Tesla Master Plan part deux

[RobDickinson]

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

tesla said:

So, in short, Master Plan, Part Deux is:

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

Very interesting plan.

• fast iteration of production of model 3's
• cover the rest of the transport needs with compact suv and pickup
• smaller autonomous buses + 'Semi's' (trucks) , both in development
• an app for autonomous tesla sharing, makes model 3's affordable for everyone?

I guess if you can afford your own model 3 thats fine, but if you cant then buy one anyhow and run it as a service when you dont need it.

A world like this would be quite different. no petrol stations, automated charging stations, but most charging done at home.
Far fewer garages/mechanics required. EV's are much simpler and autonomous driving creates fewer accidents so far fewer repairs.
Less commercial parking required - better use of city centre land?
Cars that make money for you , or alternatively cheaper point to point transport if you dont want to own one.

[Digga]

The strategy is simple and so far effective; build a huge battery factory that gives effective energy monopoly, on the back of spurious environmental claims/legislation.

[poo at Paul's]

fking Cuckoo Land.

[RobDickinson]

poo at Paul's said:

fking Cuckoo Land.

where is your reusable rocket or gigafactory

[200bhp]

poo at Paul's said:

fking Cuckoo Land.

I'm sure other people told Henry Ford that too.

[Digga]

RobDickinson said:

poo at Paul's said:

fking Cuckoo Land.

where is your reusable rocket or gigafactory

Then there's the issue of the environmental cost of making a car, versus running it; the former usually outweighs the latter.

Aside from inner city emissions zones - where I'd agree there are other, valid considerations - I think this is a much undervalued.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring...

[Some Gump]

RobDickinson said:

Very interesting plan.

• fast iteration of production of model 3's
• cover the rest of the transport needs with compact suv and pickup
• smaller autonomous buses + 'Semi's' (trucks) , both in development
• an app for autonomous tesla sharing, makes model 3's affordable for everyone?

I guess if you can afford your own model 3 thats fine, but if you cant then buy one anyhow and run it as a service when you dont need it.

A world like this would be quite different. no petrol stations, automated charging stations, but most charging done at home.
Far fewer garages/mechanics required. EV's are much simpler and autonomous driving creates fewer accidents so far fewer repairs.
Less commercial parking required - better use of city centre land?
Cars that make money for you , or alternatively cheaper point to point transport if you dont want to own one.

It's interesting, but it's a pipe dream. Reality says otherwise.

Autonomous driving? Miles away. 1 decent accident and the lawyers will put a stop to it anyway.
Share your car automatically? You're forgetting that the general public are s. You have a nice shiny model 3. Some bellend comes and smokes in it. Another dings the door (but not badly, I mena you can hardly see it). In 1 year you'll have a motor that resembles every single holiday resort hire car - scruffy round the edges and generally neglected.
Reduced mechanical needs? Not seeing it. The "go" part of a car is just one part - you still have the (often much more unreliable) detail of suspension, brakes and all the electro wizardry in the dash. If you do reduce mechanics, expect to add more techs to work on the electric bits.

Oh, and the minor point - current cars last 15-20 years easy. How many lithium ion batteries get past 5? Call me a cynic, but IMO if somone had a battery that lasted a decent amount of time, someone would have mentioned it to Nokia, Samsung, Apple, HTC etc etc - it'd be quite a USP =)

[menguin]

RobDickinson said:

poo at Paul's said:

fking Cuckoo Land.

where is your reusable rocket or gigafactory

Indeed. Many of the things Musk says are optimistic in terms of his timelines but he has proven to the world that you can do things others would think impossible - take on Boeing and Lockeed Martin? Check. Motivate the world's car industry to speed up their previously lethargic and reluctant move to EV? Check.

While one must not take everything Musk says as a given it is quite clear now that he is much more than a dreamer. He still owns around 60% of SpaceX specifically because he refuses to give up control to shareholders who would focus on profit rather than his long term goal of colonising Mars.

[RobDickinson]

Yeah timelines are sketchy, and some of this they might be beaten to, like the autonomous ride sharing..

Lyft are now part owned by GM and Uber have ordered thousands of self driving cars.

[PhillipM]

Some Gump said:

Share your car automatically? You're forgetting that the general public are s. You have a nice shiny model 3. Some bellend comes and smokes in it. Another dings the door (but not badly, I mena you can hardly see it). In 1 year you'll have a motor that resembles every single holiday resort hire car - scruffy round the edges and generally neglected.

Wait until your mental ex manages to hire it...

[clonmult]

Some Gump said:

Oh, and the minor point - current cars last 15-20 years easy. How many lithium ion batteries get past 5? Call me a cynic, but IMO if somone had a battery that lasted a decent amount of time, someone would have mentioned it to Nokia, Samsung, Apple, HTC etc etc - it'd be quite a USP =)

bks. Well, for one, Nokia aren't currently in the mobile market ... but thats being pedantic. Samsung, Apple, Sony, etc. are in a situation where they want you to replace your device every 1 or 2 years. They have absolutely no interest in improving battery longevity.

And there is an important difference between battery life and battery longevity.

[RobDickinson]

clonmult said:

Some Gump said:

Oh, and the minor point - current cars last 15-20 years easy. How many lithium ion batteries get past 5? Call me a cynic, but IMO if somone had a battery that lasted a decent amount of time, someone would have mentioned it to Nokia, Samsung, Apple, HTC etc etc - it'd be quite a USP =)

bks. Well, for one, Nokia aren't currently in the mobile market ... but thats being pedantic. Samsung, Apple, Sony, etc. are in a situation where they want you to replace your device every 1 or 2 years. They have absolutely no interest in improving battery longevity.

And there is an important difference between battery life and battery longevity.

Tesla batteries are guaranteed for 8 years unlimited miles. This means below 70% capacity it gets replaced.

They are used as cabs in many countries..

[RobDickinson]

Some Gump said:

Autonomous driving? Miles away.

Yes, if you had read the link it explains its miles away, literally. But its going ot happen, and happen in the next 5 years, BMW have already scheduled a release of a self driving car within 5 years. Goggle, ford, Volvo etc etc are all working on this, no one is investing in it because it wont happen. But I guess you are smarter than them..

[Oakey]

Some Gump said:

It's interesting, but it's a pipe dream. Reality says otherwise.

Autonomous driving? Miles away. 1 decent accident and the lawyers will put a stop to it anyway.
Share your car automatically? You're forgetting that the general public are s. You have a nice shiny model 3. Some bellend comes and smokes in it. Another dings the door (but not badly, I mena you can hardly see it). In 1 year you'll have a motor that resembles every single holiday resort hire car - scruffy round the edges and generally neglected.
Reduced mechanical needs? Not seeing it. The "go" part of a car is just one part - you still have the (often much more unreliable) detail of suspension, brakes and all the electro wizardry in the dash. If you do reduce mechanics, expect to add more techs to work on the electric bits.

Oh, and the minor point - current cars last 15-20 years easy. How many lithium ion batteries get past 5? Call me a cynic, but IMO if somone had a battery that lasted a decent amount of time, someone would have mentioned it to Nokia, Samsung, Apple, HTC etc etc - it'd be quite a USP =)

To be fair, it's in their interests that you replace your phone every 24 months. Can't have phones that last 5years or more now can we!

[davepoth]

Some Gump said:

It's interesting, but it's a pipe dream. Reality says otherwise.

Autonomous driving? Miles away. 1 decent accident and the lawyers will put a stop to it anyway.
Share your car automatically? You're forgetting that the general public are s. You have a nice shiny model 3. Some bellend comes and smokes in it. Another dings the door (but not badly, I mena you can hardly see it). In 1 year you'll have a motor that resembles every single holiday resort hire car - scruffy round the edges and generally neglected.
Reduced mechanical needs? Not seeing it. The "go" part of a car is just one part - you still have the (often much more unreliable) detail of suspension, brakes and all the electro wizardry in the dash. If you do reduce mechanics, expect to add more techs to work on the electric bits.

So you're saying "nay" then.

Autonomous driving is closer than you think. Teslas are driving themselves, right now, and many other cars have the same technology - if you sellotape a can of coke to the steering wheel of a Mercedes S-Class and engage active cruise and lane-keeping it'll do everything the Tesla can do. The difference is that Tesla are willing to go a little bit further with it.

What will be a big change is fitting that technology to heavy goods vehicles. Since most of their driving is done on the highway it will make a big impact there.

Car sharing will work. Bear in mind this is for after the car is automated, I'd imagine that it would be for autonomous mode only. Based on the way that Tesla works I would expect that the car would be cleaned before it was returned to you, and if it needed repairs you'd have a rental car FOC no question asked while they fixed it.

Electric cars are much simpler than IC cars, that's a fact. Electronics work or they don't, and if the most complicated mechanical thing on your car is double wishbone suspension then you really don't have much to worry about in terms of oily bits.

It's coming, don't worry. It might take a bit longer than Musk has written but it'll happen. He's got a great record of achieving some things that nobody said would happen, and these goals don't look unreasonable given what he's already done.

[Otispunkmeyer]

RobDickinson said:

Some Gump said:

Autonomous driving? Miles away.

Yes, if you had read the link it explains its miles away, literally. But its going ot happen, and happen in the next 5 years, BMW have already scheduled a release of a self driving car within 5 years. Goggle, ford, Volvo etc etc are all working on this, no one is investing in it because it wont happen. But I guess you are smarter than them..

Mercedes too

They already have what looked to be a nearly completely autonomous bus and its already completed a proper journey with passengers and pick up and drop off etc. OK they still had a driver in it, but he was more of a supervisor. For me someone like Merc are somewhat dark horses in all this. Whilst all the limelight falls on Tesla AutoPilot, the Mercedes with their simply vast R&D budget seem to be making something even more capable.

[Orchid1]

The whole charge time still puts people off though I think.

I'm sure it was Renault who had the idea years ago of making batteries smaller and removable so that say you were running low on power you would drive to a charging station much like a petrol station and park over a mechanism in the ground which would remove the empty battery and replace it with a charged one. The empty battery would then be kept underground and charged then given to someone else etc etc.

[RobDickinson]

Orchid1 said:

The whole charge time still puts people off though I think.

I'm sure it was Renault who had the idea years ago of making batteries smaller and removable so that say you were running low on power you would drive to a charging station much like a petrol station and park over a mechanism in the ground which would remove the empty battery and replace it with a charged one. The empty battery would then be kept underground and charged then given to someone else etc etc.

Remember most will be charged over night, and most peoples trips are quite short, so only need charging occasionally.

Supercharger can get a tesla to 80% in 30min, not too bad for now for a 300km range.

Problem with smaller batteries is they take longer to charge, apart from the stty range. Tesla did demo a changeable battery but its really not worth the effort now.

[944fan]

Does anyone watch Silicon Valley? It is a comedy that parodies and pokes fun at Silicon Valley. I know they have used some real life people as inspiration and Peter Theil in particular has been almost completely parodied it.

Anyway you hear something that Musk or one of his companies have said and you have no idea whether it is true or a line from Silicon Valley.

[Jonesy23]

I'm sure he's confident the finances will last long enough to pull this off but others might disagree.

Solar roofs - no exactly a boom market now, the numbers never add up and he's proposing to integrate the lifed component?

Expand to other vehicle types - either driving into niche or into utterly different markets. Sounds like he's heading in the opposite direction to what everyone else did after learning the lessons of trying to cover too many lines rather than chasing the good ones. Though making proper money from vehicles doesn't ever seem to have been the point.

Got a tricky technical problem? Throw the latest buzzword at it. Machine/fleet learning is a big hype now but doesn't fix the problems that actually exist in self driving.

Hire your car out when yore not using it? Nothing that can't be done now and already has been, though maybe he expects self driving cars to deliver themselves. Non starter in the real world though he could build his own hire fleet if it's such a money maker.


Some people remain convinced Musk is a genius. I'm not so sure.