Tesla board to remain, China factory to come (video)

Today’s Tesla shareholder meeting has been a success for Elon Musk. Shareholders support him as both CEO and Chairman and also his closest (in every sense) board members. Moreover, plans for production in China are moving ahead.

The Tesla shareholders once more put their trust in Elon Musk as their leader following a vote of confidence. A proposal had called for splitting the role of CEO and Chairman. If it had gone through it would effectively have removed Musk from the board, claiming a clash of interest due to his involvement with SpaceX and The Boring Company.

Proxy votes now shoed a super majority expressing their trust in Musk as both Chairman and CEO as well as his allies and family members on the board. Board members Antonio Gracias, Kimbal Musk (Elon’s brother), and James Murdoch were thus all reelected.

Apart from internal quarrels, much has been said on Tesla’s planned facility in China. More details can be expected in July but the EV production including a battery facility is going ahead. The Californian electric carmaker recently formed Tesla Shanghai, an R&D outlet for now, preceding such a move.

In the long term, Tesla plans to run 10 – 12 Gigafactories worldwide. A spot to set up battery production in Europe is to be found before the year’s end.

During the shareholder meeting, Tesla also announced they were close to reaching the “holy grail” of battery cell cost, that is 100 USD/kWh. Recent analysis by German engineers had found that Tesla is using particularly little cobalt in their cathodes already and that the Model 3 could soon be profitable (we reported).

In terms of their other electric cars, Tesla released a new teaser image of the Model Y. It is to see the light of day in March 2019 with production to start by mid-2020.

Musk mentioned the Roadster as well, announcing a “SpaceX option package” that would make the electric racer even more of a performance choice. No more details were given other than the mentioning of “rocket technology”.

This video shows parts of the Tesla shareholder meeting. Musk mentions battery cost at 18:40 and talks future Gigafactories from minute 21.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFVTIPV7Urs

teslarati.com (shareholders trust), abs-cbn.com (Tesla in China), insideevs.com (Model Y), teslarati.com (Roadster option), youtube.com (video shareholder meeting)