Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) held its "Cyber Rodeo" party Thursday, celebrating the launch of its new Gigafactory in Texas. CEO Elon Musk arrived in a Tesla Roadster to deliver a speech to the guests in attendance before treating them to a fireworks display.
Musk was welcomed by a display of drones depicting images of Nikola Tesla, and the Cyber Rodeo sign, and later, the drones formed the appearance of a moving Model Y.
"We're gonna talk about the past, present, and future," Elon Musk told the crowd. "When we first started Tesla, I thought we had - optimistically - a 10% chance of succeeding," he stated. He thanked the Tesla team for their hard work and attributed the company's current success to them.
Musk highlighted the accomplishments of the Tesla AI team. He announced that Tesla was aiming for the wide release of FSD beta in North America this year. He also apologized for the delay in releasing the Cybertruck, originally supposed to be released in 2019. It is now scheduled for a 1st quarter 2023 debut.
Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen later showed up with the Cybertruck.
"I can't wait to have this baby around. [Cybertruck] is gonna be epic," Musk commented about the electric pickup truck.
The Tesla CEO also stated that the Gigafactory in Texas would be the most "high-volume" factory in America. He indicated that Tesla would aim to command around 20% of the auto market in the long term.
"We're gonna move at a truly massive scale," Musk said.
By Michael Elkins