Elon's Masterplan Part III - A Preview

Almost a month ago, Elon Musk announced that he was working on Part 3 of his Master Plan and Tesla Twitter went crazy. People immediately started speculating about what the next phase of Tesla will look like.

But before we join the speculations about the potential content of the latest version of the Master plan, let's do a quick review of part I & II of the Tesla Masterplan.

Recap Master Plan Part I (2006-2016)

1. Build sports car -> Roadstar
2. Use that money to build an affordable car -> Model S/X
3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car -> 3/Y
4. While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options -> Solar Retrofit

Recap Master Plan Part II (2016-2022)

1. Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage -> Solar Roof & Powerwall
2. Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments -> Semi, Cybertruck & Robotaxi
3. Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning -> Full-Self-Driving (FSD)
4. Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it -> Ride-Sharing-App

Most of the products are not in mass production due to supply constraints. However, the product development for most of the products, except maybe the RoboTaxi and FSD, is mostly done and scaling production is planned for 2023. So it's about time for the next Master Plan.

Preview Master Plan Part III (2022- TBD)

Let's look at what Elon teased on Twitter about the next Master Plan and break down the tweet.

I think Elon chose his words with intention, and already at his initial announcement, he said, "Working on Master Plan Part 3" - not Teslas Master Plan. In his follow up, he distinguishes between "Main Tesla Subjects" and "sections about SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company". So this Master Plan will not be a Tesla exclusive anymore.

The roles of each company in the grand scheme of Elon's vision

It's Elon's life goal to ensure the survival of humanity. Therefore, he wants society to:

1. Transition to sustainable energy production and consumption.
2. Colonize Mars.

He started Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company to accomplish those goals. All three companies will come together to achieve the purposes of the latest Master Plan. According to Musk, the main subjects of the Master Plan are:

a) Scaling to an extreme size

Tesla already announced a production goal of 20 million vehicles at the end of this decade, but this might seem insufficient. The reason might be the slow ramp-up of the competition. The initial goal of 20 Million was probably assuming that other OEMs would be able to scale their elective vehicle production and help transition to sustainable transportation. But Tesla might be willing to hedge against the inability of other OEMs by scaling its efforts beyond 20 million vehicles. They are even considering expanding into lithium mining to ensure the availability of critical resources at scale.

b) A.I.

While solving Full-Self-Driving, Tesla learned that the only way to solve autonomous driving is to solve real-world A.I. Since our entire road system is made for natural intelligence (us humans) - the only solution is a synthetic version of intelligence capable of at least performing 10x better than us. To accomplish this goal of FSD, Tesla keeps vertically integrating the entire stack, from building their own chips to a supercomputer for auto-labelling. But Tesla will not stop at A.I. on wheels. The Tesla Bot has already been announced and will be not only a byproduct. Tesla will build real-world general artificial intelligence that will be an essential piece of the grand vision.

Let's speculate about how all the companies need to work together.

A.I. will enable to dramatically increase the utilization of a regular car by multiples. This will lead to more usage and more vehicles on the road. There will not be more cars overall, but instead of full parking lots, we will see cars only driving and charging, but never sitting still for no reason. To help handle the increased traffic, The Boring Company will be used to layer traffic in tunnel systems underground. To get to an extreme scale, A.I. will also be used to cover labour shortages in manufacturing. The Tesla Bot will be used in Giga-Factories to increase production and reduce costs. This will not only be true for manufacturing for all of Musks companies but also for Teslas' potential future mining business.

Next stop Mars

While scaling manufacturing of vehicles, batteries, solar, bot and rockets at an extreme scale on earth, the project to colonize Mars will be the next target. Again Tesla will play a critical role. Not only will the Tesla Bots help to manufacture rockets and other products at SpaceX - but Tesla will also be the first company to build manufacturing facilities on mars. The Tesla bot will likely be the first intelligence on Mars and help develop the infrastructure, while The Boring Company will create a sophisticated tunnel system for the manufacturing facilities.

Conclusion

The next version of the Master Plan will not be a Tesla exclusive. Instead, Elon is about to bring his companies together to use all their expertise and strengths to ensure the survival of the human species.