What does the future of carsharing look like? With more initiatives to turn self-owned vehicles into revenue generating streams through sharing networks when the vehicle is going unused, it seems that all car owners, in the near future, will be able to contribute to a more sustainable, economic system while offsetting the costs involved with car ownership. But how does Tesla fit into this grand scheme of mobility in the future? Here we’ve summarized Elon Musk’s master plan with Tesla , which includes Tesla carsharing with the Tesla Network.
Elon Musk’s Master Plan with Tesla
In addition to a grand plan of car-sharing, allowing car owners to generate income while they’re at work or on vacation simply by tapping a button on their app, Elon Musk’s master plan for Tesla includes the following:
– Integrate Energy Generation and Storage: Create a smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works, empowering the individual as their own utility, and then scale that throughout the world. One ordering experience, one installation, one service contact, one phone app.
– Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport: Tesla will expand its currently premium sedans and SUVs with the Model 3, a future compact SUV and a new kind of pickup, as well as the Tesla Semi to address most of the consumer market.
– Autonomy: Tesla’s self-driving technology is getting better and better, and the vision is that all Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability. This means that, should any system in the vehicle go wrong, the car will still be able to drive itself safely.
The list of successful car company startups is short. As of 2016, the number of American car companies that haven’t gone bankrupt is a grand total of two: Ford and Tesla. Starting a car company is idiotic and an electric car company is idiocy squared.
Tesla Carsharing
When Elon Musk announced his Master Plan, sharing his vision for carsharing through the Tesla Network, he shared additional information that wasn’t necessarily expected: this won’t be a significant new revenue stream for Tesla.
Instead, it will allow for Tesla car owners to generate revenue by renting out their vehicles when they aren’t using them, significantly offsetting and possibly exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost. This opens up owning a Tesla to a larger segment of the market, almost making Tesla’s available to anyone. Tesla will earn some additional revenue through the sharing initiative, but most of the it will go to the owners. “Since most cars are only in use by their owner for 5% to 10% of the day, the fundamental economic utility of a true self-driving car is likely to be several times that of a car which is not,” says Musk.
Carsharing as Defined by the Tesla Network
Elon Musk clarified that, when it comes to the Tesla Network, “it’s not Tesla versus Uber, it’s the people versus Uber.” With that being said, the Tesla Network will not allow customers to use self-driving Teslas for ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft, and will only be able to do so through the network itself.
By definition, we must at some point achieve a sustainable energy economy or we will run out of fossil fuels to burn and civilization will collapse. Given that we must get off fossil fuels anyway and that virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane, the faster we achieve sustainability, the better.
Do you want to discuss Tesla carsharing of the future or learn more about shared mobility as it stands today? Please contact us to discuss your questions.
Photo by Taneli Lahtinen on Unsplash
