Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Elon Musk - "Something cooler than a minivan is coming"

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Elon Musk - "Something cooler than a minivan is coming" · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Elon Musk and Tesla are permanently killing off their
• 0:03
  flagship Model S and Model X cars to clear factory space for
• 0:07
  manufacturing Optimus humanoid robots while simultaneously
• 0:12
  teasing a replacement family vehicle that is apparently way
• 0:15
  cooler than a minivan. I mean, they are entirely
• 0:18
  dismantling the production lines that basically built their
• 0:20
  reputation, taking the premium luxury vehicles that, you know,
• 0:24
  proved electric cars could actually be highly desirable and
• 0:27
  just stopping them. It's wild.
• 0:30
  Through the stack of supply chain leaks, factory drone
• 0:32
  footage, and the engineering blueprints we gathered, this
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  completely shifts the understanding of what this
• 0:38
  company actually built. They are moving from a
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  traditional vehicle manufacturer prioritizing sedans to an
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  industrial entity entirely focused on automated labor and
• 0:48
  high occupancy transport. Which brings us to the core
• 0:50
  thing we're looking at today. How does cancelling a luxury
• 0:53
  sedan lead directly to a multibillion dollar bet on
• 0:58
  custom artificial intelligence chips and autonomous shuttles?
• 1:01
  Well, to map that out, we really have to look at the immediate
• 1:03
  physical evidence showing up at their facilities right now
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  alongside the direct communication coming from the
• 1:08
  engineering teams regarding how families, how they actually
• 1:12
  travel. Right, so we need to look at how
• 1:14
  this whole mini dam conversation started online.
• 1:17
  Yeah, because a user was like aggressively asking Elon Musk to
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  just build a traditional minivan.
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  The exchange actually kicked off around the physical dimensions
• 1:28
  of the Cybertruck. Someone pointed out that the
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  rear bench of the truck features 3 distinct sets of ISOFIX
• 1:36
  attachments. Oh wow.
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  Yeah, so for the parents listening, that means you can
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  easily lock in three full size child seats directly next to
• 1:43
  each other in the back row. Which is incredibly rare.
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  I mean, usually you're playing this impossible game of Tetris,
• 1:48
  trying to jam two car seats and a booster into a standard back
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  row. Exactly.
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  So a parent sees this width and immediately says just put this
• 1:57
  in a minivan. Right, it's the logical next
• 1:59
  step. But then Musk completely shoots
• 2:01
  the idea down, saying something way cooler is coming up.
• 2:04
  And right on cue, drone footage flying over the Texas factory
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  captures this enormous, mysterious wooden crate A.
• 2:13
  Crate. Yeah, and inside you can clearly
• 2:16
  see the frame of an elongated unreleased vehicle.
• 2:19
  So based on the engineering documents and that physical
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  crate, there are three very distinct possibilities for what
• 2:25
  they are building to replace the traditional family hauler.
• 2:29
  Option 1 is a stretched Model Y, internally referenced as the
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  Model YL. Like an extended version.
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  Yeah, it features a taller roof line and expanded rear glass
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  panels to actually fit a functional 3rd row of seats.
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  Got it. Option 2 is a cyber SUV that
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  would utilize the Cybertruck's existing stainless steel
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  exoskeleton and its 48 Volt electrical architecture.
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  OK, that sounds intense. Right.
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  And option 3 is a consumer version of the Robovan,
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  sometimes called the Robus, which is designed as a 20 seat
• 3:00
  autonomous shuttle. OK, I have to stop you on option
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  three. Yeah, A20 seat shuttle for
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  normal family sounds entirely absurd.
• 3:07
  I. Get that I?
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  Mean if you have three kids, you don't need a commercial airport
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  bus to go to soccer practice. The Roboven concept makes
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  perfect sense for a sports team or, you know, a downtown transit
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  loop. But putting a standard family of
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  five into a 20 passenger autonomous living room just
• 3:23
  seems completely impractical for a neighborhood driveway.
• 3:26
  Well, you're visualizing it like a traditional public transit
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  bus, but consider the daily friction points of moving a
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  family around. Right now, the absolute worst
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  part of owning a traditional three row SUV is gaining access
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  to the back. Oh for sure, you are physically
• 3:42
  pulling heavy levers, folding seats down and watching your
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  kids climb over cup holders and armrests just to get to the
• 3:49
  third row. True.
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  You basically have to be a gymnast to get back there.
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  It is a terrible user experience.
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  Precisely. Now apply the cyber SUV concept
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  to that problem. Imagine a six door layout. 6
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  doors. Yeah, every single passenger
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  gets their own independent door. No climbing over folded seats.
• 4:05
  Oh wow. You pair that configuration with
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  the durability of a stainless steel exterior where runaway
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  shopping carts or errant soccer balls simply bounce off the
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  doors without scratching any paint.
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  That eliminates the daily physical strain families endure.
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  And Musk actually replied with a very direct noted when someone
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  suggested this exact 6 door configuration online.
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  OK, I see the appeal there. Having a six door fortress where
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  the kids just step directly into their seats without fighting
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  each other is incredibly appealing to a parent.
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  It really is. And this completely limits the
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  appeal of the traditional boxy minivan or those cramped SUV's
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  where you have to sacrifice trunk space for legroom.
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  It opens up an entirely new vehicle category of high
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  occupancy family transport. Definitely, and the core
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  engineering concept inherited from the Cybertruck that
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  actually makes these new high occupancy designs possible is
• 4:58
  steer by wire. Wait back up.
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  Explain exactly what steer by wire means for the physical
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  experience of the people sitting inside the cabin.
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  What are you actually feeling? Think about the car you drive
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  right now. When you turn the steering
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  wheel, you were turning a solid metal tube right?
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  A mechanical steering column that physically connects your
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  hands down to the front tires on the road.
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  It is a direct mechanical linkage.
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  Steer by wire means there is absolutely no physical
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  connection between your hands and the road.
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  Everything is electronic. So it operates exactly like a
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  video game controller. That is an accurate comparison,
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  actually. Sensors read exactly how far you
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  turn the steering yoke. They send an electronic signal
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  down to electric motors mounted directly on the axles, and those
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  secondary motors physically turn the wheels.
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  Which means, without a massive steering column jutting into the
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  cabin, the interior is entirely liberated.
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  Completely. You are no longer forced to
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  design the entire front row around a metal tube.
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  You can have completely flat floors up front.
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  You can entirely rethink the architecture of the passenger
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  cabin. For over a century, that
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  mechanical steering column dictated where the driver had to
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  sit, which dictated where the dashboard went, which dictated
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  the entire vehicle layout. Severing that physical
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  connection frees up an enormous amount of spatial.
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  Volume and you mentioned the 48 Volt architecture earlier, how
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  does that electrical system tie into this electronic steering?
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  That is the crucial foundational layer making steer by wire safe
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  and responsive. How so?
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  Traditional cars run on a 12 Volt electrical system, which
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  has been the industry standard for decades.
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  But 12 volts simply cannot deliver enough immediate raw
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  power to spin those heavy axle motors fast enough when you need
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  to make a sudden emergency turn. Oh, OK.
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  By quadrupling the base power to 48 volts, the electronic
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  steering reacts instantly. And higher voltage means you can
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  push the same amount of power through much thinner wires.
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  Exactly The wiring harnesses throughout the entire vehicle
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  become incredibly thin. Which saves weight.
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  It saves a massive amount of heavy copper weight, and it
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  makes it much easier for automated manufacturing robots
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  to bend and install the wires on the assembly line.
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  And because the steering is entirely controlled by software,
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  you can change how it feels dynamically, right?
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  Like a small turn of the wheel at low speeds in a parking lot
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  could turn the tires entirely sideways, but that same small
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  turn on the highway? Barely shifts the tires at all
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  so you don't accidentally swerve out of your lane.
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  Exactly the software controls the steering ratio dynamically.
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  A large elongated 6 store vehicle can utilize independent
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  rear wheel steering alongside the steer by wire system to
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  achieve the tight turning radius of a much smaller compact car.
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  That makes sense. This structural freedom is what
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  allows for the lounge like configurations we see in the
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  Robofan concepts. They lack steering wheels and
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  pedals entirely because the software handles the electronic
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  signals perfectly. Which entirely eliminates the
• 7:57
  strict design constraints of traditional car interiors.
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  It officially opens the door for social living room style seating
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  arrangements. On the road.
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  You can have seats facing each other like a train cabin.
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  Which aligns perfectly with their stated goal of pushing
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  operating costs down to 5 to $0.10 per mile for these high
• 8:14
  density autonomous shuttles. OK, let's take a breath here.
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  Yeah, we're talking about living rooms on wheels, with completely
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  flat floors and no steering columns.
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  The core driving force making these autonomous lounges
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  possible is a brand new computer factory.
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  Because the physical vehicles are just the shell.
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  If you remove the steering wheel, the car has to drive
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  itself flawlessly, right? Achieving that level of human
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  like intuition requires an unimaginable amount of
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  computational processing power. The internal processing is the
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  actual product they are building.
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  We are talking about Terafab, yes, looking at the financial
• 8:50
  filings, this is a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and XAI.
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  They are building a 20 to $25 billion semiconductor facility
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  in Austin specifically to produce 2 nanometer chips.
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  They're consolidating the entire supply chain.
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  Ship design, lithography, fabrication, memory, production,
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  advanced packaging, and testing are all happening entirely under
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  one roof. That's massive.
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  It is the output goal they have set is 1 terawatt of computing
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  power per year. One terawatt How much is that
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  compared to what the rest of the world is manufacturing?
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  It completely dwarfs the entire global chip industry's current
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  output, which sits roughly around 20 gigawatts annually.
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  Oh wow, so they're just blowing past the rest of the industry
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  combined. Completely.
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  And the production split across this joint venture is equally
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  fascinating. 80% of that one terawatt output go straight to
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  space. Those are the D3 radiation
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  hardened chips. Wait, radiation hardened?
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  Why do chips in space need to be hardened?
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  Well, when you put a highly sensitive computer into orbit
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  for satellites or space based data centers, cosmic radiation
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  will literally strike the silicon and flip the ones and
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  zeros in the code, causing the entire system to crash.
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  I didn't even think about that. Yeah, you have to build physical
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  redundancy and specialized shielding into the silicon
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  architecture itself. So 80% of terrafab goes to
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  space. And the rest.
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  The remaining 20% stays on Earth, and those are the AI5
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  chips meant for the cars and the optimist robots.
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  Thinking about this from a supply chain perspective, buying
• 10:23
  chips from current suppliers is like waiting for your food in a
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  crowded global restaurant. That's a great way to put it.
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  You're at the mercy of the kitchen's backlog, you're
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  competing with every other tech company for a table, and you
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  have to accept whatever ingredients they have available
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  on the menu. But building terrafab is like
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  constructing an enormous private kitchen in your own backyard.
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  So you completely control the menu, you design the recipes,
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  you source the exact ingredients you want, and you never wait in
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  line again. That private kitchen analogy is
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  perfect because the operating efficiency of their specific
• 10:56
  hardware is critical. The AI5 chip matches leading
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  competitor chips in raw processing power, but it only
• 11:04
  uses 150 watts of electricity. The competitor's chip requires
• 11:08
  700 watts to perform the exact same computational work.
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  Why does that power difference matter so much for a vehicle?
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  Because when you put a supercomputer inside a battery
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  powered vehicle or walking humanoid robot, but power
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  consumption directly dictates your range and your operating
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  time. Makes sense?
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  A 4.7 times efficiency advantage means the vehicle can process
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  highly complex traffic scenarios, identify pedestrians
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  and calculate routes without draining the physical battery
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  required to actually drive the wheels forward.
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  You don't want your brain stealing power from your legs.
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  That completely removes their reliance on foreign chip
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  foundries. It shrinks the time it takes to
• 11:45
  test and deploy new selfdriving hardware from months to mere
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  days. Exactly.
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  Because they have a prototype fabrication facility right on
• 11:53
  the Austin campus, engineers can design A chip, fabricate the
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  silicon wafer, test it in a vehicle and iterate immediately.
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  And all of this hardware development, from the Terrafab
• 12:03
  facility to the steer by wire vehicle architectures, connects
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  directly to what they call Master Plan Part 4, right?
• 12:11
  That plan officially shifts the entire company's focus toward
• 12:14
  sustainable abundance. They are attempting to redefine
• 12:17
  the fundamental building blocks of Labor, mobility and energy.
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  Which is huge. It is.
• 12:23
  The internal projections indicate that the Optimus
• 12:25
  humanoid robot is now expected to make up the vast majority of
• 12:28
  the company's total financial value.
• 12:31
  They project it generating trillions in revenue by taking
• 12:34
  over repetitive physical labor globally.
• 12:36
  I naturally disagree with the immediate practicality of
• 12:39
  prioritizing robots over cars right now.
• 12:41
  OK, why is that? People still need normal
• 12:44
  vehicles today. If you are shopping for a car
• 12:47
  this weekend to commute to work, drop the kids off at school and
• 12:50
  get groceries. A humanoid robot doing squats in
• 12:53
  a laboratory does not help you at all.
• 12:56
  Fairpoint Sun Setting the flagship Model X and focusing
• 12:59
  entirely on a robot that is still in development leaves a
• 13:02
  massive gap for the everyday consumer who just needs reliable
• 13:06
  transportation this year. That is a very valid concern for
• 13:10
  the consumer market, but the company is addressing that
• 13:12
  immediate need through the Project Juniper refresh for the
• 13:15
  Model Y and the major upgrades already rolling out for the
• 13:18
  Model 3. They are actively funding this
• 13:20
  massive robotics research by keeping the current automotive
• 13:23
  fleet highly competitive. So the legacy cars essentially
• 13:27
  have to pay for the future robots.
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  Exactly for the refreshed models, buyers are getting 16
• 13:31
  inch high resolution QHD screens, premium Alcantara style
• 13:35
  black headliners and advanced two stage matrix headlights.
• 13:39
  We need to explain why those specific upgrades matter from a
• 13:42
  business perspective, because it is not just about making the car
• 13:46
  look nice for the driver. Right.
• 13:47
  It is entirely about profit margins.
• 13:50
  Upgrading a screen resolution or swapping out interior fabric for
• 13:54
  synthetic suede are high margin improvements.
• 13:57
  They make the car feel significantly more luxurious
• 14:00
  without requiring a total structural redesign of the
• 14:03
  chassis. Take the Matrix satellites as an
• 14:05
  example. They use thousands of tiny LE DS
• 14:09
  controlled by software to dim individual lighting segments.
• 14:12
  This improves visibility around reflective Rd. signs without
• 14:16
  dazzling oncoming traffic. Oh, it's clever.
• 14:18
  It is a premium safety feature driven largely by software,
• 14:21
  which means it is cheaper to deploy across millions of cars
• 14:24
  while allowing them to maintain higher profit margins per
• 14:27
  vehicle. They are actively keeping
• 14:29
  current buyers happy with premium features while the
• 14:32
  robotics side matures in the background.
• 14:34
  Exactly. They are also adding dunnellated
• 14:37
  seats, upgraded sound systems and refined suspension damping
• 14:41
  to absorb Rd. bumps better. It gives the consumer a
• 14:43
  compelling reason to buy today. The automotive sales are
• 14:46
  essentially the capital engine selling those refreshed model
• 14:50
  threes and model wise generates the massive cash flow required
• 14:53
  to pour billions of dollars into the Terrafab semiconductor
• 14:56
  facility and the Optimist production lines.
• 14:59
  This entirely limits the company's traditional identity
• 15:03
  as just an automaker. It officially cements them as an
• 15:06
  artificial intelligence and robotics entity that simply
• 15:09
  happens to use refreshed legacy car models to fund their future
• 15:13
  endeavors. The structural transition is
• 15:15
  complete. They are building the brain, the
• 15:18
  nervous system and the physical bodies of automated labor.
• 15:21
  Bringing this all together, the company is no longer just
• 15:24
  selling electric cars to you, they are building a vertically
• 15:26
  integrated ecosystem from the raw silicon chips all the way up
• 15:30
  to the autonomous vans and robots.
• 15:33
  How will the integration of space grade computing and
• 15:35
  humanoid robots actually change the daily routine when it
• 15:39
  finally arrives in your own driveway?
• 15:41
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• 15:46
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