Elon Musk 2008 Interview

I'm Elon Musk. I'm the, uh, chairman and the product architect of the company. And, uh, what car do you drive yourself? Well, Tesla Roadster, of course. Is that the only car you drive? No, no, I have a, I also have a Porsche Turbo and, uh, that's the family car.

And what kind of mileage does that get? It's 20 miles a gallon, so it's actually good as a sports car, guys. You know, um, but my daily driver is the Tesla Roadster, Production Unit One, and I drive it to work every day. I put 2000 miles on the car.

The reason I find Tesla is because I think it's very important that we accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles. It was not with the idea of just creating a sports car that's very expensive because that doesn't really change the world. That's not going to make a dent in our energy usage. But the sports car is really just an entry point to the marketplace.

From the sports car, we will go to Model 2, Model 3, and in each case, with each successive model, we will increase the production volume and decrease the price. So, Model 2 is actually going to be a four-door, five-passenger luxury sport sedan at about half the price of our sports car. So, be around maybe the 59,000 range.

Then, going to Model 3, we want to try to get an electric car that's around the 30,000 price point. So then, it's really can many people afford it at that stage.

Do you see Tesla Motors as a direct competitor to the large car makers in Detroit, in Europe? Yes, you can see the motor. I mean, I can pop the trunk, but you won't see the motor. So, you can put a whole set of golf clubs here.

Um, I don't play golf, but you can put them there. And you can also put an airline size, uh, case in here, maximum airline size. That's what it's designed for. Yeah, it's kind of like a T-shape. Yeah, yeah, so it's a pretty decent cargo space for a sports car. You know, this is the corner of the battery pack right here.

What do you think the future will be when it comes to cars? Will it be hydrogen, biofuels, uh, electricity? I'll give you one guess because, of course, there's a lot of talk about hydrogen. Do you think that will take over? No, hydrogen is stupid. Hydrogen as a storage mechanism is a terrible storage mechanism.

It takes, it's extremely energy inefficient to create hydrogen, and then it is a lousy means of storing energy. It's volumetrically incredibly inefficient. In the rocket business, it makes sense as an upper stage on our rocket. Hydrogen is a good fuel. That's on—there isn't anything to make us now, really.

So, isn't it, um, strange to compete with, uh, car companies that have large resources when it comes to developing new automobiles? If you say GM or Ford, they have thousands and thousands of engineers who can work on fuel efficiency and other means to—so where's their electric car? Well, that's my question. Where is their electric car?

Um, big companies are not very good at, um, revolutionary innovation. Um, they are okay when it comes to incremental, you know, things here and there, but they have a real problem with, uh, you know, taking the next leap forward. But somebody needs to lead the way. A smaller company needs to lead the way.

And why is it, do you think, that these large companies, who on a first look have much more resources and experience in a certain market? We have to appreciate what is really the constraint. Is the constraint a quantity of resources? It's not the, it's not the quantity of resources; it's, uh, it's do they have the quality of—is there a small, very talented, focused, dedicated team that's willing to take the risks and make something happen?

That's the scarce commodity, not money. The world is awash in money. All right, are you holding on? [Music]