BBC Newsnight

now there was a very peculiar car launch in Britain today it's the Tesla S Electric Car which claims to be able to reach 60 M hour in just over 4 seconds finally putting an end to the idea that electric cars are basically milk floats without the raw power of a lawnmower engine while the Tesla S is the brainchild of the American billionaire Elon Musk he made his fortune in PayPal and other Ventures and is now spending it on the Tesla project and sending Rock kids into space I went to meet him in West London what we really tried to achieve with the the model S um was to to create a compelling electric car something that was really different from people's prior experience CU most people last time they drove an electric car it was probably a golf cart or

or maybe a milk mil flat milk float um so um so they they're used to their idea of an electric car is something that doesn't look good isn't fast doesn't have high performance has low range we wanted to break the mold of all of that and so produc something that was beautiful uh had high acceleration incredible handling uh had tons of capability lots of room um and really was better than any gasoline car that's what we sought to achieve this this is the um the front trunk with nothing yeah with nothing in it now if somebody buys this car in the United Kingdom now how many places are there where you can plug it in well uh anywhere an electrical outlet anywhere yes it the charg there's nothing special about the electrical outet the charger is built into

the car so you can you can plug it in anywhere you go uh you can plug it in um if you're traveling somewhere if you're at a cottage at a hotel um in addition to that however we're going to be uh creating supercharge locations throughout the UK so you'll be able to charge anywhere uh at a Tesla supercharge location um and one of the things that we do with with these supercharge locations is that they're they're free so if you buy a Tesla you could you'll be able to travel for free anywhere in Britain um and and it's free forever and I'll add one more thing to that which is we're going to be installing solar panels at all of the supercharged locations which are intended to develop or or or generate more electricity in the course of the year then the cars

consume that that that charge there so the the net result is that you'll not only be able to travel for free forever but on pure sunlight well on this question of our energy bills which is the huge Pol huge political topic here now have we got it wrong in terms of where we are sourcing our energy um mark my words solar will be the single largest producer of energy in the UK long term and you may say well isn't it rather maybe cloudy around here I was going to say have you ever been outside um yes and even though it's cloudy you still get probably 80 to 90% of the energy coming through the clouds it's just that you don't have that bright point source of of a of a sun um and a way to appreciate this perhaps is to look at the fact that uh plants are essentially

a solar powered chemical reaction and the UK is a very Green Country now you you live in Southern California and Los Angeles you travel a lot to San Francisco and you're also interested as a as a big thought in whether it's possible to travel by what's called a hyperloop in other words you go at 800 mil hour on the ground essentially like a kind of like a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco do we suffer from generally a kind of um low level of ambition should we think bigger than hs2 and think about something like this I I I think so I mean um for reasons Beyond The Objective oh we'll get there faster or it's it's like you want to do projects that are inspiring and that make people excited about the future um life's got to be about more than just

solving problems you want to get up in the morning and say yes I'm looking forward to that thing happening um and and I guess that was my Essential disappointment with the California so-called highspeed rail it's like I was looking at that while and it's like well they've got better things they did better things in Japan 30 years ago um they got something way better in China why are we doing this and and spending so much money on it and it's going to take 20 years and by that time we'll be 50 years behind what they've got in Japan I mean this just doesn't make sense we that was my reaction that was your reaction to what's happening in California we are behind California oh my god really difficult though maybe to imagine so so I mean you most unfortunate

the other big part of musk's life is with his company SpaceX which is committed to improving rocket technology and even getting the human race to other planets do you see really the future must be in space for the human race you really see this this is not science fiction this is actually going to be a fact abely absolutely I think history fundamentally Bates um in in one of two directions either we um are a multiplet species and out there exploring the stars or we are a single planet species waiting around for some eventual Extinction event it's really that that I personally I find more motivating which is um you know going and setting up a base on Mars would just be the greatest advanture ever not everyone's a fan back on Earth Tesla sued the program

Top Gear after it rubb the Tesla Roadster Tesla lost so what does musk think about Jeremy Clarkson um I think well clarkon claron show is much more about entertainment than is about truth um and uh I think most people realize that but not everyone um and I've actually enjoyed a lot of his shows it's not as though uh I just hate Top Gear or anything um he can be very funny um and and irreverent um but he does have a strong bias against electric cars and he particularly seems to hate American like his two pet peeves are Americans American cars and electric cars and we're an American electric car so we're we're in the worst possible situation for someone like claron so do you see this as a as missionary activity you're over here trying to convert Germany

Clarks I don't think there'll be any converting of Jeremy Clarkson that seems quite unlikely