During an investor event on Wednesday held at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, CEO Elon Musk revealed the third part of Tesla’s “Master Plan,” in which the company will lead the global effort to remove the usage of fossil fuels and convert the world to sustainable energy.
According to a report by The Verge, Musk’s Master Plan 3 consists of “adding renewable power to the existing grid, producing more electric vehicles, installing heat pumps in homes and buildings, using high-temperature heat delivery and hydrogen for industrial applications, and building sustainably fueled planes and boats. Musk’s plan is to create a sustainable energy civilization.”
The auto maker anticipates it will take $10 trillion in investments to execute this sustainable future plan powered by renewable energy. Musk said it’s “not a big number relative to the global economy.”
“There is a clear path to a sustainable energy on Earth,” Musk said. “It doesn’t require destroying natural habitats. It doesn’t require us to be austere and stop using electricity and sort of be in the cold or anything.”
A huge part of achieving that vision comprises of stretching the world’s energy storage capacity by up to 240TWh. At the event, Tesla executives said this can be done without needing to mine a huge amount of ore. Musk professed that it would only take less than 30 percent of all nickel in the Earth. It would also need iron, but Musk isn’t concerned, saying that it’s the most abundant metal on Earth.
Furthermore, Musk said that the infrastructure needed for this, including wind and solar, will take “less than 0.2 percent” of the Earth’s surface. The details are still light on how all this is supposed to come to fruition, but Musk promised to release a white paper outlining the plan soon.
“I really wanted today to be not just about Tesla investors who own stock, but really anyone who is an investor in Earth,” Musk said optimistically.
The almost three-hour-long event didn’t reveal any particular information about new vehicles. The company did speak about two mystery vehicles that remained under wraps in the presentation images — including one that is clearly a smaller car and the other that looks like a small commercial truck.
The company showcased a new, more efficient vehicle manufacturing process, which will be used for its next generation of vehicles. The company calls it the “Unboxed Process,” which enables the vehicle to be built once in the assembly line and only paint the parts that need to be painted. The automaker also makes it clear that the next-gen drive unit won’t use any rare earth minerals.
