Musk’s "Master Plan 3" for Tesla
Why part of it is farther off than the CEO may think
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Elon Musk just unveiled the third chapter of his “Master Plan”- his view of the future and Tesla’s place in that world. The electric vehicle (EV) car company called the event an investor day, but Musk was speaking to the world when he took to the stage at his gigafactory in Texas.
The man who has created two transformational companies (one of his SpaceX rockets took a crew to the International Space Station hours after the Tesla event) started with this pronouncement- “There is a clear path to a sustainable-energy Earth. It doesn’t require destroying natural habitats. It doesn’t require us to be austere and stop using electricity.”
Energy sustainability is what Musk says drove him to grow Tesla after he bought into the company. While there were these broad-stroke statements, Musk didn’t offer a lot of specifics about the near-term vision of Tesla. The company wants to cut the cost of producing a car by 50% and ramp up deliveries by millions of vehicles. Analysts wanted more, including details about Tesla’s “next-generation” vehicle.
MODEL 2?
While there are few details, there were some hints about what Tesla does next with its lineup of vehicles. There is chatter that it will be called, “Model 2” and it will be a lower-cost EV in the range of $25,000 to $30,000. Tesla leadership suggested this new model will be important for a future “robo-taxi” business.
That led to another Musk pronouncement- “We’re basically heading rapidly toward an electric or autonomous future,” adding, “All cars will go to fully electric and autonomous.” Missing during this inventory day were predictions and schedules by Musk. In the past, Musk has promised a low cost EV, and a fully autonomous car in the next few years. Five years ago, Wired Magazine suggested Musk’s timelines should be multiplied by dog years.
Maybe the CEO has learned that some promises can be difficult to accomplish. There were no predictions about when fully autonomous vehicles will actually be available for consumers. There have been several in the past, which have come and gone. Musk has continued to claim that his company is close to actual self-driving, but his company admits its “Full Self-Driving” software is not fully autonomous.
THE AUTONOMY WAIT
Could that be true? “When are you going to be able to step out of your house, hit your app and go to wherever you need to go. That's still a good 10, 20, maybe even 30 years away,” said Mark Rosekind, the former Administrator of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). When Rosekind was a regulator he oversaw Musk and his company. “Tesla in particular has made a lot of target dates and has not really made any of them,” he told me in an interview.
Not only has Tesla missed some to its targets, it has also found itself at odds with government entities. The most recent was a recall involving more than 360,000 vehicles. The problem was with the company’s “Full Self-Driving” software. Musk said the problem would be solved with an over-the-air software update, so how can it be called a “recall?”
WHEN A RECALL IS A RECALL
That suggests a lack of understanding of how the regulator regulates. NHTSA is responsible for make sure you are safe on our nation’s highways. If there is a safety defect, it needs to be fixed in the appropriate manner. The way it is fixed doesn’t determine if this problem is a recall. “if you're not programming it to do the safe, right, like, follow the rules, follow the law, follow the vehicle code. Well, that's a defect and that's a violation,” said Rosekind, adding. “They’re violating Vehicle Code. That's a defect and hence, you need to recall it to fix it. And again, that could be with a wrench, that could be with software, there could be whatever, that's still a recall to get it fixed.”
Rosekind said this technology is unlike much of what might be on your smart-phone. “When your app crashes, nobody dies. If you're using that same attitude with cars on the road, that's dangerous. There’s a whole different level of responsibility than when your game app crashes.”
WHEN WILL THE CAR DRIVE ITSELF?
Autonomy is something Rosekind knows a bit about. After he left NHTSA he ended up working for Zoox. The Amazon owned company is building “purpose-built autonomous vehicles.” Think driverless shuttles.
There has been an arms race to achieve fully autonomous vehicles. In the past several months, there has been a realization that this world is not around the corner, but around a decade away at this point. It will be a bumpy road, as Tesla has learned.
“There are at least 12 investigations, I think, going on at NHTSA. There's a number going on at the NTSB. Clearly, the number of investigations by these two prominent federal agencies have increased,” said Rosekind.
TESLA INVESTIGATED
“You can be as innovative as you want, but it's really different to win a game versus, you know, some application that's going to be in a car that's not just for the driver, but all those vulnerable road users that are around. A whole different level of responsibility,” Rosekind told me.
Musk seems right. Electrified and fully autonomous vehicles are coming. The timeline is the question. Tesla and Musk like to use their own language when describing where we are going and how we are getting there. Government regulations and regulators are often the target because Musk wants to move fast in all his ventures. That works in manufacturing improvements, battery chemistry, and more affordable vehicles. Autonomy is going to take some time.
Reasonable article, concise and clear, which is the trademark of good writing.
Unmentioned, which surely should be? GM hates Musk. Ford hates Musk. The UAW hates Musk.
Leftists hate Musk. The petroleum industry hates Musk. Putin hates Musk.
Between all the money and influence of the aforementioned entities (and many, many more), do you think some investigations are politically motivated? Honda just had a recall of 100,000 vehicles. Ford, Toyota, GM, and Honda cars were involved in the deaths of 10,000+ people last year. Where are the investigations?
Also, there is a difference between a minor software update to fix a problem that never put the driver at risk vs. a major software problem that does put a driver at risk. For anyone at the NHTSA or NTSB to not differentiate such things is ludicrous.
Lastly, Rosekind is a very liberal politician who's background is not in Automotive work and safety. He is a clinical psychologist who was a political appointee and was installed as head the NHTSA after doing fatigue research at NASA.
From his work there as well as his appointment to the board of the NTSB, Zoosk hired him because of his political connections, to help grease the skids for Zoosk as it navigated through the federal safety bureaucracy.
To use him as a source of criticism without giving his full background is misleading. His criticisms may be valid, but having a deep understanding of his conflicts of interest (Zoosk would likely be put out of business if FSD comes to fruition at TESLA) is important to any analysis.
Again, a well written article. Musk is usually late at delivering, often by many years, that much is well-known and documented. He also is capable of failure. No arguments there.
But betting against him over the long haul is has proved to be a dangerous bet, that too is beyond argument.
The fix is evolving from wrench to software update. Wow! We won't reach the age of the Jetson's before I die, but seeing it happen is truly fun. Who would have thunk it? :-) Good article. Appreciate the EV updates. A friend recently flew to Denver on business. When her taxi arrived at the airport, there was no driver inside! Some of this stuff is already here! Just incredible.