Tesla Announces "Master Plan Part 3" on Investment Day Here are the key points

Photo credit: Tesla

In 2006 and 2016, Tesla released the first and second chapters of its ambition respectively, mentioning electric cars, solar roofs, autonomous driving and other ideas.

On March 1st, Tesla held an investor day at its Texas Giga facility to unveil the much-anticipated "Master Plan Part 3". Let's take a look at the highlights of Tesla's 2023 Investor Day.

Tesla Investor Day https://t.co/kcJWQcAFkJ

— Tesla (@Tesla) March 1, 2023

Talking Sustainable Energy

Tesla will release a white paper that outlines a clear path for the planet to use sustainable energy.

According to Musk, a typical gasoline car can only convert 20 percent of its fuel into kinetic energy to drive the vehicle forward. The call is for everyone to embrace solar power, which is a tremendous source of energy.

Musk also proposed the ultimate plan for producing fuel for a rocket to land on Mars, which would extract components from the air and then synthesize methane fuel to power the rocket. He also proposes to use hydrogen as a complete replacement for coal.

Musk described the "ambitious plan": 240 TWH of energy storage, 30 TW of renewable electricity, $10 trillion of investment in manufacturing, and less than half the energy requirements of the fuel economy.

Tesla also said that if the new energy capacity is increased at the planned rate (wind, solar, batteries) by 2030, it will be possible to achieve 100% sustainable energy by 2050.

Musk reiterated his previous position on lithium, saying that the key limitation in the production process of new energy batteries comes from the capacity to purify elemental lithium, rather than the discovery of lithium resources.

Talking about car manufacturing

Musk outlined how Tesla is building a global fleet of electric vehicles, and his assumed goal is that the fleet will have about 85 million vehicles.

Franz, Tesla's chief designer, described Tesla's Cybertruck, which will be launched later this year. Franz added that the next generation of cars will not be announced at this investor day and will be announced at a later date.

Tesla Global Vice President Tom Zhu said the company reached the 4 million production milestone and that the company's goal is to build a car every 45 seconds. Tesla's goal is for the next generation of cars to be assembled by more people at the same time and for assembly costs to be reduced by 50 percent.

Tesla CFO Kirkhorn emphasized that the Model 3 cost per vehicle has been reduced by 30 percent by 2022, and the next-generation platform is expected to reduce costs by 50 percent.

Tesla's next-generation platform will reduce silicon carbide by 75 percent. Tesla's next-generation permanent magnet motor will be completely free of rare earth materials, and Cybertruck and all future cars will move to 48-volt electrical systems.

Tesla's official announcement of a Mexican Giga factory, located in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo León, that will produce the next generation of electric cars.

Talking about artificial intelligence

Tesla showed a video about the humanoid robot Optimus. Compared to what was shown at last year's AI Day, the humanoid robot in this video appears to be more refined, able to walk and work on another robot; Musk admitted that the Optimus robot shown at last year's AI Day did not work at all.

Ashok Elluswamy, director of Tesla's Autopilot software, took the stage to discuss the topic of autonomous driving. He emphasized that Tesla's approach to AI systems is very different than before. The company is able to solve complex planning problems using artificial intelligence, for example. He also noted that manual labeling is not enough, so Tesla is using an automated labeling system.

Tesla said it will redesign the controller for the next generation of cars to reduce the complexity and cost of electronics.

Other aspects

Tesla has faced difficulties in the past few years due to semiconductor shortages, but the industry as a whole has begun to alleviate such difficulties, according to Tesla's vice president of global supply management.

Zhu, Tesla's global vice president, emphasized that Tesla's direct sales model gives them a lot of control and is valuable to consumers.

Tesla said the company's Supercharging hardware and installation costs are 20 to 70 percent lower than the industry average. Tesla charging pads will be adapted to all electric vehicles. Tesla said it has begun opening Superchargers to all vehicles worldwide. the first 10 Superchargers opened to other electric vehicles on Feb. 28.

The Corpus Christi lithium smelter in Texas, U.S., has broken ground and is scheduled to be operational within 12 months. In addition, Tesla announced a global workforce of 129,000 employees, 60 percent of which are in the U.S.

It is worth mentioning that the previously more expected Tesla "low-cost" models did not debut as scheduled, which may make some investors disappointed. Tesla shares fell more than 6% after hours near the end of the Tesla Investor Day.