- By the end of this year, Tesla expects to increase the fleet of electric vehicles of this brand by 60-80%, and therefore investors need to get used to the unprofitability of the company.
- By the end of the year, Tesla promises to decide on the construction site of a new enterprise that will bring the production of traction batteries and electric vehicles to Europe.
- Going forward, there will be at least one Tesla facility on every continent.
- In order to draw attention to its products, Tesla is ready to create a prototype of a car that can move under water.
- Next year, "autopilot" will start working without the need for human intervention.
- A branded auto insurance program is already on the way, these were not empty words
The Tesla shareholders' meeting generated so many informational occasions that it is not possible to list everything in one material. The founder of the company, Elon Musk, is very talkative and adventurous, so every event with his participation is accompanied by the voicing of bold ideas and forecasts. Speaking about the prospects for growth in sales of electric vehicles, Musk promised that by the end of this year, the total fleet of Tesla vehicles will increase by 60% or 80%. This statement was made with one goal - to prepare shareholders for the next period of unprofitability, because Musk himself admitted that "at such a growth rate, one cannot count on profit." The only thing he promised investors was that at such a rate of growth, the company plans to maintain a positive cash flow, providing profitability at an operating level.
New models, new factories, new horizons of autonomy
By the end of this year, Tesla intends to decide on a location for the construction of a battery and electric vehicle facility in Europe. Until recently, Tesla operated two factories in the US, but by the end of this year, a factory in China will begin to operate. Difficulties with the logistics of electric vehicles produced in the United States, sent for export, have already negatively affected the results of the first quarter. Expanding sales markets, Tesla simultaneously tries to organize localized production of electric vehicles and traction batteries. According to Musk, at least one Tesla facility should eventually appear on every continent. It is unlikely, of course, that Antarctica falls into this list of locations.
Of course, Tesla's shareholder meeting was not without promises to release new models of electric vehicles. By the end of summer, an electric pickup truck will be introduced, and the production of a mainline tractor driven by electric motors will be launched by the end of 2020. Prototypes of the new Roadster, Tesla Model Y and Tesla Semi truck tractor were displayed on the street near the location of the shareholders' meeting.
Obviously, Tesla expects to make progress in the capacity of traction batteries, since at the meeting the head of the company promised investors that the range of the brand's serial electric vehicles will soon be increased to 640 km. Already, the Tesla Model S autonomy indicator is approaching 600 km, so there is not much left before the promised milestone.
Having entered into a discussion with one of the shareholders, the founder of Tesla said that he did not consider it impossible to create a car capable of moving under water - Hollywood screenwriters had already demonstrated such an “amphibian” in 1977 in one of the James Bond films. Musk is aware that the market for such vehicles would be tiny, so he does not see much commercial sense in their mass production, but Tesla could well release something similar as a demonstration prototype.
Robots, not people, do their work.
Automated driving technology advances are in full swing, and next year Tesla electric vehicle owners will be technically able to use all of the active driver assistance systems without the need to periodically switch to manual control. To implement “full autopilot” in any Tesla electric vehicle released after October 2016, it will be enough to replace the on-board computer located behind the glove box in the cabin, as well as pay for the activation of the corresponding functions in the software. True, Musk warned that the legislation of many countries is not yet ready to allow automatically guided cars owned by private individuals on public roads.
Tesla is also working on a proprietary vehicle insurance program, about which Musk the month before last. To bring such a product to market, the company will have to slightly modify the software, as well as complete a “small acquisition”. Apparently, Tesla should acquire some company in order to feel more confident in the auto insurance market. Musk recently expressed his company's willingness to take responsibility for traffic accidents caused by Tesla's self-driving electric vehicles. Interestingly, the well-known billionaire Warren Buffet criticized the idea of Tesla's participation in insurance - however, his opinion cannot be considered unbiased, since about a third of the assets owned by his investment fund are related to the insurance services market, and new competitors to him are simply Not needed.
Source: 3dnews.ru