Tesla All Hands Meeting: The future of the Model 2, FSD and Superchargers

This week Tesla held an all hands meeting where everyone at the company was invited and Elon Musk took the time to address several important and interesting topics.

FSD

Elon talked about the FSD beta. He reiterated that version 10 will be released this coming Friday and that it is quite profound. He also said that “The Button” will be released two weeks later in version 10.1.

We have all heard two weeks used numerous times before. Elon is either putting some pressure on the team to get the public beta released or Tesla is getting very close and he feels confident they’ll be able to meet that timeline. Two weeks or not, it seems like we’re getting closer to a public release of the FSD Beta.

Model 2

Elon went on to talk about Tesla’s upcoming $25,000 car. He said that Tesla is considering not having a steering wheel or pedals in the car and may just roll the dice on FSD.

While I believe Tesla’s is making some major breakthroughs in self driving right now, I’m not quite sure if Tesla will be at level 5 autonomous driving by the time their lower cost model is released. There’s a huge difference between level 3, where a driver must pay attention and be ready to take over, to level 5 where the car can drive itself without human intervention in any weather conditions. There's a long tail of issues to be solved that will take a long time.

If Tesla could achieve level 5 autonomy by the time they release the “Model 2,” there are likely big changes coming to that vehicle interior. Changes that go far beyond removing a steering wheel and pedals.

As soon as a car can drive itself safer than a human is capable of, the entire interior of the vehicle is going to change. The criteria of what people want in a car is going to be completely different. Instead of looking for a vehicle with great acceleration, we’ll be looking for vehicles with large, cinema-like screens for entertainment, a fold out desk and reclinable seats. Maybe even a seat that folds down into a bed. There will also be no reason to look out the front of the vehicle. Instead we’ll likely want to face the other passengers, much like a train.

For these reasons, I don’t think Tesla’s $25,000 car will exclude a steering wheel and pedals. At least not just a steering wheel and pedals. If it did, then it may be completely outdated by the time it's released. When Tesla releases a new vehicle that is only capable of autonomous driving, it’ll be a completely different type of car.

Speaking of the “Model 2”, Elon was clear that they will not call the car the Model 2. There are some interesting theories of what the car may be called. It could be called the Model C, for compact. Another theory is that they may name it the Model A, for autonomous. It will also help Tesla spell out the S3xy Cars acronym. Everyone so far believed the ATV that Tesla unveiled during the Cybertruck reveal would be the “A” vehicle, but having Tesla’s $25,000 car called the Model A seems to make a lot of sense.

Superchargers

Moving on to the next topic Elon mentioned during the all hands meeting, Elon said that Tesla will be opening up their Superchargers very soon. Starting as soon as next month in Europe where CCS adapters are already standard in all new EVs. Tesla will use the Tesla app to allow other vehicles to charge at Tesla chargers.

Cybertruck

According to details about the meeting, the Cybertruck has been moved further back than initially thought. Tesla updated it’s release to 2022 several weeks ago, but the media took this to mean early 2022. It appears to actually be slated to start production in late 2022 with volume production beginning in 2023. So we’re still a little more than a year out from seeing the first Cybertrucks on the road.

Mars, Growth and Robo-van

Some other tidbits from the meeting are that Elon expects Tesla to grow by 10x, however no timeframe was mentioned. I imagine we’re not looking more than 5-10 years out, but without a timeline it’s hard to take any real meaning from this statement.

Elon also mentioned that he would maybe go to Mars. Maybe in 10 years. Again, not surprising. It’s obviously a passion of his and he would like to experience it in person.

Another topic that was talked about that we don’t have a lot of information on, but I believe is really interesting is a “Robo-van”. Apparently the idea is for it to be used for individuals with disabilities, but I could see a huge use-case for this type of vehicle, especially when FSD is achieved. As I talked about earlier, once we have FSD, we’ll want very different things in a vehicle. If a van could be like a mini-RV, that could fill a lot of needs.

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Musk Teases New Model for Early 2025 That Will Use a Mix of Next-Gen and Current Platforms

“We have updated our future vehicle line-up to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of our previously communicated start of production in the second half of 2025”. This was one of the key sentences that were part of Tesla’s deck shared on Tuesday directly before its financial results.

Since Reuters’ report a few weeks ago saying Tesla had “scrapped” the highly expected cheaper model— which Elon quickly denied on X —retail and institutional shareholders started asking for more details on Tesla’s product roadmap for 2024 and beyond.

In the earnings conference call, Elon Musk reiterated that Tesla expects to launch the next model in “early 2025, if not late this year”.

“We've updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of previously mentioned start of production in the second half of 2025. So, we expect it to be more like the early 2025, if not late this year. “

Over concerns of temporary production halts to update the factories for these new models, Musk said that Tesla will produce new models with certain aspects from their next-generation platform and current models. This will reduce the number of changes needed on production lines and allow Tesla not only to ramp up production faster but also to get the vehicles to market quicker.

Model Y Redesign

Tesla appears to hit that their next-gen vehicle will be less “next-gen” than they were initially aiming for, but to get a new vehicle out the door by late 2024, the process would already have to be in motion. Tesla may likely be referring to the redesigned Model Y, which is expected to reuse many parts from the new Model 3. Earlier this year, Tesla said that the redesigned Model Y will not be released this year, so it makes sense that they’re looking to speed up that production.

Tesla CEO concluded by saying that these measures will allow Tesla to reach a capacity of over 3 million units. Tesla produced 1.84 million vehicles in 2023. However, this year they’re ramping up Cybertruck production and introduced the new Model 3 into new markets.

And we think this should allow us to get to over 3 million vehicles of capacity when realized to the full extent.

Tesla reported on Tuesday its earnings results followed by a conference call where it teased its upcoming Robotaxi and its next-generation platform saying its “purpose-built Robotaxi product will continue to pursue a revolutionary ‘unboxed’ manufacturing strategy”.

Earlier in the day, Tesla announced the new Performance variant of its sedan Model 3 with deliveries in the United States starting already next month. The new version starts at $45,490 (after applying the $7,500 Federal EV tax credit) and goes from 0 to 60mph in 2.9 seconds.

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Tesla on FSD: Close to License Deal With Major Automaker, Announces Miles Driven on FSD v12

On Tuesday Tesla reported its earnings results followed by a conference call that brought several updates on the company’s roadmap for future vehicles, autonomous driving, Optimus and much more.

While answering a question from Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney about updates on the licensing of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, Elon Musk said they’re talking to one major auto manufacturer and there’s “a good chance” the company signs the first deal before year-end. However, he went on to say that it would probably be three years before the necessary changes are integrated into the car.

I think we have a good chance we do sign a deal this year

Brings Benefits to Tesla

The technology would require other automakers to start using the same cameras and hardware as Tesla, meaning that Tesla may not only generate money from licensing FSD but also from selling the hardware itself. However, there would be other benefits as well. When licensing FSD, Tesla would likely own the data gathered with the system well, further helping them with data and edge cases that need to be solved to reach full autonomy.

people don't understand all cars will need to be smart cars… Once that becomes obvious, I think licensing becomes not optional.

Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja commented pointing out that future partners “take a lot of time in their product life cycle” resulting in a gap between the deal signing and the arrival in the market of Tesla’s FSD software.

Miles Driven With FSD

On the conference call, Musk added that Tesla now has over 300 million miles that have been driven with FSD v12 since it was launched just last month. He added that it's becoming “very clear that the vision-based approach with end-to-end neural networks is the right solution for scalable autonomy”.

Tesla said it will continue to increase its “core AI infrastructure capacity in the coming months” adding that in the first quarter, it completed the transition to hardware 4.0 with China now receiving the upgraded FSD computer and cameras.

Over the weekend, Tesla reduced the price of FSD dropping it from $12,000 to $8,000 for customers in the United States and from CA$16,000 to CA$11,000 in Canada.

Earlier this month, Tesla implemented a 50% price reduction for FSD subscriptions in the U.S. and introduced the subscription model in Canada at a great value of CA$99 per month.

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