Here's Elon Musk's new 'top secret master plan'
Here it is:
- Create solar roofs with integrated battery storage.
- Expand the existing Tesla model line-up to include "all major segments" of the market.
- Self-driving technology that's "ten times safer" than manual driving.
- Car-sharing, with which Tesla owners can earn money by essentially lending out their cars.
As noted earlier, the plan encompasses Musk's vision of accelerating humanity's exit from the fossil-fuel era, which involves Tesla and SolarCity.
The new plan is a revision of the original, first published by Tesla in 2006. At the time, before the Model S and Model X were roaming the streets on Autopilot, Tesla set out to build a high-end car, a couple of affordable cars, and generate clean electric power, sans emissions.
In the meanwhile, Tesla has had marked success. The Model S has racked up multiple awards, and was the best-selling large luxury sedan in 2015. The mass-market Model 3 sedan debuted in March, raking in more than 325,000 orders in a matter of days.
Tesla's high-flying success hasn't been without drama. During the first half of 2016, Musk has been fighting battles on multiple fronts - trouble meeting production goals, fallout from the first fatality involving a Model S in May, pointed questions about the reliability of its Autopilot technology, and suggestions that it withheld key information from investors - to which Musk promptly called "BS."
But, with much of the original "top secret" plan already in play, Musk clearly sees this as an opportunity to recalibrate.