Elon Musk, Co-​Founder & CEO of Tesla Mo­tors, Au­gust 2, 2006.



"As you know, the in­iti­al pro­duct of Tesla Mo­tors is a high per­for­mance elec­tric sports car cal­led the Tesla Roads­ter. Howe­ver, some rea­ders may not be aware of the fact that our long term plan is to build a wide range of mo­dels, in­clu­ding af­for­d­ab­ly pri­ced fa­mi­ly cars. This is be­cau­se the over­ar­ching pur­po­se of Tesla Mo­tors (and the re­a­son I am fun­ding the com­pa­ny) is to help ex­pe­di­te the move from a mine-​and-​burn hy­dro­car­bon eco­no­my to­wards a solar elec­tric eco­no­my, which I be­lie­ve to be the pri­ma­ry, but not ex­clu­si­ve, sus­tain­a­ble so­lu­ti­on.

Cri­ti­cal to ma­king that hap­pen is an elec­tric car wit­hout com­pro­mi­ses, which is why the Tesla Roads­ter is de­si­gned to beat a ga­so­li­ne sports car like a Por­sche or Fer­ra­ri in a head to head show­down. Then, over and above that fact, it has twice the en­er­gy ef­fi­ci­en­cy of a Prius. Even so, some may ques­ti­on whe­ther this ac­tu­al­ly does any good for the world. Are we re­al­ly in need of ano­ther high per­for­mance sports car? Will it ac­tu­al­ly make a dif­fe­rence to glo­bal car­bon emis­sions?

Well, the ans­wers are no and not much. Howe­ver, that mis­ses the point, un­less you un­der­stand the se­cret mas­ter plan al­lu­ded to above. Al­most any new tech­no­lo­gy in­iti­al­ly has high unit cost be­fo­re it can be op­ti­mi­zed and this is no less true for elec­tric cars. The stra­te­gy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the mar­ket, where custo­mers are pre­pa­red to pay a pre­mi­um, and then drive down mar­ket as fast as pos­si­ble to hig­her unit vo­lu­me and lower pri­ces with each suc­ces­si­ve model.

Wit­hout gi­ving away too much, I can say that the se­cond model will be a sporty four door fa­mi­ly car at rough­ly half the $89k price point of the Tesla Roads­ter and the third model will be even more af­for­d­a­ble. In kee­ping with a fast gro­wing tech­no­lo­gy com­pa­ny, all free cash flow is plowed back into R&D to drive down the costs and bring the fol­low on pro­ducts to mar­ket as fast as pos­si­ble. When so­me­o­ne buys the Tesla Roads­ter sports car, they are ac­tu­al­ly hel­ping pay for de­ve­lo­p­ment of the low cost fa­mi­ly car [...].



So, in short, the mas­ter plan is:

1. Build sports car

2. Use that money to build an af­for­d­a­ble car

3. Use that money to build an even more af­for­d­a­ble car

4. While doing above, also pro­vi­de zero emis­si­on elec­tric power ge­ne­ra­ti­on op­ti­ons

   

   

Don't tell an­yo­ne."

From our CEO, Alas­dair Mur­doch



Over the last year as with many busi­nesses around the world, Bur­ger King UK has had to ad­dress a num­ber of chal­len­ges ari­sing from glo­bal geo­po­li­ti­cal and eco­no­mic fac­tors. These have pre­sen­ted th­re­ats to the sup­ply of business-​critical pro­ducts and in­creased costs of raw ma­te­ri­als. At the same time, we have con­stant­ly stri­ved to pro­vi­de our guests with safe, af­for­d­a­ble and great tas­ting food.



De­spi­te these ad­ver­se cir­cum­s­tances, I stron­gly be­lie­ve that the sus­taina­bi­li­ty agen­da is as im­portant today as it has ever been. Our Bur­ger King for Good sus­taina­bi­li­ty pro­gram­me lies at the heart of our busi­ness stra­te­gy and takes into ac­count com­mer­cial pri­o­ri­ties as well as the need to act re­spon­si­b­ly in pro­gres­sing en­vi­ron­men­tal and so­cial needs.

In doing this, we have set the bar even hig­her by es­tab­li­shing clear goals and tar­gets for each of our stra­te­gic sus­taina­bi­li­ty pil­lars. These in­clu­de am­bi­tious 2030 tar­gets on emis­sions re­duc­tions va­li­da­ted by the Sci­ence Based Tar­gets in­iti­a­ti­ve, of­fe­ring 50% meat-​free menus and 100% sus­tain­ab­ly sourced and in­de­pen­dent­ly cer­ti­fied key raw ma­te­ri­als.

Tre­a­ting our people with di­gni­ty, fair­ness and re­spect is fun­da­men­tal to the suc­cess of our busi­ness, whe­ther they work in our sup­ply chains, our re­stau­rants or our sup­port cent­re. To hold our­sel­ves to ac­count, we have put in place frame­works and tar­gets and are working with others where we have nee­ded in­de­pen­dent ex­pert sup­port, for ex­amp­le STOP THE TRAF­FIK on human rights in our sup­ply chains.



We have also set up a long-​term cha­ri­ty part­ner­ship with UK Youth to make life-​changing youth work ac­ces­si­ble to more young people and we have adop­ted a com­pre­hen­si­ve ap­proach to the di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­si­on of our people.

I am so proud of all that we have achie­ved in the last year and ex­tend my sin­ce­re thanks to our team mem­bers, our sup­port cent­re col­le­agues, sup­ply chain part­ners and our guests in con­stant­ly de­mons­tra­ting that Bur­ger King UK can be a force for good for our people, our pla­net and so­cie­ty at large.