Elon Musk's Master Plan (Part 2 published)

[Deleted]

Source: https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

Part 1, 10 years ago:

The first master plan that I wrote 10 years ago is now in the final stages of completion. It wasn't all that complicated and basically consisted of:

• Create a low volume car, which would necessarily be expensive
• Use that money to develop a medium volume car at a lower price
• Use that money to create an affordable, high volume car
• Provide solar power. No kidding, this has literally been on our website for 10 years.

Part 2 (some context: Musk owns 22%+ of Solarcity shares, a US provider of solar energy services, and wants to merge with them):

• 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

More detail:

Integrate Energy Generation and Storage
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.
...
Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport
Today, Tesla addresses two relatively small segments of premium sedans and SUVs. With the Model 3, a future compact SUV and a new kind of pickup truck, we plan to address most of the consumer market. A lower cost vehicle than the Model 3 is unlikely to be necessary, because of the third part of the plan described below.

In addition to consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle needed: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport. Both are in the early stages of development at Tesla and should be ready for unveiling next year. We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.
...
Autonomy
As the technology matures, all Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability, meaning that any given system in the car could break and your car will still drive itself safely. It is important to emphasize that refinement and validation of the software will take much longer than putting in place the cameras, radar, sonar and computing hardware.

Even once the software is highly refined and far better than the average human driver, there will still be a significant time gap, varying widely by jurisdiction, before true self-driving is approved by regulators. 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.

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.
...
Sharing
When true self-driving is approved by regulators, it will mean that you will be able to summon your Tesla from pretty much anywhere. Once it picks you up, you will be able to sleep, read or do anything else enroute to your destination.

You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you're at work or on vacation, significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost. This dramatically lowers the true cost of ownership to the point where almost anyone could own a Tesla. 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 car is likely to be several times that of a car which is not.

In cities where demand exceeds the supply of customer-owned cars, Tesla will operate its own fleet, ensuring you can always hail a ride from us no matter where you are.

[Independent voter]

Tesla stock dropped a bit because investors said his plan was short on details and vague.

[belfpala]

Tesla stock dropped a bit because investors said his plan was short on details and vague.

Seems pretty clear to me. He wants fleets of both private owner and Tesla owned vehicles roaming the streets doing things. Ideally, this will reduce the number of cars needed in general (mine just sits around doing nothing most of the time), and will reduce the need for things like parking lots, etc.

Not necessarily things that investors can comprehend, but I do see and agree with his vision. Do more with less, essentially.

[Kretan]

Can you imagine the amount of jizz that would find it's way on the seats of self driving taxi like cars?

Yeah really. That's the part I would be apprehensive about if it were my car.

[Vash The Stampede]

Solar me please, I hate paying for electricity.

[belfpala]

Can you imagine the amount of jizz that would find it's way on the seats of self driving taxi like cars?

Part 3 --
* Self-cleaning seats and surfaces inside cars
* Contaminant detection system
* Rider identity detection system
* Fleet communication to ban anyone detected by contamination detection system
* Merge with Google and Apple

Part 4
* SkyNet

Edit: But really, part of an automated fleet's routine could be pulling into a place for cleaning and detailing.

[Sunseeker]

Tesla stock dropped a bit because investors said his plan was short on details and vague.

Investors are lying shitheads, his stock dropped because his plan is about giving money away and didn't include the usual "Make shit tons of money then sell stock and get fucking rich!"

His business plan reads more like a government political plan of action. That's why his stock dropped.

[Independent voter]

Can you imagine the amount of jizz that would find it's way on the seats of self driving taxi like cars?

There's a screen on the dashboard that shows you a picture of your grandma.

[Maxilian]

Investors are lying shitheads, his stock dropped because his plan is about giving money away and didn't include the usual "Make shit tons of money then sell stock and get fucking rich!"

His business plan reads more like a government political plan of action. That's why his stock dropped.

to be more specific, i think its also mainly cause there are a couple of companies that are also working on the same idea but way more interested in revenue so, for the investors, its more interesting

[Blade Wolf]

These cars are what pokemon go players need now more than ever.

[Kretan]

I imagine the security of your car in taxi mode would have to be covered by obvious recording of the interior.

[ifrah]

Kudos for having all those neat ideas, but there are several problems with the cars.
Teslas have a massive amount of quality and reliability issues. No, I don't own one, but reading from related forums it does not look good. Turning what they have into really profitable business is not that simple, and it will be interesting to see how long the investors will have their patience.
Batteries. Despite the gigafactory or whatever they will have, they still face the big issue of raw materials, cobalt in particular. It is a very, very rare and expensive mineral, and currently there is no alternative (mass production viable) technology capable of competing with the lithium-cobalt batteries.
No matter how you turn it, Tesla's cars are currently nothing but a fad, an image boost or a religion. I would love to say otherwise as I love the technology, but it's just not there yet, and I highly doubt if Tesla is going to get there before going down.

[Sunseeker]

to be more specific, i think its also mainly cause there are a couple of companies that are also working on the same idea but way more interested in revenue so, for the investors, its more interesting

Sure, I've worked with investors, real investors before, not guys with dreams. People who want to move money to make more money and don't give a damn about anything else.

They can fuck right off.

[Puupi]

Can you imagine the amount of jizz that would find it's way on the seats of self driving taxi like cars?

No, I couldn't. But thanks to you, I now can.

[Gamdwelf]

Kudos for having all those neat ideas, but there are several problems with the cars.
Teslas have a massive amount of quality and reliability issues. No, I don't own one, but reading from related forums it does not look good. Turning what they have into really profitable business is not that simple, and it will be interesting to see how long the investors will have their patience.
Batteries. Despite the gigafactory or whatever they will have, they still face the big issue of raw materials, cobalt in particular. It is a very, very rare and expensive mineral, and currently there is no alternative (mass production viable) technology capable of competing with the lithium-cobalt batteries.
No matter how you turn it, Tesla's cars are currently nothing but a fad, an image boost or a religion. I would love to say otherwise as I love the technology, but it's just not there yet, and I highly doubt if Tesla is going to get there before going down.

You know they started to use silicon instead of cobalt last year just because of that right?

[Reeve]

Can you imagine the amount of jizz that would find it's way on the seats of self driving taxi like cars?

Eh, easily solvable by putting a camera inside the vehicle and making sex/masturbation inside constitute public lewdness or something like that, a minor civil offense.

[zorkuus]

Solar me please, I hate paying for electricity.

Once it becomes more popular, sunlight will be taxed.

[Deleted]

Tesla is becoming more and more common on the roads (at least here).

I remember being when I got my Model S and people looked at me with all sorts of faces >.<

[Puupi]

Eh, easily solvable by putting a camera inside the vehicle and making sex/masturbation inside constitute public lewdness or something like that, a minor civil offense.

How does that solve it? You need to watch some CCTV footage 24/7 to make sure nobody is jerking in your back seat.

[Puupi]

We need AI capable of pattern recognition.

Well considering the complexity of the pattern involved in the activity, that will be no problem at all.