In those years, Musk "bragged the bull"

At 5:28 a.m. Beijing time on March 2, at the Tesla Investor Day event, Tesla announced the company's latest progress, including the new factory in Mexico and Tesla's future target annual output of 20 million units; The use of new automobile manufacturing processes has reduced costs in half, etc.

At this year's investor day, Tesla did not release new cars, only teasing two mystery cars in the form of demo images. This may disappoint many Tesla fans, and Tesla's shares are down more than 5% after hours.

However, the highlight of the event was Musk's announcement of the third chapter of his "grand plan" - the sustainable energy civilization plan. Will this be Musk blowing down the latest "bull" again? And what "cattle" did he blow before? Which ones have been implemented? What didn't materialize?

Today, Sanyan will take you to briefly talk about this topic.

Is the "grand plan" "bragging"?

Since Musk's "grand plan" is mentioned first, let's start with it.

In 2006, Musk proposed the first chapter of his grand plan, which planned to build a supercar, develop a car that Volkswagen can afford, and then develop a cheaper car and provide solar power products.

Roaster

Looking back now, the completion of the first chapter of Musk's grand plan is actually the highest. In the past ten years, Tesla has successively launched and released Roadster small sports cars, Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y models, covering all consumer classes.

In terms of solar power, Tesla acquired photovoltaic power generation project company SolarCity in 2016, and then launched the solar roof SolarRoof, which can provide clean energy for homes.

At present, the planning in the first chapter of Tesla's grand plan has been basically realized, and various businesses are developing in an orderly manner.

In 2016, Musk unveiled the second chapter of his grand plan: developing more efficient solar panels, opening up the electric vehicle segment, promoting the development of autonomous driving technology and promoting car sharing.

Compared with the first chapter of the grand plan, the completion of the second chapter is relatively reduced. In terms of solar panels, Tesla has launched a variety of solar roof products.

Tesla solar roof

At the beginning of 2020, Tesla announced that it would take photovoltaic as its main business and implement a solar roof layout internationally. In the same year, Tesla posted recruitment information on China's recruitment website, and its domestic official website now has a solar cell roof-related product introduction.

Semi electric truck

In terms of the electric vehicle segment, in recent years, Tesla has successively launched Cybertruck pickup trucks and Semi electric trucks. However, the former has not yet been mass-produced and commercialized, and the Semi truck has been pointed out by many owners that there are many problems such as being divorced from actual use scenarios and having many shortcomings.

In terms of self-driving technology, Tesla previously launched the $15,000 fully autonomous driving test kit FSD. However, according to a document from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Tesla FSD Beta system may increase the risk of vehicle collisions. As a result, Tesla had to recall nearly 363,000 vehicles.

At present, Tesla has stopped selling the system in the United States.

Little has been reported about its car-sharing program.

Under the premise that the second chapter has not yet been fully realized, the third chapter of Musk's grand plan looks more like "bragging" and even marginal.

The third chapter of the ambitious plan mentions that 80% of energy consumption currently comes from chemical fuels, but the energy efficiency of chemical fuels is very low, only about 30%. In addition, the large amount of fugitive heat generated by chemical fuels is not used efficiently. Therefore, electrification is the future direction of mankind.

Specifically, adding renewable energy to existing power grids, producing more electric vehicles, installing heat pumps in homes and buildings, using high-temperature heat transport and hydrogen for industry, and building sustainably fueled aircraft and ships.

Musk said that to realize this vision, it is necessary to expand global energy storage capacity to 240TWh and plan to invest $10 trillion. At the same time, Tesla plans to increase annual production to 20 million vehicles in 2030.

How "outrageous" is the third chapter of the Grand Plan?

In May 2022, according to Benchmark Mineral intelligence data, in the next decade, the global lithium-ion battery production capacity can reach more than 6Twh; In December 2022, the Institute of Advanced Industry expects that the domestic lithium battery market shipments will exceed 1TWh in 2023.

In addition, according to media reports, Tesla's energy storage deployment in 2022 increased by 64% year-on-year, reaching 6.5GWh, equivalent to 0.0065TWh.

Therefore, it will take at least decades or even centuries for Musk to achieve the goal of 240TWh.

In terms of production, it is also a long way to achieve the goal of 20 million vehicles per year by 2030.

At present, Tesla's global factory has an annual production capacity of about 1.9 million vehicles, and there are six factories in total, but only four of them produce cars. Then, even with an annual output of 2 million vehicles, at least 40 factories are required to reach a production capacity of 20 million. This does not take into account the entire electric vehicle industry chain.

This year is 2023, only 7 years away from 2030, how big is the performance to build dozens of factories and put them into operation in 7 years?

Finally, $10 trillion in investment is by no means small. You know, with a GDP of $25.46 trillion in 2022 and an investment of $10 trillion, it is difficult for even the richest companies to achieve it quickly.

Therefore, the third chapter of Musk's grand plan looks like "bragging".

The "bull" that Musk bragged about in those years

Looking at Musk's grand plan, it seems that the first two chapters have been realized to some extent. But if you break down the planned plans, many of them are not fully realized.

1. Produce a mass-market car

The $35,000 (about 226,000 yuan) Model 3 marks Tesla's move towards popularization. But in fact, for a long time, the Model 3 sold for more than $40,000, and if taxes and additional feature fees are included, it can reach $50,000.

2. Roadster

The Tesla Roadster was its first small sports car, and according to the first chapter of the grand plan, the revenue from the sale of the car will be used to develop a more popular successor.

But in fact, the Roadster was delayed after its launch, and production was stopped for a time due to the launch of the Model S. Tesla was not officially released until November 17, 2017, and officially delivered in 2020.

3. Fully driverless

In October 2016, Musk said that fully autonomous driving would be achieved within two to three years. But today, seven years later, this function has been mired in great controversy due to many accidents, and it is still some time before it is fully realized.

4. Tesla Robotaxi Network

In October 2019, Musk said that more than 1 million Robotaxis would be on the road by the end of 2020. At that time, Tesla owners can make money by providing self-driving, on-demand driving services. However, this "idea" apparently did not happen.

5. Next generation battery

In September 2020, Musk introduced a 4680 lithium battery, which he advertised was about the size of a beer can, cost 56% less, and had 5 times the energy of existing batteries.

At the time, Musk said that the company's laboratory in Silicon Valley was conducting small-batch trial production, which may be large-scale and large-scale production within the next year or two. But the timing of production is unknown.

At present, there is still no further news about the 4680 lithium battery.

6. Solar industry

After Tesla acquired SolarCity, it has always said that it attaches great importance to the solar industry. In 2016, Tesla said it planned to produce 1 gigawatt-hour of solar panels per year.

But in 2020, Tesla reported that only 205 megawatts of solar panels were delivered, a quarter of SolarCity's installed capacity in 2016.

7. The underground tunnel that is not jammed with traffic is jammed

In order to solve the traffic jam problem, Musk's "Boring Comany" proposed the use of underground tunnels for point-to-point driving, and advertised that the speed of driving up to 250km/h would "completely solve the traffic jam problem".

However, in 2022, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, many viewers chose to experience the LVCC Loop underground tunnel of boring companies, but found that the tunnel that advertised "no traffic jams" was also jammed.

According to reports, many spectators had to queue up in the tunnel for the vehicle in front of them, which was even more unbearable than the traffic jam on the ground.

In addition, when the LVCC underground tunnel opened in May 2021, the top speed was only 64km/h, far lower than the advertised 250km/h. And it's not self-driving, and drivers are still required to provide services.

In fact, Musk's underground tunnel project seems to be a subway.

8. Send 80,000 Martian migrants

In 2012, Musk announced that he would use 15 to 20 years to send 80,000 people to Mars to settle.

At present, there are only 4 years left before 2027, the transformation of the Mars environment has not yet begun, and there is no manned spacecraft to fly to Mars, I don't know whether Musk's plan to colonize Mars can be realized.

9. 42,000 Starlink satellites

Musk said in 2015 that Starlink would launch 42,000 satellites between 2019 and 2023. But as of 2022, just over 3,000 satellites are in orbit.

10. Send humans into space to fly around the moon

In 2017, Musk said he would send two humans to space for a lunar flight in 2018, but the plan has not materialized until today.

11. The lunar base will be completed in 2025

In 2018, Musk responded to netizens about the construction time of the lunar base and said that the lunar base would be completed in 2025. But at present, the US plan to land on the moon again has not been implemented.

12. Achieve the "Dragon" powered landing

In 2015, Musk said that the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft would achieve a powered landing, but announced in 2017 that he would abandon the program.

13. Two-stage rocket recovery

In 2016, Musk announced that he would complete the second-stage rocket recovery program; It was abandoned in November 2018.

14. Manned lunar landing

In 2018, Musk made bold statements that he would achieve starship orbit in 2020, cargo landing on the moon in 2022, and manned lunar landing in 2023.

Obviously, this time it may be another "pie painting".

Some of Musk's "bragging bulls" can indeed be achieved in a short period of time through hard work, but some are also somewhat imaginary.

In this regard, some people think that Musk relies on constantly "drawing pies" to obtain financing; Some people admire Musk's admiration for the five bodies, believing that his "bragging" will be realized sooner or later.

Listing|Three Words Pro Author|DorAemon