This past Wednesday, CEO Elon Musk stated, “There is a clear path to a sustainable-energy Earth. It doesn’t require destroying natural habitats. It doesn’t require us to be austere and stop using electricity and be in the cold or anything” at Tesla’s 2023 Investor’s Day; a presentation hosted in Austin Texas. Elon Musk argues that given the conditions, the Earth can actually support a society far larger than the 8 billion living today sustainably. The presentation featured his long-term plan for the company Tesla and reviewed brief details on new Tesla products.
Besides his plan, Musk revealed that Tesla will be increasing battery production for all Tesla electric vehicles and the company’s electrical storage system. Along with Drew Baglino, the senior vice president of Tesla’s powertrain and energy engineering sector at Tesla, Musk revealed the company’s ultimate desire to provide 20 million vehicles of electric capacity before 2030. The presentation also included an infographic highlighting a prediction of 1.31 estimated deliveries of electric vehicles with the additions of the plan to build new car and battery cell factories.
Rebecca Tinucci, head of the Tesla Charging sector, provided statistics claiming the company only offered 9 terawatt hours of charging appliances, including the 40,000 Superchargers across the nation in comparison to the 4,000 terawatts of electricity the United States consumes annually. Tinucci also claimed that in addition to Tesla superchargers, half of the charging applianced are open to other vehicles, including non-Tesla automobiles.
The presentation also called Musk’s attention to the demand of Tesla given the advancement of other competitors, to which Musk responded, “Demand is a function of affordability not desire… [and] even small changed in price have a big effect on demand.” Along with the significant drop in the price of Tesla’s best-selling “Model 3,” investors are anticipating a further reduction in prices for all Tesla products going forward into 2023 and even more anticipation awaiting Tesla’s “next-gen” vehicle, Musk announced.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/business/tesla-musk-investors.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/03/02/tesla-investor-day-elon-musk/11373657002/
5 comments:
Musk's statements are interesting because the Earth has been able to sustain a continuously growing human population for centuries due to advancements in technology, medicine, and agriculture. Improvements in farming practices have allowed for increased crop yields and more efficient distribution of food, which has helped to alleviate hunger in many parts of the world. Similarly, medical breakthroughs such as vaccines and antibiotics have reduced mortality rates and increased life expectancy. While there are challenges associated with sustaining a growing population, including the equitable distribution of resources and mitigating the effects of climate change, it is possible to meet the needs of a global population exceeding 8 billion people with the right policies, technology, and investments that hopefully Tesla will revolutionize. These are bold comments as the effects of climate change are already placing enormous strain on the planet's ecosystems.
https://www.livescience.com/16493-people-planet-earth-support.html
I am still very unsure of how Musk comes to these random claims. The concept of supplying the earth with more electricity is always going to be limited, simply due to the limited amount of resources that the Earth has. I do think it is viable that the threshold of Earth's human population can expand however, I think that the growth cap is only to a certain extent. According to BBC, "Estimates vary, but we're expected to reach "peak human" around 2070 or 2080, at which point there will be between billion and 10.4 billion people on the planet." As Nick stated, technological advancements aid the overall growth of the human population but only to a certain extent can these advancements help us.
Electronic driven vehicles are a major source of lessening greenhouse gasses and b/c of this, it would be bold for Elon to state that there is a "clear path to a sustainable-energy Earth" that can provide resources for more than 8 billion people. I partially agree with this statement b/c humanity has had technological advancements and medical acheivements as mentioned by Nick and this has enabled humanity to increase in numbers. With the advancement in technology, this can lead to the increased production of goods and services. What I don't agree with is how Elon is so bold about his claim.
I agree, these are bold comments. However, Elon has had a bold impact on the industry (leading the US in EV sales). This post doesn't tell us what the "clear path to a sustainable-energy Earth" is, but I imagine Elon has some sort of tricks up his sleeve. Despite his personal faults, I am excited to see Tesla lead the market in a more sustainable, electric direction.
Elon Musk’s speech was partly pushing for more sustainable energy, and partly talking about his pricing of Teslas. He made a statement about a clear path to sustainable energy for the planet, but that is a very high-level statement and he provided few tangible examples of how to fully get there. There have been many advancements towards that goal, but slower than necessary to meet these goals. Getting away from cars which run on fossil fuels is a big step, and his company is clearly helping in that regard, as Tesla was the company which really put electric cars into the mainstream for most people. Now all of the other car companies are playing catch-up with Tesla. His solar company is also helping to advance the goal of moving away from fossil fuels. These steps were taken years back and we are still many years away from seeing a clear path to sustainable energy for the entire planet when there are coal plants still being opened every day around the world with only a small fraction of the cars in use being electric. I am hopeful that as governments around the world phase in electric cars over time, the way we generate power for these cars will change as well. Many people see a mix of solar, wind, nuclear, and some limited amount of fossil fuels as the near-term solution, but it is hard to say which combination will be successful in reducing fossil fuel usage.
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