Author: James Yang Jianwen
On the first day after the National Day holiday, Tesla was very considerate and contributed the first big news: the shareholders meeting has been held 🙂
As usual, no matter what contents Tesla releases, it always captures unprecedented attention and concern.
This time, apart from the attention-grabbing news of “moving headquarters from California to Texas,” the overall attention has clearly decreased.
I don’t know if it’s because it’s the first day after the holiday and everyone hasn’t recovered yet, or because the long and boring “prelude” of the shareholders meeting.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
Well Done!
This press conference was fragmented. So, let’s outline the highlights:
- If there are no challenges with chips, Tesla may still maintain a 50% delivery growth rate in the future.
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Model 3 has become the best-selling luxury car globally, and Model Y will take over from Model 3 as the next best-selling car globally.
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Tesla reiterated that it will authorize autonomous driving. Next, global manufacturers will start producing electric cars, and later they will all start producing autonomous driving cars. Musk said that Tesla is open to licensing their autonomous driving technology. If other manufacturers want to use it, we will provide the license.
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Tesla will increase the vehicle selling price temporarily. With the launch of Model 3/Y, Tesla’s average selling price has dropped significantly. It is difficult to simultaneously lower the average selling price and increase gross profit margins. However, with the enormous cost pressures facing the supply chain, Tesla will increase the selling price temporarily.
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We need more batteries. In 2020, Tesla accounted for 0.7% of the total car sales, but purchased 26% of the industry’s batteries. Although Tesla purchased many batteries from suppliers, its demand for batteries is still substantial. Musk said, “If battery suppliers can supply us with batteries at a reasonable price, we will buy them without restriction. We tell our suppliers to produce batteries as much as they can.”
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Tesla will prioritize the supply of power batteries for vehicles and then fixed storage. In Musk’s view, the demand for the latter will gradually increase over time and ultimately be on par with the demand for power batteries for cars.
7. Fremont factory capacity will increase by 50%. Tesla has three new factories: Shanghai, Texas, and Berlin. Currently, Shanghai factory’s capacity has surpassed that of Fremont, so Tesla plans to increase the latter’s capacity by 50%; of course, Model S/X will continue to be produced here.
- By 2030, Tesla plans to sell 20 million electric cars annually.
Headquarters Moving to Texas
As the subtitle suggests: Tesla is moving, to Austin, Texas, where the new factory is located. This year’s shareholder meeting was also held next to the new factory.
As early as April last year, Musk expressed dissatisfaction with California’s policies. This incident laid the groundwork for Tesla’s move to Texas. In December of the same year, Musk announced that he had moved to Texas.
So why move here? Of course, it is still a commercial consideration. Musk’s reason is: “(California) is too crowded and people can’t afford houses.”
But obviously, this is only the surface reason.
At a deeper level, it is still related to dollar. US personal income tax includes federal tax + state tax, and California’s personal income tax rate is the highest in the United States, while Texas is free of state tax. For Musk personally or for Tesla, this can save a lot of money. Moreover, Tesla is not the first company to move its headquarters to Texas. Companies such as Oracle and HPE have also made similar moves.
In addition, the international in-car chip giant Texas Instruments is also in Texas. Considering the current unclear chip supply situation, Tesla can be considered to be in the right place at the right time, which can also ensure its own chip supply to a certain extent.
How to say it? Musk is indeed a shrewd businessman.
In addition, Musk’s tunnel start-up company Boring Company and SpaceX are also in Texas. Tesla’s move to Texas will officially link these businesses together and improve Musk’s own work efficiency.
However, Musk also stated that this headquarters move does not mean that Tesla is giving up its business in California. Instead, Tesla will expand its production activities in California, as mentioned in the previous section: The Fremont factory’s capacity will increase by 50%.
“Concerns” from Users
After the meeting, Musk also received many kind concerns from users. To keep it authentic, let’s show it in a Q&A format here:
Q: When will Cybertruck be in mass production?Answer: We have been facing challenges with the supply of parts throughout this year. Even if we had extra products, the production capacity would not change because of various supply chain shortages, not just from chips.
Especially for Semi trailers, the demand for batteries is enormous, and it would make no sense to talk about the production of Semi if we do not have enough batteries.
The production of Cybertruck may begin next year, and mass production is expected to start in 2023, and we hope to start mass production of Semi electric trailers and Roadsters in the same year.
Optimistically, we will get through the severe supply chain shortage problem in 2023.
(Well, the postponement continues)
Question: With TSLA’s stock price returning to the range of $700-800 US dollars, could there be another split at WellcXtjn?
Answer: We do not plan to do this at the moment.
Question: Will the 4680 batteries be produced at the Texas factory?
Answer: This year, no products containing 4680 batteries should be produced in Texas, but we are producing 4680 batteries at a pilot factory in California with an expected annual capacity of 10 GWh, which is only 1 mile from Fremont.
The batteries from this plant will be enough to supply Model Y production at the Texas factory. We will start delivering Model Y this year and achieve large-scale production by the end of next year. At the same time, we hope to achieve mass production of 4680 batteries here next year.
Question: With the completion of construction in Texas and Berlin, will Tesla start building new factories?
Answer: It is difficult to build a new factory. We may start looking for a new location next year or in 2023.
Question: Can you reveal more about Model 2?
Answer: There is no Model 2, and there will be no car model named that. The original intention of Model 3 was to be called “Model E” to complete the “SEXY” naming convention, but Ford wanted to sue us, so we changed the name to Model 3, and it became “S3EY”.Question: Will Tesla launch a model similar to Volkswagen ID.Buzz?
Answer: I think, over time, Tesla will enter into the segment market of mainstream vehicles, similar to Volkswagen ID.Buzz.
Summary
Above is all the content of this press conference.
As the title of the article says, this press conference actually didn’t reveal much information, it was more like a performance summary.
After reading through it, there were a few things that felt unfamiliar, and even a bit uninteresting.
However, looking at it from a different perspective, from setting ambitious goals to now emphasizing actual sales volume and cash flow, doesn’t it also indicate that Tesla is becoming more mature?
I think this may also be one of the reasons why Musk gradually fades away from this type of press conference…
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.