<i>"A first principles physics analysis of automotive production suggests that somewhere between a 5 to 10 fold improvement is achievable by version 3 on a roughly 2 year iteration cycle. The first Model 3 factory machine should be thought of as version 0.5, with version 1.0 probably in 2018."</i><p>What that really means: Tesla is going to lose a ton of money per car on the Model 3, or raise the price, until at least 2022. That's realistic. His two top production guys quit when he announced 2018 as the delivery date for the Model 3. His new production head, from Audi, may have given Musk a reality check.<p>Tesla produced about 50,000 cars in 2015 with 13,000 employees, about 4 cars per employee. Ford produced 3.2 million cars in 2015 with 187,000 employees, about 17 cars per employee. Toyota produced about 9 million cars with 344,000 employees, about 26 cars per employee. So Tesla needs to get their productivity per employee up by 4x - 7x to play with the big guys. Clearly Musk has done the same calculation.<p>Now, though, he's admitting that they can't do it by 2018. This is prepping the stockholders for bad financial news. Tesla is going to burn a lot of cash through at least 2022.<p>There's no reason that Tesla can't get their productivity up to at least Ford levels in time. Ford has a much broader product line, and Tesla's car isn't that complicated mechanically. But it's not instant.
> "When used correctly, [partially autonomous driving] is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves"<p>If you're an American, you're twice as likely to die with a steering wheel in your hands as you are to die at the hands of a murderer. Human-driven vehicle deaths cause grave second-order suffering for families and friends - and hurt the economy.<p>A shift to technologies safer than human-driven cars would dramatically reduce human suffering and should be welcomed.<p>I do wonder, though, how this would reshape our cities - if we're not careful. Besides direct costs for the car, fuel, and maintenance, the main disincentive to driving is how damn boring it is. What happens when we turn fully-autonomous vehicles into luxury entertainment centers? I suspect that, if we're not smart about this shift, we could see wild sprawl on a scale that would dwarf the mid-20th century sprawl we saw in Los Angeles and elsewhere.<p>On the whole, though, it's a beautiful thing.
A digression from the mainstream discussion.<p>I woke up this morning feeling sullen (many factors involved). I didn't feel like going to work. I could hardly get out of bed. I just sat for a few minutes staring in the vacuumn. Something told me to check Hacker News (I am trying to avoid it in morning), and the top link was this. I went through it twice. It instilled hope and enthusiasm in me. I woke up in an instant and rushed to work to do great stuff.<p>Thanks for the article I am typing this at work, else would have wasted the day filled with self-loathing and despair. Hang in there guys, it gets better. Do Great Stuff.
I'm always surprised when we get insight into Musk's plan, not because they're complicated but because they always come across as "no duh, why aren't we already doing these things? weren't we already on track to do these things decades ago?"<p>As much as the Internet transformed society, I also can't help but feel like we were on the track to have achieved these things and got distracted by our global communications and selfie-cat picture delivery network and are only now starting to come to our senses as the ubiquity has occurred and the ecosystem of necessary applications has become fleshed out, matured and developed a commercial angle.<p>If you look at his pre-hardware days, he built basically a e-phonebook when paper phonebooks were still all the rage and a couple payment companies. Both no-duh companies in hindsight.<p>Musk's plans feel like he's taking a derailed train, applying some common sense grease (solar panels on electric cars? MADNESS! Reusable rocket stages instead of throwing away the entire ship? ~~CRAZY!~~) and getting our civilization going again.<p>He's also really really public about his plans and telegraphs his moves years in advance...and yet very few seem able to execute anywhere near his league.<p>I sometimes feel if things had shaken out differently and Steve Jobs was younger than Musk and was running a successful Apple, Musk might try to recruit him with a "do you want to sell cat picture delivery boxes for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"<p>I don't know if Musk is going to succeed in the long run, and I hope serious competition finally shows up (because that makes each of his industries healthier), but seriously,<p>it's about fucking time.
> The most important reason is that, when used correctly, it is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves and it would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability.<p>I don't think this is the correct comparison. A car used correctly is safe. We have huge numbers of road accidents because most people are unable to reliably use a car correctly. The value of an 'autopilot' functionality is that it should be much better at using the car correctly in the real world than a human.<p>What matters is not how many accidents result when using autopilot 'correctly', but how many accidents result from using autopilot in the real world.<p>Also, because autopilot is primarily used on particular road profiles, it's not fair to compare accidents per autopilot mile directly with accidents per human driver mile. You need to adjust for the fact that autopilot is not used during more complex driving anyway.<p>I'd be very interested to know what the statistics are for those, since the recent press has given me a (potentially incorrect) impression that autopilot has lead to a relatively large number of serious accidents compared to the number of cars deployed.
To anyone who's paid close attention to Tesla and to Elon's various offhand remarks to the press and on Twitter, this was all easy to see coming, every bit of it.<p>But now that he's confirmed it all officially: this <i>NUTS</i>. This is so awesome. The press is going to go crazy with this.<p>I wonder what will happen to Uber...seems like it will be hard for them to compete with the rates of cars that don't have to pay their driver a living wage, nor pay for gas.<p>Electric semis-- THANK GOD. I live in Chicago and I can't tell you how sick I am of the massive exhaust plumes billowing over me as they pass by, and the roaring of their engines on the street outside my apartment.
My points of skepticism:<p>1. <i>Semis</i>. A typical long haul semi gets well under 10MPG. In some cases not much more than half that. They are heavy and need a lot of energy to move. A Tesla Model S weighs 4650 lbs and has a range of a couple of hundred miles. A semi truck can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. That is a lot of weight to get rolling and a lot to pull up a grade. Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highway speeds where air resistance is at a maximum. To achieve useful performance an electric semi will need a lot of batteries which will reduce its cargo capacity (Federal law regulates the maximum gross weight), which reduces its value to freight companies.<p>2. <i>Autonomy</i>. I think this will take a lot longer to achieve than planned, both technically and socially.<p>3. <i>Enable your car to make money for you</i>. I don't want anyone using my car. Legal liability is one reason. As owner of the car, I am liable for damage it causes. So legal liability laws will have to change. If I need to go somewhere, and my car is not here, I don't want to wait for another one. I don't want to get my car back from another user and find food wrappers strewn about and used condoms under the seat. I feel that my car is an extension of my home. It's personal space that I don't want to share with random strangers.<p>YMMV.
"I should add a note here to explain why Tesla is deploying partial autonomy now, rather than waiting until some point in the future. The most important reason is that, when used correctly, it is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves and it would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability."<p>That's a hell of a statement and I want to see much better stats than that. Just looking at the total distance per death in human driven cars and comparing it to the autopilot total distance is a gross simplification. At an absolute minimum you have to start by only comparing driving on similar roads. Tesla simply keeps hiding behind 'if used correctly' which includes the driver being alert and ready to take over - if we restrict human driving stats to similarly ideal conditions the accident rate will also drop. Additionally driver demographics is a big deal as is the safety features of the car itself.
<i>Once we get to the point where Autopilot is approximately 10 times safer than the US vehicle average, the beta label will be removed</i><p>Musk misreads the public's attitude about vehicle safety. Human error is understandable, mechanical failure is unacceptable. Society can live with 10 people driving themselves off a cliff (and blame the drivers, road conditions, or poor signage) but they will not accept a car driving its trusting passengers off a cliff.
I still don't understand the SolarCity part. Tesla is atop the best rated electric cars, and has a good trajectory toward that product line future, with lots of innovation ahead. Successful companies like Apple focus on best-in-class products, so Tesla is smart to continue focusing their resources into those product lines.<p>Meanwhile SolarCity has been burning cash on a consistent basis [1], and is sitting in a hyper competitive solar panel industry, where I don't see their competitive advantage. It seems foolish to bring that business inside of Tesla, as if it failed, the debt risk would now affect Tesla's future. As many others have mentioned, a long term licensing deal or partnership avoids those risks.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/musk-says-solarcity-deal-about-synergy-but-it-may-be-about-debt/ar-AAhu9vZ" rel="nofollow">http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/musk-says-solarcity...</a>
I'm on board with most of this. The goals here are obviously ambitious by any standard, and would seem totally absurd if put forth by anyone who didn't happen to berth a private spacecraft with the ISS earlier this morning.
I have stock in Solar City and I don't care if I lose it all. It's not my life savings though. I invested because I enjoy day dreaming a similar dream to what Musk must be dreaming. Like any great science we just have to try and be excited, together. We can all banter about economics, rationality and history but I'm stoked. Who cares. I don't see how Tesla or SolarCity failing would lead to mass starvation or anything so let's strap in and be pumped!
"Coal is the future" - Tony Abbott, Australian PM, 2014.<p>There are many things to take from Musk's master plan part deux, but the most important for me is the intent and aspiration.<p>I live in Australia, the leadership here is absolutely dire both political and economic. A relentless cycle of vested mining interests and climate change deniers espousing at length on the cattle exports to Asia suffering if marriage equality is passed.<p>Maybe Musk succeeds, maybe not, but here's someone with vision, a plan, and he's going to have a fair swing at it.
> We expect that worldwide regulatory approval will require something on the order of 6 billion miles (10 billion km). Current fleet learning is happening at just over 3 million miles (5 million km) per day.<p>This seems very significant for Tesla vs competitors. Yes Google has a strong technology lead today, but how long will that last when Tesla is collecting more miles of data every day than Google has collected in 5 years? (Sincere question) Not to mention Apple and existing car vendors, who each have 0 million miles of experience.<p>Tesla should reach 6 billion miles very quickly once the model 3 is out.
Tesla isn't a car company. It's building Rome. All great "startups" are not some good idea executed well. They are companies with a long term vision that generate ideas to execute that will get them there. Anyone might steal an idea or copy a product, but no one can steal a mission or a destination far in the future. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Google... all started as or at some point became "build Rome" companies.
Uber is betting on car manufacturers to have autonomous driving in place, while it builds up a worldwide user base of logistics (moving people and goods from X to Y). It doesn't care if vehicles are driven by a horse or by electricity.<p>Tesla is building the vehicles and energy source for the vehicles, and building the autonomy in to them, but it's betting on a user-base acquisition via hardware (vehicle) ownership and/or eventually some form of subscription to the "Tesla" club.<p>Carbon-based fuel(s) will eventually run out. Tesla via SolarCity will be in an incredible position of offering energy, so I'll be looking at how well their plan of putting Solar on every roof works rather than autonomy / vehicle manufacturing / sales. I think this is likely going to be their make or break asset.
<i>As of 2016, the number of American car companies that haven't gone bankrupt is a grand total of two: Ford and Tesla.</i><p>Also, four entities have launched rockets into space: the US, China, the Soviet Union (Russia) and Elon Musk.<p>This guy is thinking and planning on a scale I find it hard to even imagine, to fit in my brain.
I'm genuinely surprised at the quality of Musk's writing and the presentation of certain ideas. He clearly insisted against copyediting, and that was probably a mistake judging by the output. I suspect that he was attempting to eschew the formality of typical press releases, but this 'Master Plan' (which is itself a somewhat juvenile moniker) feels like something that warranted rigor.
> "Create a smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works, empowering the individual as their own utility, and then scale that throughout the world. One ordering experience, one installation, one service contact, one phone app.<p>We can't do this well if Tesla and SolarCity are different companies, which is why we need to combine and break down the barriers inherent to being separate companies. That they are separate at all, despite similar origins and pursuit of the same overarching goal of sustainable energy, is largely an accident of history. Now that Tesla is ready to scale Powerwall and SolarCity is ready to provide highly differentiated solar, the time has come to bring them together."<p>I don't really see how this answers the question as to why they need to merge? Why can't their just be a partnership?
I hear about bus drivers and truck drivers getting into accidents due to drowsiness enough that it's a constant worry whenever I'm on the highway next to one. I wonder if I'd feel safer if i saw a Tesla Semi knowing that were wasn't a human behind the wheel.<p>Should autonomous vehicles be identified as such (special lights or label) so that real humans can know not to be erratic around it?
"So, in short, Master Plan, Part Deux is:<p>- Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage
- Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments
- Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning
- Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it"<p>I take this as...<p>Having solar powered superchargers power autonomous semitrucks transporting cargo across america.<p>Having solar powered superchargers power autonomous public buses transporting people around a city.<p>Have my car join a fleet of uber-like autonomous teslas while i'm not using it.
Haven't seen such a clean, crisp plan that has been implemented flawlessly by a company. Makes me reconsider how I should think the next time I'm asked to write a vision/mission statement for anything-company/product.
> <i>A first principles physics analysis of automotive production suggests that somewhere between a 5 to 10 fold improvement is achievable by version 3 on a roughly 2 year iteration cycle.</i><p>How does one calculate this? Does there exist some canonical Productivity-Equation?
Less of a master plan, and more a list of goals. The original was awesome because it clearly laid what Tesla wanted to accomplish "Consumer electric vehicles" and how. This just lays out the what.
> <i>increased passenger areal density [on buses] by eliminating the center aisle and putting seats where there are currently entryways</i><p>I can't picture the layout he's describing here - not sure if it's been discussed in more detail elsewhere - anyone got a better idea or a reference image?
The best part of this is automated semi trucks. I think that's the perfect sort of business for Tesla to be in.<p>I have a lot of trouble understanding the public transportation part. The ideas presented fall apart when you remove the baffling assumption that traffic congestion <i>decreases</i> with the introduction of autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles will expand the possible set of drivers. That will dramatically increase the amount of vehicles on the road. If anything our future with autonomous vehicles will be unbearable gridlock.
I'm very curious what the pickup offering will be like, and compare to existing offerings from the big 3, since it is a "a new kind of pickup truck". I think the segment of the pickup market that is mostly an SUV, but occasionally needs to haul/tow stuff could be well served by Tesla. They also have plans for a semi, so maybe they'll actually be able to compete for actual work trucks that haul/tow on a regular basis too; but the energy density of the battery compared to gasoline/diesel makes me doubtful.
This isn't really that interesting. There's nothing here that hasn't been said already or at least very strongly suggested by Musk. The last master plan was interesting because no one had ever really made a successful electric car company, so no one imagined it could be anything but a rich person's toy, so Musk's claim that he could make a desirable mass production car was a huge shock.<p>It's also very sloppy; it's not an actual plan, with goals and steps that logically follow each other. The last master plan had a clear logic to it: you used the margin of each successive step to fund research and development further down in order to increase the use of electric cars and limit global warming. This is more like a wish list than a plan. "We want to make semis." "It'd be great if we also provided the solar part of the stack because it dovetails with this other initiative we're doing." "Once we have solar, we can do this new thing." Etc, etc. Unlike the first master plan, I can't gauge how long any of this will take or whether it is feasible. I can't gauge what the actual strategy is any better than I could yesterday. And isn't that the point of a Master Plan?
Hopefully Tesla will be able to achieve this new plan. Looking back at the first 'master plan' from 2006, it's clear that it failed pretty badly as Tesla Motors wasn't close to being able to <i>self fund</i> its goals over that time.<p>Since the first master plan was published in 2006, Tesla Motors has raised money privately (during its near death experience in 2008), sold a 10% stake to Daimler (which was recently divested), went public which has a side effect of raising even more (though the main reason to IPO in most cases liquidity to existing investors), and since then have continually raised money from the public market every year or two. There's probably private and public capital raisings since 2006 that I'm forgetting too (and they raised other capital streams like debt, such as the DoE loan)<p>The very lofty stock price of Tesla in recent years has helped it fund Model S, Model X and Model 3 designs, development, manufacturing (at large scales) and delivery, as well as the building of a large battery factory which Tesla owns a stake in. This constant fund raising has kept Tesla alive and I don't argue that it was very good corporate governance by Elon Musk and team to get Tesla Motors to where it is now (approaching the delivery date for the first Model 3 shipments and having a huge capacity to manufacture battery packs).<p>However, it's still a failure in its attempt to bootstrap the funding of Model 3 based on sales of previous models.<p>Of course, Tesla and SpaceX has consistently ended up achieving great things, even if the timeline is optimistic and the budget ends up blowing out. But issuing stock and eventually debt can only stretch Tesla so far. Hopefully Tesla can become a more sustainable business before that happens.
For rates of process and cost improvement with scale, look to J. Doyne Farmer's work, and particularly Wright's Law (Moore's Law is a special case, and less accurate), which looks at cost improvements with volume increase through learning functions.<p><a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/test-and-measurement/wrights-law-edges-out-moores-law-in-predicting-technology-development" rel="nofollow">http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/test-and-measurem...</a><p><a href="http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1263107" rel="nofollow">http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1263107</a><p><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0052669#pone.0052669-Alberth1" rel="nofollow">http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...</a><p><a href="http://www.santafe.edu/research/working-papers/abstract/0650f0fb526862cb048a74a33c5417ac/" rel="nofollow">http://www.santafe.edu/research/working-papers/abstract/0650...</a>
Elon Musk is like the cat who tried to jump from the sofa to the top of the bookcase, fell to the floor in a tangle of wildly gyrating limbs, and is now sitting there quietly licking its paw like it was intending to do that all along. Even with his brilliance he's fooling no one into thinking the SolarCity merger was actually in his plan- there are some synergies, sure, but they're easily outweighed by the added corporate complexity.<p>But I mean, he's Elon Musk. He could still pull it off.<p>His biggest problem by far (excepting, perhaps, Model 3 production targets) will be regulations. It makes a nice story when you talk about the relative risks rationally, but there's no chance whatsoever American politics will deal with the issue in a rational fashion. Autopilot may retroactively <i>become</i> illegal in places people currently get away with it; cars driving themselves around is a different and <i>titanic</i> can of worms. What if a terrorist gets their hands on a Tesla and stuffs it full of explosives?
Can we talk about what I see as the most important driving force behind acceptance of full or partial electrification of transportation? Heavy duty and transport. Specifically I think Tesla would be best off getting school buses to full EV or even partial EV capability.<p>Using a Cobb County Georgia as an example, stats posted awhile ago listed over a thousand school buses traveling almost seventy thousand miles a day. Seventy thousand miles a day! Since the buses have to load/unload at schools and such its easy to establish charging points to include fast top offs where five or six minutes of charging can extend enough to the next time. Then between major routes, elementary, middle, and high school, longer charge periods can be done.<p>Get kids and parents used to silent electric buses and you go a long way to establishing a generation on them. Get autopilot to work well in that environment and you get to sell them on two innovations at once
> The most important reason is that, when used correctly, it is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves and it would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release<p>Doesn't Tesla charge a large fee to have autopilot enabled on your car? Isn't that equally morally reprehensible?
> We expect that worldwide regulatory approval will require something on the order of 6 billion miles (10 billion km). Current fleet learning is happening at just over 3 million miles (5 million km) per day.<p>So he is essentially say, in at most five in a half years, they'll be ready for fully self driving cars?
Fleets, Mr. Musk. Centrally owned fleets of vehicles, where you can make your sales case based on total cost of system ownership rather than sex appeal.<p>It's a tall order, but can you set your sights on those "long life vehicles" presently used by the US Postal Service in urban and suburban areas, or maybe similar vehicles in Europe. Those machines return to base daily and usually are unused at least 8 hr/day. Massive buildings with large roofs.<p>Cop cars. Lots of slow speed cruising combined with a very occasional need for high speed and agility. Return to base every shift. Location awareness.<p>These sales cycles will be long, and probably a pain in the neck for your major account teams. But you're in it for the long haul.<p>From the owner of Model S #146761
Master plan part one made sense: it all lead to Tesla as it is today.<p>But master plan part deux seems odd: what exactly does "One ordering experience, one installation, one service contact, one phone app" for solar have to do with the Tesla transportation part?
It's interesting that they portray self-driving capabilities as something that can be turned on or off, unlike Google's where it's just always on.<p>I think in the long run Google might be building the correct solution for greater number of people.
I am in no position to question EM. But I was hoping he would give some good explanation for spending resources on SolarCity acquisition but nothing. Nothing in this master plan explains why SolarCity was bought other than some hand wavy explanation about inherent difficulties of two separate companies working together. It still doesn't seem like a good purchase for Tesla specially at the moment. Solar car and SolarCity seem to only have the word solar in common :) TBH I am still fuzzy how expensive purchase of SolarCity can benefit a solar car manufacturing even in long run.
I feel like there must have been a few pages left off the beginning and this whole post was a summary of an article that doesn't exist. I guess that's just Elon Musk's train of thought.
"In addition to consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle needed: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport"<p>Where I'm from, we call that trains.
Why is residential solar important to the plan? Aren't large solar installations a more cost effective way of switching houses already on the grid to solar energy.
> <i>Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it</i><p>In cities, everyone needs their car at exactly the same time, that's why we have congestions. When I'm not using my car, no one else needs one (that's an exaggeration of course but not by much).<p>So in order to get to sustainability, we need to understand why remote working (for instance) hasn't happened yet.
Battery-powered trucks and buses seem like a logical next step, since there's not much competition there yet (save some obscure small players) and weight is less of an issue.<p>[I'd still like to own a fully autonomous mobile home that drives me to work while I am eating breakfast in my bath robe or taking a shower and then moves me to a beach while I'm sleeping on Friday nights. Well, one can hope, right?]
If this article is accurate, the Master Plan, Part Un narrative is a bit more nuanced.<p><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/05/tesla_is_worse_than_solyndra_how_the_u_s_government_bungled_its_investment.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/05/tesl...</a>
For a bit of a reality check, go take a look at Financial Times coverage of Tesla.<p>Tesla will require regular infusions of capital over, say, the next 5 years. The only source for that is more equity, and to do that you need to actually start meeting some of your self-declared profitability goals. Up to now, Tesla hasn't.<p>The tactic of diverting attention with "but look, here's this great awesome world-changing thing we'll do next" has worked so far but it's rapidly getting old. In general, the frequency with which sleights of hand are starting to be employed is concerning. Remember the "but don't just take my word on it — I myself will be buying $20M of new stock!" thing? Sure you will to reassure investors, given that loss of confidence will cost you personally far more than $20M.<p>SolarCity? "If Musk thought Tesla really needs a solar company, he might as well buy a good one. But it doesn't" [FT Lex]. Given how important it is that they are able to keep raising capital through equity offerings, taking the risk of freaking the investors out with SolarCity acquisition (otherwise expected to go into bankruptcy protection by next year) makes sense only if letting SC fail presents a bigger risk of the same. The Musk fairytale would certainly take a hit from a SC bankruptcy.<p>And Musk setting these crazy numbers goals practically guarantees he's setting TSLA shareholders up for disappointment.<p>Non-profit-making Amazon has been raised as a counterargument in the comments on this thread; the amount of trust the market has extended to Bezos for the time that it has is practically unprecedented; and Bezos has worked hard to make that happen by making investment/direction choices & providing information to earn the trust of the market. Musk, to the contrary, is doing everything to the opposite.<p>Now, what's the likelihood of a macro downturn within the next 2-5 years? Massive. That might trip up the availability of capital a bit—those refundable $1000 deposits too but who cares about them (by the way, much of T's capital has been raised during the period of literally historically unprecedented low cost of capital)<p>I didn't even begin to talk about competition. Or that Panasonic, T's critical gigafactory partner, isn't just sitting around twiddling thumbs (or the Chinese).<p>So, it'd be prudent to curb your enthusiasm. There might not be a part trois.
> via massive fleet learning<p>Is Tesla going to make this data freely available, to accelerate the development of safer autonomous driving software? Given that it's "morally reprehensible to delay release" of autopilot, it is also morally reprehensible not to publicly release such data if more groups working on the task will lead to safer software.
Nice plan, good luck! If that happens, though, I can't see why owning a car at all, ten to twenty years from now: just make an enormous fleet of electric unmanned buses running up and down every major road on Earth, uh? No jams, no accidents, only a regular and pre-determined flow of vehicles. One planet, one network.
Hey, Musk, small nitpick: I think when you say „inertial impedance” you're actually referring to „mechanical impedance”: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_impedance" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_impedance</a>
Somehow these discussions about human driven cars feel like the discussions about smoking or owning a gun to me.<p>The world could be a better place for so many people, but somehow a bunch of other people think it's okay to continue doing them until they die.
Forgive me if this is a silly question but when he talks about "beautiful solar-roof-with-battery", is he talking about car roofs or roofs of buildings?<p>An electric car with a solar roof that charges all day would be pretty cool.
> Traffic congestion would improve due to increased passenger areal density by eliminating the center aisle and putting seats where there are currently entryways<p>I don't see how automation reduces the need to get on the bus.
The most interesting bit, to me, was: "Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it"<p>Things are gonna get real interesting in the auto world in the next few years, aren't they?
I was hoping to see another zero to one approach with the master plan where he is taking on some other industry goal. I totally get that part deux is still very, very ambitious and one that no other company can truly realize. But if we're just talking about Musk's master plan, I'm curious why he didn't talk about the synergies with his other company, SpaceX. Tesla and SpaceX both rely on vehicles & transport while SpaceX and Solar City both revolve around innovation in energy/physics. I'm wondering if Tesla's mission/vision will dwarf SolarCity's when solar harvesting in space could be one of many opportunities to partner with SpaceX. /rant
Last year I pitched Playa (<a href="http://getplaya.com/" rel="nofollow">http://getplaya.com/</a>) at Launch conference and was laughed off stage by Jason Calacanis. My example use of the technology was that your autonomous vehicle would be able to contract itself out as an 'uber', earning you money while you slept. Today Tesla announced that this is part of its plans for the future and everyone is going wild.<p>We're now going a step further and building a next-gen interface for that autonomous future. #Asteria.<p><a href="http://getasteria.com/" rel="nofollow">http://getasteria.com/</a>
Note his last point: Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it.<p>I suspect Tesla won't be alone in that space. Good luck to those who are.
Obscured under " Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning "
is the cold hard truth that that learning will be paid for in lives - mostly of Tesla drivers possibly of others.<p>The rates of accidents in manual vs current version of autopilot may work out to be favorable - (and that is still under debate) - but there certainly will be people who will die (and have died) due to a premature roll-out of Autopilot and their trust of it. This is some bloody cold calculation
I think the fundamental error here is assuming the existing car ownership model. I think the future is autonomous taxis (or Ubers). This actually reduces congestion, eliminates the need for parking, and plays to the strengths of electric vehicles. Building a master plan based on families owning cars is, I think, skating to where the puck was ten years ago (car ownership is dropping in the Western world, especially among the young).
> Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it<p>I really like this, but the laws of supply and demand still apply. If you live in a sparsely populated area there's not going to be much for your car to do.<p>Great for those in urban centres, but then if you lived there why bother owning at all when there will be more cabs to hail?
Meh.<p>Sure, stuff sounds neat, but where are you going to get the capital from?<p>Another secondary share offering?<p>I guess the most concrete thing I saw was new factory for Model 3. Shouldn't that be your only priority?<p>Not designing an electric semi truck on paper to entice Joe Q Public into stepping up for another secondary share offer?
If I am on a self-driving car and it meets with an accident, there might be a case to be made against Tesla if I consider myself a very safe driver. Even though on an average self-driving might cause less casualties but that figure might not hold good compared to what my personal accident rate is.<p>And this should be good enough for law enforcement to nail Tesla.<p>I think, like everyone else, that Musk is probably the smartest entrepreneurs of our time. In this case though, maybe he is over his head a bit:<p>- Getting Tesla 3 to production volume will not be easy.<p>- Autopilot is NOT good enough to be used in production. This can be fatal to Tesla if FCC catches up. Tesla needs to quit Autopilot and focus only on getting Tesla 3 out. Tesla 3 will face competition sooner rather than later and market dominance is not guaranteed.<p>- SolarCity has absolutely no synergies with this business. It should be sold off.<p>- SpaceX is again a distraction given how hard it will be for Tesla 3 to roll off.