Tag: investor?
Earnings Results: FedEx’s aggressive cost cuts are beating weaker demand in battle for investor sentiment
Finding your startup’s valuation: An angel investor explains how
A fair valuation that feels good to both the founder and investor will lead to a partnership in which both sides win.
Finding your startup’s valuation: An angel investor explains how by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch
Investor Mark Suster says a “handful” of bad actors in VC destroyed Silicon Valley Bank
Yesterday at around noon in Los Angeles, investor Mark Suster of the venture firm Upfront Ventures began urging “calm” on Twitter. Silicon Valley Bank had bungled its messaging on Wednesday around an effort to strengthen its balance sheet, and startup founders were beginning to fear that their deposits at the tech-friendly, 40-year-old institution were at […]
Investor Mark Suster says a “handful” of bad actors in VC destroyed Silicon Valley Bank by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch
Silvergate suspends USD transfer network for crypto, institutional investor clients
TechCrunch+ roundup: Ocean tech investor survey, AI and PR, L-1 visa options
You don’t need to hire a mega-influencer like Serena Williams or a Kardashian to build buzz for your startup.
TechCrunch+ roundup: Ocean tech investor survey, AI and PR, L-1 visa options by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch
Everything Elon Musk and execs shared (and skipped) at Tesla Investor Day
The big, giant message Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other execs tried to impart during its four-hour Tesla Investor Day was how the company would be a driver of a global shift to clean energy. Investors, at least those active after the market closed, weren’t impressed perhaps because it lacked that big product announcement, specific […]
Everything Elon Musk and execs shared (and skipped) at Tesla Investor Day by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch
Tesla Investor Day: Here’s Elon Musk’s latest ‘master plan’
On Wednesday, March 1, Tesla held its first ever Investor Day event at its Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, and company CEO Elon Musk unveiled his third big “master plan.” Basically this is meant to be where the billionaire sees Tesla heading over the next seven to ten years.
“Alright, so, Master Plan Part 3,” Musk said, after he was introduced to the stage.
“There’s a clear path to a sustainable energy earth with abundance,” he continued. “It does not require us to destroy habitats, it does not require us to be austere like stop using electricity or anything…”
Musk and Tesla executive Drew Baglino then proceeded to run down what the company believes is necessary to move to a completely sustainable economy within the next few decades.
A “vast amount of battery energy storage” is needed but not currently available at scale, Musk explained. However, Musk believes that the world can be powered with clean energy by 2050 with an investment of $10 trillion in manufacturing and battery energy storage.
The big takeaway is that Tesla is working on “next generation” electric vehicles to further facilitate these plans. However, there wasn’t much offered in terms of details.
Another interesting tidbit: the four millionth Tesla vehicle was manufactured on the morning of the event.
What was in past Tesla master plans?
Musk’s third phase in his master plan has a broader focus than his previous iterations.
For example, in Musk’s first master plan, laid out in a 2006 blog post, the company had realistic aims such as making money off a single car, the Roadster, in order to reinvest in building more affordable lines like the Model S, Model 3, and Model Y.
As for Musk’s second master plan in 2016, Musk shared more robust ideas for Tesla, many of which have not come to fruition. Aptly called Master Plan Part Deux, the Tesla CEO shared his vision for a self-driving vehicle that could be rented out to others when you weren’t using the car. The Tesla would literally drive itself to a renter’s pick-up point and the Tesla’s owner would be able to make money. Obviously this hasn’t happened. Neither has the “high passenger-density urban transport” mentioned in the 2016 master plan. And while the promised “heavy-duty truck” appears to eventually be on the way in the form of the Cybertruck, it’s been 7 years and it’s still not on the market quite yet.
What does Musk say Tesla will be up to in the coming years?
While not at the same scale as previous master plans, part three did provide a bit of Musk’s now-classic prognosticating.
According to Musk, the automobile industry will eventually move to “full electric and autonomous.” He said that riding a non-autonomous gas vehicle will be “analogous to riding a horse and using a flip phone.”
As for new products, Musk explained that heat pumps are an important part in the move to sustainable energy and while Tesla doesn’t have any plans right now, “at some point, we might make a heat pump for a home,” said Musk.
There was also a new look at Tesla’s robot via a video. The robot was building another bot and moving rather slowly, causing Musk to make a reference to Boston Dynamics’ impressive robotics.
“It’s obviously not doing Parkour,” he said.
And, there was a brief mention about going to Mars! Musk said we “hope to get there at some point,” which is quite a difference from Musk’s estimated 10 year timeframe that he made back in 2011.
Where’s the Tesla products?
On Musk-owned Twitter, users seemed quite disappointed with Investor Day. The only real timeline offered came when Cybertruck was mentioned, which according to the company, will be available later this year.
Tesla stock also dropped during the event.
There was buzz before the event about possibly new, affordable Tesla EVs being unveiled. There was also hope that there would be news about a robotaxi. Musk had said in 2020 that Tesla would have a fleet of a million robotaxis in use. As of 2023, the company doesn’t have any.
Musk himself spent his time off-stage tweeting about non-Tesla related matters. While other executives were presenting, Musk weighed in on a clip about Russia’s war in Ukraine. He also reminisced about the time former cable news host Keith Olbermann had to tweet from his dogs’ Twitter account after he was temporarily suspended from the platform.
Over the past few months, Tesla investors have been pleading with Musk to focus on his EV company, believing he’s been distracted by his social media acquisition, Twitter. In fact, Musk spent the final moments before Tesla’s big first time event replying to Twitter users like right wing influencer @Catturd2.
On top of that, a new report is likely to further investors’ concerns about where Musk is spending his time, as the Tesla CEO is looking to jump into the latest tech trend by building an artificial intelligence lab in order to create his own AI chatbot platform.
Elon Musk lays out his vision for Tesla’s future at the company’s Investor Day 2023
Tesla’s production capacities are in store for a significant growth spurt, CEO Elon Musk told the crowd assembled at the company’s Austin, Texas Gigafactory for Investor Day 2023 — and AI will apparently be the magic bullet that gets them there. It’s all part of what Musk is calling Master Plan part 3.
This is indeed Musk’s third such Master Plan, the first two coming in 2006 and 2016, respectively. These have served as a roadmap for the company’s growth and development over the past 17 years as Tesla has grown from neophyte startup to the world’s leading EV automaker. “There is a clear path to a sustainable energy Earth by 2050 and it does not require destroying natural habitats,” Musk said during the keynote address.
“You could support a civilization much bigger than Earth [currently does]. Much more than the 8 billion humans could actually be supported sustainably on Earth and I’m just often shocked and surprised by how few people realize this,” he continued. He promised that the company would release a “detailed whitepaper with calculations & assumptions,” via Twitter during the event.
Main Tesla subjects will be scaling to extreme size, which is needed to shift humanity away from fossil fuels, and AI.
But I will also Include sections about SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2022
The Master Plan aims to establish a sustainable energy economy by developing 240 terraWatt hours (TWH) of energy storage and 30 TWH of renewable power generation, which would require an estimated $10 trillion investment, roughly 10 percent of the global GDP. Musk notes, however, that figure is less than half of what we spend currently on internal combustion economy. In all, he anticipates we’d need less than 0.2 percent of the world’s land area to create the necessary solar and wind generation capacity.
“All cars will go to fully electric and autonomous,” Musk declared, arguing once again that ICE vehicles will soon be viewed in the same disdain as the horse and buggy. He also teased potential plans to electrify aircraft and ships. “As we improve the energy density of batteries, you’ll see all transportation go fully electric, with the exception of rockets,” he said. No further details as to when or how that might be accomplished were shared.
“A sustainable energy economy is within reach and we should accelerate it,” Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of Powertrain and Energy Engineering, added.
Following Musk’s opening statement, Tesla executives Lars Moravy and Franz von Holzhausen took the stage to discuss the company’s “production hell” and the challenges of building the Cybertruck out of stainless steel. However, the lessons learned from that, Moravy argued will help Tesla build its Gen 3 vehicles more efficiently, and do so within a far smaller factory footprint. von Holzhausen announced to a rousing round of applause that the Cybertruck will arrive later this year, a significantly closer date than Musk’s previous public estimate that production wouldn’t begin until next year.
Unfortunately, there will be no new vehicle reveal at this event, von Holzhausen said. That announce will happen “at a later date.”
The company did tease a new video featuring the Tesla Robot walking independently and without the aide of a support frame though there was no live demonstration of the same. Despite difficulties finding suitable off-the-shelf actuators and motors for the humanoid robot platform, “we should bring and actual produce to market at scale that is useful far faster than anyone else,” Musk said.
He further expects the company’s robots to become so successful that we may soon see a day where they outnumber humans. “I think we might exceed a one-to-one ratio of robots to humans,” he added. “It’s not even clear what an economy means at that point.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-lays-out-his-vision-for-teslas-future-at-the-companys-investor-day-2023-215737642.html?src=rss
The latest pearls of wisdom from ace investor Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett’s latest, and eagerly-awaited, letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders is out. What does the sage have to say this year?
The post The latest pearls of wisdom from ace investor Warren Buffett appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.