by The shares of Tesla Inc. were down more than 5% in the extended session Wednesday after the electric vehicle maker teased a “next-generation” electric vehicle during an Investor Day presentation that promised a “Master Plan 3” but did not reveal any hard details about Tesla’s new one. cars or his finances.
Tesla’s stock TSLA,
had advanced immediately after the closing bell and ended the regular trading day up 1.4%. The stock then saw losses mount as the event in Austin, Texas progressed.
Tesla had to “completely rethink” the manufacturing process with the goal of improving assembly and making EVs faster, cheaper, and with a smaller and lighter powertrain, executives said. However, they stopped giving a timeline for the promised next-generation car in a presentation that lasted more than three hours, as executives instead tried to highlight Tesla’s technological prowess.
In a short speech, Chief Executive Elon Musk said he didn’t want the day to be just for Tesla investors, but for “everyone who has invested in the Earth,” and wanted to “offer hope and optimism based on actual physics and calculations”.
“There’s a clear path to renewable energy,” which doesn’t require habitat destruction or budget cuts, combining energy storage, electric cars and other aspects of electrification, Musk said.
Also see: Tesla recalls 362,758 EVs, says self-driving software ‘could cause crashes’
Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn was the last scheduled speaker in the session, providing details on how Tesla was cutting costs and planning to lower operating costs for owners of the next-generation car, but under the wrapper. Kirkhorn offered no long-term financial goals, a common offering during investor day presentations, and the livestream on the Musk-owned Twitter platform stopped during his presentation because it hit a three-hour time limit.
The video later resumed on a second stream.
“Probably the most exciting announcement of the day is that we will be building a gigafactory in Mexico,” Musk said at the start of a Q&A session following the scheduled presentation. However, the Mexican president was ahead of Musk’s announcement earlier this week.
See: Mexican president says Tesla is committed to building factory in Mexico
Musk tweeted nearly a year ago that he was “working” on a new master plan. “Masterplan 2” was released in March 2016 and promised a number of things that fell short of reality, especially around Musk’s hopes for self-driving cars and car sharing. The first so-called master plan, from 2006, outlined Tesla’s strategy to start with a pricey and highly desirable sports car as a springboard and source of funding for future affordable EVs.
The latest blueprint comes as Tesla’s stock has regained the $200 level after trading at a low of $109.10 in late December. The stock is up 64% in the quarter so far, though it’s down 30% over the past 12 months. That compares to a drop of about 8% for the S&P 500 index SPX,
over the past 12 months and contrasts with quarterly progress of that stock market benchmark of about 3%.
Tesla reported mixed fourth-quarter results in late January, with revenue slightly below Wall Street expectations, but injected some optimism into its 2023 manufacturing outlook and promised to rein in costs more quickly. Musk also told investors that demand for Tesla’s EVs was not a problem.
