CEO Elon Musk says working on “Top Secret Tesla Masterplan”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, under pressure after a fatal crash involving one of his electric cars, went on Twitter Sunday, July 10 to say he’s working on another “Top Secret Tesla Masterplan”. He said he hoped to publish details this week, The Guardian reports.

The tantalizing message echoes an August 2006 blog post, titled “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)”, in which Musk unveiled the cars that became the Tesla Model S four-door family car and the Tesla 3 sports sedan.

Tesla and Musk have been hit with waves of bad news in recent weeks. Federal officials are investigating a 7 May crash in Florida that killed a man after his Model S’s cameras failed to detect a turning tractor-trailer and did not automatically activate the brakes.

Tesla also said last week that shipments to customers fell in the past three months, making it unlikely the California-based firm would meet expectations for delivering 80,000 to 90,000 vehicles this year.

Musk ran into criticism for Tesla’s bid of up to $2.5bn last month for the financially troubled firm SolarCity, which installs solar panels and is run by Musk’s cousin, Lyndon Rive. Tesla stock is down nearly 15% since late April, The Guardian says.

The tech billionaire has not shied, however, from his ambitious projects and hopes. In addition to Tesla, Musk is CEO to a private spaceflight company, SpaceX, which has managed to land reusable rockets that can take payloads beyond the atmosphere, and he hopes to send an unmanned mission to Mars by 2018. He also helped inspire plans for a super-fast train system called the Hyperloop, though he is not affiliated with current projects to develop it.