In 2006, Elon Musk wrote a Tesla Masterplan which provide a background to his vision, people and business plan. He provided part two (deux) in 2016, and has said he will release part 3, announced in mid 2022, at Investor Day on March 1st, 2023.
….. our long term plan is to build a wide range of models, including affordably priced family cars. This is because the overarching purpose 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.
Elon Musk 2006
This vision has accelerated vehicle adoption and provided huge exponential growth in renewable energy grids, solar rooftop generation, and will enable 100% renewable energy within 6 years (as per Jacobson or Tony Seba)
Tesla Masterplan Part 1, 2006
From August 10th, 2006. The Secret Tesla Motors Masterplan (Just between You and Me)
| Plan | Outcome and Notes |
|---|---|
| Build sports car | Roadster |
| Use that money to build an affordable car | Model X |
| Use that money to build an even more affordable car | Model S |
| While doing the above build enable zero emissions power generation options | Introduced the Powerwall in 2016 and the Powerpack and Megapack (2018) |
Masterplan Part 2 (deux), 2016
Master Plan, Part Deux July 20th, 2016 – https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux
| Stated Goal | Outcome and Notes |
|---|---|
| Integrate Energy Generation and Storage I.e. I In short by create stunning solar roofs with integrated battery storage | Limited success. Solarcity has plugged away at technology improvement but other solar and wind manufacturers have driven cost-downs and adoption. Note: energy business has generated more electricity than Tesla factories have consumed! (Tesla Environment Impact) |
| Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport – include all major segments. Do this by designing the machine to make the machine | X, S, Y= SUV, Large truck = Semi – released 2022, target 50,000 by 2023 Pickup truck = Cybertruck in 2023 and scale in 2024 High passenger density mover = ?? |
| Autonomy – develop self-driving that is 10x safer than manual via massive fleet learning. | FSD – version 11, in Beta, getting closer. Over 1m potential users. Europe regulators have delayed laws to 2024 Maybe 1 year to 10x, and 2 years to 100x |
| Enable to make money with your car even when you are not using it | Robotaxi. Dependant on autonomy, |
Masterplan Part 3, 2023
At Investor Day, March 1st 2023 Musk announced “Path to a fully sustainable World”, The YouTube Video is here and the 130 Slides are here.
Tesla announced five key points. Any substantial news has to be after hours. This was one of the most insightful presentations by any automaker. With over 20 presenters it demonstrated how much progress had been made and how much was in train now.
| Announced | Implications |
|---|---|
| EV cars to scale to 20 m cars a year | This is 20% to 30% of all new cars sold globally. It would make them the market dominant leader. |
| Increase batteries for home and Grid | Grid storage ramped up to 1,000 GWh (1TW) to transition the world (240TWh for the whole world) |
| Improve manufacturing | Drop car costs by 50% with new manufacturing engineering. |
| Change to fully electrified global energy by 2040 | They intend to dominate the energy market with home microgrid and large scale energy grids. |
| Continue to build out charging networks | Aim for 25% growth year on year |
Details On Tesla Blog
The 46 page is at https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-3
- Repower the Existing Grid with Renewables
- Switch to Electric Vehicles
- Switch to Heat Pumps in Residential, Business & Industry
- Electrify High Temperature Heat Delivery and Hydrogen Production
- Sustainably Fuel Planes & Boats
- Manufacture the Sustainable Energy Economy
Miscellaneous Comments
- Next-generation cars are already in progress
- Their new motors, costing under $1,000 have no rare earth elements
- 4680 batteries are already going into consumer cars, and they are increasing production rate consistently.
- New Gigafactory in Mexico
- An expansion of Giga Nevada to make Tesla Semis and to increase batteries by 10X was confirmed
- Supply chains continue to shorten and rationalise.
- Introduced heat pumps as key component.
- Capital expenditure of $150 to 170 average $20b capex per year
- There is no lithium constraint
- Lithium refining plant under construction
- lithium refining technology will be available to mining partners.
- New Powerpack and new megapack products
- New charging products (v4), and day time charging AC products.
- Home charging overnight ($30 per night)
- Teased a Tesla van
- Tesla bot making progress
For 8 takeaways see Daily Tesla Video here https://youtu.be/fDOhO3sK38I
How Good Was The Guess
| Goal | Suggestion | Announced | My Guess |
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of smart management is stop doing stuff without high return. Given others have the lead with solar, expect to drop solar. It has zero ROI and wind and solar do it better. | Stop SolarCity (or use Optimus to out some of the working at height risks and scale the labour needed. | Nothing mentioned except they are now selling Powerwalls to consumers without having to purchase a Tesla roof | Poor |
| Scale to 1 TWh per year to accelerate community batteries and grid batteries for the global requirement for 150TWh for vehicles to 150 TWh within 1 decade. | Target for 30TW global per year for 15 years and Tesla to have 10% of the market share (i.e. 3TWh per year). Beed to build out multiple 1TWh capacity of new battery Megafactory | Ramp to 10TW per year by 2030 | Good |
| Provide V2G to all Tesla vehicles | Enables dual use for both transport and grid electricity storage, doubling rate of increase for Grid | Admitted V2L or V2G was not high priority and Musk thought time of charging would be more useful. Cybertruck may have it | Good |
| Accelerate charging to provide 5 minute charging | Double fast charging stations annually | Good | |
| Business is the production of batteries. Then leverage vehicles to 20m per year | Increase each factory capacity to 5 million per year No new factories sites – expand at existing locations. | Announced Giga Mexico but also announced extended factory at Giga Nevada and Giga Berline | Good |
| Build out 2 new markets – light trucks and light robotaxis / mininbuses | Light trucks and light robotaxis at 3 Gigafactories | Not announced but shown under wraps was van and robotaxi | Good |
| Bring Tesla / Bot “Optimus” to market to enable new factories | Goal = 1,000 Optimus in their own factories by end 2023. 1 million by end 2024 to enable new factories Beyond Bot to 100 m by 2030 | Video shows capable Optimus already | Good |
| Complete Starlink for the whole world by 2024 to enable education for who every wants it. Current goal is 14,000 by . | 3,200 (Nov 2022) 50 per launch x 200 launches per year 7,500 by end 2023 20,000 by 2025 | Not mentioned. | Poor |
This was my guess. Was it right or wrong
Masterplan Commentary
A number of Tesla youtube commentators have suggested what will be announced. Part 3 is my understanding and these great YT Vloggers provide good commentary.
Jon from CleanerWatt https://youtu.be/GQZwEm2lm9w – Tesla’s BIGGEST PLAN YET | Massive Scale & Domination!
Randy Kirk and Warren Redlich from https://youtu.be/BSKis12Zwn0 Elon Musk’s Master Plan 3 and Investor Day Just Two Topics Warren Redlich Discusses in Deep Dive. Randy Kirk is at Youtube at @RandyKirk_YouTubeChannel
