In my opinion, no single person today, is doing for humanity what Elon Musk is doing all by himself. Take a look at his many undertakings and you will understand just how important the things he is working on are.
From making solar power affordable and mainstream and building electric cars to even trying his hand at making humanity an interplanetary species, Musk is working for a better future for all of us.
Of course, he is not doing it all alone. He has amazingly talented teams that he works with on these separate projects. But without a leader like him, I doubt the same people could achieve the same feats as they have done in the past decade.
Also consider the fact that his ventures are so futuristic that he has faced criticism, skepticism and many, many failures. But every time, he has come on top of all that and managed to taste victory. They don’t call him the real world Iron Man for nothing.
Today, let’s talk about one such impressive feat that he is trying to achieve, one car at a time.
The Master Plan
Musk sees a world with electric cars that drive themselves and do not cause any pollution. Seems like a pretty big vision, doesn’t it? It really is. For that to happen, so many cutting edge technology has to come together to work perfectly, that one would think it might just be impossible.
That didn’t stop him though. To bring this dream into reality, he started Tesla Motors, which was a very small company with very limited resources. But he had a master plan and he had it in 2006!
The plan was to build a high end electric sports car, then use the money from that to develop a medium volume car at a lower price and then use the money from that to build a mass market, affordable electric car.
A lot of people have been very skeptical about Musk’s EV plans and considered them as a passing fad. They failed to see how EVs could possibly compete against gasoline cars in terms of range, power, ease of refuelling, utility, among other things.
Musk proved them all wrong and his master plan is now in its final stages of completion with the launch of Tesla Model 3 last year which is just now starting to get rolled out.
Tesla Model 3
Musk announced the Model 3 last year to much speculation and fanfare. After all, it was being touted as THE electric car to mark the beginning of an end of gasoline cars.
There are two versions of the Model 3. The first one is the Standard model which comes with a range of 220 miles on a single charge and a top speed of 130 mph. It can also go from 0 to 60 mph in just 5.6 seconds. This standard model is priced at $35,000.
The second model is the Long Range model which comes with a range of 310 miles on a single charge and a top speed of 140 mph. This model goes from 0 to 60 in just 5.1 seconds and costs $44,000.
These are not where the features end though. The Model 3 has a 5 star safety rating in all categories and also comes standard with the autopilot feature meaning that not only can it drive itself today on highways, it is already equipped for full autonomy once the software becomes advanced enough.
Now, those are cars you would want to buy and replace your gasoline cars with. Almost all the woes that consumers have about electric cars in general have been addressed and with a growing network of Tesla Superchargers, owning a Model 3 is a no brainer.
After the announcement of last year, it was only recently that the first reviewers got their hands on one of these cars and they are all unanimous in their reviews. This is it!
Let me quickly list some of these reviews.
“The Tesla Model 3 is here, and it is the most important vehicle of the century. Yes, the hyperbole is necessary,” Kim Reynolds, Motor Trend.
“There isn’t anybody who’s going to sit in the driver’s seat of this car and not want it,” Matthew Debord, Business Insider.
“While the Roadster put Tesla on the map, the Model 3 really feels like the car that will bring electric vehicles as a whole into the mainstream.” Andrew Taratola, Engadget
So, there you have it folks! Electric cars are finally here in the way we all wanted them to and they are here to stay. This might just mark the beginning of the era of EVs and also a beginning of the end of the gasoline cars which have served us well for decades. It’s time to move on.