Automotive

Visualizing Elon Musk’s Vision for the Future of Tesla

Published

5 years ago

April 26, 2018

Jeff Desjardins

Tesla is currently stuck in “production hell” with Model 3 delays, as Elon Musk describes it.

But Winston Churchill had a great quote about facing what seems like insurmountable adversity: “If you’re going through hell, keep going”. This is certainly a maxim that Musk and Tesla will need to live by in order to realize the company’s longstanding mission, which is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Rise of Tesla: The Future Vision (Part 3 of 3)

Today’s giant infographic comes to us from Global Energy Metals, and it is the final part of our three-part Rise of Tesla Series, which is a definitive source for everything you ever wanted to know about the company.

Part 3 shows Elon Musk’s future vision, and what it holds for the company once it can get past current production issues.

Visualizing Elon Musk's Vision for the Future of Tesla

To understand Tesla’s ambitions for the future, you need to know two things:

1. Tesla’s Mission Statement: “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

Tesla can accomplish this by making electric vehicles, batteries, and energy solutions – and by finding ways seamlessly integrate them all together.

2. Tesla’s Strategy: “The competitive strength of Tesla long-term is not going to be the car, it’s going to be the factory.”

Tesla aims to productize the factory, so that vehicle assembly can be automated at a revolutionary pace.

In other words, Tesla wants to perfect the making of the “machine that builds the machine”. It wants to use these factories to pump out EVs at a pace never before seen. It aims to change the world.

The Future of Tesla

If Elon Musk has his way and everything goes according to plan, this is how the future of Tesla will unfold.

Note: Keep in mind that Tesla sometimes overpromises – and that the following is an extrapolation of Tesla’s vision and announced plans as of Spring 2018.

A Sustainable Energy Powerhouse

Tesla’s goal is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy – but simply making a few electric cars is not going to be enough to put a dent into this.

That’s why the future of Tesla will be defined by bigger and bolder moves:

The Tesla Semi: Tesla has unveiled the Tesla Semi, which can go 0-60 mph with 80,000 lbs (36 tonnes) in just 20 seconds. Fully electric, and with a 200 kWh battery pack, Musk says that it would be “economic suicide” for trucking companies to continue driving diesel trucks.

Mass Transit: Elon Musk said in his Master Plan, Part Deux blog post that he wants to design “high passenger-density urban transport”. It’s anticipated that this will come in the form of an autonomous minibus, built off the Model X concept.

A New Energy Paradigm: Tesla is not just building cars – it’s democratizing green energy by creating a self-dependent ecosystem of products. This way, homeowners can ensure their appliances and cars are running off of green energy, and even sell it back to the grid if they like.

As Tesla works on this sustainable future, the company isn’t afraid to show off its battery tech in the interim. The company even built the world’s largest lithium-ion battery farm (100 MW) in South Australia to win a bet, in fewer than 100 days.

Other New Models

Elon Musk says that Tesla plans to “address all major segments” of the auto market.

Model Y: This will be a crossover vehicle built on the Model 3 platform, expected to go into production in 2019. It will round out the “S3XY” product line of Tesla’s first four post-Roadster vehicles.

Pickup Truck: This will be Tesla’s priority after the Model Y, and Musk says he is “dying to build it”. Musk says it’ll be the same size of a Ford F-150 (or bigger) to account for a “game-changing” feature he wants to add, but has not yet revealed.

Ultra Low-Cost Model: Tesla has also announced that it will need a model cheaper than the Model 3 in the near future. This would allow Tesla to compete against a much wider segment of the auto market, and the future of Tesla hinges on its success.

Multiple Gigafactories

Tesla already has two: Gigafactory I in Reno, NV (Batteries), and Gigafactory II in Buffalo, NY (Solar panels).

The Gigafactory I started battery cell production in 2017. It will eventually produce enough batteries to power 500,000 cars per year. Meanwhile, the second factory is operated by Tesla’s SolarCity subsidiary, producing photovoltaic modules for solar panels, and solar shingles for Tesla’s solar roof product.

Tesla said in 2017 that there will be “probably four” more battery Gigafactories in locations that would “address a global market”, including one in Europe. This makes sense, since the need for lithium-ion batteries to power these EVs is exploding. An important component of Tesla’s future will also be source the raw materials needed for these Gigafactories, such as cobalt, lithium, graphite, and nickel.

The Chinese Market

The good news: Tesla already owns about 81% of the market for imported plug-in EVs in China.
The bad news: That’s only about 2.5% of the total Chinese EV market, when accounting for domestically made EVs.

China is the largest auto market in the world – and make no mistake about it, Tesla wants to own a large chunk of it. In 2017, China accounted for 24.7 million passenger vehicle sales, amounting to 31% of the global auto market.

Automation and the Sharing Economy

Finally, Tesla wants its vehicles to be fully autonomous, and to have shared fleets that drive around to transport people.

Autonomous: Tesla aims to develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning.
Shared: Most cars are only used by their owner for only 5% of each day. With self-driving cars, a car can reach its true potential utility by being shared between multiple users.

Conclusion

The future of Tesla is ambitious, and the company’s strategy is even considered naïve by some.

But if Elon Musk and Tesla are able to perfect the building of the “machine that builds the machine”, all bets will be off.

That concludes our three-part Rise of Tesla Series – don’t forget to see Part 1 (Origin Story) and Part 2 (Rapid Growth). We’d also like to offer a special thanks to Global Energy Metals for making this series possible, as well.

Related Topics:green tesla elon musk gigafactory lithium-ion batteries sustainability future energy

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Visualized: 40 Years of U.S. Automobile Recalls

This interactive graphic visualizes U.S. automobile recalls over the past 40 years by type, company, components, and the number of people impacted.

Creator Program

Published

1 month ago

March 1, 2023

Freny Fernandes

automobile recalls in the U.S. from 1983 to 2022

Visualized: 40 Years of Automobile Recalls in the U.S.

In early February 2023, Honda issued a “Do Not Drive” warning for around 8,200 older cars equipped with the infamous Takata airbags.

These faulty airbags, installed by 19 different automakers including BMW and Toyota from 2002 to 2015, can explode when deployed and have led to numerous tragic accidents. Their recall affected 67 million airbags (including Honda’s vehicles above) and has been known as the largest safety recall in U.S. history.

Over the past four decades, there have been over 22,000 automobile recalls in the United States.

In this interactive piece, Chimdi Nwosu uses data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to visualize the types of automobile recalls over the past 40 years, the companies with the most recalls, the components that were recalled the most, and, most importantly, their impacts on people.

Breaking Down U.S. Automobile Recalls

Whether a recall affects specific vehicle components, equipment, or vehicles as a whole, it affects the lives of millions of automobile users.

When combined, these numbers ramp up exponentially. The U.S. alone has seen a total of 22,651 recalls over the past 40 years, impacting more than one billion people.

Recall Type	# of U.S. Recalls (1983‒2022)	People Affected
Vehicle	19,686	776.42M
Equipment	2,303	207.51M
Tire	442	36.53M
Car Seat	220	60.39M
Total	22,651	1,080.84M

Almost 72% of these people were affected by nearly 20,000 vehicle recalls, while around 19% were impacted by over 2,000 equipment recalls during this period. Comparatively, the 442 tire recalls and 220 child seat recalls affected significantly less, but still a total of 96.9 million people.

While an inconvenience to many, the recall of these faulty vehicle parts saves many more from unfortunate incidents that may have occurred if left unchecked.

Minor and Major Recalls

One of the largest recalls in history took place in 2014 when General Motors—the manufacturer with the highest total of recalls in four decades—recalled millions of vehicles including the 2005-2007 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2007 Pontiac G5, and 2006-2007 Chevrolet HHR, amongst others.

Rank	Top Manufacturer by Recalls	# of U.S. Recalls (1983‒2022)
1	General Motors	1,237
2	Ford	1,056
3	Chrysler	909
4	Forest River	480
5	Daimler Trucks	474
6	BMW	463
7	Volkswagen	435
8	Mercedes-Benz	378
9	Honda	377
10	Blue Bird	359

The reason for this recall was a faulty ignition switch that caused the vehicle’s engine to shut down while driving, disabling safety systems including airbags. This fault led to the death of hundreds of people.

However, not all recalls are this severe. BMW, for example, recalled just four vehicles in December last year because one of the four bolts in the driver’s backrest was not attached properly.

Similarly in 2020, Ford recalled some of its vehicles due to a faulty door latch. While this recall inconvenienced over two million users, it was less likely to lead to severe consequences if left unchecked.

A Safer Future?

The number of automobile recalls over the past four decades has seen a steep rise. As have car safety standards.

While recalls could hint at the risks involved in taking your car out for a drive, they also indicate manufacturers taking responsibility for their faulty commodities, and affect a very small percentage of vehicles on the road.

To improve automobile safety, the NHTSA proposed a New Car Assessment Program in 2022, which provides vehicle users with safety ratings for every new vehicle. This five-star safety rating program rates the vehicles’ safety features, crashworthiness, and resistance to rollover.

With self-driving cars now also entering the mix, we need to stay informed about vehicle safety to keep our vehicles, our streets, and ourselves safe in the future.