那么，闲话少说，感谢大家回来。我们知道今天已经非常漫长了，但这位，这位可是个真正的惊喜。而且，呃，我花了一段时间才让他来这里，但我们，我们让他来了，我们其实来来回回谈了很多次。我们实际上不得不在西南偏南大会、PLA以及其他各种地方堵住他。但他是一位非常有意思的企业家，很多人认为他非常具有远见。

嗯，呃，在太空、汽车以及各种太阳能之类的领域。那么，首先，非常感谢你的到来，也很抱歉我们在西南偏南大会堵住了你。没关系。也没那么抱歉，不过好吧。顺便说一句，鞋子很棒。谢谢。你喜欢吗？

[笑声] 嗯，我想先从，我是说，你参与了好几种真正处于前沿、很酷的事情，但我们先花点时间谈谈这个，呃，电动汽车；它实际上是汽车行业里的一个老概念，对吧？确实是。不过你知道，现在有了现代的诠释。

嗯，你为什么进入这个行业？对于别人写的有关你的说法，你是否同意：可以公平地说，你已经证明了这个，呃，呃，这个东西能够在市场条件下以盈利方式出售？当然。嗯，所以，创办Tesla的原因并不是因为我认为，呃，电动汽车里存在某种巨大机会，也不是因为我认为这是某种按排名来看获得投资回报的最佳方式之类的。

嗯，事实上，我认为，呃，创办一家汽车公司，尤其是一家电动汽车公司，必定算得上你在那种规模上所能做的最愚蠢的事情之一。好吧。嗯，而且，这可能看起来像是，我是说，显然今天我们，我们拥有相当、相当高的市值。[笑声] 姑且这么说吧。是的，确实如此。

嗯，而且，呃，呃，所以这可能看起来，哦，好吧，这显然算是做了一件好事，但，嗯，多年来，呃，人们会，人们其实认为这件事，大、大多数人，几乎所有人，都认为这样做，呃，很愚蠢，或者很疯狂，或者两者都是，你知道。所以这并不是那个，但是，所以这样做的原因并不是，呃，因为我认为这是某种，你知道，绝佳的机会。

嗯，对我来说，离开PayPal之后最容易做的事情本来是创办一家新的互联网公司。那会像从圆木上掉下来一样容易。我是说，确实非常容易。嗯，而且，呃，所以我这样做的原因是，很明显，我们不会从现有制造商那里看到电动汽车。

嗯，有一阵子我以为我们或许会看到，因为，比如说，通用汽车推出了，呃，EV1，而且显而易见的下一步似乎就是推出EV2、EV3。坦率地说，如果通用汽车那么做了，他们今天的处境会好得多。嗯，但之后通用汽车反而做的是，加州一修改法规，他们就召回了EV1。

嗯，而且为了确保没人能把它们弄回来，他们把车运到废车场压碎了。嗯，而且，呃，而且，而且，而且如果你看过电影《谁杀死了电动汽车》，你就会看到，那些客户实际上竭尽全力想保住这些车。而当这些车被运去当作废品压碎时，呃，他们举行了烛光守夜活动。是的。因为这些车是租赁的，从来没有被直接出售。是的。是的。

嗯，他们举行了烛光守夜活动，仿佛有人去世了。嗯，我认为，如果人们为你的产品举行点蜡烛的视觉活动，那应该是一个相当大的警钟。嗯，也许你不应该在杀害的时候取消它。是啊，也许你不应该取消它。嗯，你知道，而且，是的，但他们确实这么做了，还砍掉了所有电动汽车活动。

所以，创办Tesla的原因是为了，呃，证明实际上有可能造出一款有吸引力的电动汽车，或者说，你知道，长续航汽车，电动汽车；而且如果你做到了，人们就会购买，因为汽车行业的运作建立在我认为是2个错误的前提之上。一个是，你不可能制造出，嗯，一款有吸引力的电动汽车。一款外形美观、续航长、性能高、具备所有这些特点的车。

而且，而且即使你做到了所有这些，汽车行业的看法仍然是，人们不会购买，因为它是电动的，而且他们有一些燃烧汽油的伙伴。人们有什么，是什么促使你进入这个领域？最开始是什么，你说互联网公司就像从圆木上掉下来一样？很容易，很容易做。那么为什么选择那个领域？为什么是电动汽车？哦。

呃，所以，嗯，因为我认为，我认为向可持续交通转型很重要。

嗯，如果我们不向可持续交通转型，显然从“图奥逻辑”上来说，这是不可持续的；而且即使不存在环境问题，呃，事实上，即使你假设碳排放对环境有益，嗯，由于石油、天然气等等的稀缺，我们最终仍将面临极高的汽油成本，而且，呃，如果我们找不到某种可持续的交通方式，经济就会陷入停滞。

你是否担心，汽车充电、插上电源时所使用的电力，其中很大一部分是由煤炭产生的。这会困扰你吗？是的，我是说，这取决于你在这个国家的哪个地方，你知道，可以说大约一半，呃，不是煤炭，但所以大约一半以碳氢化合物为基础。嗯，而且，呃，不过对于这一点有，有2个显而易见的反驳。

一个是，如果你使用相同的燃料来源，在发电厂层面燃烧它，效率会达到，呃，在汽车本身内部燃烧它的2到3倍。呃，因为在发电厂层面，你不受质量和体积的限制。所以你可以使用又大又重的东西。嗯，而且你还可以利用废热产生蒸汽，并用它来驱动蒸汽轮机。所以你得到了所谓的热电联产。

所以，在固定式发电厂里，你所能提取的最大能量远大于在，在，在移动交通工具中燃烧同样的燃料，因为在那里你，你受到更多形态方面的限制。嗯，然后另一个因素是，无论如何，我们，我们都必须找到可持续的电力生产方式。

嗯，所以如果你相信这个前提，你可以写下这个前提，然后说，呃，既然我们必须实现可持续的电力生产，那么交通领域显而易见的选择就是电动化。

所以，当你谈到进入并做这件特定事情的这些想法时，我认为很多人对你印象深刻的一点，是这个愿景的规模，嗯，第一，它非常困难；第二，它有点疯狂，嗯，同时还在推进SpaceX。嗯，你，你，你想象的是什么，你，你已经做这件事很多年了，面对许多批评者，他们说你不会成功。

你得到了很多，沃尔特本来要问补贴问题。我认为你得到，我们会谈到这个。是的。为什么，为什么是这类项目？

这是一个我希望你思考的更大一些的问题，但这里说的是项目规模之大，因为这个行业基本上遍布电动汽车的葬礼，显然没有那么多烛光视觉活动，不过，对，嗯，是的，已经有过许多汽车公司的失败，不只是电动汽车公司。

嗯，还有，呃，说实话，如果每次每次有人提起德罗宁或者或者塔克，我都能拿到1美元，那我就不需要IPO了。嗯哼。你知道，光靠那个就完全可以把资金筹足了。嗯，所以但但是我不知道。我上大学的时候，我想参与那些我认为会影响世界的事情。嗯，我当时认为有3个领域会会对世界产生最大的影响。

其中一个是互联网。嗯，所以在那个领域做了几家公司，但后来在PayPal之后，情况似乎是，呃，有很多非常有才华的创业者，还有大量资本在做互联网创业。所以看起来我在互联网领域未必还能额外发挥多大作用。因此，是时候转向另外2个领域了，也就是可持续能源和太空探索。

呃，尤其是，呃，开发使生命成为多行星物种所必需的技术。所以多行星生命也许比汽车更有意思。我们很快就会谈到这个。但我确实得问问你，你知道，这是一件——这很重要，你造出了一款有吸引力的汽车，续航里程比我认为——比你说得对——比人们原以为可能达到的更长。它是电动的，完全电动的。

嗯，但嗯，我觉得它相当昂贵，呃，至少前期是这样。是的。你们最成功的那款要多少钱？嗯，呃，在在呃呃税收抵免之前，大约是70,000美元。税收抵免后，大概是60。好。现在我们要说到税税收抵免了。所以，嗯，你们有类似某种联邦税收抵免，对吧？没错。购买纯电动汽车可抵免7,500美元。是的。

然后你在后台告诉我，我——有一大批州，15个州之类的，都有这些，对吧？有不同类型的抵免。所以，嗯，我的意思是，我首先应该说的是，嗯，人们认为电动汽车好像是在接受补贴，但但事实上，实际情况是，它们获得的补贴比汽油车更少。好。

嗯，如果你真的去看甘油汽油车中的补贴，嗯，而且尤其是，如果你把经济上的，或者库存——抱歉——环境方面的损害计入价格，呃，那么真正发生的情况是，每次你购买一辆汽油车，都会产生巨额补贴；而且你实际上可以看出，这些补贴比它们——比比电动汽车的补贴更高，因为人们并没有在购买电动汽车，除了——我的意思是，我们的车——数量并不不巨大。这些是给石油公司等等的上游补贴，用于用于汽油。

它们都是直接的，整个，整个税。是的。这，这有一个巨大的数字。大概是对……的5000亿美元补贴。好的。但你们确实也获得了一些联邦和州补贴，对吧？是的。然后还有这些你们可以卖给其他汽车公司的积分。你能解释一下那是什么吗？当然。当然。

嗯，不过要再次强调，很明显，无论电动汽车正在获得什么补贴，都比汽油车获得的补贴少。否则，像雪佛兰 Volt 或日产 Leaf 这样的车就会大量销售，但它们并没有，所以那就像是一个显而易见的检验。

嗯，然后关于零排放车辆积分，也就是 ZEV 积分，这些适用于大约40%的美国人口，实际上它们在很久以前就已经设立了，用来处理，呃，污染，空气污染，在，嗯，呃，在，在，在，在洛杉矶、湾区和纽约等地方。

所以，每当你在一个人口密集的地区驾驶汽车时，你实际上都在排放一大堆有毒气体，对人们的健康以及显然还有空气质量造成负面影响，而且这在，你知道，夏季的洛杉矶非常明显。

嗯，所以为了促使制造商摆脱这种情况，嗯，各州颁布了 ZEV 积分强制规定，也就是说，所有大型制造商都必须生产少量电动汽车或零排放车辆，而如果，如果他们不生产这些车辆，那么他们就必须设法从已经生产了这些车辆的人那里购买 ZEV 积分，但当我们出售一个 ZEV 积分时，我们是按每1美元65美分的价格出售，所以另一家制造商能做的最好的事情就是制造电动汽车，因为那样他们每一份税收抵免都能得到每1美元100美分。

那他们为什么不这么做？嗯，我希望他们会这么做。嗯，我认为，至少有些制造商在某种程度上希望，不会有人造出任何人都想买的电动汽车，并且加利福尼亚州、其他 ZEV 州会废除它们的 ZEV 强制规定，因为他们已经为实现这一结果游说过很多次，但到目前为止都没有成功。

如果 Tesla，如果 Tesla 没有成功，那么我认为他们本来就能废除 ZEV 强制规定。所以，当你谈到这些汽车的，这个，这个概念时，这些价格连同补贴和其他一切，仍然是一个很高的价格。你的目标是什么，是要引入，我是说，你们有，这里有很多拥有 Tesla 的人。是的。谢谢大家。顺便说一句，感谢你们，感谢你们购买 Tesla。

算是要说，你们所有买了 Tesla 的人，你们太棒了。你们的，你们的客户中有相当大的比例在这里。但，但是，在这个更大的国家里，还有一些有远见的、很棒的人买了 Tesla。[笑声] 嗯，说到你实际上在哪里，我想特别向 Tony Se 致意，他购买了，完成了美国数量最大的 Tesla 订单，为他在，在拉斯维加斯市中心的项目订购了100辆车。

拉斯维加斯。是的。嗯，所以谢谢 Tony。是的。是的。所以，所以那是一个非常，它是一个超级有趣的项目，但你们怎样才能把价格降到 Tony of Zapos，不，我们不必成为 Tony of Zapos，对吧？嗯，所以 Tesla，你知道，当我们刚开始时，嗯，我实际上写过一篇，一篇博客文章来概述 Tesla 的战略。嗯，而且它已经公开很长时间了。

嗯，它其实只是概述了 Tesla 为实现面向大众市场、具有吸引力的电动汽车而正在经历的，这种3步流程。第1步是制造 Tesla 公路。所以，所以高价格、低产量，然后中等价格、中等产量，再然后低价格，呃，高产量。所以，那些是，你知道，我们现在处于第2步。

Model S 的价格实际上比乍看之下可能显得的更低，因为汽油的成本比，比电力成本高得多，所以你购买汽油能省很多钱。是的，没错。嗯，而且你知道，这取决于你如何计算，在汽车的整个使用寿命中，在，在，在大约7年里，大约是15到20,000美元，呃，美元这个范围。

估、估算一下，你知道，每年大约是2,000美元，取决于你对汽油，呃，价格所作的假设。嗯，是的，但什么时候会有一款30,000或35,000美元的Tesla？是的。所以第三步，我预计大约会在3到4年后。嗯，这个，而要从这里走到那里需要什么？这与设计和技术有关，还是与规模有关，或者是什么？

嗯，呃，[清嗓子]，呃，我、我认为任何、任何新技术都至少需要经过3次重大迭代，才能进入，嗯，大众市场。我的意思是，手机当然经历了，你知道，远不止这么多次的迭代。嗯，而且，呃，我相信大家还记得，比如，你知道，《华尔街》第一部里，他沿着、沿着海滩走，耳边举着一块砖头那么大的手机。嗯，而那东西超级贵，而且只能用大约30分钟。

你甚至不能，这个音频质量糟透了。现在只要100美元，你就能把一台超级计算机装进口袋。嗯，而且，呃，所以、所以电动汽车也类似，你要与那些已经发展了150年、投入了数万亿美元的汽油车竞争。所以我认为，如果我们能在第三代时做到，那就非常了不起了。

嗯，所以我认为，设计优化当然、当然是、是一个因素，另一个因素是这款车会稍微小一点，所以可能比Model S小20%。呃，而且我们的产量会提高一个数量级。因此，我们会有规模经济来帮我们。我认为这3个因素会让我们达到50%。

而、而你们什么时候能达到这样一个阶段，即使、即使没有补贴或、以及积分销售，你们也能盈利？嗯，是的，所以我认为，呃，我们预计今年第四季度会实现盈利，或者、或者我应该说，甚至更好，嗯，比略微盈利要好。呃，我们预计在不计积分、不计、不计积分的情况下，毛利率达到25%。所以不会得到这些额外的补贴钱，但并非不计税收补贴。对。是的。

我，有一种面向消费者的税收抵免，嗯，它实际上会提高产品的需求水平，呃，但不会直接影响我们的毛利率，嗯，而且，呃，所以、所以我们拿不到，Tesla拿不到税收抵免，是消费者拿。为什么没有很多汽车公司争相追赶你们，而你们正在证明，确实有汽车，人们……这种车是有受众的？其他这些公司现在在哪里？

嗯，我希望我们第一季度的业绩会促使，呃，其他、其他汽车公司大举进入电动汽车领域。呃，但在此之前，它们其实没有很好的，呃，依据这样做。呃，因为它们、它们会看，嗯，你知道，你说成功的电动汽车有哪些例子？

我的意思是，我们确实推出了Tesla Roadster，但它们把它一笔勾销了，认为那确实是一款销量很低的产品，有点像是面向科技极客的利基产品。然后、然后它们，嗯，就把它一笔勾销了，对吧？嗯，而且，嗯，是的，其实这挺好笑的，因为在我们能够推出Roadster之前，那、那它们会说：“嗯，你们根本不可能让那辆车运行起来。”

然后，当我们让那辆车运行起来时，它们会说：“嗯，没人会买它。”然后人们买了。嗯，接着我们发布了Model S，有那么多人就此喊话，简直荒谬。

嗯，而、而、而实际上，呃，我们成功把它推向了市场，然后当我们把它推向市场时，它们说，嗯，你们永远不可能实现量产，而我们做到了，然后它们会说你们永远不可能盈利，接着我们在第一季度做到了。

所以我希望，呃，你知道，人们会观察到这里有一种趋势（笑声），而且（掌声）。如果是这样，那么，那么，那么现在我们已经实现盈利了，我认为，呃，其他制造商更有可能着手开展电动汽车项目。嗯，而且，嗯，还应该提到的是，我们确实为戴姆勒和丰田制造电动动力总成。所以对于电动版 RAV 4，我们制造电池组和动力总成。

对于今年晚些时候将推出的梅赛德斯 B-Class 车型，我们将制造那整套，嗯，汽油。他们对此持开放态度吗？你觉得他们是开放的吗？我是说，很多那些，你知道，你可以随意描绘汽车公司，但他们，你觉得他们是开放的，或者正在考虑这件事吗？是的。嗯，我，我认为是。

这个，这个挑战，呃，是要让他们相信，它不应该只是一个小众产品，或者混合动力车之类的。是的。嗯，话说，他们可能，我是说，Tur 显然制造，在混合动力方面规模相当大，但要说服他们相信电动汽车应该成为主流产品。嗯，在这方面仍然还有一些工作要做，而且在它们成为主流产品之前，就充电基础设施是否足够而言。

显然，你们已经做了很多来帮助解决续航里程这个问题，但人们仍然希望感觉自己不会被困住，会有充电站，而且我知道。是的。是的。事实上，我们明天会就此发布一项消息。哦，（清嗓子）是吗？是的。你想现在就在这里宣布吗？嗯，这个，不，你刚刚算是把秘密泄露出来了。

不妨就……好吧，（掌声）嗯（笑声），因为你大多数时候都那么安静、那么不爱出风头。就是这个原因。没错。你从来不会做任何事，只会对《纽约时报》记者信口开河，比如说。对。嗯，是的，没错。好吧。嗯，那么，那么我们有一种叫作超级充电器的东西，对吧，这是一种我们开发的先进充电技术，嗯，而且，呃，是的，我想我不妨把秘密说出来。为什么不呢？

[欢呼] 嗯，这个，所以超级充电技、超级充电技术，嗯，是，嗯，是我们开发的一项技术，因为很显然，呃，传统充电一直都太慢了，呃，而且、而且它一直没有效……它对长途旅行并不实用。

所以，解决长途旅行这个问题非常重要，因为，嗯，人们买车时，他们同时也是在购买一种自由感，一种可以去任何他们想去的地方、不觉得受到束缚的能力。嗯，所以，所以我们必须做出一种充电速度真正很快的东西。

所以，所以这就是我们开发的东西，而且，嗯，现在加利福尼亚州和东海岸实际上已经有不少了，让你可以从波士顿开到华盛顿特区，也可以在加利福尼亚州和内华达州各地出行。而我们原本准备明天宣布的事情（笑声），嗯，就是超级充电网络将会大幅加速扩张。嗯，到下个月底，我们会把超级充电网络的覆盖区域扩大到3倍。

哇。嗯，它会扩展到哪里？（掌声）嗯，所以它、它会，嗯，呃，实际上有一张地图，显然会在明天上线。嗯，但人们得知这件事会相当惊讶，不过，嗯，在、在Tesla，呃（笑声），怪SpaceX的CEO吧。对，没错。嗯，或者你愿意的话，也可以怪我。没关系。信不信由你，这是沃尔特的错。对。

嗯，因为你知道，你喜欢和评测者较劲，而我就是评测者。是啊，但、但你的评测做得很好。（笑声）我还没评测过你的车。嗯，我的意思是，我应该说准确的评测。嗯（笑声）谢谢。呃，所以，到今年年底，超级充电网络将、将覆盖，嗯，美国和加拿大南部的大多数主要，呃，大都市地区。

嗯，事实上，你将能够只使用超级充电网络，一路从洛杉矶开到纽约。（掌声）那这、这是否也包括，不仅在目前还没有的地方建设，而且还会提高东西两岸的密度？当然。没错。说得好。现在的密度还没有达到应有的水平。

所以，我们正在增——既在提高繁忙路线沿线超级充电站的密度，也在扩大这个、这个网络的地理覆盖范围。这极其重要。绝对如此，因为甚至——告诉我你是否觉得我疯了，但我、我觉得这就像过去，人们会去买一台台式塔式电脑，而且除非里面有5个扩展卡插槽，否则他们就不会买，对吧？

但他们从来不会打开电脑往里面装一张卡。嗯，我、我会。是啊，你会。但我的意思是，很多人会被他们懂技术的朋友告知，你必须有，你知道，3个空插槽或5个空插槽，但他们从来没打开电脑把插槽装进去。

即使你开车只是，（清嗓子）在车辆续航范围绰绰有余的距离内通勤上班，再办几件杂事之类的，你也总会想要那种自由感，也就是如果我有必要，我可以坐进这辆车。没错。然后从波士顿开到华盛顿特区之类的地方。对。就是这样。我的意思是，从心理上说，这对人们真的非常、非常重要。这极其重要。

嗯，而且、而且，呃，所以，而且在Tesla上，因为所有Tesla都会通过蜂窝网络进行无线更新。嗯，我们实际上会更新车里的超级充电站位置。所以在Tesla地图上，只要点击那个小闪电按钮，它实际上就会把你引导到最近的超级充电站。所以在驾驶过程中，你可以去，呃，任何你想去的地方。

而且，呃，随着今年晚些时候的版本发布，你将能够导航前往全国任何地方，车辆会自动规划路线，让你沿途经过超级充电站。太棒了。所以，在他之前有一个问题，你为什么那么强硬地反击《纽约时报》？我的意思是，我们拿这件事开玩笑之类的，但很多人不会这么做。理由是什么？我知道你已经谈过很多，但，哦，天哪。对。你的理由是什么？

就像是，你不会忍下这件事，或者你……是的。嗯，这个，我的意思是，我在真正回应之前，确实认真考虑了很久。所以，那并不完全是某种脱口而出的反应。嗯，但、但是那篇文章发表后，我们发现销量显著下降，尤其是在《纽约时报》的主要读者区域，也就是偏北、东北部，特别是寒冷地区。

嗯，而且那、那篇文章确实在某种程度上迎合了人们对电动汽车最大的恐惧，嗯，也就是、就是、就是你会没电，嗯，而且它们在寒冷环境中无法工作，而这其实完全是错的。它们、它们、它们在寒冷环境中表现非常好。事实上，我们人均销量最高的地方是挪威。嗯哼。嗯，而且作为个人购买Tesla数量最多的那一个人，确实就住在北极圈以北。

嗯，为什么，他是一名眼科医生，在一个，呃，J Coll是他的名字。他人很棒。嗯，等等，他是一名眼科医生。他住在北极圈以北，而且有一大堆电动汽车。对。我只是想弄清楚，我的意思是，这种概率有多大？我只是想把这个画面场景弄清楚，不过这是真的。太不可思议了。对。嗯，而且他、而且他每天还会服用一颗电子药丸。对。没错。

呃，但你比如开着它们穿过，你知道，冬季，那里是永久的午夜。嗯，而且，呃，所以它们显然表现得相当好。嗯，而且，呃，事实上，在那篇文章之后，由于挪威当时仍然算是冬季，呃，我们实际上让，嗯，某个人驾驶Model S进行了一次测试，我想是从几乎靠近北极圈的地方，呃，一路开到奥斯陆。好的。

不过你知道，正如我们已经讨论过的，我是一名评测者，在场有些人也知道，但是，嗯，呃，所以评测的一部分是事实。这实际上是什么，评测的哪一部分是事实？不，不，不。

（笑声）这，好吧，不，让我、让我解释，一篇评、评测的一部分最终是观点，当然，所以，但如果你在介绍规格，如果你在做，比如以我为例，对某个东西进行电池测试，我必须解释我是怎样进行电池测试的，这就是结果，对吧，然后我可以发表观点，你可能会有不同意见，你可能会说，好吧，即使我接受莫斯伯格的电池测试，我也不同意他说这样的电池续航已经足够，我需要更好的电池续航，所以我认为他对这款产品太宽容了，或者反过来，你知道，随便怎样。

所以，其中一部分是事实，另一部分是你从中得出的观点。当然。你知道，屏幕有这么大，相机有这个，那些是事实。所以，是不是、是不是事实，是那些人吗？不，那是、那是、那是事实问题。嗯，事实上，事实上，所以当、当我们把车收回来时，嗯，我们、我们查看了、查看了数据日志，嗯，并将其与那篇、那篇写出来的文章对比，嗯，那篇、那篇文章在事实上是不正确的。

嗯，而且事实上有、有多处都是如此，而、而人们或许可以把这归因于，嗯，他那边的失误，但当连续第10个错误都朝错误的方向解读时，那、那就缺乏可信度了。嗯，所以，你知道，如果我们，这就像你对某个东西做了那种电池测试，而且、而且、而且你、而且你陈述了在非常重要的方面并不真实的事实信息。我的意思是，那、那、那、那可是件大事。

嗯，所以，如果、如果我们不站出来反驳，那、那篇文章就会永远流传下去，而且、而且人们会对这辆车形成这种、这种非常错误的印象。嗯，而且他们会认为他说的话，如果我们不反对它的话，就是……《纽约时报》没有让步，对吧？事实上，《纽约时报》的公共编辑进行了一项调查，并得出结论，他、那篇、那篇文章是、是错误的。

我们、我们有分歧，我在动机问题上不同意公共编辑的看法。呃，换句话说，公共编辑说那篇文章是错误的，呃，但不同意那是故意的，而在我看来，很难把那解读为故意以外的任何事情。那么接下来，最后把这件事说完，关于你在车上安装了通常出售的车辆上没有的传感器这一事实，当时不是还有一些争议吗？不，是同样的传感器。

好的。好吧。所以，呃，这、这真的很重要，不过太空，最后的边疆。当然。嗯，你是否……你对SpaceX的最终计划或目标是什么？你想用它做什么？只是为了证明一家私营公司能够把东西运送到空间站，还是说这并不是全部？

现在，就像我说的，SpaceX 的的的目标是，嗯，改进火箭技术和航天器技术，并且并且每年不断不断改进，直到最终我们能够把人送到到火星，并在火星上建立一个能够自给自足的基地。那就是火星。对。好。就像他们所说的，让生命成为多行星物种。嗯，并不是说我我预计这一定会发生。

我是说，我我同意，这是一个不太可能出现的结果。但如果我们不每年持续改进，嗯，太空技术，那么那就永远不会发生。乔治·W·布什不是想去火星吗？他的确想过。没有多少人知道。嗯，对。所以这算是把你和乔治·W·布什归到了同一类，和乔治，呃，是他的父亲。哦，H，他们其中一个人想要一个一个能把我们送到火星的太空计划，对吧？

嗯，对，实际上，呃，乔治·H·W·布什，呃，在就任后不久，确实要求 NASA 在 90 天内制订一个把，嗯，人送往火星的计划，NASA 也确实制订出了那个计划，但，嗯，要花 5000 亿美元。所以他觉得那或许不是什么太好的主意，而且那显然是 20 年前了，不管具体是多少年，你知道，所以所以为什么为什么是火星？解释一下 5000 亿究竟意味着什么。有什么什么吸引力？

[笑声] 对，那是，那确实是 5000 亿美元。对，很便宜，对吧？对。不，是这样，国防预算比那还多。那么，那么为什么是火星？为什么火星比别的？现在，先说明一下，埃隆很多年前和谢尔盖、拉里、梅根、詹姆斯·温、皮尔·米迪亚，还有你们一群非常奇怪的人一起去了太空营，那是在我创办 SpaceX 后不久。对。是。对。什么？为什么？

而且，你知道，你当时是处于《星际迷航》模式，还是怎么回事，那个那个太空营是怎么回事？我知道你们确实去了，但但是他们之前推出的东西，当你当时，它是什么让你产生了兴趣？因为你几分钟前说，你知道，你感兴趣的有 3 件事。一个是互联网，一个是电动汽车，另一个是太空。所以为什么，是什么让你进入太空领域的？对。

所以，如果你、如果你思考人类的未来，它从根本上会分叉成两个方向，或者说我们所知的生命会如此。要么它将变成多行星的，要么它将被限制在一个星球上，直到最终发生某种灭绝事件。所以我认为，这样说就更……多了。我们去火星吧。[笑声] 我……顺便说一句，我对地球上的生命持乐观态度。并不是说我就像是觉得我们人类……

但你确信会发生灭绝事件。嗯，我是说，从化石记录来看，这非常明显。对，我是说，肯定，嗯，我们、我们面临着恐龙没有面临过的危险，因为那可能是，嗯，我们。对，正是。对，我们可能会。对。所以，我们可能会让自己灭绝，它们实际上吃得更健康。

恐龙，很多事情它们，嗯，所以、所以，我、我只是觉得，你知道，我们最终希望拥有这样一个未来：人类在外面探索群星，嗯，或者成为一个太空整流罩文明，而我们在科幻书籍中读到、在电影里看到的事物会成为现实。我们不希望那永远只是关于未来的虚构。所以，如果我们不每年改进太空技术，我们就永远到不了那里。

所以，SpaceX的目标是尽可能多地取得改进。嗯，而且，呃，希望我们、我们有生之年能看到人类登陆火星。我必须问你，你有没有，我就是必须问你，你是否真的研究过，或让别人研究过，或者他们现在是否仍在替你研究，你能不能造出曲速引擎？

我是说，真的，那会压垮……其实有一个，嗯，你知道这个，奇怪的是，整个战争驱动这件事似乎确实取得了某种突破，嗯，因为你无法超过光速，但严格来说有可……嗯，理论上可以扭曲空间本身，因此，即便在你的、在你的、在你的局部时空连续体中，你的移动速度没有超过光速，但你、你在扭曲空间，使空间本身移动，呃，而、而那就是……好的，明白了，那是一个……现在等等，我其实有点……那是因为你喜欢《星际迷航》。

他会去拉斯维加斯的《星际迷航》博物馆，所以我们别谈这个了。那是会在第四季度还是明年实现？

嗯，好吧，我不确定战争驱动最终是否……我是说，战争驱动可能会，也可能不会，呃，成为现实，但我认为，如果我们至少在、在火星上建立一个基地，那将形成一种强制机制，推动太空运输技术的进步，嗯，并让我们最有机会在未来实现类似曲速引擎的东西，使，呃，旅行变得容易。对。但听着，史考提、斯波克，我们谈谈现在吧。好的。行。

就是此时此刻。当然。顺便说一句，电影不错。对。推荐去看新的《星际迷航》。非常棒的电影。顺便说一句，是拉里·埃尔森的儿子制片的，这倒很奇怪。嗯，现在正在发生什么？我们现在能用什么？不是曲速引擎，不是传送光束之类的东西。火箭技术所需要的重大突破，是实现一种完全且能够快速重复使用的火箭。

嗯，而具备那些，呃，那些是重要的限定条件，因为，嗯，如果你想想任何其他交通方式，比如，飞机或自行车、汽车，任何东西，它们当然都是，嗯，可以重复使用的。对。而且、而且你可以……它们可以很快地重复使用，而且，你知道，除了维护周期之外，基本上能够完全重复使用。而我们拥有的唯一一种，至少是美国制造的，和／或任何人制造的，我想就是航天飞机，对吧？

而它是可使用的，但不能快速使用。而且它只有一部分可以重复使用。所以主，呃，燃料箱，那个橙色的大东西，嗯，无法重复使用。它保证每次都是可扩展的。它不只是燃料箱，那个橙色的大东西实际上是主机身，轨道飞行器、飞机锅和两侧的助推器都连接在它上面。嗯，所以即使在最理想的情况下，它也无法在很大程度上，呃，重复使用。

嗯，然后，翻修一架航天飞机以供飞行需要一支由10,000人组成的队伍花费9个月。嗯，这显然不算、算不上能够快速重复使用。嗯，所以，为了取得突破，我们、你必须拥有完全且能够快速重复使用的火箭。而我们正在朝那个方向取得进展。

而且我希望，在未来两年中的某个时候，我们能够实现第一级的完全快速复用，它约占火箭成本的3/4。嗯，然后通过未来的，呃，设计架构实现完全复用。那按照你计划采用的任何技术，用、用相对来说算是标准的火箭，抵达火星需要多长时间？低能量轨道大约需要6个月。

嗯，不费太大力气就可以把它缩短到3个月。而且你不是……而且、而且没有……你说的是有人类乘坐这枚火箭前往火星。所以，不是，有没有什么危险？我读到过那里有辐射。能出什么问题呢？这、这太荒谬了。拜托。[笑声] 呃，我甚至都不喜欢和你一起开车。我是说，[笑声] 对。顺便说一句，彼此彼此。嗯，对。

所以，它、它是一个……沿途可能会遇到一些挑战，但，嗯，但我认为它……我认为这是可能的。我认为我们能让它实现。嗯，像这样去做。我们没有……我们并未违反任何物理定律。嗯，这全都、这全都做……这、这很困难，但可以实现，而且、而且我认为我们真的应该尽最大努力让、让它实现。那为什么是火星？

嗯，火星是唯一一个我们真的能够，嗯，在、在行星尺度上建立一个自给自足文明的地方。你能不能给像我这样不了解的人解释一下？好的。嗯，呃，所以，嗯，呃，如果你看看，你知道，各个行星，我们有，嗯，水星离太阳太近了。金星是……对。对。我是说，水星上的、那些、那些岩石都会熔化。所以，嗯，那个不行。对。[笑声] 热乎乎的。

嗯，然后、然后金星仍然非常、非常热。呃，有几百度。呃，而且它很高，大气压也很高，并且具有酸性。所以，那是一个高压的热酸浴。因此，我们其实想过在金星举办一场非会议。那行不通。对。可以说，金星会非常具有挑战性。

嗯，然后火星显然位于地球的另一侧，而且它，呃，它、它比地球冷，但它、它，呃，火星上的温度实际上会在夏季炎热的一天高于地球上的室温。嗯，而我们、你可以随着时间推移用温室气体让火星变暖，算是与我们在地球上所做的相反。[笑声] 对，这太好了。把我们的温室气体出口过去，这个我们很擅长。你可以把所有气体都带过去。

你可以把所有、所有、所有通用汽车的车都带到那里。对。嗯，我[掌声]是说，火星的大气主要是二氧化碳，这能让你看到它有多久……我是说，它已经在那里存在了40亿年。这能让你看到二氧化碳会持续多久。它会一直停留，也能看出它让一颗行星升温有多慢。对。嗯，那是一层相当稀薄的二氧化碳大气。但如果你要……但我们可以把它增厚。我们可以让它振作起来。我们知道。我们有经验。

我们知道怎么做。没错。所以，火星，嗯，你知道，算是一颗需要翻修的行星，但我们可以、我们可以让[笑声]它行得通。我们可以让它行得通。现在，你是否……所以，你、你、你想亲自去那里吗？我知道你说过，你不想死于火箭事故。你宁愿只是死在、死在撞击时。对。是吧。你不想死于撞击，但你不介意死在那里。对。

我想，我是说，综合考虑，我是说，如果一个人反正要死在某个地方，死在火星上会挺酷的，你知道，死在火星上很酷，我是说，嗯，我会选夏威夷，不过好吧，嗯，所以我觉得，对，那会是、那会很不错，嗯，但我只是觉得，那些能让我真正来劲的事情是，比如，我觉得这真的很重要，对、对、对我而言，而且我想，对这个房间里的很多人而言可能也是如此：当你展望未来时，它是一件鼓舞人心、令人兴奋的事情，你知道，未来比现在更、更好，或者这些有很大机会比现在更好。

而且我认为，那那那就是主要的驱动力。呃，对我来说，这这这就像是，好吧，我们会不会，我们会不会成为一个太空公平文明？嗯，还是还是我们会被限制在地球上？我指出，我认为如果是前者，那会好得多。对。那么，不过你的火箭是用来运送有效载荷的。而且这是一门生意。你也在努力把它做成一门生意。没错。我的意思是，是的。当然。所以，我们得让 SpaceX 维持下去。

我们得付账单，对吧？嗯，所以 SpaceX 所做的，就是呃为商业客户发射卫星，并为 NASA 提供空间站呃服务。因此，我们拿下了往返空间站运输货物的主要合同。事实上，我们是唯一能够从呃空间站运回大量货物的航天器，但它目前还不能方便地重复使用。没错。它不能，它不能。

所以从某种意义上说，你的突破一直是去做 NASA 和苏联过去做的事情，或者在某种程度上仍在做的事情。苏联仍然在做。呃，但要通过一家私营公司来做。是的。我我会说，你知道，到目前为止，我们在 SpaceX 这边取得的突破本质上都是嗯渐进式的，而不是革命性的。呃，而而我们的抱负是取得一项革命性的突破。

而且我我应该指出，火箭推进剂的成本只占。飞行器成本的 3% 左右。所以，给火箭重新加注燃料可能只需要几十万美元。嗯，而它的成本大约是 6000 万美元。嗯，而且，如果你想想飞机，比如一架飞机要花多少钱，相比给飞机加油要花多少钱，这就说得通了，对吧？差别非常非常大。嗯，如果每次飞行都必须买一架新飞机，我们谁都不会坐飞机。

嗯哼。嗯，不。不。是的。对。不过不过美联航应该这么做，对吧？没错。总有一天你必须让那些选手退役，而其中一些美联航已经上了年纪。当你在思考这些事情时，你还在做很多事。你算是个大忙人。嗯，谁是你的英雄？你是谁，是什么激励你成为这样的？当然。

嗯，那个，我想，呃，总体来说，历史上有很多我钦佩的人，当然，嗯，包括科学家、工程师，以及总体而言的技术专家。显然，我非常钦佩 Tesla，尼古拉·Tesla。嗯，还有，嗯，你知道，很多其他人，我是说，所有你能想到的那些显而易见的人物。我得说，我也喜欢 Tesla、爱迪生，尽管人们有时听到这话会感到惊讶，因为我们有一家名为 Tesla 的公司。

嗯，还有，呃，你知道，爱因斯坦、牛顿，嗯，呃，还有像达尔文，嗯，我非常喜欢，嗯，本·富兰克林。我觉得他就是，你知道，历史上一位伟大人类的绝佳典范，你知道。所以我会说是这样的人。那显然，你，呃，曾是一家重要互联网公司的先驱之一，呃，PayPal？嗯，在 IT 领域，还有其他什么人启发过你吗？

我是说，显然，你提到的所有那些人都是真正伟大的天才，但他们差不多都远早于那个时期，他们更像是 IT 时代之前很久的科学家和发明家，还是说现在讨论 IT 还为时过早？嗯，不，当然不是，嗯，我钦佩任何努力工作、成就了某件伟大事情的人。我是说，这是值得钦佩的。

所以，嗯，你知道，显然很难不钦佩像史蒂夫·乔布斯这样的人，呃，嗯，你知道，比尔·盖茨，或者，嗯，你知道，在当今，我非常喜欢拉里·佩奇，他是我的好朋友，你知道，他和谢尔盖在那里所做的事情非常了不起，嗯，所以，是的，然后可能还有很多很多记者，我并不反对记者，说真的，看，你就在这里。是啊，没错。[笑声] 但是，但是当你谈到今天的互联网时，你怎么看它？

你曾处于互联网中一个非常明确的部分，那是，你知道，而且你，我记得你，你当时是“Web 1. 0 先生”，就像当时有，你知道，而且你确实在汽车前摆姿势拍过照。我记得有一张什么汽车照片，你当时……对。嗯，对，是保时捷还是菲亚特。是一辆迈凯伦 F1。对。没错。所以，所以你猜得并不接近。不。那个，我，对。所以我不知道那是什么。是个男人。

而且实际上，我告诉你，实际上我确实，嗯，呃，很久没，没告诉任何人了，但，我确实其实仍然拥有一辆汽油车，是一辆 67 年款 Series 1 E-Type Jag。哦，我不知道是什么。太棒了。我完全知道它说的是什么。我们有些人知道。我有一辆 Mazda 5。我很喜欢它。好。嗯，很棒。但是，嗯，当我，呃，还算在上大学的时候，我读到过迈凯伦 F1，它简直是一件工程艺术品。

我是说，它确实真的真的做对了，所以我想，如果我有一天赚到足够的钱，我会买下那辆迈凯伦 F1。所以当时我其实住在帕洛阿尔托的一套公寓里，嗯，那套公寓的价格远低于那辆车。嗯，我记得那张照片。对。当时要么升级换成一栋房子，要么买那辆车，而我买了那辆车。呃，[笑声] 对。你当时结婚了吗？其实结了。对。而且你还在它前面摆姿势拍照。

我记得，那非常能象征那个时代。对。你知道，嗯，对，没错。我是说，我其实并没有……那可能不是最好的主意，但是，嗯，实际上有，这挺有意思的。当时有这样一个节目，嗯，怎么说呢，如果曾经有过一档关于傲慢自负的节目，那可能就是它，节目叫《硅谷淘金热》。嗯，而且它确实是在 99，在 1999 年拍摄的。

嗯，而且，嗯，所以他们折叠了我得到那辆迈凯伦这件事，呃，也折叠了其他一些人。嗯，幸运的是，PayPal 后来成功了，否则那会极其尴尬。对。你有没有说类似“我得到了一辆”之类的话？呃，没有，我没那么做，但得到它时我确实相当兴奋。对。那么，当你审视今天的互联网时，为什么……接下来我们会回答问题，我相信会有很多观众提问。

嗯，你怎么看其他那些领域，照片分享？考虑到你要去火星之类的事情，它是不是毫无意义，还是说它是什么，它的……我是说，人们会说 Vine，我可以，你知道，拍一张会动的自拍照，很多人，你知道，都有点兴奋，不过我很喜欢它们。卡拉拍过一些很棒的。绝对是。但这并不会……这不是让人类拥有两个行星栖息地。

这是另一回事，你知道，甚至包括能够依靠电力从纽约开到洛杉矶。依靠电力。当你审视现在的互联网时，你想到什么？你对正在发展和正在发生的事情怎么看？嗯，那个，不，我是说，我，我觉得其实我，我并不轻视照片分享应用之类的东西。

我认为，这，这，这个，我是说，有很多东西，比如说，它们为很多人提供少量价值，而这些，你知道，加起来就形成了某种巨大的价值，那仍然是好事。嗯，我是说，如果人们能够以更好的方式分享朋友和家人的照片，我认为这会让他们的生活变得更好。而且，嗯，如果，你知道，这让那家公司获得很高的估值，那就这样吧。我觉得那并没有那么糟。

嗯，而且，呃，我是说，我认为我们在互联网领域拥有数量极其庞大的优秀人才，呃，很多有才华的创业者、风险投资家和其他人。嗯，而且我觉得，如果其中一些人真的愿意去其他能够用上他们才华的领域，那会很棒。

我是说，这是我唯一想说的事情，就是，前几天有人，有个人，在我问他硅谷正在发生什么时，他说，他是个非常聪明的人，他说，你知道，有很多聪明绝顶的人在追逐小点子，对吧？而且我，我有时，你知道，第9种有点傻的小东西，你会想，哇，这些都很棒，然而却像是每个人都在做 Twinkies，对吧？在某种层面上是这种情况。

对，我是说，对。嗯，我想可能，我是说，我，我会建议人们考虑互联网以外的领域。嗯，因为有，有，有很多，就像我说的，有很多，嗯，行业可以用得上那种创业人才，以及人们在创建公司时学到的技能。

嗯，而且，呃，你知道，实际上这些行业里有很多机会，呃，尤其是那些长期以来一直在某种程度上被一群寡头垄断公司主导的行业。寡头垄断者并不，或者双头垄断或垄断，都不擅长创新。创新来自一个领域的新进入者。所以，当一个行业一直没有新进入者时，它往往只有非常有限的创新。

嗯，这也意味着，如果你确实获得一个……你突破到了另一边，那么你……在那里创建的公司会有很多机会。嗯，那么你接下来要做什么？因为你，你知道，我们对刚才提到的这两个已经有点厌倦了。那个，我想 Tesla 和 SpaceX 会让我忙上很长时间。但还有没有另一个领域，你不是还有一个太阳能项目吗？太阳能？对。

嗯，事实上，不过我应该澄清，很多时候人们，呃，把 Solo City 的成功归功于我，但其实真的应该归功于我的表兄弟，也就是联合创始人，呃，莱农和彼得·赖。我是说，我提供了一些战略建议。嗯，而且我建议他们在太阳能领域创办一家公司。嗯，但是，但是这一成果的绝大多数功劳都应该属于他们。而且，呃，这这当然应该……不应该归功于我。好。

好了。那个，我们要来几个……顺便说一句。顺便说一句，埃隆对我说他不是……我们为什么会想让他来这里？他又不是技术专家，告诉你一下。那个，不是。而我当时就想，我不知道你在说什么。那个，我是技术专家，但我不是互联网。所以，我不是那种数字化的。问题就在这里。就像我当时想，好吧，万物数字化。那个，没有任何东西是数字化的。

我不完全是数字化的，但 Tesla 里没有任何数字化的东西。里面有数字化的东西。嗯，但它是……对。嗯，它没有说“万物数字化与物理化”，那样会更合理。[笑声] 好了，我们来回答问题。舍文，它就应该叫“万物”。万物。那是我们的新名字。可能需要一个。哦，你想从那边开始？好。嗨，我是来自 Sherpa 的舍文·皮什瓦。嗨，埃隆。

嗯，我来这里已经很多年了，我们所有这些来这里很多年的人，一直都因为在这里看到史蒂夫·乔布斯而深受鼓舞，显然我们都非常想念他，但不知为何，你来到这里以及你带来的鼓舞，确实，呃，缓解了那份伤痛。所以，谢谢你能来。哦，哇。该说什么呢？[掌声] 埃隆，你有一个我们以前讨论过的想法，就是超级高铁，而且，对。

我我很希望你能告诉在座的观众，那是什么，以及它会如何改变我们的世界。再次谢谢你。是的，我其实很想回答那个问题，但如果我回答了，呃，那那就会成为明天的新闻。嗯，可我需要先发布 Tesla 的新闻。嗯，你这说得太晚了。是啊。嗯，所以，呃，是的，我我我想我大概很快就能谈谈超级高铁这个想法。

我们下个月左右，大约在 6 月 20 日前后，会发布一项 Tesla 公告。而且我想，嗯，我想在那之后的某个时候，我我到那时，希望那那那那会是一个谈论，呃，超级高铁这个想法的好时机。

但对于那些还不了解的人，基本的想法是，嗯，有没有一种更好的方式，能让人从，呃，比如洛杉矶市中心快速前往旧金山市中心，或者从洛杉矶前往旧金山，并且比正在提议的高速铁路更好？因为那条高速铁路，正是它最初促使我开始思考，你知道，是否有某种更好的办法来实现这件事？

因为正在提议的那条高速铁路，实际上会是全世界最慢的最慢的子弹头列车，同时也是全世界每英里造价最高的，而这些并不是我们想要的最高级。某种程度上就像我们这里的互联网。是啊。嗯，但它，你知道，我觉得这有点令人沮丧，在加州，呃，搞出一个像是全世界最慢的子弹头列车的东西，而且成本高得惊人。

呃，难道我们就想不出更好的东西吗？而那个更好的东西就是超级高铁。嗯，我是这么认为的。可能吧，但我不知道那是什么。对。嗯，那个……但我想坐一坐。对。[笑声] 我觉得，你知道，即使我对超级高铁背后的经济假设多少有些判断错误，它仍然会是一趟非常有趣的旅程。呃，即使它最终只存在一个，也会是一趟非常有趣的旅程。

它是什么？[笑声] 嗯，是火车吗？飞机，不是移动设备。它是……嗯，一台传送机器。它是协和式飞机和轨道炮的结合体。协和式飞机和轨道炮。好吧。对。但你没有……你你不……我再加点别的进去，只是为了让它听起来更加、甚至更加离奇。嗯，它是协和式飞机、轨道炮和空气曲棍球桌的结合体。[笑声] 但你以某种方式让高速公路生了个孩子。

你……[笑声] 你不想再稍微深入一点吗，还是……哦，我的天。好吧，开始吧。开始吧。我的意思是，旧金山加入了。好吧，三方和一个孩子。我们喜欢。埃丝特。埃丝特，谢谢你。而马克斯会帮上忙。既然你今晚这么健谈。好吧。你计划什么时候把第一批人送入轨道，无论是去空间站、比格罗还是其他什么地方？她想去。对，当然。

嗯，我们实际上正在……正在研发我们的龙飞船第2版，并且，嗯，呃，与NASA合作。所以，这个，呃，NASA的……NASA是我们最大的客户。嗯，不过我们也预计会运送，呃，普通公民，而且我们认为，首次载人飞行大概会在2到3年内出现。那么，谢谢。再见，先生。很高兴认识你。[笑声] 不，不。我会去火星退休，但还不是现在。好吧。

好的。这边。Rathan的艾莉森·谢里丹，我在摄像机后面。现在我知道为什么大家一直那样说了。正对着摄像机看。嗯，感谢你出席All Things D。几年前，我有机会驾驶Tesla Roadster。那太有趣了。不过我把那个人吓到了。他有点紧张。

但是，嗯，我真正想问你的是，我们在这里谈了很多STEM教育的重要性，以及如何努力鼓励这种教育。有人提出，我们战略的一部分其实应该是吸纳STEM类移民人才。我只是猜想，鉴于你的背景，也许你对此有一些有趣的看法。哦，我们忘了那个问题。对。哦，不客气。很好。嗯，我确实认为扎克伯格。对。

我确实认为，我们……我们应该……我的意思是，如果美国大学里有一些真正有才华的研究生，把他们送回国，或者在很多情况下迫使他们回国，是很疯狂的。所以我认为我们应该对移民政策进行一些改革，让我们实际上可以，可以说，去招募人才。

我的意思是，我们应该这样想，比如，比如说，如果……如果这是一家公司，如果美国是一家公司，你就会努力招募顶尖人才，而且你肯定不会驱逐他们。嗯，那会……那会很疯狂。所以我们绝对应该在这方面进行一些改革。嗯，这确实会持续让其他国家受益，但……但是，嗯，但我认为我应该努力让他们留在这里。

嗯，不过就总体上的STEM而言，我的意思是，只要有一些激动人心的科技项目，让在校的孩子们可以读到，并且说，好吧，我……我想成为……我想参与那项工作，或者成为其中一员。嗯，正是这些把人们吸引到科学和技术领域。嗯，而我认为历史上在这方面影响最大的事情，是……是阿波罗计划。

嗯，我认为，可能没有任何一件事能更有力地吸引孩子们，因为他们……他们会觉得，比如，哇，我们把某样东西送了上去。我想帮忙实现这件事，或者……或者……或者，你知道，并且……并且……并且超越它。所以，我认为，我认为拥有这些……这些让孩子们能够在学校里读到并希望参与其中的项目，真的非常重要，而这确实会吸引他们。

既然我们刚刚谈到了移民问题，你能解释一下马克·扎克伯格发起的那项，呃，政治游说行动发生了什么吗？你原本是……是支持者，但后来你和其他一些人一起退出了。那到底是怎么回事？对。嗯，所以最初，当我，呃，你知道，我加入并同意成为Forward US，呃，的一员时，嗯，是因为我……我……我确实支持移民改革。

我认为我们需要，你知道，我们有一些非常过时的法律，要修改它们。[清嗓子] 而且，呃，也有一些，你知道，其他事情也需要列入议程。嗯，所以我想，好吧，我会支持它。

而且，嗯，呃，但是……但是我……我认为所采用的那些……那些……那些……那些手段，我的意思是，有点过于像基辛格式的现实政治了，你知道，而那并不是……我的意思是，我认为我们应该努力让事情出于正确的理由发生，而且……而且……而且，呃，我们不应该……我们不应该向政治中的犬儒主义屈服。我的意思是，我们应该……我们应该对抗这种犬儒主义。

嗯，而且如果……而且如果我们……如果我们不……如果我们做任何事情去鼓励它，那么我们就会得到我们应得的政治制度。好吧。[掌声] 呃，我想可能是丹……CNN的丹·西蒙。埃隆，鉴于Model S势不可挡的成功和评价，你肯定会认为其他汽车制造商会把矛头对准你。所以我……我想知道公司将如何保持竞争优势，因为你知道，成功可能转瞬即逝。

另外，你认为电动汽车什么时候会超过汽油车？最后还想知道，你是否有什么话要对全国的石油公司说。当然。嗯，我……我真的希望大型汽车公司齐心协力制造电动汽车。呃，归根结底，如果Tesla制造出有竞争力的电动汽车，那么我们就值得继续存在。如果做不到，那我们就不值得继续存在。

我的意思是，嗯，你知道，我乐观地认为我们能够制造出好产品。嗯，而且，呃，我们完全不是在担心其他汽车公司进入这个领域，实际上我们正尽最大努力说服它们……去制造电动汽车，而且事实上还为它们制造动力托盘，嗯，你知道，嗯，只要它们允许我们这么做。

所以我……我希望它们……我希望它们看到Model S的成功，而这能鼓励它们大举进军电动汽车领域。嗯，你知道，至于石油公司，你知道，棘手之处在于，呃，制度的设置方式，因为我们有一种未定价的外部性。对于海洋和大气的CO2容量，我们面临一个公地悲剧问题。

激励结构是这样的：石油公司……石油公司有，呃，你知道，很难要求一家石油公司的CEO做出违背自身最佳利益的行动。那……那就是问题所在。呃，事实上，如果他们那么做，可能会被他们的……被他们的股东解雇。所以我们应该做的正确事情，是改变游戏规则，这样它在某种意义上……正确的行为。

嗯，这就是为什么我非常相信……碳税是……是正确的方向。而且，呃，你知道，我们甚至不一定需要改变我们……我们……我们从税基中征收的金额。但我确实认为，对那些至少有可能造成危害的事物征收不成比例的税，是合理的。

所以，就像我们会在个人层面对烟草和酒精征税一样，嗯，尤其是烟草，它……它……它是有害的，而这是已经充分证实的，呃，事实，我们应该对CO2排放征收不成比例的税，嗯，而且，呃，那么我认为正确的行为就会出现。所以我……我的意思是，我很难谴责石油和天然气公司，呃，因为我们……当前制度在促使它们做出不良行为。

嗯，不过那项税……那项税会转嫁给消费者，并最终损害经济。不。嗯，你看，如果……如果……如果产生的收入金额，呃，是相同的，嗯，它并不是流向……你知道，那个……我们需要征收一定数额的钱来支付联邦政府的开支。

至于我们如何、如何征收，你知道，征收的方式多种多样、范围很广，但、但实际上我们所做的是，我们是在说，某个人的一部分劳动必须用于联邦政府的活动。嗯，而且，你知道，我们如何、如何征收这笔钱，其实并不会对经济产生负面影响。人们可能认为它有负面影响，但其实并没有。它、它是一样的。

这是征收一定数额的，呃，资金，用来支付联邦政府的开支。嗯，就比如说，我们其实不需要改变筹集的资金数额，但需要让它更多地向那些更可能是坏事的东西倾斜，而不是、不是那些更可能是好事的东西。

嗯，我、我想，我是说，我对石油和天然气从业者有意见的地方，是他们有时，你知道，会采取恶劣的手段，嗯，还有，呃，或、或者做一些有点、有点阴险的事情，呃，比如、比如资助学术研究，让人们随后可以引用它们，仿佛它们具有某种可信度，嗯，而且、而且、而且那是某个地方的一位知名教授。

嗯，但、但那个人实际上已经被、被石油行业收买，来、来撰写那项、那项研究。

这，呃，嗯，所以这种事情显然应该受到最严厉措辞的谴、谴责，而且，嗯，而且我建议大家读一本叫《贩卖怀疑的商人》的书，呃，它、它实际上详细、详细、详细说明了，嗯，其中一些事情是如何发生的，我是说，石油和天然气行业所需要做的只是制造怀疑，而那、那正是他们所做的。

事实上，他们实际上还雇用了，呃，很多曾受雇于烟草行业的个、个人和公司。就真的是同一批人。嗯，你会惊讶有些人居然还在，因为他们就像，你知道，他们年纪相当大了。嗯，[笑声]，呃，但、但在某些情况下，石油和天然气行业雇用的真的是同一批人。好，来谈谈这个。谢谢。

呃，我们只剩下几个问题了。你好，呃，我是 Scribb 的 Jared。呃，非常感谢你来这里，埃隆。嗯，我的问题是关于 SpaceX 的。所以，呃，即便没有完全且快速可重复使用的火箭，你们仍然仅凭更渐进式的改进，就成功将进入轨道的成本降低了一个数量级，呃，甚至更多。那么，呃，呃，首先，你是在什么时候意识到航天领域存在这样的机会的？

还有，呃，其次，是否还存在其他类似的机会和其他领域，是你希望其他人去追求的，即便你本人没有时间把它们全都做了？当然。嗯，所以当我创办 SpaceX 时，实际上我认为最可能的结果是我们会失败。嗯，事实上，我认为 SpaceX 会失败的可能性真的很大。嗯，所以，呃，显然，我创办这家公司时其实并没有期待会成功。

嗯，那，那但是，让我意识到我们可能实现重大突破的，是去看，呃，火箭的成本，而且不是参照过去其他火箭的成本来看它，嗯，我说，好吧，火箭是由什么制成的，它的材料构成是什么，嗯，什么，什么金属，你知道，碳纤维，什么，什么，组成火箭的各种材料是什么；如果有一堆这样的材料摆在你面前，而你可以挥一挥魔法棒，那枚火箭的建造成本会是多少。

嗯，而那是一个小得惊人的数字。嗯，你知道，可能只是火箭实际成本的百分之几，或者1%或2%。所以，很明显，人们在把这些材料组装起来的方式上做了一些愚蠢的事情。嗯，所以仅仅通过消除那些，那些类似的愚蠢做法，我们就能以低得多的成本制造火箭。

嗯，而且，呃，而且，而且然后，嗯，我并不，我当时并不确定人们能够实现，呃，完全且快速的可重复使用。嗯，因为地球的引力恰好处于这件事可行与不可行的临界点。要实现这一点，实际上所有事情都必须做得超级、超级好，飞行器的每一个方面都是如此。嗯，所以，可能直到2或3年前，或者可能3年前，我才认为这实际上是，呃，可以实现的。

嗯，而，呃，现在我相当确定这是可以实现的，但，呃，但从这里到那里仍然有很长的路要走，而且正如之前提到的，呃，我们还没有回收过哪怕一个火箭级，所以我们还有很长的路要走。好吧，我想这必须是最后一个问题了。是的。你好，Alan，我是来自帕洛阿尔托 Cross Pacific Capital 的 Greg Tar。呃，有个问题要问你。

我以前在丰田的，呃，美国总部工作，1990年我们扩大雷克萨斯经销商网络规模时，那相当艰难，我想了解一下你们会在服务领域带来怎样的创新。

呃，通常需要300家经销商来支撑大约100,000辆车，而你们做得非常出色，我很钦佩，我想了解你们有什么计划，因为最终美国中部地区会开始了解，呃，正在东西海岸发生的这场变革。你们将如何，嗯，在经销商网络和服务方面实现这一点？是的。

嗯，事实上，在过去的，呃，3或4个月里，服务一直是我在 Tesla 关注的重点。

呃，而且，呃，3或4个月前，我们的服务还可以，而，呃，在一些情况下相当、相当糟糕，尤其是有人问过我 Tesla 那种奇怪的服务，不过继续，是的，我们，我们，我得说，我们遇到过一些相当噩梦般的服务状况，可能是在1月、2月那段时间，情况一直在稳步改善，嗯，而且，呃，但比如洛杉矶曾经是个大问题，持续了真的很长时间，因为我们，我们原本应该有3个服务中心开业，但其中2个的许可证被延误了。

所以我们的运营能力只有1/3。嗯，所以只要你的 Model S 没有抛锚，你的体验就非常棒。如果它抛锚了，那就很惨。嗯，所以现在，现在我们已经把3个都开起来了，情况好多了。嗯，但，但是，要把服务扩展到，呃，全国，然后再扩展到国际上，需要投入大量的工作。我们会在7月开始在欧洲交付。

嗯，所以，是的，我不知道我们是否有什么，我是否有什么高明的见解，你可能，你可能已经知道我会，会说的所有事情了，但，呃，你知道，我们必须拥有真正出色的诊断工具。嗯，而且我们的确有一个优势，那就是这辆车，呃，内置了如此多的智能。它可以进行大量自我诊断。嗯，而且，而且我们可以查询，你知道，甚至在车辆进来之前，就知道车上什么，什么部件需要维修。

嗯，所以那样，所以我们的服务可以更高效。嗯，而且，而且我们最近宣布的一件事是，呃，我们正在组建，嗯，这支车队，或者说目前这支服务代步车车队基本上已经组建完成了，这样一来，如果你的车抛锚了，嗯，我们会做的是，而且我们也提供代客服务。所以，如果你的车抛锚了或者需要维修，呃，我们会，嗯，前往你的车所在的任何地方，并用我们的一辆顶配汽车把它替换下来。

所以，我们的服务代步车不是，嗯，那种标准配置的车。它们实际上是顶配汽车。嗯，而且，而且我们，所以我们会直接把一辆服务代步车代客送到你所在的任何地方，取走你的车，把它送去维修，然后，然后在修好后把你的车送回来。所以，整个体验应该会非常无缝。

嗯，而且，呃，你确实应该感觉像是，呃，像是你应该，你实际上在一段时间里得到了一辆甚至比你送修的车更好的车，而且你的生活没有受到干扰。我认为这是最重要的事情。雷克萨斯在某种程度上确实，确实这样做过。我不确定雷克萨斯是否提供完整的代客服务，但，呃，他们肯定实施过服务代步车计划，实际上做得非常，非常好。埃隆，非常感谢你。

我们真的非常感谢。谢谢。[掌声] [音乐]

So, without further ado, we're going to thank you for coming back. We know it's been a really long day, but this is this guy's a real treat. And uh it took me a while to get him to come here, but we we got him to we actually went back and forth a lot. We actually had to corner him at South by Southwest and PLA and everything else. But he's a really interesting entrepreneur, very much a visionary, many people think.

um uh in space and in cars and in all solar all kinds of things. So, first of all, thank you so much for coming and we are sorry for having cornered you at South by Southwest. No worries. Not that sorry, but okay. Great shoes, by the way. Thank you. Do you like those?

[laughter] Um, I'd like to start by I mean, you're involved in several really cutting edge kinds of things that are cool, but let's talk for a minute about this uh the electric car, which is really an old concept in the car industry, right? It is actually. And but you know, there's a modern take on it.

Um why are you in that business and do you agree with what has been written about you that it's fair to say that you have proven this is uh uh this can be sold at a profit in in market conditions? Sure. Um, so the the reason for Tesla was not because I thought that the uh there was some huge opportunity in in electric cars or or that I thought it was some rankordered best way to uh get a return on investment or something like that.

Um, in fact, I think uh starting at a car company, particularly electric car company, would have to rank as one of the dumbest things you could possibly do on that scale. Okay. Um, and it it may seem like I mean today obviously we we've got quite a quite a high market cap. [laughter] Let's just call it that. Yes, you do.

Um and uh uh so it may seem oh well this is sort of obviously a good thing to have done but um for for many years uh people would people regarded this in fact mo most people almost all people regarded it as uh stupid or insane or both you know to to have done that. So it's not the the but so the reason for doing it was was not uh because I thought it was some you know great opportunity.

Um the easiest thing for me to have done after PayPal would have been to start a new internet company. That would have been like falling off a log. I mean it quite really easy. Um and uh and so the the reason I did it was because it was clear that we were not going to see electric cars from the incumbent manufacturers.

Um, for for a while there I thought that we potentially would because you had the uh EV1 from General Motors, for example, and it seemed like the obvious thing to do would then be to do the EV2, EV3. Frankly, if General Motors had done that, they would be in a far better position today. Um, and but then instead what what General Motors did was as soon as California changed the regulations, they recalled the EV1s.

Um, and just to make sure that nobody could get them back, they took them to a junkyard and crushed them. Um, and uh, and and and if you've seen the movie Who Killed the Electric Car, you you'll see that they actually those customers tried their best to keep the cars. And when the cars were were taken to the junk and crushed, uh, they held a candle at Vigil. Yeah. Because the cars were leased. They were not ever sold outright. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, they held a candle at Vigil as though it was someone dying. Um, and I think that should be a pretty big wakeup call if people are holding a candle of visual for your product. Um, maybe you shouldn't cancel it as you're killing. Yeah, maybe you shouldn't cancel it. Um, you know, and yeah, so but but they did and and so they canned all electric vehicle activity.

So the the reason for for Tesla was to uh show that it actually is possible to create a compelling electric car or you know long range car electric car and if you did that that people would buy it because the the car industry was operating on what I believe to be two false premises. One was that you could not make um an a compelling electric car. One that was aesthetically appealing, long range, high performance, all these things.

and and that even if you did all those things, the car industry's opinion was that people would still not buy it because it was electric and they had some partners for for burning gasoline. People had what what moved you into it? What what was the starting you said internet company like falling off a log? Easy easy to do. Why that area then? Why electric cars? Oh.

Uh so um because I think it's I think it's important that we transition to sustainable transport.

um if we don't transition to sustainable transport obviously toologically it's unsustainable and even if there were not an environmental uh issue in fact even if you were to say hypothetically that emitting carbon was good for the environment um because of the scarcity uh of of of oil and natural gas and so forth the we would eventually face extremely high gasoline costs and uh the economy would grind to a halt if we did not find some sustainable means of transport.

Do you worry that the electricity that is generated and and used when the cars are recharged and plugged in is a lot of it is generated from coal. Does that bother you? Yeah, I mean depending on where you are in the country, you know, say roughly half of it is uh is not coal, but so roughly half of it is hydrocarbon based. Um and uh however that's that's there there are two obvious rebuttals to that.

One is that if you take the same source fuel and you burn it at the power plant level, you will get two to three times the efficiency uh than than if you burnt it in the car itself. Uh because at the power plant level, you're not constrained by mass and volume. So you can have something that's big and heavy. Um and you can also take the waste heat and generate a steam and and use it to turn a steam turbine. So you get what's called co-generation.

So you your maximum extractable energy is much greater with a stationary power plant than if you burnt that same fuel in a in a in a mobile transport where you you have form more constraints. Um and then the other factor is that we we have to find sustainable means of electricity production anyway.

Um so if you believe in that predicate you can write that predicate and say uh given that we must have sustainable electricity production the obvious move for transport is is electric.

So when you're talking about these ideas of getting in doing this particular thing, one of the things that's I think struck a lot of people about you is the scale of the vision um that it's not one that it's very difficult, two that it's a little crazy um going along with SpaceX at the same time. Um what what what do you imagine is you you've had many years doing this, many critics, you're not going to make it.

You're getting a lot of Walt was going to ask about subsidies. I think that you get We'll talk about that. Yeah. What is the why why these kind of projects?

This is sort of a bigger question I want you to think about, but the idea of the bigness of the project because there's been this the industry has been littered with electric car funerals essentially and not as many candlelight visuals obviously, but right um yeah, there have been many car company failures, not just electric.

Um, and uh, honestly, if I had like a dollar for every every time somebody brought up Delorean or or Tucker, I wouldn't need an IPO. Mhm. You know, it would have been perfectly financed just on that alone. Um, so but but the I don't know. I when I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that I thought would affect the world. Um, and there were three areas that I thought would would most affect the world.

and one of them was the internet. Um, so did a couple of companies in that, but then it seemed like uh after PayPal it was like there's a lot of really talented entrepreneurs and a lot of capital doing internet ventures. So it didn't seem like I could necessarily be all that incrementally useful in the internet arena. And so it was time to then go to two other the other two areas which were sustainable energy and space exploration.

uh in particular uh developing a technology necessary to make life multilanetary. So multilanetary life is might be more interesting than cars. We'll get into that shortly. But I do have to ask you, you know, there this is an it's an important it's very important that you've made an attractive car with longer range than I think than you're right than people thought possible. That's electric all electric.

Um but um it's fairly expensive I think uh at least upfront. Yeah. And what does it cost your most successful one? Well uh be before uh uh tax credits it's about $70,000. After tax credits it's like 60. All right. Now we're getting to t to tax credits. So um you there's like a there's some kind of federal tax credit, right? That's right. For buying a pure electric $7,500. Yeah.

And then you were telling me backstage I a whole bunch of states 15 states or something have these right there's different types of credits. So um the I mean the first thing I should say is that um people think of like electric cars as receiving a subsidy but but in fact what's occurring is that they're receiving less of a subsidy than gasoline cars. Okay.

Um if you were to actually look at the the subsidy in gly gasoline cars um and and particularly if you price in the economic or the inventory sorry the environmental uh damages uh the what's really occurring is that every time you buy a gasoline car there are huge subsidies occurring and you can actually tell that these subsidies are are higher than they than than the subsidies for electric cars because people are not buying electric cars except I mean ours in not not huge these are upstream subsidies to the oil companies and so forth for the for the gas.

They're both direct the whole the whole tax. Yeah. This this there's some enormous number. It's like half a trillion dollars in subsidies to Okay. But you do get you also get some federal and state subsidies, right? Yes. And then there's this these credits that you are able to sell to the other car companies. Can you explain what that is? Sure. Sure.

Um although just to emphasize again it's it's pretty obvious that that the the credit whatever subsidies are occurring for electric cars are are less than for gasoline cars. Otherwise things like the Chevy Volt or the Nissan Leaf would sell in large quantities but they are not and so that that's like an an obvious test.

Um then with respect to uh zero emission vehicle credits or ZEV credits, these apply to about 40% of the of the US population and they were actually put in place quite a while ago to deal with uh pollution in air pollution in um uh in in in in places like LA and the Bay Area and New York and so forth.

So, whenever you're driving cars in a dense of an area, you're essentially emitting a bunch of toxic gases that negatively affect people's health and obviously the quality of the air and it's pretty obvious in in you know LA during the summer.

Um so in order to motivate manufacturers to move away from that the um the states enacted the ZEV credit mandate which was that a small number of electric or zero emission vehicles have to be made by all large scale manufacturers and if if they don't make those vehicles then they have to try to purchase ZEV credits from someone who who has but when we sell a ZEV credit we sell it at at 65 cents on the dollar so the best thing that another manufacturer could could make would be electric cars because then they get 100 cents on the dollar for every tax credit.

So why don't they? Um well I'm hopeful that they will. Um I think to some degree at least some of the manufacturers were hoping that no one would come up with an electric vehicle that anyone wanted to buy and that that California other Zev states would repeal their ZEV mandate because they they've lobbied for that outcome many times and have thus far been unsuccessful.

If Tesla if Tesla was unsuccessful then I think they would have been able to repeal the ZEV mandate. So when you're getting into the the the concept of these cars the these prices are still along with subsidies and everything else is still a high price tag. What is your goal is to bring in I mean you have there's lots of people here who own Teslas. Yeah. Thank you everyone. Thank you for for buying Tesla by the way.

sort of say all of you guys who bought Teslas, you guys are awesome. Some significant percentage of your your customers are here. But but there is there's a larger country far-sighted awesome individuals who bought Teslas. [laughter] Um where do you actually I'd like to say a special shout out to Tony Tony Se who has the largest bought the made the the largest number of Tesla orders in the US of 100 cars for his project in in downtown Vegas.

Vegas. Yeah. Um so thanks Tony. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's a very it's a super interesting project, but how do you get it down to levels that Tony of Zapos, No, we don't have to be Tony of Zapos, right? Um, so Tesla, you know, when we first started out, um, I actually wrote a a blog piece to outlining the Tesla strategy. Um, and it's been out there for a long time.

Um, and it really just outlined the the sort of three-step process that Tesla's going through to get to mass market compelling electric cars. And step one was making the Tesla road. So, so high price, low volume, then mid price, midv volume, and then low price, uh, high volume. So, those are, you know, we're in step two.

The price of the Model S is actually less than it may seem at first because the cost of gasoline is so much more than the cost of of electricity that you save a lot of money uh buying gas. Yeah, exactly. Um, and you know that that depending upon how you count it is, you know, somewhere in the 15 to$20,000 uh dollar region over the lifetime of the car over the over over sort of seven years.

Fig figure it's you know roughly $2,000 a year depending upon what your assumptions for gas uh prices are. Um yeah, but when will there be a 30,000 or $35,000 Tesla? Yeah. So step three I'm expecting in about three to four years. Um this and what's required to get you from here to there? Is it got to do with design and technology or does it have to do with scale or what?

Well um the [clears throat] uh I I think any any new technology needs at least three major iterations to get to um the mass market. I mean certainly cell phones have gone through you know many more than that. Um, and uh, I'm sure people remember like the, you know, Wall Street one where he's walking down the the beach on the giant brick of a cell phone on his ear. Um, and that thing was super expensive and like lasted for 30 minutes.

You couldn't even this audio quality was terrible. Now you can have a super computer in your pocket for 100 bucks. Um, and uh, so so with electric vehicles similar, you trying to compete with gasoline cars that have had 150 years and trillions of dollars spent on them. So I think if we can make it there by our third generation that's pretty awesome.

Um so I think there's there's certainly design optimization is is one factor and then the other is the car will be a little bit smaller so maybe 20% smaller than the Model S. Uh and we'll have an order of magnitude greater production. So we have the economy scale to help us out. I think those three factors will take us to 50%.

and and when will you be at a point where if even if you didn't have subsidies or and credit sales you would be profitable? Um yeah, so I think uh we're anticipating being profitable or or I should say even better well better than slightly profitable in the fourth quarter this year. Uh we're we're projecting 25% gross margins absent of credits absent absence of credits. So not getting this extra sub money but not absent the tax subs. Right. Yeah.

I there's a consumer sort of tax credit um which is effectively something that improves the level of demand for the product uh but doesn't directly affect our gross margins um and uh so so we don't get that Tesla doesn't get the tax credit the consumer does. Why haven't many car companies raced to you and you're showing that there are cars people there is an audience for this? Where are the rest of these companies now?

Well, I'm hopeful that our results from the first quarter will cause u the the other car companies to enter the electric car arena in a significant way. Uh but until now they didn't really have a good uh basis for that. Uh because they they would look at um you know you say what are the examples of successful electric cars?

I mean, we did have our Tesla Roadster out there, but they wrote that off as being something that's really low volume, kind of a niche product for techno geeks type of thing. And and so they um they wrote that off, right? Um and um yeah, it's actually funny because before we were able to get the Roadster out, then then they they'd say, "Well, you couldn't possibly make that car work."

And then when we made the car work, they'd say, "Well, nobody's going to buy it." And then people bought it. Um, and then we announced the Model S and so many people called on that it was ridiculous.

Um, and and and yet actually the uh we were able to bring it to market and then when we brought it to market they said well you're never going to be able to produce it volume and we did that and then they would said you will never be able to make a profit and then we did that in Q1.

So I'm hopeful that uh there's a you know people will observe that there's a trend here [laughter] and [applause] And if so, so so now that we we have been profitable, I think uh other manufacturers are more likely to embark on electric vehicle projects. Um and um and it should also be mentioned that we do make electric powertrains for Daimler and Toyota. So for the electric RAV 4, we make the battery pack and powertrain.

For the Mercedes B-Classes coming out later this year, we will be making that whole um petrol. they open to that? Do you feel as if they're open? I mean, a lot of the, you know, you can paint the car companies any way you want, but are they, do you feel as if they're open or thinking about that? Yeah. Um, I I think so.

The the challenge, uh, is to convince them that it should be more than just a little niche product or a hybrid or something like that. Yeah. Um, well, they may I mean, Tur obviously makes is quite big on hybrids, but the to convince them that electric cars should be a mainstream item. Um there's still a bit of work to do on that front and until they're a mainstream item in terms of having enough of an infrastructure of charging.

Obviously you've done a lot to help that problem with range but still people want to feel like they're not going to be stranded that there are going to be charging stations and I know Yeah. Yeah. We've got an announcement about that tomorrow in fact. Oh, [clears throat] you do? Yeah. You want to announce it here now? Um well for No, you've just sort of let the cat out of the bag.

Might as well just Well, [applause] um [laughter] because you're so quiet and retiring mostly. That's why. Exactly. You never do anything just mouth off at a New York Times reporter, for example. Right. Um Yeah, exactly. All right. Um well so so we have something called the supercharger right which is an advanced charging technology that we developed um and uh yeah I guess I might as well let the cat out of the bag. Why not?

[cheering] Um the so the supercharger techn supercharging technology um is um something we developed because obviously uh traditional charging has been way too slow u and and it's not been affect it's not effective for long-distance travel.

So it's it is very important to address this issue of long-distance travel because um when people buy a car that there's they're also buying something which is a sense of freedom, an ability to go anywhere that they want and not feel fettered. Um so so we had to make something that was really quick to charge.

So, so that's what we developed and um there are actually a bunch of them out there now in California and on the east coast from allowing you to go from Boston to DC and travel throughout California and Nevada. And what we what we were going to announce tomorrow [laughter] um is is that there's there's going to be a dramatic acceleration of the supercharging network. Um and by the end of next month, we will triple the supercharger coverage area.

Wow. Um, where where is it going? [applause] Um, so it it'll it'll be um uh there's actually a map that will be go live tomorrow obviously. Um, but people will be quite surprised to learn learn this, but um at at Tesla uh [laughter] blame it on the CEO of SpaceX. Yeah, exactly. Um or if you want you could blame it on me. It's all right. Believe it or not, it's Walt's fault. Yeah.

Um cuz you know, you like tangling with reviewers and I'm a reviewer. Yeah, but but you do good reviews. [laughter] I haven't reviewed your car. Well, I mean, I should say accurate reviews. Um [laughter] Thank you. Uh so, the Supercharge Network by the end of this year will will have covered um most of the major uh metro areas of u the US and southern Canada.

Um, and in fact, you'll be able to drive all the way from LA to New York just using the Supercharger network. [applause] And does that does that also does that include not only putting it in places where it doesn't exist today, but also increasing the density on the two coasts? Absolutely. Exactly. Good point. The the density is not quite as good as it should be.

So we're incre both improving the density of the supercharger stations along welltraveled routes as well as increasing the geographic scope of the of the network. That's hugely important. It is absolutely because even tell me if you think I'm nuts, but I I think that it's like in the old days people would go and buy a desktop tower computer and they would not buy one unless it had five slots for cards in it, right?

But they would never open the computer and put a card in it. Well, I I do. Yeah, you did. But I mean, a lot of people would be told by their techie friend, you have to have, you know, three empty slots or five empty slots, but they never opened and put the slots in.

Even if you only drive your car, [clears throat] commuting to work well within the range of the car and a few errands and stuff, you always want that sense of freedom that if I had to, I could get in this car. Exactly. And go from Boston to DC or something. Yep. That's right. I mean, psychologically, it's really very very important to people. It's extremely important.

Um and and uh so and and on Tesla because all Teslas are wirelessly updated via by the cell networks. Um we actually update the supercharger locations in the car. So on the Tesla map, if you just tap the little lightning button, it'll actually direct you to the nearest supercharger. So as you're driving, you can go uh wherever you want.

And uh with the release later this year, you'll be able to navigate anywhere in the country, and the car will automatically route you to the superchargers along the way. Fantastic. So, one question before he is that why you hit back so hard at the times? I mean, we joke about it and stuff like that, but many people don't do that. What was the reasoning? I know you've said a lot about this, but Oh, brother. Yeah. What was your reasoning?

Is like, you're not going to take this or you Yeah. Um, well, I mean, I thought I thought about it a fair bit before actually responding. So, it wasn't sort of just an totally off the cuff thing. Um but but when the the articles was was published, we saw a significant decrease in sales particularly in in the New York Times sort of main readership area sort of northn northeast particularly in cold areas.

Um and the the article it really sort of played to people's biggest fear about electric cars um that that that you'll run out um and that they don't work in the cold, which is actually completely false. they they they do work really well in the cold. In fact, our highest sales per capita are in Norway. Mhm. Um and the the single person who's bought the single largest number as an individual of of Teslas literally lives above this Arctic Circle.

Um why he's an opthalmologist in a uh J Coll is his name. He's a great guy. Um wait, he's an opthalmologist. He lives above the Arctic Circle and he has a whole bunch of electric cars. Yeah. I just wanted to get I mean what are the odds? I just wanted to get the picture scenario but true. It's amazing. Yeah. Um and he and every day he takes an electronic pill also. Yeah. Exactly.

Uh but you like drove them through like the you know winter which is permanent midnight. Um and uh so obviously they work pretty well. Um and uh in fact after that article we we had since it was still sort of winter in Norway uh we actually had um someone do a Model S test drive from I think almost near the Arctic Circle uh to Oslo. Okay.

But you know as I'm a reviewer as we've already discussed and some people in the room know but um uh so part of a review is factual. This is actually what part of the review is that factual? No no no.

[laughter] which okay no let me let me explain part of the re a review is opinion in the end sure so but you have to state if you're doing specs if you're doing like in my case it's it's a battery test on something I have to explain this is how I did the battery test this is what the result is right I can then have an opinion you might have a different you might say well even if I accept Mossberg's battery test I don't agree with him that this is good enough battery life I need better battery life, so I think he's too easy on this product or the other way around, you know, whatever.

So, part of it is the facts and part of it is what opinions you draw from that. Sure. You know, the screen is this big, the camera has this those are facts. So, was it was it the facts were the guys? No, it was it was it was a fact thing. Um, in fact, in fact, so when when we got the car back, um, we we looked at the at the data logs, um, as compared to the article that that was written, um, and the the article was factually incorrect.

Um, and in in multiple places in in fact and and one could perhaps ascribe that to um to error on on his part, but by the 10th mistake in a row that is interpreted in the wrong direction, that that lacks credibility. Um, and so, you know, if we're it's like if you did that battery test on on something and and and you've and you you said factual information that was was untrue in a very important way. I mean, that that that's that's a big deal.

Um, and so if if we didn't speak out against that, that article would live forever and and people would have this this really wrong impression of the car. Um, and they would think that what he said if we did not oppose it was the Times didn't back down, did they? Actually, the the public editor of the Times did an investigation and concluded that that he that the the article was was wrong.

We we disagreed I disagree with public editor over the motivation. Uh, in other words, the public editor said the article was wrong, uh, but didn't agree that it was intentional, whereas in my opinion, it's difficult to interpret that as anything but intentional. And then what then, just to close this off, wasn't there some controversy about the fact that you had put sensors on the car that aren't normally sold on the car? No, the same sensors.

Okay. All right. So, uh, this is this is really important, but space the final frontier. Sure. Um, are you what is your ultimate plan or goal for SpaceX? What is it you want to do with it? Is it just to prove that a private company can deliver stuff to the space station or what is not all?

Now, like I said, it's the the the goal with SpaceX is to um improve rocket technology and spacecraft technology and and keep keep improving it every year until ultimately we're able to send people to to Mars and establish a self-sustaining base on Mars. That's the Mars. Yeah. Okay. To make make life multilanetary as they're saying. Um it's not as though I I expect that this will necessarily occur.

I mean I I agree that this is an unlikely outcome. But if we do not keep improving um space technology every year, then that that will never happen. Didn't George W. Bush want to go to Mars? He did actually. Not many people know that. Um yeah. So that's kind of put you and George W. Bush in the same category as George uh is his dad. Oh H one of them wanted a a space program get us to Mars, right?

Um yeah actually uh the uh uh George HW Bush uh shortly after gaining office actually asked NASA to come up with a plan in 90 days uh for sending um people to Mars and NASA did come up with that plan but um it was half a trillion dollars. So he decided that maybe wasn't such a great idea and that was obviously 20 years ago whatever it was you know so so why why Mars? explain what half a trillion really meant. What what's attractive?

[laughter] Yeah, that was that was really was a half a trillion dollar. Yeah, it's cheap, right? Yeah. No, it's Well, the defense budget's bigger than that. So, so why Mars? Why Mars over? Now, just to preface this, Elon went to Space Camp many years ago with Sergey, Larry, Megan, James Ween, Pier Media, a bunch of you very strange shortly after I started SpaceX. Yeah. Right. Yeah. What? Why?

And you know, were you in a Star Trek mode or what was the what was the space camp? I know you guys did that, but but what they had out before when you was what does it got you interested? Because you said a few minutes ago that that there were three things that you were you know interested in. One was the internet, one was the electric car and the other was space. So why what got you into space? Right.

So if you if you think about the future of humanity, it's going to fundamentally bifocate in two directions or life as we know it. Either it's going to become multilanetary or it's going to be confined to one planet until some eventual extinction event. So I think it's much more put it that way. Let's go to Mars. [laughter] I'm And by the way, I'm optimistic about life on Earth. It's not as though I'm like I think we're human.

But you're convinced there will be an extinction event. Well, I mean that's pretty obvious from the fossil record. Yeah, I mean it's for sure um we we face dangers that the uh the dinosaurs didn't face because it could be um us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we could. Yeah. So, we could do ourselves in they actually had better diets.

The dinosaurs a lot of things they um so so the I I just think you know we want to have a future ultimately where humanity is out there exploring the stars um or space fairing civilization and the things that we read about in science fiction books and and see in movies becomes true. We don't want that always to be a fiction of the future. So, if we don't improve space technology every year, we're never going to get there.

And so, the goal of SpaceX is to make as much improvement as possible. Um, and uh and hopefully we'll we'll see people land on Mars in our in our lifetime. I have to ask you, have you I just have to ask you, have you literally looked into or had someone look into or are they still looking into for you whether you could do warp drive?

I mean really does that crush there actually is a well you know this there actually does seem to be oddly enough some breakthrough on the whole war drive thing um because you can't exceed the speed of light but technically it is poss well theoretically possible to warp space itself so that even on your in your in your local space-time continuum you're not traveling faster than speed of light but you're you're warping space such that space is moving uh and and that's what okay got that is that a now wait a I actually kind of that's because you like Star Trek.

He goes to the Star Trek Museum in Las Vegas, so let's not talk. Is that like in the fourth quarter or next year?

Um, well, I'm not sure if if war drives ultimately I mean, war drive may or may not uh come to come to fruition, but I think if we at least have a base on on Mars, that's going to create a forcing function for the improvement in space transport technology um and gives us the best chance of ever achieving something like a warp drive that would enable uh travel easily. Yeah. But listen, Scotty Spock, let's talk about now. Okay. All right.

Right this second. Sure. Good movie, by the way. Yeah. It's it's recommended seeing the new Star Trek. Terrific movie. By the way, Larry Ellson's son produced it, which is oddly enough. Um, what's happening now? What's available now for us? Not Warp Drive, not transporter beams or whatever. The the big breakthrough that's needed in in rocketry is to achieve a a fully and rapidly reusable rocket.

Um and it's important to have those uh that those are important qualifications because um if you think of any other mode of transport like a a plane or bike, car, anything of course that they are um reusable. Yeah. And and you can they're reusable quickly and you know fairly completely apart from maintenance schedules. And the only one we have the United States at least built and or anybody built I think was the shuttle, right?

And that was usable, but not quickly. And it was only partly reusable. So the main uh tank, the the big orange thing was um not reusable. That was guaranteed to be expandable every time. It wasn't just the tank that that big orange thing was actually the primary airframe to which the the orbiter, the plane pot, and the side boosters attached. Um so even in a best case scenario, it would not have been uh reusable in in a substantial way.

Um, and then it it took an an army of 10,000 people nine months to refurbish a shuttle for flight. Um, which is obviously not not rapidly reusable. Um, so in order to to have a breakthrough, we you have to have fully and rapidly reusable rocket. And we're making progress in that direction.

And I'm hopeful that sometime in the next couple years, we'll be able to achieve full and rapid reusability of the first stage, which is about 3/4 of the cost of the rocket. Um and then with a future uh design architecture achieve full reusability. And how long does it take to get to Mars with with whatever the technologies you plan with with relatively sort of standard rockets? A low energy trajectory would be about 6 months.

Well, you can compress it down to 3 months without too much trouble. And you're not and and there's no and you're talking about a a humans on this rocket going to Mars. So know are there any dangers? I have read that there are radiation. What could possibly go wrong? That's that's ridiculous. Come on. [laughter] U I don't even like to drive with you. I mean, [laughter] yeah. Vice versa, by the way. Um Yeah.

So, it's it's a there's probably some challenges along the way, but um but I think it's I think it's possible. I think we can make it work. um like doing it this way. There's no we're not violating any laws of physics. Um it's all it's all do it's it's difficult but achievable and and I think we should really try our hardest to to make it happen. And why Mars?

Well, Mars is the only place where we could really um create a self-sustaining civilization of on a on a planet scale. Can you explain this for people who don't know like myself? Okay. Well, uh, so, um, uh, if you look at, you know, various planets, we've got, um, Mercury's too close to the sun. Venus is Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the the rocks melt on Mercury. So, um, that's a no. Yeah. [laughter] Toasty.

Um, and then and then Venus is still pretty pretty hot. Uh, it's several hundred degrees. Uh, and it's high and the atmosphere is high pressure and it's acidic. So, it's a high pressure hot acid bath. So we actually thought of having a deconference on Venus. It's not going to work. Yeah. Say that Venus would be very challenging.

Um and then Mars obviously is on the other side of Earth and it's uh it's it's colder than Earth, but it's it's uh the the temperature on Mars actually gets above room temperature on Earth on a hot day in the summer. Um and we you could warm Mars up over time with greenhouse gases and kind of the opposite of what we're doing on Earth. [laughter] Yeah, this is great. Export our greenhouse gas and we're good at that. You can bring all the gas.

You can bring all the all all the GM cars there. Yeah. Um I [applause] mean Mars' atmosphere is is primarily carbon dioxide which shows you how long I mean it's been there for 4 billion years. Shows you how long carbon dioxide lasts. It's hangs around how slowly it warms up a planet. Yeah. Well, it's quite a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere. But if you would But we could bulk it up. We could buck it up. We know. We have practice.

We know how to do that. Exactly. So, Mars is um you know is a sort of it's a fixer upper of a planet, but we could we could make [laughter] it work. We could make it work. Now, do you So, do you do you do you want to go there yourself? I know you said you didn't want to die in a rocket accident. You'd rather just die on die on impact. Yeah. Right. You don't want to die in impact, but you don't mind dying there. Yeah.

I think I mean all things considered I mean if one's going to die anywhere it'd be kind of cool you know cool to die on Mars I mean um I'm going with Hawaii but okay um so I think that yeah that would be that'd be neat um but I just think the the things that kind of get me going are like I think it's just really important to to to me to and I think to probably a lot of people in this room that if you look to the future that it's an inspiring exciting thing that you know the future is a better better than the present or these has a good chance of being better than the present.

And I think that's that's that's the the main driver. Uh for me, it's it's it's like, okay, will we have will we be a space fair civilization? Um or or will we be confined to Earth? I point I think it would be so much better if if it was the former. Right. Now, your rockets though are for doing payloads. And it's a business. You're trying to make a business out of it too. Correct. I mean, yeah. Absolutely. So, we got to keep SpaceX.

We got to pay the bills, right? Um, and so the what SpaceX does is is uh launch satellites for commercial customers and do space station uh servicing for NASA. So we we won the primary contract to do space station transporter cargo to and from the space station. In fact, we're the the only craft capable of bringing significant cargo back from uh the space station, but it's not uh readily reusable yet. Correct. It's not it's not.

So you're in a your breakthrough in a sense has been to do what NASA and the Soviets used to do or still do to some extent. The Soviets still do it. Uh but to do it in a p through via a private company. Yeah. I I'd say you know our breakthroughs thus far on the SpaceX side are are um incremental in nature not revolutionary. Uh and and the aspiration is to to have a revolutionary breakthrough.

And I I should point out that the cost of the propellant in the rocket is only about. 3% of the cost of the of the vehicle. So it's it's maybe a couple hundred thousand to refuel the rocket. Um and whereas cost sort of $60 million. Um and which is it makes sense if you think about planes like how much does a plane cost versus refueling a plane, right? Big big difference. Um we nobody would be flying if you had to buy a new plane every flight.

Mhm. Um no. No. Yeah. Right. Although although United should, right? Exactly. There's come a time when you have to retire those players and some of those United along in the tooth. That's when you're thinking of these things, you're doing a lot of stuff. You're kind of a busy fellow. Um what who are your heroes? Who are you what inspired you to be this? Sure.

Um well, I think uh generally um lot of people that I admire in history certainly um scientists and engineers and sort of technologists in general. Obviously I'm a big admire of Tesla, Nicola Tesla. Um and um and you know many others I mean all the obvious people you can imagine. I say I like I like Tesla Edison too although people sometimes are surprised to hear that since we have a company called Tesla.

Um and uh you know Einstein Newton um uh just like Darwin um a big fan um of of Ben Franklin. And I think he's just, you know, an awesome example of a great human being in history, you know. So I'd say that people like that. And are are there obviously you uh were one of the pioneers of a an important internet company, uh, PayPal? Um, did did anybody else in the kind of IT area inspire you?

I mean obviously all those people you mentioned are really great geniuses but they were kind of well before the they're more scientists and they and inventors well before the IT era or is it just too early in the IT? Um no absolutely um I admire anyone who's who's worked hard to accomplish some great thing. I mean it's it's worthy of admiration.

So um you know obviously it's hard not to admire someone like Steve Jobs uh um you know Bill Gates or um you know in sort of present day um big fan of Larry Page good friend of mine is you know what him and Serge have done there is is pretty awesome um so yeah and then probably many many journalists I'm not against journalists honestly look you're here yeah exactly [laughter] But but when you talk about the the internet of today, how do you look at it?

You were in a very clear part of the internet that was you know and you I remember you and you were Mr. Web 1. 0 like there was you know and you did in fact pose in front of cars. I remember there was some car picture that you Yeah. Um yeah Porsche or a Fiat. It was a McLaren F1. Right. Exactly. So So you weren't close. No. Well I Yeah. So I don't know what that is. It's a man.

And I actually I'll tell you, I actually do um uh haven't haven't told anyone in a while, but the I do actually still own one gasoline car, which is a a 67 series 1E type Jag. Oh, I don't know what. Great. I know exactly what it says. Some of us know. I have a Mazda 5. I like it a lot. Okay. Um great. But um when I when I was uh sort of in college there were I was reading about the McLaren F1 and it's just an engineering work of art.

I mean it's just really really done right and and so I thought if if I ever made enough money that I' I'd buy the McLaren F1. So I was actually living in an apartment in Palo Alto um that that cost significantly less than the car. Um I remember that picture. Yeah. And it was either upgrade to a house or buy the car and I bought the car. Uh [laughter] yeah. Were you married at the time? I was actually. Yeah. And you posed in front of it.

It was quite a symbol of the time, I remember. Yeah. You know, um yeah, exactly. I mean, I wasn't really It probably wasn't the best idea, but um there was in fact it was it was kind of funny. It was this show um which is like if if there was ever sort of a show on hubris, it would probably be it was called Silicon Valley Gold Rush. Um and it was literally filmed in 99 in 1999.

Um and um and so they fold me getting the McLaren and uh and a number of other people as well. Um it fortunately PayPal worked out otherwise it would have been extremely embarrassing. Right. Did you go like I got one or something. Uh no I didn't do that but I was pretty excited about getting it. Right. So why when you look at the internet of today and then we're going to get to questions from lots of questions from the audience I'm sure.

Um what do you think of the rest of the space the photo sharing? Is it meaningless given you're going to Mars and everything or is it what what's the I mean people are like Vine I can you know do a selfie which is animated and a lot of people you know are kind of excited but I love them. Cara did some great ones. Absolutely. But it's not going it's not having two planetary habitats.

It's like a different thing you know or even being able to drive from New York to LA on electric power. on electric power. What do you think of when you look at the internet right now? What do you about what's developing and what's happening? Um, well, no, I mean, I I think I actually I'm I'm not dismissive of of things like like photo sharing apps and that kind of thing.

I think the the the I mean, there's a lot of things where where it provides say a small amount of value to a lot of people and that, you know, sums up to some large value and that's that's still good. Um, I mean, if people are able to share photos of their friends and family in in a better way, I think that makes their lives better. And, um, if you know, if that puts a high value on the company, so so be it. I think that's not that bad.

Um, and, uh, I mean, I think we've got an enormously a lot of talented people, uh, a lot of talented entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and others in the internet arena. Um, and I think it'd be great if if some of those people would would actually go to other arenas that that could use their talent.

I mean, that's the only thing that I would say is well, there is this concept someone someone the other day when I was asking him what's going on in Silicon Valley and he said very smart guy, he said, you know, there's a lot of big minds chasing small ideas, right? And I I sometimes, you know, the ninth kind of silly little thing, you're like, wow, these are fantastic and yet like everyone's making Twinkies, right? Kind of thing some level.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Um, I think there's there's probably I mean, I' I'd recommend that that people consider arenas outside of the the internet. Um, because there's there's there's a lot of, like I said, there's a lot of um industries that could use that entrepreneurial talent and the the skills that people have learned in creating companies.

Um and uh you know then there's actually a lot of opportunity uh in in these industries particularly ones where the they've been kind of dominated by an oligopolistic uh set of companies for a long time. Oligoples are not or duopies or monopolies are not great at innovation. Innovation comes from new entrance to an arena. And so when an industry has had the absence of new entrance, it tends to to have very limited innovation.

Um, which also means that if you do get a you break on through the other side, then you there is a lot of opportunity for a company that's that's created there. Um, so what are you doing next? Because you're you know, we're kind of bored with these last two. Well, I think I'll be occupied with Tesla and SpaceX for a long time. But is there one other arena you don't you have a solar thing? Solar? Yeah.

Um, in fact, but I should clarify that a lot of times people uh ascribe the success of Solo City to me, but I really should be ascribed to the the my cousins, the co-founders, uh, Lynon and Peter Ry. I mean, I provide some strategic advice. Um, and I suggested that they do a company in the solar arena. Um, but but they deserve the vast majority of the credit for for that outcome. And uh, it it should certainly shouldn't be ascribed to me. Okay.

All right. Well, we're gonna take some by the way. And by the way, Elon said to me he wasn't Why would we want him here? He's not a technologist, just so you know. Well, no. And I just was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Well, I'm a technologist, but I'm not an internet. So, I'm not like digital. That's the thing. It's like I was like, okay, all things digital. Well, there's nothing digital.

I'm not exactly digital, but there's nothing digital in the Tesla. There are digital things. Um, but it's Yeah. Um, it didn't say all things digital and physical be like more sense. [laughter] All right, let's get to the question. Shervin, it just be called all things. All things. That's our new name. May need one. Oh, you want to start over there? Okay. Hi, Shervin Pishvar from Sherpa. Hi, Elon.

Um, I've been coming here for many years and all of us who have been here for many years have we're always inspired to see Steve Jobs here and obviously we all miss him deeply, but somehow your presence here and your inspiration really uh eases that pain. So, thank you for coming. Oh, wow. What do you say? [applause] Elon, there there is one idea you have that we've discussed before, which is Hyperloop, and Right.

I I would love for you to tell this audience what that is and how it could change our world. Again, thank you. Yeah, I would actually love to to to answer that question, but if I do, uh it it will that will be the news tomorrow. Um whereas I need to do the Tesla news. Um, you did that too late. Yeah. Um, so, uh, yeah, I I I think probably I'll be able to talk about the Hyperloop idea in pretty soon.

There's there's a Tesla announcement we've got next month or so around June 20th or so. And I think um I think at some point after that I I to that should hopefully that that that that will be a good time to talk about the uh the Hyperloop idea.

But for those that aren't aware, the basic thought is um is is there a better way to travel quickly from uh say downtown LA to downtown San Francisco or LA to San Francisco that's better than the highspeed rail that's being proposed? Because the highspeed rail, that's what originally got me to think about, you know, is there some better way to do it?

because the highspeed rail that's being proposed would actually be the slowest of slowest bullet train in the world and the most expensive per mile in the world, which is these are not the superlatives we're looking for. Kind of like our internet here. Yeah. Um but it's it you know I think this it's a little depressing to sort of have uh something that's like the slowest bullet train in the world in in California at enormous cost.

Uh and isn't there something better that we could come up with? And that something better is the hyperloop. Well, I think so. Probably, but I don't know what that is. Yeah. Um, the But I want to ride on it. Yeah. [laughter] I I think, you know, even even if even if I'm sort of wrong about the economic assumptions behind the Hyperloop, it would still be a really fun ride. Uh, even if only one of it ever existed, it would be a really fun ride.

What it is? [laughter] Um, is it a train? A plane, not a mobile. It's It's um transporter machine. It's a cross between a Concord and a rail gun. A Concord and a rail gun. Okay. Yeah. But you're not you you don't I throw something else in there just to to make it sound even more even even more bizarre. Um it it's cross between a Concord, a rail gun, and an air hockey table. [laughter] But you did the freeway and had a baby somehow.

You [laughter] You wouldn't want to go a little bit beyond that or Oh my god. Okay, let's go. Let's go. I mean, San Francisco is in. Okay, three-way and a baby. We love it. Esther. Esther, thank you. And Max will help that. Since you're feeling so loquacious tonight. Okay. When are you planning to take the first people up into orbit, whether it's the space station or Bigalow or whatever? She wants to go. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, we're actually we're working on um working on version two of our Dragon spacecraft and um uh in partnership with with with NASA. So, this is uh NASA's NASA is our biggest customer. Um although we also expect to to transport uh private citizens and and we think we'll probably see this the first flights in of of people in two to three years. So, thank you. Bye, sir. Nice knowing. [laughter] No, no. I'm retiring on Mars, but not yet. Okay.

Yes. Over here. Allison Sheridan from Rathan and I am behind the camera. Now I know why everybody's been saying that. Looking right through the camera. Um, thanks for your presence at All Things D. A couple years ago, I did get a chance to drive the Tesla Roadster. That was so much fun. I scared the guy though. He got a little nervous.

But, um, what I actually wanted to ask you about was we've talked a lot here about the importance of STEM education and trying to encourage that. And it's been suggested that part of our strategy really should be immigrant STEM type people. And I'm just guessing that with your background, maybe you have some interesting perspective on that. Oh, we forgot that question. Yeah. Oh, you're welcome. Great. Well, I do think Zuckerberg. Yeah.

I I do think we we we should be we I mean, if there's some really talented grad students at American colleges, it's crazy to send them home or force them to go home in a lot of cases. So I think we should have some reform of immigration policy that um actually has has us you know arguably recruiting.

I mean we should think of like like if you if if this was a company if the United States was a company you'd be working hard to recruit top people and and you certainly wouldn't be expelling them. Um that would be that would be crazy. So we should definitely have some reform on that front. Um and it does endure to the benefit of other countries but but um but I should try to have them stay here I think.

Um and but with respect to to STEM in general I mean to to the degree that there are exciting technology projects that kids in school can read about and and and say okay I' I'd like to be I'd like to work work on that or be part of that. Um that is what draws people into the science and technology. Um and like the biggest thing I think in history that is on on that front has been the was the Apollo program.

Um that's I think there's probably not been any single thing that's been more powerful in in drawing kids in because they're they're like like wow we sent something. I want to help make that happen or or or you know and and and go beyond that. So, I think I think it's it's really important to have th those projects that that kids can can read about and want to be part of in school and and that will really draw them.

Since we just touched on immigration, can you explain what happened with the uh political lobbying effort started by Mark Zuckerberg that you were you were supporter of, but then you withdrew along with some others. What was that all about? Yeah. Um so initially when I was uh you know I joined agreed to be part of uh forward uh US um because the I I I do believe in immigration reform.

I think we need to you know we've got some really antiquated laws change them [clears throat] and uh and there are some you know other things that that also need to be on on the agenda. Um, so I thought, okay, I'll support that.

And um, uh, but but I I think the the the the methods that were employed, I mean, it was a little too much of the sort of Kissinger-esque real politic, you know, and that wasn't I mean, I think we should try to make things happen for like the right reason and and and uh and we shouldn't we shouldn't give into the cynicism of politics. I mean, we should be we should fight the cynicism.

Um, and if and if we if we don't if we do anything to encourage that, then we'll get the political system that we deserve. Okay. [applause] Uh, I think maybe Dan Dan Simon with CNN. Elon, given the runaway success and reviews of the Model S, you have to believe that the other car makers are going to be gunning for you. So I I'm wondering how the company is going to keep its competitive edge because you know that success can be a fleeting moment.

Also, when do you think that u electric vehicles will overtake gasoline vehicles? And and finally wondering if you have a message for the nation's oil companies. Sure. Um well, I I really hope that the large car companies make a concerted effort to create electric vehicles. Uh, and ultimately if if Tesla makes competitive electric cars, then we'll deserve to be around. And if we don't, then we don't deserve to be around.

I mean, um, you know, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to make good products. Um, and, uh, and so far from being concerned about other car companies coming in, we're actually doing our best to convince them to to make electric cars and in fact to make power trays for them, um, you know, um, where they will allow us to do so.

So I I hope they I hope they look at the success of the Model S and and that encourages them to make a big move into electric cars. Um you know as for the oil companies you know the the the tricky thing is uh the way the system is set up because we have an unpriced externality. We have this tragedy of the commons problem with the CO2 capacity of the oceans and atmosphere.

the incentive structure is such that the the the the oil companies have uh you know it's hard to ask ask the CEO of an oil company to act against their best interests. That that's the thing. Uh in fact if they do that they might get fired by their by their shareholders. So the the right thing for us to do is to change the rules of the game so that it in a sense the right behavior.

Um, and that's why I'm a big believer of of a carbon tax is is the right way to to go. And uh, you know, we don't even have to necessarily change the amount of money that that that we collect from from the tax base. But I do think it's it's sensible to pro disproportionately tax things that at least have a likelihood of being bad.

So just as we on a personal level will tax tobacco and alcohol um and tobacco particularly is is is bad and that's well established u fact we should disproportionately tax CO2 emissions um and uh and then I think the right behavior will occur. So I I mean I have a I have a hard time condemning the oil and gas companies uh because we're the the the current system insense them to do bad behavior.

Um that tax that tax gets passed along though to consumers and ultimately hurts the economy. No. Um see it if if if the if the amount of revenue uh being generated is the same um it's it's not going to the you know the we need to collect a certain amount of money to pay for the federal government.

And how how we collect that is you know there's you collect that in a wide range of wide range of ways but but effectively what we're doing is we're saying a portion of somebody's labor has to go to federal government activities. Um, and it doesn't, you know, it's not going to negatively affect the economy really how how we collect that money. People may think it has negative effect, but it really doesn't. It's it's the same.

It's a certain amount of uh money collected to pay for the federal government. Um, it's like say we don't actually need to change the amount of money raised, but we need to weight it towards the things that are more likely to be bad than than things that are more likely to be good.

Um I I guess I mean where I have an issue with oil and gas guys is when they you know this sometimes engage in nefarious tactics um and uh u or or things that are sort of somewhat somewhat insidious uh like like funding academic studies that people can then point to as though they have some credibility um and and and it's some prominent professor somewhere.

Um but but that person is act has been paid off by by the oil industry to to write that that study.

It's uh um so that kind of thing obviously should be condemn condemned in the strongest words and um and I'd recommend people read uh a book called Merchants of Doubt uh that that actually spells it out in in in detail how um some of these things are going on where I mean it's oil and gas industry is all they need to do is to create doubt and that that's what they've done.

In fact, they've actually employed uh a lot of pe of of individuals and firms that were employed by the tobacco industry. Like literally the same people. Um you're like surprised that some of these people are still around because they're like, you know, they're quite old. Um [laughter] uh but but in some cases, literally the same people have been employed by the oil and gas industry. Okay, get to this. Thanks.

Uh we only have a couple of more questions. Hi uh Jared from Scribb. Uh thank you so much for coming Elon. Um my question is about SpaceX. So uh even without a fully and rapidly reusable rocket, you've still managed to reduce the cost to orbit by an order of uh magnitude or more just with more incremental improvements. And so uh uh firstly, at what point did you realize that such an opportunity existed in the space field?

And uh secondly, are there other parallel opportunities and other areas that you wish somebody else would chase even if you don't personally have time to do them all? Sure. Um so when when I started SpaceX, it was actually I thought the most likely outcome was that we would fail. Um in fact, I thought that was really likely that that SpaceX would fail. Um so uh it wasn't really with expectation of success that I started the company obviously.

um the the but what gave me a clue that we could make a significant breakthrough was looking at the uh the cost of a rocket and instead of looking at it um with reference to what other rockets had cost in the past I said okay what is a rocket made of what are the material constituents um what what metals you know carbon fiber what what what are the various materials that constitute a rocket and if you had a pile of those materials arrayed before you and you could wave a magic wand what would that rocket cost to build.

Um, and that is a remarkably small number. Um, you know, was maybe a few percent or one or two% of what rockets actually cost. So, clearly people were doing something silly in how they were putting those materials together. Um, and so just by eliminating those those sort of foolish things, we were able to make a rocket for much less.

Um and uh and and then um I wasn't it wasn't obvious to me that you one could achieve uh full and rapid reusability. Um because Earth's gravity is right on the cusp of where that's possible or not possible. In order to achieve that really everything has got to be done super super well, every aspect of the vehicle. Um, so it was only maybe 2 or 3 years ago or maybe 3 years ago that I thought it was actually uh achievable.

Um, and u now I'm fairly certain it's achievable but uh but there's still a long way to go between here and there and as mentioned before uh we've not yet recovered a single rocket stage so we have a long way to go. Okay, I think this has to be the last question. Yeah. Hi Alan, Greg Tar from Cross Pacific Capital up in Palo Alto. Uh question for you.

I used to work for Toyota's uh US headquarters and when we in 1990 scaled up the Lexus dealership network, it was pretty tough and I wanted to get an understanding of what kind of innovation you're going to bring in terms of the service area.

Uh it generally takes 300 dealerships to support about 100,000 units and you're doing a tremendous job which I admire and I want to understand what your plans are because eventually the middle part of the country will begin to understand uh the revolution happening on the east and west coast. How will you um make it happen in the dealership network and service? Yeah.

Well, service in fact for the last uh three or four months has been uh my main focus at Tesla.

uh and uh it was three or four months ago it was our service was okay and uh in some cases quite quite bad in particular someone asked me about that the weird service of Tesla but go ahead yeah we we I'd say we had some pretty nightmarish service situations probably in the January February time frame things have gotten steadily better um and uh but like for example LA was was a problem for a huge for a really long time because we we were supposed to have three service centers open and permits were delayed on two of them.

So we were operating at one/3 capacity. Um so as long as your your model S didn't break down, you had an awesome experience. If it broke down, it was brutal. Um so now now we've got all three open things are a lot better. Um but but it is going to take an enormous amount of work to to scale service uh across the country and then internationally. We start delivering in Europe in July.

Um, so yeah, I don't know if we've got any I've got any brilliant insights that you probably you probably know all all the things that I would would say, but uh you we've got to have really good diagnostics tools. Um, and we do have an advantage in that the car uh has so much intelligence in it. It can do a lot of self diagnostics. Um, and and we can query, you know, what what parts need to be fixed on the car before it even comes in.

um so that so we can be more efficient in our service. Um and and then something we announced recently was that uh we're building um this fleet and or largely have built at this point this fleet of service loaners so that when if your car breaks down um what we'll do is and we also have valet service. So, if your car breaks down or you need service, uh we will um go to wherever your car is and replace it with uh one of our top-of-the-line cars.

So, our service loaners are not um sort of the standard cars. They're actually the top-of-the-line cars. Um and and we so we'll just valet a service loaner to wherever you are, pick your car up, take it get serviced, and then and then return your car when it's done. So, the experience should be really seamless.

Um and uh you should really feel like uh like you should you got actually an even better car than the one that you had serviced for some period of time and it was no interruption to your life. I think that's the most important thing. Lexus did did this to some degree. I'm not sure if Lexus does the full valet thing or not but uh certainly did the service loaner program which was done done really well actually. Elon thank you so much.

We really appreciate it. Thank you. [applause] [music]