Next stop for Elon Musk: New age buses and trucks?

When Elon Musk talks, the world listens. And when he draws up a plan for Tesla, nearly a decade after the first one, you can only imagine what happens — the world goes into a tizzy. 

In a blog on Wednesday, he charted the next course for Tesla and it is not Model 3. It is all about providing solar power to consumers and launching new age buses and trucks. 

Other than consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle that Tesla will be focusing on: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport, which will be akin to either buses or trams (perhaps buses more than trams). While both are in the early stages of development, Musk is confident that they will be ready for unveiling next year. "We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate," Musk says, in his blog.

He doesn’t stop there. In his blog titled Master Plan, Part Deux, Musk also talks about the advent of autonomy. He plans to not only shrink the size of buses, but also transition the role of bus driver to that of a fleet manager! Despite the shrinkage, the Tesla buses will offer plenty of room for strollers, wheelchairs and bikes. As far as autonomy goes, Musk believes it will be much safer than an average human driver. 

“As the technology matures, all Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability, meaning that any given system in the car could break and your car will still drive itself safely,” Musk says.

A decade after revealing his first master plan for Tesla, Musk is all set to change the traditional ways of travel. In his blog, he also talks about Tesla buses not sticking to pre-determined routes. Taking a leaf perhaps out of something like Uber Pool, Musk plans for Tesla buses to deliver people right to their doorsteps. 

“When true self-driving is approved by regulators, it will mean that you will be able to summon your Tesla from pretty much anywhere. Once it picks you up, you will be able to sleep, read or do anything else enroute to your destination."

He also has a business plan for Tesla vehicle owners, going forward. "You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you’re at work or on vacation, significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost. This dramatically lowers the true cost of ownership to the point where almost anyone could own a Tesla,” he says.

While all this looks too grand to be true, going by Musk’s past record, one knows not to doubt the man’s vision. Having achieved all that he had set out to do, when he made his plan public nearly 10 years ago, which included making a lot of money through Model S so it could produce the affordable Model 3, this too seems achievable.