Elon Musk reveals what Tesla’s Master Plan Part 3 is about

Elon Musk revealed more details about what his Tesla Master Plan Part 3 will be about during a new companywide meeting with employees last night.

Tesla Master Plan Part 3

Part One and Two of Musk’s “master plan” for Tesla have been important pieces of literature at the company that, in many ways, laid the path to its success.

Back in March 2022, six years after part 2, Musk announced that he is working on a Tesla Master Plan Part 3.

Three months later, he has yet to release the plan and during a companywide meeting held last night, with details obtained by Electrek, Musk was asked by an employee what the new plan is going to be about. The CEO responded:

Master Plan Part 3 is all about achieving very large scale. In order to shift the entire energy infrastructure and transport infrastructure of earth, there has to be a very high scale. We have to ask what is the actual tonnage? If we work backward from let’s say about 300 TWh of installed capacity in vehicles and stationary (battery packs) then how do you achieve that tonnage from a mining and refining standpoint, but also do so in a sustainable way.

Musk then summarized:

That’s what Master Plan Part 3 is: How do you get to enough scale to actually shift the entire energy infrastructure of earth?

You can say a lot about Elon Musk but you can’t say the man is not ambitious.

Tesla has lately been ramping up its partnerships with mining companies in order to secure long-term supply of critical minerals for battery production like nickel and lithium.

The company has even talked about getting directly involved into the mining and refining business. With the completion and current buildout of Texas and Berlin Gigafactories added to Fremont and Shanghai, Tesla now has the blueprint for building Giga-scale factories fast and efficiently.

Tesla Master Plan Part 1 and 2

On August 2, 2006, Musk published a blog post titled “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me).”

The post is worth a read, but it ends in a summary with the core principle being laid out in four steps:

1. Build sports car.
2. Use that money to build an affordable car.
3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car.
4. While doing above, also provide zero-emission electric power generation options.

It didn’t happen smoothly, but Tesla managed that for the most part with the Roadster, Model S, and then Model 3.

In 2016, Musk followed up with the “Tesla Master Plan Part 2.”

Part 2 came as Tesla was delivering the Model 3 and acquiring Solar City, which are basically the last two steps of the original plans.

In Part 2, Musk emphasized the integration of energy storage with renewable energy generation under the new “Tesla Energy” division. The creation of the solar roof was also announced in the plan.

The updated plan was also focused on self-driving capabilities, which became a priority at Tesla.

Musk summarized the Master Plan Part 2 at the end:

1. Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage.
2. Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments.
3. Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning.
4. Enable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it.

Among the other segments mentioned in the plan, Musk mentioned “a new kind of pickup,” which ended up being the Cybertruck; a compact SUV, the Model Y; a “heavy-duty truck, which became the Tesla Semi; and finally “high passenger-density urban transport.”

Every vehicle announced in the plan was unveiled, though they now need to be brought to production, except for the “high passenger-density urban transport.” It was rumored through a partnership with The Boring Company, but we have never seen anything official from Tesla.