on this week's episode of Ride the Lightning. The Tesla Unofficial Podcast. What better way to celebrate Episode 200 than an interview with Elon Musk himself? Yes, it actually happened. Ellen and I discussed Tesla's past, present and future covering a whole lot of topics in this one hour conversation. I hope you enjoy it. So I'm here at Tesla in Palo Alto, at their corporate headquarters with the one and only Ilan must feel on. Thank you so much for being here. So I've got so much to ask you. I know I don't have all day. Um, I've always wanted to know the model s It's when in the process of the model s Did you know that you had something special? Was it on paper you just knew? Or was it not till it got out into the world In the customer's hands or somewhere in between?

Sure. Um, I apologize if it takes me a little moment to kind of get into things because, uh uh, by the other day of my mind, it's like, loaded up with sober stuff. It takes, like, just a moment to unload. Um, So I guess, uh I guess when we when we unveiled it, The model s we designed in the corner of the rocket factory. So we're gonna have a design studio at the time. Um, and,

uh, I tried various outside design house and nothing good came of that. Um, so I was fortunate to encounter fronts. Um, on whole 1000. Just referral for a friend and, uh, at Fran's came to the opening of the first Has the story the one in L. A. Yeah, um, and we're quite a good party. I think that the deafening on dhe France there was a good vibe. So and he and I got along really well. So he decided to,

uh, muzzle and join Tesla, which was very, very risky. Move

with the times. Sure. Mazda doing quite well for himself, I'm sure.

Yeah. Um, So then we really should just put a tent in the fall corner of the rocket factory, this basic shock factory, and and put together a small crew and start sculpting the the one less. Um, and the requirements were pretty extreme because we wanted to be something special, so I wanted something that had more cargo space than any other sedan right, that could seat five adults and two kids. Five kids. So I kind of wanted executive privilege there. Yeah, I wanted a real to carry seven people plus luggage in the front. Um, so the front trunk, um, And then to have great performance,

a great handling, great acceleration. Um, and just a beautiful silhouette. Long range. So right. We want to be at least Turner 50 miles or ended up being a little 65. That's right. Number. Exactly.

When you do a podcast about your company every week is soak up all the information. Yeah, absolutely. So? So when When did you say you knew right away that this was this was gonna work and this

was gonna be something transformative? I know. I don't know. Work had no work. I just designed what I thought would be the perfect car. If for me, actually. Yeah, eso And I think if you think this is generally a good approach to if you're going to design something, create a product, it's very difficult to infer what others would love. But you know what you love. And so he makes something that that you love. And then hopefully you're not unique in the world than others will like it too. Yeah. So, um,

you know, we're going to the same thing with the same thing with Model X and the military. And what? Why? And now the the pickup truck is, um, your first pickup truck were like that was just, like showing, but basically just different versions. Very similar versions to pick trucks that already existed, like guys. Do you love this? No. No, actually, don't love it,

but we think truck buyers might like that. Doesn't. Doesn't work that way. You can't You can't drill project somebody that actually might fall in love with by trying to imagine what somebody else would love. That doesn't work, right. So with Model s and North and with roaster, I I did most of the design work personally for the original road. So I got a design award from couple design awards. Actually actually got honorary peacefully from, uh, passing the school art the art school surfer girl. From that, it's actually relatively easy design a sports car. It's hard to design a sit down that looks good. That's what's called a natural dimensions are quite, you know, they're sort of, like, model

dimensions. And you don't need to be practical, really innocent,

practical, You know, you could be long and low on debt. Just makes it look good automatically. Yeah, on dhe sleek lines and have lots of cargo space in that kind of thing. It's very hard to design a good sedan. And I tried at first, but I did not succeed. Then that's that's why I decided to, um, ask friends to join that Tessa and then to us worked on this, um and, um yeah, but it was really trying to make something that that I was sure that I would love. Yeah, and then hopefully others would love it, too. Could

you have foreseen the impact that the model s was gonna have on the world from From the Motor Trend Car of the Year award on down to the influence its ad, I was actually

was, like, a fairly pessimistic about the outcome of tells a lie from the beginning. I just I mean, I thought that Russian beginning, um, you know, when it was just, like, basically sort of kind of five of us, like, I thought a 10% chance of success Yeah, Um, and we came very close to failing many times. So and I never really thought it before. It actually happened. That would be that successful.

Was there a moment where you just started seeing them on the road every day on your commute, where you thought? I think we We did this. Yeah. I saw that

with the Roadster. Original road, sir. And, uh, and then with model s for the original Rose is pretty rare. Yeah. What less? Um, it was quite trippy to see someone in a model s who was not. I didn't know, You know, that means they actually like what? The car,

and I don't know where they are. Yeah, I guess if I if I myself in your shoes, that's totally picks this.

Yeah. So it's a great honor that somebody would part with their hard earned money to buy our car instead of somebody else. Some other car. You?

What do you think when you see model threes out? Now? Because he around the Bay area and certainly l A. Where you spend the bulk of your time, those two places, they're extort. Extraordinarily common. You know, you can really throw a rock in traffic and hit one. So do you feel like we're we're We've done it Or do you think they're not all test lows? I'm not done

yet. That's a pretty small percentage of causing the road in California that are Tesla's, even in the Bay Area. And l a

number to selling car in California, though off Yes. So it's progress, Said the model three for three. Yeah,

probably everyone by dollar volume. It wa ce, I guess. Um So, um yeah, that's cool. Um, but the, you know, every car new car that's bought there's something on the order of 15 older cars. So even if we had 100% of all cars sold, you take 15 years to replace the fleet, right? Um, and really, 20 years, if you if you go beyond the U.

S. So average life of cars about 20 years. Um, yeah, actually, I think there's like, there's just this shocking number of cars that are not Tesla's, even in our hometown. Um, so there's clearly a lot of opportunity. Um,

well, to that point you you know, you open source the patents you wanted people to follow you in your footsteps. You said when you won the motor trend Car of the Year award, I hope they copy us and, uh, the so I have a theory that I'm wondering if you could either speak to or a shot shoot down this totally my own personal theory. Ludicrous mode came pretty quickly after insane mode from five D. Then you went just a few months later, the p 90 d with Ludacris came around. You know, you guys were, of course, known for not waiting for product model years, which is great, but my theory is that ludicrous mode came about because you saw that nobody was following in your footsteps and building electric cars. So you thought, You know what? I'm going to shame them into building electric cars by outperforming all of them. Is there anything to that or a my crazy that I mean,

ludicrous motions come from space balls.

Well, it sure, but the actual performance of the car not the not the naming convention

way, kind of discovered that particular throughout dual motor and like pushing the envelope on the electron ICS uh, that, um and and then having kind of like a launch mode where you kind of kind of wind up the half shops and everything? Yeah, that you put all these things together and you can go a lot faster. So they were like, Okay, we're already haven't seen mode. So we're going to be on that, I guess. Ludicrous. Um, and then the other thing, of course, beyond ludicrous. It's plaid.

Oh, I can't wait for that plaid mode. Um, but now it was what would definitely want to show that electric car could be the best kind of car that they could outperform gasoline car. So, uh, and I think these days, like people just they don't remember just how foolish it seemed to make an electric car. Um, and just we were just relentlessly denigrated and said that, you know, we're obviously gonna fail, and And the fact that were doing electric car was just like stupidity square. Right? Um and, uh,

you know, and if guessing cars just gonna go on forever, basically, and then if it's not gasoline cars going to fuel cell cars on that. GM and Toyota had tried electric cars that failed. And if how could we succeeded when they did not? When they failed. I mean, it was just like relentless negativity. And it was just The negativity continues, of course, but, um, now there's, like lots of electric cars who will don't realize that this was not the case at all. Back in,

you know, 2008 when you go into production with roads or suddenly in 2012 interaction with the model s the but really what? What we found is that with at first, people said it was impossible to make a long range, high performance electric cars just like physically, impossible like. But it's obviously do the physics do the math, and it's clearly possible so. But I said if you if we made it, nobody would buy it because they just want gasoline cars. So we we made the right stuff. Then we sold throats hurt around five or 600 cars a year, just like small, you know, neat niche product. But clearly,

you know, people don't want the car. And and then they said that that then the argument against going electric was sure you could make a toy electric sports car. Everyone knows that. Like you didn't say that last time. Yeah, but But you definitely couldn't make a really a car. Like what about, like, you know, like a premium sedan, like a Mercedes BMW or not he like, there's no way you could make a call like that Electric. It's way bigger, if that will These, like,

you know, features and a list features and functionality. Uh, it's gonna be currently safe. Um, So then I said, OK, well, if they will make that kind of car and that will convince the industry if we make the model s bet the best sedan? Yeah, on And

you did. And they've still been slow to follow. How do you feel about the industry on electrification now? Here, 2019?

No, I mean, it was clearly a lot of immense, but this point, particularly China, China's making half of all electric cars and world. Yeah, it's hard for us to compete in China that, like our our sales, are trying to have always been relatively small. That disproportionately small to the market could compare to the market because we have always had to pay import duties right on. And they've been very significant of times. After 40% on then we never had access to any of the tax incentives that the local companies had, so we had a huge financial

disadvantage. Now you've fixing all

that as we speak with locally produced cars Will be We should be on something close to a level fling, a level playing field. Um, and, uh, yeah. So? So there's pretty good up of electric cars these days. Must want to go about it. Is it like an annualized rate of a 1,000,000 or something like that? Maybe a little more Sounds about right. Not enough. Yeah, it's about 1% of cars produced. There may be one in half. Um, so but But the trend is is very much in the way of in the direction.

You're more optimistic now than you were. You know, a few years ago when you open source the patents and not much came of it.

Yes. It really seems like there's a lot of momentum towards electric on the number of another country. Countries have said that there going to ban combustion engine cars at some point, the future 2040 or so, right? Yeah. I mean, some of them I think I may be as soon as 2025 or 2020 30. Andi. It's only gonna make it harder to sell gasoline cars. Yeah, as the deadline approaches. Um, so I think like, for financial standpoint, if consumers that are looking towards the future there's clearly a strong social movements in every country but almost every country I think towards sustainability. Um, and I think the from residual value standpoint, electric car is likely to be a much smarter financial decision than a gasoline car. Yeah, Tesla Network.

You've talked about that at length. Actually, I did want to talk about the model three. I mean, that's what I have. That's what I I've been following the company myself for since the Roadster days, and I've the model

three with since 2006 or since,

well, since it hit the market 11,008. George was my one was my first sort of up close and personal experience with the Roadster in the original Menlo Park showroom location. That's all other story that we could get to another time. But, you know, I waited for Model three and my time finally came, and I've had mine for 10 months, and it's along with our home and LASIK eye surgery. It's literally the best thing I've ever spent. Money really, truly is. And so I'm curious. You know what was the toughest design choice you had to make on Model three? You know, you had your price objective, but your other goals and mass producing this thing.

So what? Design choice. I'm sort of curious What the What sticks out for you? A CZ. Ah, tough thing you had to either say

yes or no to From a design standpoint, I don't think there was. There was a really big finally decision. I mean, maybe going from two screens toe one screen. Yeah. You know, not having a screen in front of the steering wheel. That was, like a lot of debate of, like, was there enough screen real estate? Like, maybe people really want that sort of cockpit feel, uh, you know, So it was like and I got a favor to push back on going from 2 to 1 screen.

But I think my father was like, I think people prefer having, like, an open view of the road and just having more visibility, and we can fit it all in one screen and on the key was used the phone. It's kind of a backup in rice. So that was a final decision that maybe one of bigger ones, um, the area was It was hard to make the model three look good. That was not easy. There are a lot of a lot of nuances around the body shape, especially the nose

for aerodynamic purposes. Prosthetics? Yeah, I noticed it. It seemed like Correct me if I'm wrong. The the nose softened up a bit from the Alfa prototypes that we saw at the reveal toe production.

Is that the case? Yeah, it's It's tough to electric car. If you don't have a big grille in the front. The you don't look, have the nose look like Voldemort like you. Just like you got nothing there. Yeah, or some sort of blunt. What knows? It doesn't look good. So you've got to put some some lines. You've got to get some character or just does not like it look good. It's very difficult. And then it did not affect the aerodynamics is to get the bad way. So, um,

you know, we switched from unless having, um, air inlets and hate exchanges on either side to having one sort of central one. Um and ah, And then with the woods, we changed from 195 centimeters, 185 centimeters from s 23 right. What went down by 10 centimeters, which was actually sciences and driven by Japan, because the parking machines in Japan go go from 185 centimeters, 295 centimeters. I didn't know that you were initially mistake of certifying model s as 100 and 96 centimeters because we weren't there on the side of being too big. Sure, there's actually technically 195.4 or something like that, and then they wouldn't put on any of the park machines in Japan.

So we're like, Yeah, so it was hard to sell. Question, pastor, Like this time, we will make sure that with is, it fits. And even the smallest walking machines 108 105 centimeters does that. But then you have less. What? You got to get everything. You're still gonna make it roomy on the inside. You want always to feel roomier on the inside, then looks

on the outside right, And you smartly did that by pushing the firewall forward, pushing the cabin forward. It's exactly it's incredible. It

feels there's tons of room in the back seat or the on. Go to an old glass that the glass roof? Yeah, really helps with the headroom. That's beautiful. Yeah, it gives this incredible perspective of, you know, the stars and with us, the sky. And it also gives you head

room. Yeah, I tell my seven year old daughter she's actually got the best view in the whole car, Not me. She's got it. Clear up. A Tesla urban myth for me on the model three. Was there ever a heads up display for that car back? You talk about the single display, and the chatter was People try it. Well, there's going to be a HUD. There's got to be something there.

No, there was no we discussed it. But I have tried various heads up displays, and I just find that they're pretty annoying. Yeah, and, um, that we felt the car would increasingly go towards self driving, and then you wouldn't really care about having stuff displayed on the screen. So as things were approaching autonomy what I have. Why project things you don't even care about on the

on the screen. Well, how about on the new Roadster you've talked about sort of an iron man type of some sort of interface between the driver in the car.

They were just ah, jacket with a neural link.

That's like ours do out in what, a year filled with the car. What is the status of the connection? You know, you've displayed the new Roadster and a couple of your last the autonomy day in a couple of things. But you've conspicuously you've not mentioned it when sort of talking about the road map for the next couple of years. What? What is going on with the new register?

The new roaster is kind of dessert. It's not, You know. Do we really need in your roast too? Accelerate our progress towards autonomy over towards electrification?

Sustainable? Literally not know,

e. I mean, this is not gonna you know how many of these things are really gonna produce and sell.

But I was gonna ask you that very thing actually. What do you think? How many of those do you think you'll make

a year? I mean, it's, I don't know, but it's probably not more than 10,000. Yeah. Um, so it does have some value. And it's like, if this can really perform, say, the best Ferrari or Lamborghini or, uh, McClaren McClaren. You know, on every dimension,

even on the track.

Yes, on every level. Yeah. Then that that would finally erased the hell. Any halo effect that exists for gassing cars. Yeah, so the euros would be designed to you is designed to out, too, by a long shot. The best gasoline

car, The hard core Smackdown is you put it. Yeah,

crushingly good relative to the next best gasoline sports

car. What's in the founder's Siri's for that extra 50 k over over the base model?

I can't say fair enough, but it'll be cool. Um, I'm really We're gonna do some things with the new road, sir. That are kind of unfair. Two other cars.

Well, the space X package, I assume,

is one of the things I'm mentioning. If you But if you put cold grass thrusters in the cars I mean, you just go

right around the car, right? You've said I think

you have, like, say, three G's a thrust. You could go in any direction you go up that still accelerate upward

of two G's. Yeah. Is that Is that a good idea?

I mean, it's not the safest thing in the world. Sounds like

fun. What's what is that? Option package set me back.

I don't know. We haven't accepted that exact pricing, but this is this is really just taking the the space six coal gas thrusters and sick of a car. Yeah, because you can Yeah, we already have them. So it's not, like way. No, they work. We're using the

rocket. How do you manage to keep the roads to a secret? It seemed like just you shocked everybody by pulling out of the back of that semi truck.

We got a were released a really nondescript building near our design studio and did all the work in a separate building. Nice. Yeah. So nobody knew this building even existed.

I heard you have, like, a skunk works thing in this building somewhere where you guys were all working on all kinds of fun. Do stuff. Well, there's

There's a whole basement full of test equipment that we tried different powertrains, mostly in this building. Nice. Um, yeah. So I think, uh, you know,

excited that there's, like, a

lot of exciting technology coming down the pike, but I'm in a primary focus right now is just make sure that Tessler is a good, good financial condition that we're producing at high rate for the model three especially, and getting the cars livered, um, improving manufacturing, efficiency, output stay on track with the Shanghai Gigafactory and the model y mano y is, you know, going back to the point of the model. Why has it much room here inside than it appears on the

yes, I found I got to attend the event and get you right, and I found that it's the exact same

thing. You know, he'll think it looks not that much bigger than a Model three. It's intended to not look big, but it's actually like I think the mark of a good design is, um, a 44 vehicle is that it feels much bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. Um, yeah,

in fact, yeah, on that very note, with the design of the model, why, it's it's very close in sort of general appearance to the three. Were you tempted t be more aggressive with its styling? Or was the idea of sort of staying a little more conservative with it knowing that the three is a success and it works? Was that a design exercise? That sort of playing a conservative A design exercise in itself.

Look, go from the S to the ex. We made so many changes, it was S S e x monix that model x much less to the model X was intended to be. I have a lot of carry over, but we made put so much new technology. Well, there's, like e mean amount of hubris we put into the Model X was really astounding, but the car is made of hubris, right?

You've called it the Faberge egg. Many times of as impressive as it is.

It's it's nutty. I mean, we even developed sonar that could see through metal, right that the military doesn't have. So that's crazy. And that was just that we could avoid having a puck in a visible possible parking the door. We developed sonar that could see through metal. That's insane. I should not have done that.

You do also seem, uh, y aside, you seem to be on a never ending quest to find the coolest unconventional door handle in history. Every all the cars outside the three in the Why have their own cool way of getting in

you put a lot of effort into that bottle is still handle. Elevate.

It's great. Yeah. Even I saw the the Autonomy day. Somebody posted a video. The Roadster, I guess. Probably your phone key or key card key fob on you. And then you swipe on the B pillar. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I think like the model X has the coolest doors like

yourself presenting.

Yeah, exactly. People know about the Falcon wing doors. You know, the doors that open up like wings on brother Those. Those doors actually have a different opening arc, depending upon what's around them, right? So we if there's nothing around them, we optimize the opening ock to be as beautiful as possible for the actual movement. To be as well, Atticus possible. And it will only beer from the most beautiful movement. If there's something close by, in which case it will, it will change its movement arc, uh,

to avoid the obstacle. It's insane. That door is insane, but but the door that actually will be them is the most that you will notice the most on a daily basis is the front doors where the car actually trying leads the Bluetooth signal from the key for that detects. If you're walking toward, I've seen it in action. Yes, exactly. But most will. They realize this exists but old old doors on the model X r automatic. So the front door it's actually trying, doing radio triangulation on the Bluetooth receiver on your key and calculating that you're walking towards the car in a way that suggests intent to enter as opposed to parallel to the car. Walking by with a glance. The car it was so I went over the door. If you if you walk parallel to the car, it went up in the door.

If you walk to the trunk or to the hood, it will only open door. If you walked to where the where you'd want to enter the car, it's an end will open the door just just just before you get there. Uh, and then you sit down you never touch the door. You tapped the brake pedal to start the car

and the door closed. I've seen and I've talked to a number of s or three owners who missed that. When they're not in their model act,

when she's thought using it, it's It's like Dennis. It feels weird that you have to open and close the door. And so, people, after using extra while we'll get in, get in an old car, sit there and not close the door is expected. Carter, close his own door.

I want to ask you go back to the model. Why? What what? What is the biggest lesson learned from the Model Three program that you're applying to the why either from a design perspective or I presume, Ah, manufacturing one.

You know, we tried not thio reason I mention the s and the exit is that the the X was helping a radical departure from the S. And the only things that were in common were the drive units and the battery pack early and in the center display, like is really everything else changed that sort of helicopter cockpit winched windscreen in the front. Yeah, the door's talked about the three or seats were insanely difficult to do. Thio hide the tracks in the floor Is that when you open the fucking doors and you look across you see it Absolutely clean silhouette with a Monaco seat. Yeah, there's nothing like it. I know. I think probably six people in the world even noticed that, frankly, it was insanely difficult to do, uh, with with the model, why we we wanted to avoid the, um,

technology bandwagon that we had with the with the X where, um, like it should have been easy going from Stox and said it was it was held because of its own and new technology right now. And we don't want that to be the case and every too risky for the company to do that with a Y. So, uh, we try to make the car s omelets who the three is possible, except the degree that a change is necessary to achieve SUV functionality. Yeah, so built up to seven people and have have a higher right heights or cargo capacity while still having low drag coefficient and not increase the frontal area too much, and so that the range it's just that CD a drink over stem, fertile area and mass are are close enough to the three that the Ranges is only affected by, Let's say, the wait 8 to 10%. Yeah, this CD A is worse with the with the book with.

Why? Because the cross sectional area is higher, right? So there are some manufacturing, um, improvements for the why we're the rear underbody. We're moving to an aluminum casting instead of a series of stamped steel and aluminum pieces, but it drops from initially initially will be to castings. Uh, I'll go from 70 parts to two and then 70 parts, actually 70 parts to two, plus Joyner's power. And then it'll go when we get the big casting machine will go from 70 parts to one wow, with a reduction in weight and unproven tw in N V H. And and a reduction and cost and a significant drop in the Catholic Spanish required for the older robots that would otherwise be necessary to put those 70 pots together.

How how is the white project going?

That's going great? Yeah. Are you happy with Mr Happy with the sort of reaction to its reveal a few months ago. Yeah. I mean, the I intentionally didn't go all out with the model way revealed because I don't wanna convince people to, Uh, bye. Why, instead of a three. Yeah. Um, So if everyone just decided, okay, we'll just buy a Y instead of a three. Then we wouldn't have any customers, and they would never be a Why.

Because nobody Yeah, How the fuck we wouldn't be ableto float company. So you know. So I was like, I was, like, medium in presenting the why? Um, but I think I think when people get the reaction will be better than they think. So it's really just like if you wantto an SUV and up and are prepared to accept a slight cost increase and a slight range decrease, then that's great. The advantage of us said sedan is gonna cost a little bit less, and it'll have a little more range. Right, um and so just kind of depends on whether you're one Stan or an

SUV. What's been your thought Process on where to build it? Because the last couple of earnings calls, you seemed you need to make any guarantees, but you seem to say. Well, I think we're probably gonna look att, building this at the gigafactory. And then on the last conference call last earnings call. You said you were maybe leaning more towards finding some room in Fremont to do it. So is there sort of Ah, just curious sort of your thought process. I'm sure there are pluses and minuses to doing it in either location.

Yeah, we could do neither location. The the the lung need items for munna wire. Mostly the the tools for stamping. So, like the body side out, our tools are the long read items. Um, so there's ah, you know, whether we put in Fremont or in Nevada gigolos, uh, we have more time to decide that versus the amount of time it takes to machine these giant stabbing tools. Right? Those that That's the Getty factor on timing. Um, And right now,

our default plan actually is to produce the white at Fremont, and I was skeptical about with this made sense, uh, at first, but be, You know, my team convinced me that this thing this is actually the fastest. Where you two get to billing production is to do the Wyatt. Three months, I guess. Especially when you're

sharing 75% of the parts that make you have them all under

one roof. Yes. Um, there's some pros to doing a gig as well, because we don't have to transport the drive units on the battery pack right on the chargers to, you know, it was making right there on the labor. You know, there's the cost of living is less in Nevada. Sure. So you can have the same stand living for less money in a batter than in California and especially the area. So fundamentally cut custom here is on the high sites. That's why I was a little counterintuitive, but, um, and it's not a totally clear cut decision, but we're optimizing for speed of execution.

And on balance, it seemed like we could, um, we could get get things done faster if we did it in three months. Make sense? Yeah, on and part of it was like I was, like, skeptical at first. Like where we're gonna put this. Wait. No, We had to put the G A four in a tent was a very nice tent. You know, when my car was built? Yeah,

exactly. It's just it's not like a company like cups got a structural tent, but the were actually found. Uh, there's some warehouse space we're using for warehousing parts in the main factory, and and and then this week, in sort of a pan things to the to the western side of the factory, the highway side of factory. And can I use that that wall and just kind of add things on there? So it's sort of counterintuitive, but it does seem as though way have the room. And we could do so without disrupting the Model three production or s next production.

You've been having a lot of fun with software in the cars lately. We've seen the Tesla Atari game. Sweet. Come around. You were talking on Twitter recently about your love of portal and some of those things games you'd like to see importing the unreal engine unity engine potentially into the cars was one of the thing, um,

community working. That's awesome. Yeah. Um uh, So, uh, yeah, I thought it sort of We have, like, a beach buggy driving game, physical doing, doing about years old. I got, uh And, uh, so That's Ah, that's pretty fun. Um, and ah, Cup head. We've got

working. Really? Yeah, I know them. I know the developers in my day job. Yeah, I think they would be. Do they know that

they would help making it

work? Yeah. Jared Moldenhauer family. They're wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. It's a cool game race. Insanely difficult. Yes, by design,

by design. Yeah, it's statistically difficult. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. I actually gotta beat the devil. It's twisted plot. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Deal with Stark, right? It's

phenomenal. It looks like so cute. Look, this anything like this plot is very dark. Yeah. Ah, but it's a way we kind of have, like, carpet and dune buggy working on the thing. It was going to see a bunch of other games. We don't anticipate having all these games there. So the storage basically a trick share one, but to kind of like have to decide what game you want play and then it'll download it on. Did you won't play other games? You'll have to leave that one. Perfect.

Another one? Yeah, well, on that note, you know, I was actually watching on old presentation of yours recently. The open house, the Fremont Open House from 2011. Before the car shipped, you were showing off the you eye to the original group of model s reservation holders. And in there eight years ago. Damn. Yeah, eight years ago. And in their, you know, you'll remember the original one point over the model s you.

I had a tab for APS. Oh, yeah. You know, ultimately, you never did anything with it. So I'm just sort of curious is, you know, you've been doing more with games, and we've seen so many amazing features just this year. I talk about it on my podcast all the time, just in 2019 with century mode and all kinds of stuff. Um, is there any thought to maybe, you know, opening things up on dhe having a a curated, you know, app, store like situation where people could write aps for the car as he had originally laid out? Well,

you know, afford to bees with wild. For somebody to write a nap, there has to be enough of install base to to warrant the effort. Even if you report something, it's still gonna be kind of worked with Yep. It Yeah. So, uh, as a number of vehicles grows and you need to have a consistent platform as well, So as number of vehicles grossed, then it starts to your plans to make more sense to develop game games or other applications for, uh, Tesla's, Um, But we just need a lot of cars, like if we if we have millions of cars,

then it's soft like Okay, that that could kind of make sense. Sure, especially since it was the center screen is an internal platform on And, uh, you know, it's runs Lennox basically. So if you have something that runs likes intel in X er then and you have what works on a touch screen, then you don't have too much work to support it. Um, so it better. But I think this this there is always pointing us doing putting a mass amount of effort into an APP store until the number of vehicles is is higher. So I think for now what makes sense is to just, um, you know what work with a few cool gains on Daph developers that I kind of just went out of out of it. Our interest in curiosity Or just think we'll be cool.

Yeah, t kind of port their stuff, but there's no money in it right now. You know you can't compete with whatever there's like 500 million iPhones or something. You know, the 1,000,000,000 android devices or the That's like we're orders Mac to get away from that. So So it's kind of if you have something already and it's like a pretty easy report, then it might be fun to do that, and especially if they're driving the car, that it's kind of cool. So it's just like a few kind of demo APs that kind of fun. Um, especially if they increase the fun level in the car. That very cool. Are you

still trying to working on getting Netflix and or YouTube portal into the cars for, ah, future software version you mentioned? That is maybe a V 10

thing. Well, you could do. You could certainly would meet will be pretty straightforward to allow access to Netflix because you get to go through a browser. Yeah, Any kind of browser interface is gonna work because we you know, we've got crew. I'm running. So quote me on my Yeah, Yeah, So the issue is, uh, the D bound with Consumed is gonna be significant for video. So we just we can't afford to have, like to take a tougher test little pay for massive amounts of like for people to watch a movie over our cell connection

racking up that bill

with AT and T. It's a really expensive movie. So But if I think we could make, we could just enable it for, you know, connected to a WiFi or something like that. Then suddenly make video work really easy. You

know, on that note, I see a lot in the community. The North American test loners are jealous of their European counterparts because they have slacker party. They have Spotify in their cars and we have slacker thing. Don't shoot the messenger here. Is that so? Is there like a sort of a contractual thing with slacker than that's why there's no Spotify here? Or is it just your preference or absurd? I guess I gotta ask that one on behalf of the community.

You know this. We just have a lot of fish to fry and port. Switching to Spotify in the U. S is just like none of the priority list next to two other things that could weaken Certainly still play Spotify through the Bluetooth connection on their, you know, from the phone. Right? And yes. So you know, when we first did this, you know, back in 2020 10 or we're in production. 2012 right? It was kind of crazy to have, like, streaming audio in a car like no car. Had that

call up any song with voice activation.

Yeah. Yeah, that was like like a crazy magic trick back in 2012. It's like only seven years ago. So, uh, that you have been able to play any artists or any song or any, like, comedy routine, one path and whatever it is and adults play, it was, like, kind of mind blowing in 2012. It's, like, obviously a lot less mind blowing in 2020 19. Um,

that that's ah, you know. So it's just, um we have a lot of fish to fry and then and, uh, giving people the option of Spotify is I guess something will probably do down the road. But it's just not a high party

right now. Understandable. And certainly the present you know that you've got a lot to solidify in the present day and so sort of on the topic of priority with the push for autonomy and the Tesla network due to come online in the near future. Yeah, and your your call your belief that people will call for the steering wheel to just get deleted at some point sooner rather than later is I'm sort of curious about the how you think of the you've talked a lot about. Tesla is the most exciting product line up in the world, and I have a test loner enthusiast. Certainly don't disagree.

The apartment from a product roadmap standpoint, it's hard at hard pressed to think of what would be second or third. You know it's, they tells, got the best like most exciting product lineup by a long shot of any company that that is public announced

anything. So with with that in mind, but with the autonomous future on the way that you guys were working so hard to deliver is something like a an even cheaper, more affordable model for what unquote like a compact sedan is something like that, even in the road map or Do you think autonomy will not even, uh, cause a need for that?

Autonomy is for sure. The priority. It's just a car becomes dramatically more valuable when autonomous versus not, like, probably increases. I think it increases in value by you know, the effect or five or something crazy. Um, so we're just thinking, like, if you can un $30,000 a year from a car and say, like, you know, even like a model s, uh, you know, uh,

financing it might be $1000 a month, so they're like, 12 grand like you. You could basically, you know, make a pretty good return, even on a model s role. Model X. Um,

I guess I'm sort of curious about the balance between autonomous future and the ultimate goal. The company of just electrifying the world and advancing sustainable transport. You know, I've seen in my own office there three of my co workers have bought standard range plus models because there's just an incredible difference between a $40,000 Tesla and a $50,000 Tesla. Yes, I'm I'm sort of, you know, Do you want to keep going further down the road map? and, you know, Dr even lower costs

cars to market. I mean eventually. Yes. So, like it's not like it's not like we could make a $20,000 car. And I just arbitrarily choosing not to, because way hate evil by 20,000 cars Way do not know how to make that. Certainly, um, now So as in the original sort of secret master plan, the it's like insanely difficult to make an electric car at a price, get it prices at the same level as gasoline car and have it have the same features and functionality. You know, gassing cars have had trillions of dollars, literally trillions and a 150 years to refine internal question. Asian technology. I mean,

in the seventies, it wasn't even, like, obviously, just to start your car like you go to car and there's like, Turn, the key doesn't always start like that's there today that every super weird Yeah, but you have always old movies where, like, the murderer is chasing you with an axe and like, well, the car, start or not is a plot device, you know, like I don't know, uh,

might start, but there's a LL these years, like vast amounts of aren't even and tremendous scale economies have gone into making gasoline cars low cost. It's not e Hello. How little they cost, given how complex complicated they are. So it just takes more. It takes time for electric cars to get, um, get there. And you say, How many versions have gassing? Car's been through, like, 20 on it a lot. And we're basically on,

you know, for Tessa standpoint, are like version three of the technology. Yeah, so, yeah. I mean, the roaster, the SX platform and the three y platform through, it's just like that's only just version three. Really? So there's this. Yeah. So, um, but with it with autonomy,

I think that, uh, makes the economics of buying a car dramatically different. Um, you know, you could you could get Ah. So if a a model three, uh, you know, at least you lease of life one bucks a month, maybe finance it for 55 bucks a month and, um, and say like, Okay, so that's basically, you know,

maybe a little over $100 a week. Um, and how many? How many rides would you have to have an autonomous car give to make $100 in a week. Very few. Yeah, it's just spent, you know, a few hours giving, giving rides. You've, like, made your your lease payment. Um, so, you know,

from your last week and so that then then who can't afford that, like? Well, long as you're willing to let your car do rides like anyone could afford it. Really? Yeah. And in fact, it will be a money maker. So, uh, us instead of said, you could be, like uber or lyft driver driving a quote, one car, or you could you could be manager fleet of cars. Um,

and where each of those cars is earning money for a year and you could manage, like, 10 cars or 20 cars or something. Um, and that's just gonna be way better. And then you sort of more like a shepherd tending a flaw. That everything. You brought the sheep. Um, so that seems like a way better thing to do. Um then always be driving a car. And so I think that's definitely what what people will choose to do is just operate a fleet, operate a small fleet and like, you know, take care of the cars when they get a flat tire or need some service isn't like that, uh,

and it be cleaned out or take care of in some way. So, um, you're sort of manager, your fleet, And and and then it's like a little business. Basically,

you've been so excited about the pickup truck. You just you I feel like you just can't wait to show that thing off. You snuck in the teaser at the model. Why Event that we all missed before you put it out later. Way too subtle. Um, yeah, I I heard the noise and turned and missed it at the event. And I was like, What was that? But, um, from everything you've said, I mean, this thing sounds nuts because you've mentioned on Twitter like titanium components. Some, like school suspension stuff with,

you know, the weight, your load in the bed. Ah, So is that Is it reasonable to expect that the pickup truck at first will sort of follow amore s and excellent trajectory or it? It might start off a little higher costs before maybe making your way down market with it.

We don't want to be really expensive. Um, I think it's got to start at less than $50,000. It's gonna be, like $49,000 started Price, max, you know, as ideally less, um, it

important. We just made a lot of people really happy who are interested in the truck by saying

that Yeah, um, it's just it just can't be unaffordable, you know, it's just gonna be it's gonna be something that's that's affordable. So now the revisions, the car that are more expensive, but we'll track that elections. But the you've got Bill to get a a really great truck for $49,000 or less. And, um, you know, it's gonna have incredible functionality from load carrying standpoint. Look, look amazing. Um, but it won't look like a normal truck,

so it's it's gonna look pretty sci fi. Um, that means it's not gonna be for everyone. Like if somebody just wants toe have a truck that just looks like trucks have looked for in the last 20 years. Then 30 years of 40 years, then this probably isn't for them, but this this is it's gonna be a truck that is more capable than other trucks because it'll be a better truck than then then, you know, say an equivalent like, you know, the goal is like, be a be a better truck than F 1 50 in terms of truck like functionality. Um, and be a better sports car than a standard 9 11 That's the aspiration. I like that.

Yeah. I don't know if you're willing to help the Internet out right now or if we're just gonna have to wait for the proper reveal. But in that teaser image which ended the truck, was that the front? Okay, people were convinced either way. Sure. I don't know if you followed any of the chatter, but it was people like, is it the back isn't the front. Nobody is quite sure. Um I mean,

it's like kind of like a Blade Runner Truck is the idea, but like that, it's not gonna be for everyone. I get for sure when we unveil this thing would be some people, some more people were like, Oh, that doesn't look like a truck. I don't I don't buy it. And, um, you know, it's like, Sure, okay. You know, when they came out with automobiles. Like feel like Oh,

I like a horse and carriage like Sure. OK, you stick with you always and carriage. But you're gonna get automobile later. Please don't know it.

Um, the V three superchargers got the got the beta sites up. Um, can you speak more about the roll out there? Are you aiming for Maur kind of rural roadtrip spots yet? At first, rather. Or what? Sort of your thought process behind rolling those out.

Yeah, they will focus on long distance rat. So, uh, if you're if you're in a hurry to get from one city to another, you, you know, goes past possible. Yeah, um and, um And then also, uh, replacing some of the version One super charges from the older super charges will take priority. So if you got a B two supercharger that's charging it like, you know, 140 145 kilowatts on bits not estimate full. So you're actually going full in a country for sharing at 2040 plus killer. What's yet? That's pretty fast. So but there's some out there where they're still it's 75 kilowatts. So we'll replace those first unlock since route long distance routes.

Has anybody kind of touched on this here and there? Have any other manufacturers come to you about the supercharger network about getting on there? Because you said you're open to the idea. I think J B has commented on that, too. But to me, that's the electrification in the industry is great. But if I'm gonna buy a Chevy Bolt or or an I pace like cool, it's awesome around town, but I can't really go anywhere in it. So nobody seems to be investing not enough. Maybe investment, the network and other a few out there. But are you Are you fielding calls there or what?

Um, nobody's contacted me, So maybe the contact other people company and they have mentioned to me. But, um, none of the manufacturers have contact me in and said that they want to use it like it. We do require that the car be able to charge at a high rate, um and, ah, and then obviously sharing the cost of the system and probably will get some takers down the road. Um, but they just don't seem to be that interested right

now. Is that a real challenge of the of the supercharger network of staying ahead of the rolling sort of wave of, you know, you're putting out thousands of new cars every day and, you know, easing congestion and trying to make sure that it's still ah, good usable experience.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, wait. We can't afford to build too far ahead of congestion because we don't have money do that. Yeah. So we, um you know, having a whole bunch of vital superchargers wouldn't be a great use of the company's money. So we try to stay ahead and make sure as much as possible, anticipate the demand. Um, and stay ahead of the ones that we expect to be highest demand. Um, and then make sure that we're covering every route that somebody would want to take. Um, So there's ah addressing congestion and Frieda travel creatures to travel.

Yeah, so Yeah, but we have some cases were a little slow because, like a burning building permit doesn't come through or something that you can't just like to expand the zone instantly. Because there's a lot of you have to get the utility and they're building permits, everything to agree. So we put a lot of super charges, though. Pretty naughty. You see that big road map map in the Oh, yeah, everybody is awesome. It's crazy, you know? It's like all of Europe all over North America will ever train a Japan Australia.

The semi is the one vehicle haven't touched on yet. How how much of the business do you not like from a percentage numbers thing? I'm sort of curious. Is it? Do you see that as like a mass? A potentially massive part of Tesla's business, or is it sort of Ah, let's just see how this goes kind of thing.

I think the semi will be a very big part of his business. Um, as well. The pickup truck, Um, there they're very important fundamental use cases. So you think we've got a, You know, at least have one. You know what we think is an amazing product in one of the key use cases? So yo, kind of full size sedan, full size SUV midsize stand beside Jesse SUV pickup truck and a semi folk for commercial trucking. These were very fundamental, um, the But it only makes sense to add new parts at volume. If we have the battery cell capacity to support them, otherwise aggressively adding complexity. But we're not putting more vehicles on the road, right?

You have the star of the the energy side of the business. Last year, you said to get your car batteries out

there. Erik had to convert all of the battery cell lines for the powerful in power pack, too, to make sales from all three. Um, and even then way were often starved of cells. So we want to make sure that that doesn't occur again. Um, and really sell capacity will come online just in time for bottle way giving. If we pre had model white today, we couldn't make We can actually make any any additional cars because we do not have enough cells.

Well, I know my time is up here. I've taken plenty of it. Let me just say on Mike both personally on behalf of anybody that listens to my podcast or everybody in test a community. Just thank you for your efforts toe to make these amazing cars that we all love and have a great time with and keep our families safe and, uh, paved the way for a better, brighter future. I really cannot thank you enough. I I I love my model three. And being part of the community that you and the company have have fostered is just such a wonderful thing to be a part of. You know, that's why I spend my nights and weekends making a podcast about it. I just I love it so much. And thank you for everything

you most welcome. Yeah, I'm glad it is bringing you dry. This is, uh you know, this There's very few products out there that you can bring you joy. You know, it was this very few. Um, it's like, how many things to you, honey products out there Can you buy that? You really love? It's

very rare. Well, there's I end my podcast every week with It's something that you said on the jail Rogan podcast is which is that it should Tessalit should be the most fun thing you ever buy. That's the last. It's the last words you hear on every episode of my podcast cause that just resonated

with me. That's our goal is to make the card. It's make how the car make you as happy as possible. Mission accomplished.

Yeah. Elon Musk. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, there you have it. I still almost can't believe that actually happened here recording this part 24 hours later. So the interview is as you heard me in the intro there took place at Tesla's corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, California, and it took place on Wednesday, May 29th 2000 and 19 at about 8 p.m. That's why you heard Ilan in the beginning There for context reference. Hey, it's the end of the day. He had to kind of reset his brain a little bit before getting into the interview. So it had been a long day for him. He was extremely gracious with his time and just to do that at all. So I want to thank Elon Musk one more time.

That was just so so generous of him and so kind Thio to sit down with somebody from the community. And, you know, I just I'm humbled and grateful for the opportunity to get to do that. You know, I I interview people in my day job, but I g n regularly. I interviewed game developers all the time, and I love that part of my job. It's really it's actually my favorite part of my job and getting to apply those skills, the interview skills and and the passion I have for interviewing people. Thio, Elon Musk After after doing a podcast about Tesla's every single week for the last four, he almost four years now it's just surreal again, I'm I'm just so humbled and grateful for the opportunity. I also want to thank Tesla's communications team and Ellen staff for a whole lot of emails and a whole lot of patients as we we spent a lot of time many months trying to put that together and it finally happened.

So I'm so grateful to them. And most of all, I want to thank well two people to a group of people and a specific person. I want to thank CJ Gibson. He is a friend of mine and a video producer at I g n. He volunteered his evening to come with me and be my audio producer. You know, this was this was gonna be an audio podcast. No video. But, you know, CJ's just such an expert. He had my recorder that I'd I'd bought a new recorder just for this. Make sure I had ah, better one than I used to have before When I when I used to do the show on a recorder Ah, couple years ago and C j just took care of all of the A V stuff so that I could focus on the interview and not have to worry about any of the technical stuff.

So C j I owe you. I owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you so much for everything. And then the other big thanks honestly goes out to everybody listening to this The people out there who have listened to ride the lighting, Whether this is your first time or your 200 time this this would not have been possible without you guys. It's this podcast. Could have never grown into what it has become without your support without the the time that you so generously give to me by listening each and every week. Ah, this is this is just incredible. It's ah to have to have started this almost four years ago, just putting it out there and seeing what happens because I was passionate about Tessa Lola and the company and the products and the mission to to have now made it this far to have had, Ah, our long sit down with the Elon Musk. It's just amazing. And again, I'm humbled by it,

thanks to all of you listening and just a quick note before I go. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, Hey, I invite you to stick around New episodes publish every Sunday at 9 a.m. Eastern time. 6 a.m. Pacific. I'm happy to talk more next week about the build up to this and answer any questions that you might have about the interview or sort of the the behind the scenes of it a little bit. But until then, I'll let you go now and let the interview speak for itself this week. Thank you all for this incredible 2/100 episode. Ilan. The Tesla team CJ, all of you out there, Happy electric motoring toe all of you and I'll see you next week. I

mean, I think a Tesla it's the most fun thing you could possibly buy ever. That's what it's meant to be. Well, our goal is to make it. It's not exactly a car. It's actually a thing to maximize enjoyment,