Manufacturer of electric vehicles Tesla will hold an Investor Day presentation on Wednesday at 3:00 local time in Austin, Texas. CEO Elon Musk has promised to share his “Master Plan 3” and discuss how Tesla plans to scale in the face of increasing competition.
Musk wrote in a tweet February 7, 2023 “Master Plan 3, a path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth will be unveiled on March 1. The future is bright!”
His ambitious Master Plan Part Deux was published in 2016 and has not been fully implemented. It included four main goals:
- “Create stunning solar roofs with a seamlessly integrated battery”
- “Expand the range of electric vehicles to touch all the main segments”
- “Develop a self-driving capability that’s 10 times safer than manual driving with massive fleet training”
- “Let your car earn money when you’re not using it”
On Twitter, Tesla reported to shareholders that his presentation will be available live on YouTube, where the company has traditionally broadcast its events, as well as on Twitter itself.
In October 2022, Musk acquired the San Francisco-based social media company for about $44 billion, partially selling about $23 billion of his Tesla stock to finance the deal. He may reveal more details about how they plan to work together going forward.
As CNBC previously reported, Musk has allowed a number of executives and engineers from Tesla, SpaceX and Boring Co. work for him on Twitter.
Ahead of Investor Day 2023, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced at a press conference on Tuesday that Tesla has agreed to build a large factory in Monterrey, Mexico. He said Tesla has agreed to use recycled water and take other initiatives to deal with water shortages in the region.
The company is expected to reveal more about this and its other facilities, including a plant in Shanghai and new plants in Austin, Texas, and outside Berlin.
Investors are wondering if and when Tesla will finally deliver a new, more affordable electric car, and when the company will finally deliver on its long-held promise of driverless technology.
At Tesla’s Battery Day event in 2020, Musk teased the possibility of both, saying, “In about three years, we’re confident we’ll be able to create a very compelling $25,000 electric car that’s also fully autonomous.”
Musk has been promising a truly self-driving car since 2016. The company still hasn’t completed a self-driving cross-country demonstration, which Musk said at the time would be possible by the end of 2017.
In February, the federal vehicle safety authorities in the US and Tesla announced a voluntary recall of 362,758 vehicles. In a safety recall notice, Tesla and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned that the driver assistance software, marketed as Full Self-Driving Beta, could cause Tesla cars to fail to obey traffic laws and cause accidents. (The company plans to deliver the fix via an over-the-air software update.)
Despite the company’s delays with driverless technology, Tesla shares have rebounded from a 2022 slump and are up more than 60% for the year.
According to Ortex, a short-interest tracker, “after short sellers took $4.5 billion in profits in January, TSLA’s 19% gain in February helped to pile up TSLA bears’ losses. According to ORTEX estimates, TSLA shorts lost $3 billion in February, the largest short loss of the month by a wide margin (#2 was NVDA with $1.5 billion in short losses).”
Analysts at Mizuho Securities maintained a buy rating on Tesla shares ahead of Investor Day, seeing Tesla as a leader in the growing all-electric vehicle market. They wrote in a note earlier this week: “In the near term, we see continued gains in TSLA’s market share, but see lower-cost competing EVs entering the market potentially reducing TSLA’s share of the US EV market.”
At the moment, Tesla’s lowest price is the Model 3 sedan, which starts around $43,000, they write. Currently, seven models from other automakers are priced lower, Mizuo noted.
Analysts at Cannacord Genuity conducted a poll asking Tesla watchers what they expected to be discussed during Wednesday’s Investor Day presentation. Most expected to hear about a “next-generation transportation platform,” as well as details on Tesla’s mining plans and an update on Tesla’s long-term vehicle volume forecast through 2030.
This story is developing, check back for updates.
— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
