Interview with Bloomberg
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (1)
Transcript
0:00Elon MuskIt's really taking the technology to the next level. People were able to guess, of course, that we're unveiling the dual motor Model S. But what they'll learn tonight is just how much of an improvement it is.
0:13Bloomberg InterviewerThis whole tweet that you sent out, less than, what, 10 days ago, you sent this tweet out. Were you surprised by how the Internet pretty much got it right with what you were going to unveil?
0:24Elon MuskI think the Internet is very good at figuring out secrets at this point. So, like, there's no privacy anymore. But I think we were able to keep a few of the important details
0:36Bloomberg Interviewera little bit of a surprise.
0:37Elon MuskYes.
0:38Bloomberg InterviewerAnd your stock went up, Elon, by something like 8, 9% just based on that suite alone. You earned about $3 billion in market cap on that. Is that a surprise to you?
0:50Elon MuskYes. I mean, that seems like an unlikely thing to happen just based on a tweet, but I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, maybe it's surprising. I don't really follow the stock that much because I think sometimes the stock moves for random reasons.
1:07Elon MuskAnd if that ends up being a move barometer, then it's not a happy life.
1:12Bloomberg InterviewerWell, because a few weeks ago you had said yourself, look, you thought the stock was a little bit high, and it then fell about 10% after that. So do you still think the stock is a little high?
1:21Elon MuskWell, it depends on how people. If somebody is a long term holder of the stock, I think there's a lot of appreciation that will occur in the long term.
1:32Elon MuskYou know, in the short term, it's difficult to predict these fluctuations, but it does seem as though, you know, for a company that had a few billion dollars in revenue last year, to have a 30 plus billion dollar market cap is on the high side.
1:43Elon MuskAnd I think that's. I think there's certainly lots of people on the Internet who say that.
1:48Bloomberg InterviewerSo you still feel that way then, about your stock?
1:51Elon MuskNo, I mean, I just, I feel like it's always difficult to predict the short term fluctuations. So if someone's a long term holder of the stock, I don't think they should sell the stock.
2:03Elon MuskI think it will appreciate and ultimately be much higher than it is today. But in terms of short term fluctuations, that's impossible to say.
2:12Bloomberg InterviewerNow, we'll go through the features of the Model D essentially in a moment, but I'm interested about the legal implications of having Autopilot in the Model S's. Right. What happens, Elon, if the car does in fact crash?
2:26Bloomberg InterviewerWho is going to be responsible when that car is on autopilot?
2:30Elon MuskYeah. So I think it's important for us to differentiate autonomous driving versus autopilot. Autopilot is what they have in airplanes. For example, we use the same term that they use in airplanes, where there's still an expectation that there'll be a pilot.
2:43Elon MuskSo the. So if the onus is on the pilot to make sure that the autopilot is doing the right thing, we're not yet at the stage where you can go to sleep and wake up at your destination.
2:56Elon MuskWe would have called it autonomous instead of autopilot if that was the case.
2:59Bloomberg InterviewerRight.
3:00Elon MuskBut what we are doing is making it a lot easier and more comfortable to drive the car and incorporating a lot of active safety features. So the car will stay in its lane, will automatically brake, will maintain a distance to other cars, will avoid, like, highway barriers and other obstacles.
3:20Bloomberg InterviewerBut that doesn't still address the question, though, Elon, which is, let's say it's on autopilot, so it's not autonomous. But if it's on autopilot and a driver says, hey, you know, this was supposed to change lanes for me, and instead it hit this barrier, I want Tesla to be responsible for this.
3:38Elon MuskYeah. I think we're going to be quite clear with customers that the responsibility remains with the driver. We're not asserting that the car is capable of driving. In the absence of driver oversight.
3:52Elon MuskThat will be the case at some point in the future. Like maybe five or six years from now, I think we'll be able to achieve true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination.
4:06Elon MuskBut in order to do that, you have to have fully redundant systems. Everything's got to be redundant so that any one system breaking does not result in an accident.
4:14Elon MuskAnd you also have to prove that out over millions of miles of driving. And then, of course, then we have to prove that to the regulators to convince them that it's safe.
4:25Elon MuskAnd so I think from the point at which true autonomous driving is possible, which I now think is probably in the five or six year time frame.
4:34Bloomberg InterviewerYou said that before, though. Five to six years?
4:36Elon MuskYeah, a couple years ago I thought it was more like 10 years. But based on the rate of improvement that I'm seeing and the progress we're making, I think we'll probably be able to do it in five or six years.
4:46Elon MuskBut it's probably still going to take two or three years after that before the regulators approve it, because they want to make sure that it's truly a lot safer than driving with a person.
4:57Elon MuskAnd the standard for fully autonomous driving is going to be much greater than for a person because if it's just equivalent, that wouldn't be enough.
5:04Bloomberg InterviewerThere's no change at all in the battery, Right. There's no change at all in what you're doing or. Okay. But is there going to be a change at all in the driving range given some of these improvements?
5:15Elon MuskYeah. So the way we're doing dual motor, it actually enables a range increase because we're able to balance the efficiency of the motors a lot more. So if you just have one motor, it's always on a particular power versus efficiency curve.
5:31Elon MuskBut if you've got two motors, you can optimize between them and actually have the motors operate in their more efficient regime more of the time. And the net result is that we're able to get 10 miles more highway range just by going to dual motors.
5:47Elon MuskWhereas in every other all wheel drive system, you lose range. This one, you gain it.