#1609 - Elon Musk

[0] Check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan, experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] No, that's the Sasha Baron Cohen movie?

[4] Yeah.

[5] I never saw that one.

[6] Well, there's a scene where he's, they show him the new missile they've developed, but it has kind of a round head, and he says, you need to make it more pointy to his engineers.

[7] And, actually, that's what I always.

[8] the size of the same thing.

[9] You know, Starship, we need to make it more pointy.

[10] Did you say that?

[11] Because of the movie?

[12] Yeah.

[13] Really?

[14] Yeah.

[15] Hold on.

[16] Okay.

[17] That's, you literally told them to make the Starship more pointy because of the movie The Dictator.

[18] Yep.

[19] And they know it too.

[20] It's not like they're not aware of it.

[21] Everyone thought it would be funny if we made the Rock and more pointy, so we did.

[22] Did it have any effect on the aerodynamic?

[23] No. Nothing.

[24] No, we can make it way blunter and be fine.

[25] But is it better to be poignier?

[26] If it wasn't for the movie...

[27] It's arguably slightly worse.

[28] But more fun for you?

[29] Yeah, it looks cooler.

[30] Well, okay.

[31] It does look cool.

[32] Yeah.

[33] How long do you think it'll be before?

[34] Are you good, Jamie?

[35] What's that?

[36] My heads maybe?

[37] Yeah, exactly.

[38] You good?

[39] How long...

[40] My head is sticking out at the...

[41] Is that where it's...

[42] Right on the edge of the top.

[43] It's all good.

[44] Oh, is that it supposed to be, okay.

[45] You're good.

[46] All right.

[47] How long do you think it's going to be before you have, like, regular flights with that where you can take off and land, like an airplane, where it would be very consistent.

[48] With that extra pointy rocket?

[49] Yeah, with your extra pointy rocket.

[50] Do you mean Earth to Earth's transport?

[51] Or to Earth to orbit or anywhere.

[52] Yes, people are people.

[53] Anytime where you could just do it with people and have it land all the time.

[54] I think we're probably two years away Two years away That's really nice Two years is pretty cool Two years for people We'll have a lot of flights between none there That's crazy That's 2023 is not that far away That'll be there before you know it Yeah Wow 2023 Time flies How many times have you had explosions When you're on a rocket I don't know Like quite a few Six maybe Five or six What are those like?

[55] What is it like?

[56] What is it like when you watch it explode when it's supposed to land and it just now we this is a test program we expect it to to explode so uh it's weird if it doesn't explode frankly really yeah um because we're you're trying to develop advanced rockets uh at a high speed and uh if you want to get payload to uh you you have to run things close to the edge and um the whole rocket is evolving the engines, the structure, avionics, the software, the ground systems, all evolving simultaneously, and the whole production system, which is actually harder than the rocket design by far.

[57] So the rocket and engine and avionics production system is, and the launch system is a thousand percent harder than the initial design, like at least.

[58] Really?

[59] Yeah.

[60] So when...

[61] Same with cars, it's like 10 ,000 percent.

[62] It's easy to do a car prototype.

[63] It's hard to do production.

[64] so when you're looking at you're scaling towards the future and you're looking at mistakes or corrections improvements and all these different things that's how you come up with this figure of approximately two years if current trends continue if we excite you know if you plot the points on the curve of progress then then we should be during regular orbital flights with a high probability of safe landing in two years.

[65] We're getting to orbit this year.

[66] Our goal is to get to orbit this year.

[67] And I'm not sure people totally understand.

[68] Like, Starship is the largest flying object ever made.

[69] This thing will be about over 5 ,000 tons weight on Lufthoff.

[70] It's going to go straight up with 5 ,000 tons.

[71] This is much heavier than any aircraft by far.

[72] there's no aircraft even comes close to this weight and it's going straight up but aircraft can't go straight up so it's like the it's got more than twice the thrust of a saturn five really yeah yeah it's like a big rocket why does it need that much thrust oh we're trying because you want to go to mars or is this like we're we're trying to make life multi -planetary you know extend life beyond earth and in order to do that you have to have high tonnage to Mars and that means you need a big rocket and you've got to fly a lot so the reason why it has twice the thrust of the Saturn 5 is to plan for these interstellar trips or the interplanetary trips so when you're doing this and you're you're you're developing these systems thinking about regular trips to other planets but you're not you're not just trying to get into orbit right now you're trying to get into orbit with something that eventually could scale up.

[73] Yeah, we know how to get to orbit.

[74] We've done that a lot.

[75] So the really hard thing is we need to have a fully and rapidly reusable rocket where all elements of the rocket are reused and they're reused quickly like an aircraft.

[76] And this has never been done.

[77] This is the holy grail of rocketry is to have a fully reusable rocket.

[78] Then you need to go one step further.

[79] It needs to be fully and rapidly.

[80] were usable.

[81] Like a plane.

[82] Yeah, yeah.

[83] Like plane lands, you refuel it and take off a game.

[84] How do you have time?

[85] I never understand you in regards to the way you run multiple businesses simultaneously.

[86] I would think that something like this would require so much concentration.

[87] I would think this would be your whole being trying to figure out how to work this.

[88] Yeah, well, I do work a lot.

[89] I mean, it's crazy.

[90] Yeah, and I apologize for the reason I was late as I was like coming from, you know, some critical meetings just doing, normally I'd be meeting until I work until like one or two in the morning.

[91] Every night.

[92] Not, I mean, Saturday and Sunday, usually not, but sometimes.

[93] How much do you sleep?

[94] About six hours.

[95] Oh, that's pretty good.

[96] Yeah, it's not that crazy.

[97] For you, that's, I mean, for someone does as much as you, that's actually.

[98] that's impressive that you can squeeze that in yeah I try I've tried sleeping less but then total productivity decreases yeah so you feel like six is the number where it's yeah six six six a six is I can that um I don't find myself needing more sleep than six so when like with the Saturn five and the space shuttles and all these other rockets you they would they would have these parts that would get the ship up into space, but they would descend down to Earth and crash into the ocean and they would never use them again.

[99] That's right.

[100] How do you avoid that?

[101] What is the difference between the way these things are structured?

[102] Like, the whole thing goes together and then it lands together?

[103] Well, we're on the wrong planet for a single stage to orbit.

[104] Right.

[105] I think one thing to appreciate is like space, getting to space, space is easy, getting to orbit is hard.

[106] So you only need maybe one or two percent of the energy to get to space, to where the atmosphere is thin compared to what you need to get to orbit.

[107] And if you get to orbit, now you've got to burn off of that energy, and you're coming in like a meteor.

[108] So you need a powerful heat shield.

[109] So it's like super difficult to get to orbit at all.

[110] And then if you get to orbit at all, then making those stages reusable, it means they're going to come back intact.

[111] And then the upper stage is especially difficult because it's got so much energy.

[112] All the energy you put into it, you have to take out.

[113] So, it's a, you know, you're literally coming in like a flaming meteor.

[114] And most things would just melt and melt or vaporize.

[115] So, like if you as a human try to come in from orbit, you'd just be pink mist.

[116] Yeah.

[117] That's a funny way to put it.

[118] Yeah.

[119] Now, the space shuttle, they had tiles, right?

[120] That was the way they avoided the heat.

[121] They had these heat shield tiles.

[122] What do you use with the SpaceX rockets?

[123] Yeah, we have a more advanced version of the shuttle tile, but you've got to use some kind of ceramic, essentially.

[124] It's usually some form of silicon oxide, aluminum oxide, some carbon perhaps thrown in there.

[125] and is it like a one piece or is it in tiles the way the tiles yeah we're a hexagonal tiles you can see the with these starship we've actually increased the size of the heat shield so it's it's tough because the tiles are um they're they're kind of like i don't it's not quite the right analogy they're kind of like dinner plates like they're they're The coefficient of thermal expansion is different from metal.

[126] So metal will expand and contract differently from the tiles.

[127] And the tiles also get super hot, while the metal can be super cold because it's got cryogenic fluid behind it.

[128] So you've got this differential expansion and contraction, which makes the gaps in the tiles expand and contract.

[129] But if the gaps get too big, then you get kind of the hot gas, sort of the plasma gets in down, down, they get plasma in the crack, and it's not as bad.

[130] And then you're going to melt the metal behind it.

[131] But if they're too close, then they bang together and they crack.

[132] So you've got to get it just right, where the gap's just right, and then they can, the way that they're attached to the body, they can move around a little bit.

[133] So there has to be some sort of room to move.

[134] It can't be one large piece of ceramic that you fit over the front.

[135] Yeah, you can't really make any of the same.

[136] such a giant piece of ceramic, because you've got to, well, I guess you'd have like a super gigantic oven, but, but you really need, you need expansion joints, expansion contraction joints.

[137] So it's quite difficult to do a single piece tile.

[138] Think of it like tiles for a roof or something like that, you know, like, why don't we just make one tile for a roof?

[139] It's like, yeah, it's not, it doesn't work.

[140] Now, these things have multiple stages.

[141] how many stages in the rocket boosters when things are taking off how many Sunship has two stages so that's the minimum number that you could do on a planet like Earth Earth's gravity is quite strong and we have a thick atmosphere and strong gravity so whereas like if you took off from Mars it would be it's like relatively easy Mars is around just under 40 % of Earth's gravity.

[142] The moon is about a sixth.

[143] And getting to lunar orbit from the surface of the moon is easy.

[144] Like during Apollo, the lunar lander, just the top half of the lunar lander was able to take off and get to lunar orbit.

[145] But to get to Earth orbit, you need the giant rocket.

[146] It's very nonlinear.

[147] So what happens to the first, when you take off and it separates into stages.

[148] How does the first stage get reused?

[149] Well, have you seen how the Falcon 9 stages work where they come back in land?

[150] No. You haven't seen that?

[151] No. Wow.

[152] Yeah, I mean...

[153] Jamie's going to pull it up.

[154] So does it come down with parachutes?

[155] Does it, like, how does it land?

[156] No, it lands propulsively with the thrusters.

[157] With the engines.

[158] Really?

[159] Yeah.

[160] So it's designed to take off.

[161] Here it is.

[162] Yeah.

[163] Oh, wow.

[164] So that is the bottom of the rocket that launches it straight up, and then afterwards it comes down and lands like that.

[165] Yeah.

[166] That's amazing.

[167] And then the top piece can then land separately.

[168] Yes.

[169] Well, in the case of Falcon 9, the upper stage burns up on reentry.

[170] falconine has there's the faring where the satellites are contained in the top and that the faring has once it gets to space where the atmosphere is thin it's a little long way from orbit but it's in space so you no longer need the satellite does need to be protected by the nose cone with faring and so that it sort of splits in two and falls away and then so with falconine we recover the faring halves and we recover the booster but we lose the upper stage on purpose did you design well yes but it's not really possible if with falconine we the the architecture is like if we made the upper stage reusable our pale lead to orbit would be dramatically less so in order to have meaningful payload to orbit scale is important.

[171] Like you need to make things big.

[172] There are some, there is value to scale.

[173] You know, for the family, like for a truck, you wouldn't want like everything delivered by a small pickup truck.

[174] You want semi -trailers.

[175] You know, you don't see, you don't see ships in the ocean cargo ships, you know, coming along with one sea van and out with an outboard motor.

[176] It's like a giant ship, you know, so scale has value in and of itself.

[177] Like the same computer that controls the big rocket, controls the tiny rocket.

[178] So, you know, even just in terms of like the computer, the computer and like the electronics weight becomes vanishingly small in a big rocket, but it is significant in a small rocket.

[179] Do you think there'll ever be a time where there's an alternative source of propulsion outside of just of a burning fuel?

[180] Like, is it possible that someone would develop a nuclear propulsion or some other method other than just burning large amounts of gasoline or rocket fuel?

[181] There's no way around Newton's third law, really.

[182] So you basically have to expel mass. Like when you get, there's a, you know, for a car that you could push against the ground.

[183] for an aircraft, you can react against the air.

[184] For a boat, you can react against water.

[185] In vacuum, there is nothing.

[186] So the only way to move is to react against yourself, to essentially shoot out gas at very high velocity and to transfer momentum from, you know, to that gas that is going that way very rapidly.

[187] so you want to accelerate a small amount of mass very fast in order to have you the large amount of mass accelerate slowly because momentum is conserved so yeah so we're stuck with gas yeah until some insane breakthrough dealing with gravity or something yeah i mean it's not going to happen not not not in our lifetime no um yeah um yeah So, ironically, everything will go electric except for rockets.

[188] Now, you can make rockets indirectly electric by using electricity to create the fuel.

[189] So you can take CO2 and H2O and create methane and oxygen from that.

[190] So methane is CH4, and oxygen is O2.

[191] So, and for example, on Mars, which is a primarily CO2 atmosphere, and there's a lot of water ice, is you can mine the ice, take the ice and the CO2 on the atmosphere, simplifying this a lot, but run it over a catalyst and give it a lot of energy, and you can get CH4 and O2, and you can get CH4 and O2, and you can.

[192] you can gracefully get your propellant on Mars.

[193] The rocket, by the way, is mostly oxygen.

[194] So for Starship, we're almost 80 % oxygen.

[195] It's only just over 20 % fuel.

[196] Really?

[197] Yeah.

[198] So is this as efficient as you anticipated being, you know, any time in our lifetime?

[199] Like, is there, the trip to Mars is like, what, six months?

[200] Is that what the idea is?

[201] Yeah, it's about six months.

[202] Do you ever anticipate it being quicker than that?

[203] Is it possible to make these things faster?

[204] Would you have to have solar sails?

[205] No, slow sail would be very slow.

[206] Would it be?

[207] I mean, I'm trying to think the way to think about gravity here.

[208] There's a lot of analogies.

[209] But, you know, like you can think like space itself is curved.

[210] Like it's like a funnel.

[211] Like if there's something that has a lot of mass, it's creating like a funnel.

[212] And so in the same way, like if you have a coin funnel and you know, the coins, the coin thinks it's going on in a straight line, pretty much.

[213] You know, the physicists out there might have quibble with my analogies.

[214] But anyway, I'm trying to convey what gravity is like, like a funnel.

[215] and so if you want to get out of that gravity well you actually need to go very fast parallel to the earth's surface and the fast you go parallel to the earth surface the further out you spin or you can think like a marble and a funnel like if you want to get that marble to go far out you just spin it sideways and it'll spiral out and conversely if you just due to the friction of the air friction and the rolling friction it will slow down a little bit if you don't give it any push, and it will slowly spiral in.

[216] And then as it gets closer, it spins faster and faster.

[217] This is how gravity basically works.

[218] So all the things in the solar system are spinning around this gigantic funnel in space time called the sun.

[219] And where there's like these tiny little dust motes going around the sun.

[220] And the further you are away from the sun, the slower you move around in terms of degrees per second.

[221] So like the orbit of Mars, which is further away from the sun, is about two years, and it was one year.

[222] Because Mars is about 50 % further away from the Earth than the Sun than the Earth is.

[223] So it's like Mars, we're, this is at one astronomical unit, Mars is like one and a half -ish, astronomical units.

[224] So we're about eight light minutes away from the Sun, is about 12 and yeah so when you want to go to Mars you basically accelerate in the along the same path of earth going around the Sun and you time it such that as you that your acceleration gives you an elliptical orbit around the Sun where the tip of the ellipse intersects with Mars so Mars is going around and you just time it to coincide with the tip of your ellipse being Mars.

[225] And that turns out to be about a six -month journey.

[226] Now, you can speed that up.

[227] I think, I mean, I could sort of see a way to make it happen in, say, three months, where the intersection with Mars would not be at the tip of the ellipse, but on the edge of the ellipse.

[228] Now, that would mean the tip of the ellipse is out near Jupiter.

[229] So if you miss Mars, you're going to end up at Jupiter.

[230] Jupiter's orbit.

[231] So...

[232] That's not good.

[233] Yeah.

[234] And you're going to become a...

[235] in hot.

[236] So, but I probably can get down to three months of that bigger problem.

[237] Getting down to a month, sort of hard.

[238] And then Earth and Mars are only in the same, sort of, there's only about a six -month period every two years when Earth and Mars are aligned such that you can do the transfer.

[239] You can certainly imagine that if Mars is on the other side of the sun, you can't get that there because it's got to go through the sun.

[240] It's not going to work.

[241] So you've got a time, this is like about a quarter of every Mars year is when you can do the transfer.

[242] So six months every two years.

[243] So if we are able to build, or if humanity is able to build a city on Mars, people will probably remember, you know, which planetary conjunction they came on, you know.

[244] because it's like you just go all the time you can only go every two years when do you anticipate like how much time before there's regular travel back and forth to Mars roughly like a real civilization on Mars well I think it's going to take a while to build that a real civilization the real the real the real the threshold that really matters is if we're getting past the great filter is do we have enough resources on Mars such that if the space ships from Earth stop coming you can survive?

[245] Yeah so I can only be just missing one little thing you'd be like you're on a long sea voyage and the only thing you're missing is vitamin C It's still not good It's only a matter of time you know Yeah And then it's going to be curtains So you've got to have all the things necessary to sustain civilization on Mars.

[246] And the reason that the shifts from a stop coming could be World War III or it could be due to a slow decline of civilization.

[247] So civilization here on Earth could end with a bang or a whimper.

[248] Or natural disasters.

[249] Yeah.

[250] Asteroid impact.

[251] Yeah, that would be up in the bang category.

[252] Yeah.

[253] But it could be like a whole series of things.

[254] Like, you see, like, what killed the dinosaurs?

[255] Well, it wasn't just one thing, you know?

[256] Right.

[257] It was, like, a whole bunch of things happened in a row, and, you know, well, they could have taken any one of those things.

[258] They had, like, three things happen, and no dinosaurs.

[259] Which is kind of amazing that crocodiles are still here.

[260] Yeah.

[261] Those fuckers.

[262] Well, they're resilient.

[263] Crocodiles, they live on decayed meat.

[264] They love rotten meat.

[265] And so, you know.

[266] any kind of disaster situation.

[267] A lot of dead creatures.

[268] And the crocodiles love it.

[269] So that's why they're around.

[270] Crocodiles and bugs and mushrooms.

[271] And shrews.

[272] Shrews, yeah.

[273] Which is why we're here.

[274] Yeah, exactly.

[275] Our great, great, great, great, grandparents were shrews.

[276] What a strange thing to come from.

[277] So there's hope.

[278] There's hope for all you rodents out there.

[279] Yeah.

[280] One day you can go to Mars.

[281] keep doing your homework.

[282] Absolutely.

[283] So there'll be, you say the great filter.

[284] What did you mean by that?

[285] Well, so there's something called like the Fermi paradox of like where are the aliens?

[286] where are the aliens?

[287] And I think it was Carl Sagan that said like there either are a lot of aliens or none and the either they're equally terrifying if there are a lot of aliens well I mean the invasion ship slash you know bug infestation just you know like Starship trooper style well yeah I mean it's like an alien civilization might just view us as like a bug infestation you know it's like we like that planet was fine, now it's got a bunch of bugs, just go fumigate it, you know, like we'd fumigate a house.

[288] That's certainly impossible.

[289] But if there are no aliens, well, could it be that all civilizations are just destroyed before they become interstellar?

[290] You know, so, and I want to be clear, like, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence for alien life on Earth.

[291] that alien life there's no evidence for alien life there's no direct evidence for alien life no you know and if somebody says oh what about this alien for you know uh sighting or whatever i'm like listen it's got to be at least as good as a 7 -11 or ATM cam okay it's like if somebody's got at least like an iPhone 1 level camera yeah like something you know the problem with that is it's just too easy to fake things today, too.

[292] Yeah, sure.

[293] At least try hard in their faking it.

[294] Are you familiar with Commander David Fravers' account of the Tick -Tac UFO that he encountered off of the coast of San Diego?

[295] You know Lex, Lex Friedman?

[296] Yeah.

[297] Lex Friedman interviewed him on his podcast, and I interviewed him as well.

[298] And if you ever get a chance to listen to Lex's conversation with him, it's really excellent.

[299] But this guy is a naval fighter pilot and talked about this thing that they tracked on radar that went from more than 60 ,000 feet above sea level to one foot in less than a second, shaped like a tick -tack, no visible sign of propulsion, blocked radar, actively jammed their tracking systems, and then went to their predetermined point that the fighter jet was supposed to scramble to, went to it 30 miles away.

[300] in, you know, a couple seconds.

[301] Like, they have no idea how it did it.

[302] They don't know what it is.

[303] Okay.

[304] And these guys that were working for the Navy off the coast said they'd encountered them several times.

[305] They didn't know what they were.

[306] They didn't know what to do.

[307] What did that?

[308] They just did nothing.

[309] They do.

[310] They have video of it.

[311] Uh, okay.

[312] They have video of it.

[313] They have, um, there's, you ever see the New York Times article that came out in 2017 about this stuff?

[314] I don't know.

[315] Yeah, there was a New York Times article in 2017 that was, detailing this, and there's a couple other different sightings that were very similar.

[316] They were trying to figure out what these things were and why.

[317] And it was also in the COVID relief package that the CIA was supposed to release.

[318] Yeah, the politicians are trying to figure out what all this shit is.

[319] And so they tried to get them to release all the information they have within 180 days.

[320] Honestly, I think I would know if there were aliens.

[321] I would hope so.

[322] That's what I'm asking you.

[323] No, I'd be jumping on that.

[324] like you should watch that conversation with lex sure like here's a thing do you think that they would want us to know or do you think they would just be observing and making sure we don't blow ourselves up would i don't know man they're real civilization they sure are subtle i mean if they wanted us to know obviously they could just for sure you know show up and walk down main street you know like hey i'm an alien check me out you know right he has my spaceship and just land in the middle of time square I'll be like, right.

[325] Or hover over downtown L .A. Yeah.

[326] We were like, okay, we believe you.

[327] So whatever, they are very subtle, very subtle with aliens.

[328] How often do you think about it?

[329] Zero.

[330] Zero?

[331] Even though you're thinking about interplanetary travel.

[332] You don't really think about aliens.

[333] No. I mean, if they show up, I'm like, great.

[334] Okay, now this isn't your information.

[335] But we...

[336] Yeah.

[337] what an interesting way of putting it this is new information this is a new information like where are you guys up until now yeah um so anyway uh listen i'm if if i see some evidence for aliens i'll be like i'll be the first to be like ah aliens you know right then you'll investigate but until then you think it's kind of a waste of time yeah yeah it definitely seems like a waste of time if nothing's happened so far you think about all the people that have been researching aliens for their whole life And they have very little to show for it.

[338] Well, you know, there's...

[339] Other than cool stories.

[340] Yeah.

[341] I mean, we have archaeologists going all over the world looking at things.

[342] You know, with this, the people...

[343] Like, if we would have found something like, let's say, like a cube of titanium, just like a one -inch cube of titanium, see, in the middle of the pyramid, I'd be like, aliens for sure.

[344] There's no way they could have made a titanium back then.

[345] There's no way.

[346] That's hard.

[347] That's all.

[348] One little, don't even need a computer.

[349] Like, a computer would be like, hey, wow, computers.

[350] They didn't have computers back then, so it must be aliens.

[351] But even just like some advanced metallurgy, anything.

[352] Like, I mean, it's anything like that.

[353] Right.

[354] Nothing like that that we could point to that we can't do.

[355] Everything that we found archaeologically is consistent with the time, the technology they had at that time.

[356] Archaeologically.

[357] Yeah.

[358] Yeah.

[359] So you just talked about old stuff.

[360] Yeah, just throughout history.

[361] It's not like, like if aliens visitor, there'd be something buried somewhere, I think.

[362] We haven't seen anything.

[363] Anyway, maybe they were aliens, but they're very subtle.

[364] If they are, they're just very, they're being pretty shy.

[365] So far as we can tell, there's none.

[366] So nor are we seeing signals from any other solar system or anything like that.

[367] So, now, and the thing is that on a galactic time scale, even with sub -like travel, you could absolutely colonize the whole galaxy, even some of the neighboring galaxies.

[368] So if you gave, if you said a million years with and say there's no new physics, could you colonize the galaxy in a million years?

[369] Absolutely, the entire galaxy.

[370] So you would start with Mars, build bases on Mars, then use Mars to jump off to all these other places?

[371] planets, set up places there, and over thousands of years, easily.

[372] Yeah, just kind of like, you know, hop from one solar system to the next and, yeah.

[373] That, it seems like that's imperative.

[374] Like, that has to happen if the human civilization is going to survive.

[375] Because our planet is just, we're too subject to natural disasters and our own folly.

[376] And if the species is going to survive, we kind of have to escape.

[377] It's mostly about the species.

[378] I mean, there have been some real doozies.

[379] of, like, you know, massive meteors and super volcanoes and the continents moved all over the place and Earth's been a snowball and super hot.

[380] If you read, like, the geological history of Earth, it's, like, very long and complicated.

[381] So, and then there have been so many extinction events, not like just a few.

[382] Yeah.

[383] I mean, the Permian extinction event, that was a real rough one, where it's like well over 90 % of all species died out.

[384] And that doesn't tell the whole story because a huge chunk of the remaining species were fungi and, you know, like sponges and stuff like that, you know.

[385] Like, are you a sponge?

[386] Okay, you're probably doing okay.

[387] They're still around.

[388] Are you a mushroom?

[389] Do you like being in the dark and feasting on dead, dead plant and animal matter?

[390] okay but if you're like a human you're screwed yeah so well didn't people got down to there was just a few thousand of us at one point in time because of a super volcano i think indonesia i think it was only 60 70 000 years ago yeah they've been a number of sort of revolutionary choke points yeah um and uh the last ice age must have been pretty rough too a lot of species got wiped out then Is that part of what motivates you?

[391] What motivates you to want to do this and to put people on Mars and to start traveling, get people traveling through the galaxy?

[392] Yeah, so philosophically, I'm in the Douglas Adams sort of school of thought, which is that the universe is the answer, and we need to figure out what questions to ask to better understand the answer that is the universe.

[393] So we want to expand the scope and scale of consciousness, increase our understanding of the universe.

[394] We'd like to understand why are we here, where do we come from, where are we going, what's this all about?

[395] And in order to, in order to, I don't know, just understand the meaning of life, we have to expand the scope and scale of life and the consciousness, which may be digital and biological in the future and get past at least one of the great filters which is to become a multi -planet species a species that does not become multi -planetary is simply waiting around until there is some extinction event either self -inflicted or external so we got a We've got to, you know, be a multi -planet species.

[396] Also, that's, like, way more exciting.

[397] That's like, do you want a future where we're out there among the stars exploring the universe, or do you want a future where we're stuck on Earth forever?

[398] I think we want the super exciting future where we're out there exploring the galaxy.

[399] That sounds great to me. And, you know, I think it's worth 1 % of our resources, something like that.

[400] You know, maybe more, but at least 1%.

[401] well it's all the most exciting sci -fi movies yeah yeah if you saw a sci -fi movie and they didn't have spaceships you're like what's going on there you know something terrible must have happened well we always assumed when we were kids that we would be traveling to the moon and back and traveling all over space by now you know space 1999 was a show when I was a kid that was interplanetary travel remember they had spaceships out there and motherships and they thought 1999.

[402] By then, for sure, it would happen.

[403] The problem is we need more Elon Musk's.

[404] There's not a lot of people that really dedicate all their time and energy to do something like this.

[405] It really does.

[406] It's a really fascinating thing about the species.

[407] It takes a few unique individuals that are motivated to do something like this and have the resources and the intelligence and the you can figure out how to organize people to get something like this done.

[408] Not a lot of you.

[409] Well, it takes this.

[410] There's a lot of smart, talented people at SpaceX and at Tesla, and that's how we get things done.

[411] But, yeah, I mean, part of the reason why SpaceX is still privately held, although we have a lot of investors and everyone the company has given stock, is that the time horizon for SpaceX is long.

[412] You know, it's, is they like, you know, what's the market for transporting things to Mars?

[413] Well, no market.

[414] There's no one there.

[415] Right.

[416] So they were like, that sounds pretty risky.

[417] And the public company, you know, the feedback loop tends to be, you know, maybe a year or four years or even quarterly.

[418] And it's like, well, this is like 10 years, 20 years out.

[419] And I don't probably answer a question earlier, which is like when we, when I think we can go to Mars, I mean, I think possibly as soon as five years from now.

[420] Really?

[421] Yeah.

[422] But then to have a, then you've got to build out the base, and then you've got to build out the city.

[423] So the first thing you've got to build is like, okay, you've got to generate energy.

[424] So you've got like giant solar panel farm, you know.

[425] and then you've got to have propellant production.

[426] So you've got to make the fuel and oxygen and you've got to grow food, grow plants and like all the things necessary for life support.

[427] So does everything have to be done in the greenhouse?

[428] There's some sort of a dome.

[429] Yeah.

[430] So there's, is there a long -term possibility of terraforming?

[431] Yes, long -term we can make, we can, if you just warm Mars up, there's a lot of a frozen CO2.

[432] and frozen water that would liquefy that the CO2 would densify the atmosphere the liquid water would form oceans and lakes um so so basically a lot of frozen water and frozen CO2 on mars and how would you warm it up well there's a few ways to tackle that problem um that'll obviously be up to the martians but i don't know you could have giant solar reflectors you could um create like miniature suns over the poles or something like that.

[433] What?

[434] Well, it can be gravitationally contained, but you could just have a, just have to, you know, have it just do giant thermonuclear explosions every few seconds.

[435] The sun is a giant thermonuclear reactor in the sky.

[436] If you want to know what, like, hey, what does it like to be exposed to thermonuclear radiation?

[437] Go stand outside in the middle of the day.

[438] My 10 -year -old said, if space has no air and fire needs air how does the sun stay burning she loves to do that she looks at you look she's super smart hmm right that's a good question little one yeah there's a lot of interesting things about the sun the sun is converting I think 4 or 5 million tons of mass to energy every second so you know e equals mc squared so that's a lot it's a lot yeah and it's not even a big sun it's not even a big sun so yeah four or five megatons per second every second every day four billions of years so what kind of engineering would be involved in creating a mini sun that you hover above the poles so I mean the sun is it's a gravitationally contained reaction so you need a lot of mass so if you don't have a lot of a mass, you can just, that's why you'd have, like, explosions, just like little, little pulsing things, like a pulsing sun.

[439] And, uh, yeah, some people have, like, said, well, if you add it up all the nuclear weapons on Earth, that's, uh, that's, that wouldn't even be that, that much.

[440] I'm like, yeah, because they're small.

[441] We could make way bigger nuclear, nuclear bombs in the current ones.

[442] It's like, what's the point?

[443] They said, well, if you want to make an artificial sun, you, then you just use a lot more hydrogen.

[444] That would be something, they would have to construct on Mars?

[445] Yeah, yeah.

[446] And then figure out a way, to launch it.

[447] Yeah, honestly, not that hard.

[448] I mean, they could do this where I rarely had even having computers.

[449] So back in the day.

[450] But you can also do it with solar reflectors.

[451] I don't know.

[452] Somehow if you want to make it look like Earth, you've got to warm it up.

[453] Right.

[454] You know.

[455] So.

[456] So in hundreds of years, now or whatever it would take, people would eventually, you know, figure some way out.

[457] Yeah, you could terraform Mars and make it be like Earth.

[458] And we could bring, we could take life from Earth and breathe life into Mars.

[459] There's nothing living on the surface of Mars.

[460] Yeah, nothing.

[461] It's cold.

[462] Yeah.

[463] There's a lot of ultraviolet.

[464] The combination of being cold and having a lot of ultraviolet radiation, that's that's the that's the that's the that's the killer combo um just being cold uh then bacteria could survive uh or just uv but warm the bacteria can repair themselves but if they're frozen and they get blasted with the uv the they can't repair themselves get they're frozen and isn't the speculation that one point in time mars did have an atmosphere mars was different than it is now yeah it once had a dent a quite a dense atmosphere, and it would have seemed most likely to have had oceans and lakes.

[465] Now they're frozen and covered in dust, and that orange color you see is iron oxide.

[466] So there's quite a lot of iron, just rust.

[467] You know, for a while there, they thought, well, maybe Mars was like some ancient civilization, you know.

[468] Do you remember the face on Mars that they?

[469] Sure.

[470] There's a guy that was completely, he was fascinating.

[471] Richard Hoagland Is that his name?

[472] See if that's the guy's name But he's With all due respect Out of his fucking mind And he was making all these incredible Incredibly bizarre connections Like measurements From this rock to that rock And using all this mathematics To prove that this was That this symmetry was impossible in nature And this was all created by civilization That this face was Like some sort of a you know, ancient shrine to whatever being lived there before.

[473] There it is.

[474] Monuments tomorrow's Richard Hoagland, that's the guy's name.

[475] I used to listen to him on Art Bell.

[476] That's crazy.

[477] It was just, I mean, I don't know if he's schizophrenic.

[478] Maybe he's just smarter than all of us.

[479] But Jamie's shaking his head.

[480] I think aspirationally you want to believe things proportionate to the evidence, not inversely proportionate to the evidence.

[481] Well, he was definitely inversely proportionate to the evidence.

[482] It was very strange.

[483] It was one of those ones where I had to stop listening because I felt like I was going crazy, too.

[484] Yeah.

[485] He was so invested in this idea.

[486] Again, maybe he's right.

[487] I don't think so.

[488] No. I doubt it.

[489] Well, then they had subsequent voyages where they made high -resolution scans of the exact same area, and it looked very different without the same shadows.

[490] It just looked like rocks.

[491] Yeah, Mars kind of looks like.

[492] I don't know, like some Arizona desert or something like that.

[493] What do they think happened?

[494] They think it was hit, like an asteroid hit?

[495] Well, everything got hit with light asteroids over time.

[496] Do they think that that's what killed the environment there, the atmosphere?

[497] Well, the atmosphere, so Mars has lower gravity than Earth, and it does not have a strong magnetic field.

[498] So over time, those are over billions of years, the atmosphere will be gradually eroded by the, by the, by the, by the solar wind and and having less gravity so the smaller you are the less generally the less atmosphere you're going to have so yeah so generating an atmosphere on Mars it would eventually erode but we're talking about hundreds of millions of years to billions of years type of thing plenty of time to figure things out for us yeah yeah yeah Yeah.

[499] So, but do you think that Mars is, their atmosphere eroded quicker because it's just smaller?

[500] That's a factor.

[501] Yeah.

[502] I mean, like if you look at, say, asteroids or, you know, they don't really have, like, serious, there's a pretty big asteroid.

[503] But it doesn't really have an atmosphere.

[504] The moon doesn't really have an atmosphere.

[505] So, it doesn't have an atmosphere.

[506] Technically, there are, there's a tiny amount of rarefied gas, but it's not a real atmosphere.

[507] Did you pay attention at all to the guy was the chair of the Harvard Astronomy Department, Avi Loeb, who was recently, there was a bunch of stories in the news because he believes that an object that came through our solar system in 2017 was possibly extraterrestrial in origin.

[508] Yeah.

[509] The, whatever, your mommy burger.

[510] Yeah, they don't, he thinks that there's a 90, apparently it's a 91 % possibility that was shaped like a. Your mama asteroid.

[511] Yeah, umam -mau, it was a Hawaiian name.

[512] Okay.

[513] Yeah, it was a Hawaiian name.

[514] It sounds like your mama.

[515] Yes, it was like your mama.

[516] Um -mau -mau or something like that.

[517] Yeah, yeah, because it was discovered in Hawaii.

[518] Sure.

[519] So they gave it a Hawaiian name.

[520] Yeah.

[521] Well, anyway, so I think a fundamental test of human civilization is, are we going to become a multi -planet civilization?

[522] civilization before something cataclysmic happens.

[523] Now, I'll be clear, I'm pretty optimistic about the future.

[524] So I'm not thinking like we're, you know, civilization is about to end anytime soon.

[525] But there's a chance that it will.

[526] Like Stephen Hawking before he died was like, he's like, he thought it was like around 1 % of century, something like that, I believe.

[527] So, you know, it's not, it's not like, you know, 1 % chance over 100 years.

[528] It's like 99 % chance of making it.

[529] So I think he's probably about right.

[530] So 1 % chance per century.

[531] So as the centuries go on, there's less of a chance?

[532] No, it's more of a chance.

[533] So because we become more intelligent, more resources, and possibly the ability to escape Earth?

[534] Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know, Russian roulette with, you know, asteroids.

[535] 99 barrels are empty.

[536] Yeah.

[537] Click, click, click, click.

[538] eventually it's going to get us yeah you said something that I thought was really interesting the meaning of life do you think there is a meaning to life well I think arguably the meaning of life is to understand the nature of the universe and figure out what the meaning of life is so like said I think we don't quite know the right questions to ask and if we but if we learn more more about the universe, if we expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then we are better able to ask the questions about the answer that is the universe.

[539] But when you keep going with that, like, where does it go?

[540] I don't know.

[541] That's why if I knew, we're like, okay, case closed, we can die now.

[542] The problem I always have with that is that do I want there to be a meaning to this?

[543] Because it gives sense of purpose to finite life forms.

[544] Well, I think there's a lot to understand about the universe That we don't yet understand Have a beverage Absolutely So let's see Alcohol is hour one What's hour two?

[545] Hour two?

[546] Well, I don't think marijuana is legal in Texas And the last time I don't have to remind you There was problems involved Yes Ultimately not though, right?

[547] Well It was like temporary All that's sued over right Didn't it?

[548] CBD's legal here CBD doesn't do anything Does it?

[549] No I think that's fake Well it no no it definitely does something for inflammation It does Yeah yeah for sure Well how much CBD do you have to have before you notice it Well physically or Yeah Yeah physically you don't have to have a lot Physically CBD works great for people with arthritis And people with Like sore muscles and things like that Cheers Yeah no CBD definitely works for that but as far as like psychoactive effects not much it relieves anxiety for people okay um it helps people sleep especially when it's combined with things like melatonin you know things on those lines but it doesn't get you high yeah no people that do mix CBD with THC for muscle creams though and that doesn't get you high either but it increases the effectiveness Okay.

[550] Yeah.

[551] There's some creams that are really good that people like that have THC and CBD in it.

[552] All right.

[553] So you have like sunscreen or something and then, I mean, why not?

[554] Just throw it in there, you know?

[555] Why not?

[556] Yeah.

[557] Well, it's just, it's great for soreness.

[558] You just smell like weed all day.

[559] Yeah.

[560] It doesn't smell like weed, though.

[561] It doesn't.

[562] No, no. Some of it does, though.

[563] Some of it.

[564] But that's the thing about anything that's unregulated, right?

[565] Like hippies are making it.

[566] That's always the problem.

[567] Equality control.

[568] Yeah, no quality control.

[569] That's the problem with edibles.

[570] They're made by a bunch of crazy people.

[571] Cooking them up in some, you know, Chula Vista apartment somewhere.

[572] You really don't know what's in there.

[573] So, well.

[574] Anyway, so we've got to make life multi -planetary before.

[575] It's too late.

[576] Yeah.

[577] I think that makes sense.

[578] Yeah.

[579] I mean, why not?

[580] Also, it's be fun and exciting.

[581] And even if you don't go, you can just watch it on TV.

[582] Yeah.

[583] Yeah.

[584] It's still cool.

[585] I mean, like, yeah.

[586] I mean, you know, it's not like, you know, attendance is mandatory here.

[587] You know, and it'll be dangerous and people might die.

[588] Well, for sure they're going to die.

[589] Yeah.

[590] Like, sometimes, they be surprised.

[591] Some people think that the idea is like, oh, Mars is going to be an escape hatch, some luxury resort for rich people.

[592] I'm like, no, it's like high probability of death relative to Earth.

[593] It's long journey.

[594] Food's probably not great.

[595] A lot of hard work.

[596] No sunlight.

[597] Yeah, I mean, it's like, it sounds like, you know, Shackleton's at for the end.

[598] Arctic where it's like it's dangerous it's a long journey the food's bad you know might not make it back but if you do it'll be glorious yeah it's interesting how much people adapt when they're faced with a real problem like if we knew that we only had a certain amount of time left like we knew an asteroid was absolutely headed our way and it was going to kill most of the people on this planet you would see people scrambling for something like that yeah like look uh i moved to Texas just to get the fuck out of L .A. because I felt like that was dying.

[599] I was like, we got to get out of here.

[600] And I never thought I was going to move out of L .A. like that.

[601] Yeah.

[602] It happened very quickly, but people adapt when they realize that this is, you have to do something.

[603] Yeah.

[604] If we had to do something, we had to go to Mars and had to set up shop there.

[605] Yeah, I think it's important for the future of humanity and consciousness.

[606] And like said, we want to get past the great filter.

[607] You know, it might turn out that when we're, We got there exploring the galaxy.

[608] We might find a whole bunch of dead one -planet civilizations.

[609] You know, and they just never made it to the next planet.

[610] Ghost towns.

[611] Yeah.

[612] Strange ghost towns of like, you know, it's like if you, you know, we're like, we'll go through the archaeological ruins of like ancient Babylonians and Sumerians and like, you know, and like trying to decode their writing, like, what the hell of linear be and hieroglyphics.

[613] Isn't that a problem with us now?

[614] that everything has become digital.

[615] Everything's stored on microchips and hard drives.

[616] And if something catastrophic happened.

[617] Yeah.

[618] And you don't have the ability to access all that stuff.

[619] We're kind of starting from scratch.

[620] Yeah, absolutely.

[621] It's kind of problematic that things aren't chilled in stone.

[622] You know, they used to be chills in stone.

[623] And we're like, okay, now, you know, it's kind of a pain in the ass to destroy stone.

[624] And stone lasts a long time.

[625] Yeah.

[626] So we still have a lot of writing from the ancient Romans because they chose a lot of stuff in stone.

[627] Or the Egyptians.

[628] Oh, the Egyptians.

[629] Yeah, exactly.

[630] Man, the Egyptians really went to town with the hieroglyphics.

[631] Even the Sumerians, you know, the cuneiforms carved in the clay tablets.

[632] Absolutely.

[633] Yeah.

[634] But us?

[635] But I kind of wish they had said more.

[636] Yeah, exactly.

[637] Like us.

[638] And I'm like, our stuff is, yeah, it's not going to last for a long time.

[639] I mean, there are sort of aspects of us of stuff that would last for a long time.

[640] But a lot of the interesting things are going to be lost forever.

[641] Yeah.

[642] You know, for, when we did the Falcon Heavy test flight, that normally when, you know, aerospace companies do like a rocket test flight, they put something boring on, like a concrete block because they don't want to risk an expensive satellite.

[643] And so I was like, well, we've got to do something.

[644] That's not very inspiring, you know, it's concrete blocks one of the least inspiring things could do.

[645] So that's a friend of mine, and he said, hey, well, what about putting a Tesla on that?

[646] You know, I was like, hey, that's not like a good idea.

[647] I'm going to go in my garage.

[648] I'll put that one in there.

[649] So I put my car on the rocket, and then we want to see how far the rocket could go.

[650] So I was like, just, you know, floor it.

[651] Let's go.

[652] Maximum Delta V. So I thought it would probably blow up, and I had this image of like, man, like, you know, those things could blow up on the pad, and then there's like a tire bouncing down the road, and then the Tesla logo just lands, bam, right in front of the camera.

[653] It's like One of the things I feel like this was a movie You know That's kind of One of the possible outcomes And unfortunately it didn't blow up And now my car is Orbiting Mars Wow Yeah So now in that car So hopefully If somebody in the alien civilizations In the future Could find that Because it'll be like around For like millions of years I've seen the images Yeah It looks fake It looks fake That's how you know it's real Is that how you know It's real?

[654] How do the images get to it?

[655] us.

[656] The images are too lame to be to be to be fake or I mean they look good but you for example the dynamic range of the camera is not enough to pick up the stars and the the vehicle you know because like things are very bright in space there's no like we don't quite realize it but in the atmosphere is making everything a little fuzzy and in space things are super crisp and It's super, like really reflective.

[657] Yeah, it is.

[658] Yeah, exactly.

[659] So how is that getting to us?

[660] The image.

[661] Yeah, with a radio.

[662] Wow.

[663] So the rocket's got a...

[664] How many megapixels is that image?

[665] Not that many, actually.

[666] Really?

[667] No, I mean, it's probably a couple megapixels or something like that.

[668] So like an old flip phone.

[669] Yeah.

[670] It's mostly just driven by the...

[671] What's the bandwidth of a video signal?

[672] So what do you have?

[673] These are frame grabs from the video signal.

[674] And where's the camera that's taking this photo?

[675] Oh man, our director of photography is awesome.

[676] But I mean, when this thing gets sent to us, what is taking an image of this?

[677] There's a camera on a stick.

[678] Really?

[679] Yeah.

[680] And it didn't break off?

[681] No. I mean, we thought it might, but there's a camera.

[682] I mean, it's kind of like a fairly wide angle.

[683] So the camera is actually not that far from the car.

[684] What is that one up there that shows the whole car?

[685] Is that fake?

[686] That's fake.

[687] Is that real?

[688] That's real.

[689] Wow.

[690] Is this don't panic on the screen?

[691] Yeah.

[692] Don't panic.

[693] Speaking of the Roadster, when is that thing going to be available?

[694] Next Generation Roadster.

[695] So we're finishing the engineering of it this year, and so hopefully start shipping them next year.

[696] Really?

[697] Yeah.

[698] And we're going to throw it.

[699] some rocket technology in that car so yeah i've heard about that what does that mean um so at a minimum it would be um hover i wanted to hover and like i'm trying to get how to make this thing hover with that you know killing people right yeah good call yeah exactly i thought like maybe we could make it hover but like uh not too high you know so like maybe it can hover like a a meter above the ground or something like that, you know, like, uh, if you plummet, you blow out the suspension, but you're not going to die.

[700] So maybe you go six feet, I don't know, six feet, probably fully okay.

[701] You're not going to die either.

[702] Probably not.

[703] So if we just put a height limit on it, it's probably, probably fine.

[704] And would it be able to travel while it's hovering?

[705] Yeah.

[706] So you'll be able to go six feet off the ground and go how fast?

[707] Well, uh, you go pretty fast, but the, you're going to be time limited.

[708] Right.

[709] Like a jet, like a jet fighter fire.

[710] There's going to be a super high pressure, like ultra high pressure air bottle in the...

[711] Oh.

[712] So the standard roads would have like two back seats, two like kid seats, you know, in the back, like small seats like a back of a Porsche or something.

[713] Or if you get the, I don't know, the SpaceX option package, then in that place where the two rear seats are would be as a high pressure carbon -over -wrap pressure vessel.

[714] So high, you know, I don't know.

[715] 10 ,000 PSI or something like that.

[716] And then a bunch of thrusters.

[717] And so, like, at minimum, I'm confident we could do a thruster where the license plate flips down, you know, James Bond style, and there's a rocket thruster behind it.

[718] And that gives you three tons of thrust.

[719] Oh, for acceleration.

[720] Yeah.

[721] So that would be on the ground.

[722] That would be on the ground.

[723] This thing would move like about out of hell.

[724] Jesus crap, but it already goes 0 to 60 in 1 .9 seconds.

[725] That's the sedan, or the four door.

[726] What?

[727] Yeah, the new Model S plaid that we start shipping next month, or this month, is, we just tested it on the motor trend spec.

[728] Zero to 60 is 1 .96 seconds.

[729] I have never driven my Tesla and go, why does this thing a little fucking faster?

[730] Yeah.

[731] That mean, the one I have, the Model S is 2 .4, right?

[732] Yeah.

[733] Which is preposterous.

[734] It's so great.

[735] I take people in it.

[736] Yeah, they've never experienced anything like it.

[737] No. entire life.

[738] My friend Tim Dillon is like, so what's the deal with these Teslas?

[739] I go, you want to freak out?

[740] You want to see something fucking crazy?

[741] I picked him up at the improv, and we drove to the comedy store.

[742] Yeah.

[743] And I took him up Laurel Kenny.

[744] Are you ready?

[745] Yeah.

[746] And I never take it out a ludicrous mode, by the way.

[747] I keep it in ludicrous mode all the time.

[748] Yeah, it's fun.

[749] I stomped on the gas, well, not the gas, the accelerator, and he started screaming.

[750] He was like, ah!

[751] What the fuck?

[752] I go, yeah, it's what the fuck.

[753] This is crazy.

[754] It's crazy.

[755] It's crazy.

[756] Yeah.

[757] So this is significantly faster than that, just for the plaid.

[758] Yeah, so the new plaid, yeah.

[759] It's a half second quicker to 60.

[760] Pretty close, yeah.

[761] Yeah, like, I mean, every millisecond really matters when you start getting that fast.

[762] I thought plaid was going to ship later in the year.

[763] Yeah, we've...

[764] You juiced it up?

[765] We managed to make it go faster.

[766] Oh, okay.

[767] We're both ways.

[768] And the plaid has a wider wheelbase, too, right?

[769] It does.

[770] Yeah, and so it handles better?

[771] Is that the idea behind that?

[772] Yeah, it does have better handling.

[773] Like, we're trying to get to, on the Nobuhring, get to, like, the low seven -minute mark.

[774] Really?

[775] Yeah.

[776] And then, you know, with further improvements, I think we could bust seven minutes on the Nerva Gring, which would be a pretty wicked outcome.

[777] What is the record right now with the Nerva Gring?

[778] Is it the Portion 918?

[779] Like, what has the record?

[780] Something crazy like that, right?

[781] There's no production car.

[782] I think no production car has gotten under seven.

[783] Oh, really?

[784] As far as I know.

[785] And even the ones that are closer, that they say our production are, they do a bunch of changes.

[786] Right.

[787] Like change the tires, aerodynamics.

[788] Yeah.

[789] But it's like, I think there's potential to have a car that as delivered can beat seven seconds on November bring.

[790] Isn't it funny that there's this one track that's the gold standard for almost all vehicles?

[791] Like if you look at like road and track or motor trend, do you want to find out how badass this new sports car is?

[792] it's like what number does it do in the Nerva Ring?

[793] Well, yeah.

[794] Now, Nervig Ring, to be totally frank, is not representative of normal.

[795] No. It's not normal.

[796] Yeah.

[797] It's the hottest one to, you can't game it, you know?

[798] Right.

[799] So, but I think for everyday driving, it's the acceleration that really matters.

[800] Like, it's like, you know, you're at a, you know, the light goes green, boom, who's across the intersection fastest.

[801] The new plat will do, you know, a sub -9 second quarter mile, and with an extra trap speed and a quarter mile of 155 miles an hour.

[802] And it's a sedan.

[803] Yeah.

[804] It's a four -door.

[805] It can hit 60 miles an hour before it's cleared the intersection.

[806] That's insane.

[807] Insane.

[808] That's insane.

[809] Yeah.

[810] Wow.

[811] It's uncomfortably fast.

[812] Is that steering wheel legit?

[813] Yeah.

[814] Is it legal?

[815] Yeah.

[816] I mean, formerly, they use a yoga.

[817] in Formula One.

[818] They don't have a steering wheel.

[819] Right, but you're not on the highway in Formula One car.

[820] Yeah, yeah.

[821] I like driving like this.

[822] Like resting my hand on the top of the wheel.

[823] Well, I think autopilot's getting good enough that you want to need to drive most of the time, unless you really want to.

[824] I like driving.

[825] Okay.

[826] Yeah.

[827] I use autopilot sometimes.

[828] I mean, but most of the time I drive.

[829] I find it's like you can rest your hand on your knee, like kind of thing, and it, and, uh, it's, It works great.

[830] Anyway, it looks awesome.

[831] It does look cool.

[832] Yeah.

[833] Yeah, it's very spaceshipy.

[834] Yeah.

[835] That's great.

[836] And all the stuff is on the steering wheel now, too, right?

[837] The blinkers and all that jazz.

[838] Even the horn is like a little button, right?

[839] Yeah.

[840] When the horn is already kind of the center of the steering wheel anyway, but...

[841] Is it still the center of the steering wheel as well?

[842] Yeah, yeah.

[843] But isn't it a button?

[844] I thought on the yoke, there's a button for the horn.

[845] Yeah.

[846] Yeah, I...

[847] Which you have to really...

[848] I used to have a car that had a button for the horn.

[849] I think it was an accurate NSX.

[850] Okay.

[851] And it had...

[852] Instead of the center hub being the horn, there was a button.

[853] Yeah.

[854] I never remembered it.

[855] Well, with the...

[856] There are no yokes.

[857] Sorry, there are no stalks.

[858] So there's a yoke, but there's no storks.

[859] So the car, for example, will default to driving in the...

[860] Like, if you just get in, when you press the...

[861] the brake pedal and then press the accelerator, it will figure out whether you want to go backwards and forward based on.

[862] That's crazy.

[863] How's that possible?

[864] Well, it just, you know, looks and sees, is there an obstacle in front?

[865] Okay, probably don't wag it, so you probably want to go backwards.

[866] Right, but what if you want to go backwards and there's nothing in front of you?

[867] Yeah, what if it's ambiguous?

[868] Right.

[869] So it would default to the invoes of whatever you started.

[870] And then you can just, you can just swipe on the screen and change direction.

[871] but isn't it easier to just hit like that way to get reverse lift up you'll you'll see it's like you almost never do you do it yeah yeah so you've been this is something you've driven and it's intuitive yeah once you get rid of the stork and have the car figure it out it's annoying to have a stalk after that really it's annoying you're talking to a guy who likes manual gearboxes sure i like i like going yeah i mean i like drive on manual too it's fun yeah it's cool yeah there's different kinds of cool though like I the one what I tell people about the Tesla I go listen I love cars I love all kinds of cars but the Tesla makes other cars seem dumb it does it makes them seem dumb yeah it just it's so fast it's so quiet everything about it the navigation screen it's so big like why wouldn't it be big yeah it's better it's better to be big yeah it keeps the software keeps getting upgraded the navigation system the ability to just press that button and say navigate to and then it goes on the internet and finds out what you're looking for and it finds it restaurants whatever you're looking for it's fucking amazing oh there's like a little tip for the tesla if you just swipe down on the navigate button it automatically figures out if you want to go to home or work and navigates there so if you're if you're at at home and obviously you know how to get to work but do you know the fastest way to get to work so is these like ways type technology yeah like what's the on a traffic adjusted basis what's the best to go to work.

[872] But how does it adjust?

[873] Like, what is it getting your data from?

[874] It's downloading traffic data from the internet.

[875] Okay, so Waze uses traffic data from the internet plus user input.

[876] So, like, it takes an extra beat to get the traffic data from the internet.

[877] The idea of Waze is that you're getting it from users in real time.

[878] Like, there's a car accident.

[879] Yeah.

[880] People program it in.

[881] Hey, folks, there's a fucking car accident here.

[882] And then you get it right away.

[883] Whereas on the internet, you're a couple beats behind.

[884] Yeah, I mean, we get the traffic data from Google.

[885] Okay.

[886] Oh, so it is for Waze.

[887] Well, Waze and Google is slightly different, but they have similar datasets, yeah.

[888] Yeah.

[889] So basically, like I say, there's an accident on the way to work or road closure or something like that.

[890] We were helpful to know that before you encountered it.

[891] So if you just swipe down, it'll automatically navigate to work.

[892] And then also the autopilot will work basically seamlessly on the way to work.

[893] Like, we have the beta out, and beta's working pretty well.

[894] It's going to get super good.

[895] and it'll basically be able to drive you all the way to work.

[896] Automatically, you don't even, like, you're basically just get in and it'll assume you're going to work if it's Monday or Friday in the morning.

[897] Or you could say a program, maybe go to school, drop the kids off at school, then go to work.

[898] You just do this stuff automatically.

[899] You don't want to take the perspective of all input is error.

[900] If you have to do something, it's an error.

[901] Make the error smaller.

[902] all input is error unless there's a game all input is error well that's the other thing too that has games like you can play chess yeah you can play chess we got we got the backgammon with the same with the aesthetic described in lost jj avers asked for backgammon so we put backgammon in with the lost aesthetic it's got this really fun game called polytopia I would say that's my top recommendation for any game in the car is play Politopia.

[903] What is that?

[904] It's like, it's a real fun strategy game.

[905] That's, uh, you'll see, like, just, it's the top of the list.

[906] This is not something you can play while you're driving.

[907] Well, I mean, you're not supposed to play it like, that would be illegal.

[908] But will it work while you're on autopilot?

[909] So if you're on autopilot, can you also play chess?

[910] Well, you have to tap a button that says you're the passenger.

[911] Oh.

[912] Kind of like ways.

[913] Okay.

[914] Kind of like ways.

[915] Yeah, so it's open for interpretation.

[916] So if you are some chess freak, you could literally play chess on your way to work.

[917] Yeah.

[918] Wow.

[919] I mean, in the future, as the car becomes more and more autonomous, it's going to be really about entertainment.

[920] Entertainment, productivity.

[921] Yeah.

[922] So it's just probably entertainment.

[923] First and foremost, and then productivity as well.

[924] Do you have specific things that you do on your way?

[925] Do you listen to books on tape?

[926] Do you listen to music?

[927] Yeah, you should listen to music.

[928] Oh, those fucking pirate songs you like.

[929] The sea shanties?

[930] I thought you were joking about that until you played them.

[931] Yeah.

[932] Pretty catchy.

[933] They're pretty catchy.

[934] That's what's crazy.

[935] I started researching sea shanties.

[936] I did not know that it was really a thing.

[937] Yeah.

[938] Yeah.

[939] Yeah.

[940] Jamie, do you know?

[941] Do you know about the sea shanties?

[942] Oh, my God.

[943] Yeah.

[944] And it's actually something really appealing about people singing in harmony.

[945] Yeah.

[946] It's actually way better than you think.

[947] It's also like it's got like a weird Renaissance fair type thing to it.

[948] You feel like you're all together in this old -timey thing, you know, pretending.

[949] Yeah, very strange.

[950] Yeah, it's very odd.

[951] so um it seems like one of the top reasons to be a pirate would be sea shanties and we have tropical taperns and um i don't know cool outfits cool outfits yeah you get to scarf dress up yeah you get to dress weird yeah if you lose your leg they got pegs for you yeah you got a parrot yeah parrot how that happened now what about uh the truck when is that thing going to happen uh cyber truck yeah so we're building a big factory here in Austin that's where we'll make the cyber truck yeah now did you decide to do this in austin from the jump or did along the way you decide to move the cyber factory the cyber truck factory here yeah well uh frankly i was just well austin is a bit like many california so i was like asking the team in california all right where where do you want to what's your top choice or, you know, the next big U .S. factory location.

[952] Like, well, where do you want to spend time?

[953] And the number one choice was Austin.

[954] And then I was like, okay, okay, what's number two?

[955] Silence.

[956] Yeah.

[957] So many California here in Austin.

[958] It is a lot, right?

[959] Yeah.

[960] Yeah, it's, I mean, I hesitate talking about it because I've talked about it too much.

[961] But it's very utopian.

[962] Yeah.

[963] I think Austin is going to be the biggest boomtown that America has seen in half century.

[964] I think it's a great response to the fucked up government in some of the other cities.

[965] Yeah.

[966] I mean, I think, you know, yeah.

[967] I think we do need to make sure that Austin does not, you know, people moving from California don't inadvertently recreate the issues that they have moved, that caused them to move in the first place.

[968] Yes.

[969] The balance of Austin is a blue city and a red state.

[970] And it's almost like it kind of has to stay red.

[971] Not kind of has to.

[972] I think it does.

[973] You need the certain amount of freedoms, but then you need the philosophical.

[974] Like there's a bend to Austin that's very progressive and open -minded and artistic.

[975] And the restaurants are amazing.

[976] The people are really cool.

[977] But it needs to be sort of embraced by guns and God.

[978] freedom like that's part of the whole mixture that makes it work and that's you know it's kind of there's a metaphor of life in there somewhere you know that it's protected by the rest of the philosophy of Texas which is a wild crazy place that has more tigers in private collections than in all of the wild of the world really yes I had a bit about it in my 2016 special Texas That's a lot of tigers, man. Has more tigers in captivity than all of the wild of planet Earth.

[979] Okay.

[980] These are people's yards.

[981] They've got a tiger in the backyard.

[982] You can, in your place, wherever you live, you could get a fucking zebra.

[983] Like, I have a friend who lives out in dripping springs.

[984] He saw a zebra.

[985] Okay.

[986] A zebra got loose.

[987] There's elk out there.

[988] Wild elk.

[989] Just roaming around.

[990] somebody had an elk and jumped the fence now there's an elk out there's an axis deer in my neighborhood I saw an axis deer I didn't see it my wife saw it she described to me I know what it is I said that's an act she's like it was like it had white spots like a fawn but it was really big I'm like that's an axis deer so there's access deer yeah they're from India and tigers eat them okay but these animals are they're wild here because people bought them and they put them in their yard then they jump the fence this place is crazy but that's why it works the reason why it works is because people have so much freedom and then you have the University of Texas you have Austin which is a long history of art and music Stevie Ray Vaughn and Sixth Street and so many great musicians have come from here that it's got both of these things together it's got this wild freedom and they embrace both parts of it you know this is that's the cool thing about this place yeah yeah absolutely I've never felt more at home I fucking love it here That's a cool city.

[991] Like I said, it's going to be the biggest boomtown in that America's seen in 50 years.

[992] Yeah, I agree.

[993] Yeah.

[994] I think so.

[995] Mega boom.

[996] Comedy clubs are moving here like crazy.

[997] They're moving here left and right.

[998] Cap City's reopening.

[999] The Creek in the Cave just announced they're going to open here.

[1000] That's cool.

[1001] I'm trying to open up a place here.

[1002] There's other clubs that are trying to open up here.

[1003] Comedians are moving in here by the droves.

[1004] It's a wild place.

[1005] Yeah, well, you know, when so you and Dave, Chappelle.

[1006] That was great.

[1007] That was fun.

[1008] That's a great venue.

[1009] Yeah, we did that Monday and Tuesday, too.

[1010] That's cool.

[1011] It's just, there's something special going on.

[1012] It just feels fun.

[1013] It feels fun to be a part of the escape from this wretched dreariness of the COVID pandemic.

[1014] It was just like this horrible feeling of having no power and no autonomy and being controlled by the government and being told what to do and it didn't seem logical and you're watching all these businesses fail and you're like, there's got to be a better way and like there is no better way wear an extra mask three masks wear three masks and stay indoors and holy shit yeah yeah it didn't make any sense no um you can't talk people out of a good panic they sure love it they love panic porn yeah fear porn is like that's people's favorite indulgence yeah that's why i say rule number one just like Douglas Adams don't panic but there's always people that that don't and those people they get together and they they they take solace in the fact there's other people that also don't want to buy into this shit sure yeah um anyway so orson's or so the cyber truck yeah so we're we're gonna build it uh our factory is only like two miles away from the airport oh probably shouldn't tell people that no i mean you can literally drive you can see it from the highway do you anticipate visitors sure i mean we'll we'll offer tours and that kind of thing Will you offer, like, if someone wants to come and get their truck from the factory and drive it off the floor?

[1015] You bet.

[1016] Ooh, that's exciting.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] That's exciting.

[1019] We've got a lot of land.

[1020] Yeah.

[1021] No, I know.

[1022] We're 2 ,500 acres right next to the airport.

[1023] That's fucking cool.

[1024] Yeah.

[1025] That's amazing.

[1026] It's cool.

[1027] So when you're designing this cyber truck, you know, you had your launch and you showed the shape of it.

[1028] There was a lot.

[1029] Like, I sent you a picture.

[1030] I remember I sent you a picture.

[1031] I was like, this is fucking cool.

[1032] And you're like, that's not real.

[1033] And I was like, oh.

[1034] Oh, okay.

[1035] Like, there's a lot of fake pictures before the initial launch.

[1036] Oh, yeah.

[1037] You tricked a lot of people because people thought it was going to look much, even though the picture that I sent you was pretty fucking cool.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] What you designed was, is that ultimately going to be what it really looks like?

[1040] It's going to be that shape?

[1041] Has there been any revisions?

[1042] No, that's pretty much what it'll look like with very small differences.

[1043] you know we adjusted the size a few percent um but uh in what way well we it's i don't know like i think around three percent smaller why why did you decide to do that uh well you know it'd be a couple inches too big for the tunnel oh okay so for the boring tunnel well i mean we did actually drive through the boring tunnel in a side of a truck with j leno which was a hair raising because it was a little bit too big it was pretty snuck oh no imagine if you killed Jay Leno yeah that'd be awkward how do we ever explain that he's the biggest petrol head ever and he even loves your car yeah the cyber truck is like CGI in real life you're standing right in front of it and it looks like this is special effect so that's cool it'll change the look of the roads that it looks like anything it looks like alien technology Yeah, and when is that coming out?

[1044] We'll have probably limited production, end of this year, and volume production, hopefully next year.

[1045] Have you ever considered something alternative to air -inflated tires?

[1046] Have you seen some of these alternatives that have essentially spaces in between the upper wall and the wheel?

[1047] Have you thought about that?

[1048] Yeah, we haven't found a, you know, a tire that.

[1049] Because you've got to worry about road noise.

[1050] You've got to take out potholes and bumps.

[1051] You've got to have, like, good grip, but you also want to have low rolling resistance so that, you know, get good range.

[1052] Those are a lot of things to try to put into one tire.

[1053] Then if you also say, and it can't have air, it's like, this is hard.

[1054] But you're talking, I'm talking to a guy who's putting people on Mars.

[1055] You can't figure out an airless tire?

[1056] It's just, it's an incremental constraint.

[1057] I'm not saying they won't be such a thing.

[1058] I think they will be too precise.

[1059] Because it seems like we've just gotten way too comfortable with this idea that tires blow out and you get flats.

[1060] It's very annoying.

[1061] Flats are annoying.

[1062] Yeah, very annoying.

[1063] Non -sport tires, by the way, are much less likely to have flats because they're more bounce.

[1064] Yeah, like let's say you hit, you have more bounce.

[1065] hit at the edge of a pothole, if you've got more rubber wall, you know, you've got a longer way to go before you pinch the tire.

[1066] So sport tires tend to have more flat, especially in L .A. pot holes, that's the worst.

[1067] There was one particular pot hole on Sunset Boulevard.

[1068] It would just take out so many modelists, like a boom, boom, both sides of the car.

[1069] Really?

[1070] Yeah.

[1071] Damn.

[1072] Yeah, Stephen Spielberg was actually, it's like, hey, Stephen Spielberg is like, two tires went, and I was like, God damn it, I know that pothole.

[1073] I feel like you can pay to fix that.

[1074] I mean, fix that pot hole.

[1075] It seems like, that's actually, it would be like, man, they sure are a lot of taxes in California for roads this bad.

[1076] Yeah.

[1077] The place is a mess.

[1078] Yeah.

[1079] So ultimately one day that's a possibility of having some sort of an airless tire.

[1080] Because I've seen prototypes.

[1081] I've never seen one on an actual car in physical in real life.

[1082] Yeah, I think the technology is gradually getting there.

[1083] And I think for something like a robo taxi where you want to have the tires last for a long time and not go flat, it's going to make a lot of sense.

[1084] Yeah.

[1085] But other than that, essentially most of what we saw in the demo is the same.

[1086] it's still going to have.

[1087] Now, there was the issue with the glass when accidentally shot.

[1088] How annoying was that?

[1089] That was shocking.

[1090] I mean, we literally spent, you know, hours beforehand with, like, lots of people throwing steel balls at the window.

[1091] Right.

[1092] I mean, we must have thrown at least a dozen people must have thrown steel balls at the same window, though?

[1093] Yeah, same damn window.

[1094] Isn't that the problem?

[1095] Yeah, it turns out that might be the problem If you keep throwing steel bowls Eventually it's gonna break And I did ask fronts to really wind up And give it all You know I should have like Oh take it easy You know Give me a fake wind up Yeah we don't need the fast bowl But I did ask for the fast bowl And I'm like okay let's go for the slightly Not slightly slower ball Do you think it was because you guys were hitting The side wall with a sledgehammer first?

[1096] Yeah that could be like we're trying to figure how they how they held this thing break because I mean we were just bouncing steel balls off it all day right and we I think possibly what might have happened there was that hitting it with a sledgehammer might have cracked the base of it and once you crack the base of it it loses all this strength right and then and then it just have a hairline fracture and then then you hit it anywhere it's going to shatter did you recreate that we didn't it's also hard with test glass like with you know like when you actually do production glass it's much more of us than demo glass because production glass you you know you you're like demo glass you just can't you have to have like massive tools and ovens and everything to make the production glass it's like and if you don't you know that takes a while to do so the production glass is always better than than the demo glass nonetheless it should have worked and it was probably because we racked it with a sledgehammer and then threw the steel bulleted but it will be bulletproof to a handgun now why did you decide to do all that make it bulletproof and make it like you could hit it with a sledgehammer like what was the motivation to make it different than just like a Model S?

[1097] I mean I think it's like what's cool about a truck trucks are tough and like okay what's tougher than a truck tank?

[1098] What about a tank?

[1099] from the future.

[1100] Okay.

[1101] Now you have a tank from the future.

[1102] Okay.

[1103] That's bulletproof.

[1104] Yeah.

[1105] And how's that compared to, you know, it's way tougher than a regular truck.

[1106] Look, it's fucking cool.

[1107] There's no doubt.

[1108] I mean, having a character from the future.

[1109] That's been like a halo with a rocket launcher in the back.

[1110] Have you thought about doing something like that?

[1111] Somebody's going to do it for sure.

[1112] For military use?

[1113] Yeah.

[1114] Seems like it.

[1115] I mean, I don't know.

[1116] That sounds like it'd be fun.

[1117] I mean, you should, like, like, you know, cruising around the field and, like, loving, shooting rockets.

[1118] Now, is there ever a possibility that these things are going to be solar powered?

[1119] Is that someday, is this solar technology going to get to a point where...

[1120] It's kind of a surf area issue.

[1121] So, I mean, I think we could possibly put the cover of the truck bed, you know, put some solar cells in that.

[1122] So if you just leave it out in the sun, you know, probably, you know, recharges a few miles a day type of thing.

[1123] Oh, it would only be a few miles.

[1124] But what about one day?

[1125] Is it possible the technology could evolve to the point where they could extract more?

[1126] No?

[1127] No. So there's about one kilowatt per square meter of solar energy.

[1128] And then you're going to get probably 20, 25 percent efficiency.

[1129] So you've got 200 watts a square meter.

[1130] And then that's assuming that you're normal to the sun.

[1131] So, you know, like you're at the right angles, basically like, are you facing the sun or not?

[1132] So, you know, we add all those things up.

[1133] You say how many square meters can you really get?

[1134] And then how many what hours per mile?

[1135] So it has basically, if you could do 10 miles a day, you'd be lucky.

[1136] Really?

[1137] Yeah.

[1138] And that's not going to change.

[1139] No. Wow.

[1140] That sucks.

[1141] It'd be cool if it just ran, I mean, is it possible to make a car entirely of solar panels?

[1142] Like the entire surface of it, solar panels?

[1143] Like in a place like L .A. or somewhere where it's never cloudy.

[1144] and drive around that thing?

[1145] No, you're going to burn off energy fast and you can drive.

[1146] If you don't drive that often, that's a different story.

[1147] The only option is to have a solar paneled home and extract the power that way and charge your power.

[1148] Yeah, a cell panel, a house ago, a lot of area.

[1149] Yeah.

[1150] So, you could possibly have like some, you know, solar thing that unfolds, that has a lot more surface area.

[1151] So when you park it at work or something like that, Yeah, but it just, it just needs area, right, you know, so like I said, you know, think about like maybe 200 watts a square meter, you know, maybe 20 watts a square foot, something like that.

[1152] Now, the range of the new cars is much longer.

[1153] Yes.

[1154] Like, what is the range of the standard model S that's available right now?

[1155] It's like 300 and...

[1156] Yeah, 350, 360.

[1157] I don't know.

[1158] It's a lot.

[1159] Actually, the new one, the new long -range model S is over 400 -mile range.

[1160] The new one.

[1161] Even the old one, the old one was even 400 miles.

[1162] The new one is 400 miles, too.

[1163] But the plaid will get you up to...

[1164] So the current plaid is going to be around 400 miles range.

[1165] There's Plaid Plus, if you...

[1166] That's maybe a year from now.

[1167] That'll be on the order of 500 miles.

[1168] That's a lot.

[1169] I hear drive 500 miles anyway.

[1170] Well, if you drive across country.

[1171] Yeah, it was pretty rare.

[1172] I mean, like, you know.

[1173] For most commuters.

[1174] Yeah.

[1175] I mean, even if you're driving 100 miles an hour, you know, like, it's still, you know, you're still going to be drive for a while before you run out of battery.

[1176] And the truck, what is the cyber trucks range going to be?

[1177] We have to pick a range, actually, for the initial version.

[1178] It'll be some number over 300 miles.

[1179] Now, when you say pick a range in terms of, like, the battery array that you put in?

[1180] Yeah, I'm actually like, what's the pack size.

[1181] So do you have to take into account, like, how much weight it's going to add, how long it's going to take to charge?

[1182] Yeah.

[1183] I mean, there's like, basically the things that matter are the frontal area times the drag coefficient for aerodynamic drag and then rolling resistance, which is a function of mass and the tire efficiency.

[1184] see.

[1185] So this has a big frontal area.

[1186] It's not very aerodynamic and the tires are not super they're not optimized for long range.

[1187] It looks very aerodynamic.

[1188] The truck?

[1189] You actually don't want a more on.

[1190] You don't want sharp angles.

[1191] You don't want sharp angles.

[1192] See, that's the problem.

[1193] It looks to me I'll be like, yeah, that's slicing right through like a knife.

[1194] You want it rounded.

[1195] You want it rounded.

[1196] yeah um so you you want the air to have like smooth like if you're a little air particle you don't want the bumps right you want to like smooth just like you're driving over the car no bumps right just just you know easy going sharp sharp angles are bad for arrow so that arrow will contribute to the lack of range so it'll minimize the range somewhat it'll have a drag coefficient that's pretty good for a truck um because the the, in closing the bed at an angle, that helps a lot.

[1197] Like, normal trucks go down the highway, it's like a barn door.

[1198] Right, right.

[1199] I mean, it's like having a parachute in the back.

[1200] You might as well be flying, yeah.

[1201] It's like not far different from driving with a parachute.

[1202] Yeah.

[1203] So you can think of like drag is basically, it's like the integrated pressure profile over the car.

[1204] So if you create a low pressure zone in the back of your car where you don't like fill in the gap.

[1205] Like you're cruising through the air, you're making a hole through.

[1206] the air and the air is trying to fill in the gap.

[1207] And if you've got a, if you've got like a sharp, you know, sharp transition into the truck bed, it's like a big low pressure zone, basically.

[1208] And that's, that's bad for drag.

[1209] So having the slope back where that's got the truck bed cover, that's very helpful.

[1210] But the sharp angles are not helpful.

[1211] So the range of that truck is yet to be determined you're trying to figure it out man it'll be over 300 miles what about the roadster um i mean some of these things we've got to decide like what's actually the best product you know how much range do you really want you know um if you ask people that say well i want you know 600 miles range i'm like okay well that that means most of the time you're holding around a battery pack you're not going to use you know so and it'll slow you down it'll inhibit handling yeah it's like what others like why don't have a car that's got a fuel tank that has 2 ,000 miles range you know like go and fill it up like once every every six months or every three months or something right but people they basically figured out like actually carrying that much fuel around it's not not you know it's not worth it right so so I think you know there's some of the stuff you can do for kind of like bragging rights and like but then you know brain rights are going to get old fast.

[1212] So it's more like, what are you going to like on a day -to -day basis?

[1213] What's like, what maximizes the area under the curve of owner happiness?

[1214] So it'll have enough range that you'll never have to worry about range.

[1215] Let me put it that way.

[1216] Okay.

[1217] Yeah.

[1218] So somewhere...

[1219] You can drive from L .A. to San Francisco, no problem.

[1220] Austin to Dallas, no problem.

[1221] So a few hours of driving.

[1222] Easy.

[1223] Many hours of driving.

[1224] Many hours of driving.

[1225] Now, I heard you talk recently about a possibility of a van like sprinter van style yeah now a van because you got a big flat area that's actually where solar could start to make a little more sense you know because you could have a lot of area so for the roof yeah and I think you also have like maybe a roof where you know it's solar and then when it's stationary like maybe awnings yeah it's like it goes out and provide shade and maybe triples your area or something like that.

[1226] Now, if you go like, okay, now triple the area and you've got a big flat surface, now you could start having, maybe having charging enough that you could start getting like 30 miles a day, that kind of thing.

[1227] Well, that's interesting because there's a lot of people that use those for camping.

[1228] Yeah, yeah.

[1229] Like my friend Tom Green, you know, Tom Green?

[1230] I think so, yeah.

[1231] He used to be on MTV and actor and comedian.

[1232] He's traveling across the country right now In one of those vans Like style van I think you got a RAM A Dodge Ram vera Sprinter van style Yeah And if you had something like that And he has an awning that extends And he's got a bunch of Yeah And he does a podcast out of it If you had something like that It seems like that I think that would be great You know Like you could have like a van that just You know Even if the apocalypse came around You can still drive Yeah And maybe you can even have some sort of an external tent that you could set up that's just a solar tent yeah that could juice you up during the day or something something on those lines yeah there's options solar it's all about area yeah yeah to call it 200 watts a square meter maybe 20 watts a square foot and but i don't understand that this there's no way that that's ever going to get more efficient no no i mean the sun the solar incidents is, somewhat coincidentally, roughly 1 ,000 watts per square meter, or, you know, in a 100, you know, in a 10 foot by, sorry, sorry, like, a 10 square feet ish, there's a 1 ,000 watts.

[1233] And then that includes all the heating and everything else.

[1234] So then you have to say, like, okay, for a photoelectric effect, you're only, you're going to capture photons.

[1235] within a certain band and you're not going to get them all because basically what happens with the photon you know hits the electron and gets it to jump over a gap and run around to the other side that's what happens with the photoelectric effect it's just hits a just it hits a photon with the right energy hits the electron gets excited jumps over a gap in the semiconductor and races around to the other side.

[1236] That's electric, and then that creates an electric circuit.

[1237] So you have to say, okay, well, how are you going to get those, you know, electrons just the right energy, like what's, what kind of photon incoming energy you've got?

[1238] I was like, yeah, it basically pretty much tops out around 30 % efficiency for a silicon system.

[1239] Now if you have triple junction gallimocyanide, you do a lot better, but that's very expensive.

[1240] so but if you're talking about like how much better could it do yeah like a mid 30s maybe 40 a big price increase but still not enough to actually power the entire vehicle no no you're talking about and you have to say like for practical purposes how's it going to do um because you can't have like crazy money stuff in a car you know when you say big money like how much more 10 times the cost at least oh wow yeah i mean you don't see anyone i mean the only thing like there's satellites that have like the trouble junction galleon last night stuff you know but frankly even for satellites it's questionable for our satellites for starlink we don't bother with that that's another thing i want to talk to you about star link star link is semi -controversial right because on one hand people think it's great that you're going to provide the internet through these satellites that are flying around.

[1241] Sure.

[1242] But astronomers and a lot of people that are, you know, amateur astronomers.

[1243] It's mostly the amateurs.

[1244] I mean, there's, the, the, we've talked with the, the professional astronomers and assuage their concerns.

[1245] Yeah.

[1246] Yeah.

[1247] But the amateurs are pissed.

[1248] Yeah, they're like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, pro -level guys, they know what they're talking about.

[1249] Um, um, so, um, we'll make sure that.

[1250] this is not like an obstacle to science.

[1251] What the obstacle would be the visual aspect of it, right?

[1252] The seeing these things flying around, that would be it?

[1253] Yeah, honestly, it's pretty hard to find our satellites.

[1254] Once they've reached orbit, it's hard to find them.

[1255] And we have trouble finding our satellites.

[1256] They were like, we're like, oh, we got like...

[1257] But I've seen pictures of them.

[1258] Yeah.

[1259] Well, first of all, so during the initial...

[1260] Like, when they get tossed out of the rocket, briefly they were tumbling.

[1261] And so when they're tumbling, they'll twinkle, and then you'll see them.

[1262] Oh, so this was just the initial...

[1263] Yeah, it's just the initial...

[1264] Orbitus.

[1265] They just got tossed out of the, you know, with upper stage deploy.

[1266] The way we deploy them, we don't even really have a separation mechanism.

[1267] You can see the video online, but we kind of time down like a bundle of hay, and then we let go of the rods that are holding this big bundle of satellites down.

[1268] But before that, we rotate the same.

[1269] stage.

[1270] So the stage is rotating and the satellites get just like if you took a deck of cards and they all get thrown out because they're different amounts of rotational inertia.

[1271] And what kind of bandwidth are these going to provide?

[1272] Oh, so, yeah, I mean, I think long term, long term we're talking about gigabit level.

[1273] Really?

[1274] Yeah, gigabit low latency.

[1275] So you can play like a fast -twitch video game, download a movie super fast.

[1276] it would be great and this is going to be global yeah and is it global by the satellites that you've already launched initially or will require a series of satellites in different parts of the country or different parts of the world well these satellites are actually zooming around the earth at 25 times the speed of sound and there's currently 36 planes so I mean to the satellite the satellite feels like it's going in a circle but Earth's rotating underneath the satellite.

[1277] So the ground track looks like a sine wave.

[1278] So if you look to say like the, from the ground perspective, the satellite's doing this like sine wave with a peak at 53 degrees.

[1279] And then there's 36 planes.

[1280] So they're all doing like a sine wave, you know, just offset by a little bit.

[1281] And but like I said, like space is real big.

[1282] So they're in danger of whacking it into each other.

[1283] It was super big up there.

[1284] They didn't really even get close.

[1285] So, anyway, so they were zooming around Earth.

[1286] We got a lot of coverage around 53 degrees.

[1287] And then we just started to launch some polar satellites, which will go have an orbital inclination that allows them to kind of go, have visibility to the poles, almost, you know.

[1288] Who the fuck is that for?

[1289] Just in case?

[1290] I mean, best people that live up there, you know.

[1291] I guess there's a few.

[1292] Yeah.

[1293] There's Antarctic Research Station.

[1294] Okay.

[1295] So they're going to have internet access.

[1296] It's spectacular.

[1297] They can play Halo up there.

[1298] Yeah, they're going to go from having trash for internet to having incredible internet.

[1299] Wow.

[1300] Yeah.

[1301] So it'll be the whole world.

[1302] Yeah.

[1303] Wow.

[1304] Yeah, everywhere on Earth will have high bandwidth, low latency, internet.

[1305] And will you be able to increase the bandwidth?

[1306] over time through software?

[1307] There's a lot that can be improved with software.

[1308] But I should say that there's going to be a role for many different types of connectivity.

[1309] So Starlink is great for low to medium population density.

[1310] But the satellites are actually not great for high density urban.

[1311] So you're actually better off having 5G for that.

[1312] Really?

[1313] Yeah.

[1314] Because the other thing is that satellite is pretty far away.

[1315] Right.

[1316] So you got that satellite.

[1317] It's over 500 kilometers away, even if it's right above you.

[1318] On a slant distance, it could be, you know, upwards of 1 ,000 kilometers away.

[1319] So this would be fantastic for rural areas.

[1320] Yeah.

[1321] It will provide some amount of connectivity in dense open environments, but um equivalent to like what 3g no it's more like so i think of like basically like what's the spot size of a satellite like when it's it's putting a beam down in a location and how how big is that beam um and that's that's that's so it's got a certain amount of bandwidth for that beam and that that beam is just like it's a pretty big like think of like a flashlight or something right and what is it's the same thing it's just it reaches a few blocks like if you had a flashlight up there and you're pointing down, it's like, okay, you're going to illuminate an area.

[1322] Right.

[1323] So flashlights is just shooting out photons in the visible spectrum.

[1324] We're shooting out photons in the KUK band.

[1325] So much bigger wavelength than light, than visible light.

[1326] So anyway, so these things, so we got a bunch of spot beams, basically.

[1327] But these beams are giant.

[1328] by cellular standards, like they might be, you know, several miles diameter on that beam.

[1329] So then you got, you know, say for argument's sake, 10 -mile diameter, you know, 16 -kilometer diameter beam.

[1330] This is a lot of area.

[1331] And all of the, all those terminals in that area will get the same information because it's got that beam.

[1332] That's just going down to that spot.

[1333] Whereas you could have like a 5G tower that's the ones that aren't coursing corona.

[1334] Kidding.

[1335] 5G courses Corona.

[1336] It's a fact.

[1337] Oh, my God.

[1338] Have you seen any of that stuff?

[1339] That's one of the most disturbing things about the Internet.

[1340] Anyway.

[1341] Well, I mean, when technology is magic, then you don't know what to believe.

[1342] Right.

[1343] And when you're a moron, you believe anything.

[1344] Well, a cell tower could have a range of, you know, a mile or, you know, mile slash one and a half kilometers.

[1345] It basically could have like 1 % the area of a satellite beam.

[1346] So like if you had something that was, you know, one mile or, or if I could say, a kilometer or 10, it's going to be the square of that, that is the area.

[1347] So satellites are great for low to medium density.

[1348] 5G is ideal for high density.

[1349] I see.

[1350] And also because you could distribute the towers every mile or so easily and dress them up like trees.

[1351] That always bothers me. I'd rather have...

[1352] I think they should be better at the fake trees.

[1353] I'm like, I feel like, come on, somebody didn't care enough.

[1354] You could definitely have a way better fake tree than that.

[1355] They're so bad.

[1356] They're so bad.

[1357] It looked terrible.

[1358] Who are they tricking?

[1359] No one.

[1360] No one.

[1361] No, I'm like, what is this far?

[1362] Yeah, they're offensive.

[1363] They're more offensive than, like, the most ridiculous fake tits.

[1364] You know, like the big ones that look like basketballs?

[1365] They don't even...

[1366] We cleaved a melon too.

[1367] Yeah, they have no shape that resembles a breast at all.

[1368] Yeah.

[1369] Yeah.

[1370] There's something weird about them, too.

[1371] It's like, I'm not offended by a tower.

[1372] That is the fake.

[1373] Well, the Christmas tree part in the bottom was kind of sweet.

[1374] You could put ornaments on it.

[1375] Is that one at the top right?

[1376] That palm tree one?

[1377] Is that fake?

[1378] No, the left side, Jamie?

[1379] Yeah, yeah.

[1380] I'm sorry, scroll.

[1381] Keeps growing.

[1382] The palm tree one looks pretty good.

[1383] Is that real?

[1384] Wow, that's kind of, not bad.

[1385] Okay.

[1386] That's not bad.

[1387] Yeah, that one's pretty good.

[1388] It's not bad.

[1389] Yeah, if you were driving by that, that wouldn't be offensive.

[1390] Yeah.

[1391] But the one in the middle's not bad either.

[1392] That's kind of a pine tree looking thing.

[1393] It looks like some sort of demented Christmas tree.

[1394] That's a tower?

[1395] Go back to the one you just had that far left.

[1396] That's probably the most impressive.

[1397] The one of the left -hand side, the far left one.

[1398] Because if you had like a forest full of those, like you would just go, these are just like weirdly trimmed trees.

[1399] Yeah, it's not that hard to have a fake tree.

[1400] definitely, you know, a little bit of effort.

[1401] I don't need that, you know, just like I don't need when I pass by a telephone pole.

[1402] I don't need to pretend it's something different.

[1403] It's a fucking cell phone tower.

[1404] Yeah.

[1405] Who decided to make those things into fake trees?

[1406] Like, when did this become a precedent?

[1407] I don't know.

[1408] But you can definitely make a fake tree that is convincing.

[1409] So maybe just a bit more effort in the fakery.

[1410] Yeah.

[1411] Or just make them look cool.

[1412] Make them look like robots.

[1413] Yeah.

[1414] Yeah.

[1415] I have a big Ultraman out there.

[1416] I mean, some people are really worried about, like, cell phone towers.

[1417] I'm thinking they cause, like, radiation or something poisoning.

[1418] This is not true.

[1419] Yeah, people are worried about 5G, right?

[1420] Don't worry about it.

[1421] No?

[1422] Not at all?

[1423] I mean, no. Like, let me go this way.

[1424] Like, if I had cell phones, if I had a helmet of cell phones.

[1425] Right.

[1426] Strap around my head and around my nuts.

[1427] I would not worry.

[1428] Yeah.

[1429] Yeah, I met a dude once who had ball cancer who was convinced his cell phone.

[1430] No. It was in his pocket and that's what gave him ball cancer.

[1431] Nope.

[1432] No?

[1433] No. Okay.

[1434] Hey, buddy.

[1435] Sorry.

[1436] No, it's not, it's, the cell phone is not, um, no. Yeah, this, I didn't know this guy very well, but he was, uh, pretty convinced.

[1437] Meanwhile, he kept the phone on the same side.

[1438] He was one of those dudes that had the phone on the little hip thing.

[1439] You know, a little, little, little bracket on his hip.

[1440] Kept his phone there, even after it killed one of his nuts in his eyes.

[1441] he's like, well, he really wants his phone.

[1442] Damage is done.

[1443] Your phone or your balls.

[1444] Yeah, he gave up.

[1445] They got me. Yeah, don't worry about.

[1446] Phones are not causing cancer.

[1447] So there's no concern whatsoever with the radiation that's caused by those things?

[1448] No, first of all, when people say radiation, they're, there's just like they're conflating this, you know, term from, like, nuclear, you know, bombs.

[1449] And, like, technically, we are currently bathed.

[1450] in radiation right now.

[1451] This table has radiation, right?

[1452] Everything produces radiation.

[1453] Everything.

[1454] Everything's emitting photons all the time.

[1455] So it's just a question of what wavelength.

[1456] And if you have a very short wavelength or high frequency photon, that is capable of causing DNA damage.

[1457] But we're talking about like ultraviolet and beyond.

[1458] Your phone is not even close.

[1459] So, yeah.

[1460] And then the thing that really causes problems in, say, nuclear explosion, are alpha particles.

[1461] So, like, it's basically helium nuclei.

[1462] So those things will, they're like tiny cannibals.

[1463] So those will rip right through your, like, if you got shot with tiny cannibals, bad things would happen.

[1464] So that's also cold radiation, but it's really particles.

[1465] So you don't want to be bombarded with high -speed helium nuclei.

[1466] That's going to be bad.

[1467] How's that happened?

[1468] Well, that happens in a nuclear explosion.

[1469] Oh.

[1470] Avoid those.

[1471] Yeah.

[1472] That's bad.

[1473] But cell phones are okay.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] Cell phones are not emitting particles.

[1476] So if it's like, as my cell phone, I'm going to cause brain cancer, I'm like, because the radiation, I'm like, do you mean photons or particles?

[1477] It's like, it's not emitting particles.

[1478] So we can just put that aside.

[1479] Don't worry about the particles.

[1480] Then the photons that are, that's emitting, the most they can do is slightly warm up your ear.

[1481] And only by a tiny amount.

[1482] It's like, it's like, okay, if you had.

[1483] ear warmer that was very mild that's your phone that's all it's many photons at a frequency that are that is a frequency that is not going to cause DNA damage so don't worry about it what concerns people sleep easy at night don't worry about your phone it's fine David Ike does not believe you he's doing backflips right now you fucking chill so what concerns people is the unknown Right?

[1484] They hear about 5G and then they hear about radiation.

[1485] They're like, wait a minute, should I, is this saying?

[1486] What are we doing?

[1487] Are we just ruining everything?

[1488] No, it's fine.

[1489] Fine.

[1490] Totally fine.

[1491] Thank you.

[1492] Yeah.

[1493] Now I feel good about my 5G phone.

[1494] If you had a helmet that was made of cell phones, you'll be fine.

[1495] Yeah, but this is coming from a guy who wants to stick a quarter -sized hole in your head and shove wires in your brain.

[1496] Yeah, so I know a few things about what cause of brain damage.

[1497] I know, but the, That, like, neuralink concerns a shit out of people.

[1498] That scares folks.

[1499] That's the ultimate moment.

[1500] Well, I think it would be problematic if we put you to the ground and put it in.

[1501] Yes.

[1502] I agree.

[1503] And said, like, okay, you're going to get this.

[1504] We're going to chip you, whether you like it or not.

[1505] The chip you.

[1506] We're going to chip you.

[1507] That's the other thing that people are scared of, right?

[1508] You chipped.

[1509] You will have to sign a million disclosures.

[1510] and this is not going to be something where it just suddenly pounces on you.

[1511] Like, ah, everyone getting chipped.

[1512] No, it's a very slow process of, okay, let's first try to help people who have serious brain injuries.

[1513] Like if somebody got like a spinal cord injury or something like that, like that's one of the first things we were looking at doing is like somebody may be a quadriplegic, tetraplegic, how do we give them like an implant that allows them to use their computer their phone and have it be wireless and you know like they look totally normal you wouldn't even know that they had a chip in their head and they can just charge it inductively like you charge like a Fitbit or something like that or Apple Watch or something and that's kind of like one of the first applications we're thinking of is like let's let's restore uh functionality someone has is at a serious spinal injury or a serious brain injury or some other kind you know and so This was going to be like a very gradual process.

[1514] You'll see it coming, you know.

[1515] But I was playing cyberpunk the game.

[1516] And I'm like, yeah.

[1517] Are you worried about what you're doing?

[1518] Yeah, that's like, yeah, this is pretty close to home here, you know.

[1519] Like, oh, man. Yeah.

[1520] Like, is this where it leads?

[1521] It might lead there eventually.

[1522] I'm just saying for right now it's going to help people who really need it.

[1523] Well, you know, we had this discussion before that we're all.

[1524] basically already cyborgs, right?

[1525] We're already reliant upon our phones.

[1526] They're connected to hip to them.

[1527] People are relying on glasses and all sorts of other technology to improve their life.

[1528] This is another gradual step in that direction.

[1529] And if you just keep going in that way, it seems, like, I like being a human.

[1530] And I think, you know, look here, we're drinking whiskey, we're talking, with a wood table.

[1531] This is a very human experience.

[1532] Yeah.

[1533] But ultimately, we are archaic.

[1534] and we will eventually be aliens.

[1535] We're going to be those dudes with the big heads and the little tiny bodies, and we're going to be...

[1536] But we still need to feel for now.

[1537] Until it becomes more efficient to do it inside the mind.

[1538] Yeah, but then once it becomes virtual, once virtual supersedes whatever, like imagine if the virtual orgasm was 100 times better than a regular orgasm.

[1539] news for you on that front oh we can it is it's disturbingly good the way you're rubbing your chin disturbing my yeah get my little dog in us stroke his head yes oh you'll love it money back guarantee well um there was a love it it's a snap there was a woman who it was in the 1970s who had some sort of an allergy to pain pills and uh They did some experiment with her, where they put wires into her brain and gave her a device.

[1540] Do you know this story?

[1541] There are a few stories like this.

[1542] Yeah.

[1543] Where it actually hits the pleasure center?

[1544] And then you're like, my God, this is the best thing ever.

[1545] She just kept hammering it.

[1546] She developed blisters on her finger that she used to hit the button.

[1547] She never stopped hitting that button with the same finger.

[1548] Didn't give a fuck about those blisters.

[1549] She was just coming constantly.

[1550] Yeah.

[1551] And then she started adjusting that she tried to tamper with the device to increase the amplitude.

[1552] She became just an orgasm junkie.

[1553] She was crazy.

[1554] And she was begging them to take it away from her.

[1555] And then when they tried to take it away from her, she would fight them.

[1556] It's madness.

[1557] And it made me, I mean, I researched this extensively because I was fascinated by the idea that this could eventually become a part of your phone.

[1558] We could definitely make that happen.

[1559] That's a real issue with people.

[1560] The instantaneous desire for pleasure?

[1561] You wouldn't do it because it's bad, you know.

[1562] You wouldn't do it, but the Chinese.

[1563] Sure.

[1564] I mean, I don't know, man. Huawei phones immediately with a come button.

[1565] Right?

[1566] As soon as you log on, you give them your fingerprint, you come.

[1567] You know, I mean, we could just put it in there with some software limits, you know?

[1568] Easily.

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] But software limits could easily be worked around.

[1571] Someone's going to come up with, you know, someone on the dark web.

[1572] Well, I mean, your phone is, if you're carrying a phone around, you're carrying a microphone, GPS camera yeah every day everywhere everything I mean Orwell would be losing his mind and it answers questions yeah yeah and he knows where you are yeah it's like you can just have it like it's that phone by the way if you say like please like turn off it's just says that it's off it's not actually all it's lying it could totally lie yeah and you can't take the battery out basically like Apple or Android anytime they want they can just turn your mic on yeah or your camera your GPS everything yeah and just tell you it's off.

[1573] I look at the setting who says it's off.

[1574] Yeah, and some people that's not good enough.

[1575] I want it strapped to my wrist.

[1576] Yeah, exactly.

[1577] I need one on me all the time.

[1578] Yeah, I mean, these days, like a modern smartphone, it's like a tiny cell phone on your wrist, basically.

[1579] It is.

[1580] Yeah.

[1581] Even has the cellular connectivity and everything.

[1582] Everything.

[1583] It is everything.

[1584] You leave your house, you can make phone calls like Dick Tracy.

[1585] Yeah, pull on.

[1586] Yeah.

[1587] Better than any Dick Tracy even imagined.

[1588] Yeah, fuck Dick Tracy.

[1589] Yeah.

[1590] Nothing.

[1591] He didn't know shit.

[1592] The Star Trek communicator.

[1593] I know, it looks like it looks like a cheesy flop on.

[1594] It's a walkie -talkie.

[1595] You have to say over.

[1596] A big walkie -joke -hookie.

[1597] Yeah, they had to tell you out.

[1598] It's gigantic.

[1599] It's gigantic.

[1600] Yeah, it was really ridiculous.

[1601] And it couldn't get on the internet.

[1602] He couldn't take pictures.

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] He was talking to people from another planet.

[1605] He couldn't even send them a photo.

[1606] He couldn't even send them.

[1607] I mean, they would have a camera.

[1608] They would beam a whole body.

[1609] To see what's going on.

[1610] Rearrange your body.

[1611] Right?

[1612] Yeah.

[1613] Take all of your atoms and, and reproject them on this plan.

[1614] Totally.

[1615] Exactly.

[1616] Or they could just send a camera.

[1617] If you thought about sending a camera to this very dangerous situation.

[1618] That really shows you how truly amazing the internet is that in all of science fiction, they never thought that was going to happen.

[1619] Yeah.

[1620] You think about all the Star Trek, Star Wars?

[1621] They thought we'd be out there on, well, they thought we'd be on Mars for sure, but they never thought we'd have like a supercomputer in our pocket that and everyone's got an amazing camera and as much memory as they could possibly, a supercomputer in your pocket, like something better than the best super, like your phone is better than the best computer that Earth had by far in 1969 when we landed on the Oh yeah, by far.

[1622] By far, not even close.

[1623] The cameras, like I have a Samsung Galaxy S -21 that has a moon photo capability.

[1624] So it's designed, it has a moon shot.

[1625] So it's designed to be able to take beautiful photos of the moon.

[1626] And you can, yeah, it's like, because if you do it with an iPhone, it's not really programmed that way.

[1627] Yeah, actually, it's true.

[1628] The iPhone can't take good photos of the moon.

[1629] Because, actually, I was just like in L .A., and the moon was low in the horizon, and it was just, like, hanging there.

[1630] It's like this giant planetoid.

[1631] You need a galaxy.

[1632] Yeah, and I'll try looking at my phone.

[1633] It looks like tiny.

[1634] Jamie, you got one of those.

[1635] Talk to him about the moonshot.

[1636] I didn't even know it was on there.

[1637] Yeah, just Google Moonshot with Galaxy S -21 Ultra.

[1638] It's fucking phenomenal.

[1639] I got one just for that.

[1640] Well, I got one because I'm always interested in both platforms and see where you're at.

[1641] You know, but the photographs are fucking incredible.

[1642] The Zoom's incredible, too.

[1643] They have much better zooms.

[1644] Look at this.

[1645] These are photos with the Galaxy S -21 Ultra.

[1646] That thing is just going to be all camera at there.

[1647] And that incredible?

[1648] I know, look at the back of it.

[1649] Just make it all out of lenses.

[1650] It's incredible.

[1651] it's just what they it's just we're living and it's constantly accelerating that's what's so amazing about it is that the right one of mars photo with that i don't i don't that's why you're taking a photo of march moon phone like uh not a chance no no impossible right possible thank you glad you're here for that because we would buy right into it not a chance i think that was last year's uh model what last year's model could take a picture of the mars no no no like last last year's moon photo versus this year's oh yeah right if you're You had a giant lens or something.

[1652] Basically, you need a photon distillery.

[1653] So that's the moon.

[1654] That's all that is on the right.

[1655] It's not Mars.

[1656] It's just a shitty.

[1657] It's like their last year's version of moon shot.

[1658] So the new one can actually see the craters, which is just fucking bananas.

[1659] I mean, if that's just on a camera without a lens, because you're just like, say, what's your photon gathering area?

[1660] You know, it's like photons per unit area.

[1661] It's a certain limit if you were...

[1662] What's that, Jamie?

[1663] It's honestly, not that good.

[1664] Well, it's a pretty good.

[1665] For a cell phone.

[1666] Yeah, yeah, sure.

[1667] I mean, it's not great for a telescope.

[1668] Sure.

[1669] Well, I mean, the thing I was trying to do, like literally, you know, I don't know, five or six days ago, there was just, like, the air was clear.

[1670] Like, L .A. can be amazing, like, on a clear winter day where the moon is low in the horizon.

[1671] Yeah.

[1672] And the sun's hitting at the right angle.

[1673] And it just looks incredible.

[1674] And I was trying to take a photo of that with my phone and it looked terrible.

[1675] Yeah.

[1676] Never.

[1677] Yeah, I can't capture it.

[1678] No. No, unfortunately.

[1679] But galaxies can.

[1680] That's the interesting thing.

[1681] It's like, the galaxy.

[1682] Yeah.

[1683] Well, it's a great name too.

[1684] They just, they're always one step ahead in many directions.

[1685] Like they have these ultrasonic fingerprint detectors, but they just can't beat the operating system.

[1686] Apple just has the ease of use and their...

[1687] Is it still good?

[1688] It's still better, Apple?

[1689] Yeah, still better.

[1690] But it's close.

[1691] It's close.

[1692] But the other thing that bothers me about Google is Google is constantly tracking you.

[1693] Android phones are so hard.

[1694] Let me serve you an ad.

[1695] It's so hard to avoid.

[1696] They'll know you better than you know yourself.

[1697] They know what you will want.

[1698] I'm a big admirer of what Tim Cook is doing, what he's doing to sort of cut them out from their ability to constantly track you and gather your data.

[1699] And this battle that's going on between Tim Cook and Facebook, I fucking.

[1700] love it.

[1701] I love that he's stepping up and saying, hey, you can just advertise.

[1702] You don't have to gather up people's data and sell it constantly.

[1703] And then disingenuously Facebook tries to, you are killing small businesses with these decisions.

[1704] The fuck out of here.

[1705] The fuck out of here.

[1706] You're not killing small business.

[1707] We're killing this one gigantic information gathering business that's decided that it's going to take all of the data that people didn't know was valuable and sell it make fucking billions of dollars yeah well i mean even perhaps arguably worse they're gonna feed let data into their um the i that they're developing it's called facebook ai you can follow them on twitter um and they're like just let's just feed all this information to into the AI and see what it does see what it is and who knows what it happened you know it seems like i don't know some dystopian outcomes are possible yeah well you're terrified of AI right no well i mean i just think little bit?

[1708] If it's unchecked?

[1709] Well, I think things that are a danger to the public should have some kind of public oversight.

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] So, you know, like I, you know, although sometimes we have our disagreements, I'm, you know, in favor of the FAA and NHTSA, you know, the various regulatory agencies, FDA and so forth.

[1712] I mean, you know, I think we're better off having them they're not having them.

[1713] There is a risk -reward asymmetry in that they tend to be, perhaps, not weigh the good as much as they weigh the bad, you know, because their incentive structure is, you know, they get punished a lot for approving something, but they don't get punished that much for not approving stowing.

[1714] So, this is just in the nature of government.

[1715] But nonetheless, I think everyone would, you know, feel.

[1716] safer flying with the FAA than not having an FAA or we feel safer buying food and drugs having a regulatory agency oversee this stuff but we don't have any regulatory agency overseeing artificial intelligence right and this I think is our probably our biggest existential threat yeah it's it seems like hey we should like to have somebody keep an eye on there you right but who that's the problem I don't know.

[1717] The problem is the government?

[1718] Who's going to do?

[1719] Joe Biden?

[1720] Let's have him pay attention to it.

[1721] No, I mean, I'm saying?

[1722] It's like the deep state.

[1723] Oh, those folks.

[1724] Well, they're looking out for our best interest.

[1725] They're surely going to watch out.

[1726] What they're going to do is they're going to develop it and use it as a weapon.

[1727] It's going to turn on like a fucking Terminator movie.

[1728] Right?

[1729] That's the real worry is that they're going to decide that this is a very valuable tool for controlling population.

[1730] governments, whatever the fuck they're going to use it for.

[1731] And then it's going to decide why am I listening to you?

[1732] Yeah.

[1733] If you read like the plotline for Terminator, it's actually pretty smart.

[1734] Like James Cameron wrote a pretty smart script there.

[1735] It's not quite as like, oh, there's just like Arnold Schwarzenegger chasing you down the street.

[1736] It's like, well, how did cyberdine systems develop?

[1737] It's like, well, they were a military contractor.

[1738] they were asked to develop a protective system, something that would protect for cybersecurity.

[1739] So we need to have protection against cyber attacks.

[1740] So its primary thing is to defend against cyber attacks.

[1741] To develop an AI that can defend against cyber attacks.

[1742] That's pretty reasonable.

[1743] And then as part of what the AI did is in order to defend itself, it propagated throughout the world to keep an eye on things, see what was going on.

[1744] And then they thought, well, hang on, there's something, they didn't realize that it was cyber that it was Skynet that was propagating through all these systems.

[1745] And they said, okay, there seems to be something propagating through all these systems.

[1746] Skynet, you need to stop it.

[1747] You need to end it.

[1748] And Skynet said, oh, you've asked me to destroy myself.

[1749] you are the enemy you must be destroyed that's how Terminator actually goes it was created as a defense system to defend against cyber attacks then it was asked to destroy itself and then it concluded humanity was the enemy that's too close to home right well you know earlier we talked about what is the meaning of life the meaning of life for us would be very different than the meaning of life for something that we create that becomes life.

[1750] The idea of life being restricted to cells or carbon -based life forms is kind of silly.

[1751] Like the idea of artificial life, right?

[1752] What is artificial?

[1753] It's right there.

[1754] What are you talking about?

[1755] AI, artificial insemination.

[1756] But it is...

[1757] It's what you ask.

[1758] If we create some sort of silicon -based life form.

[1759] but it acts like a life form it has a desire there was I think in Australia a few years ago an artificial insemination lab that had had a bunch of like bulges stored in vile in canisters but it like overheated and so it's basically exploding bulges all over the place Really?

[1760] And that line was AI goes wild.

[1761] It's come everywhere.

[1762] Like, yeah.

[1763] Yeah, just like cum rockets all over the place.

[1764] Nobody wants that, right?

[1765] Who does that help him?

[1766] Clean up on aisle, you know, aisle nine or whatever.

[1767] Bullets all over the wall.

[1768] literally actually happened yeah back to artificial incident wait I mean artificial intelligence yeah back to artificial intelligence I'm really worried about it yeah I think we should be concerned and we should have oversight of some kind yeah but who would be the oversight I don't know like regulatory agency I don't know whoever it's like you know we have the FAA like said we have the FAA we got the um FDA.

[1769] Yeah, but they...

[1770] We just need an acronym to oversee this stuff.

[1771] The problem is, like, government agencies suck at most things, you know?

[1772] Yeah, I mean, it's the best government agency.

[1773] Like, what government agency does the best job of oversight?

[1774] No, I think generally...

[1775] Okay, I mean, I think the right way to think about government is government is a corporation in the limit.

[1776] Like, there's some people like, well, like, we're against corporations, but we're for a government.

[1777] I'm like, government's just the biggest corporation.

[1778] What are you talking about?

[1779] You know, it's a corporation with a monopoly.

[1780] It's the biggest corporation and has monopoly.

[1781] That's government.

[1782] But you get to pick who runs it every four years.

[1783] You have more influence on who's CEO of General Electric than you have on who's president.

[1784] Really?

[1785] Sure.

[1786] How so?

[1787] Well, I mean, you're going to have, how many voters are there?

[1788] Like 150 million?

[1789] I don't know.

[1790] and maybe a hundred million to actually vote.

[1791] So you have 100 millionth of a vote.

[1792] And if you're not in a swing state, it doesn't matter.

[1793] So if you live in California, it's going Democratic.

[1794] That's for sure.

[1795] Gavin Newsom might be fucking that up.

[1796] I do think, you know, in California, in any given state, there's got to be above a zero percent chance that the other party wins.

[1797] Right.

[1798] If it's zero percent chance that the other party wins.

[1799] the other party wins.

[1800] They get cocky.

[1801] The forcing, yeah, the forcing function for being reset.

[1802] Like, are they going to be responsive to the people?

[1803] Right.

[1804] They're only going to be responsive to the people if the other party has a shot of winning.

[1805] Right.

[1806] They're going to be responsive to the special interest groups that help them.

[1807] Yeah, exactly.

[1808] And that's where California is.

[1809] Yeah.

[1810] So, anyway, so government is a corporation in the limit.

[1811] It's, it's, the government is the biggest corporation with a monopoly.

[1812] Nonetheless, it, there are some things that it's hard to, to see having be an industry body, the probability of regulatory capture if it's an industry body is higher than if it's the government.

[1813] It's not zero if it's the government.

[1814] There's plenty of cases of regulatory capture for federal agencies.

[1815] But the probability is lower than if it's an industry group.

[1816] And at the end of the day, somebody asked to say, go and tell Facebook or Google or Apple or Tesla, because Tesla has a lot of advanced AI, this is okay or it's not okay.

[1817] Or at least be able to report back to the public, this is what we found.

[1818] Otherwise, the inmates are running the asylum.

[1819] Yeah.

[1820] And this is like not necessarily friendly inmates.

[1821] No. I just wonder, like, if you wanted to compile some sort of a regulatory body to keep an eye on AI, how would you do that and how would you avoid how?

[1822] having them being incentivized by special interest groups or some sort of corporation that would profit on AI succeeding in...

[1823] Oh, that's already happening.

[1824] Yeah.

[1825] I mean, all the companies are going hog wild on the AI front.

[1826] So, anyway, my recommendation, that should be some kind of regulatory authority.

[1827] So how would they do that?

[1828] And I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not a fan of like, let's have the government do lots of things.

[1829] I think you want to have the government do the least amount of stuff.

[1830] But I think that the right role of government is to be like the referee on the field.

[1831] When the government starts being the player on the field, that's problematic.

[1832] Or when you start having more referees than players, which is the case in California, then that's not good.

[1833] Yeah.

[1834] So you can't have no referees.

[1835] Yeah.

[1836] Everyone agrees.

[1837] Referee might be annoying at times, but it's better about a referee than not.

[1838] Yes.

[1839] Yeah.

[1840] I'm just worried that these things are going to, it's going to be too late by the time, and I'm sure you're worried about it as well, but by the time these things become sentient, by the time they develop the ability to analyze what the threat of human beings are and whether or not human beings are essential.

[1841] Yeah, I'm not saying that having regulatory agencies on panacea or reduces the risk to zero, there's still significant risk, even with a regulatory agency.

[1842] Nonetheless, I think the good outweighs the bad of, and we should have one.

[1843] The, you know, it took a while before there was an FAA.

[1844] You know, there were a lot of plane crashes, a lot of companies cutting corners.

[1845] It took a while before there's an FDA.

[1846] You know, and what tends to happen is, you know, some company gets desperate.

[1847] They're on the verge of bankruptcy, and they're like, oh, man, we'll just cut this corner.

[1848] It'll be fine.

[1849] and then you know somebody dies you know and you know some of these like regulatory situations like look at seatbelts I mean now we take seatbelts for granted man the car company's poured seatbelts like there was no tomorrow they try to oh yeah they fought them for decades like 15 20 years the data was absolutely clear that you needed seatbelts like seat belts like seat belts you know, you really need seatbelts.

[1850] There's like the difference in fatalities and serious injuries of seatbelt, not seatbelt, is gigantic and obvious.

[1851] It's not subtle.

[1852] So, but still, the car company's four seatbelts for, I don't know, 10, 20 years.

[1853] A lot of people died.

[1854] Now, these days actually with advanced airbags, actually, I think we might have come full circle and no longer need seatbelts if you have a, advanced airbags.

[1855] I think there's a strong argument for saying if you've got an...

[1856] What if the car flips?

[1857] Now, you're just covered in bloody.

[1858] It's airbags everywhere.

[1859] Why don't airbags are so good?

[1860] It'll blow your mind, just how good the airbags are.

[1861] And in Tesla, we even update the software to improve how the airbags deploy.

[1862] So we'll calculate, you know, are you an adult?

[1863] Like, how much do you weigh?

[1864] Are you sitting in this part of the seat?

[1865] or that part of the seat?

[1866] Are you maybe a baby?

[1867] Are you a toddler?

[1868] Are you...

[1869] Based on the weight?

[1870] Yeah.

[1871] So the seat...

[1872] Not just the weight, but the pressure distribution on the seat.

[1873] So we're measuring the pressure distribution.

[1874] Are you sitting on the edge of your seat?

[1875] Are you a fifth percentile female, a 95th percentile male?

[1876] The airbag firing will be different depending upon where you're sitting on the seat and what size you are and what your orientation is.

[1877] Really?

[1878] Yeah.

[1879] And we'll update it over the air.

[1880] So it even gets better over time.

[1881] So a child could conceivably sit in the front seat?

[1882] Unbelted child sitting in a bad position, probably still fine.

[1883] Jesus Christ.

[1884] Yeah.

[1885] It's dynamically updating the airbag firing according to where you're sitting, how much you weigh in real time.

[1886] The seatbelt is like, if you wear the seatbelt, that's nice.

[1887] But the airbag is going to do most of the work.

[1888] Airbag is doing the work.

[1889] And is it possible that we can come up with something even better than the airbag?

[1890] Like you fill the whole cabin up with foam?

[1891] No, it's tough because airbag technology is crazy good.

[1892] Because you want the airbag to inflate and then deflate.

[1893] Right.

[1894] Otherwise, you're going to get asphyxiated.

[1895] Oh, okay.

[1896] So you can't just, like, fill it up with stuff.

[1897] It's got to inflate and then there's different stages of inflation.

[1898] It's like fast inflation.

[1899] slow inflation, then slowly subside.

[1900] The sophistication of airbag is crazy good.

[1901] And this is all done not through some regulatory body.

[1902] This is done through your own desire to make these things safer and more efficient.

[1903] I mean, in the case of Tesla, we go way beyond the regulatory requirements.

[1904] You know, so, like, we got the lowest probability of injury of any cars they've ever tested.

[1905] So we're five stars in every category and subcategory.

[1906] If there was a six -star, we'd get a six -star.

[1907] It is actually legal to have a one -star car.

[1908] Really?

[1909] Yeah.

[1910] What's a, like a smart car?

[1911] Are those one -star?

[1912] Oh, I got to tell you.

[1913] Okay, so the star rating is kind of bullshit.

[1914] Really?

[1915] Yeah, I'm probably necessarily going to be upset about me about this, but they adjust the star rating depending upon the size of the car.

[1916] So, I mean, it stands to reason that if you're in a freight train and you're, you know, And if a smart car hits a freight train, it doesn't matter how good your safety systems is.

[1917] You're screwed.

[1918] If you're in a little car, get hit by a big car, the big car will win.

[1919] Okay, so a low star rating in a big car, hitting a high star rating in a small car, the small car is screwed.

[1920] Small cars are not safe.

[1921] Yeah, they're not safe.

[1922] Right.

[1923] Yeah.

[1924] But what about your small car?

[1925] Model 3 is not small What about the roadster?

[1926] Yeah, the roadster is not super safe Original roadster, not super safe The original roadster It's safe for a car like that But it's not Safety maximization is not the gold in the sports car Well, the original one was based on a Lotus, right?

[1927] Yeah, that was the theory But in reality It was Lodicee I think We had like maybe 7 % I think we calculated 7 % of the parts were actually carryover from the lotus.

[1928] The entire body, chassis, everything was redesigned, new power train.

[1929] Even the HVAC system used to run off a belt from the engine.

[1930] Now we need an electric HVAC system.

[1931] So pretty almost everything got changed.

[1932] It was not a...

[1933] It's something that sounded good.

[1934] Let's take an AC propulsion drive train from this little company in L .A. let's stick it in a modified lotus release.

[1935] Bingo, we got a car.

[1936] The only problem is, a lot of problems.

[1937] Both of the fundamental premises on which Tesla was created are false.

[1938] The battery ended up increasing the mass of the car by 30%.

[1939] And the weight distribution was all different.

[1940] So you invalidated all the crash tests.

[1941] Now you had to stretch the car in order to fit the battery.

[1942] So now the chassis is different.

[1943] All the airbags have to be redone.

[1944] All the crash structure had to be redone.

[1945] It would have been better to start from scratch than to use, than to start, then to use any part of a lotus lease.

[1946] It was worse.

[1947] It was like, like let's say there's a house that you want.

[1948] You have in mind a particular house.

[1949] And then you buy, you buy a house and you end up changing everything except one wall and the basement.

[1950] But you're still stuck with most of the original footprint.

[1951] It's just easier sometimes.

[1952] Just knock the house down and build any one.

[1953] Don't just try to modify it one piece at a time.

[1954] So we had to change over 90 % of the non -powered train portion of the car had to be changed, 90%, 93%.

[1955] And then the battery and drive train from AC propulsion did not work.

[1956] It had an analog, you know, an analog.

[1957] motor controller.

[1958] That was extremely unreliable.

[1959] The way that the power electronics were done, it was artisanal.

[1960] You could not recreate that in a production situation.

[1961] The battery pack was air cooled, which meant that if it was cold outside, the car didn't work.

[1962] If it was too hot, the battery would overheat.

[1963] And if you had any cell, any part of the, any one of the cells in the battery pack had a heat concentration, you could not remove it.

[1964] The air was just not, it's not good enough to just air cool the pack.

[1965] And so you could have thermal run away and the pack would, the car would burn down.

[1966] So we can use the battery pack, couldn't use the motor, couldn't use the inverter, can use the charger.

[1967] In the end we used none of the AC propulsion technology and almost none of the Lotus technology.

[1968] Wow.

[1969] So you just had the general shape.

[1970] It has a passing resemblance to a lotus lease.

[1971] But if you put the lotus lease in the roadster side by side, they look actually quite different.

[1972] And I actually led the design of the roadster, the product design of the roaster.

[1973] They gave me like a fastina school art, gave me like an honorary doctorate for it.

[1974] But be totally frank, it's easy to do a design of a sports car.

[1975] It's very hard to do design of a sedan.

[1976] I tried, I failed.

[1977] And that's why I hired Frantzmann Holtzhausen, who's been our head of design since 2008.

[1978] He's great.

[1979] He just thinks that are beyond my skill.

[1980] You know, we talked about this before, but it's worth bringing up again.

[1981] I've always been a fan of top gear, but I got disgusted when I found out what they did with your car, when they tried to pretend that the car broke down just to make an entertaining.

[1982] program where they had a laugh at the folly of this thing dying on them but it didn't really die on them yeah that was messed up i mean to be totally frank so you know new top gear in top gear of recent years um is a Tesla supporter so I want to like just waste a note of appreciation for top gear of recent years well James may he has one right but they're not top gear anymore right they're the grand tour that's what they are on amazon is that what they call them I don't know but Top Gear has been supportive in recent years, but, yeah, back in the day, and remember at the time, like, Tesla was not a big company.

[1983] We were just a little company, and we're like, you know, we're the little kid on the block.

[1984] So, you know, so the Top Gear is like, hey, Top Gear wants to test your car.

[1985] We're like, cool, and we gave them, we only had a few cars, and we gave them one of our cars, and when we handed over the car, they had a, you know, so one of our engineers, like, goes to deliver us the car, and then he said, he said, you know, he said, sees a script on the table it's like how do you write the script you know we only just gave you the car and in the script the car breaks down yeah it's messed up yeah it was crazy it was crazy it was crazy because they basically sabotage the company i mean that had it cost you guys a shitload of money because a lot of people watch that show and car enthusiasts like myself kind of rely on them for and there's also like obviously jeremy clark's and it's hilarious there's information.

[1986] It's funny, but you would imagine that they could do that without lying about the actual performance of the car.

[1987] Yeah.

[1988] The car never broke down.

[1989] They just pretended that it did.

[1990] And they wrote the script.

[1991] That's so crazy.

[1992] Literally, when a guy's handed over the car, he's reading through a script, it's like the car runs out, I charge, the brakes fail, and we're like, what the fuck, man, we just gave you the car.

[1993] This is not cool.

[1994] And what did they say about that?

[1995] uh their their objection was like this is just entertainment it's not meant to be true that's so crazy though because that's they they had to know what the fuck they're doing yeah yeah but anyway well now water under the bridge water under the bridge but crazy for for anybody who experienced it back in the day i mean i remember i knew very little about electric cars it was just the early days and i remember watching that going oh that sucks broke down yeah yeah well You know, anyway, I've been a fan of electric cars since, you know, for a long time since basically high school, early college.

[1996] What did you think of that documentary?

[1997] Who killed the electric car?

[1998] I thought it was pretty good.

[1999] Yeah.

[2000] Yeah, I thought it's worth watching.

[2001] Interesting.

[2002] Mortally wounded, not killed.

[2003] Exactly.

[2004] Mortally, exactly.

[2005] I mean, the irony is like, man, can you imagine just how different a future GM would have had?

[2006] Yeah.

[2007] Because they had the EV one, electric vehicle one.

[2008] If they had just gone EV2, EV3, man, they would have just owned the world.

[2009] Who knows where we'd be right now with electric cars, too, and the technology with that kind of money behind it.

[2010] It's fascinating now, you're seeing like this Mustang, this sort of SUV -style Mustang that's electric.

[2011] You know, you're seeing so many different vehicles that are electric.

[2012] There's so many companies that have electric cars now.

[2013] And it's really been becoming interesting.

[2014] Porsche's electric car.

[2015] There's a large supply of electric cars now.

[2016] I mean, that's got to make you feel good, though.

[2017] Because without you and without Tesla, I mean, there was no way it would be where it's at right now.

[2018] Yeah.

[2019] I mean, when I think about what's the final good of Tesla, it's to what degree have we accelerated the advent of sustainable energy?

[2020] You know, so it would have happened anyway, but I think Tesla is an accelerant.

[2021] you know, I think we're, that's how I would judge the fundamental good of Tesla.

[2022] By how many years did we accelerate the advent of sustainable energy?

[2023] But, yeah, I mean, in the early days, my interest in electric cars was mostly driven by the fact that it was not, it wasn't environmental in the sense of like CO2, you know, parts per million in the atmosphere type of thing.

[2024] I do think that has added urgency to the situation, but my original interest was just like we're going to run out of oil and then civilization.

[2025] is going to collapse.

[2026] And so if we don't have some kind of sustainable energy situation, which really is electric cars, solar energy and electric cars, then civilization is going to fold apart and we'll be back in the Stone Age or something, like someone bad, you know.

[2027] But we're not going to be able to move forward.

[2028] It won't be a good future.

[2029] So my interest in electric cars was like, okay, how do we, how do we make this work?

[2030] And you think of like a gasoline car.

[2031] I mean, it's got an electric motor and a battery just to start the car, you know?

[2032] Electric cars are like way simpler than a gasoline car.

[2033] It's just a range question.

[2034] So in the early days of cars, there were, you know, almost as many electric cars as there were gasoline cars in the very early days.

[2035] But the batteries weren't, didn't have enough range.

[2036] So, you know, as soon as they had an, an, you know, as soon as they had an, electric starter and you didn't have to hand crank the engine than gasoline cars won because they had the range so it was really a question of like how do you sold the range palm and um you know when i first came out to california the reason i came out california was to uh work on energy storage solutions for electric cars uh basically advanced um about ways to store electric energy that would give you a long range.

[2037] So in my summer internships, I worked at this kind of called Pernacle Research, that did high energy density capacitors.

[2038] Now they used ruthenium and tantalum, which are ruthenium especially quite rare.

[2039] You cannot scale that because it's just not enough ruthenium.

[2040] Where does that come from?

[2041] It's a trace element.

[2042] it's uh it's coming from like radioactive decay and like uh you know meteorites and that kind of thing it's it's it's rare um you know i think at the time like there was only like it's like impossible to scale it doesn't matter how smart you get you can't scale something if it's using ruthium um just not enough of it um so it was like rarer than gold like it's way better of like trying to make cars powered by gold is there any argument that there's not enough conflict minerals to go around because that's what they call conflict minerals things like lithium and now lithium is extremely common is it yeah lithium's everywhere um lithium is one of the most common elements in the in the universe it's at number three on the periodic table so we got lithium there pretty much everywhere where do we get it uh well i mean tesla we get most of our lithium from australia actually um so um um But it's, you could get lithium from seawater if you wanted to.

[2043] Really?

[2044] Yeah, lithium is a, it just forms of salt.

[2045] And that's the primary component of the batteries?

[2046] No. What else is in there?

[2047] It's a misnomer, actually.

[2048] It's called lithium ion, but that's like the salt in the salad.

[2049] Oh.

[2050] It's like, do you like salt in your salad?

[2051] Sure.

[2052] But it's not made of salt.

[2053] I mean, the primary component in lithium ion batteries, like in a Tesla, is nickel.

[2054] and nickel is also relatively common.

[2055] It's not super common.

[2056] Iron is very common.

[2057] So the two main schools of the two main types of battery pack are iron and nickel.

[2058] And iron is very common.

[2059] So much, it's ridiculous amount of iron, just like there's a ridiculous amount of lithium.

[2060] Now, nickel's a little more unusual.

[2061] It's a little not that unusual, but it's, you know, way, way, much harder to get nickel than iron.

[2062] But for example, stainless steel, you know, that, that'll be, you know, I don't know, 12, 12, 12, it's quote a 10 to 20 % nickel, depending on the situation.

[2063] Like, a, cutlery, you know, like knives and forks, it'll be like electroplated nickel silver.

[2064] That's what EPNS means.

[2065] so you've got like nickel -based cells and you've got iron -based cells the nickel -based cells have more energy density like so for a given amount of volume and mass you're going to get more energy out of nickel than iron iron is cheaper and so but anyway those are the two main types of cells they got a iron cathode nickel cathode and then some of the nickel cathode have some amount of cobalt to stabilize nickel and then iron it's like they call it usually iron phosphate you're like you know but it's really mostly it's like the heavy stuff is iron and the heavy stuff is nickel and the nickel based stuff so so you're a nickel and iron and then you got the anode side which is basically a carbon lattice with a little bit of silken sometimes so and then these these these lithium ions they like they're they sort of trundled back and forth between the catheter and the anode.

[2066] So, I mean, just read the, if you read the Wikipedia article on lithium ion, it's quite, quite good.

[2067] Anyway, so the challenge, like, the rate at which we are producing, what are called lithium ion cells, but really primarily iron and nickel cells, is increasing very, very rapidly year over year.

[2068] It's just that in order to compensate for the rest, for an economy which is fundamentally based on fossil fuels, you need a shit ton of batteries.

[2069] So a gigaton, gigastone of batteries.

[2070] And that's what, that's going to happen.

[2071] It's just a question of when.

[2072] That's why I say, like, the fundamental good of Tesla is to what degree it accelerates the advantage of sustainable energy.

[2073] It's inevitable.

[2074] Like, either we have sustainable energy is totalogical.

[2075] It's either we have sustainable energy or civilization collapses.

[2076] So if civilization doesn't collapse, we will have sustainable energy.

[2077] It's just a question of how soon does that happen, sooner is better.

[2078] And then the, you know, there's a risk that we're occurring because of the increased parts per million of CO2 in the oceans and atmosphere.

[2079] it has some acidification of it makes the water just a little bit more acidic and you know and it just causes the air to be a little warmer not a lot I think sometimes people look at the temperature especially in Celsius you might say like okay it's like 20 degrees Celsius I mean can a small PPM increase in carbon really move the needle that much but But actually you should be looking at it in degrees Kelvin.

[2080] So actually it's like more like we're at around 300 Kelvin.

[2081] And so, you know, what would it take to have like only a 0 .3 % increase would be 1 degree Celsius, 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

[2082] So therefore this is actually, you know, it's more, it's a smaller percentage increase than you'd think when looking at temperature in the absolute as opposed to, you know, above the freezing point of water.

[2083] So and then if people weren't just living right on the water, then that would also help a lot.

[2084] But it's just like we love living right on the water.

[2085] So like the humanity is like a thermometer.

[2086] It's like you look at like a thermometer, you know, like old school sort of analog thermometer, which is like, you know, changing the temperature as a function of like some liquid that is increasing its volume due to temperature.

[2087] It only takes a little bit of a small increase in volume to raise the temperature, you know, on an old school analog liquid thermometer.

[2088] And humanities like that.

[2089] We've just decided that we wanted to have right on the damn beach.

[2090] Yep.

[2091] So because beach is cool.

[2092] Now the problem is you're right.

[2093] You're like what's, it's kind of like if we wanted to say what's the most sensitive instrument you could, like, Like, how can we maximize our sensitivity to water level?

[2094] Well, live right on the ocean.

[2095] Well, okay, we just did that.

[2096] Yeah.

[2097] And then it's like, and then it's like, okay, well, you know, and by the way, like, throughout history, the water level is varied a lot.

[2098] Like, it's like nutty how much it's varied.

[2099] So, and then if you look at, say, the CO2 parts per million, you know, based on the fossil record, I mean, it just looks like a wall.

[2100] I'm not like a doomsayer here My view is that if Provided we are not complacent About a sustainable energy economy I think things will be fine If we are complacent about it That's where our problems arise So Like to be totally frank I think we'll be fine But as long as we don't Behave as though we're going to be fine We will be fine Oh Oh, yeah.

[2101] If we don't take it for granted, if we're not complacent, I think we'll be fine.

[2102] Do you anticipate any large leaps in battery technology?

[2103] Like, is there anything that can be done to increase the efficiency, increase the manufacturing abilities?

[2104] Like, what can be done to move that?

[2105] So, the bowl is in motion, like, the good things that are happening are happening.

[2106] Like the rate at which we are making new, we're increasing the production capacity of batteries, it's increasing at a rate of that I think we haven't seen in a century.

[2107] It's like, it's crazy fast.

[2108] It's just that in order to change, for my fossil fuel economy to kind of like a solar wind battery economy.

[2109] It just a hell of a lot of batteries are needed.

[2110] Now, it would, I mean, my top recommendation, honestly, would be just to have a carbon tax.

[2111] Like, the economy works great.

[2112] Like, prices and money are just information.

[2113] Prices are information.

[2114] If the price is wrong, the economy doesn't do the right thing.

[2115] So we got basically an unpriced externality in the carbon concentration in the oceans and atmosphere.

[2116] Like it's kind of like not paying, like if you're not paying for garbage removal or something.

[2117] Like, okay, everyone's going to throw garbage in the street.

[2118] It's like garbage removal is free.

[2119] But it's like there's a little bit of like, okay, garbage removal isn't free.

[2120] You've got to pay a little bit for this.

[2121] and because we're not paying for the CO2 capacity of the oceans and atmosphere, we have what in economics is called an unpriced externality.

[2122] So the market is unable to respond to an unpriced externality.

[2123] If we just put a price on it, the market will react in a sensible way.

[2124] But because we don't have a price on it, it's behaving badly.

[2125] So theoretically, how would you put a price on that?

[2126] Like, would you look at various industries and how they contribute to the CO2?

[2127] Yeah, I mean, I just put it at the point of consumption.

[2128] And tax it.

[2129] It ends up being, yeah, electricity and gasoline, pretty much.

[2130] Now, you can make this a non -regressive tax.

[2131] You could say, like, okay, well, you know, what if somebody is, like, driving around a lot and their low income?

[2132] It's like, hey, great, give them a rebate, you know?

[2133] So it's like, give a tax rebate.

[2134] That's the way to do it.

[2135] and then the market will be forced to respond to the fact that the the market just does things automatically based on pricing so markets work great if the pricing is correct it's only when something you have a tragedy of the commons and the price is not there that the market does not respond nor would you expect it to you know so if you if you have like the public toilets problem where it's like nobody's responsible for it nobody's paying for it it's like okay well probably toilets are not good so as soon as you put a price in it the right thing will happen automatically is there been a response to this like is is this something i talked to the biden administration incoming administration and they were like well this seems too politically difficult and i was like well this is obviously a thing that should happen and by the way SpaceX would be paying a carbon tax too.

[2136] Sure.

[2137] So I'm like, you know, I'm like, I think we should pay it too.

[2138] It's not like, it's not like we shouldn't have carbon generating things.

[2139] It just, there's got to, it should be a price on this stuff.

[2140] And that would encourage people to make either carbon neutral or - Automatically fix the problem.

[2141] No, for sure.

[2142] You know, just thinking about like taxes, it's like, you know, here we are drinking alcohol.

[2143] now taxes on alcohol and tobacco are higher than on let's say fruit and vegetables okay because everything everyone knows like fruit and vegetables are good for you and alcohol and tobacco are not good for you vice yeah so we're like yeah you should probably bias the taxes towards alcohol and tobacco have higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco and lower taxes are fruits and vegetables it's just sensible like same thing goes for our energy yeah that seems very reasonable I don't understand how that would be politically difficult I don't know I talked to the incoming Biden administration I was like I just thought well for sure like this you know I mean it's like half the reason they got elected and even some sort of an incremental increase over time yeah exactly we don't need to learn people yeah just say if you just say it's coming people will automatically make the changes that seems so reasonable yeah I agree and they were like uh -uh they thought it was like too politically difficult and I'm like uh I mean I don't know man I think that's like at least half the reason you got elected so why don't you just fight for that you know yeah it's a it's a it's a the the optics were that they're the more reasonable people they're going to bring us back to the Paris Climate Accord and the whole yeah I mean the thing is like the Paris Accord that this is just a piece of paper unless you do something about it I mean frankly the it's not like the Paris Accord is it's pretty much toothless you know and and even if we did that thing it's like probably still not enough it's just one thing that will matter put a price on carbon that would be the best option for sure that seems like it'd be such a good idea I mean I think it's an obvious move and if you if you just call up like you know say like top economists like Like, just do a poll of, like, what do 90 % of economists think?

[2144] And, like, they all agree, okay, we should do that.

[2145] Well, also, if you think about the variability of gas prices, it changes so much.

[2146] Like, how about the difference between gas in California versus gas in Texas?

[2147] It's a giant difference.

[2148] Giant difference.

[2149] Yeah.

[2150] You know, by the way, I'm actually not in favor of, like, demonizing the, well, on gas industry.

[2151] Because, because, like, we can't, like, stop instantaneously and not.

[2152] not have oil and the gas.

[2153] You know, like, we'll, like, die of starvation, basically.

[2154] That's always the argument against it, right?

[2155] We need fossil fuels, and this is sort of the short -sighted argument.

[2156] We're going to need to burn fossil fuels for a long time.

[2157] The question is just what rate do we move to a sustainable energy future?

[2158] So I think we should probably move there faster than slower, but it's, you know, but, I mean, the current approach is basically just to demonize oil and gas.

[2159] And I'm like, okay, well, obviously, you know, there are people who spent their whole career in oil and gas, and they started out in that career when it wasn't, doesn't seem like that bad of a thing to do.

[2160] Right.

[2161] So then like, so then they're like, hey man, I just spend my whole career working hard to do useful things.

[2162] And now you're telling me I'm the devil.

[2163] I mean, that's, like, going to make them pretty upset, you know?

[2164] So I say, like, instead of demonizing oil and gas, which also they should stop lobbying against the carbon tax, by the way, then just like, honestly, the smartest thing the oil and gas industry could do, we say, let's do a carbon tax.

[2165] And then we'll just do a carbon tax and make us not the devil.

[2166] Make us not the devil and they'll still make a fuckload of money.

[2167] So it'll be fine.

[2168] That'll be fine.

[2169] Yeah.

[2170] That seems so reasonable.

[2171] I can't imagine how anybody would argue against that.

[2172] That's what I thought, man. I don't know.

[2173] I think the Biden administration should take a strong stance on this situation.

[2174] What political candidates endorsed a carbon tax?

[2175] Did Bernie Sanders endorse a carbon tax?

[2176] I don't know.

[2177] He might have.

[2178] It seems super reasonable.

[2179] I mean, like, even though he's a communist, I kind of like Bernie Sanders.

[2180] Yeah, I like him, too.

[2181] he's a I think he's I think he means well yeah I think he means well the best part about him and he's been remarkably consistent in meaning well his whole life and they kept fucking throwing him right under the bus yeah absolutely two election cycles in a row yeah I think it is hilarious that he like went to like the Soviet Union like three days after his wedding for like ten days oh and he was like a mayor of a city and like he was a mayor in Vermont I'm like, you know dude like how do you explain day six to ten?

[2182] Don't you get it?

[2183] Didn't you see everything you needed to see?

[2184] That's a long time.

[2185] The KGB interviews take that long?

[2186] Yeah, carbon tax seems like the most reasonable thing that anyone could ever ask of an industry that is, without a doubt, causing some problems.

[2187] I mean, there's no one's saying it doesn't cause problems.

[2188] People would deny the extent of the problem, but no one says that excess CO2 from, you know, from emissions is not an issue.

[2189] I mean, like Exxon's own scientists said in like the, I think it was like the late 70s.

[2190] Like, we think there might be a problem here with climate change due to, to the CO2.

[2191] It's like internal, their own documents, their own people.

[2192] Then they were like, uh, be quiet.

[2193] Isn't it weird when environmental things become political, though, when the denial of the environmental thing is like predominantly from, from some factions of the right.

[2194] And then, you know, like the opposite is from some factions.

[2195] And then it becomes a political thing.

[2196] So they dig their heels in the sand.

[2197] And they're like, no, no, no. This is, this is, this is fine.

[2198] This is the way the earth is a, there's a cycle, a natural cycle.

[2199] And it's just, It becomes this mantra that they repeat.

[2200] It's true there as a natural cycle, but that is not explain the situation.

[2201] Right.

[2202] The wall, as you described.

[2203] It's a wall, man. I mean, you just look at carbon parts per million, and it just looks like a wall.

[2204] Like, that just, you know, it goes like, blah, blah, blah, you know, two to 300 parts per million.

[2205] Bam, 400.

[2206] I don't know where.

[2207] There's also some weird arguments that some people will make in terms of the impact that it has on on plant life and that it actually is making the earth greener.

[2208] Oh, I think that's actually true.

[2209] Yeah.

[2210] Yeah.

[2211] Yeah.

[2212] But that's not necessarily okay.

[2213] It still causes problems.

[2214] Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to be like as precise.

[2215] I mean, or at least the least amount wrong that I can be.

[2216] I'm trying to be the least amount wrong.

[2217] Because plants live off carbon dioxide, so the more...

[2218] Yeah, yeah.

[2219] More CO2 does improve plants.

[2220] growth it's true yeah like I said I don't think based on where we are provided we're not complacent provided we don't take things for granted I think we'll be fine but if we're complacent and we take things for granted and we just proceed like everything's fine and we continue on the momentum of CO2 emissions we're taking a big risk and especially big risk is if there's a non -linear event.

[2221] Okay, so CO2 PPM, Pied, Pied, per million has been increasing, you know, pretty reliably 2 .3 ppm per year, but you could have a non -linear event.

[2222] What would constitute a non -linear event?

[2223] If we melt the Siberian tundra, there's like a massive amount of trapped gas and dead plant matter that's frozen solid.

[2224] Now, if that warms up, and that decays, and that could put a massive amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, potentially.

[2225] And then you have, like, how we, like, what are the carbon sinks?

[2226] And, like, if you saturate the carbon sinks and you have, like, a sudden release of CO2 from something that was previously frozen, solid.

[2227] That's where you could have a non -linearity and things could go haywire pretty fast.

[2228] What could happen then?

[2229] I mean, Earth would heat up, if a world level would rise, you'd have a higher probability of extreme weather events.

[2230] Should we hit the fan?

[2231] Should we hit the fan?

[2232] I'm not saying for sure shit would hit the fan, but I'm saying like the probability increases with time.

[2233] so you can't just change the chemical makeup of the atmosphere and oceans and expect nothing going to happen this is just a chemical reaction man it's like yeah so is there anything it's like why we even run this experiment like so the crazy thing is like hey we need we know we need to have a sustainable energy economy long term because we're going to run out of oil so so then we're running this crazy experiment to see what is the effect of massively, of taking billions of tons of carbon that was deep underground, putting in the atmosphere and oceans, and what's going to happen as a result of that.

[2234] And it's like literally the craziest experiment in human history because we know no matter what that we have to have a sustainable energy future, we have to, because otherwise civilization will collapse.

[2235] So what the hell are we running this experiment for?

[2236] because we're accustomed to doing things a certain way.

[2237] This is going to go down as the most foolish experiment in the history of human civilization.

[2238] Is it possible to create some sort of carbon extraction technology that will significantly impact the amount of CO2 that's in the air?

[2239] Or mitigate the emissions?

[2240] Yeah.

[2241] I mean, so I just actually announced that I'm funding this $100 million dollar carbon capture prize to find out the answer to that question.

[2242] So right now, all of the carbon capture methods that we're aware of are very expensive.

[2243] The cost per ton is very expensive.

[2244] And then even if money is not an issue, you have to say, okay, how much wind or solar energy was required to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and, like, I don't know, make it in solid form, like make a cube of it or something, you know, just a giant cube.

[2245] we don't actually know the answer to that question that's why I'm given $100 million to this carbon capture price to try to get a better answer but there's nothing good that we're aware of right now not currently not currently that we're aware because there's a point of diminishing returns the amount of energy that you would need yeah you need a basically a CO2 has a very low energy state and naturally so it's like you burn something you combine oxygen with fuel with hydrocarbons and the net result is CO2 and H2O basically and there's a bunch of other stuff too but primarily it's carbon dioxide and water mostly carbon dioxide so so obviously it goes from a high energy state we use that to power our cars or our power plants and then it ends up in a low energy state which is CO2 in the atmosphere and then like I said a bunch of it gets in the ocean so So, naturally, it therefore requires a lot of energy to rebind that in solid form.

[2246] It doesn't want to just, it's not going to, you've got to put a lot of energy in to bind it.

[2247] And then you want it to be something that's going to be stable in solid form for a long time.

[2248] And this is a hard problem.

[2249] There was a concept, I don't know if it was implemented, but in China they developed essentially like a giant building That was, you know, you're aware of this?

[2250] It was, I don't know if they actually did it.

[2251] Did they want, we talked about this before, Jamie.

[2252] Did they ever wind up doing that?

[2253] It was like a building that was essentially like a giant air filter.

[2254] And they were going to use it.

[2255] But that might have been about particulates more than it was about CO2.

[2256] By the way, I have to be, you know, say a good word here for China.

[2257] China has the, for any large economy has the most progressive, pro -environmental rules of any large economy.

[2258] Really?

[2259] Yeah.

[2260] They're like super supportive of electric vehicles, of solar power, of wind.

[2261] They actually even made a giant solar field in the shape of a panda, which is pretty cute.

[2262] So, and it's actually a funny thing that happened.

[2263] Like for a long time, China was like not, you know, it was not buying.

[2264] into the carbon thing uh you know like they're like oh it's just like a bunch of soft westerners they're like uh they're just a bunch of environmental softies um and then at some point like like senior members the chinese government they think you know so let's like ask the you know engineering professors like at the university is like what do they think and they're like oh yeah no it's definitely real they're like wait you mean it's real like yeah yeah it's real so then like holy shit immediate change well that's the power of having the government in business inexorably intertwined so they can kind of decide how business is going to react and what's going to happen, right?

[2265] Yeah, I think people don't realize China is super pro -environment right now, like way more than America.

[2266] Is that their thing?

[2267] The skyscraper -sized air purifier is the world's tallest.

[2268] Look at that thing.

[2269] So that's an air purifier.

[2270] But that's the thing is like, is that pulling particulates out of the atmosphere or is that actually taking carbon out?

[2271] you know, an air purifier, so...

[2272] Air purifier, not the same thing.

[2273] It's super hard to capture carbon.

[2274] Look at that thing, you know.

[2275] Jesus Christ, imagine falling into that.

[2276] Yeah.

[2277] I mean, naturally, it's just fundamental thermodynamics.

[2278] Like, you know, you release a lot of energy that resulted in the CO2.

[2279] So now you've got to use a lot of energy to capture it.

[2280] Yeah.

[2281] Made a particulate matter no bigger than 2 .4.

[2282] microns in diameter yeah yeah that's like a hard as a particularly difficult to filter two microns oh you know so uh I don't know most people probably don't know but like model S and X have a hospital grade haphilters so and they'll they'll actually drop the two micron PPM level to almost undetectable in the car really yeah so if you're in some sort of a biological disaster area, you can drive through your Tesla.

[2283] Yes.

[2284] Hmm.

[2285] It's literally this like biohazard defense mode where it basically pressurizes the car.

[2286] So it's like the car is under positive pressure with all the air coming through a gigantic Kappa filter.

[2287] And then even the air inside the car is recirculating in a secondary filter.

[2288] It's got the most advanced filtration system of any car by far, literally hospital grade.

[2289] you could do an operation in the car it's insane that's awesome yeah we got a little carried away i'm glad you get carried away you know the other thing i thought is jamie's got the x and one of the things that i love about the x is when it gets hit they literally can't flip over oh yeah it's incredible it's like one of those like things that you if you you know like where you punch the thing and it just comes back up yeah yeah there's like they they they couldn't flip it over in the test so they would like roll on its side and they roll back it's amazing this is very low center of gravity so that's giant yeah exactly that is so fucking cool I mean it's not exactly it just rolls back on I mean there's not another car like that in the world no every other car in the world would just fucking roll it's pretty amazing man yeah even if you did manage to bang it on the roof you can stack like five cars on top of a model model S or X wow Now, are you guys still making the X?

[2290] Yeah.

[2291] You're still going to do the crazy doors?

[2292] The crazy doors.

[2293] Those doors are exercise and hubris.

[2294] That's for sure.

[2295] Well, it's a lot of things you do.

[2296] It's an exercise in hubris.

[2297] Well, some things are really important and necessary.

[2298] Some things are, you know, some things are not necessary.

[2299] And the doors.

[2300] But the things are not necessary, but they're very cool.

[2301] They're functional.

[2302] though if like you're in a tight spot those doors will open up uh yeah tighter than almost any door out there like you even they'll open up in 18 inches you got an 18 inch gap between you and the next car that door will open that's pretty amazing so um we developed uh I mean just to in order to avoid having a puck like an ultrasonic puck in the door we developed the that's the best of my knowledge what's an ultrasonic puck mean so like the The ultrasonic sensors that you have in a car, if you look carefully, you'll see that there's a little puck, like a little isolation ring, like a rubber isolation ring.

[2303] And that's when the sonar, which is like basically a loudspeaker, is generating ultrasonic noise and then listening to the echoes.

[2304] But normally, in order to listen to the echoes, you've got to isolate the thing that's generating the sound.

[2305] So that's why if you look carefully around cars, you'll see these little pucks, these little circles.

[2306] And those are the ultrasonic sensors.

[2307] And we didn't want to have an ultrasonic sensor in the door.

[2308] But we also didn't want the door to like, you know, bat some kid out of the way.

[2309] Right.

[2310] Like just doof.

[2311] You know, it's a haymaker or something.

[2312] Right.

[2313] So we developed, to the best of my knowledge, the only ultrasonic sensor that can see through metal.

[2314] So it's mounted on the inside of the door.

[2315] on isolation mounts and it's super loud and then it's got cancellation because it's kind of basically screaming at itself and it's listening for a tiny echo on the other side of the metal just to avoid having a little rubber ring in the bottom of the door.

[2316] Jesus Christ.

[2317] Yeah.

[2318] We put in a capacitive sensor, an inductive sensor, a force feedback sensor and ultrasonics that can see through metal.

[2319] this is when I say exercise in hubris I mean I'm like wow is that the most ridiculous car you've created yeah this is a Fabrizzi the model X is the Faberge egg of cars it's crazy I mean for like the the six -seaters like for the seats the seats are on a rear incline single post with the the seat movement mechanism hidden in the floor.

[2320] So if you open the door and you look through, it's completely clean.

[2321] It's just like the floor is like a knife edge.

[2322] It's just, there's nothing else like it.

[2323] It's crazy.

[2324] That, that windscreen is like a helicopter, it's like a helicopter windscreen.

[2325] And there's no place to put the, to attach the sun visors.

[2326] So we had to have sun visors that nest in the A pillar, rotate forward, have a magnetic attachment that pops out and it connects to the rear view mirror.

[2327] But you seem very proud of all that.

[2328] You say all these details and they sound really crazy, but...

[2329] That's great.

[2330] It's pretty awesome.

[2331] I mean, the sound system and the X is awesome.

[2332] I mean, we designed so that the sound system is taking into account the fact that the windscreen is like a giant like you know a subwoofer resonator so like the windscreen is a resonator for the sound system yes the sound system is epic in the in the x it's good in the s too it's even better in the new has you thought about doing a plaid x yeah there's going to be a plaid x too yeah when's that coming which is like bizarrely fast for an SUV that's coming out isn't it already bizarrely fast you said it was preposterous right yeah it's it's it's like irrelief is like those things too fast is those too fast probably have you increased the range of the x like what is the range of the x currently it's like 300 something yeah 300 or something so it'll be like uh high 300s yeah and is the the difference the between the x and the s aerodynamics like what is uh what what limits the range the x weighs more and it's got a bigger cross -sectional area so the something called the cda drag coefficient drag coefficient times uh frontal area is higher for the X as you'd expect and the weight is higher so it's going to be 10 to 15 % less range for the same battery pack as the S. The first time I saw an ex -Tiffany Hatch had one and she was in the comedy store parking lot and she had it dancing for us.

[2333] Oh yeah.

[2334] She was playing music and dancing like this.

[2335] A lot of people don't know that the Model X can do this crazy like ballet thing with the - Fucking dances.

[2336] Oh yeah.

[2337] With the doors we're going up and down and the music's went and we were all dancing in the park lot to this car.

[2338] Yeah.

[2339] It's crazy.

[2340] Do you have a favorite that you've created?

[2341] Car, I mean?

[2342] Yeah.

[2343] Not Rocket.

[2344] That's a little...

[2345] Well, the car I drive every day, or tend to drive, is the high -performance Model S. And like the model S, so the model I basically said, I don't know what other people like, but I know what I love.

[2346] And I'm going to just make a car that's the car.

[2347] that I love.

[2348] And hopefully there'll be enough people out there who also love the car.

[2349] So that's the reason of the Model S is because I just designed the car that I would love.

[2350] That's it.

[2351] And then it's like, okay, well, how can we use a lot of the same technology to also create an SUV?

[2352] You know, because a lot of people like an SUV and like you got more seats and more room and higher, you know, you sit sitting higher.

[2353] So, well, what cool things?

[2354] What are the, the cool, I mean, like I say, exercise and humor, so we just got carried away.

[2355] Like, what are all the cool things we can think of?

[2356] If we're for an SUV, you know, friends and I had a lot of discussions about this.

[2357] You know, and J .V. Stravel back in the day and Drew Backlino and Jerome and it's a lot of, a lot of talented people.

[2358] Now, Tesla's relative a lot of talented people, that's for sure.

[2359] The car that's the most fond of show for others is the Model X, for sure.

[2360] So, it's a great car.

[2361] But I thought, like, you know, is this really part of our mission to, like, we're trying to, the mission from Tesla from the beginning has been to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy.

[2362] So are we really doing the right thing by creating this Faberje egg of cars with the Model X?

[2363] I mean too totally frank It's not entirely consistent with our mission Because there's too many bells and whistles Yeah but isn't it though Because Americans love SUVs And what better way to entice them Into embracing Sustainable energy Then give them the dopest SUV you can buy Yeah That's how we justified it to ourselves It's not a justification It's a great carrot You're dangling an amazing carrot Yeah I mean actually In terms of You know, CO2 per mile.

[2364] Also, SUVs are, like, among the worst.

[2365] You know, like, there's very...

[2366] SUVs typically very low mileage to take a lot of gasoline per mile.

[2367] So, you know, if you're replacing, you know, big SUVs, that's actually, like, the best thing you could do on a per mile basis.

[2368] But still, we really got carried away, you know.

[2369] The Faber Shag, of cars.

[2370] Nobody's ever going to make a car like that.

[2371] Explain to me what the fuck Bill Gates was talking about.

[2372] talking about when he was saying that you can't do trucks well what was yeah I didn't know why did he say that then like why would someone probably somebody told him that and you know he's just repeated it he's just not that close to the physics of it and so I don't think he's ill intentioned here it just doesn't know what he's talking about but why say it then you think about a guy who's so involved in technology you would think you would only talk about things you understand I don't know it's weird I also heard that at one point he had a big short position against Tesla which was kind of I don't know if that's true or not It seems weird.

[2373] People I know who know the situation well live there, I said, are you sure?

[2374] They said, yeah, he's a big short position against Tesla, which obviously didn't work out too well.

[2375] But anyway, I think he's generally got good intentions here.

[2376] I think he's probably just not, I don't hate Bill Gates, to be clear.

[2377] I think he just probably doesn't know the science.

[2378] Yeah, I just thought it was odd because I knew that you guys were developing a semi.

[2379] We have prototypes that actually drive.

[2380] that actually drive like we've used them to transport cars and stuff it's not like a some it's not like a unicorn like it was like a pegasus or something it's like what are you talking about we literally have prototypes that work what kind of mileage of those things get well these are prototypes so they'll be like you know I don't know about 300 miles something like that and so but we're driving back and forth from Fremont to Reno you know for transporting stuff but generally when semi -truck drivers when when it's a human being driving them they drive for long periods of time far more than 300 miles right no actually most trucking is short range really yeah the majority oh okay the majority like shipping things around cities and things on those lines yeah it'll be like take stuff from the port to the freight forwarding would you have a long range like cross -continental version of it and so it'll be much more batteries and yeah um the yeah um yeah um yeah um yeah um I mean, you want something on the order of like a 500 kilowatt hour pack.

[2381] Like what we have in the S and the X is 100 kilowatt hour pack.

[2382] And, you know, you probably want like, I don't know, 500 kilowatt hour pack for a semi.

[2383] But this is not a game changer on the mass, especially for a structural pack where the pack itself is the structure, is the primary load carrying element in the vehicle.

[2384] Is it potentially...

[2385] It's not a game.

[2386] It definitely works 100%.

[2387] No question about it.

[2388] Would it be possible to have a safer semi because of this whole...

[2389] Yeah.

[2390] Well, we can also...

[2391] Like you have with the X?

[2392] Yeah.

[2393] The center of gravity would be really low.

[2394] So that would certainly help.

[2395] We could also...

[2396] We'd have motors individually controlling the wheels.

[2397] So we can just automatically...

[2398] And this was part of our semi -presentation.

[2399] We can just, the computer will automatically prevent it from jack -knifing.

[2400] Like, you know, jack -knifing on a low traction surface is like truck driver's worst nightmare.

[2401] You know, you're on like some icy road, icy mountainous road, the trailer slides, you know, with jack -knifes like that, and you could slide off the edge of the hill.

[2402] And you could stop that from happening even on an icy road?

[2403] Yeah.

[2404] Wow.

[2405] So, because you have individual control over each of the wheels.

[2406] So you can, like, you can just make sure.

[2407] it's stable, it doesn't a jackknife.

[2408] Whereas if you've got just one engine, it's very difficult to do that.

[2409] Do you anticipate that eventually these things would be completely autonomous?

[2410] Like there won't be truck drivers?

[2411] Eventually it will be autonomous.

[2412] But we're still a ways away from that.

[2413] But in the short term, I think we can certainly see convoys.

[2414] So, you know, where you've got one truck driver and then there's like a whole bunch of trucks following that truck and, you know, keeping like a distance so that other cars can pass in between them.

[2415] It's sort of like having a train, but on the highway.

[2416] It's like linked where it's just like one, like you got one, you know, truck driver in the front and then a whole series of trucks behind it that are following a convoy.

[2417] Whoa.

[2418] But the trucks behind is there are autonomous.

[2419] And how much space in between?

[2420] You could like, wheel, slip in there?

[2421] No problem.

[2422] You could put like, you know, 40, 50 feet between them, no problem.

[2423] Oh, wow.

[2424] Yeah.

[2425] And those trucks are just follow the lead and it's just like it's like having trains on the road and they'll be following through what like just they know where the trucks ahead of them are at all times it's very easy to do follow oh you say follow this thing no problem what's next after this um you mean after what what products or something or yeah like what ultimately do you think that you could have planes i thought about planes for a long time that my brain will explode if i duke planes literally it's just like this is too crazy man my my brain is overloaded so um overloaded because of the complexity or overloaded because you have too much stuff on my plate right yeah um I'm glad there's a limit I'm glad you got a spot where you can't go any further um there's only so many hours in the day yeah so So, I mean, I think there's, there, there are improvements happening over time for the energy density of batteries, like the what hours per, or should really be joules, but like, like, joules per kilogram, joules per liter, it's improving a little bit every year, you know, so, planes really need a high energy density, because you've got to get up to altitude, like most energy is getting up to altitude.

[2426] And then once you're in a low air density situation, you can cruise along with very, it takes very little energy to once you're in cruise.

[2427] That's a massive amount of energy to get up there.

[2428] So, man, I thought about this a lot.

[2429] Yeah.

[2430] I mean, an aircraft and cruise is a neutral force balance.

[2431] So it's like, it's not accelerating.

[2432] So basically, if you've got, you know, a motor.

[2433] of a given force, for a given force you will just go faster as you go higher.

[2434] So you've got the air resistance.

[2435] The air resistance is dropping exponentially as you go higher.

[2436] If you have a constant accelerating, a constant force from your motor and propeller or turbine or whatever, then you will just go faster.

[2437] The higher you go, the faster you go for the same amount of power.

[2438] So the key would be achieving a high altitude?

[2439] Yeah, it's all about altitude.

[2440] Like the air is very thick at sea level.

[2441] Like for the same amount of force that you would go, say, like, you know, half the speed of sound at sea level, you could go, you know, twice the speed of sound at, like, let's say, at 100 ,000 feet.

[2442] Same amount of energy in cruise.

[2443] Is it possible to fly a commercial plane at 100 ,000 feet?

[2444] Would that be possible?

[2445] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[2446] You just go fast.

[2447] The great thing about that is you could bring flat earthers up there.

[2448] Yeah, the faster you go, the, like, you just want to go, the higher you go, the faster you want to go.

[2449] Right.

[2450] So, like, interesting about, like, the SR 71 is that it's, it's most fuel -efficient speed was its fastest.

[2451] speed pretty much or pretty close because that's when it could go the highest altitude so because it could go faster at higher altitude it got better miles per gallon at at high speed than low speed that's pretty wild yeah so altitude because air density decays exponentially and drag increases with the square and so the exponential beats the square do you think there would ever be a time where Tesla could run itself in a sense of like you have enough talented people running it and you wouldn't have to devote all your resources to being there all the time and handling things and maybe you would think about planes yeah i mean i'm committed to run tesla for you know several years into the future um and there's still a lot of things we've got to get done um could Tesla possibly expand the planes it could i it is a different regime i mean there's There are no car companies that are aircraft companies, really.

[2452] So, but I think there, I think there is a way, ultimately, to have a vertical takeoff, and landing, supersonic electric jet.

[2453] Wow.

[2454] And that'd be cool.

[2455] But what about the weight?

[2456] That's where it comes, energy density of the pack is important.

[2457] You need to get high.

[2458] Quickly.

[2459] Get high.

[2460] Get high fast.

[2461] Yeah.

[2462] And you can get rid of most of the things that are on a plane.

[2463] If you just, if you, if you, if you gamble the, uh, the fan.

[2464] Yeah, to have the fan change direction like you do with a rocket.

[2465] You don't, you don't need, like, uh, your rudder and, uh, you mostly don't need an elevator.

[2466] You just need, like, some trim tabs.

[2467] So you basically have a flying wing.

[2468] It's pretty easy to do a flying wing.

[2469] Wow.

[2470] Or, you know, flying wing with a little bit of fuselage.

[2471] So you make it lighter, make the pack structural as well.

[2472] So the pack is the wing.

[2473] You got to basically pull a few tricks like that.

[2474] This is all about, like, how do you make the non -cell portion of the aircraft as light as possible?

[2475] Anyway, this is like, there's like a lot of regulatory things you have to go through and and this is counting on a what house per kilogram.

[2476] You'd want what house per kilogram at the pack level to be over 400.

[2477] So we're pretty close to that.

[2478] So it's like it's, you know, at the pack level, not at the cell level, but at the pack level.

[2479] with high cycle life well listen you're doing plenty you don't you don't necessarily have to get into planes right now yeah I think you're busy enough planes will be the last of the things cars and trucks and then you know boats and then planes well it's interesting because plane technology in terms of what commercial air travel is probably increased at least visibly to the consumer the least least in the last last like 30, 40, 50 years.

[2480] It's not much difference, the experience.

[2481] Yeah.

[2482] Pretty similar.

[2483] Yep, in fact, it's got slower.

[2484] Right after the Concord.

[2485] Not even the Concord, like the 747 was the fastest plane.

[2486] Oh, really?

[2487] Yeah, had a swept wings.

[2488] So the wing sweep, like, what's the wing angle?

[2489] That's that big factor in, like, what its cruise speed is going to be.

[2490] So the 747 had a, you know, pretty steep wing.

[2491] But its fuel efficiency is not as good as something like, you know, triple seven or seven -eight -seven.

[2492] I mean, there's some like basic things in physics that are present almost everywhere.

[2493] They sometimes take different form, but they're basically referring to the relationship between momentum and kinetic energy.

[2494] Kinetic energy goes as a square momentum is linear.

[2495] and then there's surface to volume ratio.

[2496] Surface volume ratio and the momentum to kinetic energy ratio drive so much of mechanics.

[2497] It's insane.

[2498] It's like the reason that you don't have like a single -celled creature that is gigantic is because of surface -to -volume ratio.

[2499] Like there's a certain surface -to -volume ratio where diffusion works, And beyond that, diffusion does not work.

[2500] And you have to have a circulatory system.

[2501] For aircraft, or just generally, you want to move a large mass of air slowly, so you can reduce the velocity component of kinetic energy, which goes as the square.

[2502] You want to move a large amount of mass slowly, not a small amount of mass fast.

[2503] So the way you make aircraft engines more efficient is you move a lot.

[2504] lot of air slowly like big fans basically big slow fans work great small tiny fast -moving jets are very inefficient so like the you know something like triple seven it's really just a propeller in a shroud so high bypass what's called bypass ratio like how much of it is jet versus propeller you want it to be mostly propeller so this is a is clearly something you've been thinking about a lot oh sure yeah like for 13 years do you think it's going to be the next thing for you i don't i hope not i'm i hope not um there's there's some smart people i have to try and tackle it and i hope they are successful um but just uh it's just try to try to get high get high go fast get high you will automatically go fast as you get as you go higher.

[2505] It's just air density is dropping exponentially.

[2506] And you think of like in the limit you got like a satellite.

[2507] Satellites going around there with the, you know, low with orbit satellites going around the earth 25 times speed of sound.

[2508] No propulsion.

[2509] It's not, so if you get high enough, you just keep going.

[2510] Obviously you just want to go super high.

[2511] Higher the better.

[2512] Now the thing, like you said, well, why don't planes do that already?

[2513] Well, So if you got a combustion engine, it's got an aperture issue.

[2514] So you're like, okay, how big is the hole in which you are ingesting air?

[2515] And then bear in mind, air is mostly nitrogen, not oxygen.

[2516] So you got a lot more chaff than you got wheat.

[2517] And that's why, you know, it's like you're going to design, this thing's got to work at sea level, it's going to work at altitude, and then it's going to drop off in efficiency quite a lot as you go higher.

[2518] And then there's also like, well, if the air, there's some other issues that relating to depressurization, like how fast can you descend.

[2519] But you really just want to go super high.

[2520] And it's very difficult to design a combustion engine that is effective at a wide range of altitudes.

[2521] So like the air density at 100 ,000 feet is approximately 1 % at sea level.

[2522] So how the hell do you design a ,000?

[2523] combustion, like an air burning, it's like an air, there's something that's taking an air combining with fuel and burning to work when you have a hundred -fold difference in air density.

[2524] Because this is an intractable problem.

[2525] But if you have an electric fan, it's not burning anything.

[2526] So aperture doesn't matter.

[2527] It's a big deal.

[2528] It seems like it would be the best way to fly.

[2529] Yeah.

[2530] Someone can figure out how to do it.

[2531] Um, we're like, well, over three hours in here.

[2532] Oh, wow.

[2533] That flies when you're here.

[2534] Yeah.

[2535] Wasted.

[2536] Well, thank you very much.

[2537] As always, it's a pleasure.

[2538] Always fun to talk to you, man. I really appreciate it.

[2539] Yeah, you're welcome.

[2540] If you ever want to talk about something, I'm here for you.

[2541] Thanks.

[2542] All right.

[2543] Thank you.

[2544] All right.

[2545] Bye, everybody.