Automotive News World Congress

Jason ridlo reporting for americ jr.

com see Jason ridlo reporting from the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center for the 2015 Automotive news World Congress stay tuned for remarks from Mr Elon Musk CEO and co-founder of Tesla Motors and so I think I'm hopeful that you know by coming here maybe answering some questions I can explain why I think the opportunity for electric cars is tremendous and why I think think that all transport with the ironic exception of rockets will go fully electric um and uh and so it's really just a question of when it goes fully electric and if we can make it go electric sooner then that will be much better for the world and and we do have significant danger with fracking technology which is I think really still uh at at a an early stage because I I think

fracking probably increases the accessible um oil and gas in the world by perhaps a factor of 10 we don't really know what what the full extent of it is but it's probably something like Northern magnitude uh which which means the potential harm to the to the climate is is really much much greater than it was before um and and we can't rely on scarcity to drive the price of oil and gas high um and and have that be an adequate forcing function uh to move electric so we have to figure out how to make electric cars themselves compelling um without without that economic forcing function of high gas prices thank you we against a couple of uh Canadian boys talking fast cars and Rockets could be better if you were going to launch two businesses I'm guessing the

natural place to start would probably not be rockets and cars yeah um uh I think for sure if you were to rank order companies to start and say what is the uh what is likely to succeed um and what you know what what has the best risk adjusted return pretty sure starting a car company a rocket company will be at the bottom of the list so so why cars in why space uh well because in the case of cars uh it was very important for there to be an example of an electric car that that was great like there were no great electric cars so people thought electric cars were like a golf cart so they were slow and didn't maneuver well and had low range or ugly didn't have as much functionality um and that's that's the picture that people had in their minds and we had

to show people that an electric car could be fast sexy handle well long range and be a great car and that's what we do with Tesla Roadster so it's really important to sort of just break the mold to break the m to address that misperception that uh one couldn't make a great electric car and and then uh and then to show that if you made electric car with all those attributes that lots of people would buy it because even after we made the car you know a lot of people said well yeah you've made this electric sports car but nobody's going to buy it then so we had to show yes there is demand for it and the same for the model S um and then with our model three down the road showing that it's possible to compelling long range Mass Market electric car that's um

I think that's that's the the third uh part of the strategy that I outlined with my first blog post about Tesla now almost 10 years ago um so that that's you had a few people doubting you I mean when when you go back to a few just a few just a few people right every you know here and there if we go back to 2008 you've had a couple of failed rocket launches you've got a lot of Teslas sitting around in the garage it's it's there are some issues there in an instant you receive funding from NASA a huge contract from NASA for $1.

5 billion and then you also get funding for the car company but you were at the bottom correct I mean you were yeah I think this is important to to to emphasize because if you look at say Tesla and SpaceX now and they think they sort of think well maybe it was always they were always in a healthy position but it wasn't no for the beginning we were in in really Dire Straits um no one would take it seriously either the rocket company or the car company um they they just thought well he's sort of an eccentric rich guy and he's going to lose all his money um you know they told me that several times um I me the most common joke I heard was you know how do you make a small fortune in in the car car business or the rocket business and the punch line is you start

with a large one right um so I was like I'd heard that J so many times I would just hit them with the punchline before they uh had a chance to say it um the the yeah so and you nearly had a nervous breakdown around I mean this a personal I'm that that close to nervous breakdown but um the the but I did think to myself um on the Sunday before Christmas in 2008 waking up this Sunday morning thinking I never thought I would I was someone who was capable of having to a break down but this is about as close as I've ever come um because things were so were really so dire um as you to uh earlier that year after the first three rockets had failed of our Falcon one vehicle uh and and I don't really uh allowed for enough money for three flights so we had to desperately

try to scrape together enough money for a fourth flight um and the and then with Tesla the financing round 12 in the summer of8 because the whole financial markets were crashing and jam and tri going bankrupt and nobody wanted to give us money not an ideal time to start a car company definitely not uh I mean try to raise money for a startup car company that's making electric cars to boot which is like like that sounded like stupidity Square um the you know investors would be angry that we even asked them like that that we that we even ask them that would be angry about that and and in fact the only way we were able to raise money to keep Tesla going was uh from uh is that that most of the existing investors uh agre to to fund the company and I put all

of all the money that I had remaining uh into Tesla so um it still wasn't it was it was you know amounted to about in total about $40 million 20 of which came from me um and then and and I was Tapped Out head to borrow money rant after that um and and that tied us over into uh for about about six months uh to May of 2009 when um dler invested in in Tesla um and that diam investment was really fundamental to to the survival of of Tesla in fact a lot of people think like somehow the government failed us out or anything that is actually not not true um it it was the dam investment that saved Tesla not not not Government funding um the first money we got from the government ever was in um March of 2010 and that was after the crisis have passed um and it wasn't

your intention to even that this would be profitable I mean you thought it was actually going to fail at some point right well when or you weren't sure it was going to be that successful at this at the start of Tesla when it was just me and a few guys um I thought I thought we maybe had a 10% chance of success okay how do you feel now uh well now I I think we've got now now I think this some degree of success is assured but it's a question of the magnitude um so does Tesla does Tesla become sort of a a niche car maker making maybe 100,000 cars a year or something like that which is always super super tiny you know that that would be um yeah I mean 0.

1% of market share is I think that's the definition of a niche if you're 0.

1% you have to at least get past decimal point to not be a niche um so so that that's one that's one possible F 100,000 or yeah or your stated goals of 500,000 by 2020 yeah I I think we'll probably um aim to do more cars than than thanat I'm not necessarily by by 2020 show 500,000 but I think we'll probably continue past that you'll continue past the 500,000 yes okay within which time within what kind of time frame um let's say I don't know I think I think should we should be able to get to probably at least a few million cars in 10 years a year so by 2030 by well by 2025 Oh by 2025 okay we can probably get to a few million cars a year um we just I think we're just going to keep driving our our volume um as as as as high as we can because our mission

is fundamentally to uh transition the world to electric cars so if we don't make a lot of electric cars then we're not doing as much as we can um now I mean that that being said I think most of the good that Tesla will accomplish is by um sort of cutting a path through the jungle to to to to show uh what can be done with M cars like so I think so you think that that the industry as a whole will adopt a greater yes I think