Tesla also wants to build mobile phones, can Musk succeed?

Image source @ Visual China

Wen | LeiTech, editor| Dingxi

The Labor Day holiday is approaching, but for Musk, the "internet celebrity" on the other side of the ocean, it is obvious that it is not time to rest, and there is a trend of violent workload growth, and the recent news about Tesla founder Elon Musk is one after another.

For example, it said that it would acquire 100% of the shares of the overseas mainstream social platform Twitter and privatize it, this news was initially denied by many parties, Twitter even claimed to take drastic measures to resist, the result is that on the 25th of us time, Musk officially announced that it reached a acquisition agreement with $44 billion, and Twitter also released a message that it accepted this acquisition agreement.

This news caused a sensation on the internet beyond the imagination of most domestic netizens, so that Musk released another message before this has been buried, before the official announcement of the acquisition of Twitter Musk also officially launched the mobile phone research and development plan, at the top of a Tweet to recruit mobile phone experts to work in its company, it seems that the Tesla mobile phone that has been blowing for a year has finally entered the practical state.

Apple wants to build a car, Tesla wants to build a mobile phone, the two technology giants "invade" each other's leading market moves obviously triggered a lot of forces in the market, for the masses, more choices are naturally a good thing, but as a technology enthusiast, Xiao Lei is more curious why Musk wants to enter a market that has long become the Red Sea? What are his hole cards and how many odds of winning?

Why did Musk build a cell phone?

Fast forward to 2021, and the first opportunity for everyone to notice Tesla's mobile phone news again is Elon Musk's announcement of the launch of Facebook and Twitter, two major social platforms, because these social platforms violate their "free speech" rights. At the same time, Elon Musk also claimed that he did not like the two major mobile phone systems of iOS and Android, and wanted to build his own system to beat them.

Although Elon Musk often brags about all kinds of things, can go to Mars today (this is indeed in preparation), and will participate in the presidential election tomorrow, when a new world richest man known as "contemporary Iron Man" announces that he is going to enter the mobile phone industry, then the industry will more or less react.

And Elon Musk seems to enjoy the feeling that a sentence makes an industry a big enemy, but neither Apple nor Google has any reaction to the news that Elon Musk wants to build his own mobile phone system. After all, there have been many people who want to challenge Android and iOS, but no one has been able to succeed, even bill Gates, the world's richest man, the nation's top technology company, and his Microsoft, have finally folded the mobile system market.

Even Microsoft, which has rich experience in system development, has not succeeded, and what is the probability of success of An Elon Musk who crossed over from the automotive and aerospace fields? Interestingly, the mobile phone system seems to be just one piece of Elon Musk's mobile phone empire blueprint, and soon after the news came out that Elon Musk wanted to build his own mobile phone brand and provide users with an "unprecedented" experience.

The news that Elon Musk wants to build a mobile phone has not gone away, but in the next year there has been no more action, and it seems that tesla mobile phones are just the product of "self-hi" that stays on Elon Musk's mouth. However, compared with other industries, the mobile phone industry is now highly complete and mature, want to set up a mobile phone brand is not difficult, only need to provide qualified product design drawings, Foxconn and other companies can provide one-stop production services, and even directly purchase foxconn and other companies' design solutions, direct OEM production.

Only from the current situation, Elon Musk should not be satisfied with OEM production, but intends to let its brain-computer device research company Neuralink take over the relevant work, and according to internal sources, Elon Musk's Tesla mobile phone benchmark has only one target, that is, Apple's iPhone.

Benchmarking the iPhone is obviously ambitious, so the question is, why did Elon Musk build a mobile phone? Is the iPhone not performing enough, or is Android not open enough? Obviously, elon Musk made mobile phones for nothing more than to further expand his user range, looking at the areas invested by Elon Musk, you will find that in addition to new energy vehicles and aerospace technology, he has a lot of interest in the Internet and the next generation of human-computer interactive equipment.

The acquisition of Twitter is an attempt by Elon Musk to enter the Internet social industry, but it is the peak at first sight, and the mobile phone is the smart electronic device with the highest popularity in the world, and manufacturers can form a unique product ecological chain through the mobile phone, Apple is the best example.

In Elon Musk's product blueprint, a mobile phone of its own can become the connection point of the brain-computer device, Tesla car, and starchain system, and users can make these devices closely linked through the mobile phone, rather than relying on Android or iOS APP, after all, everyone knows that the stability and optimization of the system's built-in modules are often much higher than the APP.

Therefore, Elon Musk's plan for the mobile phone market will not be small, not to mention whether to develop a mobile phone system, at least like Xiaomi and other manufacturers to create a deeply customized system based on Android, in order to fit Tesla and other Elon Musk's technology services.

The second is the future of brain-computer device interaction, perhaps future users can remotely access the virtual community through Tesla mobile phones? However, this advantage itself is also a word of eight, can not be considered for the time being. After all, according to the internal news of the news, the first product of Tesla's mobile phone will be available as early as 2024, and the brain-computer device will obviously not be commercialized in 2024.

So when Tesla came out, in addition to the configuration, what advantages did it have? Elon Musk's own answer is to be able to make free calls without plugging in a SIM card, and to get StarLink system support anywhere and enjoy broadband-like internet speed support. It is worth noting that both the former and the latter are based on the support of the Starlink system, so the premise is that Elon Musk's Starlink system can be completed as scheduled.

While free-to-call, broadband-grade mobile network support letters sound great, on closer inspection, are they really attractive to users? It is not excluded that some supporters and fans of Elon Musk will buy, but for most ordinary users, the cost is the focus, the current StarLink system monthly tariff minimum gear of $99, the downward speed is between 10-20Mbps, while the premium package monthly tariff is $500, the downward speed is 20-40Mbps.

In contrast, the U.S. telecom operator's unlimited data package tariff is between $60-100, while the limited data package price is lower, generally between $30-60, if multiple people work together, there is a lot of discount. Overall, in addition to users who need to download a large number of files on their mobile phones, ordinary users use the 5G package of telecom operators to meet daily needs.

Of course, the StarLink system is not without advantages, with the 5G base station coverage of the United States StarLink may have no small advantage in non-central urban areas and rural areas, such as even if the user is in the wilderness, in theory, as long as there is a StarLink device, it can provide high-speed network services for Tesla's mobile phone.

However, once it is out of the coverage of StarLink ground equipment, then the network speed will drop significantly, to some extent, like the satellite communication version of WiFi, in fact, it can not really meet the Internet needs of users in remote areas.