The Tesla community is abuzz with speculation about the future of electric vehicles after the EV maker’s CEO Elon Musk dropped clues about what may be included in a major announcement scheduled three weeks from today.
In a tweet promoting Tesla’s upcoming “Investor Day”, which will be held on March 1st, the Musk said: “Master Plan 3, the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth will be presented on March 1. The future is bright!”
Master Plan 3, the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth will be presented on March 1.
The future is bright! pic.twitter.com/11ug0LRlbD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2023
The tweet appears to confirm speculation that Tesla will announce its 3rd generation vehicle platform at the event.
There’s been a lot of speculation over the new platform, with many Tesla observers saying it could be the one that enables the much-anticipated $US25,000 ($A36,000) electric model.
Known for slipping clues and hidden meanings into their communications, many Tesla followers were guessing what the background image on the tweet could mean.
Sandy Munro and Cory Steuben from Munro & Associates, famous for their Tesla teardowns and deep analysis of Tesla’s technology and manufacturing, pointed out that the background image was actually a pattern of body sides stacked in assembly racks for production.
The pair quickly noted that the pattern contained of 39 rows and 17 columns. The assembly racks hold 8 car’s worth of body sides gives 5,304. Sandy Munro then noted that that’s probably about a day’s worth of production which gives 1,935,960 worth of annual production.
Tesla produced 1.3 million EVs in 2022 and is aiming for at lease 1.8 million in 2023.
We figured out the @Tesla announcement full video out now on @live_munro pic.twitter.com/2B5yThirOD
— Sandy Munro (@teardowntitan) February 8, 2023
That the image appears to focus on manufacturing suggests that Tesla is set to release detail about its third generation platform which would enable significant ramping of volume production.
If you know, you know. @elonmusk @teslaownersSV @live_munro pic.twitter.com/QYMiFbIoPM
— Cory Steuben (@CorySteuben) February 8, 2023
This ties in with recent announcements that Tesla is also significantly ramping battery production at it’s Giga Nevada factory
Tesla’s original Master Plan (part 1)
It’s been 17 years since Elon Musk published Tesla’s original “Master Plan” in which he laid out the company’s overarching strategy of starting with high-cost/low-volume and moving to low-cost/high-volume. In the famous blog post Musk said:
“The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model.”
Musk’s 2006 blog post finishes with a “more detailed” version of the original plan:
“So, in short, the master plan is:
- Build sports car
- Use that money to build an affordable car
- Use that money to build an even more affordable car
- While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options
Don’t tell anyone.”
Master Plan, Part Deux
In 2016, 10 years after the original Master Plan Musk then posted “Master Plan, Part Deux”. The objective of the second plan was to accelerate the process.
“By definition, we must at some point achieve a sustainable energy economy or we will run out of fossil fuels to burn and civilization will collapse. Given that we must get off fossil fuels anyway and that virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane, the faster we achieve sustainability, the better.”
The second plan outlines Tesla’s objectives to develop:
- Integrate Energy Generation and Storage
- Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport
- Autonomy
- Sharing
Master Plan 3, “the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth”
17 years on and no one can argue that Tesla hasn’t executed it’s original plan to perfection and “Part Deux” seems to be coming along nicely.
It now seems that we’ll get to hear details about Tesla’s Master Plan 3 on March 1st. From what we’ve heard so far, it sounds like it will all be able scaling production with the 3rd generation platform and bringing an affordable high-quality electric vehicle to market.
Daniel Bleakley is a clean technology researcher and advocate with a background in engineering and business. He has a strong interest in electric vehicles, renewable energy, manufacturing and public policy.