Tesla Pickup Coming Immediately After Model Y, & Tesla Clean Energy To Boom Soon (#ElonTweets)

December 26th, 2017 by Zachary Shahan

Just yesterday, I ran through a bunch of hypotheticals, delivery estimates, and financial assumptions for Tesla for the year 2022. One of those was the assumption that Tesla would have a pickup truck on the market by then and would already be hitting 55,000 deliveries a year. Another assumption was that Tesla’s annual energy generation and storage revenue would approximately triple from 2017 to 2022.

I could see both of those as being conservative estimates, but I also figured there was a lot of risk/uncertainty in 1) including a model that hasn’t even really been shown yet, which is supposed to follow another vehicle that hasn’t been shown yet; 2) estimating dramatic growth in a rather cutthroat industry (or two) where Tesla has a bit of a head start and advantage but has also seen some serious challenges and need for cleanup (with regards to SolarCity’s solar leasing model, financing system, costly sales practices, and questionable sales tactics, for example) and where it might hit other big bottlenecks soon (battery production capacity limits).

So, it was pretty cool to see Elon tweet today more or less confirm both the Tesla pickup plans and the clean/sustainable energy growth goals. You might say he provided an even more bullish outlook on these, but there were no hard dates or financial estimates in the tweets. Here were the three relevant tweets:

Tesla Pickup

I promise that we will make a pickup truck right after Model Y. Have had the core design/engineering elements in my mind for almost 5 years. Am dying to build it. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 26, 2017

Similar total size. Maybe slightly bigger to account for a really gamechanging (I think) feature I’d like to add. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 26, 2017

Tesla Energy

Sustainable energy production with solar and batteries will grow much faster than auto on a percentage basis. That will be a big focus next year, with primary remaining Model 3 ramp. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 26, 2017

Did Elon say my estimates for 2022 Tesla pickup and energy sales look reasonable? Ha, of course not! But I’m feeling more comfortable with them today than I did yesterday.

The main feedback I’ve received on that $73.7 billion piece is that my estimates seemed conservative if not on point. I agree, so I’ll probably have an update coming before too long!

Yes, these three tweets were just part of another Elon Musk twitter rampage. His tweets also covered various Tesla features and plans. Steve Hanley will put all the pieces together bright and early tomorrow so you don’t have to sift through it all — but yeah, go ahead and sift if you feel like it. Don’t miss Steve’s piece anyway, though, as I’m sure it will be packed with rhetorical fun and useful context that the tweets themselves don’t convey.











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