Integrating rooftop solar power with storage is one of four parts to Tesla’s Master Plan “Part Deux,” CEO Elon Musk announced Wednesday evening.
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Returning to cars, and a big part of the future of driving, in Tesla’s eyes, is that an autonomous auto can potentially make you enough money that it covers the monthly loan or lease cost. But it doesn’t stop there.
“As is typical, Elon Musk has laid out a grandiose plan for the future with no time frames and few specifics, and no mention of how and when Tesla will be profitable”, said Michelle Krebs, an analyst for Autotrader.com Inc.
Musk also unveiled Tesla’s ambitious plans to expand into electric trucks and buses, and vehicle sharing system. He mentions expanding electric vehicles to include heavy-duty trucks and methods of urban transportation. Musk wrote that Tesla could not create a smoothly integrated and attractive solar roof and battery product if the two companies are separate.
This is were Musk starts talking autonomy – which has been a hallmark of his vision, and caused Tesla to be investigated by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for an accident caused by the forerunner, Tesla’s Autopilot system. Tesla said it’s received almost 400,000 pre-orders, which would make the Model 3 instantly one of the country’s bestselling vehicles.
The solar panel maker was founded by his cousin, Lyndon Rive, raising concerns the deal is too cozy to be kosher.
“It would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability”, he explained.
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. “Once it picks you up, you will be able to sleep, read or do anything else enroute to your destination”, he said.
What’s more, though, Tesla said it plans to launch a mobility service that lets Tesla owners share their vehicle when they aren’t using it, and make money from it.
Tesla will remove its beta label once they “get to the point where Autopilot is approximately 10 times safer than the U.S. vehicle average”.
Instead, the four-part plan for worldwide ascendancy focuses on making the company work on sustainable energy projects. Earlier in the day, Musk had tweeted he was finishing work on a new plan for Tesla while listening to the soundtrack from the film version of the Great Gatsby.
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“This dramatically lowers the true cost of ownership to the point where nearly anyone could own a Tesla”. However, at the time, he didn’t go into great details about Tesla’s plans. Acknowledging the recent death of a Tesla driver, he claimed that even in beta, the partially autonomous “Autopilot” system remains safer than human drivers.
