Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, is planning something ambitious for the coming years.
Musk has promised that Tesla’s car production will dramatically increase by 2020. And that’s not all: the company is also looking to launch self-driving cars and increase its model variety in the next 2 or 3 years.
To start with, Musk has stated Tesla will complete its giant Gigafactory in Nevada, which is a key part of the future. The factory will solely be dedicated to the manufacture of batteries and will cut battery costs at Tesla by at least 30%.
The factory will be 5.5 million square feet in size. Just to give you a clear picture, it’s estimated that once in full operation, the Gigafactory will create more lithium-ion batteries than all the other lithium-ion battery manufacturers made in 2013.
Musk also said that he will be bringing the Model 3 into production. This would be made possible by the production of batteries at Gigafactory. The Model 3 will cost about $35, 000 and will be able to run about 200 miles per charge.
Tesla is also planning the launch of a compact SUV as part of its variety models. The SUV dubbed Model Y is expected to be released between 2019 and 2020. The Model Y will, however, be built on a different platform than the Model 3.
In September, Tesla will also reveal an electric semi truck. Musk announced back in June that Tesla was working with major trucking companies in the design phase. This would be the first electric semi truck from the company.
There is no clear timeline as to when the electric semi truck will come to the market. The electric pickup truck, however, has everything set and will be ready by 2020. While announcing plans to launch the prototype for the semi truck back in June, Musk also said that the company was working on a new electric pickup truck to be ready for the market in 18 to 24 months from June.
Musk has also made it clear that Tesla is working to increase the range of its electric cars to 1,000 kilometers for every charge. At the moment, Model S holds the record which stands at 800 kilometers. Getting to 1,000 kilometers will be a big step and Musk is looking to have this done in less than 2 years.
Tesla is also planning to launch fully autonomous self-driving cars by 2020, produce a minimum of 500,000 cars per year, double the number of supercharged cars by 2018 and hit the 1 million mark car production in 2 years.
It’s a huge bucket list - not to mention how Musk is planning on making Tesla an energy company on top of everything else.
