AllThingsD D11

So, without further ado, we're going to thank you for coming back. We know it's been a really long day, but this is this guy's a real treat. And uh it took me a while to get him to come here, but we we got him to we actually went back and forth a lot. We actually had to corner him at South by Southwest and PLA and everything else. But he's a really interesting entrepreneur, very much a visionary, many people think.

um uh in space and in cars and in all solar all kinds of things. So, first of all, thank you so much for coming and we are sorry for having cornered you at South by Southwest. No worries. Not that sorry, but okay. Great shoes, by the way. Thank you. Do you like those?

[laughter] Um, I'd like to start by I mean, you're involved in several really cutting edge kinds of things that are cool, but let's talk for a minute about this uh the electric car, which is really an old concept in the car industry, right? It is actually. And but you know, there's a modern take on it.

Um why are you in that business and do you agree with what has been written about you that it's fair to say that you have proven this is uh uh this can be sold at a profit in in market conditions? Sure. Um, so the the reason for Tesla was not because I thought that the uh there was some huge opportunity in in electric cars or or that I thought it was some rankordered best way to uh get a return on investment or something like that.

Um, in fact, I think uh starting at a car company, particularly electric car company, would have to rank as one of the dumbest things you could possibly do on that scale. Okay. Um, and it it may seem like I mean today obviously we we've got quite a quite a high market cap. [laughter] Let's just call it that. Yes, you do.

Um and uh uh so it may seem oh well this is sort of obviously a good thing to have done but um for for many years uh people would people regarded this in fact mo most people almost all people regarded it as uh stupid or insane or both you know to to have done that. So it's not the the but so the reason for doing it was was not uh because I thought it was some you know great opportunity.

Um the easiest thing for me to have done after PayPal would have been to start a new internet company. That would have been like falling off a log. I mean it quite really easy. Um and uh and so the the reason I did it was because it was clear that we were not going to see electric cars from the incumbent manufacturers.

Um, for for a while there I thought that we potentially would because you had the uh EV1 from General Motors, for example, and it seemed like the obvious thing to do would then be to do the EV2, EV3. Frankly, if General Motors had done that, they would be in a far better position today. Um, and but then instead what what General Motors did was as soon as California changed the regulations, they recalled the EV1s.

Um, and just to make sure that nobody could get them back, they took them to a junkyard and crushed them. Um, and uh, and and and if you've seen the movie Who Killed the Electric Car, you you'll see that they actually those customers tried their best to keep the cars. And when the cars were were taken to the junk and crushed, uh, they held a candle at Vigil. Yeah. Because the cars were leased. They were not ever sold outright. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, they held a candle at Vigil as though it was someone dying. Um, and I think that should be a pretty big wakeup call if people are holding a candle of visual for your product. Um, maybe you shouldn't cancel it as you're killing. Yeah, maybe you shouldn't cancel it. Um, you know, and yeah, so but but they did and and so they canned all electric vehicle activity.

So the the reason for for Tesla was to uh show that it actually is possible to create a compelling electric car or you know long range car electric car and if you did that that people would buy it because the the car industry was operating on what I believe to be two false premises. One was that you could not make um an a compelling electric car. One that was aesthetically appealing, long range, high performance, all these things.

and and that even if you did all those things, the car industry's opinion was that people would still not buy it because it was electric and they had some partners for for burning gasoline. People had what what moved you into it? What what was the starting you said internet company like falling off a log? Easy easy to do. Why that area then? Why electric cars? Oh.

Uh so um because I think it's I think it's important that we transition to sustainable transport.

um if we don't transition to sustainable transport obviously toologically it's unsustainable and even if there were not an environmental uh issue in fact even if you were to say hypothetically that emitting carbon was good for the environment um because of the scarcity uh of of of oil and natural gas and so forth the we would eventually face extremely high gasoline costs and uh the economy would grind to a halt if we did not find some sustainable means of transport.

Do you worry that the electricity that is generated and and used when the cars are recharged and plugged in is a lot of it is generated from coal. Does that bother you? Yeah, I mean depending on where you are in the country, you know, say roughly half of it is uh is not coal, but so roughly half of it is hydrocarbon based. Um and uh however that's that's there there are two obvious rebuttals to that.

One is that if you take the same source fuel and you burn it at the power plant level, you will get two to three times the efficiency uh than than if you burnt it in the car itself. Uh because at the power plant level, you're not constrained by mass and volume. So you can have something that's big and heavy. Um and you can also take the waste heat and generate a steam and and use it to turn a steam turbine. So you get what's called co-generation.

So you your maximum extractable energy is much greater with a stationary power plant than if you burnt that same fuel in a in a in a mobile transport where you you have form more constraints. Um and then the other factor is that we we have to find sustainable means of electricity production anyway.

Um so if you believe in that predicate you can write that predicate and say uh given that we must have sustainable electricity production the obvious move for transport is is electric.

So when you're talking about these ideas of getting in doing this particular thing, one of the things that's I think struck a lot of people about you is the scale of the vision um that it's not one that it's very difficult, two that it's a little crazy um going along with SpaceX at the same time. Um what what what do you imagine is you you've had many years doing this, many critics, you're not going to make it.

You're getting a lot of Walt was going to ask about subsidies. I think that you get We'll talk about that. Yeah. What is the why why these kind of projects?

This is sort of a bigger question I want you to think about, but the idea of the bigness of the project because there's been this the industry has been littered with electric car funerals essentially and not as many candlelight visuals obviously, but right um yeah, there have been many car company failures, not just electric.

Um, and uh, honestly, if I had like a dollar for every every time somebody brought up Delorean or or Tucker, I wouldn't need an IPO. Mhm. You know, it would have been perfectly financed just on that alone. Um, so but but the I don't know. I when I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that I thought would affect the world. Um, and there were three areas that I thought would would most affect the world.

and one of them was the internet. Um, so did a couple of companies in that, but then it seemed like uh after PayPal it was like there's a lot of really talented entrepreneurs and a lot of capital doing internet ventures. So it didn't seem like I could necessarily be all that incrementally useful in the internet arena. And so it was time to then go to two other the other two areas which were sustainable energy and space exploration.

uh in particular uh developing a technology necessary to make life multilanetary. So multilanetary life is might be more interesting than cars. We'll get into that shortly. But I do have to ask you, you know, there this is an it's an important it's very important that you've made an attractive car with longer range than I think than you're right than people thought possible. That's electric all electric.

Um but um it's fairly expensive I think uh at least upfront. Yeah. And what does it cost your most successful one? Well uh be before uh uh tax credits it's about $70,000. After tax credits it's like 60. All right. Now we're getting to t to tax credits. So um you there's like a there's some kind of federal tax credit, right? That's right. For buying a pure electric $7,500. Yeah.

And then you were telling me backstage I a whole bunch of states 15 states or something have these right there's different types of credits. So um the I mean the first thing I should say is that um people think of like electric cars as receiving a subsidy but but in fact what's occurring is that they're receiving less of a subsidy than gasoline cars. Okay.

Um if you were to actually look at the the subsidy in gly gasoline cars um and and particularly if you price in the economic or the inventory sorry the environmental uh damages uh the what's really occurring is that every time you buy a gasoline car there are huge subsidies occurring and you can actually tell that these subsidies are are higher than they than than the subsidies for electric cars because people are not buying electric cars except I mean ours in not not huge these are upstream subsidies to the oil companies and so forth for the for the gas.

They're both direct the whole the whole tax. Yeah. This this there's some enormous number. It's like half a trillion dollars in subsidies to Okay. But you do get you also get some federal and state subsidies, right? Yes. And then there's this these credits that you are able to sell to the other car companies. Can you explain what that is? Sure. Sure.

Um although just to emphasize again it's it's pretty obvious that that the the credit whatever subsidies are occurring for electric cars are are less than for gasoline cars. Otherwise things like the Chevy Volt or the Nissan Leaf would sell in large quantities but they are not and so that that's like an an obvious test.

Um then with respect to uh zero emission vehicle credits or ZEV credits, these apply to about 40% of the of the US population and they were actually put in place quite a while ago to deal with uh pollution in air pollution in um uh in in in in places like LA and the Bay Area and New York and so forth.

So, whenever you're driving cars in a dense of an area, you're essentially emitting a bunch of toxic gases that negatively affect people's health and obviously the quality of the air and it's pretty obvious in in you know LA during the summer.

Um so in order to motivate manufacturers to move away from that the um the states enacted the ZEV credit mandate which was that a small number of electric or zero emission vehicles have to be made by all large scale manufacturers and if if they don't make those vehicles then they have to try to purchase ZEV credits from someone who who has but when we sell a ZEV credit we sell it at at 65 cents on the dollar so the best thing that another manufacturer could could make would be electric cars because then they get 100 cents on the dollar for every tax credit.

So why don't they? Um well I'm hopeful that they will. Um I think to some degree at least some of the manufacturers were hoping that no one would come up with an electric vehicle that anyone wanted to buy and that that California other Zev states would repeal their ZEV mandate because they they've lobbied for that outcome many times and have thus far been unsuccessful.

If Tesla if Tesla was unsuccessful then I think they would have been able to repeal the ZEV mandate. So when you're getting into the the the concept of these cars the these prices are still along with subsidies and everything else is still a high price tag. What is your goal is to bring in I mean you have there's lots of people here who own Teslas. Yeah. Thank you everyone. Thank you for for buying Tesla by the way.

sort of say all of you guys who bought Teslas, you guys are awesome. Some significant percentage of your your customers are here. But but there is there's a larger country far-sighted awesome individuals who bought Teslas. [laughter] Um where do you actually I'd like to say a special shout out to Tony Tony Se who has the largest bought the made the the largest number of Tesla orders in the US of 100 cars for his project in in downtown Vegas.

Vegas. Yeah. Um so thanks Tony. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's a very it's a super interesting project, but how do you get it down to levels that Tony of Zapos, No, we don't have to be Tony of Zapos, right? Um, so Tesla, you know, when we first started out, um, I actually wrote a a blog piece to outlining the Tesla strategy. Um, and it's been out there for a long time.

Um, and it really just outlined the the sort of three-step process that Tesla's going through to get to mass market compelling electric cars. And step one was making the Tesla road. So, so high price, low volume, then mid price, midv volume, and then low price, uh, high volume. So, those are, you know, we're in step two.

The price of the Model S is actually less than it may seem at first because the cost of gasoline is so much more than the cost of of electricity that you save a lot of money uh buying gas. Yeah, exactly. Um, and you know that that depending upon how you count it is, you know, somewhere in the 15 to$20,000 uh dollar region over the lifetime of the car over the over over sort of seven years.

Fig figure it's you know roughly $2,000 a year depending upon what your assumptions for gas uh prices are. Um yeah, but when will there be a 30,000 or $35,000 Tesla? Yeah. So step three I'm expecting in about three to four years. Um this and what's required to get you from here to there? Is it got to do with design and technology or does it have to do with scale or what?

Well um the [clears throat] uh I I think any any new technology needs at least three major iterations to get to um the mass market. I mean certainly cell phones have gone through you know many more than that. Um, and uh, I'm sure people remember like the, you know, Wall Street one where he's walking down the the beach on the giant brick of a cell phone on his ear. Um, and that thing was super expensive and like lasted for 30 minutes.

You couldn't even this audio quality was terrible. Now you can have a super computer in your pocket for 100 bucks. Um, and uh, so so with electric vehicles similar, you trying to compete with gasoline cars that have had 150 years and trillions of dollars spent on them. So I think if we can make it there by our third generation that's pretty awesome.

Um so I think there's there's certainly design optimization is is one factor and then the other is the car will be a little bit smaller so maybe 20% smaller than the Model S. Uh and we'll have an order of magnitude greater production. So we have the economy scale to help us out. I think those three factors will take us to 50%.

and and when will you be at a point where if even if you didn't have subsidies or and credit sales you would be profitable? Um yeah, so I think uh we're anticipating being profitable or or I should say even better well better than slightly profitable in the fourth quarter this year. Uh we're we're projecting 25% gross margins absent of credits absent absence of credits. So not getting this extra sub money but not absent the tax subs. Right. Yeah.

I there's a consumer sort of tax credit um which is effectively something that improves the level of demand for the product uh but doesn't directly affect our gross margins um and uh so so we don't get that Tesla doesn't get the tax credit the consumer does. Why haven't many car companies raced to you and you're showing that there are cars people there is an audience for this? Where are the rest of these companies now?

Well, I'm hopeful that our results from the first quarter will cause u the the other car companies to enter the electric car arena in a significant way. Uh but until now they didn't really have a good uh basis for that. Uh because they they would look at um you know you say what are the examples of successful electric cars?

I mean, we did have our Tesla Roadster out there, but they wrote that off as being something that's really low volume, kind of a niche product for techno geeks type of thing. And and so they um they wrote that off, right? Um and um yeah, it's actually funny because before we were able to get the Roadster out, then then they they'd say, "Well, you couldn't possibly make that car work."

And then when we made the car work, they'd say, "Well, nobody's going to buy it." And then people bought it. Um, and then we announced the Model S and so many people called on that it was ridiculous.

Um, and and and yet actually the uh we were able to bring it to market and then when we brought it to market they said well you're never going to be able to produce it volume and we did that and then they would said you will never be able to make a profit and then we did that in Q1.

So I'm hopeful that uh there's a you know people will observe that there's a trend here [laughter] and [applause] And if so, so so now that we we have been profitable, I think uh other manufacturers are more likely to embark on electric vehicle projects. Um and um and it should also be mentioned that we do make electric powertrains for Daimler and Toyota. So for the electric RAV 4, we make the battery pack and powertrain.

For the Mercedes B-Classes coming out later this year, we will be making that whole um petrol. they open to that? Do you feel as if they're open? I mean, a lot of the, you know, you can paint the car companies any way you want, but are they, do you feel as if they're open or thinking about that? Yeah. Um, I I think so.

The the challenge, uh, is to convince them that it should be more than just a little niche product or a hybrid or something like that. Yeah. Um, well, they may I mean, Tur obviously makes is quite big on hybrids, but the to convince them that electric cars should be a mainstream item. Um there's still a bit of work to do on that front and until they're a mainstream item in terms of having enough of an infrastructure of charging.

Obviously you've done a lot to help that problem with range but still people want to feel like they're not going to be stranded that there are going to be charging stations and I know Yeah. Yeah. We've got an announcement about that tomorrow in fact. Oh, [clears throat] you do? Yeah. You want to announce it here now? Um well for No, you've just sort of let the cat out of the bag.

Might as well just Well, [applause] um [laughter] because you're so quiet and retiring mostly. That's why. Exactly. You never do anything just mouth off at a New York Times reporter, for example. Right. Um Yeah, exactly. All right. Um well so so we have something called the supercharger right which is an advanced charging technology that we developed um and uh yeah I guess I might as well let the cat out of the bag. Why not?

[cheering] Um the so the supercharger techn supercharging technology um is um something we developed because obviously uh traditional charging has been way too slow u and and it's not been affect it's not effective for long-distance travel.

So it's it is very important to address this issue of long-distance travel because um when people buy a car that there's they're also buying something which is a sense of freedom, an ability to go anywhere that they want and not feel fettered. Um so so we had to make something that was really quick to charge.

So, so that's what we developed and um there are actually a bunch of them out there now in California and on the east coast from allowing you to go from Boston to DC and travel throughout California and Nevada. And what we what we were going to announce tomorrow [laughter] um is is that there's there's going to be a dramatic acceleration of the supercharging network. Um and by the end of next month, we will triple the supercharger coverage area.

Wow. Um, where where is it going? [applause] Um, so it it'll it'll be um uh there's actually a map that will be go live tomorrow obviously. Um, but people will be quite surprised to learn learn this, but um at at Tesla uh [laughter] blame it on the CEO of SpaceX. Yeah, exactly. Um or if you want you could blame it on me. It's all right. Believe it or not, it's Walt's fault. Yeah.

Um cuz you know, you like tangling with reviewers and I'm a reviewer. Yeah, but but you do good reviews. [laughter] I haven't reviewed your car. Well, I mean, I should say accurate reviews. Um [laughter] Thank you. Uh so, the Supercharge Network by the end of this year will will have covered um most of the major uh metro areas of u the US and southern Canada.

Um, and in fact, you'll be able to drive all the way from LA to New York just using the Supercharger network. [applause] And does that does that also does that include not only putting it in places where it doesn't exist today, but also increasing the density on the two coasts? Absolutely. Exactly. Good point. The the density is not quite as good as it should be.

So we're incre both improving the density of the supercharger stations along welltraveled routes as well as increasing the geographic scope of the of the network. That's hugely important. It is absolutely because even tell me if you think I'm nuts, but I I think that it's like in the old days people would go and buy a desktop tower computer and they would not buy one unless it had five slots for cards in it, right?

But they would never open the computer and put a card in it. Well, I I do. Yeah, you did. But I mean, a lot of people would be told by their techie friend, you have to have, you know, three empty slots or five empty slots, but they never opened and put the slots in.

Even if you only drive your car, [clears throat] commuting to work well within the range of the car and a few errands and stuff, you always want that sense of freedom that if I had to, I could get in this car. Exactly. And go from Boston to DC or something. Yep. That's right. I mean, psychologically, it's really very very important to people. It's extremely important.

Um and and uh so and and on Tesla because all Teslas are wirelessly updated via by the cell networks. Um we actually update the supercharger locations in the car. So on the Tesla map, if you just tap the little lightning button, it'll actually direct you to the nearest supercharger. So as you're driving, you can go uh wherever you want.

And uh with the release later this year, you'll be able to navigate anywhere in the country, and the car will automatically route you to the superchargers along the way. Fantastic. So, one question before he is that why you hit back so hard at the times? I mean, we joke about it and stuff like that, but many people don't do that. What was the reasoning? I know you've said a lot about this, but Oh, brother. Yeah. What was your reasoning?

Is like, you're not going to take this or you Yeah. Um, well, I mean, I thought I thought about it a fair bit before actually responding. So, it wasn't sort of just an totally off the cuff thing. Um but but when the the articles was was published, we saw a significant decrease in sales particularly in in the New York Times sort of main readership area sort of northn northeast particularly in cold areas.

Um and the the article it really sort of played to people's biggest fear about electric cars um that that that you'll run out um and that they don't work in the cold, which is actually completely false. they they they do work really well in the cold. In fact, our highest sales per capita are in Norway. Mhm. Um and the the single person who's bought the single largest number as an individual of of Teslas literally lives above this Arctic Circle.

Um why he's an opthalmologist in a uh J Coll is his name. He's a great guy. Um wait, he's an opthalmologist. He lives above the Arctic Circle and he has a whole bunch of electric cars. Yeah. I just wanted to get I mean what are the odds? I just wanted to get the picture scenario but true. It's amazing. Yeah. Um and he and every day he takes an electronic pill also. Yeah. Exactly.

Uh but you like drove them through like the you know winter which is permanent midnight. Um and uh so obviously they work pretty well. Um and uh in fact after that article we we had since it was still sort of winter in Norway uh we actually had um someone do a Model S test drive from I think almost near the Arctic Circle uh to Oslo. Okay.

But you know as I'm a reviewer as we've already discussed and some people in the room know but um uh so part of a review is factual. This is actually what part of the review is that factual? No no no.

[laughter] which okay no let me let me explain part of the re a review is opinion in the end sure so but you have to state if you're doing specs if you're doing like in my case it's it's a battery test on something I have to explain this is how I did the battery test this is what the result is right I can then have an opinion you might have a different you might say well even if I accept Mossberg's battery test I don't agree with him that this is good enough battery life I need better battery life, so I think he's too easy on this product or the other way around, you know, whatever.

So, part of it is the facts and part of it is what opinions you draw from that. Sure. You know, the screen is this big, the camera has this those are facts. So, was it was it the facts were the guys? No, it was it was it was a fact thing. Um, in fact, in fact, so when when we got the car back, um, we we looked at the at the data logs, um, as compared to the article that that was written, um, and the the article was factually incorrect.

Um, and in in multiple places in in fact and and one could perhaps ascribe that to um to error on on his part, but by the 10th mistake in a row that is interpreted in the wrong direction, that that lacks credibility. Um, and so, you know, if we're it's like if you did that battery test on on something and and and you've and you you said factual information that was was untrue in a very important way. I mean, that that that's that's a big deal.

Um, and so if if we didn't speak out against that, that article would live forever and and people would have this this really wrong impression of the car. Um, and they would think that what he said if we did not oppose it was the Times didn't back down, did they? Actually, the the public editor of the Times did an investigation and concluded that that he that the the article was was wrong.

We we disagreed I disagree with public editor over the motivation. Uh, in other words, the public editor said the article was wrong, uh, but didn't agree that it was intentional, whereas in my opinion, it's difficult to interpret that as anything but intentional. And then what then, just to close this off, wasn't there some controversy about the fact that you had put sensors on the car that aren't normally sold on the car? No, the same sensors.

Okay. All right. So, uh, this is this is really important, but space the final frontier. Sure. Um, are you what is your ultimate plan or goal for SpaceX? What is it you want to do with it? Is it just to prove that a private company can deliver stuff to the space station or what is not all?

Now, like I said, it's the the the goal with SpaceX is to um improve rocket technology and spacecraft technology and and keep keep improving it every year until ultimately we're able to send people to to Mars and establish a self-sustaining base on Mars. That's the Mars. Yeah. Okay. To make make life multilanetary as they're saying. Um it's not as though I I expect that this will necessarily occur.

I mean I I agree that this is an unlikely outcome. But if we do not keep improving um space technology every year, then that that will never happen. Didn't George W. Bush want to go to Mars? He did actually. Not many people know that. Um yeah. So that's kind of put you and George W. Bush in the same category as George uh is his dad. Oh H one of them wanted a a space program get us to Mars, right?

Um yeah actually uh the uh uh George HW Bush uh shortly after gaining office actually asked NASA to come up with a plan in 90 days uh for sending um people to Mars and NASA did come up with that plan but um it was half a trillion dollars. So he decided that maybe wasn't such a great idea and that was obviously 20 years ago whatever it was you know so so why why Mars? explain what half a trillion really meant. What what's attractive?

[laughter] Yeah, that was that was really was a half a trillion dollar. Yeah, it's cheap, right? Yeah. No, it's Well, the defense budget's bigger than that. So, so why Mars? Why Mars over? Now, just to preface this, Elon went to Space Camp many years ago with Sergey, Larry, Megan, James Ween, Pier Media, a bunch of you very strange shortly after I started SpaceX. Yeah. Right. Yeah. What? Why?

And you know, were you in a Star Trek mode or what was the what was the space camp? I know you guys did that, but but what they had out before when you was what does it got you interested? Because you said a few minutes ago that that there were three things that you were you know interested in. One was the internet, one was the electric car and the other was space. So why what got you into space? Right.

So if you if you think about the future of humanity, it's going to fundamentally bifocate in two directions or life as we know it. Either it's going to become multilanetary or it's going to be confined to one planet until some eventual extinction event. So I think it's much more put it that way. Let's go to Mars. [laughter] I'm And by the way, I'm optimistic about life on Earth. It's not as though I'm like I think we're human.

But you're convinced there will be an extinction event. Well, I mean that's pretty obvious from the fossil record. Yeah, I mean it's for sure um we we face dangers that the uh the dinosaurs didn't face because it could be um us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we could. Yeah. So, we could do ourselves in they actually had better diets.

The dinosaurs a lot of things they um so so the I I just think you know we want to have a future ultimately where humanity is out there exploring the stars um or space fairing civilization and the things that we read about in science fiction books and and see in movies becomes true. We don't want that always to be a fiction of the future. So, if we don't improve space technology every year, we're never going to get there.

And so, the goal of SpaceX is to make as much improvement as possible. Um, and uh and hopefully we'll we'll see people land on Mars in our in our lifetime. I have to ask you, have you I just have to ask you, have you literally looked into or had someone look into or are they still looking into for you whether you could do warp drive?

I mean really does that crush there actually is a well you know this there actually does seem to be oddly enough some breakthrough on the whole war drive thing um because you can't exceed the speed of light but technically it is poss well theoretically possible to warp space itself so that even on your in your in your local space-time continuum you're not traveling faster than speed of light but you're you're warping space such that space is moving uh and and that's what okay got that is that a now wait a I actually kind of that's because you like Star Trek.

He goes to the Star Trek Museum in Las Vegas, so let's not talk. Is that like in the fourth quarter or next year?

Um, well, I'm not sure if if war drives ultimately I mean, war drive may or may not uh come to come to fruition, but I think if we at least have a base on on Mars, that's going to create a forcing function for the improvement in space transport technology um and gives us the best chance of ever achieving something like a warp drive that would enable uh travel easily. Yeah. But listen, Scotty Spock, let's talk about now. Okay. All right.

Right this second. Sure. Good movie, by the way. Yeah. It's it's recommended seeing the new Star Trek. Terrific movie. By the way, Larry Ellson's son produced it, which is oddly enough. Um, what's happening now? What's available now for us? Not Warp Drive, not transporter beams or whatever. The the big breakthrough that's needed in in rocketry is to achieve a a fully and rapidly reusable rocket.

Um and it's important to have those uh that those are important qualifications because um if you think of any other mode of transport like a a plane or bike, car, anything of course that they are um reusable. Yeah. And and you can they're reusable quickly and you know fairly completely apart from maintenance schedules. And the only one we have the United States at least built and or anybody built I think was the shuttle, right?

And that was usable, but not quickly. And it was only partly reusable. So the main uh tank, the the big orange thing was um not reusable. That was guaranteed to be expandable every time. It wasn't just the tank that that big orange thing was actually the primary airframe to which the the orbiter, the plane pot, and the side boosters attached. Um so even in a best case scenario, it would not have been uh reusable in in a substantial way.

Um, and then it it took an an army of 10,000 people nine months to refurbish a shuttle for flight. Um, which is obviously not not rapidly reusable. Um, so in order to to have a breakthrough, we you have to have fully and rapidly reusable rocket. And we're making progress in that direction.

And I'm hopeful that sometime in the next couple years, we'll be able to achieve full and rapid reusability of the first stage, which is about 3/4 of the cost of the rocket. Um and then with a future uh design architecture achieve full reusability. And how long does it take to get to Mars with with whatever the technologies you plan with with relatively sort of standard rockets? A low energy trajectory would be about 6 months.

Well, you can compress it down to 3 months without too much trouble. And you're not and and there's no and you're talking about a a humans on this rocket going to Mars. So know are there any dangers? I have read that there are radiation. What could possibly go wrong? That's that's ridiculous. Come on. [laughter] U I don't even like to drive with you. I mean, [laughter] yeah. Vice versa, by the way. Um Yeah.

So, it's it's a there's probably some challenges along the way, but um but I think it's I think it's possible. I think we can make it work. um like doing it this way. There's no we're not violating any laws of physics. Um it's all it's all do it's it's difficult but achievable and and I think we should really try our hardest to to make it happen. And why Mars?

Well, Mars is the only place where we could really um create a self-sustaining civilization of on a on a planet scale. Can you explain this for people who don't know like myself? Okay. Well, uh, so, um, uh, if you look at, you know, various planets, we've got, um, Mercury's too close to the sun. Venus is Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the the rocks melt on Mercury. So, um, that's a no. Yeah. [laughter] Toasty.

Um, and then and then Venus is still pretty pretty hot. Uh, it's several hundred degrees. Uh, and it's high and the atmosphere is high pressure and it's acidic. So, it's a high pressure hot acid bath. So we actually thought of having a deconference on Venus. It's not going to work. Yeah. Say that Venus would be very challenging.

Um and then Mars obviously is on the other side of Earth and it's uh it's it's colder than Earth, but it's it's uh the the temperature on Mars actually gets above room temperature on Earth on a hot day in the summer. Um and we you could warm Mars up over time with greenhouse gases and kind of the opposite of what we're doing on Earth. [laughter] Yeah, this is great. Export our greenhouse gas and we're good at that. You can bring all the gas.

You can bring all the all all the GM cars there. Yeah. Um I [applause] mean Mars' atmosphere is is primarily carbon dioxide which shows you how long I mean it's been there for 4 billion years. Shows you how long carbon dioxide lasts. It's hangs around how slowly it warms up a planet. Yeah. Well, it's quite a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere. But if you would But we could bulk it up. We could buck it up. We know. We have practice.

We know how to do that. Exactly. So, Mars is um you know is a sort of it's a fixer upper of a planet, but we could we could make [laughter] it work. We could make it work. Now, do you So, do you do you do you want to go there yourself? I know you said you didn't want to die in a rocket accident. You'd rather just die on die on impact. Yeah. Right. You don't want to die in impact, but you don't mind dying there. Yeah.

I think I mean all things considered I mean if one's going to die anywhere it'd be kind of cool you know cool to die on Mars I mean um I'm going with Hawaii but okay um so I think that yeah that would be that'd be neat um but I just think the the things that kind of get me going are like I think it's just really important to to to me to and I think to probably a lot of people in this room that if you look to the future that it's an inspiring exciting thing that you know the future is a better better than the present or these has a good chance of being better than the present.

And I think that's that's that's the the main driver. Uh for me, it's it's it's like, okay, will we have will we be a space fair civilization? Um or or will we be confined to Earth? I point I think it would be so much better if if it was the former. Right. Now, your rockets though are for doing payloads. And it's a business. You're trying to make a business out of it too. Correct. I mean, yeah. Absolutely. So, we got to keep SpaceX.

We got to pay the bills, right? Um, and so the what SpaceX does is is uh launch satellites for commercial customers and do space station uh servicing for NASA. So we we won the primary contract to do space station transporter cargo to and from the space station. In fact, we're the the only craft capable of bringing significant cargo back from uh the space station, but it's not uh readily reusable yet. Correct. It's not it's not.

So you're in a your breakthrough in a sense has been to do what NASA and the Soviets used to do or still do to some extent. The Soviets still do it. Uh but to do it in a p through via a private company. Yeah. I I'd say you know our breakthroughs thus far on the SpaceX side are are um incremental in nature not revolutionary. Uh and and the aspiration is to to have a revolutionary breakthrough.

And I I should point out that the cost of the propellant in the rocket is only about. 3% of the cost of the of the vehicle. So it's it's maybe a couple hundred thousand to refuel the rocket. Um and whereas cost sort of $60 million. Um and which is it makes sense if you think about planes like how much does a plane cost versus refueling a plane, right? Big big difference. Um we nobody would be flying if you had to buy a new plane every flight.

Mhm. Um no. No. Yeah. Right. Although although United should, right? Exactly. There's come a time when you have to retire those players and some of those United along in the tooth. That's when you're thinking of these things, you're doing a lot of stuff. You're kind of a busy fellow. Um what who are your heroes? Who are you what inspired you to be this? Sure.

Um well, I think uh generally um lot of people that I admire in history certainly um scientists and engineers and sort of technologists in general. Obviously I'm a big admire of Tesla, Nicola Tesla. Um and um and you know many others I mean all the obvious people you can imagine. I say I like I like Tesla Edison too although people sometimes are surprised to hear that since we have a company called Tesla.

Um and uh you know Einstein Newton um uh just like Darwin um a big fan um of of Ben Franklin. And I think he's just, you know, an awesome example of a great human being in history, you know. So I'd say that people like that. And are are there obviously you uh were one of the pioneers of a an important internet company, uh, PayPal? Um, did did anybody else in the kind of IT area inspire you?

I mean obviously all those people you mentioned are really great geniuses but they were kind of well before the they're more scientists and they and inventors well before the IT era or is it just too early in the IT? Um no absolutely um I admire anyone who's who's worked hard to accomplish some great thing. I mean it's it's worthy of admiration.

So um you know obviously it's hard not to admire someone like Steve Jobs uh um you know Bill Gates or um you know in sort of present day um big fan of Larry Page good friend of mine is you know what him and Serge have done there is is pretty awesome um so yeah and then probably many many journalists I'm not against journalists honestly look you're here yeah exactly [laughter] But but when you talk about the the internet of today, how do you look at it?

You were in a very clear part of the internet that was you know and you I remember you and you were Mr. Web 1. 0 like there was you know and you did in fact pose in front of cars. I remember there was some car picture that you Yeah. Um yeah Porsche or a Fiat. It was a McLaren F1. Right. Exactly. So So you weren't close. No. Well I Yeah. So I don't know what that is. It's a man.

And I actually I'll tell you, I actually do um uh haven't haven't told anyone in a while, but the I do actually still own one gasoline car, which is a a 67 series 1E type Jag. Oh, I don't know what. Great. I know exactly what it says. Some of us know. I have a Mazda 5. I like it a lot. Okay. Um great. But um when I when I was uh sort of in college there were I was reading about the McLaren F1 and it's just an engineering work of art.

I mean it's just really really done right and and so I thought if if I ever made enough money that I' I'd buy the McLaren F1. So I was actually living in an apartment in Palo Alto um that that cost significantly less than the car. Um I remember that picture. Yeah. And it was either upgrade to a house or buy the car and I bought the car. Uh [laughter] yeah. Were you married at the time? I was actually. Yeah. And you posed in front of it.

It was quite a symbol of the time, I remember. Yeah. You know, um yeah, exactly. I mean, I wasn't really It probably wasn't the best idea, but um there was in fact it was it was kind of funny. It was this show um which is like if if there was ever sort of a show on hubris, it would probably be it was called Silicon Valley Gold Rush. Um and it was literally filmed in 99 in 1999.

Um and um and so they fold me getting the McLaren and uh and a number of other people as well. Um it fortunately PayPal worked out otherwise it would have been extremely embarrassing. Right. Did you go like I got one or something. Uh no I didn't do that but I was pretty excited about getting it. Right. So why when you look at the internet of today and then we're going to get to questions from lots of questions from the audience I'm sure.

Um what do you think of the rest of the space the photo sharing? Is it meaningless given you're going to Mars and everything or is it what what's the I mean people are like Vine I can you know do a selfie which is animated and a lot of people you know are kind of excited but I love them. Cara did some great ones. Absolutely. But it's not going it's not having two planetary habitats.

It's like a different thing you know or even being able to drive from New York to LA on electric power. on electric power. What do you think of when you look at the internet right now? What do you about what's developing and what's happening? Um, well, no, I mean, I I think I actually I'm I'm not dismissive of of things like like photo sharing apps and that kind of thing.

I think the the the I mean, there's a lot of things where where it provides say a small amount of value to a lot of people and that, you know, sums up to some large value and that's that's still good. Um, I mean, if people are able to share photos of their friends and family in in a better way, I think that makes their lives better. And, um, if you know, if that puts a high value on the company, so so be it. I think that's not that bad.

Um, and, uh, I mean, I think we've got an enormously a lot of talented people, uh, a lot of talented entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and others in the internet arena. Um, and I think it'd be great if if some of those people would would actually go to other arenas that that could use their talent.

I mean, that's the only thing that I would say is well, there is this concept someone someone the other day when I was asking him what's going on in Silicon Valley and he said very smart guy, he said, you know, there's a lot of big minds chasing small ideas, right? And I I sometimes, you know, the ninth kind of silly little thing, you're like, wow, these are fantastic and yet like everyone's making Twinkies, right? Kind of thing some level.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Um, I think there's there's probably I mean, I' I'd recommend that that people consider arenas outside of the the internet. Um, because there's there's there's a lot of, like I said, there's a lot of um industries that could use that entrepreneurial talent and the the skills that people have learned in creating companies.

Um and uh you know then there's actually a lot of opportunity uh in in these industries particularly ones where the they've been kind of dominated by an oligopolistic uh set of companies for a long time. Oligoples are not or duopies or monopolies are not great at innovation. Innovation comes from new entrance to an arena. And so when an industry has had the absence of new entrance, it tends to to have very limited innovation.

Um, which also means that if you do get a you break on through the other side, then you there is a lot of opportunity for a company that's that's created there. Um, so what are you doing next? Because you're you know, we're kind of bored with these last two. Well, I think I'll be occupied with Tesla and SpaceX for a long time. But is there one other arena you don't you have a solar thing? Solar? Yeah.

Um, in fact, but I should clarify that a lot of times people uh ascribe the success of Solo City to me, but I really should be ascribed to the the my cousins, the co-founders, uh, Lynon and Peter Ry. I mean, I provide some strategic advice. Um, and I suggested that they do a company in the solar arena. Um, but but they deserve the vast majority of the credit for for that outcome. And uh, it it should certainly shouldn't be ascribed to me. Okay.

All right. Well, we're gonna take some by the way. And by the way, Elon said to me he wasn't Why would we want him here? He's not a technologist, just so you know. Well, no. And I just was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Well, I'm a technologist, but I'm not an internet. So, I'm not like digital. That's the thing. It's like I was like, okay, all things digital. Well, there's nothing digital.

I'm not exactly digital, but there's nothing digital in the Tesla. There are digital things. Um, but it's Yeah. Um, it didn't say all things digital and physical be like more sense. [laughter] All right, let's get to the question. Shervin, it just be called all things. All things. That's our new name. May need one. Oh, you want to start over there? Okay. Hi, Shervin Pishvar from Sherpa. Hi, Elon.

Um, I've been coming here for many years and all of us who have been here for many years have we're always inspired to see Steve Jobs here and obviously we all miss him deeply, but somehow your presence here and your inspiration really uh eases that pain. So, thank you for coming. Oh, wow. What do you say? [applause] Elon, there there is one idea you have that we've discussed before, which is Hyperloop, and Right.

I I would love for you to tell this audience what that is and how it could change our world. Again, thank you. Yeah, I would actually love to to to answer that question, but if I do, uh it it will that will be the news tomorrow. Um whereas I need to do the Tesla news. Um, you did that too late. Yeah. Um, so, uh, yeah, I I I think probably I'll be able to talk about the Hyperloop idea in pretty soon.

There's there's a Tesla announcement we've got next month or so around June 20th or so. And I think um I think at some point after that I I to that should hopefully that that that that will be a good time to talk about the uh the Hyperloop idea.

But for those that aren't aware, the basic thought is um is is there a better way to travel quickly from uh say downtown LA to downtown San Francisco or LA to San Francisco that's better than the highspeed rail that's being proposed? Because the highspeed rail, that's what originally got me to think about, you know, is there some better way to do it?

because the highspeed rail that's being proposed would actually be the slowest of slowest bullet train in the world and the most expensive per mile in the world, which is these are not the superlatives we're looking for. Kind of like our internet here. Yeah. Um but it's it you know I think this it's a little depressing to sort of have uh something that's like the slowest bullet train in the world in in California at enormous cost.

Uh and isn't there something better that we could come up with? And that something better is the hyperloop. Well, I think so. Probably, but I don't know what that is. Yeah. Um, the But I want to ride on it. Yeah. [laughter] I I think, you know, even even if even if I'm sort of wrong about the economic assumptions behind the Hyperloop, it would still be a really fun ride. Uh, even if only one of it ever existed, it would be a really fun ride.

What it is? [laughter] Um, is it a train? A plane, not a mobile. It's It's um transporter machine. It's a cross between a Concord and a rail gun. A Concord and a rail gun. Okay. Yeah. But you're not you you don't I throw something else in there just to to make it sound even more even even more bizarre. Um it it's cross between a Concord, a rail gun, and an air hockey table. [laughter] But you did the freeway and had a baby somehow.

You [laughter] You wouldn't want to go a little bit beyond that or Oh my god. Okay, let's go. Let's go. I mean, San Francisco is in. Okay, three-way and a baby. We love it. Esther. Esther, thank you. And Max will help that. Since you're feeling so loquacious tonight. Okay. When are you planning to take the first people up into orbit, whether it's the space station or Bigalow or whatever? She wants to go. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, we're actually we're working on um working on version two of our Dragon spacecraft and um uh in partnership with with with NASA. So, this is uh NASA's NASA is our biggest customer. Um although we also expect to to transport uh private citizens and and we think we'll probably see this the first flights in of of people in two to three years. So, thank you. Bye, sir. Nice knowing. [laughter] No, no. I'm retiring on Mars, but not yet. Okay.

Yes. Over here. Allison Sheridan from Rathan and I am behind the camera. Now I know why everybody's been saying that. Looking right through the camera. Um, thanks for your presence at All Things D. A couple years ago, I did get a chance to drive the Tesla Roadster. That was so much fun. I scared the guy though. He got a little nervous.

But, um, what I actually wanted to ask you about was we've talked a lot here about the importance of STEM education and trying to encourage that. And it's been suggested that part of our strategy really should be immigrant STEM type people. And I'm just guessing that with your background, maybe you have some interesting perspective on that. Oh, we forgot that question. Yeah. Oh, you're welcome. Great. Well, I do think Zuckerberg. Yeah.

I I do think we we we should be we I mean, if there's some really talented grad students at American colleges, it's crazy to send them home or force them to go home in a lot of cases. So I think we should have some reform of immigration policy that um actually has has us you know arguably recruiting.

I mean we should think of like like if you if if this was a company if the United States was a company you'd be working hard to recruit top people and and you certainly wouldn't be expelling them. Um that would be that would be crazy. So we should definitely have some reform on that front. Um and it does endure to the benefit of other countries but but um but I should try to have them stay here I think.

Um and but with respect to to STEM in general I mean to to the degree that there are exciting technology projects that kids in school can read about and and and say okay I' I'd like to be I'd like to work work on that or be part of that. Um that is what draws people into the science and technology. Um and like the biggest thing I think in history that is on on that front has been the was the Apollo program.

Um that's I think there's probably not been any single thing that's been more powerful in in drawing kids in because they're they're like like wow we sent something. I want to help make that happen or or or you know and and and go beyond that. So, I think I think it's it's really important to have th those projects that that kids can can read about and want to be part of in school and and that will really draw them.

Since we just touched on immigration, can you explain what happened with the uh political lobbying effort started by Mark Zuckerberg that you were you were supporter of, but then you withdrew along with some others. What was that all about? Yeah. Um so initially when I was uh you know I joined agreed to be part of uh forward uh US um because the I I I do believe in immigration reform.

I think we need to you know we've got some really antiquated laws change them [clears throat] and uh and there are some you know other things that that also need to be on on the agenda. Um, so I thought, okay, I'll support that.

And um, uh, but but I I think the the the the methods that were employed, I mean, it was a little too much of the sort of Kissinger-esque real politic, you know, and that wasn't I mean, I think we should try to make things happen for like the right reason and and and uh and we shouldn't we shouldn't give into the cynicism of politics. I mean, we should be we should fight the cynicism.

Um, and if and if we if we don't if we do anything to encourage that, then we'll get the political system that we deserve. Okay. [applause] Uh, I think maybe Dan Dan Simon with CNN. Elon, given the runaway success and reviews of the Model S, you have to believe that the other car makers are going to be gunning for you. So I I'm wondering how the company is going to keep its competitive edge because you know that success can be a fleeting moment.

Also, when do you think that u electric vehicles will overtake gasoline vehicles? And and finally wondering if you have a message for the nation's oil companies. Sure. Um well, I I really hope that the large car companies make a concerted effort to create electric vehicles. Uh, and ultimately if if Tesla makes competitive electric cars, then we'll deserve to be around. And if we don't, then we don't deserve to be around.

I mean, um, you know, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to make good products. Um, and, uh, and so far from being concerned about other car companies coming in, we're actually doing our best to convince them to to make electric cars and in fact to make power trays for them, um, you know, um, where they will allow us to do so.

So I I hope they I hope they look at the success of the Model S and and that encourages them to make a big move into electric cars. Um you know as for the oil companies you know the the the tricky thing is uh the way the system is set up because we have an unpriced externality. We have this tragedy of the commons problem with the CO2 capacity of the oceans and atmosphere.

the incentive structure is such that the the the the oil companies have uh you know it's hard to ask ask the CEO of an oil company to act against their best interests. That that's the thing. Uh in fact if they do that they might get fired by their by their shareholders. So the the right thing for us to do is to change the rules of the game so that it in a sense the right behavior.

Um, and that's why I'm a big believer of of a carbon tax is is the right way to to go. And uh, you know, we don't even have to necessarily change the amount of money that that that we collect from from the tax base. But I do think it's it's sensible to pro disproportionately tax things that at least have a likelihood of being bad.

So just as we on a personal level will tax tobacco and alcohol um and tobacco particularly is is is bad and that's well established u fact we should disproportionately tax CO2 emissions um and uh and then I think the right behavior will occur. So I I mean I have a I have a hard time condemning the oil and gas companies uh because we're the the the current system insense them to do bad behavior.

Um that tax that tax gets passed along though to consumers and ultimately hurts the economy. No. Um see it if if if the if the amount of revenue uh being generated is the same um it's it's not going to the you know the we need to collect a certain amount of money to pay for the federal government.

And how how we collect that is you know there's you collect that in a wide range of wide range of ways but but effectively what we're doing is we're saying a portion of somebody's labor has to go to federal government activities. Um, and it doesn't, you know, it's not going to negatively affect the economy really how how we collect that money. People may think it has negative effect, but it really doesn't. It's it's the same.

It's a certain amount of uh money collected to pay for the federal government. Um, it's like say we don't actually need to change the amount of money raised, but we need to weight it towards the things that are more likely to be bad than than things that are more likely to be good.

Um I I guess I mean where I have an issue with oil and gas guys is when they you know this sometimes engage in nefarious tactics um and uh u or or things that are sort of somewhat somewhat insidious uh like like funding academic studies that people can then point to as though they have some credibility um and and and it's some prominent professor somewhere.

Um but but that person is act has been paid off by by the oil industry to to write that that study.

It's uh um so that kind of thing obviously should be condemn condemned in the strongest words and um and I'd recommend people read uh a book called Merchants of Doubt uh that that actually spells it out in in in detail how um some of these things are going on where I mean it's oil and gas industry is all they need to do is to create doubt and that that's what they've done.

In fact, they've actually employed uh a lot of pe of of individuals and firms that were employed by the tobacco industry. Like literally the same people. Um you're like surprised that some of these people are still around because they're like, you know, they're quite old. Um [laughter] uh but but in some cases, literally the same people have been employed by the oil and gas industry. Okay, get to this. Thanks.

Uh we only have a couple of more questions. Hi uh Jared from Scribb. Uh thank you so much for coming Elon. Um my question is about SpaceX. So uh even without a fully and rapidly reusable rocket, you've still managed to reduce the cost to orbit by an order of uh magnitude or more just with more incremental improvements. And so uh uh firstly, at what point did you realize that such an opportunity existed in the space field?

And uh secondly, are there other parallel opportunities and other areas that you wish somebody else would chase even if you don't personally have time to do them all? Sure. Um so when when I started SpaceX, it was actually I thought the most likely outcome was that we would fail. Um in fact, I thought that was really likely that that SpaceX would fail. Um so uh it wasn't really with expectation of success that I started the company obviously.

um the the but what gave me a clue that we could make a significant breakthrough was looking at the uh the cost of a rocket and instead of looking at it um with reference to what other rockets had cost in the past I said okay what is a rocket made of what are the material constituents um what what metals you know carbon fiber what what what are the various materials that constitute a rocket and if you had a pile of those materials arrayed before you and you could wave a magic wand what would that rocket cost to build.

Um, and that is a remarkably small number. Um, you know, was maybe a few percent or one or two% of what rockets actually cost. So, clearly people were doing something silly in how they were putting those materials together. Um, and so just by eliminating those those sort of foolish things, we were able to make a rocket for much less.

Um and uh and and then um I wasn't it wasn't obvious to me that you one could achieve uh full and rapid reusability. Um because Earth's gravity is right on the cusp of where that's possible or not possible. In order to achieve that really everything has got to be done super super well, every aspect of the vehicle. Um, so it was only maybe 2 or 3 years ago or maybe 3 years ago that I thought it was actually uh achievable.

Um, and u now I'm fairly certain it's achievable but uh but there's still a long way to go between here and there and as mentioned before uh we've not yet recovered a single rocket stage so we have a long way to go. Okay, I think this has to be the last question. Yeah. Hi Alan, Greg Tar from Cross Pacific Capital up in Palo Alto. Uh question for you.

I used to work for Toyota's uh US headquarters and when we in 1990 scaled up the Lexus dealership network, it was pretty tough and I wanted to get an understanding of what kind of innovation you're going to bring in terms of the service area.

Uh it generally takes 300 dealerships to support about 100,000 units and you're doing a tremendous job which I admire and I want to understand what your plans are because eventually the middle part of the country will begin to understand uh the revolution happening on the east and west coast. How will you um make it happen in the dealership network and service? Yeah.

Well, service in fact for the last uh three or four months has been uh my main focus at Tesla.

uh and uh it was three or four months ago it was our service was okay and uh in some cases quite quite bad in particular someone asked me about that the weird service of Tesla but go ahead yeah we we I'd say we had some pretty nightmarish service situations probably in the January February time frame things have gotten steadily better um and uh but like for example LA was was a problem for a huge for a really long time because we we were supposed to have three service centers open and permits were delayed on two of them.

So we were operating at one/3 capacity. Um so as long as your your model S didn't break down, you had an awesome experience. If it broke down, it was brutal. Um so now now we've got all three open things are a lot better. Um but but it is going to take an enormous amount of work to to scale service uh across the country and then internationally. We start delivering in Europe in July.

Um, so yeah, I don't know if we've got any I've got any brilliant insights that you probably you probably know all all the things that I would would say, but uh you we've got to have really good diagnostics tools. Um, and we do have an advantage in that the car uh has so much intelligence in it. It can do a lot of self diagnostics. Um, and and we can query, you know, what what parts need to be fixed on the car before it even comes in.

um so that so we can be more efficient in our service. Um and and then something we announced recently was that uh we're building um this fleet and or largely have built at this point this fleet of service loaners so that when if your car breaks down um what we'll do is and we also have valet service. So, if your car breaks down or you need service, uh we will um go to wherever your car is and replace it with uh one of our top-of-the-line cars.

So, our service loaners are not um sort of the standard cars. They're actually the top-of-the-line cars. Um and and we so we'll just valet a service loaner to wherever you are, pick your car up, take it get serviced, and then and then return your car when it's done. So, the experience should be really seamless.

Um and uh you should really feel like uh like you should you got actually an even better car than the one that you had serviced for some period of time and it was no interruption to your life. I think that's the most important thing. Lexus did did this to some degree. I'm not sure if Lexus does the full valet thing or not but uh certainly did the service loaner program which was done done really well actually. Elon thank you so much.

We really appreciate it. Thank you. [applause] [music]