The crutch of punditry is that people can be critical of a person or a company, over and over again, and so long as that company fails one time, those writers can be correct and crow about how they were right all along. It is much easier to be a critic of the producer than it is to be the one who produces things for critique. It’s also generally far more rewarding financially to be the producer than the critic, which is how the universe finds balance.
Elon Musk is more successful than I probably will ever be as a businessman and celebrity, so perhaps my critiques are not worth that much. At the same time, Tesla is out with its latest Master Plan and it sounds like mostly meaningless garbage to me. Musk also said this shows that cars will be worth less than 20% of the value of the company, which is a point where we might agree.
That’s good for Tesla, I guess, since the cars keep running into trouble. The latest issue is in India, which was supposed to be a growth area for the company. Maybe not so much. Audi, on the other hand, is looking to grow the value of its car division, and it’s looking to grow in America.
Tariffs have screwed up plans across the globe, and now Mazda is becoming two different companies depending on which market you’re looking at, and I think it’s a loss for American consumers.
ALSO, an important note: We instituted some changes this weekend and, uh, the style sheet got altered somehow. We’re fixing it, so apologies for the bright red text everywhere.
‘~80% Of Tesla’s Value Will Be Optimus’
Tesla likes to release these Master Plans that outline what the future of the company will be. I think this is a good practice for a company to undertake, even if Tesla often misses the mark. It’s far better to aim for something big and miss than it is to fail by never attempting anything ambitious.
The first Master Plan goes back to 2006, and the ideas were sound. Build a sports car, use that money to build something affordable, use that money to build something even more affordable. While not everything in Master Plan 2 was achieved (including the weird Solar City sideline business), the company did preview the Model Y, which was a huge success. Master Plan 3, in 2023, seems to be where things went off the rails a bit.
Master Plan 4 is out and, uh, there’s both a lot here and not a lot here:
This next chapter in Tesla’s story will help create a world we’ve only just begun to imagine and will do so at a scale that we have yet to see. We are building the products and services that bring AI into the physical world.
We have been working tirelessly for nearly two decades to create the foundation for this technological renaissance through the development of electric vehicles, energy products and humanoid robots.
Now, we are combining our manufacturing capabilities with our autonomous prowess to deliver new products and services that will accelerate global prosperity and human thriving driven by economic growth shared by all.
We are unifying our hardware and software at scale, and in doing so, we are creating a safer, cleaner and more enjoyable world.
This is sustainable abundance.
The topshot. Is that AI? Why is there an indoor lamp outside? What is going on here?
Whatever. I have said this before, but Elon Musk doesn’t want to be CEO of a car company, because a car company is boring and not, ultimately, as valuable as a company that does AI/Robots, et cetera. Musk said basically the same thing in a response to this tweet:
Those are the biggest factors.
~80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2025
Logically, if the Optimus robot is worth 80% of the value of the company, then cars are worth less than 20%.
This might be a sincere and thoughtful vision from the company, but given recent promises and the current environment, it is also mostly indiscernible from something a struggling company might do to prop up the sky-high valuation of its own stock. It’s not a good sign when your platitudes about the future sound an awful lot like Faraday Future.
I am not alone in this feeling. Here’s Electrek’s Fred Lambert (who, it’s worth mentioning, is rather critical of Tesla these days) on MPP4:
Tesla is lost as a company. This is a bunch of utopic nonsense, complete with AI “abundance” buzzwords that Grok could have easily written.
Elon’s first two master plans were straightforward, featuring clear, actionable steps and a well-defined product roadmap.
In comparison, this is opium meant for Tesla shareholders to get their fix of potential “infinite growth” as an AI stock. It’s not real.
While we wait for fully functioning robots and truly self-driving cars, there are still Teslas to be sold. Just maybe not in India.
Tesla Only Sold 600 Cars In India
Looking at the global picture, Tesla is sliding in the United States, cratering in Europe, and having trouble in China. Where could it possibly expand? For a moment, India seemed like a potential growth market for the company, as Elon Musk was friends with President Trump and President Trump was friends with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It doesn’t seem like Musk/Trump is a friendship that’s cherished by either anymore, and President Trump and PM Modi are also at odds.
How is Tesla doing since its launch in India? The company has delivered just 600 cars, which means it’ll likely be short of its goal, according to Bloomberg:
The company had originally aimed to utilize its full 2,500-car annual quota this year, Bloomberg News reported earlier.
While the company was banking on its brand power and its chief executive officer’s once-cozy ties with Donald Trump to break into India’s nascent EV sector, Musk’s public fallout with the US President, deteriorating bilateral ties, high local import taxes and the harsh reality of a price-sensitive market have unraveled that equation.
Tesla’s cheapest car is almost three times more expensive than comparable models, and that’s only going to get worse, according to this Reuters report:
An Indian tax panel has proposed steep increases in consumer levies on luxury electric cars priced above $46,000, a government document showed, a move that could impact sales of carmakers such as Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and BYD.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aiming to reform India’s tax system and is pushing Indians to buy more domestic goods just when relations with the United States have soured due to high tariffs. His government has recommended hefty cuts in the goods and services tax (GST) that could make everything from shampoos to electronics cheaper.
The key panel tasked with making rate suggestions to India’s powerful GST Council has backed sweeping cuts to many items in line with Modi’s overhaul, but it has called for raising taxes on electric cars, the document detailing its recommendations showed.
Yeah, alright, screw it. Robots!
Audi’s Master Plan Is: Sell More Cars
It’s been a rough few years for Audi, in no small part because Tesla replaced it as the cool, tech-forward car to have. The company also doesn’t make any cars in the United States, and its main seller here isn’t USMCA-compliant.
So what’s a company to do? According to Reuters, there’s no “quit” in Audi, although there is a “U” and an “I.”
Audi could target long-term annual sales of at least 2 million cars, up a fifth from 2024, under a new strategy the premium brand is expected to release later this year, according to a person close to the matter.
The potential target would be an annual record for Audi and points towards a more aggressive approach after some tough years that have seen its sales slip.
When is it supposed to hit 2 million sales as a brand? No one knows. How is it supposed to do it? Also, no one knows. Maybe a new Audi TT will help.
A Tale Of Two Mazdas
I have always thought of Mazda as a company that has continued to carry the torch for smaller, sportier, and generally more premium-feeling affordable cars. In this new tariff environment, it seems like Mazda is going to continue that practice, albeit with a different mix of values for different markets.
As an export-heavy company that sells most of its cars outside of Japan while building many of them inside the country, Mazda has left itself open to being a huge victim in the current trade war. The solution seems to be that it’ll try to sell more high-margin, expensive vehicles in the United States at the expense of more affordable small cars. In Japan, it’ll sell more affordable small cars.
Here’s how Hans Griemel describes the plan:
The sudden slowdown in Japan underscores how tariffs are biting harder and forcing a strategy shift at export-dependent Mazda. CEO Masahiro Moro has pledged to restore profitability partly by focusing on higher-margin vehicles, as Mazda fights back from a quarterly loss in the April-June period.
[…]
Mazda, which derives 90 percent of its global sales from outside its home market, said in June it wants to boost sales at home by about a third to buffer the blow from U.S. tariffs.
It seems to be pushing lower-margin vehicles in Japan to offset slower sales of those products overseas. In Japan, Mazda2 sales increased 62 percent in July as Mazda3 sales climbed 18 percent.
Building as many vehicles in the only factory it has in the United States makes sense, though I think Mazda risks getting stuck in extremely competitive categories instead of owning less competitive ones.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Via Dan Roth, here’s Melissa Carper with “1980 Dodge Van,” which is the only song I know about focused on the 1980 Dodge Van.
The Big Question
What’s your automotive master plan?
Photo: Tesla
Master Plan:
I was behind a brand new (still on temp tags) Tesla Model X. Apparently, part of Musk’s plan to reduce the importance of automobiles involves eliminating brake lights. Never saw ’em lit up once in 5 miles of following. Brake lights are not required to illuminate with regenerative brakes, only with application of the pedal. So why bother installing them on a car that has 100% regenerative braking?
The brake lights on my Ioniq 5 activate with regenerative braking.
FMVSS108 *allows* brake lights with regenerative braking, but does not *require* it.
This is actually on the list of things that bother me some. I was behind a Chevy Bolt of some age/flavor on a country road that’s got some hills and a moderately low speed limit.
The observed behaviors going on: I (driving a regular gas car) never applied brakes, but generally had my foot on the “super-minimal-input” threshold where you just kind of float the gas now and then between 0 and 5% or so.
The Bolt never OBVIOUSLY applied brakes – we kept a pretty consistent distance/pace – but the LIGHTS were just going NUTS.
What dawned on me was that the driver was in “one foot” mode, but still “floating” the accelerator like I was. Whenever they “floated” down to 0%, the regen system kicked in and illuminated the lights – but it was so on-the-edge that it was like driving behind a mobile disco.
I like the idea of regen braking A LOT, but I am VERY nervous about using it because I don’t know what the car’s signalling to the world around me.
Coincidence since you brought it up- I was behind a cyber this weekend, t-tags also, and after noting the wavy panels, I noticed that there were no brake lights while we were stationary at a stop light. Otherwise, nothing new to say about that company that hasn’t already been said. The sooner you-know-who takes a one-way trip to Mars the better us filthy peons will be. “Sustainable abundance” my @ss.
My master plan is to keep the current fleet as long as possible. Midwest winter salt is eating the pre-aluminum F-150’s sheet metal so it’s becoming an eyesore if we take it to “polite company” but it’s still a beast as far as towing.
As for Elon’s Optimus dreams, my guess is the AI (or more accurately the Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI) is going to be like Autopilot – perpetually ten years away from really doing what it’s advertised to do.
The first use case for those robots will be working in his factories, where the necessary capabilities will be fairly limited (like say Interstate driving today) and at least the occasional “does not compute” event will max out at “throw this piece away” and not a trip to the morgue.
My automotive master plan:
My auto plan (No I will not kowtow) is to keep driving my two Civics, the are fit for purpose and will likely outlive me as long as I keep the rust at bay.
My automotive master plan is to continue to sit and wait to see if anyone produces a new vehicle that I’m actually interested in buying. I’m also hoping that at some point in the future, I’m hoping that someone will make a decent, not super expensive kit to convert the old Jeep to an EV. Otherwise, just continue the experiment of how little maintenance I can do on said Jeep and the Bolt.
Master plan:
What a coincidence: I don’t see Tesla (or Elon Musk) as a particularly valuable part of my future, either.
My automotive master plan is probably to stick with the GX as long as I can, keep a revolving stable of motorcycles for fun (dirtbike and street bike), and sell the Porsche to free up some space so I can set up a more permanent woodshop. We will replace my Fiancée’s car in 2028 or 2029 if it lasts that long with something fairly new if not brand new and electric or at least hybrid. I like the idea of a Maverick or the new small Ford EV pickup but I still have concerns about Ford’s build quality, especially paint and we both want physical buttons.
My master plan is to get a fun and slightly unreasonable daily (looking for an Evo 9) before the Michigan snow starts flying. Drive this for several years then sell it and my C10 pick-up for a newish midsize pickup and if the stars align a FD Rx7 as a fun/project car. My Miata however, is eternal.
What’s your automotive master plan?
Still trying to figure that out. The 4Runner is going on 13 years and 200K miles, it runs well but is starting to have old car issues. Being a northeast vehicle all its life, corrosion is a growing concern. The urge to move on to something else is getting stronger.
For some irrational reason, I want a full-size truck, likely an F150. (They all kind of suck right now, even Toyota, so the Ford actually seems the best choice despite all the recalls).
I’ve always been a used car buyer, but after 30 years of that I’m actually thinking new this time around. It would be nice to be the original owner of something and know it’s entire history.
Just trying to wrap my head around the idea of spending that much and having a monthly payment.
The LS1 Bird is still sitting in a family member’s garage, I really need to pull that out of there and get it started. It’s been sitting entirely too long. Pretty sure it needs head gaskets, I don’t know if having it done is worth the money. It’s not something I have the desire to mess with myself.
My master plan? Keep the two 2011 BMWs I have that I am perfectly happy with. They don’t have many miles on them, and I don’t drive all that much. Though if I sell my place in Maine, my Mercedes wagon and Land Rover Disco will be sold. Land Rover will probably be sold regardless – I really have no use for it anymore. Spitfire comes to Florida and the long postponed new interior might actually happen. I’ve only had all the bits for three years now. Sigh.
Once my real estate dilemmas are resolved (new house finished and one or the other of the old ones sold) and my nice new garage is finished, I may get some sort of additional fun classic car. I really want another Alfa Spider – perfect old crock for Florida as most of them from the ’80s/90s have A/C.
Musk is not a successful businessman. He’s a very good huckster who got lucky a couple times with his dad’s money. Witness: his actual products are cratering (literally the next story.)
*My* master plan? Drive a reliable compact car until it falls apart, slowly piece together a single mostly-parts-bin project car, and make any further decisions if we ever get an economy stable enough for regular people to plan ahead.
That’s appropriate, because a lot of people are considering that Elon Musk is less important to Tesla than maybe he has been.
Humanoid robots are not a viable mass-market product, and won’t be. They will sell some to the bleeding edge nerds and influencers – basically the same people who bought Cybertrucks.
You know why a dishwashing robot is a cube under the counter? Because that’s a better form factor for that job than a humanoid robot smashing plates in a sink.
Came here to say what you did in your last paragraph. It makes more sense to build a dishwasher, or Roomba, than it does to make a humanoid robot to wash dishes in your sink or run your vacuum cleaner. Robots are best when they are designed around a specific purpose. What exactly will a humanoid robot do, that can’t be accomplished with either actual humans (imagine that!) or with a purpose built robot? Why constrain your robot with humanoid form, when it could be better designed around a specific purpose?
Even C3PO is still pretty useless, right?
I always thought C3PO could be replaced by adding a language module to R2. It really was pointless character.
On earth he might be good for some basic cleaning tasks. Otherwise he could be replaced by a laptop. Some of his more important skills seem to be specific to the Star Wars universe–being able to interface with other bots and computers/tech.
Actually, he could probably fold my laundry. I fucking hate folding laundry.
Not defending the Robomusk and don’t really want more “people” walking around the house, but a Roomba is easily defeated by a rug with a fringe. And can’t sweep under the fridge. A dishwasher doesn’t load itself. And the rest of the family doesn’t always want to load or unload it either. A Roomba can’t clean a wall or dust a baseboard, never mind clean up a wet spill on a rug. Or remove crumbs from the counter. Or scrub the toilet. Etc. It’s a pretty narrow use case, we have one (that’s lived in the closet for years), the house basically needs to be clean and ideally devoid of contents (and pets) for it to work. You spend more time Roomba-proofing the place than you would just vacuuming and sweeping if you’re a normal person/family instead of living in Patrick Bateman’s or Neil McCauley’s house.
The Robomusk is an electromechanical slave. No more, no less, except it won’t talk back or sabotage the owner unless (until?) Skynet gives such a command. But if you have a Robomusk, then who needs Full Self Driving, just have Robomusk drive the thing and open the door for me while it’s at it.
Well, yeah, there’s still stuff you have to do to interact with those robots. My Roomba has been fantastic, its 10+ years old (bought used) and does everything I ask of it. It’s one of the “dumb” ones that doesn’t map the house, it just kinda bounces around like an idiot the whole time. We’ve got three cats and a dog in a 1300 square foot house and it does a great job keeping up with it. Though we don’t have much carpet and none of it is deep pile, which would definitely be an issue for the aging Roomba. We like it so much it’s gone through three battery packs, a whole little plastic “transmission” that runs the brushes, a new spinning brush motor, and even new rubber for its tires, plus other assorted things. We’ve actually become quite attached to the little guy. The pets mostly just ignore it except my 13 year old cat who will stay on the floor and let Roomba vacuum all around him.
But everyone’s situation and home is different and robot vacuums aren’t for everyone. What I was getting at is we basically already have machines that do shit for us, but I see where you’re coming from. We still have to load, empty, clean, etc. those things, where a true humaniod robot would take that step out too.
But given Musk hasn’t even demonstrated that these robots can do anything remotely useful as of yet, I remain skeptical.
Also, humanoid robots (particularly the one that Tesla built) are just plain creepy. I don’t want one in my house.
Unless you have a huge home, this plastic asshole is either a crowd (if it’s functional) or clutter (when it inevitably breaks or you get tired of dodging it every time you need to walk down a hallway).
My plan is incomplete.
But one page is definitely complete…never purchase a Tesla product and avoid blockchain BS and anyone promoting it.
Hot take:
Now that Mazda (holy shit!) has abandoned the small car formula, who is left. Well, we are starting to see US and Europe safety rules starting to converge to one “equivalent” standard. Combine this with a possible tariff relaxation between the US and EU, and suddenly I see the European cars becoming prolific in the US because they are small and affordable. Meanwhile, everyone else has left the segment, and China is outright banned.
My plan:
Sell the Caddy, maybe sell the BMW, maybe sell the Pickup, and buy another Bolt with over 80k miles for 4 figures for my kid, and possibly some other ICE that is cheap to run and maintain for me, like a 10-15 year old Honda. Gotta be able to drive to Florida whenever we want. #eyeroll
My automotive master plan is to keep driving the Mercedes until the wheels won’t bolt back on anymore.
And to get the husband a pre-owned Mazda when the time comes.
My automotive master plan is get a list of the winners of all the World Series, Superbowls, NBA Finals, and NHL Stanley Cups from the last 40 years, then find a time machine to go back to the 80s. Find a bookie, cash out, and buy whatever tf I want over the next 40 years. Hopefully I’m dead before I get to the “new average car price is $50,000” era, let alone the “AI chat bot as a spouse” shit we’re going thru rn
Uhhh master plan? I have no idea my Firebirds exhaust still needs to be clamped back correctly, my d250 still needs to the front suspension done (over the winter perhaps?) my FJ is rusting away (rip) and will most likely just be my dedicated winter daily and off roader and my Polestar 2 is my current daily and it might get traded in the future for an R3X or a Scout SUV (if they don’t cost a ton) or it will get passed onto the fiance when her Tourx gets to long in the tooth.
Oh and I might get a 79 formula from my dad’s coworker when he retires by the end of next year since he is moving to Canada and doesn’t want to pay the ridiculous import fees for a car that he never drives.
Mine is to keep using my two cars to haul people and stuff. Preferably big-person toys like campers, skis and remote control planes going to interesting places. The reality is that the cars will be mainly used to cart myself to and from work. Gotta get the bread so I can play with the toys and take the trips.
Long term is to replace the Toyota with a plug-in Jeep Gladiator. Why? It’s a practical convertible with a bed. Literally nobody else sells anything like it in the US.
“What’s your automotive master plan?”
Pay off our last remaining car payment, get my 68 Beetle completely finished (still a work in progress) and try to convince my wife to let me get another fun cheapish car that is safe enough (has a seatbelt) to carry my daughter in to cars and coffee events. Thinking Boxster or maybe E30 or something. I also really want a Bugeye WRX.. I have no idea what I want
Resisting the urge to buy more cars because I don’t have the space (difficulty: impossible)
What Elmo says is completely decoupled from what he really means, intends or believes. Everything that comes out of his mouth is desperately intended to continue supporting the stock price, which is and has always been ridiculously and excessively high. His main worry is, and always has been, that Tesla will one day be fairly and accurately valued. Which would be today’s stock price divided by 50. It will happen one day but he’s trying to stave it off as long as possible. That’s it!
THERE IS NO OPTIMUS, not can he build a useful “robot”.
xAI is and always will be a money loser.
Battery storage will always be a marginal business and subject to commodity pricing.
EV’s are commodities now and Tesla’s competitive headwinds are becoming a hurricane.
Charging network probably just barely breaks even and competition will come for that too.
Elmo has nothing to offer.
Automotive Master Plan is to get the wife a decent new car at some point, instead of her driving one of the 25+ year olds from the fleet of junk. Leaning towards a Mazda CX-50 hybrid. Toyota drivetrain, made in the US, that awesome red, sounds pretty good to me!
Meanwhile, I’m once again deviating from the master plan by picking up a 09 Corolla 5 speed with 250k miles for free from a friend in the next week or 2. Hello, wife’s new car for now…
I like these but damned if I didn’t keep hitting my head trying to get into the thing, the roof is just low with respect to the seat cushion. Then I had my wife get in, and she is considerably shorter than me, and she hit her head getting in too! She immediately dismissed it at that point. Wound up with a ‘25 Forester – at least test drive it.
Hmm, thanks for the heads up (pun intended.) I’m 6′, wife is 5’7″. We haven’t looked at one yet. I already hit my head getting into my son’s TT and the XJ so I don’t need another.
I already took care of most of my automotive master plan in the last couple months. Traded in ’22 Mach E for a ’25 and lowered my payments. Also sold the ’22 Mustang GT coupe, saving me nearly $1000 a month that I no longer can afford due to the extreme dip in the car business.
Speaking of which, getting out of the car business will be step 3.
So you like the Mach E? I’d like to pick up a used one in 2-3 years when I can hand our current Prius off to a kid and upgrade. I’ve heard the lower-trim Mach E’s ride can be off-putting though, and my wife has a sensitive inner ear. How has yours been?
My wife and I love it. In my experience, the 2025 has a much better ride compared to the ’21 and ’22 we had. Ford’s revisions to the handling are very obvious – much less bouncy and more planted when cornering, to say nothing of the increased horsepower and torque. I’ll find out when the weather turns colder if the heat pump makes a difference.
Thanks! Which package did you get? I’ve read that the GT comes with some fancy suspension that helps, but maybe in the newer models I will be looking at in a few years that won’t be an issue
All three of ours have been AWD Premium models, the last two with the extended range battery. The GT model, in my opinion, is overkill and the acceleration actually gave me headaches when I tried it out, but perhaps Ford will eventually offer the Magneride on lower models. The Premium is fast and agile enough to get away from stupid drivers when necessary.
Appreciate it. We have a Lightning which we love, hence the interest in adding the MME at some point. Plenty of people badmouthing Ford but I have been nothing but impressed. And the Lightning is decent at evading stupid drivers too!