Header image source: network
Elon Musk's life experience, like those great industrialists who changed the world, can be written into novels and put on the screen thousands of times.
However, Musk is also extremely controversial, and in some eyes, he can be a god, because he crosses some of the world's high-tech, most difficult, and most whimsical industries, such as electric vehicles, space exploration, satellite launches, solar energy applications, sustainable energy storage, artificial intelligence, etc., no matter which one alone needs to spend huge money and decades to overcome; In the eyes of others, Musk may be a "ticket skipping king" who is happy and self-defeating, and a businessman who wears the mask of hypocrisy to save mankind.
To understand the underlying logical thinking of one of the world's most ambitious people, one must look at Musk's "secret grand plan."
Musk recently announced on social media that Tesla Master Plan 3 "Secret Ambition Third Chapter" will be officially released on March 1, North American time. He tweeted "The path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth."
Source: Twitter
Before revealing the third part, it is necessary to understand the first and second parts, because each step of the great dream is disassembled according to the goal and commercialized step by step. Why does Musk do so much across borders? How much impact did each of his "ten-year plans" have on the entire industry? How much of the "big pie" that was once drawn, when you look at it today, has it been achieved?
#01 Chapter 1
- Disrupting the automotive industry?
Musk's first grand plan was published on August 2, 2006, and was titled "Tesla's Secret Ambition (You Know Me It)." The focus of the plan is to focus on electric vehicles in four steps:
Today, except for the fourth step, the other three steps have been basically completed by 2016. The fourth step involves solar projects, which will not be promoted until Musk's second grand plan.
Just four years later (2020), Tesla's market capitalization surpassed Toyota for the first time, and ten years after going public, it became the world's largest automaker by market capitalization.
It's no exaggeration to say that Tesla is a disruptor in the automotive industry. You know, before Tesla, the last successful American car startup was named Chrysler, which was founded in 1925. Before Tesla, the last successful American car company was called Ford, which went public in 1956. The industry hasn't had a successful brand in nearly a hundred years. More importantly, since Ford produced the famous Model T, electric vehicles have become a technical solution abandoned by the mainstream of the industry.
It's no wonder Musk publicly said at the time, "Starting a car company is idiotic stupidity, and starting an electric car company is stupid." ”
For most traditional car companies at that time, if they could gradually innovate, they should not start from scratch. Because of the large technical investment and high production cost of building an electric vehicle from scratch, "oil to electricity" was the mainstream practice at that time. In order to save costs and volume, most car companies will make the battery smaller, with an average range of less than 200 kilometers, and "mileage anxiety" has become the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of the industry. Of course, for those car companies that build new energy vehicles to cheat subsidies or have other intentions, they don't care about these at all.
At that time, Tesla started from scratch, compared with giants such as Toyota, Volkswagen, and General Motors, with no money, no people, and no resources. But it also has a natural advantage: no baggage. As a result, Tesla changed the entire platform architecture and was the only car company that directly connected more than 7,000 laptop batteries together.
It is very difficult to manage these small batteries, and it is easy to have temperature, charge, voltage imbalance between individuals, resulting in battery life and safety problems, and Tesla's gradually developed battery management system effectively solves the above problems, which has become one of Tesla's core competitiveness in the future.
Solved the problem of endurance and performance, the cost was a problem that Musk did not want to solve at that time, and could not be solved, so he simply entered the luxury sports car market, and the user group focused on those high-income groups and celebrities with environmental awareness and social responsibility.
"Because the money I made from my PayPal was only enough to support the first step! At the time, I thought our chances of success were low, and I didn't want to risk anyone's money. In a later open letter, Musk explained this.
But that doesn't mean Musk only gives rich man-made toys. When Musk was making the Roadster sports car, he repeatedly told employees that this was not the company's real mission. The role of the Roadster is to show how good electric cars can be, and on the other hand, to invest the cash flow earned in research on relatively cheaper models later.
The first generation Tesla Roadster Source: Web
In the years since, Musk has been studying cost reduction. To cut the price of electric cars in half, Musk began building a $5 billion site called the Gigafactory in June 2014. According to estimates, the super battery factory can reduce Tesla's battery cost by 30% in the early stage, and this number will be even larger in the future with the evolution of technology and the further increase of production capacity. Relying on these means and initiatives, the outside world has seen the Model 3 starting at $35,000.
It can be said that Tesla's success in the field of electric vehicles has indeed played a role in educating the market. In the past few years, the Chinese market and Tesla have been mutual achievements, and new automakers such as Wei Xiaoli have followed Tesla's footsteps. The development of new energy vehicles has changed the pattern of the past, and China's new energy vehicle production and sales have ranked first in the world for many years.
Tesla is contributing to the Chinese automotive industry. And this year, Tesla's big price reduction has stirred up the Chinese auto circle, even in the case of national subsidies, many car companies have followed up to reduce prices, which makes electric vehicles completely become a product of the market mechanism, users can choose more while enjoying discounts.
Source: Tesla official
"Helping society transition from an economy that burns oil and coal for energy to one that uses solar energy." This is a goal Musk made clear before 2006.
#02 Second chapter
- Strengthening energy and autonomous driving
10 years after the launch of the first grand plan (2016), Musk released the second grand plan. According to his own Twitter account, it took only 11 days to think and write the second grand plan.
The second grand plan consists mainly of two parts: the first is to collect data through multiple models of pure electric vehicles, so that vehicles can learn to drive autonomously 10 times safer than humans, and launch driverless taxi services on these driving technologies; The second block is to promote solar power generation and energy storage.
It's been more than 7 years now, how is the degree of completion? Compared with the first part, the completion of the second part is not so high.
The first delivery of the pure electric truck Semi in December 2022 Source: Tesla official
The relatively high degree of completion is "expanding Tesla's new energy vehicle product line to all major market segments". At present, Tesla's product lineup covers major ground vehicles, including Model S/Model Y for luxury cars/SUVs, Model 3 for the mid-size car market, Semi, a pure electric truck focusing on commercial vehicles, and a pure electric pickup truck Cybertruck.
At present, Tesla has not launched products in the field of entry-level electric vehicles or compact electric vehicles, but Musk has revealed that the cost of Tesla's next-generation product platform is expected to be only half of the Model 3 and Model Y platforms, and sales will be the sum of Tesla's models on sale.
The second part also emphasizes the emphasis on the solar business. In 2016, Musk did not hesitate to stand against all shareholders and insisted on spending $2.8 billion to acquire Solar city, a home photovoltaic power generation company. By October 2019, the company had launched the third version of the solar roof tile, which sold for 40% lower price than its predecessor.
In the US domestic market, Tesla has completed the closed loop of solar energy into clean energy through a product portfolio of solar roofs, Powerwall energy storage devices, and home charging piles. In China, Tesla has launched integrated charging stations in Lhasa and Shanghai, converting sunlight into electricity, storing energy through Powerwall energy storage devices, and finally using the stored energy to charge vehicles. If one day you really want to wander the earth and walk alone on the moon, solar cars may be able to come in handy.
According to the data, in 2022, Tesla set a new record for the delivery of 1.31 million Tesla electric vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 40%; The installed capacity of energy storage business reached 6.5 GWh, an increase of 64% year-on-year. Meanwhile, Tesla deployed a total of 348MW of solar equipment in 2022, the highest level since 2017. It can be said that Musk has basically completed the first two steps of the second part.
Source: Tesla official
And the drag of the second grand plan is mainly in driverless taxis. In 2019, Musk said that he was "very confident" that Tesla would be able to provide self-driving taxis in 2020, and the number of self-driving taxis on the road in 2020 will exceed 1 million. But obviously, this prediction is a little too confident, and Tesla has not been able to do it to this day.
The driverless taxi Tesla wants to launch will be a design without pedals and steering wheel at all. This is more radical than all the driverless taxis in operation today. This may be the reason why the plan has not yet been implemented.
Musk acknowledged in a 2016 open letter that "the FSD that Tesla now adopts is still assisted driving", but he believes that assisted driving is already much safer than human driving if used correctly. Therefore, delaying publication simply for fear of adverse media coverage or commercial legal liability is morally reprehensible.
The difficulty of developing autonomous driving is like climbing Mount Everest. At that time, there were two routes in the industry, one was the car company represented by Tesla, which chose a gradual route and gradually went from L2 to L4 through large-scale front-loading mass production; The other is that autonomous driving companies represented by Waymo drive down uncertain human drivers and go directly to L4.
Source: Network
However, with the difficulty of commercializing L4 autonomous driving, the valuation of autonomous driving companies shrinking and business contraction, from 2022, many companies have transformed and turned to the Tesla route, reducing the dimension from L4 to L2. The industry has also reached a consensus that a single "sea of stars" business model has proven to be unworkable at the moment, and only by monetizing the technical chips in hand can we survive.
Unlike other companies, Musk has even completely abandoned high-spec lidar. Musk's logic is very simple, human drivers rely on visible light vision to achieve safe driving, and computers must also rely on ordinary people's vision to achieve safer driving. However, in view of the sharp increase in complaints about ghost brakes in recent years, Tesla may be equipped with 4D millimeter-wave radar that costs only 10% of lidar for safety and redundancy.
Cost reduction is the first principle that Musk has been using. With better control over the cost of Autopilot systems, Tesla has collected far more real data than other companies. In 2022, Tesla's FSD update speed has increased significantly, and FSD test vehicles have increased from 2,000 in 2021 to 160,000 in 2022, which means that it has achieved 80-fold growth in one year.
As for the last step of the second part - how to make the car idle and share it to earn you money. The logic here is that only when FSD is mature enough that Robotaxi is launched, owners can add their cars to the Tesla car-sharing network at their leisure and send them out to earn money as driverless taxi operations.
Tesla ecological chain Source: Tesla official
At present, Musk has only completed the first and second steps relatively well, and many of the plans for the third and fourth steps are too large, and it may take seven or eight years to basically complete. The main reason is that Level 4 autonomous driving is not a technical issue at all, but more of a legal, ethical, political, social and economic issue.
#03 Chapter 3
- The road ahead is bright?
Many people think that Musk made Tesla electric cars to subvert the automotive industry, but this is precisely the biggest misunderstanding about him and underestimates Musk's true landscape. In Musk's "ultimate mission" territory, electric vehicles are just a link, one piece of the puzzle.
Musk has always dreamed of colonizing Mars, and all other dreams are the means to achieve this ultimate dream. Musk has not revealed much about the third grand plan, but we can still boldly guess that it must be closely related to Martian immigration.
In fact, Musk revealed a year ago that he was working on a grand plan for the third part of Tesla, which is the three key words: extreme scale, getting rid of fossil energy, and artificial intelligence. In addition, there is SpaceX and The Boring Company.
In summary, there are two purposes behind these disclosure links: one is from the earth to Mars, and from Mars back to the earth; The second is how to live on Mars.
The first part is guaranteed by SpaceX. In terms of rocket launches, SpaceX's current level is the first in the world, and it is significantly ahead of the second in the world. In 2022, SpaceX flew a total of 186 rocket launches around the world, including 87 in the United States and 64 in China.
SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Crew-6 Source: SpaceX official
Just a few days ago, Musk mentioned in response to a question from netizens that "if the next test goes well, SpaceX will try to launch the next generation of heavy launch vehicle system 'Starship' in March."
Starship is a reusable, two-stage orbital heavy rocket launch system that aims to carry large quantities of supplies between Earth and space, the Moon, and even between Earth and Mars. Musk has revealed that the largest launch vehicle starship in history can carry 100 passengers and supplies at a time, and plans to build at least 1,000 starships in the future to send groups of pioneers to Mars to build a self-sufficient city.
And the other part, how to live on Mars? More steps are required here.
First of all, human beings really came to Mars, Mars is listed without air, and the sound of communication between people cannot be transmitted through the air, which requires electromagnetic waves and brain-computer interconnection. So Musk founded Neuralink, an independent brain-computer connectivity company.
Source: SpaceX official
The second is to get rid of fossil energy, the main energy on Mars must be self-supply, Musk's Solar City company, and the related sustainable energy ecology and energy storage part, it is predicted that more details will be revealed at the investment conference in a few days.
In addition to these, Musk has several tech companies. The Boring Company, for example, is studying high-speed travel underground. Although the company has yet to show its lead, it has opened a dedicated tunnel in Las Vegas, USA. It can be understood that once the city of Mars begins, The Boring Company's technology and experience will help humans establish a base on Mars faster.
The Boring's two-tunnel system built underground in the Las Vegas exhibition center (Source: The Boring official)
Finally, on Mars, most of the construction cannot rely on manpower, so Tesla robots can play a role. So how do you control a Tesla robot to complete complex operations? What basic operations do these robots have to learn in order for humans to complete the construction of living areas on Mars?
Presumably, Musk has already considered experimenting with Tesla's Gigafactory. Among the existing 4 gigafactories, Tesla has a more competitive option to be developed, which is to replace human labor with robots.
Tesla humanoid robot "Optimus" Source: Tesla official
This robot is not just a robotic arm in an automated workshop, but a Tesla robot with more visual functions. At the 2022 AI Day event, Musk brought the world premiere of the Tesla Bot humanoid robot "Optimus" prototype. In the office, it can flexibly lift the kettle to water flowers, carry materials to the target location with both hands, accurately locate the people around and actively avoid them. It is worth mentioning that in Tesla's Fremont factory, Optimus has begun to put into simple work, and engineers have planned a corresponding course of action for it.
Musk emphasized "extreme scale" in the third part. He has previously revealed his goal of producing 20 million vehicles per year by 2030, when Tesla will have 10-12 gigafactories, which produce an average of 1.5-2 million vehicles per year; Cumulative deliveries are expected to exceed 100 million units in ten years.
Tesla Gigafactory Source: Tesla official
If a bunch of robots have developed a knack in the factory, can make batteries, can make cars, in fact, it is equivalent to many basic actions and the algorithms behind them have withstood the test. These robots are the ones best suited to the task of building Mars living areas.
"I want to die on Mars." Musk once said, "I want to visit there and come back for a while, and then go back when I'm about 70 so I can live there forever." If it goes well, that's how everything goes. ”
From the grand plan, the third part is definitely farther away than the second part. How exactly will Musk's next "pie" be drawn? On March 1, Car Market Story will continue to pay attention to and reveal.