Practically 4 hours into Tesla’s marathon Investor Day, somebody within the viewers tried once more to carry Elon Musk, the Tesla (and Twitter and SpaceX) CEO again to the current day. From a stage on the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, Musk had introduced an bold “Grasp Plan 3” to avoid wasting the world. For $10 trillion in manufacturing funding, Musk stated, the world might transfer wholesale to a renewable electrical energy grid, powering electrical automobiles, planes, and ships.

“Earth can and can transfer to a sustainable power financial system, and can achieve this in your lifetime,” Musk proclaimed. Extra particulars will likely be revealed in a forthcoming white paper, he stated.  However the presentation was quick on specifics on the one a part of the electrical transition that’s in Tesla’s present: the next-generation car it has been teasing for years, promising one thing that’s extra reasonably priced, extra environment friendly, and extra effectively constructed than something in its present lineup. The car, or group of autos, will likely be essential to hitting Tesla’s purpose of promoting 20 million autos in 2030; it bought 1.3 million in 2022.

What, an investor requested the corporate’s executives, would that car be? Musk declined to share. “We’d be leaping the gun if we answered your query,” he stated, explaining that the corporate would maintain a separate occasion to roll out the thriller car someplace down the road. Slides proven throughout the presentation simply confirmed photos of car-shaped varieties underneath grey sheets.

As an alternative, 17 firm executives shared some tidbits on the car throughout a spherical robin of displays specializing in every part from design to produce chains to manufacturing to environmental impacts and authorized affairs. 

The subsequent-generation car received’t be only one automotive, however an strategy to constructing autos specializing in “affordability and desirability,” stated Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vp of car engineering. It is going to be constructed at a brand new manufacturing unit close to Monterrey, Mexico, which was introduced on the occasion Wednesday and will likely be Tesla’s sixth battery and electrical car plant. Executives stated the next-gen car would have a 40 p.c smaller manufacturing footprint and would reduce manufacturing prices by 50 p.c. 

Wall Avenue seems to have anticipated a bit extra element. By Thursday morning, the corporate’s inventory value was down 5 p.c. 

“The much-anticipated theme of Grasp Plan 3 left me with extra questions than solutions,” Gene Munster, managing companion at Deepwater Asset Administration, stated in a be aware to traders.

“Musk and firm didn’t put the cherry on high—an precise take a look at a lower-priced Tesla, if solely simply conceptually,” Jessica Caldwell, government director of insights at Edmunds, an auto trade analysis agency, stated in an emailed commentary. 

A very reasonably priced electrical automotive has lengthy been a goal for the corporate. Tesla’s first Grasp Plan—revealed in 2006, earlier than Musk was CEO—was easy however, on the time, radical: Construct an electrical sports activities automotive, and use that cash to construct cheaper and cheaper electrical automobiles. The corporate touted its second electrical sedan, the Mannequin 3, because the battery-powered journey for the lots, however the automotive solely bought at its goal value of $35,000 for a restricted time. Its base mannequin now sells for $43,000. Within the meantime, legacy automakers impressed by Tesla’s imaginative and prescient have stepped into the hole: The Chevrolet Bolt at this time begins at $26,500, and the Nissan Leaf at $28,000. 

A second Grasp Plan, revealed in 2016, promised self-driving automobiles and shared robotaxis, and it promoted the carmaker’s (now struggling) photo voltaic panel enterprise. The robots on wheels haven’t proven up but—although Wednesday’s occasions did embody a cameo from Optimus, a still-clunky prototype of a humanoid robotic additionally being constructed by Tesla.

Musk not often meets his self-imposed deadlines, however he’s at all times excelled at marshaling others to his trigger with grand pronouncements and sprawling visions. Now he’s wanting past automobiles, and even robots. “I actually need at this time to be not solely about traders who personal Tesla inventory, however anybody who’s an investor in Earth,” he stated.