Tesla's 3 New Vehicles
If you read Tesla's Master Plan Part 3, you saw Tesla's planned vehicle lineup and that it included 3 new vehicle models. These are:
* A Compact car - in my opinion, at least two variations
* A Van
* A Bus
This is the first time that Tesla has made it clear that these are products they are going to work on. They are important products for many reasons.
First, the compact car and its Model 3 and Model Y variations will enable Tesla to reach a 20 million per year production rate of vehicles. These vehicles will cost between $20,000 and $28,000 or so and enable Tesla to reach the mass market.
Second, these vehicles will accelerate the advancement of autonomous vehicles much faster. Because these vehicles are going to be made in half the time and cost half as much, they are going to flood the streets with vehicles gathering data, which will, in turn, accelerate Tesla's autonomous vehicle lead and enable the cars to finally drive themselves without human intervention.
Third, the van will enable transportation of goods and people autonomously at large scale, which will reduce emissions in the air. All of these vehicles will reduce emissions in the air. The van will also allow people to have an autonomous and green Energy vehicle that they can live in off grid. I think there are many people who would buy a Tesla Van with only a passenger and driver seat in it.
Fourth, the bus will further enable transport of large amounts of people autonomously. I can see Tesla making a bus network that puts city buses out of business due to the low cost and operating autonomously.
Fifth, Tesla will write software that makes these buses operate autonomously and function just like a city bus, except paying for them will be very inexpensive, and they will continuously drive themselves until they need to charge. Tesla may even find a way to charge them and have overlapping buses drive while others recharge. I see a large network of buses replacing city buses.
These 3 vehicles are very disruptive vehicles and if you look at Tesla's roadmap with Master Plan Part 3, the company is about 10 years away from even maturing as a large company. It's a very exciting time.
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What About Planes and Ships?
Tesla has plans to build other things. What about planes and boats?
If you look at page 23 of Tesla's slide deck for Master Plan Part 3, you can see the following:
Tesla sees about 2.1 PWh of annual demand, if ships charge about 70 times per year on average and then charge to 75% of capacity each time. With this, you need about 40 TWh of batteries to electrify the ocean fleet.
The assumption is that 33% of the fleet will require a higher density Nickel and Manganese based cathode, and the other 2/3 will use LFP batteries.
For planes, if 20% of the around 15,000 narrow body plane fleet is electrified with a 7 MWh total in packs, then 0.02 TWh of batteries will be required there. Here's a summary:
* Longer Range Ship: Nickel/Manganese Battery; 12 TWh total fleet
* Shorter Range Ship: LFP Battery; 28 TWh total fleet
* Planes: High Nickel Battery; 0.02 TWh total fleet
A total of 40 TWh is needed.
Advancements in batteries will help accelerate this development. For example, Amprius developed a battery that is around 500 Wh/kg and if this battery proves to work and have a long life, it will usurp existing batteries for flight, where Energy density is of utmost importance.
What do you think of Tesla's 3 new vehicles and planes and boats? Will Tesla build a bus network that puts city buses out of business?
In Related News: Tesla Model Y Is Starting to Lead the World in Sales
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Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News.