Tesla investor day disappoints with little detail on new models

BLOOMBERG

Elon Musk’s latest master plan for Tesla Inc fell flat as the electric-car maker shared scant details about next-generation models that will underpin its next phase of growth.
The almost four-hour presentation was long on calculations of what the sustainable energy transition will require, along with boasts about manufacturing and engineering efficiencies. But Musk and the executives who joined him on stage wrapped Tesla’s investor day without giving a glimpse of cheaper EVs that may still be years away.
“I’d love to really show you what I mean and unveil the next-gen car, but you’re going to have to trust me on that until a later date,” Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s design chief, said at the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. “We’ll always be delivering exciting, compelling and desirable vehicles, as we always have.”
Tesla shares fell as much as 5.7% in New York, before the start of regular trading. Anticipation of the event contributed to a surge in the stock that added more than $300 billion of market value in two months.
Musk, 51, confirmed Tesla will build a new plant in Monterrey, Mexico, in what he said was probably the most significant announcement of the day. The chief executive officer said Tesla will make its next-gen vehicle there, and that the company will hold a grand opening and groundbreaking at an unspecified date.
When asked when the carmaker will show a prototype and if he could share details about the size, content and performance of the vehicle, Musk responded that Tesla also will hold a “proper sort of product event” at some point, but didn’t say when.
“We’re gonna go as fast as we can,” said Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering. “We expect that to be a huge-volume product.” Tesla recently broke ground on a lithium refining plant in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Musk reiterated that artificial intelligence stresses him out and called for the creation of a regulatory authority that would ensure the “quite dangerous technology” is operating in the public interest.
Tesla just built its 4 millionth vehicle. After taking 12 years to make its first million, the company manufactured each incremental million units in 18 months, 11 months and seven months.