The shortage of recent product updates prompted the corporate’s inventory to fall roughly 6 p.c in after-hours buying and selling. Commenters on the YouTube reside stream referred to as the roughly three-hour presentation a dud.
Many had been anticipating the corporate to unveil a brand new car or not less than to supply main product updates, like with its long-awaited Cybertruck. A lot of what was offered was already public.
Musk performed a key function within the presentation, serving to define his imaginative and prescient for a “totally sustainable earth” — a plan that appeared to have little to do with Tesla instantly, aside from emphasizing the significance of electrical autos.
“Using a non-autonomous gasoline automobile is gonna be analogous to using a horse and utilizing a flip telephone,” Musk mentioned. The corporate would publish a white web page with its plan quickly, he mentioned.
The hours-long, extremely technical presentation is probably going so as to add to criticism that Musk has been occupied with Twitter — whereas struggling to generate new pleasure at Tesla. Buyers have pushed for him to dedicate extra consideration to Tesla, the crown jewel of his portfolio and the corporate that made him the richest individual on earth.
Tesla, the electric-car firm that’s key to Musk’s fortune, shed greater than half of its worth after Musk started pursuing possession of Twitter final 12 months, which he bought in October for $44 billion. As Musk has devoted rising consideration to Twitter, he has confronted investor stress to exhibit his dedication to the carmaker.
In the meantime, the corporate has confronted demand and provide chain issues, an growing older lineup of autos and broader issues about manufacturing. Tesla has established itself because the market chief in electrical autos, breaking manufacturing and supply data and placing tens of millions of EVs within the fingers of customers. But it surely has additionally confronted challenges in recent times, and its newest plans come as mainstream automakers pivot to electrical automobiles, creating extra competitors within the house.
Tesla has lengthy promised a pickup truck, which it dubs the Cybertruck, however has but to provide the mannequin — which has an unorthodox, angular design — since unveiling it in 2019. Tesla has additionally promised a brand new model of its Roadster sports activities automobile however has not offered specifics on an eventual launch. The corporate late final 12 months delivered its first long-haul vans, dubbed the Tesla Semi.
Tesla introduced final week that its “engineering headquarters” could be in Palo Alto — lower than two years after publicly transferring its foremost California headquarters to Texas. Palo Alto, within the coronary heart of Silicon Valley, had already hosted Tesla’s key engineering employees for years.
Through the occasion Thursday, design government Franz von Holzhausen didn’t give particulars on the brand new automobile, regardless of photographs of a cloaked car.
“I’d love to actually present you what I imply and unveil the next-gen automobile,” he mentioned. “However, you’re gonna must belief me on that till a later date.”
Musk additionally gave a brief speak on the humanoid robotic the corporate is growing. Like a scene from sci-fi present West World, Musk confirmed a video of two Optimus robots assembling a 3rd — showing to connect an arm.
The corporate debuted the robots final 12 months, although there may be nonetheless no replace on when the corporate would possibly promote the know-how.
