Elon Musk reveals new third Master Plan in bid for a sustainable earth at Tesla’s Investor day

Elon Musk revealed the third a part of Tesla’s “Grasp Plan,” during which the corporate will lead the worldwide effort to get rid of fossil fuels and convert the world to sustainable vitality. The plan was outlined throughout an investor occasion Wednesday held on the firm’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.

Grasp Plan 3 consists of including renewable energy to the prevailing grid, producing extra electrical automobiles, putting in warmth pumps in properties and buildings, utilizing high-temperature warmth supply and hydrogen for industrial functions, and constructing sustainably fueled planes and boats. Musk’s plan is to create “a sustainable vitality civilization.”

Tesla initiatives it is going to take $10 trillion in investments to result in this sustainable future powered by renewable vitality. Musk mentioned it’s “not a giant quantity relative to the worldwide financial system.”

“There’s a clear path to a sustainable vitality on Earth,” Musk mentioned. “It doesn’t require destroying pure habitats. It doesn’t require us to be austere and cease utilizing electrical energy and kind of be within the chilly or something.”

A giant a part of attaining that imaginative and prescient entails increasing the world’s vitality storage capability by as much as 240TWh. In the course of the course of the occasion, Tesla executives mentioned this may be completed while not having to mine a big quantity of ore. Musk claimed that it will solely want lower than 30 % of all nickel within the Earth. It will additionally want iron, however Musk isn’t involved, saying that it’s essentially the most considerable metallic on the planet.

Musk provides that the infrastructure wanted for this, together with wind and photo voltaic, will take “lower than 0.2 %” of the Earth’s floor. The small print are nonetheless mild on how all that is supposed to return to fruition, however Musk promised to launch a white paper outlining the plan quickly.

“I actually wished in the present day to be not nearly Tesla buyers who personal inventory, however actually anybody who’s an investor in Earth,” Musk mentioned optimistically.

The almost three-hour-long occasion didn’t embody any particular details about new automobiles. The corporate did tease two thriller automobiles that remained below wraps within the presentation photos — together with one that’s clearly a smaller automobile and the opposite that appears like a small industrial truck.

Additionally absent was any point out of Musk’s different firms, SpaceX and The Boring Firm, regardless of Musk earlier implying that the third Grasp Plan would search to attach his numerous ventures.

Tesla demonstrated a brand new, extra environment friendly car manufacturing course of, which might be used for its subsequent technology of automobiles. The corporate calls it the “Unboxed Course of,” which permits the car to be constructed as soon as within the meeting line and solely paint the components that have to be painted. The automaker additionally claims the next-gen drive unit gained’t use any uncommon earth minerals.

Tesla’s earlier two grasp plans had been largely hit-or-miss. Whereas the corporate was in a position to obtain a lot of the targets set out within the first plan, which was first printed in 2006, the second plan stays largely unrealized.

That plan, which was posted in 2016 below the cheeky title “Half Deux,” mentioned that Tesla would create a thriving photo voltaic enterprise, introduce a number of new automobiles throughout all main classes, obtain full autonomy, and launch a robotaxi community for car homeowners to earn as much as $30,000 yearly.

Whereas Tesla has launched its photo voltaic roof enterprise, installations have been sluggish going. Some prospects have complained of big worth markups. And the corporate has scaled again its ambitions as revenues stay comparatively flat.

Tesla did introduce two new automobiles since publishing its second Grasp Plan: the Tesla Semi and the Cybertruck. Tesla Semi deliveries started late final yr, and the Cybertruck continues to be deliberate for this yr — in keeping with Tesla lead designer Franz von Holzhausen who was onstage on the occasion. Musk has mentioned mass manufacturing on the bizarrely designed truck would begin in 2024.

In the meantime, Tesla’s plans for absolutely autonomous automobiles are unsure. Whereas AV operators like Waymo and Cruise rack up the miles with their absolutely driverless robotaxis, Tesla has taken a unique method by rolling out a $15,000 possibility known as Full Self-Driving to lots of of hundreds of consumers. Regardless of the deceptive identify, FSD is only a Degree 2 partially autonomous system that requires fixed monitoring by the motive force. Tesla lately paused new installations of FSD after the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration known as it a “crash threat.”

Likewise, Musk’s promise that Tesla homeowners with FSD would be capable of earn passive revenue by sending their automobiles to autonomously decide up passengers as a robotaxi service has did not materialize. In current months, Musk has advised that Tesla would make a standalone robotaxi car, casting doubt on his unique proposal that Teslas on the street in the present day may qualify for such a service.