Self-driving buses: the next big idea from world’s most eccentric billionaire

ELON Musk, who has pioneered the self-driving car, has set out his masterplan of next big ideas.

The founder and chief executive of Tesla and creator of Paypal, which made him an £8bn fortune, has outlined a vision for self-driving buses and cars.

And as well as the Tesla self-driving car Musk has also been developing the SpaceX project – a reusable space rocket that takes off and lands upright.

He wrote his first masterplan a decade ago and it included plans for his electric cars. In his latest scheme, which the 45-year-old South African has named Masterplan, Part Deux, he sees owners of self-driving cars rent them out as taxis. He envisages the car automatically driving to a pickup, and ferrying the passenger to their location – while the owner sits at home. The Tesla has had mixed fortunes. A fatal accident in which the driver was killed in a collision with a truck earlier this year is now being investigated by US highway safety regulators. Regarding his plan Musk (pictured) said: ‘The point of this was, and remains, accelerating the advent of sustainable energy.’