
The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006) - mactitan
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me
======
spullara
When I ordered my Tesla S I also needed to get a 240V charger installed in my
garage. Tesla sends you over to SolarCity for that and they can install it for
you. This also gives them the perfect opportunity to offer you solar panels as
well since they can show you, based on your electricity bill and the number of
miles you are going to drive, how much it is going to save you.

Long story short, bought a Tesla S from Tesla, a outlet installation from
SolarCity and now have also signed up for 8.8Kw solar panel system for my
house.

The vertical integration of his investments is awesome. I just hope he somehow
integrates in SpaceX ... maybe solar microwave power from orbit?

~~~
chenster
> signed up for 8.8Kw solar panel system for my house

How much power does it generate in a day? Will be enough to fully charge a
Telsa?

~~~
revelation
You wouldn't charge the car directly from the panels. Sell the solar
electricity to utility during the day and get a plan for off-peak power (which
are often 1/2 or 2/3 of normal rates) to charge your car while you sleep.

(Thats not saying you couldn't charge the car through your solar panels in a
pressing case of zombie apocalypse. Inverters for home solar installations
output the same AC power as a normal power outlet)

~~~
gsiener
However, without a grid feed to synchronize to, your grid-tied inverters will
be useless. You'd need battery backup and a second set of DC inverters to
accomplish the off-grid scenario you're referring to.

~~~
jacquesm
That depends on the inverters. Plenty of inverters can operate in 'island
mode' for off-grid applications.

You will have to have a lock-out installed that needs to be engaged before
island mode will work if you are normally grid-tied. To avoid you hurting
people or trying to power the nation in case of a black-out.

------
wamatt
Musk's plan in a way serves as a reminder for those of us that tend to
overestimate the role luck plays in the personal journey towards
entrepreneurial success.

While generally HN users are open minded, no small number have derided the
notion that others (perhaps far less capable than Musk), are capable of having
a meaningful _vision_.

Of course having a _justified_ belief and plan is a different approach to the
lean startup philosophy. Lean effectively aligns more with the randomness
worldview and iteration with an impartiality (or even celebration in some
cases) of failure. Whereas OTOH, the visionary approach usually has more
confidence in a self-directed path.

Those with this visionary quality (in varying levels of ability), can
arrogantly dismiss others too, with behavior that is equally cringe worthy.
Moreover, it would be hard to objectively and meaningfully argue either
approach is universally "better".

However, perhaps the most significant indiscretion, is not in picking a side
that works for you, but rather failing to see that two sides exist at all.

~~~
mhartl
_Musk's plan in a way serves as a reminder for those of us that tend to
overestimate the role luck plays in the personal journey towards
entrepreneurial success._

I agree that Elon's results with Tesla and Space X are not principally (or
even much) based on luck, but this is (at least in part) because he has the
resources to finance his visions directly and can use his tech-celebrity
status to help bring them to fruition.

How did he get into this enviable position? It's largely due to the sale
PayPal to eBay, of course—and, as those in the know will tell you, luck was a
_big_ factor in PayPal's success.

------
ChuckMcM
_August 2, 2006_

The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)

From 2006. Nice to know they are still sticking with it :-)

~~~
trhaynes
I would have appreciated seeing "(2006)" appended to the HN title.

------
angstrom
They've followed the plan well. I'd also like to point out a lesser known
article from 7 years ago:
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/09/01/8384349/index.htm)

The New Power Play

The Investor: Elon Musk, co-founder, PayPal

What he's backed: SpaceX, Tesla Motors

What he wants now: As Musk's two most recent investments - in a space rocket
and an all-electric sports car - suggest, the 35-year-old entrepreneur likes
to think big. So he's intrigued by the promise of a next-generation battery
called an ultracapacitor, capable of powering everything from cars to
tractors. Unlike chemical batteries, ultracapacitors store energy as an
electrical field between a pair of conducting plates. Theoretically, they can
be charged in less than a second rather than hours, be recharged repeatedly
without sacrificing performance, and far outlast anything now on the market.

"I am convinced that the long-term solution to our energy needs lies with
capacitors," Musk says. "You can't beat them for power, and they kick ass on
any chemical battery."

Musk would know: He was doing Ph.D. work at Stanford on high-energy capacitors
before he helped get PayPal off the ground. At least one startup, EEStor in
Texas, and a larger company, Maxwell Technologies in California, are working
on ultracapacitors. Yet Musk believes a university-based research group has an
equal shot at a commercial breakthrough, since universities are where the most
promising research is bubbling up. "The challenge is one of materials science,
not money," Musk says.

The team to pull this off, he says, would need expertise in materials science,
applied physics, and manufacturing. Musk wants to see a prototype that can
power something small, like a boom box. "Make one and show me that it works,"
Musk says. "Then tell me what's wrong with it and how it can be fixed."

What he'll invest: $4 million over two years for a working prototype

Send your pitch to: mbb@spacex.com. -- M.V.C.

------
surrealize
> the second model will be a sporty four door family car at roughly half the
> $89k price point of the Tesla Roadster and the third model will be even more
> affordable

Tesla cars so far have definitely been luxury cars. If they keep going
downmarket into the mainstream, I wonder if they'll want to create a separate
brand for their mainstream stuff, a la acura/honda, toyota/lexus, and
infiniti/nissan.

If they do, the low-end brand should be "Edison".

~~~
philwelch
Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti were attempts by perceived-downscale brands to
brand "up". It doesn't make sense for a brand like Tesla to brand "down".

~~~
ericd
Don't you think it would help in protecting the perceived exclusivity of the
Tesla brand? I don't think it'd be a good move overall, but I could see some
justifications based on potential brand dilution.

------
jessriedel
Can anyone point me toward Musk's reasoning about why solar will beat out wind
power in the long term? I know he owns a solar company, but why did he choose
that over wind?

(I'm aware of the basic pros and cons of both. I'm really just looking for
Musk's thinking.)

~~~
MikeCapone
There's a recent talk here where Musk discusses what he thinks of the future
of energy, though I don't think he goes into wind vs. solar specifically (he
does explain in the Q&A at the end why he doesn't think biofuels make sense).

[http://www.treehugger.com/green-investments/tesla-ceo-
elon-m...](http://www.treehugger.com/green-investments/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-
gives-hour-long-speech-university-oxford-video-and-audio-q-a.html)

~~~
Someone
I could not find him comapring solar and wind, either.

On the risk that you already considered all of these, here are some reasons I
can think of:

<http://www.withouthotair.com/c4/page_32.shtml> gives 2W/m^2 for wind and
<http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_39.shtml> gives 22W/m^2 for
photovoltaic.

Yes, there are places where you can get much more energy from wind per m^2,
but you can get that photovoltaic output almost everywhere.

It also is easier to start a solar business than one based on wind power. With
solar, you can start small and scale up. With wind, you almost have to start
with huge structures, as they have better ROI (higher = faster wind = way more
energy). Building such larger structures means that you no longer operate in
the B2C market. He may not like that.

Also, he may not like having to spend effort and time getting building
permission for those structures.

He may also think photovoltaics will get cheaper faster than wind.

Finally, it might be just a personal preference. To me, wind has more of a
blue collar feel than photovoltaics (someone will get his hands greasy
operating a wind farm). That does not make me dislike it, but might have swung
the choice for him.

~~~
jessriedel
> 2W/m^2 for wind and ... 22W/m^2 for photovoltaic.

This is a misleading number for my point that wind is denser than solar. For
solar, the 22W/m^2 is spread out evenly an area, and you must put something
(either photovoltaic or a mirror) to collect it. For wind, you only need a
single turbine to effectively cover a relatively large area. The density
number comes from the fact that, by virtue of how winds are generated and
blow, you can't just stick a second turbine right next to the first one. From
a cost per kWh perspective, the important number is more like the number of
watts generated by single turbine with a 1 meter x 1 meter footprint.

~~~
Someone
Misleading in one sense, but revealing in another.

That 10MW wind turbine on your 10,000m^2 of land will only get to that output
by using wind blowing into it from other land.

So, if your neighbor builds another such turbine on his land, your output will
drop.

So, you will have to pay your neighbors for not building such a turbine on
their land. In that sense, you really need that area to get that output.

Having said that, ROI of wind turbines seems to be way better than that for
photovoltaics, in almost every aspect.
[https://sites.google.com/site/anatomyofglobalclimatechangevj...](https://sites.google.com/site/anatomyofglobalclimatechangevj/data-
and-analysis), for example, gives you about 6 months to recover the energy
investment of building a wind mill and 3 years for photovoltaics.

~~~
jessriedel
> So, if your neighbor builds another such turbine on his land, your output
> will drop.

This is not an important effect. The optimal spacing for wind turbines is 5-15
times the rotor diameter, and the largest turbines are 75ft in diameter,
giving a largest spacing of roughly ~ 1/4 mi. In the rare cases that this is
an issue, property liens can handle the conflict.

~~~
Someone
The largest turbines are more like 300ft in diameter
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design#Turbine_siz...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design#Turbine_size))

Also, the effect is important. At 1/4 mile distance, you can only place about
20 or so on a square mile of land. Looking at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine#Horizontal_axis_wi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine#Horizontal_axis_wind_turbines),
that gives you less than 18MW peak power.

That same square mile has 2M plus m^2. So, you would need only 10W per m^2
peak solar power to beat that wind turbine.

Yes, there is lots of hand waiving here. For example, I am assuming equal duty
cycle; that will vary with location. The crux still is that there is way less
wind power than solar per m^2.

------
jasonshen
Nothing builds credibility like doing what you said you would. =)

~~~
stcredzero
Especially on this scale.

------
codex
"Without giving away too much, I can say that the second model will be a
sporty four door family car at roughly half the $89k price point of the Tesla
Roadster."

A Model S for $45K? Where do I sign? The average selling price of a Model S is
probably more like $90K.

~~~
tikhonj
Accounting for some tax breaks you could have gotten the lowest-end model for
~$50k, which, I think, is close enough. The price on their website starts at
$52,400 (taking the tax break into account).

The Model S _Performance_ starts at $87,400. However, this is a very special
top-of-the-line car, comparable to an AMG or M model from Mercedes or BMW
respectively. This is definitely _not_ the average car or the average price.

Of course, just like its German rivals, the price does go up with some
options. But if you just want a nice electric car, the options are, well,
optional. (Although I wouldn't pass up the tech package if I could afford it
:P.)

And it's not like the standard equipment is weak--the well-publicized gigantic
touchscreen comes standard, for example.

Anyhow, basically you _can_ get one for a bit over $50k; the price only goes
up if you want a longer range and some nice options.

~~~
angstrom
You forgot one thing. Tack on 7 years of inflation and you're at nearly 52K.

~~~
philwelch
$52,000 in 2006 is worth $58,991.30 now.

$52,000 now was worth $45,658.39 in 2006.

<http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi>

~~~
angstrom
[http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=45000&year1...](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=45000&year1=2006&year2=2013)

I was using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index

------
chenster
> However, let’s assume for the moment that the electricity is generated from
> a hydrocarbon source like natural gas, the most popular fuel for new US
> power plants in recent years.

Above statement is mostly true in state of California where natural gas
generates one third of its total power (source:
[http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.h...](http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html))

Not so true national wide. According to US Energy Administration, the energy
sources and percent share of total for electricity generation in 2011. Note
the the combined renewable energy sources is below 10% still in 2011.

• Coal 42%

• Natural Gas 25%

• Nuclear 19%

• Hydropower 8%

• Other Renewable 5%

• Biomass 1.38%

• Geothermal 0.41%

• Solar 0.04%

• Wind 2.92%

• Petroleum 1%

• Other Gases < 1%

(source:
[http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3))

Coal is still the king.

~~~
cpressey
I understand there has been a sharp rise in natural gas (and a corresponding
drop in coal and nuclear) in the past two years, since fracking took off. (I
wouldn't be surprised if coal is still at the top though.)

~~~
chenster
If we could effectively get the oil out of ground in CA (total four hundred
billion barrels, that's half of oil in all of Saudi Arabia), it may completely
change the game. [http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/14/news/economy/california-
oil-...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/14/news/economy/california-oil-
boom/index.html)

------
NoPiece
I am rooting for Tesla, but if they are counting on a "solar electric
economy," that makes me worry. Let's target something practical, like a
nuclear/natural gas/solar electric economy.

~~~
mtgx
Tesla doesn't depend on the whole solar economy to be successful. It mostly
depends on its own solar-based superchargers, and those have nothing to do
with the health of the solar economy. Whether solar energy will be 50% of US
energy production, or just stay at 5%, it will be irrelevant for Tesla cars,
as they will still get _free_ charging from its own solar superchargers.

~~~
ams6110
The charging may be free, but they definitely have a cost to Tesla. I wonder
by what margin the electrical cost savings will offset the investment and
expenses associated with the charging stations?

------
zacharycohn
I am a huge fan of Elon and have a lot of faith in anything he's involve in.

I am interested, however, in how this reconciles with the Innovator's Dilemma.
He's starting at the top of the market and working his way down.

My possible explanation (assuming he will be successful) is:

There isn't enough of an existing market to be disrupted for the Innovator's
Dilemma to apply. What I would be worried about here is the other electric
cars that ARE on the market are on the lower end (comparatively. The Leaf is
$23,000 vs Tesla @ $52,000).

Nissan is working on using cheaper tech, and then will find ways to improve
that cheaper tech versus Tesla using expensive tech and finding ways to make
it cheaper.

Opinions?

~~~
frabcus
The Innovator's Dilemma doesn't say you have to start at a "low end" and work
up. That's just how it was for the computer storage industry (the example in
the book) in the second half of the twentieth century.

It says that you have to start with a _new market_ \- i.e a set of people who
want to buy your product who are different fundamentally from the existing
market.

Plenty of innovations are rolled out starting at the high end. An obvious
example is the iPhone (which changed the smartphone market from
business/hobbiest to consumer, and which began doing that with rich
consumers).

Another way of looking at it... New things can be relatively expensive within
their new market - the first PCs were very expensive, they just happened to be
cheap compared to Minicomputers. From a product side, they looked like cheap,
crap computers. From the market side, they had a _totally different_ market
(e.g. individual finance professionals, rather than large corporations).

It's natural as a geek to look just at products. You have to look at both
products and markets - they are not just both important, they are the same
thing (<http://www.flourish.org/blog/?p=371>).

Tesla's product is electric cars. It's market is people who want: a) To not
have to recharge every day on their commute. b) To have more accessible
storage space. c) To have cheap power when gas finally gets more expensive
than electricity/batteries

Short term they have been bootstrapping that using a market of people who have
longer term motivations (concern about climate change or an energy crisis)
which will later go mainstream in the form of c).

It's very very smart.

------
btipling
(2006) on the title please.

------
uptown
Not that he's presumably anywhere near the end of his life - but does Tesla or
SpaceX have a contingency plan should something happen to Elon Musk? Don't get
me wrong - I absolutely love everything they're doing. It just scares the crap
out of me that such a grand movement opposing very powerful forces is led by a
single individual. Please tell me there's more brilliant leaders with the same
mindset involved in his mission, ready to take the reins should the need ever
arise.

------
HyprMusic
I find it incredible how one many seems to be driving such a change in the
future of our planet. Considering people have apparently been putting time and
money in to this for decades, why are we not seeing more attempts like this?
Is it because it's not considered lucrative enough for the capitalist market?
Or is Elon just a very good at convincing us (me) he's breaking new ground?

------
mactitan
Hybrid vs EV: .56 vs 1.14 km/mj.

Xprise 100 mpg winner seriously considered EV but won with Gas engine. Where's
the discrepancy? At least Germany is a good case study in the feasibility Of a
solar electric infrastructure. I thought diesel/ hybrid is best bet but it's
good musk is here pushing the envelope.

~~~
ricardobeat
Experimental cars have surpassed the 100km/l (235mpg) barrier a long time ago.
That doesn't mean they are anywhere near feasible as a product - no interior
finish, exotic body materials, no air-conditioning, electric/hydraulic
assistance, electric windows, abs, and all kinds of power-hungry electronics.

Audi is said to be working on a production vehicle, an hybrid, with 260mpg
efficiency, but we'll have to wait a little bit to see if it becomes real:
[http://www.roadandtrack.com/future-cars/spy-shots/caught-
tes...](http://www.roadandtrack.com/future-cars/spy-shots/caught-
testing-2014-volkswagen-xl1)

------
TechNewb
Secret: One of the reasons I want to get a good job is so I can afford a
Tesla... Don't tell anyone.

------
AlexeiSadeski
Assuming all observed warming is anthropogenic, the amount of global warming
caused by the cumulatie emissions of all of America's cars ever: 1/40th of 1
degree Centigrade.

------
chenster
Richard A. Muller, Nobel Prize in Physics, posted an short article on energy
efficiency and pollution in gasoline, hybrid, and pure battery powered cars.
Gasoline vs best battery powered car is a factor of 40.The only car has zero
pollution is the hydrogen powered.

[http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/physics10/old%20physics%2010/...](http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/physics10/old%20physics%2010/physics%2010%20notes/Electric%20cars%20.html)

~~~
revelation
He might be a nobel prize physicist, but that article is strongly on the
fringe side. You can't dismiss electric cars because the power plants produce
CO2 and then go on to claim hydrogen is a "clean" technology because burning
it does not produce carbon-dioxide.

~~~
rustynails77
I like the idea of electric cars, but their dirty secret is not the CO2 from
power plants - it's the batteries. They're full of deadly toxins and they
don't last very long. What happens to these batteries when they're no longer
useful??? I'm still banking on battery technology improving to the point that
this disadvantage is far less hazardous to the environment.

~~~
jws
Lots of things are toxic. It doesn't mean they poison people. The starter
battery in a gasoline car contains enough lead to kill about 1000 people, but
it doesn't do it.

Batteries don't transmute. Lead is still lead. Lithium is still lithium.
Batteries are about the most perfect recycling case: mass produced, made to
exact specifications from very few compounds, easily separated, and are just
the right things to turn back into batteries and sell!

Missouri's last lead mine is closing because lead from recycling batteries is
so cheap it doesn't pay to mine new lead unless you are also getting some
silver or copper and their remaining lead veins are unfortunately too pure.

So electric car batteries get used in cars until their capacity is diminished
to an uncomfortable level, then they go serve as stationary storage where the
energy density requirement is less demanding for a few more years until they
are too worn for even that, at which point they get sold to the recycler and
turn into new batteries for cars.

------
DanBC
How rare is lithium for lithium ion batteries? And how recyclable is it?

Should I be buying lithium now to sell it later?

~~~
Lagged2Death
The total lithium content of seawater is very large and is estimated as 230
billion tonnes ... At 20 mg lithium per kg of Earth's crust, lithium is the
25th most abundant element.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial>

~~~
notdrunkatall
How costly is extracting lithium from seawater?

------
vignesh_vs_in
Here is a video documentary by Nat Geo on Tesla, Model S.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvPosSzUGVI>

Elon explains the master plan himself.

------
zaidrahman
A CEO who sticks by the grand plan. This is refreshing.

------
slevcom
Total man crush on Elon here. He's like a science fiction author except he
makes the spaceships for reals instead of writing about them. Meanwhile a
large chunk of the entrepreneurs continue to optimize ad delivery and photo
sharing (myself included), just sayin.

------
mynameishere
Yeah, right. He just wants pollution moved from rich areas, where traffic
density is located, to poor areas, where power generating stations are
located.

~~~
tatsuke95
I'm not sure if he "wants" it that way, but that will be an unintended
consequence.

It's hard to say anything negative about Elon or Tesla here without getting
down-voted.

