Giga Berlin Opening
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (2)
Transcript
0:00Elon MuskI'll say.
0:08Elon MuskAll right.
0:38Elon MuskFor circa Svayaran Ankafangan. Yes. There for their fatic and fabric would be a Protestant. Thank you for all our did us here Verdley Gemarcht heart.
1:05Elon MuskYes, exactly. So thank you for all your hard work which has led to this great day. And it was amazing to see how excited the customers were to receive their cars.
1:17Elon MuskI mean it was just super good vibes and I think it bodes very well for the future of Gigabyte Brandenburg. And I think it's worth remembering that every car that we make is a step in the direction of a sustainable future.
1:38Elon MuskYou know, the, the thing about this factory and the cars that we make is that it gives people hope about the future. You know, and it's like it's very important to have reasons to be excited about the future because often people are depressed or sad about the future because they think it won't be good.
1:57Elon MuskBut what we're, what we're doing here is with every car we make, with every battery we make, we're making the future better.
2:10Elon MuskSo what you're doing really matters. It makes a difference. And I'm sort of working on the master plan part three and it's. Yeah, it's going to be good. But a huge part of that is scaling to high volume.
2:29Elon MuskSo in order for us to really affect the world in a positive way, because we get a lot of press, we get a lot of attention, but if you say how many vehicles have we made as a percentage of total vehicles in the world?
2:42Elon MuskBecause there's 2 billion vehicles in the world. Well, so far we've actually well below 1%. We're not even half a percent. So it's essential for us to really affect the future in a positive way.
2:55Elon MuskWe have to make a lot of cars. That's the only way. So. And this is what, that's why we call it a gigafactory. You know, it's very big and you know, we're starting off with the model Y, but we're going to do a number of exciting additional vehicles here.
3:14Elon MuskAnd so I think this overall is just going to be a center of excellence for sustainable energy in general and it's really going to help the world. So. And I look forward to doing it with, with you.
3:27Elon MuskAnd yeah, once again, thanks for everything. You know,
3:35Elon MuskSo yeah, if you guys have some questions or something, you know. Okay everyone.
3:59Elon MuskOh, wow. Okay. I was younger then. Yes,
4:11Elon MuskYes. Well, great. Thanks to the supercharger team for enabling long distance travel. It's very impressive. Work that the Supercharger team has done. So I'd like to give them a hand as well.
4:26Elon MuskYeah. You know, in addition to the work that we do here, we also inspire and encourage the rest of the industry to go towards electrification. And I think it's fair to say that without Tesla, without the work that the Tesla team has done, that the rest of the industry would not be moving so quickly towards electrification.
4:49Elon MuskSo. And that's also why we open sourced our patents. You know, we made our patents freely available to the other carmakers because it was the right thing to do.
4:58Elon MuskNo other company has done that as far as they know. And it's just, you know, we really, at Tesla really try to do the right thing, you know, and, you know, we want to be a company that you can believe in in your heart and soul.
5:10Elon MuskAnd in order to do that, we must be the company that does the right thing. I love you guys too.
5:23Elon MuskSo I don't know if anybody's got some questions, you can sell it out or something. Oh, yeah. Okay, so when is Tesla going to South America and maybe some other markets?
5:36Elon MuskWell, we definitely want to go to the world. The challenge we have right now, it's a high class problem, but the orders we have are well in excess of our production.
5:50Elon MuskSo sometimes people will say, why aren't you in all these other markets? And why don't you make all these other different versions of the product, like different cars, like where's the Tesla semi truck and the Cybertruck and the Rosa and other things.
6:05Elon MuskBut the challenge we have, it's a good challenge, is that our orders far exceed our production. So, you know, a high class problem, but we need to have our production get to the point where it exceeds our current orders and then it makes sense to expand to additional markets and to have additional products.
6:31Elon MuskBecause if we add complexity, but we don't add volume and we don't add production volume, then we've not actually done anything more because the good is a function of how many vehicles we're able to make.
6:43Elon MuskSo as we are able to ramp up production and satisfy demand in our existing markets, then we will expand to other markets and we will also add additional products.
6:54Elon MuskSo, and I think last year there were a lot of supply chain challenges with chips. Everyone knows about the chip shortage. And then this year there's still some chip shortages.
7:05Elon MuskAnd then next year will be, I think, probably a challenge with total battery production. And then certainly if you start going like two, three years out, it's all about total how many gigawatt hours of battery are produced, that will be the limiting factor.
7:23Elon MuskAnd then going even further down into the supply chain, what is the rate at which battery materials are being mined and refined? And obviously we want to do that in an ethical and environmentally sensitive way.
7:35Elon MuskSo that, that in the long grand scheme of things is, is how many terawatt hours of battery can be produced per year. Our rough calculation is that it's about 300 terawatt hours is needed to transition the world to a sustainable energy economy.
7:52Elon MuskThere's a lot of batteries basically, so we want to try to do as much of that as possible. And I think we're actually doing a pretty good job. Like we're, you know, growing by, I don't know, 70, 80% a year on average and maybe even faster than that in the future.
8:09Elon MuskSo, yeah, so that's, I think, the answer to why not more markets and why not more products? I'm going to get cooked by the sun, by the way. I'm not very sun proof.
8:21Elon MuskYeah, sure.
8:26Elon MuskSo in terms of what am I most proud of? Well, I think I'm most proud of the amazing work done by the Tesla team to scale. To scale, at the rate that we're scaling and make compelling products that people love.
8:41Elon MuskI mean, you know, you think about it, how many products can you buy that you really love? It's so few, you know, and it'd be great if people made more products that you love.
8:54Elon MuskAnd Tesla is a rare company that makes, actually makes products you love and makes people's, you know, you know, that brings them joy every day. That's great. So, and if you look at our rate of growth, Tesla is the fastest growing company in history that makes a large manufacturer product.
9:18Elon MuskSo the next fastest, I think, was the Ford Model T. Like that was 100 years ago. And we're actually growing faster than the Ford Model T, which is crazy.
9:26Elon MuskSo.
9:43Elon MuskYeah, well, they'd be green. So. Yeah. With respect to colors, which colors will be available from the factory? Colors are always a challenge because when you think about colors, you don't need to manufacture it, but you also need to service it and fix it for like 20 years.
10:03Elon MuskSo it's like, man, that's a, like, I've got to think about, man, what are we going to put the service team through, you know, managing all these colors. So we have to be careful with total number of colors.
10:13Elon MuskBut we obviously are going to make some special colors here because. And it's more than just the color itself, but it's the layers of paint in order to get the dimensionality.
10:24Elon MuskSo, you know, so we're going to make a really special red which I think, I don't know, probably a lot of people have seen. Yeah, like kind of like that.
10:33Elon MuskYeah, it's like a 13 layer, you know, 13 layers of paint. You want to have the, the layers give you dimensionality and, and give the different. It gives like it makes the color look deep and, and, and, and complex.
10:49Elon MuskAnd then we'll also have a silver that's also, I think not as many layers, like maybe eight or something. But it's so, can be really special. It's sort of like a kind of a liquid, liquid silver and like a.
11:03Elon MuskYeah, like a deep, deep red. I don't know, deep complex red. So we're going to make it starting off with, well, not soon, but in a few months we'll make the special sort of deep dark red and sort of quicksilver.
11:20Elon MuskYou know, they'll be really cool. They'll be like the best color. I think they'll be the, the best paint on any production car that's not like made for like a, a show or something like that.
11:31Elon MuskAnd it's, it's. You have to design the paint shop especially for, you know, because if you're going to do 13 layers, you've got to have 13 steps. So it's very difficult to retrofit a paint shop.
11:41Elon MuskYou have to design it in from the beginning. And that's, that's, that's one of the things that. Oh, thank you.
12:07Elon MuskWell, I don't think we're going to be using graphene, but we will use graphite. So there's plenty of that. You know, graphite is just carbon basically, so in a special form of carbon.
12:17Elon MuskBut yeah, I think the batch of materials for long range, it'll be a nickel based cathode. The cathode is really the important part. They all have lithium and lithium is only like 2% of the cell.
12:34Elon MuskSo nickel will be the one for long range, which is currently what we're using. And then for standard range of the iron phosphate and then for, and I think there's an interesting potential for manganese.
12:49Elon MuskAnd the important thing is like if you look at, you know, at very large scale, you have to say, okay, we need tens of millions of tons. It's like maybe hundreds of millions of tons ultimately.
13:00Elon MuskAnd so the materials that are used for batteries at very large scale must be common materials. They're not common materials. Can't scale. Well, graphene. I know everyone loves graphene, but it's maybe we'll use it at some point, but graphene is a difficult thing to make.
13:23Elon MuskBut even graphene is made of carbon. So anyway, the fundamentals of scaling batteries are just say, like, how many millions of tons can be produced and produced in an ethical, environmentally good way.
13:40Elon MuskAnd I'm confident that we can scale to global volumes using iron phosphate and manganese cathode and then nickel cathode for long range. So.
13:58Elon MuskFSD Beta Europe. Yes. So FSD Beta Europe, we're, I think we're getting to a point where the FSD bid is very good in the US and later this week expanding to Canada.
14:19Elon MuskAnd then I think we'll be ready to show it to regulators in the eu. I don't know, maybe in two or three months, but then we've got to do quite a lot of work for all the special case situations in Europe.
14:40Elon MuskAnd the roads, as you know, if you've driven around Europe, the roads vary quite a lot by country. I mean, maybe the eu, but the road rules are, and the way the blinds are painted and it's different and then you've got to recognize all the different languages.
14:55Elon MuskIt's quite difficult to do full self driving in Europe. It's much more complex than say the, the U.S. or Canada. No, it's, there's a lot of little tricky things.
15:10Elon MuskThe rules are not the same, you know, so. But I think probably we can start doing beta maybe later this year, I think in Europe. Yeah. Depending on regulatory approval.
15:29Elon MuskYeah, it's like things are a little different in the us. Like in the US things are legal by default and Europe they're illegal by default. So, you know, so we have to get approval beforehand, whereas in the US you can kind of do it on your own cognizance, more or less.
15:53Elon MuskSorry. Well, I guess the next target is really, you know, to really scale production this year and you know, try to make as many cars as we can. We want to complete development of the Cybertruck and be ready for production next year.
16:18Elon MuskHopefully have enough battery pack capability to start the Tesla semi truck, the heavy truck. Hopefully complete engineering of the Roadster, the new Roadster. And then there's some future projects that are also pretty important.
16:36Elon MuskThere's also stationary storage, new versions of the Tesla solar roof, you know, Powerwall 3. There's a lot of things. So we have a very exciting product pipeline. Maybe one or two more questions.
16:55Elon MuskLove you too.
17:00Elon MuskWell, it makes me happy to see you guys happy, I have to say.
17:22Elon MuskSorry. The witch.
17:27Elon MuskI might. No, but I'll get it. I'll. I'll track it down. Last one. Three. Exactly. All right. Last. Last question. Sure.
17:45Elon MuskWell, best case scenario, I suppose 10.
17:56Elon MuskYou know, I think it's aggressive, but not impossible that we could do 20 million cars in 10 years. So. And that would be a good number because there's two.
18:09Elon MuskThere's 2 billion cars and trucks in the world that are in active use. So 20 million would be then 1% of global. The global fleet per year. Yeah. All right.
18:21Elon MuskThanks again, guys. Love you.