Breaking Down Elon Musk and Tesla's New "Master Plan"
BREAKING: Tesla’s Elon Musk says ‘master plan’ includes self-driving capability that is 10 times safer than manual pic.twitter.com/Ce2QOSF13S
— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) July 21, 2016
Everyone knows Elon Musk, the charismatic billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and more. Tesla is of course the electric, environmentally-friendly car maker. Like your classic cartoon villain, they have a “master plan” and talk about it publicly all the time. Here’s the latest version (Business Insider):
Master Plan
– Create solar roofs with integrated battery storage.
– Expand the existing Tesla lineup to include “all major segments” of the market.
– Self-driving technology that is “ten times safer” than manual driving.
– Car sharing, with which Tesla owners can earn money by essentially lending out their vehicles.
Seems like a good master plan. Solar power. More product. Safety. Sharing. We love safety, sharing is caring, slinging product is our bread & butter, and solar power… well the sun’s bright and powerful as shit, we know that. So far so good. Let’s take a closer look.
Solar Roofs
In creating its new solar solution, Musk calls for a “solar-roof-with-battery product” that allows users to generate their own power. The service would be managed by a mobile app, the plan says.
Look, this sounds good and great and wonderful. It really does. But I fear Musk is ahead of his time. Like James Cameron conceiving the idea for Avatar 20 years ago but knowing the technology wasn’t yet where it needed to be to bring those blue freaks to life. So he waited, tech caught up, he made a billion dollars.
Pump the breaks, Musk. 95% of the population has zero clue which trash/recycling hole to throw their Boloco cups into — you think we can be trusted to generate our own power and channel it from our roof to our smartphones? Relax dude.
Expanding Tesla Lineup
As part of the plan to grow Tesla’s vehicle lineup, you can expect a new heavy-duty truck and what appears to be an all-electric solution for public transportation.
All in on this. A heavy-duty truck that’s protected under the Tesla umbrella of being environmentally friendly? Jackpot. That’s like being a crude men’s lifestyle website with a female CEO. Can’t touch this.
As far as all-electric public transportation? Sure. Whatever. Might save some gas. But I don’t think anybody’s really paying much attention to who’s driving the bus. Make it a robot. Make it a person. Whatever. Just gonna be weird when I thank a pile of metal and plastic every time I hop off the 9 bus.
Self-Driving Technology
Tesla is digging its heels in on autonomous driving, aiming for its technology to be as much as 10 times as safe as human driving. This is a bold move for the company after having been embroiled in controversy over the first fatality in one of its cars using its Autopilot feature earlier this year.
For years, “self-driving” has been touted as the next big thing. Touted as the cure to traffic. Touted as the cure to automobiles being responsible for 32,000 deaths here per year (2014). Apple’s trying it. Google’s trying it. Tesla’s trying it. Well I’m not buying it. We’re impatient sons of bitches and there’s absolutely zero chance that enough people can buy into just sitting there while some robot drives their car. At least not anytime soon. Have you seen iRobot? That movie set self-driving back at least 30 years. For every 1 person who sports a self-driving Tesla there’s gonna be 100 assholes buzzing around causing accidents. Last thing I need is to be standing on the Zombie corner of Mass Ave defending my robot chauffeur after an accident so my insurance doesn’t skyrocket.
Car-Sharing
When you’re not using your self-driving car, you could add it to the “Tesla shared fleet,” Musk says. That way, you could use it to generate income while you’re at work or on vacation.
Okay that’s pretty sweet. If — and I said IF — we figure the self-driving thing out, car-sharing your self-driving car is a no-brainer. You could buy a car and never even use it. Be like owning a taxi driver and his taxi but not having to deal with all his relatives blowing up his cell phone 24/7. You just send ‘em out, check in every few days to make sure the nuts and bolts are still screwed in, and collect the income. Genius.
Some great ideas. Some ambitious ideas. If your name’s Elon Musk and you’re worth $13 billion, you’re pretty much obligated to publish Master Plans and they’re obligated to be ambitious as fuck. The dude did, after all, propose after just 10 days to this minx, who would’ve of course said yes to anyone [that has 13 billion dollars].