Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, announced his third Master Plan—which intends to create a sustainable energy economy—during the company's Investor Day 2023 event at the Austin, Texas Gigafactory.
Musk wants to create 240 terawatt hours (TWH) of energy storage and 30 TWH of renewable energy generation, which would cost $10 trillion, or 10% of the world's GDP, in investment.
Musk did note that this amount is, however, less than half of what we presently spend on the internal combustion economy. Musk estimates that to build the required solar and wind power capacity, less than 0.2% of the planet's geographical area will be required.
As part of the third Master Plan, Musk also disclosed that the company's production capacity will see a large increase because of AI. The concept aims to create a fully autonomous, electric, and transportation system since Musk thinks ICE automobiles will soon be obsolete. He also hinted at the prospect of electrifying ships and aircraft, although he didn't say how or when it would be done.
At the event, Tesla executives Franz von Holzhausen and Lars Moravy discussed "production hell" and the difficulties associated with creating the Cybertruck out of stainless steel. According to Moravy, the company will be able to construct its upcoming generation of vehicles in a more productive manner and with a much smaller factory footprint due to the lessons learnt from the Cybertruck. A lot sooner than Musk's previous forecast that production wouldn't start until next year, von Holzhausen revealed that the Cybertruck will be available later this year.
Future generations of Tesla vehicles would have assembly costs cut in half, according to the engineers, but the much-anticipated compact, reasonably priced electric vehicle was not announced.
There was no actual live demonstration of the Tesla Robot walking without a support frame, but the company teased a new video in which it does so. Musk anticipates that the company's robots will be so successful that they might soon witness a day when robots outnumber humans, despite obstacles in finding adequate off-the-shelf actuators and motors for the humanoid robot platform.
