Elon Musk, Chairman and one of the founders of Tesla Motors has revealed part two of his master plan for his electric mobility company. He had released the first part of this master plan in 2006 when Tesla was making a name for itself. Now ten years later, the South African born entrepreneur has acknowledged that the company has come a long way since part one was revealed and has a long way to go after the reveal of part two. Here are some of the highlights from his master plan.
Expanded range of body styles and transport options
He has acknowledged that Tesla is working to expand the number of body styles and will soon introduce a compact SUV and a pickup truck. In addition to this they also plan to build a semi-truck as well as a high density urban transport a.k.a buses. He has not revealed any details about the truck but has elaborated on the buses. They will be autonomous and have additional capacity than standard ICE vehicles of today. They are expected to be smaller, travel further than regular buses and be accommodating for all sections of society.
Increased role of autonomous driving technology
Tesla is today one of the leading pioneers in the world of autonomous driving technology and has already introduced it in its range of cars. Musk has said that with the evolution of technology, all Tesla vehicles will have fail safe autonomous driving systems. However, he has acknowledged that to get worldwide approval, Tesla would need to complete 10 billion kilometres and added that the current rate of learning was five million kilometres a day.
Integration of energy storage and generation
Here he has spoken about the creation of a fully functional solar roof and battery combination that will make the owner/user self-sustainable. Reduced down to four sections- they involve ordering, installation, service and mobile app. This will in the long run involve the integration of Tesla and Solar City.
Car Sharing
The trend of car sharing has been on the rise over the last few years and it looks like Tesla wants to be a part of the trend. It feels that there will be a trend in the future where users will be able to add their car to a Tesla ride sharing fleet and let it earn for them while they are not using it. They also plan to operate their own ride sharing services if the demand exceeds supply in any given area.
While these visions of motoring in the future have been seen by a number of automakers it appears that Tesla is one of the first to integrate all of them into a single transport ecosystem. If the future of the automotive world is to expand this way then sustainability should not look too difficult or far away for us.
