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Tesla Roadster deadline · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Tesla just filed 2 brand new trademark applications with the
• 0:03
  United States Patent and Trademark Office for their long
• 0:06
  delayed Roadster, introducing a totally standalone badge for the
• 0:10
  vehicle. Which is pretty wild, right?
• 0:12
  Because, I mean, this move comes nearly a decade after Elon Musk
• 0:15
  first showed off the original prototype.
• 0:18
  So looking at the actual legal weight of these specific filings
• 0:22
  creates a very sharp contrast with the automaker's long track
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  record of, well, basically moving the goal posts on
• 0:28
  deliveries. Right.
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  And you know, imagine giving a company 1/4 of $1,000,000 as a
• 0:33
  deposit and then waiting almost a full decade for your car.
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  You sit patiently while other vehicles hit the market and your
• 0:39
  biggest update is a new font. So it really brings up the core
• 0:42
  question here. Can a supercar that was promised
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  almost 10 years ago still justify the weight considering
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  the rest of the electric vehicle industry has spent that entire
• 0:51
  duration catching up? Exactly.
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  And the first of these new trademark filings gives a very
• 0:56
  clear look at how the company intends to answer that.
• 0:59
  They registered a highly stylized wordmark for the word
• 1:02
  roadster. It's classified specifically
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  under Electric Land Vehicles and the design relies on this
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  extremely intentional, high performance aesthetic.
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  We are looking at all caps stretched angular text with
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  heavily segmented letter forms. Yeah, that styling feels
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  engineered to look incredibly fast, even when it's just
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  sitting completely still on a piece of paper.
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  Like the heavy angles communicate a lot of aggression.
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  They really do. But the second filing pushes
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  that boundary even further. They submitted a diamond shaped
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  badge and the internal description of the trademarks,
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  as the shape is filled with lines meant to evoke speed,
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  heat, propulsion or wind. Plus, they actually included an
• 1:43
  updated silhouette of the vehicle itself alongside the
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  badge. Which is interesting because the
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  roof line they're showing now is it's noticeably squarer and
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  sleeker than the original concept car.
• 1:53
  Yeah, exactly. You know, this branding approach
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  is kind of like a high end fashion house creating a totally
• 1:59
  exclusive sub label just for its couture line.
• 2:01
  Oh awesome. Well, you want your buyers to
• 2:03
  know the item comes from the same legendary house, right?
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  But you need the label itself to instantly communicate that this
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  specific garment belongs in an entirely different category of
• 2:13
  exclusivity and cost. Giving the Roadster a stand
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  alone diamond badge changes their whole design strategy.
• 2:20
  I mean, it totally does. Outside of the jagged text they
• 2:22
  use for the Cybertruck, the company has always used standard
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  flat wordmarks. You see the flat corporate logo
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  on their high volume family sedan, and you see that exact
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  same badge on their heavier sport utility vehicle.
• 2:35
  Yeah, uniform across the board. Right, so giving the Roadster A
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  standalone diamond badge, it elevates it to a true supercar
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  mark. Heritage sports car
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  manufacturers always separate their absolute highest tier
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  performance models from their everyday production line through
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  highly specific badges. So they're attempting to
• 2:53
  position this model squarely alongside legacy exotic cars, so
• 2:57
  they finally have a fancy new font and a logo.
• 3:00
  Yeah, essentially. But the mechanism behind how
• 3:03
  they filed for these logos is what actually forces their hand.
• 3:07
  The applications were submitted to the Patent Office on an
• 3:10
  intent to use basis. Wait.
• 3:12
  Back up. Does that mean if they don't
• 3:13
  actually build and sell something with this badge, the
• 3:16
  trademark just disappears? Yes, that is precisely the legal
• 3:20
  mechanism at play here. When a company files a trademark
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  on an intent to use basis, they are legally declaring to the
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  Patent Office that they have a concrete, actionable plan to put
• 3:31
  these specific marks into commercial circulation.
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  Even if the product hasn't launched yet.
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  Right, you cannot just park a brand indefinitely because you
• 3:38
  think the diamond shaped looks cool.
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  The law requires the company to demonstrate actual, verifiable
• 3:44
  commercial use within a defined legal window.
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  So this acts like the trademark equivalent of a shot clock.
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  That is a great way to put it. By filing this specific type of
• 3:53
  paperwork, the company essentially forced their own
• 3:55
  hand legally. I mean, they can delay
• 3:58
  production for years on their own terms, but they cannot delay
• 4:00
  the United States Patent Office, no.
• 4:02
  Definitely not. You typically have a set period
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  factoring in extensions to preview your using it.
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  If you fail to demonstrate that you were actually selling a
• 4:11
  physical product featuring that mark before the timer runs out,
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  you risk losing the registration entirely.
• 4:17
  Wow. The big caveat, though, is that
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  this specific automaker has willingly abandoned unused
• 4:23
  trademarks in the past. Filing the paperwork is a strong
• 4:27
  signal, sure, but it is not an absolute ironclad guarantee of
• 4:31
  production. They have allowed intellectual
• 4:33
  property to lapse when projects pivot.
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  Even with that caveat, the reality of the timeline makes
• 4:39
  that legal clock feel incredibly heavy.
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  I mean, customers originally put down huge deposits to secure a
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  spot in line. Those reservations range from
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  50,000 to $250,000, Which? Is a massive interest free loan.
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  It really is, and since that prototype debuted, Musk has
• 4:55
  shifted the goal posts at least 8 distinct times.
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  Yeah, production targets keep slipping, with the company
• 5:00
  repeatedly citing the need for further testing and validation,
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  meaning the earliest reservation holders will have waited a full
• 5:06
  decade for their cars. And that constant testing and
• 5:09
  validation excuse. It points directly to the
• 5:11
  extreme physics they are trying to conquer.
• 5:13
  Right, because building a functioning prototype for a
• 5:16
  controlled stave presentation is fundamentally different from
• 5:20
  mass producing a street legal vehicle capable of handling
• 5:24
  extreme forces safely. Exactly.
• 5:27
  When you pull that much energy out of a battery pack to hit
• 5:29
  zero to 60 in under 2 seconds, the battery isn't just
• 5:33
  generating power, it generates massive localized heat spikes.
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  Yeah, it basically becomes a furnace.
• 5:39
  Right. If the thermal management system
• 5:41
  isn't completely perfect, or if the coolant routing is off by
• 5:44
  even a fraction of a millimeter, the individual cells can quickly
• 5:48
  go into thermal runaway. And the components simply melt
• 5:51
  or catch fire. Exactly.
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  Designing a cooling jacket that can pull heat away from the
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  cells fast enough during a high speed run requires absolute
• 5:59
  perfect engineering. And it goes beyond just the
• 6:01
  battery chemistry and cooling. They have to validate the
• 6:03
  aerodynamics in a wind tunnel under extreme conditions.
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  Without aero is incredibly difficult at those speeds.
• 6:09
  Right, because when a car approaches 250 mph, the air
• 6:14
  essentially turns into a solid wall.
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  If the active aero systems fail to produce the exact required
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  downforce, the car will literally take flight.
• 6:22
  And they must ensure the suspension can survive that
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  immense downforce without collapsing, all while passing
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  rigorous government crash safety tests.
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  A standard sedan frame absorbs impacts in highly predictable
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  ways, but a unique low slung supercar chassis requires
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  entirely different crash structures.
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  So every single time they stress test a component and realize it
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  isn't durable enough for repeated real world driving, the
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  entire timeline has to slip again while they redesign the
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  part. Right.
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  And because they're spending a decade fighting the physics of
• 6:53
  battery heat and aerodynamic downforce, the rest of the world
• 6:57
  naturally caught up. They really did.
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  When the concept originally debuted, the promise zero to 60
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  acceleration speeds and the 600 plus miles of range were
• 7:05
  completely unheard of. Nobody else on the road was
• 7:08
  offering that kind of performance.
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  But the environment around them did not stay frozen in time
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  while they tried to figure out the engineering.
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  Today, rivals like Rimac with Innovara and Porsche with the
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  Tican are already out there on the road.
• 7:22
  Yeah, delivering blistering electric performance directly to
• 7:25
  consumers. Exactly.
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  And Chinese automakers have aggressively entered the fray,
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  producing extreme performance electric vehicles at a fraction
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  of the cost. And those overseas competitors
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  are achieving this through highly efficient vertical
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  integration. Right.
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  Meaning instead of relying on a scattered network of third party
• 7:43
  suppliers, they own almost their entire supply chain, right down
• 7:48
  to the raw materials in the battery manufacturing
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  facilities. This level of tight control
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  allows them to iterate incredibly quickly and build out
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  fast, capable cars that completely undercut legacy
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  pricing models, which opens up a huge problem for the automaker
• 8:03
  here. Yeah, because they no longer
• 8:05
  just have to build a fast car. No, they have to justify a
• 8:08
  decade long wait and those massive deposits sitting in
• 8:12
  their accounts while competitors haven't been standing still.
• 8:15
  The consequence of that delay is that the raw shock value is
• 8:19
  completely gone. You know, thinking about all
• 8:22
  that competition, I honestly think the original specs might
• 8:26
  simply no longer impress buyers today.
• 8:28
  Really. You think so?
• 8:29
  Yeah. I mean, if you can walk into a
• 8:31
  dealership right now and buy an electric vehicle that does zero
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  to 60 in under 2 seconds, a promise from almost 10 years ago
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  suddenly feels like yesterday's news.
• 8:41
  Why wait a decade for something you can essentially already buy
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  from a competitor today? See, I disagree with that
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  premise. How come?
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  Because I think you are underestimating the heavy
• 8:49
  psychological weight of those sunk cost deposits.
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  Sure, it's a lot of money to leave sitting.
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  It is. When someone gives a company 1/4
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  of $1,000,000 as an interest free loan for 10 years, they're
• 9:01
  not just buying a mode of transportation, they're buying
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  an identity. I'd say that's fair.
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  The fierce loyalty of early reservation holders is tied to
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  the specific cultural cachet of this brand.
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  They don't just want a fast car, they specifically want a
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  supercar from this exact automaker over anything else.
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  But psychological weight doesn't win drag races.
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  If a competitor's high performance electric vehicle
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  beats the roadster off the line for half the price, the badge on
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  the hood doesn't really matter. You can't out brand physics.
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  No. You can't.
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  A buyer spending 1/4 of $1,000,000 expects absolute
• 9:36
  dominance on the track. I get that, but the sunk cost
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  fallacy actually works heavily in the company's favor here.
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  The longer people wait, the more emotionally invested they become
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  in the eventual delivery. Because giving up now means they
• 9:48
  waited for nothing. Exactly.
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  Abandoning their spot in line now would mean admitting the
• 9:53
  weight was pointless. They want the specific
• 9:55
  experience promised by that original presentation, even if
• 9:59
  the raw numbers are no longer unique in the market.
• 10:01
  Well, even if the early adopters stay blindly loyal to their
• 10:04
  deposits, capturing the rest of the high end market requires
• 10:08
  offering something Rimac or Porsche can't.
• 10:10
  That's true. If the specs are just equal to
• 10:12
  what is already on the road, the new diamond logo won't be enough
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  to convince fresh buyers to hand over that kind of cash.
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  They will need features that nobody has even thought of yet
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  to recreate that original shock value.
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  But either way, these new trademark filings put a very
• 10:28
  real legal clock on a supercar that has existed solely as a
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  moving target for almost a decade.
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  They absolutely do. It leaves you with one big open
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  question, though. What previously unannounced
• 10:41
  features will the automaker have to add to the final production
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  model to make it actually stand out against today's fierce
• 10:46
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• 10:48
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• 10:53
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• 10:56
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• 10:57
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