Electric vehicle maker Tesla is set to host an Investor Day presentation at 3:00 local time in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. CEO Elon Musk promised to share his “Master Plan 3,” and to discuss how Tesla plans to scale up in the face of increasing competition.
Musk wrote in a tweet on Feb. 7, 2023, “Master Plan 3, the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth will be presented on March 1. The future is bright!”
His ambitious Master Plan Part Deux was published in 2016, and has not been completely fulfilled. It included four main objectives:
- “Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage”
- “Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments”
- “Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning”
- “Enable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it”
On Twitter, Tesla notified shareholders that its presentation will be available live on YouTube, where the company has traditionally streamed its events, but also on Twitter itself.
Musk acquired the San Francisco-based social media company for around $44 billion in October 2022, selling around $23 billion worth of his Tesla shares in part to finance the deal. He may reveal more details about how the two plan to work together moving forward.
As CNBC previously reported, Musk has authorized a myriad of Tesla, SpaceX and Boring Co. execs and engineers to work for him at Twitter.
Ahead of the 2023 Investor Day, at a press conference on Tuesday, Mexico president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tesla had agreed to build a large factory in Monterrey, Mexico. He said Tesla agreed to use recycled water and take other initiatives to cope with water-scarcity in the region.
The company is expected to reveal more about this and its other facilities, including its Shanghai plant, and the newer factories in Austin, Texas and outside of Berlin.
Investors are wondering whether and when Tesla will finally deliver a new, more affordable electric vehicle, and when the company may finally fulfill its longstanding promise of driverless technology.
In 2020, at a Tesla Battery Day event, Musk teased the possibility of both, saying: “About three years from now, we’re confident we can make a very compelling $25,000 electric vehicle that’s also fully autonomous.”
Musk has been promising a truly self-driving car since 2016. The company still has not completed the cross-country, driverless demo Musk then said would be possible by the end of 2017.
In February, the federal vehicle safety regulators 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, may cause Tesla vehicles to disobey traffic laws and could cause crashes. (The company plans to deliver a fix via an over-the-air software update.)
Despite the company’s delays on driverless tech, Tesla shares have rebounded from declines during 2022, and are up more than 60% for the year so far.
According to Ortex, a short interest tracker, “After delivering $4.5 billion in profits to short sellers in January, TSLA’s 19% rise in February has helped pile on losses for TSLA bears. ORTEX estimates that TSLA shorts incurred $3 billion in losses for February, the biggest short loss of the month by a meaningful margin (#2 was NVDA with a $1.5 billion loss for shorts).”
Mizuho Securities analysts maintained a buy rating on shares of Tesla ahead of Investor Day, seeing Tesla in a leadership position in a growing market for fully electric vehicles. They wrote, in a note earlier this week, “Near-term, we see continued strength in TSLA’s market share, but see cheaper competitor EVs coming to market as potentially dilutive to TSLA’s share of the US EV market.”
Currently, the lowest-priced Tesla available is the Model 3 sedan, which starts at a price point of around $43,000, they wrote. Seven models from other automakers are currently priced below that, Mizhuo noted.
Cannacord Genuity analysts ran a survey asking what Tesla watchers predict will be discussed during the Investor Day presentation on Wednesday. Most expected to hear about a “next-Gen vehicle platform,” as well as details on Tesla’s mining plans, and an update to Tesla’s longer-term vehicle volume forecast through 2030.
This story is developing, please check back for updates.
— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.