Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

March 2 (Xinhua) on Wednesday, local time, Elon Elon Musk unveiled a vision for the third chapter of the so-called "Secret Grand Plan" at Tesla Investor Day, claiming that it would outline "a bright path to a fully sustainable energy future on Earth." This sounds exhilarating, but before we start this new era, we need to review the success or failure of the first and second chapters of Secret Grand Plan. How is Musk doing with his plan? Did he achieve his expected goal?

On the whole, the first chapter of Secret Grand Plan is widely regarded as a success, but many of the planned contents of the second chapter have gone off track. Andrew Hawkins, a reporter for the US technology media The Verge, discussed the implementation of the two parts of the plan with news writer and Tesla owner Umar Shakir, and rated them.

The first chapter of "Secret Grand Plan" scored B + the first chapter of "Secret Grand Plan" was published on Tesla's blog on August 2, 2006, entitled "Tesla's Secret Master Plan". Although Musk joked that Tesla's strategic plan should not be kept secret, it was important that when the plan was released, it would take two years for Tesla's first car, the Roadster, to go into production. Mr Musk was not even Tesla's chief executive at the time, a position held by co-founder Martin Eberhard. Musk was the head of SpaceX at the time, but in essence, he announced the master plan to the world as chairman and chief product officer of Tesla.

According to Musk's blog post, the following is the basic content of the first chapter of Secret Grand Plan:

-- production of sports cars

Use the money you earn to produce cars at affordable prices

-- and then use the money earned to produce cars with more affordable prices

-- while achieving the above goals, zero-emission power generation options are also provided

Shaker believes that the first chapter of Tesla's Secret Grand Plan has been a great success. It accurately outlines the company's goal of moving from selling sports cars worth more than $100000 to selling a more practical family car, the Model S. With Model 3, Tesla was expected to achieve his goal of building more affordable cars.

However, the initial Model 3 model for 2017-2018 was priced at more than $52000. Tesla promised a cheaper model, and the $35000 Model 3 finally went on sale, but it was only sold for a few months and was treated as a special order. Shaker said that because the cars were produced on a small scale, he thought the cost could be quite high.

In spite of this, it is undeniable that the first chapter of Tesla's "Secret Grand Plan" has had a significant impact on the wider automobile industry. At first, the auto industry was content to launch experimental electric cars, or to design electric vehicles only for compliance in California. Shaker has two electric cars, the Nissan Leaf and the Ford Electric Focus, but they are more like experimental models.

Source: Tesla's official website Tesla's initial corporate mission is to "accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation." the first chapter of "Secret Grand Plan" maximizes the support of this claim. Now, the United States has legislation to subsidize car owners who buy electric cars and encourage automakers to produce electric cars. At the same time, there are many cool electric cars, such as Mustang Mach-E, Rivian R1T and so on, but more affordable electric vehicles are still not available.

The first chapter of Secret Grand Plan is a victory for Tesla, as well as for Musk. Musk and the company's followers believe that the realization of this "super-secret plan" proves that the company is omnipotent. Shaker admitted that even he was fascinated and that Tesla's publicity prompted him to queue up to book the 2016 release of Model 3, something that had never happened in the auto industry before.

However, in Hawkins' view, the process of implementing the first chapter of Tesla's Secret Grand Plan was not plain sailing. Tesla went through the so-called "production hell" to bring Model 3 to market, which almost led to Tesla's bankruptcy. In order to achieve his goal, Musk almost pushed his employees to the extreme. Although the ultimate goal has been achieved, the cost is huge, at least for employees. This can be seen in various lawsuits against Tesla, including poor working conditions, racial discrimination, gender discrimination and a series of work-related injuries.

With these in mind, Hawkins thinks that the first chapter of Tesla's Secret Grand Plan can be rated as B +. This means that this part of the plan has been largely successful, but as Shaker points out, the failure to deliver on the original promise of a $35000 car cost Tesla some points. Shaker also gave a B + score, deducting points on the same grounds that Tesla failed to launch the cheapest Model model as promised.

Score for the second chapter of "Secret Grand Plan" in July 2016, Musk released the second chapter of Tesla's "Secret Grand Plan", which includes:

-- create amazingly efficient, beautiful solar panels with integrated power storage functions

Expand the product line of electric vehicles to meet the needs of various market segments

Through a large number of fleet learning functions, self-driving technology has been developed, which is 10 times safer than human manual driving.

-- make money for car owners by sharing when the vehicle is idle

Disappointingly, the second chapter of Secret Grand Plan ran into trouble immediately after it was released. Just a few months after the plan was announced, Tesla released his solar roof products. Tesla's acquisition of SolarCity, a solar company owned by Musk's relatives, was supposed to bolster Tesla's solar ambitions. But things went against one's wishes, and the result was not entirely satisfactory.

Can people buy Tesla solar roof today? Yes, of course. But Tesla's promotion progress has been extremely slow, with solar products currently accounting for less than 5 per cent of Tesla's income. In 2021, dozens of solar roof customers were shocked to find that Tesla had raised prices, sometimes doubling them. Since then, the company has slashed installations, pulled out of several major markets and scaled back its solar ambitions in general.

Source: the second disappointment on Tesla's official website is that Tesla no longer sells his Roadster sports car. This in itself is fine, after all, the company needs to do its best to meet the models that ordinary people will actually buy. The Model S is a fairly large family car that can even choose a rear seat for children. But more and more families are buying SUV.

As a result, Tesla began mass production of the Model X when he released the second chapter of Secret Grand Plan, which is more spacious for home users and uses the same manufacturing platform as Model S. However, the Model X is more expensive than the Model S, and not everyone likes it, mainly because of its gorgeous FWD. These doors are prone to mechanical failures and accidents.

In order to make up for the deficiency of Model X, Tesla set his sights on Model Y. The car can be produced on the Model 3 platform, but adds height and positions itself as a more popular compact SUV category. The Model Y is now the best-selling Tesla model, and it is of great significance, even though it is actually a taller premium version of the Model 3.

Tesla already has his own family car product, but before the launch of Model Y, it also released an electric truck Semi and a beautiful second-generation Roadster to meet the needs of the niche supercar market. After a long delay, the electric truck Semi is finally on the road, at least on the highway. However, the plan for Tesla's new sports car seems to have been postponed indefinitely.

Finally, there is an electric pickup truck CyberTruck. Tesla urgently needs to launch the first modern all-electric pickup truck to compete with the top-selling pickup truck in the United States. However, the development of the electric pickup truck came to a standstill after the window glass was broken by a metal ball in the demonstration.

After several delays and more than three years after the initial announcement, Mr Musk said CyberTruck would start delivery this summer, although he hinted that mass production would not take place until next year. At the same time, people are turning to electric pickups that are already on the road, including the Riyan R1T and the Ford FMUI 150 Lightning. The Chevrolet Silverado is also likely to be delivered to customers before CyberTruck.

According to Hawkins, the biggest failure of the second chapter of Secret Grand Plan is that it makes us place high hopes on "urban traffic with high passenger density", but it has never been realized. Mr Musk said at the time that Tesla was working on the Semi and some kind of urban transport, which is likely to be an electric bus, both of which would be launched "next year", that is, 2017. Of course, Musk has expressed his dissatisfaction with public transport quite openly. He admitted to biographers that he first came up with the idea of super-high-speed rail to get California lawmakers to cancel the state's high-speed rail plan.

At the same time, Musk seems to be fascinated by Tesla's idea of creating "city street elevators" that people can take in Tesla's car through an underground tunnel built by his digging company Boring Company. But even this idea has been watered down now, with only a small number of Tesla cars driving in very narrow tunnels.

As for the last two goals of the second chapter of Secret Grand Plan, fully automatic driving (FSD) software can be called a very advanced driver assistance system, but it can not achieve full automatic driving of the vehicle. Indeed, the ability of FSD is sometimes so strong that many Tesla owners like it. But it is still only a L2-level driver assistance system that requires continuous monitoring by drivers. If anything goes wrong, the driver still has to take full responsibility.

Will FSD eventually achieve full autopilot? This makes many people wonder. Don't forget, a video released in 2016 shows a Tesla Model X driving in cities, suburbs and highways, automatically stopping at a red light and accelerating at a green light. But Tesla's director of Autopilot testified that the video was made using 3D maps on a predetermined route, a feature that consumers do not yet have access to.

Hawkins admits that FSD is not a hoax, but Musk should be blamed for peddling things that don't really exist. His clients are angry and some are even suing him. The California Motor vehicle Administration accused Tesla of making false statements. Tesla had to suspend installation of the new FSD after federal safety regulators forced it to issue a safety recall.

Shaker agrees with Hawkins. He said Musk absolutely exaggerated the value of the FSD system, but the real danger should be his promotion of self-driving taxis. He preached that when the car owner went to work, his Tesla car could go out to make money. This is not a vague concept: Musk once said that Tesla self-driving taxis can generate more than $30, 000 a year for car owners!

Frankly, the first chapter of Secret Grand Plan convinced many people of his vision for the future. The success of this part of the plan attracted people's attention and indeed boosted Musk's confidence. But he set the stakes too high. Now, the self-driving taxis of Waymo and Cruise are on the road, but Tesla's current FSD technology does not have Musk's imagination.

Shaker also said that he did not believe that FSD was a hoax and that its ability was indeed surprising. But the system is easily distracting. It is now like a trained animal, and the owner is an animal trainer.

FSD's price of up to $15000 is very deceptive, as is Tesla's previous generation of self-driving hardware Autopilot. Musk has hinted at the fact that FSD will not upgrade the latest Hardware 4. If you buy a FSD, you can't transfer the software to a new car with a new HW4. This is a big limitation for such an expensive plug-in.

Finally, Shaker would also like Tesla because it uses supercharging stations to create the best charging network for electric vehicles in the world. This is the most reliable charging network, and you can drive almost anywhere without worrying about whether there is a place to recharge. Now, with a super charging station with a combination of CCS, Tesla is finally beginning to help accelerate the development of sustainable personal transportation.

Overall, Shaker rated the second chapter of Secret Grand Plan a C -. He explained that Tesla is indeed building the car that people really want and has a charging network to support it. CyberTruck is still under development. Tesla's car is equipped with an Autopilot, it works well, but the driver needs to be vigilant. Despite its great potential, FSD still has a long way to go. Every Tesla equipped with HW3 or older hardware on the road today may never become a self-driving taxi. Tesla also has businesses such as solar roofs and energy storage products Powerwalls.

Hawkins thinks Shaker has a high score, and his score is D -. The reason is that Tesla has too many unfulfilled promises and has taken too many risks. He said that the goals of the second chapter of Secret Grand Plan are of course noble and well-intentioned, and perhaps they can be achieved in a different situation. There is nothing wrong with ambition, but they may be thwarted when follow-up is slow and failures are far more frequent than successes.

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