TESLA’S first Investor Day was free of latest product reveals, as a substitute majoring on CEO Elon Musk’s imaginative and prescient for streamlined automobile manufacturing and sustainable vitality manufacturing, though the presentation did tease the corporate’s next-generation automobile platform and trace at two upcoming fashions together with what seems to be a van.
It was evident that Mr Musk plans on positioning Tesla as a driving pressure within the widespread shift from fossil fuels to renewable vitality, as he outlined his formidable plan for the following few a long time. After all, in true Musk vogue, particulars have been murky.
Tesla inventory fell by round 5 per cent throughout the occasion as buyers, analysts, media and clients waited with bated breath for particulars of upcoming automobile launches; the occasion was a departure from the corporate’s notorious product reveal extravaganzas.
As a substitute, Mr Musk’s robust sustainability focus together with the presentation’s lack of particular automobile particulars and scant data on long-term monetary targets seems to have left buyers stumped.
“I actually needed at the moment to be not nearly Tesla buyers who personal inventory, however actually anybody who’s an investor in Earth,” Mr Musk stated.
His ‘Grasp Plan 3’ (the third iteration of the Tesla enterprise roadmap), entails renewable grid energy, electrified transport, set up of warmth pumps in houses, hydrogen for industrial use, and lastly sustainable aviation and marine choices.
“There’s a clear path to sustainable vitality on Earth. It doesn’t require destroying pure habitats. It doesn’t require us to be austere and cease utilizing electrical energy and form of be within the chilly or something,” Musk stated.
Excessive on the agenda was showcasing a extra environment friendly automobile manufacturing technique and decreased manufacturing footprint, which Tesla has dubbed the ‘unboxed course of’.
“We knew we had to enhance the method additional, and with Cyber Truck we designed a automobile round a imaginative and prescient that really began with the manufacturing course of,” stated Tesla design lead Franz Von Holzhausen.
“It really created a really environment friendly finish course of and probably the most dynamic designs ever, I consider.”
The modular course of entails constructing smaller sections of the automobile with out the necessity to later disassemble, in contrast with conventional meeting traces that contain a component of disassembly following paint.
“You’re taking all these stamped panels, you place them collectively, then you definately put them in a framing station, you construct a physique that appears one thing like a automobile, you place the doorways on and then you definately paint them. When you get the color, you’re taking the doorways off, and then you definately begin placing the inside within the automobile,” defined Tesla head engineer Lars Moravy.
“If we’re going to scale the best way we need to do, now we have to rethink manufacturing once more.”
Tesla’s modular unboxed course of allows extra individuals to work on sections of the automobile on the identical time, resulting in a claimed 44 per cent operator density enchancment with “much less time doing nothing” and value financial savings of “as much as 50 per cent”.
“It means we’re doing extra work on the automobile extra of the time,” Mr Moravy stated.
“After we take all of those examined sub-assemblies and put them collectively, we lastly assemble the automobile just one time.”
The subsequent-generation platform can be constructed out of a brand new ‘gigafactory’ located simply south of the Texas border in Monterrey, Mexico and round 622km from Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas.
In addition to the brand new Mexican plant introduced at Tesla Investor Day, upgrades may also be made to the corporate’s present Gigafactories within the US, China, and Germany to enhance manufacturing capabilities.
Tesla can also be finalising a next-generation 48-volt electrical automobile platform that can debut on the Cyber Truck ute that’s slated to enter manufacturing towards the top of this 12 months, whereas the corporate additionally plans to introduce an electrical drive motor that requires no uncommon earth parts.
Shifting to a 48-volt system reduces the present in comparison with 12V structure that grew to become the automotive business commonplace within the Sixties by an element of 4, enabling the usage of smaller, lighter wires, controllers and e-fuses (changing standard fuses and relays).
Tesla says it’s going to additionally design 100 per cent of the brand new 48V controllers in-house to alleviate provide constraints.
A next-generation Tesla automobile platform will cowl a variety of car segments, in step with Mr Musk’s plan to impress all transportation sorts, and a graph confirmed throughout the presentation claimed considerably decrease working prices in comparison with the present platform.
Sadly, the corporate shared no particular particulars in regards to the rumoured low-cost ‘Mannequin 2’, though it did tease a possible entry-level small automobile mannequin within the presentation albeit veiled underneath a fabric.
“I might love to point out you what I imply, and unveil the next-generation automobile, however you are going to should belief me on that till a later date,” stated Mr Von Holzhausen.
The opposite secret automobile, equally veiled, appears like a small industrial van or individuals mover. Such a mannequin has been rumoured to be within the works and share the Cyber Truck’s underpinnings.
Manufacturing of the Cybertruck itself is confirmed tol kick off in 2023, whereas the Semi prime mover is already being delivered to clients in america though is just too large to be used in Australia underneath present rules.
