Tesla is still immersed in the race to transform the automotive industry. And the truth is that things are not going badly: Elon Musk‘s famous company is holding its first event, the Tesla Investor Day, where we have been able to learn about some important announcements and its plans for the future.
The truth is that Tesla’s position within the automotive market has not been without its bumps. Inflation, rising costs, delays and problems with its cars have taken their toll, not to mention the “fun” year Elon Musk gave us with the acquisition of Twitter.
Focus on sustainability
The big message that Musk and Tesla executives wanted to get across to the public was this: to push by all means the use of renewable energies and thus eliminate the need for fossil fuels. However, Tesla’s green statements did not resonate with investors. The lack of major announcements and more concrete details resulted in an 8.6% drop in the company’s shares.
However, the company has not stopped insisting on the transition to more sustainable means of transport. They have even shown the percentage that each sector should have to make it possible: 35% for renewable energies, 21% for electric vehicles, 22% for heat pumps, 17% for thermal systems and 5% reserved for maritime transport.
We cannot deny that there is still a titanic task ahead to reverse this situation. Currently, more than 80% of the energy produced comes from fossil fuels.
Even so, Tesla is determined to do its bit and assures that its plans to improve efficiency will have a positive impact on the planet. One example is the growing need for minerals. One of the biggest concerns facing the energy transition is the scarcity of raw materials. However, an electrified society will require much less according to Tesla. The estimate they give is that we could go from needing 50 gigatons of materials to 18 gigatons.
Construction of new plants
During the event, many other topics were discussed, such as Tesla’s ambitious goal: to produce up to 20 million electric cars by 20230. But how do they intend to do this? At the moment, this figure clashes with the current reality.
To put this in context, Tesla has delivered 1,313,851 million vehicles for the whole of 2022. If we compare this figure with Toyota (last year’s leading manufacturer), Tesla falls quite short: the Japanese giant managed to place up to 10.5 million cars in 2022. However, Elon Musk assures that this goal is achievable, as the main problem they face is high demand.
In response to the situation, Elon Musk confirmed the construction of the next Gigafactory in Monterrey, Mexico. In addition, he also assured that they would continue with the expansion of production in all existing plants (California, Nevada, Texas and Shanghai). According to initial estimates, the electric car plant to be installed in Mexico will require a large investment (specifically, US$5 billion).
Reduced manufacturing costs
On the other hand, much of the event focused on talking about the brand’s operational efficiency and the efforts they had put into reducing costs at every possible level. Perhaps most interesting of all, however, is the information that went unsaid: there was no hint of new vehicles, nor were the software issues of its famous autonomous driving addressed. In fact, the latter option is not even available to those who bought it ($15,000 no less) due to its recall.
If you want to see for yourself the Tesla event, you have it uploaded on YouTube on the company’s official channel. Below is the live stream:
