Tesla and Elon Musk held an event tonight called “Cyber Rodeo” to celebrate the opening of the new factory and headquarters near Austin, Texas. There was a lot of pomp in the form of a pre-event drone show, but Musk also made a few notable comments.
Take these promises with a grain of salt given the earlier production date promises, but Musk claimed Tesla would begin production of the Cybertruck, Roadster and Semi in 2023. At the end of the show, Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen curled up in a Cybertruck prototype in what appeared to be a familiar scene. There were no broken windows this time, but we did get a good idea of what the Cybertruck looks like today. Basically, it was very similar to recent sightings, a huge wiper blade in the front and all.
Musk also claimed that Tesla would eventually create a dedicated robotic axle.
“It’s going to look kind of futuristic,” Musk said.
Note that this appears to be separate from Musk’s previous claims that Teslas could be turned into robotic axes once the company figures out its “Full-Self Driving” technology.
In addition to the robot axi, Musk says the aforementioned Tesla robot may be ready for production next year.
Finally, Musk said the Austin manufacturing facility will be the tallest manufacturing facility in the country. However, he did not give a time frame for when it might become so. Musk set a market share target of about 20% in his comments on increasing production. Currently, Tesla approached its market share of new cars sold in the US at 1%.
Just before the show ended with the Cybertruck, Tesla showed off the first cars built at the Austin plant by driving a number of freshly assembled Model Y SUVs across the stage.