Summary of the Highlights of the 2023 Tesla Shareholders Meeting New Cars, Personnel, Robots

2023 Tesla Shareholders Meeting Highlights New Cars, Personnel, Robots

As a leader in the electric vehicle industry, Tesla’s every move attracts much attention from the outside world. At 4 am Beijing time on the 17th, before dawn, Tesla officially held its 2023 annual shareholder meeting at its Texas Super Factory, which was also broadcasted live online.

2023 Tesla Shareholders Meeting

As the name suggests, a “shareholders meeting” is a meeting in which company shareholders participate. Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded one by one to hot issues such as business development, industry trends, and company performance, and shared many views on the industry. What was discussed at this meeting? Let’s take a look.

• I’m not pretending anymore, I’m revealing the truth! Musk claims that Tesla is the car company with the highest profit margin worldwide
• Possible Spontaneous Combustion Risk! Jeep Officially Recalls Over 130,000 Jeep Cherokee SUVs Overseas
• After undergoing 41 rigorous testing standards! Partial configuration and parameters of the Baojun Yue also exposed

First of all, Musk talked about the third chapter of the “Master Plan”.

The third chapter of the Master Plan can be broken down into five core aspects: a comprehensive shift to electric vehicles; the use of heat pumps in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors; the use of high-temperature energy storage and green hydrogen energy in the industrial sector; the application of sustainable energy in aircraft and ships; and driving existing power grids with renewable energy.

Specifically, Tesla plans to achieve energy storage of 240 terawatt-hours (TWH), renewable energy of 30 terawatts (TW), manufacturing investment of $10 trillion, energy requirements less than half of fuel economies, renewable energy production facilities accounting for 0.2% of land area, and energy storage resources reaching 10% of the world’s GDP by 2022.

So far, Tesla’s Master Plan first chapter vision has been realized one after another, and some content of the second chapter has not been completed yet. Musk said that the third part of the plan will allow people to achieve sustainable development with less effort, and people will efficiently strive for sustainable development.

When asked if he would step down as CEO, Musk gave a negative answer. He stated that he does not plan to resign as Tesla’s CEO. He frankly stated that he constantly receives negative media coverage, which is not very interesting, but he is optimistic that “sometimes the pain of work is very difficult to bear.”

Musk

Meanwhile, shareholders voted down a proposal to release a “key person risk” report. The report aimed to identify key figures for Tesla and establish a succession plan.

At the shareholders’ meeting, shareholders voted for former Tesla Chief Technology Officer (CTO) JB Straubel to serve as an independent director of Tesla. Currently, Straubel serves as CEO of Redwood Materials, a company that recycles lithium-ion batteries and produces batteries for electric vehicles. Last year, the company made deals worth billions of dollars with Tesla supplier Panasonic and had business dealings with Tesla as well.

At the same time, when Musk took the stage to speak, he first promised that Tesla would undergo a third-party audit of its cobalt supply chain to ensure that none of the company’s cobalt suppliers use child labor.

As we all know, cobalt is an important raw material for lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and is a key material for backup battery packs for household and utility energy projects. Musk said that even if we produce a small amount of cobalt, we will ensure that no child labor is exploited in the six weeks before Sunday. He said, “Because we are a very socially responsible company, we will only do the right thing, we don’t want to deceive ourselves or others, we don’t want to cheat others, we are a very responsible company.”

In addition, Musk said that Tesla plans to produce a new type of drive unit that requires less silicon carbide and no rare earth elements compared to the previous drive system. Tesla will also use a new low-voltage architecture in cars that requires less copper.

Musk promised to deliver the mass-produced electric pickup truck Cybertruck later this year.

Cybertruck

Since the official release of the Cybertruck design in November 2019, Tesla has received more than 600,000 pre-orders, but has repeatedly postponed the production time. Musk said, “Sorry for the delay, we will finally start delivering mass-produced Cybertrucks later this year.” He said, “Cybertruck is our ace in the hole” and will become his daily driving vehicle.

In addition, Musk said that if Tesla increases the production of Cybertruck, it should be able to produce 250,000 to 500,000 vehicles annually. He admitted that the cost of Cybertruck makes it difficult for consumers to afford because it is a new car produced using a new manufacturing method.

Model Y

Musk predicts that Tesla Model Y will become “the best-selling car on Earth this year.” It is reported that the Model Y sold a total of 747,000 units worldwide last year, a year-on-year increase of 91%, and is the third best-selling model. In the first quarter of 2023, Model Y became the best-selling model in the European market; in the US market, the car also became the best-selling non-pickup truck model in the first quarter.

In addition, Musk proudly introduced: “Tesla is the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer and the most profitable of all automakers in the world, achieving this is very difficult.”

Looking at the electric vehicle market, Tesla has become one of the best-selling brands globally. In the first quarter of 2023, Tesla produced 440,808 electric vehicles and delivered 422,875 worldwide. Among them, Tesla produced 19,437 Model S and Model X vehicles, and delivered 10,695. The Model 3 and Model Y had a production of 421,371 vehicles and a delivery of 412,180.

Regarding the highly anticipated new product plans, Tesla is indeed designing new products.

Musk revealed: “Although it is not time to reveal it yet, we are indeed designing new products. We have two new products that everyone will love.” He added, “The design and manufacturing technology of this new product are very advanced in the entire industry, whether it is the design or manufacturing technology of the new product, it is in an advanced position in the industry. I think the sales of these two new products may exceed 5 million per year.”

Roadster

It is worth mentioning that Tesla is expected to begin production of the next-generation Roadster sports car next year. When asked if Tesla has plans to develop motorhomes or camping cars, Musk said there are no plans yet, but the Cybertruck can be converted into a motorhome or camping car.

In addition, Musk also stated that Tesla’s Mexico factory is in the foundation stage, “The Mexico factory will be a great factory.”

Currently, Tesla has four Gigafactories, including the California Gigafactory, Shanghai Gigafactory, Berlin Gigafactory, and the Texas Gigafactory. According to official plans, by 2030, Tesla will produce 20 million cars per year, which will require more than ten factories, each producing 1.5 to 2 million cars per year.

Next, we turn to FSD beta. Musk pointed out that the development of FSD beta is indeed very rapid. FSD Beta is an important technology of Tesla, which uses advanced computer vision and artificial intelligence technology to provide vehicles with highly automated driving functions. Musk said that as of now, Tesla FSD Beta users have accumulated 190 million miles (about 306 million kilometers) of driving.

At the same time, Musk reiterated his previous views on FSD Beta, and pointed out that the system will bring significant value enhancement to the Tesla fleet, and said, “In the future, FSD safety will be ten times safer than human drivers.”

Currently, Tesla’s software team is focused on achieving fully autonomous driving. Musk said, “Once we achieve fully autonomous driving, there will be many opportunities for applications and things like that.”

In addition, Musk also said, “For FSD, I think it is actually getting closer and closer to the general artificial intelligence in the real world. Just like humans usually travel, we can walk with our feet, but we can also choose to drive, fly planes, take boats, and ride horses. In the future, we also hope to transfer the application of cars to other applications.”

Those familiar with Tesla know that Tesla never does marketing and will not spend money on advertising like other companies. Previously, the official also explained why it did not advertise, stating that “car owners should not pay for advertising. When the product is good enough, people will recommend it on their own.”

However, at this shareholder meeting, one attendee asked Musk whether he would reconsider Tesla’s long-standing position on traditional advertising. Musk’s attitude changed, and he replied that Tesla plans to try advertising, “We will try to advertise a little and see how it works.”

During an interview, Musk stated that as the company expands, paid advertising may be a way to increase the existing user base. He said, “This is worth a try, and we will see how it works. I just agreed to it, so it is not a fully formed strategy.” The industry believes that this move marks a significant shift in Tesla’s marketing approach, after being established for 20 years.

Finally, Musk expressed optimism about the humanoid robot “Optimus,” saying that he believes that “a large part of Tesla’s long-term value” will come from this business.

Optimus

At last year’s Tesla AI Day event, the company’s first humanoid robot, Optimus, made its debut. It is expected to be priced at less than $20,000 and will be delivered in 3-5 years. The robot weighs 73 kilograms and is equipped with a 2.3 kilowatt-hour battery pack and Tesla chips. With visual AI algorithms and learning, the robot can identify the position of hands and accurately pick up items.

Regarding the demand for Optimus, Musk said, “I think maybe it could be 10 billion, but that may be a bit crazy. If you compare the number of people to the number of robots, if it is 2:1, this number may be even larger. And the demand for humanoid robots may far exceed that for cars.”

It should be noted that Optimus is only used for basic tasks and does not have any profound thinking of its own yet. Musk said, “We hope that Optimus’s agility can be improved, and we hope to use it to replace people for boring, repetitive, and even dangerous work, and upgrade Optimus.”

We will continue to update Phone&Auto; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!