Lei Feng network (search "Lei Feng network" public number attention) : Author of this article Yu Xinlie, senior automotive industry practitioners.
Tesla Blueprint Part 1 released by Musk 10 years ago was unknown to anyone. The four targets that were considered arrogant in the year have now been completed in three and a half, and the production model 3 is still finished. But the mass production of the Model 3 was a challenge. Many people were waiting to see Tesla's jokes.
Build a sports car;
Develop a more affordable car;
Launch a popular car;
At the same time of achieving the above objectives, provide zero-emission electricity;
Even if half of the goals are not met, this is still an excellent transcript. So on the 21st of July in the blueprint released on the official website, in Part 2 of the official website, Musk put it up again and said it again - you see, I was almost fulfilled by the Niubi I had blown. Next, I'm going to start again, but don't be surprised.
The following analysis is based on the blueprint Part 2. I suggest you read the article first. (You can go to the author's public number to see how to get the official Chinese version.)
| Tesla is what company?
There are two meanings in this part that are very subtle.
1. Tesla is no longer a car company but a new energy company;
2. The merge of Tesla and SolarCity is basically no problem;
Tesla wants to "become an individual consumer energy supplier and achieve economies of scale throughout the world." Tesla is involved in energy production, energy storage, and energy use.
Musk said that Tesla and SolarCity must be merged, otherwise such an ambitious goal is difficult to achieve. As a CEO of a listed company, it is uncertain that it should not bind the company's future and consolidation only.
There are two small details that may indicate Tesla’s determination to become a new energy company.
First of all, Tesla officially launched the tesla.com top-level domain, even if you now enter the original teslamotors.com will jump to the top-level domain. This is like shouting again: We are no longer just a car company. (It is said that Tesla spent hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for this domain name.)
Secondly, "Tesla's mission is to speed up the transition of mankind to sustainable transport" has been the company's widely promoted vision for development, but it has just been revised, only changed one word - "traffic" was "energy" This word is replaced. Although only one word, for Tesla, the mission has become even more magnificent.
The question of what company Tesla is is also becoming more complicated. People on Wall Street may have more headaches. With the growth of energy business, it may be that Wall Street will strongly demand that Tesla split its energy and auto business.
Musk has always been passionate about solar energy and has never favored other forms of new energy. In California and even in the United States, this is still relatively easy to understand, but providing solar power in the global market is another thing that makes Mission Impossible a thing of the past. It's very curious what kind of approach Elon Musk uses. In contrast, electric vehicles sell hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year, which is not an issue.
| The factory is also a product
At the beginning, half of the goals in Part 1 of the blueprint were not implemented. Tesla in California has been plagued by production capacity. It cannot and does not want to rely on scale and manpower like a traditional manufacturing plant. It has been trying to improve the production efficiency and automation of the factory.
The first-principles analysis of automated production shows that about 2 years is an iterative cycle, the first device that produces Model 3 can be considered as 0.5, 1.0 is likely to appear in 2018, and version 3 will be able to achieve 5 Up to 10 times (capacity) increase.
Musk uses version iterations to describe the production line and treats the factory as a continuously iteratively upgraded product. This expression is quite technical. According to the iterative cycle provided in the Musk article, Mr. Yu who lives in Xicheng District has calculated that, 10 years later, that is, in 2026, the Tesla plant will achieve a 5-10 times increase in production capacity.
| Future new models
The compact SUV built on the Model 3 platform has long been announced. The only curiosity is whether there will be a Hawk Wing. Musk has been talking about pickups for some time, and entering this America's most important market segment is something every car company must do.
It feels like the new model is part of the capital market. You can rest assured that we have many new products coming on the market and Tesla’s sales will continue to grow at a high rate.
It is curious how Musk will define a pure electric pickup product. To know that he will never simply replace the engine of a conventional car with a battery and a motor.
In the category of sedan products, he has given full play to the advantages of the electric motor, allowing the product to have a violent linear acceleration capability. In conjunction with electronic technologies such as OTA upgrades and semi-automated driving, Tesla's cars provide a distinctive user experience.
Musk once talked about some of his thoughts on pickup. I remember he had complained to the media about the loading and empty loading of pickup trucks. The experience of opening up was much different. Today's pickup trucks can't adjust the driving experience of both loads very well.
Musk wanted to use the smart air suspension technology in the Model S to solve this problem. But I don't know if pickup users can buy a pure electric car or a high-tech configuration. Tesla can officially shop in Texas? Previously it was only allowed to set up a display shop but could not sell a car.
In the blueprint, Musk also revealed for the first time two models that Tesla is developing: heavy trucks and buses with high passenger density. This implies that Tesla has made another breakthrough in battery technology.
Electric buses and heavy-duty trucks, whether they are carrying goods or numerous passengers, have a very large load during driving, and the demand for battery power and mileage are very different from those of cars, especially heavy trucks. Since both models have already reached the stage of being announced next year, it is believed that Tesla has developed a battery system that can be adapted to them.
In addition, I think Musk may still be guilty of being accused of "the toy of the rich" for Tesla. So he will try to come up with a product that serves the people.
A lot of classmates said that BYD is in front of Tesla in electric buses and has sold many cars. We can look at the part of the blueprint for Part 2 on the electric bus. Musk has some ideas for this model instead of simply replacing the battery power system.
This point I think is worth a lot of people to study at work, do not look at the nails with a hammer.
| Autopilot's justification
Musk gives a timetable for the global adoption of fully automated driving: it has been approved by regulatory authorities around the world, and is currently at a five-and-a-half-year pace.
This time isn't Musk's fuss. His logic is that universal full autopilot, hardware such as radar is not a big problem, and software development and testing take a lot of time. He judged that it would need to accumulate about 10 billion kilometers of actual automatic driving history in order to obtain approval from various governments. At present, the accumulative learning speed of automatic driving is 5 million kilometers/day. However, if this accumulating speed is accelerated, the popularity of fully automated driving will come earlier.
In the blueprint, Musk also specifically explained why AutoPilot used the beta version. He emphasized that the "Beta" here is different from the usual meaning in the technology industry. The reason why Tesla used the "Beta" version is not to be tested before release but to "reduce consumers' blind trust in it."
I cannot agree with this statement.
1. Misleading consumers about blindly trusting AutoPilot is the official name of this technology, “Autopilot,†and ordinary users cannot accurately distinguish autopilot functions at different stages as engineers do. For ordinary people, autopilot is unmanned, which is equivalent to fully automated driving. If you want to avoid this kind of blind trust, the most fundamental solution should be to change the name to “semi-autonomous driving†or other descriptively accurate names, so that users will intuitively understand that they should not rely too much on this feature. Tesla is truly fully autonomous driving, and the name "half" is removed.
2. Using the "Beta" tag, but stressing that the usage is different from its usual meaning, misleading, and not really solving the problem.
| Share a car to make money?
This is beyond the traditional automotive company's business scope. Car sharing is a service platform. In other words, Tesla is ready to provide its own aftermarket services. Usually such service platforms are built by third parties so as to obtain the maximum participation of vehicles and ensure the matching of the resources of vehicles and car users.
It sounds so good that the owner can use Tesla's app to send out his car. But where is the user? Tesla application's user traffic is too small, so that users who want to rent a car have a Tesla app installed? This means that Tesla himself is also responsible for the corresponding development, operation and customer service work, which can require huge human and material resources. Or is the corresponding service connected to a third-party platform, such as Uber?
| What else do you want to say?The logical relationships between the entries in Part 1 of the blueprint are clear and it is a development goal with a sequential order. But the blueprint Part 2 looks a bit messy. In addition to the fact that Tesla is not just a car company, what does Musk want to express?
In the beginning of Part 2 of the blueprint, Musk said that when writing his own blueprint Part 1 ten years ago, an important reason was that Tesla’s biggest criticism at the time was that Tesla had only used artificial vehicles (the $100,000 Roadster). . So Musk decided to publish Tesla's development path to tell people that they are contemplating the world. In addition to expensive sports cars, they will also develop affordable electric vehicles for the public.
Interestingly, Tesla is also being fiercely criticized when the Blueprint Part 2 was released. A model owner of the "AutoPilot" function was killed in a car accident, triggering a huge controversy about Tesla's automatic driving functions and technology. So let's look at the latest 4 goals that Musk summarizes:
1. Create amazing and efficient solar panels with integrated power storage
2. Expand electric vehicle product line to meet the needs of various market segments
3. Developed an autopilot technology that is 10 times safer than humans to drive manually through a large number of fleet learning functions.
4. Make money for you by sharing when your vehicle is idle.
With the exception of the first one being energy-related, the other three are all closely linked to autonomous driving technology. In other words, Tesla's future is built on autopilot technology. Musk strongly expresses that the autopilot technology is Tesla's future, and no one can let him stop the application of the autopilot function.
| How to evaluate the blueprint Part 2Ten years later, Tesla once again challenged the status quo. As Mr. Yu who lives in Xicheng District, I do not have the ability to judge Tesla’s achievement of these ambitious goals based on the information in this article. For Tesla this company, blindly supporting or opposing is a kind of prejudice.
The blueprint Part 2 will lead us to observe, examine, and demonstrate the relationship between Tesla's actions and results in the future. So, I think it's just an invitation.
Come and do Musk's bowl of chicken soup together. He said:
If there are two roads and we can only choose one, it is not so straightforward to entangle which road is a little better, and if not, we must choose and act. Perhaps we will mistakenly choose the lesser one, but indecision is a bigger loss in one choice.
Lei Fengwang Note: This article is the first author of the public "speed hormone", the story of electric cars, automotive electronics, driverless. Reproduced, please contact the authorization and indicate the source and author, may not modify the article.