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Elon Musk Inventing the Futurel!!! · Elon Musk Thinking

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Speaker 1: If you like this episode, just like. Share and follow
0:03
Speaker 1: this podcast. Thank you. Back to the show.
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Speaker 2: I know today was a busy day at the office.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I guess every day is a busy day at the
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Speaker 2: office when you run into big companies.
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Speaker 1: Some are more intense than others. This is on the
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Speaker 1: more intense side.
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Speaker 2: Let's talk about Tesla. And if one were to believe
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Speaker 2: everything one reads in the press, which I don't as
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Speaker 2: a former journalist, the recent fires in the Tesla cars
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Speaker 2: sound like the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. Right, the humanity.
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Speaker 2: Reality is somewhat different. Tell us what already happened there.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think, first of all, that it's fair
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Speaker 1: for a new technology to receive more scrutiny than older
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Speaker 1: technologies because it should be held to a higher standard.
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Speaker 1: But there's some reasonable limit to what that increased standard
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Speaker 1: should be. And since the Model S went into production
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Speaker 1: about a year and a half ago, There have been
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Speaker 1: about a quarter million gasoline car fires in the U.S.,
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Speaker 1: about 400 deaths, 400 serious injuries. Our three fires, which
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Speaker 1: caused no injury, received more headline news than the other
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Speaker 1: quarter million combined. That seems like an unreasonable ratio.
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Speaker 2: And I believe all three owners of those cars who
1:24
Speaker 2: crashed wanted to get another one.
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Speaker 1: Yes. Right, exactly. It's like, don't take my word for it.
1:33
Speaker 1: That was, like I said, how soon can they get
1:35
Speaker 1: a loaner car until the insurance thing gets figured out?
1:39
Speaker 1: So it was to get one right away. Yeah, I mean,
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Speaker 1: that's the acid test. Does the guy that experienced the fire,
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Speaker 1: does he want to have that same car again?
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Speaker 2: You feel safe in it. Stock price down again today, 10%.
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Speaker 2: Do you care about that?
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Speaker 1: I mean... it kind of sucks running a public company.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the stock goes through these huge gyrations,
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Speaker 1: and yeah, for like seemingly arbitrary reasons. And then I'm
2:20
Speaker 1: asked to explain why it changed. I'm like, I have
2:22
Speaker 1: no idea.
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Speaker 2: It should be pointed out it's up 300% on the year.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. I mean, on balance, that's still good. But...
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Speaker 1: I mean, when the stock price was way higher and
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Speaker 1: people asked me what I think of the valuation, I said, well,
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Speaker 1: I think it's probably more than we have a right
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Speaker 1: to deserve. We'll try to get there in the long term,
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Speaker 1: and I think we will, and probably exceed it. But
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Speaker 1: I would not try to justify that a company with
2:49
Speaker 1: a little over $ 2 billion of revenue should be worth
2:52
Speaker 1: $ 22 billion in market cap. That does seem pretty high
2:56
Speaker 1: to me. You know, it's like... Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And it's fair to say you wouldn't be there without
3:01
Speaker 2: government subsidy.
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Speaker 1: Well, I think it would have taken longer. There's a
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Speaker 1: slight misperception about the history of Tesla, which is that
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Speaker 1: the government funding was pivotal. It was an accelerant, but
3:15
Speaker 1: it was not pivotal. The really pivotal point was an
3:19
Speaker 1: investment from Daimler in 2009, early 2009, when I basically
3:21
Speaker 1: spent all the money I had. And we had... one
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Speaker 1: company that was willing to invest, or one entity that
3:31
Speaker 1: was willing to invest, period, and that was Daimler. And
3:33
Speaker 1: if they hadn't come in with that investment, we would
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Speaker 1: definitely be dead. Dead, bankrupt, finished. Yeah, gone. And fortunately,
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Speaker 1: they did. We've done a number of vehicle programs with Daimler.
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Speaker 1: There's the Mercedes B-Class, which is not currently produced in
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Speaker 1: the U.S., but it's very popular in Europe and other
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Speaker 1: parts of the world. It will be coming to the U.S.,
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Speaker 1: And that'll have a Tesla battery pack and powertrain. It'll
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Speaker 1: be the largest electric vehicle program in diamond history. So that...
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Speaker 1: Got a great relationship. They've been a great supporter.
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Speaker 2: How about self-drive version of Tesla?
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Speaker 1: I do think that's an important technology. Although... The difficulty
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Speaker 1: increases exponentially to get to fully self-driving, to cover all
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Speaker 1: the corner cases. So I think we can get to
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Speaker 1: maybe 90% of miles driven being autopilot, as we call it,
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Speaker 1: because we're using that sort of aircraft analogy. I think
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Speaker 1: we'll get there pretty soon, maybe in a few years.
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Speaker 1: But then covering that last 10% is really difficult. And
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Speaker 1: so getting from 90% to 99%, then to 99.9%, And
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Speaker 1: ultimately to be truly self-driving, like you can fall asleep
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Speaker 1: in the car as your destination, which would be really great.
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Speaker 2: Some people do already, by the way.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. They die. Yeah. I think you probably need
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Speaker 1: like six nines of reliability. Like the standard would be
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Speaker 1: actually way higher than the safety of a person, probably
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Speaker 1: by a factor of 10 or 100. in order for
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Speaker 1: people to be comfortable. Or otherwise, like this fire thing.
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Speaker 1: Our car is basically the safest car you could possibly
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Speaker 1: drive if you care about fires. And that's not the
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Speaker 1: impression one would have reading the headlines. You would have
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Speaker 1: sort of the officer impression. And so for a self-driving autopilot,
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Speaker 1: hopefully the media doesn't do the same thing, mega disproportionate response,
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Speaker 1: but I do think that it should be held to
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Speaker 1: a standard that's maybe like 10 times better than a person.
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Speaker 2: And I know Google's working on this too. 10 years,
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Speaker 2: more or less?
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think that the right path is
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Speaker 1: probably a little different from what Google is pursuing. And
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Speaker 1: Larry Page is an old friend of mine. I've known
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Speaker 1: him since before he got venture funding for Google. And
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Speaker 1: I think he's Really brilliant guy. Google isn't focusing on
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Speaker 1: autonomous cars, whereas it's going to be a pretty significant
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Speaker 1: focus for Tesla. From our standpoint, it only matters if
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Speaker 1: the autopilot capability does not result in a substantial cost
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Speaker 1: increase to the car. The way the Google sensor suite
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Speaker 1: is set up, it's like 60 grand. That's a lot.
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Speaker 2: I want to ask you about risk-taking. Because there's a
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Speaker 2: theory that entrepreneurs who hit it out of the park
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Speaker 2: one time make that billion-dollar-plus company work. They're reluctant to
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Speaker 2: do it again, not because they're afraid of losing their money,
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Speaker 2: but because they feel if they were to fail a
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Speaker 2: second time around, then in their own minds maybe they
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Speaker 2: would think, well, the first time it was just luck.
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Speaker 2: It wasn't really my own skill or my own sense
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Speaker 2: of how to run a business. But not only did
7:23
Speaker 2: you Well, you rose, PayPal came up to 1.5 billion.
7:28
Speaker 2: You got out of that. Not only did you invest again,
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Speaker 2: but you invested again twice. Not only that, but you
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Speaker 2: chose probably two of the most risky capital-intensive industries to
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Speaker 2: go with. Rocket technology, which is basically a bomb, directed up,
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Speaker 2: and then cars, which are, you know, we know what's
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Speaker 2: happening in Detroit. So what is it that motivates there
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Speaker 2: to do that, to go through the crucible again, two
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Speaker 2: times again?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure it was the right decision, but....
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Speaker 2: So far, so good.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. It's much less fun than it may appear, but.
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Speaker 1: I mean, the case of... What I thought I would
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Speaker 1: do was start and run SpaceX, then... create an electric
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Speaker 1: car company with a few other people, work, but just, like,
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Speaker 1: apply 20% of my time and work on the product design.
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Speaker 1: Because I'm, like, my main thing is engineering and design. So... Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that was... an illusion. So... Yeah. And....
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Speaker 4: And then.
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Speaker 1: I don't really have any choice but to... apply a
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Speaker 1: ton of time to Tesla or the company would be
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Speaker 1: definitely dead.
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Speaker 2: But the other way to do it, you could have
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Speaker 2: stayed in Silicon Valley, started another few internet companies, made
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Speaker 2: a billion dollars, and then you could have bought Chrysler
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Speaker 2: and probably bought NASA too and you wouldn't have to
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Speaker 2: start from scratch.
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Speaker 1: That seems too easy. Yeah. Yeah.
9:21
Speaker 2: All right, we'll move on.
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Speaker 1: I don't really want to... The point is not to
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Speaker 1: sort of own a car company, but rather to accelerate
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Speaker 1: the advent of sustainable transport. And it seemed like it
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Speaker 1: would be difficult... APPLAUSE.
9:39
Speaker 2: Let's talk about SpaceX. SpaceX, you have said you started
9:45
Speaker 2: with the specific intention of getting to Mars.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well... The Arginine SpaceX was actually not... My initial
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Speaker 1: thought in space was that it wasn't possible to create
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Speaker 1: a company. And I mistakenly thought that the reason that
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Speaker 1: we're not sending people to Mars was because we'd lost
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Speaker 1: the will to explore or something like that. And I thought, well,
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Speaker 1: maybe that needs to be reignited. And so I came
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Speaker 1: up with this idea to do basically a philanthropic mission
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Speaker 1: to Mars with a 100% probability of losing all the
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Speaker 1: money in order to reignite interest in that goal. But
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Speaker 1: after a while I realized that that was actually a mistake.
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Speaker 1: Particularly the United States is a nation of explorers. Came
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Speaker 1: here from other parts of the world. I think more
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Speaker 1: than any other country is a distillation of the human
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Speaker 1: spirit of exploration. There's no lack of will. But people
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Speaker 1: need to believe that there's a way. That in a
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Speaker 1: way that's feasible and that it's not gonna bankrupt the
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Speaker 1: country and their living standard won't be materially affected. And
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Speaker 1: then I think they're super keen on that goal.
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Speaker 2: Now as you look out, whatever we're talking 10, 15,
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Speaker 2: 20 years to get to Mars, it's not just rocket
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Speaker 2: technology and you've talked about reusable rocket technology. It's also
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Speaker 2: how you shield people from radiation. It's a 10, 12
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Speaker 2: month trip. what you do when they arrive. How are
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Speaker 2: they going to live there? Is that something that you
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Speaker 2: want to work on too, or will you partner with
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Speaker 2: other companies? How do you see that playing out over
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Speaker 2: the next decade?
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Speaker 1: Well, I actually think the technology required to live on
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Speaker 1: Mars is not particularly difficult. But getting there is really difficult.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's like hundreds of millions of miles.
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Speaker 2: To get to Death Valley.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's a place that kind of looks like Arizona.
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Speaker 1: Or like a cold version of Arizona with not quite
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Speaker 1: as much water. I mean, at least that's my guess.
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Speaker 1: I think if we can get there, the technology required
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Speaker 1: to live there is not a really big challenge. Mars
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Speaker 1: has some advantages. It's quite sort of Earth-like in some ways.
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Speaker 1: It's got a rotational period of 24 and a half hours,
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Speaker 1: by far the closest of any other planet. The atmosphere
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Speaker 1: is carbon dioxide. It's at a low pressure, but if
12:35
Speaker 1: you were to have a transparent dome, all you'd need
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Speaker 1: is a pump and some fertilizer, and you could grow
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Speaker 1: plants on Mars. The plants would convert the CO2 to oxygen.
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Speaker 2: The other thing that's been big in the news recently
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Speaker 2: is the Hyperloop, which you have sketched out. You estimate
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Speaker 2: from L.A. to San Francisco in 35 minutes.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you could push that a little bit.
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Speaker 2: Well, I'd be happy if I could get from Santa
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Speaker 2: Monica to downtown L.A.
13:08
Speaker 1: I know.
13:09
Speaker 2: I know you have your personal issues with the 405.
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Speaker 1: The 405 is like, this is like the most brutal
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Speaker 1: construction project I've ever personally witnessed. I mean, it's, like, mind-boggling.
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Speaker 2: But I also know that... So you sketched this out,
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Speaker 2: but I know that your plans for the Hyperloop have
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Speaker 2: been put into some pretty sophisticated simulation technology.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And it looks like it actually might work.
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Speaker 1: Am I right? Yeah. And we did run simulations at
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Speaker 1: SpaceX and Tesla, so, you know, we thought it would work, but,
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Speaker 1: I mean, I actually don't think it's particularly... I mean...
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Speaker 1: I think the engineering of it, that it would work,
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Speaker 1: is actually pretty obvious, honestly. I think the larger issues
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Speaker 1: are political, getting the political support to do something like that,
14:03
Speaker 1: and then making sure the economics pan out. I hope
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Speaker 1: someone does it, because I think it would be cool.
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Speaker 1: It would be great to have something like that. It
14:19
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like our mass transportation is getting better. It
14:22
Speaker 1: seems to be kind of getting worse. So that's not
14:27
Speaker 1: a good future.
14:29
Speaker 2: You said something there. You hoped somebody else would do it.
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Speaker 2: I'm curious, what makes you really so unique is not
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Speaker 2: only your ability to dream big, but to execute. There
14:37
Speaker 2: are lots of utopian thinkers out there, but they cannot execute.
14:41
Speaker 2: But there are some other people who can do good things.
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Speaker 2: And I'm wondering what seems to motivate you. You see
14:46
Speaker 2: things that frustrate you or you think are are not
14:48
Speaker 2: as good as you like, and then you try and
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Speaker 2: fix them. You've worked on solar power, you've worked on
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Speaker 2: electric cars, and on interplanetary space travel. And I'm wondering,
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Speaker 2: what are the things about America, and about the world
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Speaker 2: for that matter, would you like to see fixed, either
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Speaker 2: by a company you might do yourself, or by someone
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Speaker 2: who's a smart entrepreneur? What else out there is feasible?
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Speaker 2: We all want to get rid of world poverty, and
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Speaker 2: get rid of childhood diseases, but what problems out there
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Speaker 2: can feasibly be fixed, say, in our lifetimes?
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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think, first of all, the world's
15:22
Speaker 1: actually pretty great right now. I mean, arguably better than
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Speaker 1: any point in history. And this is sometimes lost. If
15:30
Speaker 1: you read the newspapers, they're like a magnification of all
15:37
Speaker 1: the world's problems. It's like, newspapers seem to be attempting
15:41
Speaker 1: to answer the question, what was the worst thing that
15:43
Speaker 1: happened on Earth today? LAUGHTER If.
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Speaker 2: It bleeds, it leads.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like, okay. And I think there is
15:56
Speaker 1: kind of an evolutionary reason for that because it makes
15:59
Speaker 1: more sense. You want to prioritize danger over reward. Because
16:06
Speaker 1: if you get eaten by the lion, it's game over.
16:10
Speaker 1: But if you forget where you left some snack, that's okay. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So it's not quite the same in terms of the
16:21
Speaker 1: risk-to-worth balance. But we didn't evolve with newspapers and global media.
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Speaker 1: So our brain is sort of having a fear response
16:31
Speaker 1: to a bunch of dangers that are extremely unlikely to
16:35
Speaker 1: ever affect us. You have, I believe, about 3,000 people
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Speaker 1: at Tesla. We have 6,000, yeah.
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Speaker 2: 6,000, I'm not informed. And SpaceX is?
16:49
Speaker 1: Is 3,500.
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Speaker 2: So that's a massive agglomeration of engineering talent. Huge.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: If I could take the metaphor of a ship, how
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Speaker 2: much time do you have to go down into the
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Speaker 2: engine room, roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty
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Speaker 2: and fix stuff as an engineer? And how much time
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Speaker 2: do you spend on the bridge steering and looking at
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Speaker 2: the distant horizons?
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Speaker 1: Well, not a lot on that last point. I mean,
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Speaker 1: there's a constant flurry of executional challenges, and so I
17:24
Speaker 1: try to triage my time according to what would be
17:27
Speaker 1: best for the companies, and still have some time to
17:32
Speaker 1: see my kids, because I don't want to miss them
17:34
Speaker 1: growing up. It can vary from big issues to things
17:42
Speaker 1: that seem small but actually could have a really big impact. So,
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's all the way from design aesthetics to
17:54
Speaker 1: the details of, say, the vehicle functionality, or in the
17:58
Speaker 1: case of the rocket, the avionics propulsion system and airframe.
18:06
Speaker 1: I mean, the rocket is kind of a.
18:10
Speaker 1: Has more of a concentrated pucker factor because you've got
18:15
Speaker 1: these launches. And at least with a car, you can
18:20
Speaker 1: do a recall or, like, do a software update. That's
18:24
Speaker 1: not going to happen with the rocket. So it's like
18:29
Speaker 1: passing grade is 100%, which induces anxiety, you know.
18:38
Speaker 2: How do you handle launch anxiety when you're actually waiting
18:41
Speaker 2: the countdown we saw on here?
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Speaker 1: Well, these ones, actually, I mean, I have quite a
18:50
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety. I always think, oh, there must be
18:55
Speaker 1: something that we did wrong, and is there anything I
18:58
Speaker 1: could have done to prevent this hypothetical thing from, bad
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Speaker 1: thing from occurring? I mean, the last... roughly 10 launches
19:12
Speaker 1: have worked, but the three launches we started off with
19:18
Speaker 1: did not. So, by far the worst emotional stress was
19:24
Speaker 1: the fourth launch of Falcon 1, because the first three
19:27
Speaker 1: launches did not make it to orbit. They got to
19:29
Speaker 1: sort of space on launches two and three, but they
19:31
Speaker 1: didn't get to full orbital velocity. And at When I
19:37
Speaker 1: started out, I figured I would have enough money for
19:39
Speaker 1: three launches. We squeaked by on the fourth one.
19:48
Speaker 2: We sent out a link today. I don't know how
19:50
Speaker 2: many of you saw it, but it's of you using
19:53
Speaker 2: your hands as 3D molding tools for stuff you're doing
19:59
Speaker 2: on a computer screen. It's a rocket engine that you're
20:02
Speaker 2: able to manipulate with your hands. I know that you
20:05
Speaker 2: have told Jon Favreau, who produced or directed Iron Man,
20:08
Speaker 2: that That was the inspiration, because we see Tony.
20:10
Speaker 1: Stark doing this in that movie.
20:13
Speaker 2: And I know also, you know, I've read a bit,
20:14
Speaker 2: Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, you've also said it's been an inspiration.
20:19
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering, when you're on the cutting edge of
20:22
Speaker 2: technology today, in the fields that you're in, do you
20:26
Speaker 2: feel you've almost got one foot in science fiction? Do
20:30
Speaker 2: you have to be that far ahead?
20:33
Speaker 1: Well, you have to imagine an outcome in order to
20:37
Speaker 1: head in that direction. And science fiction explores a lot
20:41
Speaker 1: of different ideas, so it can be helpful as a
20:46
Speaker 1: source of inspiration. And, you know, like books, TV shows, movies,
20:53
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all, I think, sources of inspiration. Most
20:59
Speaker 1: of the movies and TV shows about space are totally wrong.
21:03
Speaker 1: But they still have interesting ideas. Like the Star Trek communicator...
21:10
Speaker 1: was an inspiration for the cell phone.
21:13
Speaker 2: With the flip, right?
21:14
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, exactly. In fact, the weird thing is the
21:19
Speaker 1: phones we have in our pocket vastly exceed what was
21:21
Speaker 1: on Star Trek.
21:25
Speaker 2: We're going to go to ask some of our students
21:28
Speaker 2: some questions. But first, one more. I'm a big James
21:32
Speaker 2: Bond fan. You just bought the Lotus Esprit that they
21:35
Speaker 2: used in The Spy Who Loved Me, which goes underwater.
21:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:39
Speaker 2: And you're going to.
21:40
Speaker 1: Make that work. It's definitely a backbone of project.
21:43
Speaker 2: Okay, but my question is, when do we get to
21:47
Speaker 2: see a functioning version of the Millennium Falcon?
21:52
Speaker 1: That's a tricky one, because it's not actually the right shape. Uh-oh.
21:58
Speaker 2: Note to George Lucas.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the Falcon 9, our Falcon rocket was.
22:06
Speaker 1: Named after the Millennium Falcon, even though it looks nothing
22:09
Speaker 1: like it. And, yeah, I mean, yeah. That's not the
22:15
Speaker 1: shape you'd want for a spaceship, really.
22:19
Speaker 2: Okay, so if we can swing the camera to our
22:22
Speaker 2: student tables, we get a couple of questions from there,
22:26
Speaker 2: and then I'll go to the written questions from the
22:27
Speaker 2: rest of the audience.
22:31
Speaker 3: Good evening, sir. My name's Ariel Jaimes. I'm from Vaughan
22:34
Speaker 3: Next Century. Referring to Merlin 9, does SpaceX have a
22:39
Speaker 3: working prototype, and when will it be ready to launch?
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Speaker 1: Well, Merlin is the name of our engine, and Falcon
22:51
Speaker 1: 9 is the name of the rocket. We've done several
22:58
Speaker 1: launches of Falcon 9 in an important milestone, happened a
23:03
Speaker 1: few months ago, which was the launch of the next
23:06
Speaker 1: generation Falcon line, which is designed to be able to
23:09
Speaker 1: return and land at the launch pad. And we came
23:16
Speaker 1: close on the initial mission, but didn't quite get there.
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Speaker 1: We need to make a few corrections, but I think
23:22
Speaker 1: we've got a good chance of getting there next year.
23:24
Speaker 2: Okay, let's go for another one there.
23:30
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Kennedy Green from Harvard-Westlake. So I've seen you
23:35
Speaker 5: speak at a TED Talk, and I remember you spoke
23:38
Speaker 5: pretty emphatically about the success of your innovations and how
23:42
Speaker 5: you kind of take a physics approach, where you take
23:45
Speaker 5: the idea and boil it down to its basics, and
23:48
Speaker 5: from there start to build up. So can you talk
23:51
Speaker 5: about an example where you use that process?
23:58
Speaker 1: Well.
24:00
Speaker 1: I think an important thing in innovation or trying to
24:07
Speaker 1: create new things is to try really hard to do that,
24:12
Speaker 1: which may sound incredibly obvious. But that's what I find
24:16
Speaker 1: is most often what people don't do. They actually didn't
24:20
Speaker 1: try super hard to come up with something new. And
24:24
Speaker 1: it is helpful to have cross-pollination of industries. I mean,
24:31
Speaker 1: it's been quite difficult to run SpaceX and Tesla, but
24:33
Speaker 1: there has been good ideas. Since I got both in
24:39
Speaker 1: my mind space, there's good ideas going back and forth.
24:45
Speaker 1: For example, on the car, with respect to the car,
24:47
Speaker 1: the Model S is the only all-aluminum body and chassis
24:50
Speaker 1: car made in North America. Very few cars are all-aluminum.
24:54
Speaker 1: In the aerospace industry, that's the default. So it seems
24:59
Speaker 1: like obviously the right move in order to minimize the
25:02
Speaker 1: non-battery-packed mass of the car. So in order to offset
25:06
Speaker 1: a fairly heavy battery pack, we had to make the
25:09
Speaker 1: rest of the car light but still achieve a five-star
25:14
Speaker 1: safety rating. I don't think it would have been possible
25:17
Speaker 1: to do that if we had used steel, which is
25:19
Speaker 1: the traditional method. And what's helped SpaceX has been that
25:25
Speaker 1: the car industry is really good at making... complicated objects
25:31
Speaker 1: at a low cost. I mean, it's actually quite incredible that, like,
25:34
Speaker 1: one can buy a decent car for $ 20, 000. I mean,
25:38
Speaker 1: all the stuff that's in that car is, I mean,
25:41
Speaker 1: it's nutty how much stuff is in a car. So
25:49
Speaker 1: at SpaceX, I hired a bunch of people from the
25:51
Speaker 1: auto industry to run manufacturing, which has worked out reasonably well.
25:58
Speaker 2: Let's take two more student questions, please, and then we'll
26:01
Speaker 2: come to the other written ones.
26:05
Speaker 1: Hello.
26:07
Speaker 6: I'm Natalie Watson from Marlborough School, and we have a
26:11
Speaker 6: sort of two-part question that builds. Why do you think
26:17
Speaker 6: Tesla succeeded whereas other car companies have failed in their
26:23
Speaker 6: methods of electric cars? And is the location in Silicon
26:29
Speaker 6: Valley an important part of this?
26:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think being in Silicon Valley is pretty important
26:37
Speaker 1: because what's really critical with electric cars is electrical engineering
26:45
Speaker 1: software and electronics. And Silicon Valley has the best concentration
26:50
Speaker 1: of talent in those areas in the world. And, yeah. Sorry,
26:57
Speaker 1: what was the first part of the question?
27:00
Speaker 2: Why did you succeed?
27:01
Speaker 1: Oh, why did we succeed? Oh, yeah, right.
27:03
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, what was your question? Oh, the first part, okay.
27:07
Speaker 6: Why do you think Tesla succeeded whereas other car companies
27:11
Speaker 6: failed in their methods of electric cars? Like, why do
27:15
Speaker 6: you think Tesla is the leader in this idea?
27:22
Speaker 1: Well, there haven't been that many... car company startups. There
27:29
Speaker 1: was the sort of Fisker and Koda, and then a
27:33
Speaker 1: few smaller ones, and then the rest has sort of
27:37
Speaker 1: been some fairly small scale efforts by the big companies.
27:43
Speaker 1: I think if we say what was the difference between
27:51
Speaker 1: say Fisker and Tesla, that's maybe the most direct comparison,
27:56
Speaker 1: Tesla is a hardcore engineering company, and Fisker is based
28:02
Speaker 1: on styling. Styling is important, but that's not the reason
28:07
Speaker 1: we don't have electric cars. But for styling, we would
28:11
Speaker 1: have electric cars. That's not the reason. In the case
28:16
Speaker 1: of Fisker, they made a car that a lot of
28:19
Speaker 1: people think looked really good, but didn't work properly. So,
28:24
Speaker 1: then people don't want to buy the car. That's a
28:28
Speaker 1: pretty reasonable thing. Yeah. If you think about it, what's
28:42
Speaker 1: the point of a company existing? The point is that
28:46
Speaker 1: it's a group of people that have gathered together to
28:50
Speaker 1: create a product. If the product is good, the company...
28:54
Speaker 1: should exist, and if it is not good, the company
28:56
Speaker 1: should not exist. That seems like fundamental to the nature
29:01
Speaker 1: of companies. So the, I mean clearly then one should
29:05
Speaker 1: focus on making the absolute best product you can, otherwise
29:11
Speaker 1: you reduce the probability of success. But a lot of
29:14
Speaker 1: companies focus on things that aren't really to do with
29:17
Speaker 1: the product. As though a company has any basis for
29:21
Speaker 1: existing apart from doing useful things. That's kind of strange.
29:26
Speaker 2: One more question. Student question, please.
29:31
Speaker 1: Good evening, sir.
29:32
Speaker 7: My name is Eric Pelayo from Vaughan Next Century. And
29:36
Speaker 7: regarding the proposed Mars expedition, how exactly do you plan
29:44
Speaker 7: on making it cost-efficient?
29:46
Speaker 1: Sure. Well, no, that is indeed a tricky problem. I mean,
29:57
Speaker 1: I feel reasonably possible that... that success is at least
30:02
Speaker 1: one of the possible outcomes.
30:04
Speaker 4: I mean, this is pretty important when you're trying to
30:14
Speaker 4: do something.
30:15
Speaker 1: It's like, well, can that be one of the outcomes?
30:18
Speaker 1: I wasn't actually confident about that until a few years ago. Now,
30:24
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we will get there, but I'm confident
30:27
Speaker 1: that it is at least possible. And the key to
30:31
Speaker 1: that is having a fully reusable Mars transportation system so
30:35
Speaker 1: that all you are placing between flights, maybe apart from
30:40
Speaker 1: minor maintenance, is the propellant. I mean, this is, like,
30:47
Speaker 1: reusability is so fundamental to having a major change in
30:55
Speaker 1: space flight. It would be difficult to overstate its importance. But,
31:02
Speaker 1: I mean, with analogy to other modes of transport, you
31:05
Speaker 1: can imagine that if airplanes could only be used once,
31:09
Speaker 1: they would, very few people would fly. Because it would
31:13
Speaker 1: be super crazy expensive. You know, I guess, like, a
31:17
Speaker 1: 747 costs a quarter billion dollars. You'd need two of
31:19
Speaker 1: them just for a round trip. People are not paying
31:21
Speaker 1: half a billion dollars to fly back and forth to London.
31:25
Speaker 1: And that's because you can use a 747, like, 20,000 times.
31:31
Speaker 1: And for a rocket, a Falcon 9 rocket costs about
31:35
Speaker 1: $ 60 million to build. And so if it can be
31:38
Speaker 1: used once, obviously that's a $ 60 million capital cost. But
31:41
Speaker 1: if it can be used 1,000 times, then it's only
31:43
Speaker 1: a $ 60, 000 capital cost. I mean, that is... It is
31:51
Speaker 1: the fundamental difference. So you have to have a fully usable...
31:54
Speaker 1: Then you have to make sure that the propellant used is...
31:59
Speaker 1: as low cost as possible. So our next generation rockets
32:02
Speaker 1: will be using methane as a fuel, which methane is
32:05
Speaker 1: the lowest cost source fuel on the planet by a
32:10
Speaker 1: good margin. And so I think if your propellant costs
32:17
Speaker 1: are low and the system is fully reusable, then I
32:22
Speaker 1: think it should be possible to move to Mars for
32:27
Speaker 1: less than half a million dollars which I think is
32:30
Speaker 1: an important threshold, because if people can sell all this
32:33
Speaker 1: stuff on Earth and move to Mars, and there's enough
32:37
Speaker 1: people who can do that, combined with those who actually
32:42
Speaker 1: want to do that, then that's the fundamental thing needed
32:52
Speaker 1: to have a growing colony on Mars. Kind of like
32:57
Speaker 1: the way that the US was the early English colonies
33:01
Speaker 1: in America, when it became affordable for people to sell
33:08
Speaker 1: all their stuff in England and move to America, it
33:12
Speaker 1: grew really fast. In the absence of that, it would
33:16
Speaker 1: just require humongous amounts of government support, and I think
33:20
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't result in a self-sustaining civilization. So the economics
33:25
Speaker 1: of it are extremely fundamental. No, thanks, yeah.
33:30
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to go to some questions that we
33:32
Speaker 2: got from the floor. And the first one I want
33:36
Speaker 2: to ask is, what do you think is the next
33:39
Speaker 2: battery technology after lithium-ion? I guess lithium-ion has sort of
33:42
Speaker 2: reached its ceiling, more or less, or no?
33:45
Speaker 1: No, I think there are substantial improvements that will occur
33:49
Speaker 1: with lithium-ion batteries without any numericals required. The thing with
33:57
Speaker 1: lithium-ion batteries technology in terms of the cost and energy
34:00
Speaker 1: density is that the average improvement per year is about 8%,
34:07
Speaker 1: which isn't that noticeable on a one-year basis, but your
34:11
Speaker 1: compound interest is a very powerful force. And so after, say,
34:17
Speaker 1: four or five years, the cost is cut in half,
34:20
Speaker 1: assuming there's a forcing function for, a strong forcing function
34:23
Speaker 1: for improvement, which I think electric cars provide. So I
34:27
Speaker 1: feel pretty good about achieving a substantial reduction in the
34:32
Speaker 1: cost of the battery pack, say, in kind of the
34:36
Speaker 1: three- or four-year time horizon.
34:37
Speaker 2: Still way behind Moore's law for microchips.
34:40
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, sure. The only thing that operates at Moore's
34:46
Speaker 1: law speed is Moore's law. You know, semiconductors just have
34:51
Speaker 1: this incredible advantage that as you made them tinier, they
34:55
Speaker 1: got way more efficient. For something with, like, That's a large,
35:00
Speaker 1: like a macro structure, like a battery pack. You just
35:03
Speaker 1: don't have, or really almost anything. Essentially, in fact, anything
35:08
Speaker 1: except microprocessors and memory that does not improve at that pace.
35:16
Speaker 2: Another question here. It's about medical technology. Is there a
35:20
Speaker 2: medical application or technology that you would like to change
35:25
Speaker 2: or see somebody else change, work on?
35:29
Speaker 1: Well, in medical technology, well, I think the thing that
35:37
Speaker 1: would most profoundly affect people would be to be able
35:45
Speaker 1: to recode genetics, which is obviously a dodgy situation. But
35:51
Speaker 1: that's the thing. We're close to saturation on lifespans. I mean,
35:58
Speaker 1: it's sort of pretty much leveled out. And so even
36:03
Speaker 1: if you solve, say, any one particular disease, you maybe
36:05
Speaker 1: slightly improve life expectancy, but not a lot. You know,
36:10
Speaker 1: it's just like, you kind of have a genetic programming
36:14
Speaker 1: in any given species for a certain lifespan. Like, you
36:18
Speaker 1: cannot make a fruit fly live for 10 years, no
36:20
Speaker 1: matter what you do. I mean, no amount of healthy
36:23
Speaker 1: living vitamins or anything. It's just like, you know. So.
36:28
Speaker 2: Ray Kurzweil's fruit flies live for 20 years.
36:31
Speaker 1: That would be a truly astounding achievement. It's a really
36:39
Speaker 1: tricky subject. It's fraught with all sorts of moral issues,
36:43
Speaker 1: but that's the thing that would most affect people's lives.
36:49
Speaker 1: It certainly is a double-edged sword.
36:55
Speaker 2: Here's another question from a Tesla owner. Why is there
37:00
Speaker 2: no coat hook in the back?
37:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:05
Speaker 2: He says, he or she says, you can design a rocket,
37:08
Speaker 2: but you forgot the coat hooks?
37:11
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't actually forget it. I just, I intentionally
37:13
Speaker 1: didn't like it, so I didn't put it there. Like,
37:16
Speaker 1: the aesthetics of it really bothered me, but... And, you know, obviously,
37:21
Speaker 1: some people disagree with that decision. But I think we
37:25
Speaker 1: might have... A retroactive fix for that, if somebody has
37:31
Speaker 1: the panoramic roof, which is to basically have a hook
37:35
Speaker 1: on the bow section in the middle of the roof.
37:40
Speaker 1: And then your code could hang down in the second
37:45
Speaker 1: row passenger footwell, which is actually slightly better than having
37:47
Speaker 1: a code hook that's stuck on the side of the car.
37:53
Speaker 1: So I think we'll probably do that. Yeah.
37:58
Speaker 2: Wherever that question came from.
38:00
Speaker 1: Hold on. It's not the first time I've heard that question.
38:03
Speaker 1: I'm sure.
38:05
Speaker 2: Is there a future in hydrogen-fueled engines?
38:09
Speaker 1: Actually, I'll mention one little anecdote. In the beginning of
38:14
Speaker 1: Model S production, I also didn't have reading lights in
38:17
Speaker 1: the second row. I thought people were really going towards e-books.
38:25
Speaker 1: Kindle and iPad and that kind of thing. So they
38:27
Speaker 1: have their own light. They don't need an actual light
38:30
Speaker 1: in the back. And I was driving with one of
38:37
Speaker 1: my kids and he was trying to read his book.
38:39
Speaker 2: Daddy!
38:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, this is the stupidest car in the world.
38:43
Speaker 1: LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER.
38:49
Speaker 2: LAUGHTER Hydrogen fuel engines, they have a future?
38:58
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Hydrogen is a very difficult energy
39:07
Speaker 1: storage mechanism. Essentially, it's a means of storing energy chemically,
39:13
Speaker 1: but if you want to do that, there are way
39:15
Speaker 1: better materials than hydrogen. I could go with methane or
39:19
Speaker 1: propane way before hydrogen. In fact, the way that they
39:24
Speaker 1: make the hydrogen is by taking methane and chopping the
39:27
Speaker 1: carbon atom off. So like, well, that seems like a way.
39:32
Speaker 1: Or they'll do electrolysis, which is even worse. So it's
39:36
Speaker 1: a really energy intensive... It's either like... You're either still
39:40
Speaker 1: mining hydrocarbons on a large scale or you're applying massive
39:46
Speaker 1: amounts of electricity to separate H2O. And then sometimes they'll say, oh, well,
39:52
Speaker 1: hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. Yes,
39:55
Speaker 1: but not on Earth, which is an important consideration. You know, it's, yeah.
40:06
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that sort of always sounds like,
40:09
Speaker 1: it's like, it's one of those things, it's the future
40:12
Speaker 1: and it always will be. And then there's the Hindenburg issue. Yeah,
40:18
Speaker 1: I mean, in the case of the Hindenburg issue, My
40:21
Speaker 1: understanding is that the main issue is the paint on
40:24
Speaker 1: the outer surface as opposed to hydrogen itself. But hydrogen
40:27
Speaker 1: does combust extremely well. There's a good argument for hydrogen
40:36
Speaker 1: as a fuel in the upper stage of a rocket.
40:38
Speaker 1: Say Saturn V in the second or third stages had hydrogen.
40:43
Speaker 1: And particularly for the upper stage of a rocket where
40:45
Speaker 1: you're not volumetrically constrained, Or rather, you're mass constrained rather
40:51
Speaker 1: than volumetrically constrained. Hydrogen is good if you care about
40:55
Speaker 1: mass and terrible if you care about volume. And it's
40:58
Speaker 1: also horrible from a handling standpoint. This is a really
41:01
Speaker 1: tiny molecule and it goes all over the place.
41:05
Speaker 2: You look at Apple after Steve Jobs and Microsoft after
41:09
Speaker 2: Bill Gates struggle to keep up the momentum. I wonder
41:13
Speaker 2: if you thought about the future of your companies, Tesla
41:15
Speaker 2: and SpaceX.
41:17
Speaker 1: I know.
41:18
Speaker 2: you've, you've talked about giving away a lot of your money. Um,
41:21
Speaker 2: but then I know you've had some other thoughts about
41:23
Speaker 2: that and you've looked at Ford and wondered if you
41:25
Speaker 2: want to give, I mean, what's where, where are you
41:26
Speaker 2: at on that succession issue now?
41:29
Speaker 1: Well, I, I, I don't know if like, I'm not
41:33
Speaker 1: sure about the whole sort of family dynasty from a
41:36
Speaker 1: wealth standpoint thing. I mean, that seems to work, you know,
41:41
Speaker 1: often work out worse than if, if, if, if the
41:45
Speaker 1: kid wasn't given a huge sum of money. Um, I mean,
41:49
Speaker 1: unless they've actually demonstrated a high ability to be a
41:54
Speaker 1: good steward of capital, then it's not going to work out,
41:59
Speaker 1: I think, to give them a huge sum of money. Now,
42:04
Speaker 1: that said, I mean, I'm wavering a little bit on
42:08
Speaker 1: that because if you look at the example of Ford
42:10
Speaker 1: and GM, like GM went bankrupt, Ford did not. Ford
42:15
Speaker 1: had the Ford family as a stabilizing influence. So there
42:20
Speaker 1: could be some merit to having a family stabilizing influence,
42:26
Speaker 1: but maybe not necessarily complete control.
42:28
Speaker 2: We're going to end with two questions on the Hyperloop,
42:33
Speaker 2: which has clearly aroused a lot of emotion in Los Angeles.
42:37
Speaker 2: One is from UCLA Anderson. I know that Gene Block
42:40
Speaker 2: is here, who runs UCLA. But they want to know,
42:44
Speaker 2: how do you envision the Hyperloop as an open source
42:47
Speaker 2: project to be run in traditional enterprise fashion, which would
42:51
Speaker 2: make profits. Does that make sense?
42:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess.
42:55
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's going to be quite difficult
43:00
Speaker 1: for someone to execute the Hyperloop, and the thing that
43:05
Speaker 1: will really matter is how good is that company at executing,
43:09
Speaker 1: as opposed to the basic sort of ideas of the system.
43:13
Speaker 1: So I don't think a company has to worry too
43:16
Speaker 1: much about, you know, creating value if they're really good
43:22
Speaker 1: at execution. Probably the best example of open source is Linux.
43:31
Speaker 1: And there's lots of companies that are quite valuable even
43:37
Speaker 1: though Linux is open source.
43:40
Speaker 2: And the follow-up to that is from somebody else who
43:42
Speaker 2: wants to know when will the Hyperloop potentially be ready
43:48
Speaker 2: And can we get to Australia?
43:51
Speaker 1: That would be... I would not recommend it for going
43:55
Speaker 1: to Australia, because Australia is really far. So where something
44:02
Speaker 1: like a high-flute would work best is for distances that
44:06
Speaker 1: are maybe about 500 miles, but probably not more than 1,000.
44:11
Speaker 1: And that's because if you compare it to, say, an
44:14
Speaker 1: alternative being supersonic air transport... In order to go really
44:20
Speaker 1: fast with a plane, you have to climb pretty high
44:22
Speaker 1: because the atmosphere just looks like molasses when you're going fast.
44:26
Speaker 1: So for distances certainly under 500 miles, you spend all
44:31
Speaker 1: your time just ascending and descending, and you don't really
44:33
Speaker 1: get an opportunity to spend time at cruise. So something
44:37
Speaker 1: like a Hyperloop can complete really well in that arena
44:41
Speaker 1: because you instantly, almost instantly, enter a low-pressure environment. So
44:48
Speaker 1: the tube contains a low pressure environment that's, you know,
44:52
Speaker 1: like the cruising altitude of, well, it's like very high
44:56
Speaker 1: altitude atmosphere, basically. And so you don't have to spend
45:01
Speaker 1: any time ascending or descending. So there's no way for, well,
45:08
Speaker 1: extremely difficult for a plane to be faster than a
45:14
Speaker 1: high-flow for distances under 500 miles. because of that ascent
45:19
Speaker 1: descent thing. However, once you get to long distances, then
45:22
Speaker 1: the cost of the tube starts to become a big factor.
45:26
Speaker 1: And so then I'd say it's probably the right move
45:29
Speaker 1: is to go to supersonic transport, because then you're spending
45:31
Speaker 1: a large percentage of your time at cruise. And you
45:35
Speaker 1: could probably get there faster with a supersonic aircraft. Interesting.
45:40
Speaker 2: So no kangaroos in the Hyperloop. I know you have
45:43
Speaker 2: an insane schedule. I know that you have to go
45:45
Speaker 2: from here back to your office tonight.
45:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I apologize for not being at my best. This
45:49
Speaker 1: has been, it's like working most last night.
45:54
Speaker 2: We are deeply grateful you came. You gave us some time.
45:56
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here.
45:59
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.