Tesla’s Grand Plan To Transition Into A Ride Sharing Company
Elon Musk outlined his new ‘Master Plan’ for Tesla as it nears the completion of his old one. It is a part of tech folklore now how Tesla basically announced what it was going to do to crack the electric car market open and yet some of the most well-established companies were caught by surprise.
As per expectations, the new master plan is ambitious to the point of being arrogant. No other company talks of ‘saving humanity’ and actually gets taken seriously. One of the main focuses of Tesla’s future plan was the development of self-driving software and a plan to enter the ride-sharing market.
Elon Musk knows that the concept of ownership in the future will be quite different to what it is now and is positioning his company to be ready for the change. He envisions future Tesla cars running completely autonomously and available to people at the press of a button.
According to Musk, Tesla will allow car owners to make their car a part of a shared fleet that will be available to all people like how current ride sharing services are. This will allow Car owners to earn money from their cars when they are not using it or on vacation. According to statistics, most car owners use their cars for only 5-10% of the time in a day.
Tesla ownership becomes much more affordable and attractive for people compared to a car which does not earn them money. It is a bold idea that is only going to be possible once Tesla completes its development of autonomous driving software, something that the company insists is very different to the ‘Autopilot’ system available to owners today.
Musk also added that Tesla will supplement the fleet of cars in areas where the number of cars is not enough to serve the demand. It is an interesting approach to ridesharing because it is the first service that lets just about anyone (or anyone who owns a Tesla) be a part of the ridesharing economy. Once companies like Uber and Lyft move on to self-driving fleets, they are expected to own and operate their own fleet.
On the other hand, though, the incentives for owning a car become unclear once ride sharing through self-driving cars becomes ubiquitous. Why would you pay Tesla a large upfront payment, take out a loan or financing when you can just call a car whenever you want without doing any of that?
In Tesla’s own words, this plan will help cut the cost of Tesla ownership and ‘may’ even earn the person a net profit in some cases. It is not something that will earn car owners tons of money on the face of it.
Elon Musk is determined to transform transportation across categories. His company plans to enter mass transit, heavy goods vehicles and wants to compete with the Uber’s of the world. No one will ever blame him for thinking small no matter how successful Tesla ends up being in these ventures.
He has staked the future of his company and a large part of his personal fortune on it.
