- At Tesla’s 2023 annual shareholder meeting, CEO Elon Musk discussed the Cybertruck’s problems, the status of “fully autonomous driving” and potentially advertising in the future.
- Tesla is working on two new products, and Musk said that Tesla is expected to build more than 5 million of them a year once they are in full production.
- It wasn’t all fancy promises to fans. Musk said he expects the next 12 months to be economically challenging.
“I just want to say I love you guys.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared on stage at the 2023 annual shareholder meeting, shaping a heart with his hands and sending it to the cheering crowd at the carmaker’s facility autos of austin, texas. The two-hour event – complete with a denial that the company uses child miners and big promises about the future – gave Musk a chance to update his fans and the rest of the world on the company’s progress electric vehicles
For one thing, Musk promised that the Cybertruck will indeed begin deliveries later this year. Musk previously promised that the first Cybertruck deliveries would begin in 2021, but that was pushed back to 2022 and now to 2023. Tesla won’t deliver the Cybertruck in volume this year, but has scheduled an official first delivery event for third trimester Musk admitted that the company has run into problems producing the all-electric truck.
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“Extremely non-trivial to build the Cybertruck”
“The Cybertruck is a difficult car to make because it’s such a radically new design that you can’t just use conventional manufacturing methods,” he said. “We had to invent a whole new set of manufacturing techniques in order to build an exoskeleton-based car instead of an endoskeleton-based car. Building the Cybertruck is extremely non-trivial.”
Musk has made similar promises about when Tesla’s fully self-driving technology, which the company makes clear is not fully autonomous but insists on keeping the name, will be fully operational. While Musk and Tesla have been saying that “full autonomy” is coming soon for more than five years, all those missed deadlines didn’t stop Musk from once again promising that FSD technology is just around the corner.
Musk at the Cybertruck’s initial presentation.
Promises of new products
Speaking optimistically about Tesla’s future lineup, Musk promised “two new products that I think people are going to be really excited about.” However, he did not specify what they are other than to say that the design and manufacturing techniques of these products are “head and shoulders above anything else in the industry”. Musk said, “We’re already building a new product,” and expressed his guess that these two models will sell 5 million units a year.
Ads for Tesla?
A two-way flattery question-and-answer session led to some news, including that Tesla might start paying for advertising. For years, Tesla has paid people to promote its vehicles through a referral system, and Musk has pushed advertising-like messages on social media. However, the company has not released any print or digital advertising.
“We’re going to try some advertising and see how it goes,” he said in Austin, agreeing with a fan who said more people should know about Tesla’s features and pricing. Starting to advertise could also signal that the automaker is responding to tough times.
“Tesla is not immune to the global economic environment,” Musk said. “I expect things, just on a macro level, to be difficult for at least the next 12 months.”
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Collaborating editor
Sebastian Blanco has been writing about electric vehicles, hybrids and hydrogen cars since 2006. His articles and car reviews have appeared in New York Times, Automotive News, Reuters, SAE, Autoblog, InsideEVs, Trucks.com, Car Talk and other outlets. His first green car media event was the launch of the Tesla Roadster, and since then he has been tracking the shift to gasoline vehicles and discovering the importance of new technology not only for the automotive industry. automobile, but for the whole world. . Throw in the recent shift to self-driving vehicles, and more interesting changes are happening now than most people might realize. You can find him on Twitter or, on good days, behind the wheel of a new EV.
