Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled the second part of the Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan, laying out his vision for the company’s future. Among Tesla’s expansion of its electric vehicle line, there is a commercial truck called the Tesla Semi, a new kind of pickup truck, a public transport bus and a compact SUV. For the solar panel/battery roofs, Musk says he’ll need to bring his SolarCity and Tesla companies together, potentially merging them in the future.
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Other than consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle that Tesla will be focusing on: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport, which will be akin to either buses or trams (perhaps buses more than trams).
He anticipates both will be ready for unveiling next year.
“With the advent of autonomy, it will probably make sense to shrink the size of buses and transition the role of bus driver to that of fleet manager”, Musk said.
Without any of them actually slotting below the Model 3 in terms of line-up, the new models would allow Tesla to practically have vehicles in every major segment.
“The overarching goal of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution”, he wrote then. It would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability, he said.
“Once we get to the point where Autopilot is approximately 10 times safer than the USA vehicle average, the beta label will be removed”, he said. The solar panel systems could also be used at homes by using battery packs produced by Tesla’s battery Gigafactory. He commented: “Since most cars are only in use by their owner for 5% to 10% of the day, the fundamental economic utility of a true self-driving auto is likely to be several times that of a vehicle which is not”.
In areas where demand exceeds the supply of customer-owned cars, Musk sad Tesla will operate its own fleet of shared vehicles.
The updated plan includes an explanation of why Tesla wants to purchase SolarCity, the solar energy company that Musk is chairman of. Arguably, he achieved this with 400,000 pre-orders of the company’s Model 3 – although these have yet to be delivered.
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“The plan sounds overly ambitious for now, especially considering that there there are already doubts about whether Tesla can meet its goals for the next two years”, said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com director of industry analysis.
