elon Musk had invited to the investor day.
(Photo: IMAGO/MiS)
Another speculation has Tesla unveiling a mass-production version of its much-anticipated and multiple-delayed pickup truck, the Cybertruck. But technological improvements could also be on the agenda.
“Musk wants to present his next master plan. In the industry, it is assumed that he will present the latest production methods from the Gigafactory in Texas,” says Koenig. With the help of Italian manufacturer Idra, Tesla would stamp car body shapes out of one part. That reduces production costs, says Koenig. However, repairability may be a problem.
Musk continues to believe in autopilot
Tesla relies on a special approach to autonomous driving, which, unlike the competition, only gets by with cameras. Their images are evaluated and interpreted by AI – analogous to a human driver who can only rely on his eyes.
Tesla boss Elon Musk believes in the approach and rejects the installation of additional systems, such as radar or laser sensors, on which all other competitors rely, including the large German and US manufacturers, but also driving service providers such as Google subsidiary Waymo : “In my opinion, that’s a crutch,” he said in the past.
Tesla’s autopilot most closely corresponds to a level 2 system, i.e. a system that actually only supports the driver. However, that doesn’t stop Tesla from marketing the autopilot as a “Full Self-Driving Beta” (FSD Beta). This is a thorn in the side of the supervisor: In August 2021, the US road traffic authority NHTSA launched an investigation into the autopilot in 765,000 Tesla vehicles after around a dozen accidents.
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Musk has been promising the full launch of autopilot “this year” for years. But recently the Tesla boss sounded sober for the first time. The progress took longer than expected, he had “never seen so many undesirable developments” as with autopilot.
In the spring of 2023, Tesla faces its first jury trial for fatal accidents blamed on Autopilot. NHTSA has examined the function and sent a questionnaire to Tesla, which is available to the Handelsblatt. Among other things, it deals with the question of how the driver’s attention is monitored.
The authority had long given Tesla a largely free hand to test its beta software on American roads, but after a series of accidents, some of them fatal, the pace was tightened.
Tesla’s driving system repeatedly involved in accidents
According to figures released by US regulators in June, Tesla vehicles have been responsible for nearly 70 percent of reported crashes involving advanced driver assistance systems since June 2021. Regulators pointed out that the data was incomplete.
Specifically, according to the data, six people died and five were seriously injured in nearly 400 accidents involving advanced driver assistance systems on US roads between July 2021 and May 2022. Tesla’s share is high: Tesla Autopilot systems were active in 273 accidents, five of which were fatal.
According to the New York Times, the authority has been investigating 41 accidents involving Tesla’s driver assistance systems since 2016, including 14 in which a total of 19 people died. The US agency began investigating Tesla driver assistance systems in 765,000 vehicles in August 2001.
In the past, Tesla has claimed that driving with Autopilot on is safer than driving without it. So there are fewer accidents. Other researchers have criticized Tesla’s methodology.
As recently as February, Tesla had to install an over-the-air update on more than 362,000 cars with advanced driver assistance software FSD Beta in the United States. Supervisors see an increased risk of accidents.
The procedure is now also interested in the public prosecutor. US prosecutors are investigating whether the electric car maker made misleading claims about the capabilities of its driver assistance system. According to media reports, the US Department of Justice is examining statements by Tesla and its executives. At the end of January it was also announced that the SEC was also taking a critical look at CEO Musk’s autopilot claims.
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