Tesla has published its fourth “Master Plan,” outlining a high-level vision for the company to lead the global adoption of humanoid robots and sustainable energy. However, the post is missing a crucial element of any plan: specific details. Even CEO Elon Musk agrees with this criticism, acknowledging the lack of specifics and promising the company will add more at a later date.
For now, unlike its predecessors, this master plan is vague and generic. It reads as if someone compiled talking points from Musk and other futurists into an AI chatbot and published the output. The post is filled with sentences that sound impressive but lack substance, such as a statement that the hallmark of meritocracy is creating opportunities for people to use their skills to accomplish whatever they imagine.
This vagueness may stem from the fact that Tesla has still not completed all the goals from its second master plan published in 2016, or from its third plan in 2023. That second plan was also ambitious but was specific in its targets. It promised to create a seamlessly integrated solar roof with a battery product and scale it worldwide. While Tesla has a solar roof product, it has been plagued with problems, redesigned multiple times, and has not achieved significant scale in the U.S. or globally.
On the vehicle side, the second plan promised a compact SUV, a semi truck, a pickup, and an electric bus. Tesla accomplished the first goal with the popular Model Y. But the Tesla Semi remains in development, the Cybertruck has failed to meet its own sales goals, and the company has not expanded into anything resembling a bus.
The final parts of the second Master Plan were to make Teslas fully autonomous via a software update and to allow owners to add their cars to a large, shared network. Neither goal has been achieved. The company is testing a small, invite-only robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, but all cars have a safety monitor in the passenger seat. Furthermore, multiple hardware revisions over the years mean a vast number of existing cars likely do not have the required technology for full autonomy, contrary to earlier promises. The first and second Master Plans have since been removed from Tesla’s website.
Master Plan 3 focused on using Tesla as an example to convince the world that a sustainable economy is achievable. That plan was so specific it included a 41-page white paper with detailed projections. The company and the world have not accomplished much of what was outlined. In the meantime, Musk spent a significant amount of money to help elect a president who is actively fighting the adoption of cleaner and cheaper sustainable energy.
Musk has spent recent years trying to redefine Tesla not as a car company, but as an AI and robotics company. While there is some truth to this, the overwhelming majority of the company’s revenue still comes from the increasingly difficult business of making and selling electric vehicles. The belief that Tesla will complete this transition is a major driver of its stock price, making it beneficial for the company to embrace this idea wholeheartedly, hence the wide-eyed optimism of Master Plan 4.
Tesla once backed its ambitions with concrete goals and benchmarks it could be measured against. Musk himself wrote the first two plans and spent hours on stage with executives diving into the details of the third. This time, the “Master Plan” was published on a federal holiday while its CEO spent the day spreading fear about marginalized people.