Interview with CNN

In the beginning, it was about instinct, moving from place to place. Initially for survival, then to pioneer. Today, we travel because we can. On vacation, to business meetings, from point A to point B isn't just a car ride. It's a train, it's a plane, and soon even a space flight away. But what about efficiency? There's a gap between imagination and actualization. Anywhere on earth. Anywhere. But you can actually go to the top of Mount Everest.

There's no place you can't go anywhere. So I think we've explored the boundaries, at least the physical boundaries, of earth quite thoroughly. You're describing how we can go anywhere on earth now. But the methods with which we use to get there. Do you think they're efficient? The most important thing that needs to happen is the transition of transportation to electric.

The ideal long distance transportation mechanism is a supersonic vertical takeoff and landing electric jet. There's a special case of cities which have a lot of travel between them below about 500 miles of distance where I think the Hyperloop would be useful.

It is a special case solution because once the distances get long, then the amount of time that an aircraft takes to ascend and land, which is most of what it does in a 500 mile trip, that percentage declines. And then it's better to just use aircraft. The blueprints are pretty complicated. Well, blueprints are always kind of complicated. And I mean, yes, there's math, but it's really not that hard. It still sounds pretty complicated, Elon.

It's like a tube with an air hockey table. It's just a low pressure tube with a pod in it that runs on air bearings, on air skis. With an air compressor on the front that's taking the high pressure air build up on the nose and pumping it through the air skis, it's really square. It's not that hard.