Interview in Denmark
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (3)
Transcript
0:05InterviewerHe is one of the most talked about CEOs in the world right now, the man behind companies such as SpaceX and Tesla. Mr. Musk, it's a great pleasure to have you in Copenhagen.
0:16Elon MuskYeah, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be back.
0:19InterviewerWhat brings you to Denmark?
0:21Elon MuskWell, I'm here to see the Tesla Danish team. I'm actually visiting a number of countries on this visit. I just came from Luxembourg and I'm headed to Germany and Netherlands and Belgium.
0:37Elon MuskSo here to see the team, see how things are going, talk to some of the people in government and so forth.
0:44InterviewerWhat message do you bring to Denmark?
0:46Elon MuskWell, I think the most important message is that Denmark is a great leader in renewable energy with wind. And I think that there's an opportunity to be a leader in sustainable transport as well.
1:01Elon MuskBut although Denmark is doing incredibly well on wind, if you look at, say, how many cars going down the road are electric, there's very few, well under 1%. So I think it's very important that government policy continue to support electric vehicles and as more wind energy is generated, it makes sense to put that into sustainable transport.
1:28Elon MuskI think they're sort of two very important halves of the same problem. So I think it's.
1:34InterviewerIs Denmark an interesting market for Tesla, a small country like Denmark?
1:39Elon MuskYeah, I think for Denmark,
1:45InterviewerI think
1:45Elon MuskDenmark can serve as an example to the rest of the world to say what can be done with the sustainable transport. So with larger countries it's difficult to make a big impact, but with small countries you can say, hey, this is what it can be like to other countries, say, with the right policies, you can have a significant number of electric vehicles on the road.
2:07Elon MuskSo I think Denmark can be an important leader in the world. As an example in this regard, you mentioned wind.
2:14InterviewerDenmark has the world's largest windmill maker, Vestas, and a large production of sustainable energy. But we do have trouble storing the wind energy. Can you help us with that?
2:25Elon MuskAbsolutely. So the electric vehicles themselves can be obviously a great recipient to buffer wind energy. So depending upon what level of wind energy is being generated, you can actually have the pricing of electricity vary so that people can charge their electric cars to depending upon if there's a large amount or a small amount of energy being generated from the wind, then in addition, Tesla has a battery pack, a stationary battery pack that is under development and will go into significant production later this year.
2:56Elon MuskAnd so combining wind energy with a stationary storage is very powerful because that provides a complete solution.
3:04InterviewerWould you consider setting up a facility in Denmark even?
3:07Elon MuskYeah, that is certainly something under consideration. Yeah.
3:13InterviewerTesla is improving battery technology really fast. How do you expect your battery technology will change the auto sector as well as the energy sector in the coming years?
3:23Elon MuskWell, I think battery technology, both for electric vehicles and for stationary storage is a critical piece of the equation for a long term future of sustainable energy. So you need to have sustainable energy generation, which I think is going to be primarily wind and solar, and then you combine that with stationary storage, which is needed because of the intermittent nature of renewable energy generation.
3:48Elon MuskAnd then the third piece of the equation is electric transport. So if you have all three of those pieces, sustainable generation, storage and electric vehicles, then you have a complete solution for the future and then we have a good future.
4:01InterviewerBut how do you feel about taking on such large industries as the auto industry and the energy industry?
4:08Elon MuskWell, it's definitely, it can be quite difficult at times. The, you know, the big car companies and the big energy companies have quite sharp elbows. So they try to, you know, various times they try to squash small companies like Tesla.
4:21Elon MuskBut I think we, you know, we have the support generally of, we have the popular support and we have a very dedicated team at Tesla. So, man, it's hard, but I think, you know, we're making good progress.
4:35InterviewerTesla is really getting sales going, really getting cars out there. You've been able to get a head start on other electric carmakers, but they are really coming along now, which I think is great.
4:46Elon MuskYeah, yeah.
4:47InterviewerWhat is your response to the new competing electric sports cars such as Porsche's new electric car?
4:53Elon MuskYeah, well, you know, the reason that we're doing Tesla is to try to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport, to have there be more electric cars on the road.
5:03Elon MuskAnd to that end we actually open sourced all of our patents. So we said any car company can use our technology, it's no problem. They don't even have to pay a fee to us.
5:13Elon MuskSo for us, we're very philosophically motivated. We care about the advancement of electric vehicles because we think unless there's sustainable transport, the future is going to be terrible. So I'm glad to see these announcements of these other companies.
5:30Elon MuskI hope they move even faster than they announce.
5:33InterviewerBut don't you expect maybe your investors to expect you to fight off this competition rather than embracing it?
5:40Elon MuskWell, yeah, I mean, I did say that when we were in public. Even I said, look, Tesla has a strong ideological motivation so they shouldn't invest if they disagree with that.
5:51Elon MuskSo they know from the beginning, I've always been very clear about that. But as long as we make compelling products. I think Tesla will do okay. So it's not.
6:05Elon MuskI mean, we shouldn't do okay just because the competition fail. I mean, we should do okay because we make good cars. That's the only reason.
6:14InterviewerI want to get into your visions for electric cars. Mr. Musk, when will we break the thousand kilometer range mark for an electric car?
6:24Elon MuskA thousand kilometers? Well, it depends under what circumstances. For 1000km as it is, the record right now for Model S is 800km. That's the furthest that anyone has driven a Model S.
6:39Elon MuskSo we could be close. Yeah, we're pretty close. Now in order to do that, they did drive at a relatively slow speed. So you know, we're talking, I think they drove maybe at 40 or 50 kilometers an hour or something like that.
6:51Elon MuskBut I think my guess is probably we could break a thousand kilometers within a year or two.
6:58InterviewerOkay, yeah. So within 2016 maybe even.
7:02Elon MuskYeah, I'd say if you say 2017. I'd say 2017 for sure.
7:06InterviewerHow fast? Sorry? How far can a Tesla car drive on a single charge in 2020?
7:12Elon MuskOh, in 2020,
7:17InterviewerI guess we could
7:18Elon Muskprobably make a car go 1200 kilometers. Okay.
7:20InterviewerIs that kind of the pace going forward of improving battery?
7:25Elon MuskYeah, if you think maybe, you know, 5 to 10% a year, something like that. Okay, yeah.
7:34InterviewerDo you have any current plans for a self driving Tesla?
7:38Elon MuskWe do. I mean, tell me about that. Yeah, sure. So the Tesla that is currently in production has the ability to do automatic steering or autopilot on highways and that's currently being beta tested and will go into wide release hopefully next month.
8:01Elon MuskSo we're probably only a month away from having autonomous driving, at least for highways and for relatively small simple roads. My guess for when we'll have full autonomy is about three years.
8:15InterviewerThree years?
8:16Elon MuskApproximately three years. However, regulators will probably not allow full autonomy for maybe at least one to two years, maybe one to three years after that. So it depends on the particular market.
8:29Elon MuskSome markets will be, the regulators will be more forward leaning than others. But in terms of technical, when will it be technologically possible? I think three years.
8:39InterviewerWhat kind of cars are we driving 20 years from now?
8:45Elon MuskI hope civilization is still around in 20 years if it is. Yeah, exactly. I think in 20 years I think we'll see hopefully a very large percentage of cars being electric.
9:01Elon MuskProbably all cars being built will have full autonomy in 20 years. But it is important to bear in mind sometimes people think of cars like consumer products, like a phone or something like that.
9:14Elon MuskBut in the case of a phone. The average ownership time for a phone is two or three years. But for a car, a car typically lasts 20 years before it is finally scrapped.
9:24Elon MuskSo the, the total fleet of cars and trucks in the world is about 2 billion. And that fleet is increasing probably to 2.5 billion. And the new car production is about new cars and trucks, about 100 million per year.
9:43Elon MuskSo in order to change the fleet, if all cars become electric, say immediately, then it would take probably more than 20 years to change the fleet. For autonomous driving, that may be less because if autonomous driving means that fewer cars and trucks are needed, then it's probably a smaller period of time, but it's probably still at least 10 to 15 years.
10:07Elon MuskSo that's an important consideration when thinking about how fast can things change in cars. And as I mentioned earlier, if you want to say, how are we doing in terms of electric cars, in terms of sustainable transport, you know, I'd say just look at the cars going down the road.
10:24Elon MuskCount how many electric cars out of 100 and that tells you how many, how much progress has been made. And even in a place like Denmark, which is relatively forward leaning less than 1%.
10:36InterviewerWhat can we do here in Denmark to help you reach the goal of a sustainable future?
10:42Elon MuskSure. Well, I think it's really for all electric, all companies making electric cars, Tesla being one of them, it's really important, particularly in the early days of electric cars, to have the incentives remain in place.
10:57Elon MuskThey don't have to be there forever. But if the rug is pulled too quickly for electric cars, then you have an industry which is just a baby. It's just a little, tiny, tiny thing.
11:09Elon MuskAnd it's, I think, too early to sort of repeat pull incentives for industry that is in its infancy. In the future, no problem, but now would be difficult.