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Elon Musk has released his second master plan for his electric car company Tesla, and he has some pretty ambitious goals.




Musk has done this once before, in 2006, where he outlined his goals for the company and his plans to build what eventually became the Model X and Model S cars.

Now, Elon wants to create a “solar-roof-with-battery product that just works.” This vision, Musk explained, is why he is seeking to merge his solar energy company, Solar City, into Tesla. Telsa last year announced stationary storage batteries for homeowners wanting to rely less on the power grid. “Now that Tesla is ready to scale Powerwall and SolarCity is ready to provide highly differentiated solar, the time has come to bring them together,” Musk said.


Musk also outlined his vision for Tesla owners to be part of a car-sharing system.

“You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you’re at work or on vacation, significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost,” Musk wrote. “This dramatically lowers the true cost of ownership to the point where almost anyone could own a Tesla.”

Musk also teased at his plans to dominate the entire car market, not just a fragment, and said the company was working on “heavy-duty trucks” and “high passenger-density urban transit.”

“Both are in the early stages of development at Tesla and should be ready for unveiling next year,” Musk wrote. “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.”


Musk also took a second to rail against those who are calling for their somewhat controversial Autopilot feature to be disabled.

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. It is also important to explain why we refer to Autopilot as “beta”. This is not beta software in any normal sense of the word. Every release goes through extensive internal validation before it reaches any customers. It is called beta in order to decrease complacency and indicate that it will continue to improve (Autopilot is always off by default). Once we get to the point where Autopilot is approximately 10 times safer than the US vehicle average, the beta label will be removed.


One thing is for sure, the Autopilot feature is a legal nightmare.

Here’s the summary of Musk’s plan:

So, in short, Master Plan, Part Deux is: -Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage -Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments -Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning -Enable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it

Correction: 7/20/16 9:39 PM EST:

An earlier version of this story said Musk was working on plans for a solar-powered car. Musk apparently meant solar roofs on buildings and homes, not cars. We’ve emailed Tesla for clarification. We regret the error.


[Tesla]