By Louis Hansen, East Bay Times
PALO ALTO — Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday detailed an ambitious new vision to fill the highways with electric pickup trucks, tractor-trailers and buses, flawless self-driving systems, and a robust ride-sharing network.
Musk also renewed his call for Tesla to acquire SolarCity to make it easier for customers to fully integrate sustainable products in their homes and businesses. "The faster we achieve sustainability," Musk wrote, "the better."
The announcement comes as Tesla faces skepticism from investors about the acquisition and questions from federal regulators about its autopilot system after a fatal accident in Florida. Tesla has also failed to meet vehicle-delivery goals.
"One of the biggest challenges in my opinion is not in the vision, but more on execution," said Ravi Manghani, director of energy storage at GTM Research. "As Elon has proved more than once, he has grand visions and can deliver, but it will require the company to be disciplined, with so many moving parts."
Musk honed his latest grand vision in a 1,500-word blog post, "Master Plan Part Deux," on the company website. Musk acknowledged that the company has so far reached only a small segment of the population with its luxury vehicles. The lower-cost Model 3 sedan, starting at $35,000, is expected to go on sale late next year. Musk announced that the company will add a compact SUV and pickup truck to its product lines.
Tesla is also in the early stages of developing heavy-duty trucks and city buses, and should unveil the projects next year, he said. He said the "Tesla Semi" will reduce the cost of cargo transport and that autonomous buses could handle more passengers and ease congestion.
Musk said the company is focusing on designing better, faster factories to accelerate manufacturing.
But Tesla watchers and regulators say the company faces challenges in meeting its aggressive goals.
Barclays analyst Brian Johnson wrote last week that Tesla's disappointing second-quarter results led to deeper questions about whether Tesla could meet production goals for the Model 3. The company shipped 14,370 Model S and X vehicles during the period, falling short of expectations. About 400,000 reservations have been taken for the Model 3.
Musk released the first Tesla master plan in 2006, laying out the strategy for building an electric-vehicle company with broad market appeal. In the plan unveiled Wednesday, Musk acknowledged some of his original challenges.
"Starting a car company is idiotic and an electric car company is idiocy squared," he wrote.
Looking back at the earlier promises of the first plan, Johnson gave the company a "B+" for product execution and a "D" for financial stewardship. Tesla has yet to turn a profit, and the company's research and development has largely been funded through investors, not product sales, the analyst noted.
Federal investigators are currently probing the May death of Joshua Brown, a Model S owner who was driving on Autopilot in Florida when the system failed to recognize a white tractor-trailer turning in front of his vehicle. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is studying the crash to evaluate the design and performance of the self-driving feature. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the accident.
Consumer advocacy groups asked Tesla to cool down the hype of Autopilot and disable its hands-free mode until the system is safer. One group asked for mandatory federal standards on self-driving technology to replace the voluntary guidelines now in place.
Musk vigorously defended the Autopilot system, saying it is safer than a human-driven car. "It would no more make sense to disable Tesla's Autopilot, as some have called for, than it would to disable autopilot in aircraft, after which our system is named," he wrote.
Musk said a network of shared vehicles will become available when refined self-driving features are approved by regulators. He envisions drivers summoning their Teslas with a tap of a button, or just as easily adding the vehicles to a network to rent out.
The company expects regulators to approve self-driving technology after about 6 billion miles of road experience, with the Tesla fleet accumulating about 3 million miles daily. At that rate, the company would expect regulations to change in five or six years. Musk hyped the plan on social media during the past week, once tweeting he was staying up all night to finish the piece. Later, he tweeted tongue-in-cheek that he was polishing the final version to the soundtrack of The Great Gatsby. "Seems appropriate," he wrote, adding, "not easy to convey irony in a tweet."
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©2016 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
