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Elon Musk's Secret Master Plan: Tesla Pickup Trucks and "Designing the Machine That Makes the Machine"

Here's why the pickup truck could be a game changer

By Rain Noe - July 21, 2016

After days of Twitter teases, Elon Musk finally released his "Secret Master Plan, Part Deux" yesterday, he and Tesla's road map for the future. It's got several surprises in it and shows that he has been thinking big picture all the while.

The document is dense, so we'll tackle his reveals one at a time, calling out what we think you Core77 readers will find interesting. First up, in his section called "Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport," he drops this nugget:

Today, Tesla addresses two relatively small segments of premium sedans and SUVs. With the Model 3, a future compact SUV and a new kind of pickup truck, we plan to address most of the consumer market.

A fan's speculative rendering. Credit to non-Tesla-employee Garrett Bradford

We've all known the Model 3 was coming, but a pickup truck is an interesting proposal that points squarely towards the mass market. One might assume an economy car would fit the mass-market bill, but it's long been established that the best-selling vehicle in America of any sort is a pickup truck. Specifically, the Ford F-150, which has held the title for over a decade. Last year Ford sold a staggering 780,354 of them.

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The number two and three best-selling vehicles—again, of any sort—were the Chevy Silverado and Dodge Ram pickups, with 600,544 and 451,116 in sales, respectively. That means a single category of vehicle, the pickup truck, comprised the top three sales positions with a combined 1,832,014 units sold.

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We know what you're thinking: How could Tesla possibly produce enough pickup trucks to make a dent in a market of that size, when they're still struggling to meet demand for their Model S and Model X, with 2016 targets of 80,000 and 90,000 vehicles? The answer is Einsteinian, in that problems cannot be solved using the same thinking that created them in the first place. Musk knows this, and that is why "Tesla engineering has transitioned to focus heavily on designing the machine that makes the machine -- turning the factory itself into a product," he writes, emphasis his.

What really matters to accelerate a sustainable future is being able to scale up production volume as quickly as possible…. A first principles physics analysis of automotive production suggests that somewhere between a 5 to 10 fold improvement is achievable by version 3 on a roughly 2 year iteration cycle. The first Model 3 factory machine should be thought of as version 0.5, with version 1.0 probably in 2018.

So yes, he's thinking long-term. And if he can pull it off, it will be more than a production miracle. Consider that pickup trucks today are a lot more efficient than they were even a decade ago, but they are hardly clean-running machines. If Tesla can make significant inroads into this market, the environmental impact alone would be noteworthy. But he'll also have competition to contend with in Via Motors.

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Elon Musk's Secret Master Plan: Tesla Pickup Trucks and "Designing the Machine That Makes the Machine"

Charles Johnson

4 years ago

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Whoever wrote this article has no clue about past and present truck efficiency . My 11 year old truck gets better gas mileage than anything being sold today

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O Studio

4 years ago

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Really curious to see how Tesla will break into the US truck market. I don't think anybody's done it since Toyota, and they spent massive amounts not just to deliver a product, but also craft a tough-guy image with over the top marketing and commercials that were stunts of machismo/insanity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HzegzpTSDI&feature=related). US truck drivers aren't easily convinced to trade in their Fords/Chevys!

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- Ryan Paterson
  
  O Studio
  
  4 years ago
  
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  Ya but Tesla is also an American company like Chey and Ford so it has that going for it. Plus.. no gas needed
  
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Conor Keeling

4 years ago

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I highly doubt Tesla plans on re-designing the Holden Commodore.

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George Coffin

4 years ago

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Fugly

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Austin Liu

4 years ago

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I commend Tesla for wanting to make pick-up trucks, but they can't look like that. That is the least manly looking truck ever. The truck would need to have a tank full of testosterone to supplement the batteries. It needs to look like John Cena got into the car factory and sired automotive offspring, or it won't appeal to the same market.

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- Rain Noe
  
  Austin Liu
  
  4 years ago
  
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  That's not a Tesla rendering, that's a speculative rendering done by a fan.
  
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  - Bruce Schneider
    
    Rain Noe
    
    4 years ago
    
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    A fan who doesn't understand usable bed space.
    
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Rain Noe

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.