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In August of 2006, Elon Musk penned a very touchy feely blog post he dubbed the Tesla Master Plan. At the end, he summarized the plan this way:
So, in short, the master plan is:
Build sports carUse that money to build an affordable carUse that money to build an even more affordable carWhile doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options
Don’t tell anyone.
Ten years later, the original Master Plan was succeeded by Master Plan Part Deux, which once again ended with a summary at the end that said:
So, in short, Master Plan, Part Deux is:
Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storageExpand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segmentsDevelop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learningEnable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it
In April of 2023, a third Master Plan appeared, which once again changed the focus, this time emphasizing a global economy based on renewable energy that very much tracked the visions of Tony Seba, Mark Jacobson, and Project Drawdown.
A fully electrified and sustainable economy is within reach through the actions in this paper:
1. Repower the Existing Grid with Renewables2. Switch to Electric Vehicles3. Switch to Heat Pumps in Residential, Business & Industry4. Electrify High Temperature Heat Delivery and Hydrogen Production5. Sustainably Fuel Planes & Boats6. Manufacture the Sustainable Energy Economy
Less than two years later, Elon Musk was on stage with his now-infamous chainsaw and whooping like a prepubescent schoolboy at the inauguration of a man who was bound and determined to take a sledgehammer to every renewable energy project in America. Not only that, he is pressuring other nations to do the same.
What happened to the Elon we all knew and loved? Is he a body double? Did someone switch his brain with another from a secret lab somewhere? We will never know, but apparently the desire to punish faceless bureaucrats who stymied his wishes with their endless array of quibbles about rules, regulations, and procedures was too much for him to handle, and so he elected himself a committee of one to remake the US government in his own image. Then, like Icarus, he found he had flown too close to the sun and disappeared from public view.
Tesla Master Plan 4
Master Plan 4 is now official and the first thing those who cover such things have noticed is that there is barely a mention of electric cars. The bedrock of Tesla is now little more than an afterthought. Here is a link to the entire plan on X, but if you want the gist, watch the video below.
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In the wide, wonderful world of Musk, machines will soon perform all necessary life functions and we will be free to explore our innermost dreams and talents and become self-actualized in a way that Abraham Maslow scarcely thought possible.
Elon says that from now on, 80 percent of Tesla’s value will be attributed to its Optimus humanoid robots. Is that what Tesla investors signed up for? Maybe. The stock is down a bit this week, but still stratospherically high on an earnings per share basis. And, by the way, has anyone noticed how much Optimus looks like a mashup of a federation stormtrooper from Star Wars and a masked ICE agent?
Reaction to Master Plan 4 has been … tepid. The Verge says it contains lots of flashy new buzzwords but largely ignores the reality that its car business is in the toilet. TechCrunch says it “reads like LLM-generated nonsense” that lacks one of the essential elements of any workable plan — specifics.
TechCrunch reporter Seam O’Kane writes, “This one is gauzy, generic, and reads like someone threw talking points from Musk and the ‘Abundance bros’ into ChatGPT and published the result. (If it was Grok, it’s one of the most benign posts that AI chatbot has ever generated.)
“The post is stuffed with sentences that sound like a kid imitating college-level discourse, such as: ‘The hallmark of meritocracy is creating opportunities that enable each person to use their skills to accomplish whatever they imagine.’
“Why be so vague? Maybe it’s because Tesla has still not completed all of its goals from the second master plan, published all the way back in 2016, or from its third, in 2023.”
It’s A Process
Yikes, that last part is the cruelest cut of all. But all this navel gazing is not necessary to understand the process that resulted in Master Plan 4. When I was in college, we were required to read a book each term and write a paper about it. Some of my dormmates figured out that if we all read the same book, we could crowdsource our papers and save a lot of time to pursue more salubrious activities — like drinking.
So we would gather in a room where one person was designated the typist, two wrote out drafts for possible inclusion in the final version of the paper, one strode around with great purpose while throwing out gauzy statements that sounded erudite, and one was in charge of keeping our glasses full.
We all submitted basically the same paper, but what amazed us was that some got As while others got Ds. This was our first inkling that a liberal arts education idea was not all it was cracked up to be. Little did we know we were creating an early version of a large language model powered by Ernest and Julio Gallo.
Untangling Tesla & Elon
Bloomberg automotive editor Craig Trudell and Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull have weighed in on Master Plan 4 and found it wanting. Trudell said he remembers the priorities set forth in Master Plan 3 just two years ago and marvels at how things have changed so fast since then. “Right around that time, this was a company that was all about sustainable energy. Now it’s all about AI, it’s all about robots, it’s all about self-driving cars.”
Hull sees it as a potential weak point for the company. “I think that Tesla has a real marketing problem where you have a CEO who is clearly bored of the car industry.” Bloomberg‘s Max Chafkin has a theory. “It feels like there’s a little bit of an effort, maybe even a deliberate effort underway to untangle Elon from the future of Tesla,” he said.
That last part is interesting. What would happen if Tesla the car company were to actually get out from under the influence of Elon Musk and focus on its core business of manufacturing compelling electric cars, something Elon used to urge others to do? What if it emulated Hyundai Motor Group and built a full line of EVs that served the needs of all drivers, from city cars to grand touring models, and electric vans for last-mile delivery and tradespeople? What if it decided to tackle the challenge of electric airplanes or battery-powered motorcycles?
What if Elon went off to do Elon-type things and Tesla focused on the things that were included in Master Plans 1, 2, and 3? What then? We don’t have the answers to those questions, but we are pretty sure our readers will want to weigh in with their own ideas. Let the conversation begin!
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