Over a decade ago, in 2006, on my birthday (not related, but I’m just saying), August 2, Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted ‘The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)‘.
Tesla Master Plan
Elon Musk wrote a two-part “super-secret Master Plan” for Tesla that the company has been following fairly closely over the last 14 years.
Tesla already unveiled almost all of the vehicles that Musk announced in the plan… except for one.
The main points of the plan were:
- Create a low volume car, which would necessarily be expensive
- Use that money to develop a medium volume car at a lower price
- Use that money to create an affordable, high volume car, and…
- Provide solar power. No kidding, this has literally been on our website for 10 years.
With the Roadster, Model S, Model 3, and Tesla Energy, Tesla has mostly completed that original plan – although they are still working on higher volumes for both Model 3 and Tesla Energy.
In July 2016, Musk followed up with a ‘Tesla Master Plan Part 2’.
In this new plan 3 years ago, Musk laid out Tesla’s plan to expand solar and energy storage, launch a future compact SUV and a new kind of pickup truck.
Today, the company has made great progress on all of those projects, with new solar products, like solar roof tiles, new energy storage products, like Megapack, the new compact SUV turned out to be the Model Y unveiled earlier this year and the “new kind of pickup truck” was the Cybertruck unveiled last month.
Musk’s plans also included Tesla’s ambitious initiative to have autonomous cars in a shared fleet, which Musk now says should happen by the end of next year.
The CEO recently said that Cybertruck is Tesla’s last new product for ‘awhile’, but there’s actually one more vehicle that was in his plan that Tesla has yet to unveil.
Tesla Electric Transit Vehicle
In ‘Tesla Master Plan Part 2’, Musk talked about two other segments Tesla is looking to electrify:
“In addition to consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle needed: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport. Both are in the early stages of development at Tesla and should be ready for unveiling next year. We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.”
Tesla did end up unveiling the Tesla Semi, the “heavy-duty truck”, but it never unveiled a vehicle for “high passenger-density urban transport.”
Musk has talked about Tesla making an electric minibus based on the Model X before, but it didn’t come to fruition.
It’s the only electric vehicle that is officially part of the Tesla Master Plan and that the automaker has yet to officially unveil.
