2022，我们非常高兴你们能和我们在一起，无论你们是身处伦敦市中心的会场，还是通过我们的全球直播加入我们。我叫彼得·坎贝尔，是《金融时报》的全球汽车行业记者，非常荣幸能为大家介绍并分享这场会议。让我告诉大家这将如何进行：几分钟后，我们会请 JB Straubel 回到台上，埃隆·马斯克将远程加入我们，但会议将用最初的 10 到 15 分钟谈论 Tesla 的历史。现在，这两个人对公司及其发展，以及它迄今取得的一切成就都至关重要，而他们此前从未一同登台谈论这家企业的起源，所以这是一次独特的机会，可以就此向他们提问

并听他们讲述此事，然后在会议余下的时间里，我们将有时间单独和埃隆交流，届时我们会提出一些关于 Tesla 的今天和明天的问题，也许还会问 1 或 2 个关于他正在推进的其他项目的问题。提醒大家，请在聊天框中提问，如果你们在会场，则请使用 Slido。不过不再多说，因为在我们所有的嘉宾中，这一位最不需要介绍。我想请大家欢迎 JB Straubel 回到台上，以及远程加入我们的埃隆·马斯克。谢谢，晚上好，非常感谢你们两位和我们在一起。我想回到本场会议早些时候提到的一件事，以及那顿改变了世界的午餐，正如帕特里克称呼我们的那样，当时你们两个人坐了下来

并想出了一项最终促成 Tesla 的计划。请带我们回顾一下这件事：是谁发起的？午餐是谁的主意？后来去了哪里？埃隆，我们很希望由你开始。我当然愿意。嗯，实际上，还有 JB，呃，完全。我想我们或许也可以听听他的视角。嗯，不过，呃，呃，是的，我接到了一个电话，呃，是来自一个素不相识的人，呃，来自 JV 和，嗯，Rosen，嗯，呃，我想有一次，我不完全确定当时的主题是什么，但那是，那是某件涉及太空，或者也许是氢动力飞机之类的事情。嗯，所以我们聚在一起吃午饭，在谈话进行到某个时候时，话题转向了电动汽车。嗯，呃，JB 和 Rosner 都曾在一家电动汽车公司工作，嗯，我想那家公司最终没有成功，而我提到，呃，我，我其实长期以来一直对电动汽车抱有浓厚的

兴趣，而且我认为电动汽车是交通运输的未来。嗯，事实上，我曾在一家公司工作，开发可能用于电动汽车的高端密度电容器，呃，超级电容器，而那原本会是我在斯坦福攻读研究生期间的研究领域，但我最终，呃，退学了。不过，嗯，总之，这促使 JBA 建议我去试驾 AC Propulsion 的那辆 T0 原型车，那是南加州的一家小公司。嗯，因为那算是一辆用于概念验证的电动跑车。嗯，我说那太好了，我很想试驾一下，那是在 2003 年。嗯，然后，然后我的确，我试驾了那辆 T0。嗯，我试图

说服他们将 T0 商业化。事实上，我非常努力地试图让 AC Propulsion 将那辆 T0 电动跑车商业化。嗯，后来他们，嗯，他们，他们说自己确实不想这么做。嗯，我，我就说，好吧，那你们介不介意，呃，由我来做？如果我，我打造一辆商业化的，呃，电动跑车，你们介意吗？他们说，是的，没问题。所以，呃，我的，你知道，我的意图基本上是和 JB 一起成立一家公司，把 T0 商业化。嗯，然后，呃，为了与 AC Propulsion 合作，他们说，好吧，你知道，还有其他一些，呃，团体也想把 T0 的，呃，概念商业化。呃，你，你觉得和他们合作怎么样？嗯，而介绍给我的其中一个团体，呃，是，呃，呃，Mark Topening

在 Ian Wright 那里，以及从未有过，呃，那个，不过，不过非常重要的一点是，必须强调，当时并不存在任何具有实质形态的真正公司。所以其实只有 3 个人，然后是 JB 和我，接着我们决定合作并创建一个，一项探索，打造 T0 电动跑车的商业版本。嗯，是的，我是说，JB，对此有什么，呃，你的，你的看法是什么？不，那和我记忆中的经过也相当，呃，相当接近。而且，呃，我是说，我对这件事的看法是，我们当时试图和你聊聊这个电动氢动力飞机概念，那是我们，呃，你知道，我当时正试图开展的项目。而且，呃，我确实记得，午餐的前半段实际上进行得不太顺利

我想，呃，我记不起你用过哪些生动的形容词了，但那些词并不——并不怎么，呃，你对氢动力飞机并不怎么兴奋，这是有充分理由的。嗯，所以，是的，然后我想我们的——我们的话题、我们的谈话完全转向了锂离子电池，关于，你知道，锂离子电池当时最先进的技术，以及有什么可能、潜在可能，也就是把，你知道，在当时，大量小型锂离子电池串联起来；这些电池在那些日子里，你知道，还不是很成熟，但有可能连接成真正的大型电池包，造出一辆续航里程可能达到数百英里的电动汽车。你知道，这在今天似乎有点司空见惯，但在2003年，这绝对是闻所未闻的

，它真的会创下续航里程的世界纪录。你知道，呃，是的，我是说，你——你，呃，你理解这个概念，我想，还有它的潜力，比我们曾经与之谈过这件事的任何人都更透彻，而且立刻就对此充满热情和兴奋。所以那是，我是说，不久之后，正如你所说，你知道，我们与 AC Propulsion 碰了面，然后，呃，呃，算是开始大干起来了。然后呢，当你们与一些汽车制造商交谈时，显然遭遇了很多早期拒绝。你们最终选定 Lotus 来做第一款 Roadster，嗯，但你们也找过其他一些公司。从那顿午餐到让 Roadster 项目起步之间，有没有哪一刻，你知道，你几乎放弃了，觉得实际上无法让它成功？不是从化学角度

来看，而是从商业角度来看。我是说，也许我可以先谈这一点。你知道，早期有很多挑战。我是说，这项技术并不——嗯，并不能确定所有那些部分都能协同工作，而且，呃，你知道，早期围绕电池安全的一些方面相当棘手，而且，呃，那是在我认为大多数人还没有弄清楚如何，你知道，管理这些问题之前。嗯，我想在 Tesla，我认为我们很早就有机会真正，你知道，以一种非常稳健的方式弄清楚这件事，并且，你知道，让它们比内燃机安全得多得多；事实上，统计数据和数据已经证明了这一点。嗯，但这并不是普遍看法，所以——所以那——那很难，而且那有风险

。呃，显然经历了很多财务上的波折和磨难。从电动 Roadster 的构想到商业化，这一路并非一帆风顺。呃，那基本上是一场疯狂的噩梦。嗯，而且，呃，我们用6种方式把事情彻底搞砸了。嗯，还犯了多得令人难堪的错误。嗯，基本上，Tesla Roadster 最初设计的几乎一切都是错的。嗯，而且根本行不通。嗯，但是，呃，而且首先，我们完全不知道怎样造车。呃，所以，呃，而且——而且当时也没有人真正知道怎样制造一辆，你知道，一辆商业化的，呃，锂离子电池汽车。呃，以前从来没人做过。嗯，所以，嗯，所以最初的想法大概是，呃，听起来很诱人，但存在根本缺陷，就是，嗯，使用 Lotus Elise 的底盘

，嗯，然后把它与 AC Propulsion 的动力总成技术结合起来，然后砰的一下，你就有了，可以说，造一辆车所必需的2个部分。这应该很直接。呃，然后，嗯，就那么做，然后——然后——然后，呃，很好。呃，不幸的是，呃，那是——呃，2个存在根本缺陷的，呃，前提。这个——嗯，Lotus Elise 的底盘并不适用。呃，意思是，所以这辆车最后重了40，而且我们无法把电池包装进 Elise；它是一辆非常小的车。所以我们基本上不得不改变 Elise 的一切。我想我们保留下来的共用零部件也许有6%。呃，所有碰撞测试都失效了，结构也失效了，因为——这个——这个——这个更大的质量，以及质量分布与汽油车有根本性的不同，而且，嗯，是的

。呃，对，事后看来，从全新设计开始、不尝试改造 Elise，实际上会聪明得多，因为我们最后承受了 Elise 的许多限制，却几乎没有从零部件复用方面得到任何好处。所以那是一个愚蠢得惊人的决定。嗯，然后，呃，在——在动力总成方面，事实证明，我想 AC Propulsion 的技术几乎没有任何一项能用于，呃，量产车。嗯，我是说，JB，我们最后有用到任何 AC Propulsion 的东西吗？等到交付给第一位客户时，几乎什么都没有。是的，它是一个非常——它是一个非常有帮助的早期概念验证，也许指明了方向，说明了那是可能实现的东西，但其中没有任何东西是——呃，我是说，商业——商业化

所有这些，正如埃隆所说，呃，是许多错误、尝试和磨难，而且，呃，最初用模拟元件制造超过2个那种电机控制器非常困难。那些仍然是模拟电机控制。我是说，它会变热，而电机的表现就会不同；你知道，在炎热天气和寒冷天气里，油门的响应会有所不同。所以，是的，几乎所有东西都不得不从头重做。所以没了。所以——所以我们要说的是，我们是大白痴，而且我们对于创造 Tesla Roadster 的——这个根本前提完全错了。嗯，呃，呃，而且你们最后无法使用 AC Propulsion 动力总成技术中的任何东西，实际上也几乎没有使用原始 Lotus 租约中的任何东西。嗯，但我们仍然留下了

Elise 的许多限制：这辆车有点太小，很难进出，嗯，而且极其简陋。嗯，而且是一个依靠 Lotus 来制造它的独立方。然后每当 Lotus 遇到财务困难时，他们就会提高对我们的价格，而且，呃，向我们收取更多钱。嗯，所以，呃，这使得，嗯，控制这辆车的价格变得非常困难。呃，所以，嗯，然后供应链也完全是一团糟。最初的想法基本上是把一切都外包出去，而，呃，随后，我们把汽车各个部分外包给的公司几乎没有一家能够成功制造出那些零部件。所以我们不得不为车身寻找一家新的供应商，嗯，因为，或者 Cyrus Supply 最初选定的是完全做不到这件事的。嗯

这不是我当时正在制定的决定，但我们把电池制造外包给了泰国的一家烧烤，呃，公司，嗯，这有点愚蠢，呃，说好吧，我们要制造有史以来最复杂精密的电池，嗯，然后由烧烤公司来制造它，嗯，他们显然不知道该怎么制造，呃，嗯，这相当愚蠢，嗯，所以我们在最后把电池生产来源转到加利福尼亚，我们基本上最终自己制造了电池，嗯，呃，是的，基本上就是一件接一件，呃，完全是一场，呃，由愚蠢造成的、持续燃烧的垃圾箱大火，我会说公司初期就是这样，嗯，而且，呃，然后我们不得不从那里恢复过来，而那非常困难，所以外面还有很多其他电动汽车初创公司，可能在

如今有数百家都想做你们做过的事，你们，呃，在整个行业真正赶上你们的10年前就开辟了道路。你们的优势是没有其他人在同一领域竞争，但劣势是你们一直都在努力从一片处女雪中突围。10年前做这件事是否比你认为的今天更难？如果，如果让你给各家电动汽车初创公司一条建议，那会是什么？嗯，我，我是说，我觉得他们大多数人完全忘记了Tesla最初大约8到10年的经历。这对我来说是有点令人惊讶的部分，你知道，他们多少是看到了成功，然后就说，哦，那个看起来不错，我们来做那个吧，我们，我们也成为一家，我们就，你知道，照着做。但，嗯，我是说

那很残酷，充满混乱和大量错误，而且很多年来投入了很多钱。嗯，我个人认为，即使在今天，一家初创公司要参与竞争其实困难得多，因为第一个问题是，相对于其他原始设备制造商或Tesla的所有产品，究竟还有什么细分市场适合成立一家新的电动汽车初创公司？你知道，他们能在哪方面做得比Tesla更好？Tesla当时并不存在，17年前世界上没有Tesla。所以，那多少是一种迫切需要，也提供了一段跑道，让我们能够犯很多错误，并且仍然让它运转起来，你知道。是的，我觉得这里非常重要的是要，呃，强调，你知道，我认为，嗯，我不会，呃，JB本来也不会想经历创办电动

一家电动汽车公司所带来的极端痛苦。嗯，而且，你知道，这只是世界上需要发生的一件重要事情，以迈向可持续技术的未来。而，但，但在我们创办Tesla时，呃，没有初创公司在做电动汽车，而，呃，大型汽车公司确实没有在推进任何电动汽车项目，而且他们手头仅有的少数极其、极其微小的电动汽车项目也正在被关闭。因此，除非我们努力制造一辆电动汽车，否则就不会有电动汽车被制造出来。嗯，这并不是从“嘿，呃，这里有一个利润超级丰厚的点子，让我们创办一家汽车公司”这个角度出发的。汽车公司初创企业的历史惨不忍睹，嗯，而且它们几乎

全都破产了。这是一个大得令人难以置信的坟石，大型汽车初创企业墓地，它们全都死了。嗯，你只听说过其中极少数，你知道，类似世界上的那些塔科斯和德罗宁，但还有数百家其他公司是人们没听说过的。嗯，所以，而且在目前的美国，仅有的2家没有破产的美国汽车公司是福特和Tesla，而Tesla也曾经差点破产，次数多到我都数不清。所以，从根本上说，创办一家汽车公司就是一个痛苦的世界，是超级痛苦。那不是轻松赚来的钱，是你所能想象的与轻松赚钱相距最远的事情。嗯，所以，呃，我从其中一些新汽车公司身上看到的是，它们，它们正在跳到防守位置，试图制造一款大批量

生产的汽车，而它们以前从未制造过汽车。这就，嗯，就像，你知道，没有练习你的竞技运动，然后就去参加奥运会。你不会赢的，这太疯狂了。嗯，你确实需要从小规模起步，在小规模上犯错。嗯，并确保你有大量储备资本，然后从你一开始做的蠢事中逐步成长，并随着时间推移变得没那么蠢，否则将会发生的是巨额，呃，资金损失。嗯，汽车行业竞争非常激烈，它，它，它是自然垄断的反面。在社交媒体或比如Google搜索之类的领域，你多少会看到全国性垄断。嗯，汽车公司当然，呃，我不是垄断企业，它们竞争极其激烈，而且它们习惯于极其

激烈地竞争，呃，遍及全世界。它们拥有根深蒂固的客户、经销商、服务设施、呃，现有专业知识。这些是，这些是堡垒中的老兵、老兵军队。所以，就像，这，是的，我是说，这极其困难。刚才你的回答碰巧提到了“社交媒体”这个词，这非常顺畅地把我们带到了，呃，Twitter的问题上。所以JB，我要说非常感谢，那非常精彩，简要回顾了Tesla及其早年历程，还有你们犯过的错误。嗯，所以非常感谢你和我们一起登台。谢谢。嗯，Twitter方面我能说的不多，因为，你知道，这是，Twitter是一家上市公司，而且，嗯，你知道，我能说什么受到很多限制。所以不确定

你想问什么，但大多数问题的答案都会是无可奉告。没关系，我可以试试看。请你戴上产品开发的帽子，如果把Twitter一直剥回最本质的状态，它是什么？你认为10年后它可以成为什么？嗯，我说过，我认为Twitter，嗯，目前是最好的，或者换个角度看，是最不坏的，呃，公共广场，嗯，一个在国内和国际上交流思想的论坛。而，而且，但我认为它在这方面可以做得好得多。为了在这方面做得更好，它确实需要清除，清除机器人账号和，那些诈骗及垃圾信息发送者，而且，你知道，基本上还有，而且任何试图在侧管上制造某种虚假影响力的人，也就是一个人或一个实体

操作100 000个账号。嗯，或者，你知道，显然诈骗者不是好事。嗯，而且，而且Twitter确实，呃，至少要在这方面做得好得多。嗯，它还需要建立信任，与用户建立更多信任。我认为做到这一点的方法是将算法开源，这样每个人都能看到算法如何运作，也能够，呃，提出改进和更改建议。我真的、真的会直接把，呃，Twitter算法放到，放到GitHub上，然后说，嘿，有人想对此提出修改建议吗？请尽管提。嗯，而且，而且就是，你确实需要透明度来建立信任。然后，对推文的任何，任何更改、任何形式的调整，或者，呃，对Twitter上任何账号进行的任何人工干预，都应该突出显示为一名Twitter人员对你的

账号，或者关于这条推文，这样你就不会有点坐在被告席上琢磨，为什么这条推文没有获得任何关注，或者为什么这一条获得了很多关注。嗯，这太随机了。嗯，而且，嗯，你知道，然后我认为Twitter需要公平得多。它目前有很强的左翼偏向，呃，因为它位于旧金山。我不认为那里的人必然是有意，我，或者至少他们中的一些人并不打算，打算带有左翼偏向；只是从他们的角度来看，呃，那显得温和，但他们所处的环境本身就是，就是非常左倾的。所以，呃，但，但这样一来就无法在美国其他地区建立信任，而且，而且也许在世界其他地区也是如此，呃，因为，呃，Twitter

需要公平，而且，而且要，嗯，你知道，我想我公开说过，呃，胜利将意味着，嗯，最右翼的10和最左翼的10%同样不满。嗯，就像我不认为在这种情况下你一定会得到赞扬，你只是会，你只是会平衡愤怒。那么你怎么，你怎么，因为人们，嗯，人们会自然而然地把你和Tesla联系起来，也会把你和Twitter联系起来。在你看来，你将在Twitter采取的行动——你已经坦率承认这些行动会让一些人不满——是否存在风险，嗯，可能会对Tesla产生商业影响？嗯，我相信我们生产多少车就能卖掉多少车。我是说，目前订购一辆Tesla的交付等待时间长得离谱

所以我们的问题不是需求，而是生产。但这是目前因为全球供应链和芯片短缺造成的，这与电动汽车需求关系没那么大，而我们预计电动汽车需求绝对会直线上升，而且你们在Tesla显然为此设定了非常宏大的目标。是的，我是说，即使在出现，呃，供应链问题之前，Tesla的，呃，需求也超过了产量。所以，嗯，现在，现在是优势超出产量，程度荒谬。嗯，呃，我们实际上可能会限制，呃，直接停止接受超过，呃，某个时间段的任何订单，因为，你知道，有些时间安排已经排到1年以后了。呃，所以，嗯，不管怎样，呃，我们从客户那里看到的挫败感在于，呃，在于无法给他们提供一辆车。嗯，而不是

呃，他们是否愿意或有兴趣买车。嗯，所以我们基本上，我对需求创造的考虑是0，而对生产、工程和供应链考虑很多。如果可以的话，在我们把本场剩余时间，嗯，转向Tesla之前，我还有2个关于Twitter的问题。你有多大信心这笔交易会完成？以及是否存在风险——这都是一个问题——而且是否存在风险，嗯，因为你正拿出大量个人持股为此提供资金，如果这一切全都告吹，你会危及自己在Tesla的持股，可能在财务上伤害Tesla，甚至可能伤害SpaceX？嗯，如果这一切全都变成豆荚的话，这是专业术语。当然。嗯，所以，我是说，我认为在这笔偷窃结束之前，仍然有很多事情需要完成，显然

甚至还没有进行股东投票，嗯，而且 Twitter 还没有为股东投票提交委托书，嗯，所以仍然存在一些，你知道，需要解决的悬而未决的问题，嗯，而且，呃，所以这当然还不是板上钉钉的事，客观地说，它不是一笔要成交的交易，嗯，你知道，最理想的情况是，这件事会，对，我想也许会在，呃，2或3个月内完成，嗯，对，最后一个问题，而这，这实际上是房间里那头付了两次钱的大象，你打算让唐纳德·特朗普回来吗？嗯，我，我认为这里有一个普遍性问题，就是，Twitter 是否应该让女性加入乐队，嗯，而且你知道，我和杰克·多西谈过这件事，呃，他和我的想法一致，那就是，呃，永久粉丝应该

会，呃，极其罕见，而且真的只保留给，呃，那些人，他们试图，呃，给那些，给那些属于，呃，机器人账号或垃圾信息诈骗账号的账户，因为那种账户根本没有任何正当性，嗯，我，我确实认为，呃，封禁唐纳德·特朗普是不正确的，我认为那是，那是一个错误，嗯，因为它，呃，疏远了这个国家很大一部分人，而且最终并没有使唐纳德·特朗普失去发声渠道，他不会去Truth Social，嗯，美国很大一部分某种意义上的，那个，那个右翼也会如此，嗯，所以我认为，坦率地说，这最终可能比拥有一个，你知道，一个所有人都能辩论的单一形式更糟，嗯，所以，嗯，我想答案是，我，我，我会撤销永久封禁，我得说，我并不，我并不拥有Twitter

目前还没有，所以这并不是一件肯定会发生的事，因为如果我不拥有Twitter呢，呃，但我的观点，而且我想明确指出，杰克·多西也持有这个观点，呃，就是我们不应该有永久坏东西，嗯，现在，现在这并不意味着某个人可以想说什么就说什么，如果他们说了某些，呃，违法的东西，或者，嗯，其他，你知道，呃，就是，你知道，就是对世界具有破坏性的东西，那么，那么或许应该让其暂停一下，暂时停用账号，或者那条特定的推文，呃，应该被，呃，呃，设为不可见，或者，或者只有非常有限的传播量，嗯，但我认为职业活动从根本上破坏了人们对Twitter作为一个市民广场的信任，呃，在那里每个人都能发表自己的意见，那是个有趣的，我认为，明确地说，那是一个道德上糟糕的决定

而且，而且愚蠢到了极点，即使，即使是在他怂恿了那群前往美国

国会大厦的人之后，其中一些人还带着绞索，你仍然认为移除他是个错误吗？我认为，如果有错误和糟糕的推文，它们应该被，呃，呃，要么删除，要么设为可见，而且暂停，呃，暂时停用账号是合适的，但不是永久封禁，所以如果交易完成，他可能有机会回来，但有一个共识，就是如果他再次做类似的事情，他就会回到辛普森，呃，他已经公开表示，他不会回到Twitter，而且他只会留在True Social，而这正是我试图说明的一点，或许没有传达清楚，就是把特朗普从Twitter封禁并没有终结特朗普的声音，这会在右翼群体中放大他的声音，而这就是为什么

这是道德上错误的，而且彻头彻尾地愚蠢。好的，谢谢。我们会，嗯，让我们再次转向 Tesla。我想问问你对未来的雄心。你说过，你希望公司到2030年能够每年生产2000万辆汽车，这将使其规模相当于如今的丰田和大众汽车加起来。嗯，请让我们了解一下，到2030年，为了生产2000万辆汽车，这项业务会是什么样子，工厂、用于印刷的、车型。是的，嗯，这不是一个宣布新产品、新 Tesla 产品的形式。嗯，呃，到2030年达到2000万辆是一个愿景，不是承诺。嗯，而把目标定在类似水平的原因是，世界上大约有20亿辆，呃，汽车和卡车，而要让我们真正对可持续能源和电气化产生显著影响，

呃，我认为我们每年至少需要替换车队的1%，呃，才能真正具有意义。嗯，而这，这就是2000万辆这个数字的由来，呃，就是，就是让我们努力每年替换全球20亿辆汽车和卡车的工资中的1%。而且，嗯，这是我们的愿景，不是承诺，这是一个愿景。呃，我认为我们很有机会实现它，而且，呃，人们会根据我们发布的产品，呃，自己判断这个目标是否现实。现在，你已经从0座工厂发展到了4座工厂，这可能要求你达到大约20座工厂，取决于它们如何包装起来。考虑到，你前方到2030年的这个阶段是否比已经过去的阶段更困难，

你已经做到了，还是你仍然认为扩大到那个水平更困难？外国的，我认为很接近，大致上，[音乐]，嗯，尾巴完成的事情，其绝对数量，我认为相当令人难以置信。呃，我们在 Tesla 有一支不可思议的团队，而且，嗯，执行得非常好，我们的年增长率比地球历史上任何大型制造商产品都快。但我认为此前最快的是 Model T 的增长，而我们比 Model T 更快。所以你知道，如果这个增长率持续下去，那么显然我们会达到每年2000万辆汽车，但我们可能会跌跌撞撞，而且，而且，呃，而且，呃，无法实现那个目标。所以，嗯，但我会说，大致上，走到这一步的难度，与达到2000万辆的难度大致相同。而最大的

不确定性是什么？在迈向2030年的过程中，是制造扩产，是原材料，还是别的什么？嗯，我们看到有一些原材料限制即将出现，嗯，大约3年后会在主题生产方面出现。嗯，在正极材料生产方面，正极材料的2种主要选择是镍和，呃，磷酸铁。嗯，显然铁极其丰富，地球按构成有32是铁。所以，呃，说个小知识，如果有人问地球是由什么构成的，构成地球的最大单一元素是铁。构成地球的第2大元素是氧，约占地球质量的30 30。所以显然并不不短缺。嗯，呃，磷酸盐的挑战稍微大一些，但仍然相当常见。嗯，所以我

看不到任何根本性的规模扩张限制，而且锂也相当常见，所以锂实际上无处不在。呃，所以，所以这并不是像它是什么稀有元素那样的短缺问题，真正的问题只是，嗯，锂的开采，尤其是精炼产能，以及把铁或磷转化成电池级磷酸铁，嗯，或者把镍转化成电池级镍。呃，这其实是，我认为这是唯一存在的，对吧，也就是把矿石转化成电池级材料所必需的设备。我们正在与供应商共同处理这个问题。所以我并不是说这是一个无法解决的问题，它只是，呃，在实现

2000万辆汽车的道路上遇到的问题之一。LFP 电池比你们使用的其他电池更难回收。如果你们最终大量、大量使用这种电池，就公司所做事情的整体环境影响而言，这会造成多大问题？呃，不，她所说的话不是真的。呃，磷酸铁电池完全可以回收。我不确定我们是否得到了你的信息，但磷酸铁具有同等的可回收性，而储存镍基电池也是如此。嗯，谢谢，我接受纠正。嗯，我能否问一下，你为什么认为 Tesla 到2030年需要增长这么多？因为你早年提出的目标是，希望 Tesla 帮助，嗯，使世界摆脱化石燃料，而在某种程度上，看起来它已经成功了。嗯，是的，我，我认为你有点

过于强调到20 30年达到2000万辆汽车，仿佛这是某种宏大的承诺，呃，某种我们会死在上面的治愈。嗯，那只是，那只是一个愿景。嗯，我们可能，我们可能实现它，也可能无法实现。嗯，呃，我们的目标是加速可持续能源的到来，而，而这就是为什么我们想制造大量汽车，也制造大量固定式电池组，因为可持续能源未来的3大支柱是电动交通，呃，固定式电池组，以及太阳能、风能、地热能和水力，基本上就是可持续能源来源。但太阳能和风能尤其具有间歇性，所以你需要固定式电池组，在没有阳光的时候储存能量，这样正如你，你知道的，你就能持续获得，呃，电力供应

或者在没有风的时候也是如此。所以，嗯，但你可以，你可以完全转型。我想非常明确地说明这一点：整个地球，整个地球都可以轻易地由太阳能和风能、固定式电池组以及电动交通供能。嗯，你可以为好几个……供能。即使地球经济要，你也可以用太阳能、风能、电池和早期交通做到地球经济规模的10倍。不，这根本不是勉强够用。我认为大多数人只是没有做过基础计算，不知道太阳有多少能量抵达地球。每平方米是1千瓦，或者换一种说法，每平方公里是1吉瓦。所以，如果你有一个效率为20的太阳能系统，呃，那就是每平方公里200兆瓦。嗯，基本上，这是很多的。呃，你可以为

整个欧洲供能，只需西班牙的一块区域，呃，西班牙的一块区域。嗯，你可以，呃，为整个，嗯，美国供能，只需犹他州或得克萨斯州的一个角落。当然，分散布置而不是，我只是把这用作一种修辞，或者用来说明，为美国或欧洲供能所必需的面积很小，这样显然更合理。呃，那并不是什么广阔区域。嗯，我邀请任何人做一下基础计算，这，这并不难。嗯，每平方公里200兆瓦。好的，那么需要多少，所需功率是多少？嗯，需要多少，这会告诉你需要多少平方公里。呃，然后你会需要，呃，电池来储存这些能量。嗯，嗯，我认为我们对为美国供能的所有能量进行储存所需电池自动面积的计算

大约是1平方英里，确实如此。那么你认为，你认为 Tesla 已经实现它的目标了吗，还是你认为仍然有很多事情要做？你知道，我认为，你知道，我们还没有实现这个目标。如果你认为这个目标是，呃，促使汽车行业强力转向电动汽车，那么我认为目标的这一部分我们已经实现了，而且这明确是我们目标的一部分，就是，就是促使行业转向电动汽车，因为我们开始时，他们，他们在这个方向上什么也没做。嗯，而且在很长一段时间里，他们都，呃，对电动汽车这个概念不屑一顾。嗯，后来，呃，Tesla 开始从他们手中夺取市场份额，这改变了他们的想法。你认为你可能还会在 Tesla

待多久？只要他们还能发挥作用。除了这些，还有哪些潜在的未来项目会激起你的兴趣？如果交易通过，你显然会深度参与 Twitter，但你已经有 Tesla、有 SpaceX、有 Boring、有 Neuralink。当你环顾四周，觉得自己可能还有余力时，嗯，就那种，我不知道，改善人类状况或改善地球而言，还有什么是你觉得未来可能想投入精力的？嗯，我，我正在努力采取一系列我认为最有可能让未来变好的行动。嗯，希望，你知道，用善意铺就通往地狱的道路。所以，嗯，所以我认为 Tesla 的使命是加速可持续能源

因为我们显然是地球上一个可持续能源的未来，这对我们来说是好事，那么SpaceX就是为了把生命延伸到地球之外，以便我们可以成为一个多行星物种，而星链则为世界上服务最匮乏的地方提供互联网覆盖，嗯，那些就是那些进入乡村社区或就是没有良好互联网或者互联网非常昂贵的地方，嗯，而且，嗯，但我认为我们成为一个多平坦物种和一个航天文明很重要，嗯，因为太阳最终会膨胀并摧毁我们在地球上的生命，所以如果，如果一个人是一个环境，一个真正的环保主义者，或者关心生命的未来，那么生命成为多行星的，并最终成为多恒星的，显然很重要，所以我们必须迈出那

第一步，嗯，那么你认为SpaceX接下来的目标是什么？对于你认为他们何时会抵达火星，你心里有日期吗，外国，我认为，我认为我们应该能够[音乐]在，嗯，3到5年内，也许把星舰以原油方式送到火星，呃，然后我认为，如果那成功了，那么我们也许能够在这个10年结束前向火星派遣一项原油任务，呃，前往明天的窗口作为一项事业每2年出现一次，所以行星每隔、每隔26个月排列到适合一次轨道转移，所以那、那就是你每20秒可以踢一次罐子，所以我们在星舰方面取得了很大进展，我们希望在今年夏天进行第一次，呃，发射尝试，嗯，或者基本上就是接下来的、接下来的2或3个月，嗯，而且我们正在

建设这个，我们已经有了一座销售飞船的工厂，所以在那艘即将尝试发射的飞船后面，还有一大批星舰即将到来，呃，所以如果那艘不成功，我们有，嗯，我们后面还会有更多，而且我们在不断改进设计，所以每一艘都比上一艘更好，嗯，而星舰对于进入太空而言，确实在非同寻常的程度上改变了游戏规则，因为它将会是，它是第一枚被设计成完全且快速重复使用的小型火箭，嗯，从来没有过完全可重复使用的越过火箭，嗯，猎鹰9号是重复使用程度最高的火箭，因为我们能够相当快速地重复使用助推级和整流罩，嗯，而那可能节省了许可其他成本的70%，嗯，但我们仍然会损失

每次任务中的上面级，所以对于、对于星舰，助推器和上面级，飞船和助推器都将被回收，嗯，而且它们会被非常快速地回收，而且，呃，理论上你可以发射助推器，我不知道，每天10或12次，而飞船因为越过这些限制，也许你可以每天发射3次，嗯，而且它也是一款非常大的运载器，所以大致是100吨的量级，100吨有用的地球到轨道，所以它是土星5号规模，呃，有效载荷轨道，但完全可重复使用，嗯，如果它是一次性的，它大概能把，我不知道，250吨送入轨道，嗯，而且我认为经过进一步改进，即使完全重复使用，我们大概也能让它达到150吨，2个它，嗯，但为了正确看待这件事，如果你有一支舰队

由星舰组成，呃，具备每天或每天多次发射的能力，嗯，星舰送入轨道的有效载荷将超过地球上所有其他火箭总和的1000倍，我能谢谢你吗，那很精彩，我能让我们轻轻回到地球吗，嗯，并问问你中国与Tesla的关系，你在哪里，这个市场对你有多重要，你认为中国会贡献你未来的大部分增长吗，嗯，不，我认为中国显然是一个非常重要的市场，它是，嗯，你知道，它说长期而言可能占我们市场的25到30，嗯，世界其他地区可能占其中的四分之三，你是否看到，我保证过我没有更多Twitter问题，但我有这个，这算是一个Twitter问题，你，嗯，你是否看到任何风险

会有中国利用你对Twitter的所有权，潜在地干预或阻止Tesla在该国的运营，因为中国显然已经、已经封禁Twitter，我没有看到任何这方面的迹象，好的，怎么，嗯，你会说你个人与中国政府有多亲近，因为当你在上海建厂时，有关合资企业的围墙被重写了，以允许你这样做，嗯，是的，政府律师突然多次要求我在中国建厂，我说，嗯，我们不会建一家由当地持有51%股权的工厂，嗯，所以如果他们愿意修改规则，不只是为我们，而是为所有人，嗯，那么、那么我们就会推进，所以他们改了，嗯，而且我认为到目前为止这非常成功，而那个人

对此非常满意，所以我不知道，事情进展得相当顺利。你预计近期还会在中国开设多少家工厂？嗯，我们预计近期不会在中国开设任何、任何额外的工厂。我们会，我们会扩建上海工厂，嗯，但我们在生产方面的重点将放在我们最近建成的两座新工厂上，呃，分别位于柏林和美国得克萨斯州奥斯汀。让它们实现大批量生产，是，是近期的挑战。昨天，大众汽车首席执行官赫伯特·德斯也参加了峰会，你和他很熟。我们问他，他最想问你的问题是什么，他的问题是：你如何同时扩大中国、德国和得克萨斯州的生产规模？因为对任何

经验丰富的原始设备制造商来说，即使是那些已经做了100年的企业，这也是个挑战。是的，我认为总体而言，制造以及扩大制造规模的难度被严重低估了。呃，我说过很多次，原型容易，生产很难。嗯，我们可以用一个小团队，在6个月内轻松做出任何一种你能想象到的汽车原型。现在，你知道，我们现在有一个100人的团队，用6个月时间，而要以大批量或方向让它成为现实，则需要10 000人在2年内完成，而且这比行业其他企业快3倍。嗯，所以汽车面临的问题压倒性地在于生产，压倒性地如此，你知道，难度的99。嗯，所以他说得当然没错，难点在于扩大规模。嗯，但是

如果你看看，如果你看看我们迄今扩大生产规模的记录，呃，我们扩大生产规模的速度，就像我说的，比地球历史上任何一家汽车公司，或者任何一家制造任何种类大型复杂产品的公司都快。所以只要我们继续以这个速度执行，嗯，我们就不会有问题。嗯，即便这个速度稍微放缓，仍然会比地球上任何其他公司更快。现在，我想问你两个围绕你们未来生产工厂流传的具体传闻。嗯，你们会在印度尼西亚建厂吗？嗯，正如我所说，这不是我们发布重大公司公告的场合。最后，你们是否考虑过在英国建厂？你认为将来有可能会在英国建厂吗，在

未来？我还是请你参考我那个祈祷回答。值得一试，对吧？嗯哼。我能不能，我能不能问一下，嗯，能不能问问自动驾驶？对，所以你思考自动驾驶的这种方式，是在车辆上使用摄像头，而且你想实现几乎某种人类水平的AI，让，让汽车在现实世界中完全自动驾驶。嗯，但许多从事AI工作的人认为，人类水平的AI还要很久很久才能实现。你如何调和你正在采用的方法与你希望部署完全自动驾驶技术的速度之间的矛盾？嗯，我认为驾驶汽车不需要完整的人类水平智能。嗯，你需要足够的人类水平智能来驾驶汽车，但不需要，呃，你知道，你不需要那种深层次的概念理解

，比如，你知道，深奥概念之类的。呃，你需要足够的智能，以匹配人类神经网络驾驶汽车时所做的事情。我想，你知道，任何开过一段时间车的人，一旦你，你知道，一旦你有了几年驾驶经验，驾驶汽车带来的认知负荷并不高。你可以想其他事情、听音乐、交谈，同时仍然安全驾驶。所以并不需要匹配人类所做的一切。嗯，但仍然需要在足够程度上匹配神经网络，你知道，硅神经网络至少需要与生物神经网络处于同等水平，呃，才能实现安全驾驶。我认为我们已经相当接近实现这一点了。嗯，而且，但我建议

，呃，不要只听我这么说，直接报名参加我们的测试计划，亲自试试。呃，我们会看看人们发布的视频，嗯，就是参加我们测试计划的人。我们大概，我想目前的测试计划中大约有10万人，所以这并不是什么绝密。这个问题解决起来有多难？因为你过去曾对自动驾驶作出过预测，嗯，你知道，其中一些并没有如期实现。与此同时，过去几年里，你对自动驾驶问题的理解是否发生了变化？呃，是的，我会说，自动驾驶是这样一种事情，嗯，其中有很多假石头，或者说，你知道，在那里，嗯，你以为自己就要实现了，但最后却趋近于一条渐近线。嗯，你的，你的进展一开始是线性的，然后

接着它看起来像是对数式的，并逐渐趋缓。嗯，因为你处于，就像处于一个局部最大值中，而你没有意识到自己身处其中。现在到了这个阶段，我认为我们不再被困在局部最大值中，而且，呃，显然我可能是错的，但我，我认为我们确实已经相当接近实现自动驾驶，其安全水平，呃，优于人类。而且看起来，我最好的猜测是，我们今年就会实现。嗯，但我们真的离它不远了。嗯，而且正如我所说，评估这一点的最佳方式，就是参加我们的测试计划，或者观看那些参加测试计划的人发布的视频，然后，然后看看已经取得的，已经出现的进展。而且如果进展是巨大的，嗯，我相信我们不会真的只达到人类的安全水平，我们会

远远超过人类的安全水平。嗯，所以我认为，最终大概会安全10倍，呃，以受伤概率来衡量。比如，考虑到你们希望借此达到的目标，你知道，高于人类驾驶的程度，以及由此可能挽救的生命，我需要问问你，以前车辆发生的一些事故和死亡事件。嗯，对于那些死去的人，你是否认为，为了达到我们想要达到的水平、在未来挽救更多人的生命，这是值得付出的代价？嗯，需要特别指出的是，呃，而且我们从来、从来没有说过，Tesla，呃，Tesla Autopilot不需要保持注意力。我们一直反复把这一点说得极其清楚。你甚至不能

在没有确认它需要监督的情况下将它开启。嗯，每次你开启它时，我们都会提醒你这一点，提醒到令人厌烦的程度。所以，这并不是过去设定了卡片可以完全自行驾驶的预期、随后又没有达到那些预期的情况，那完全不属实。嗯，不过，我，这也确实是事实，而且、而且我从一开始就知道这会是真的，那就是，嗯，那些因自动辅助驾驶或自动驾驶而获救的人并不知道自己的生命得救了。嗯，而且、而且所以，你知道，如果你看看，比如，每年的死亡人数，每年的汽车死亡人数，每年大约有100万人死于汽车事故，或许每年有1000万，呃，人受重伤。嗯，所以有了自动驾驶，你，嗯

你知道，原因，你知道，驾驶，或者现在是一个姐妹在驾驶，但未来它会完全自动驾驶。嗯，就像我说的，那些、那些没有意识到自己本来会撞车，或撞到行人或骑自行车的人的人，他们不知道这一点。嗯，但是、但是，所以，基本上，即使你、即使你，嗯，假设救下了原本会死亡的人中的90，剩下确实死亡的10%仍然会起诉你。现在，但我认为，我会说，比如从全局来看，什么是道德上正确的决定，而且我坚定地相信，要做现实中的善，而不是对善的感知，并且彻底鄙视那些只是、那些宁愿要对善的感知而不要善的现实的人。因此，所以我们就是会承受压力，但如果我们相信

那个，呃，那个、那个伤害的质量降低了，而且我们对此非常、非常有信心，呃，而且、而且但我们也知道，尽管做了正确的事，我们仍会被起诉，我们会做正确的事，然后被起诉。谢谢。我们有，你听说有很多观众提问在过去几分钟里涌进来，这不一定会让你惊讶。嗯，我会尽量迅速回答尽可能多的问题。Tesla对规模更小、价格更实惠的细分市场采取什么方针？你们会推出比Model 3更小的产品，但你们会不会进入滑板车、微型出行或其他领域？呃，滑板车非常危险，我不建议任何人驾驶滑板车。如果滑板车和汽车之间发生争执，滑板车总是会——那更小的呢

比Model 3更小的呢？你怎么看，你们在市场的入门级领域能下探到什么程度？[音乐] 嗯，我说过，这不是什么用来迂回发布产品消息的论坛，无论、无论这个问题问得多么巧妙。嗯，所以，呃，你知道，嗯，我们，Tesla有一定可能会做一个比中间三号更小的云。嗯，我能说的不止这些。好的，没问题，那不是我的问题，那是一位观众的问题。嗯，Tesla是否会，你们是否考虑过将你们的平台授权给其他原始设备制造商？想必在你看来，那将有助于推动这个行业转向，呃，电动出行。嗯，我们已经把所有专利开源了，任何人都可以免费使用我们的衬垫，所以，呃，好吧。嗯，你知道，我们、我们申请专利只是为了防止其他人

制造这个专利雷区，来、来阻碍电动汽车的发展。嗯，但几年前，呃，你知道，我得出结论，我们永远不会真正起诉任何使用我们专利的人，所以就直接说，嗯，你可以免费使用任何Tesla模式。嗯，所以我认为，希望这对其他人有所帮助。嗯，而且，呃，但是、但是我认为，这个，你知道，常规汽车行业、传统汽车制造商，嗯，会解决电动化问题。目前制造电动汽车从根本上说并不困难。嗯，我认为他们可能有兴趣获得授权的是Tesla，呃，自动辅助驾驶和完全自动驾驶。嗯，而且我认为那会挽救很多生命。嗯，但是、但是我认为我们仍然必须，我们还得证明、证明自己，我不知道，也许还要

1年左右。嗯，然后、然后或许会有一些，嗯，其他汽车制造商，呃，可能希望获得Tesla自动辅助驾驶的授权。嗯，而我们会对此非常开放。谢谢。嗯，在其他所有电动汽车初创公司中，哪一家给你的印象最深？嗯，我认为除Tesla之外进展最大的公司其实是大众，它不是一家初创公司，但从电动汽车的角度看，在某些方面可以被视为一家初创公司。所以大众在、在电动汽车领域做得最多。嗯，我认为中国会涌现出一些非常强大的公司。嗯，中国就是有，比如，很多极其有才华、工作勤奋的人，他们，嗯，坚信、坚信制造业，而且、而且他们会，他们会去，他们不会只是投票给午夜油，他们会燃烧

凌晨3点的油，所以，嗯，他们甚至不会离开、离开工厂，诸如此类。而在美国，人们正设法完全不去上班。我们有一个关于Cybertruck的问题。嗯，是否存在这样一种风险，嗯，如果你们不推出Cybertruck，或者不尽快将它推向市场，你们、你们会把皮卡市场输给福特、通用和Rivian？不会。很好。嗯，我们又收到一个问题，第一辆Cybertruck是什么，那么我们可能在投产后3年都无法满足需求。好的，谢谢。我们收到一个关于中国的问题。嗯，你过去一直批评封锁，呃，呃，尤其是封锁发生在美

国的时候。上海目前处于封锁状态，西方世界的大部分地区眼下能够继续运转，是因为疫苗，但中国正在采取零隐蔽方针。你怎么看中国政府的行动？嗯，这个，你知道，最近几天和中国政府进行了一些交谈。嗯，而且，呃，很明显，呃，封锁正在迅速解除，所以我预计这在、在未来几周不会成为，嗯，一个重大问题。嗯，你知道，过去我之所以对封锁有些不满，是因为那些封锁对Tesla和其他公司的影响并不相同。嗯，所以就加利福尼亚州，特别是湾区县的情况而言，嗯，北美其他所有汽车工厂都获准开工，只有Tesla没有

尽管我们，他们那样做毫无依据，只是因为我们位于加利福尼亚州阿拉米达县。嗯，而且，但他们没有合理依据，那是武断的，而且、而且，呃，不公平，而且、而且，嗯，你知道，那、那就是为什么我们对，呃，Tesla被单独挑出来，成为美国唯一获准开工的汽车公司这件事相当不满，尽管我认为我们的医疗保健做法可能比其他任何人都好。谢谢。我们收到一个关于软件的问题：你在什么时候意识到软件会是Tesla成功的关键？尤其是在其他公司进入软件领域之际，你们如何保持在这方面的领先地位？嗯，我认为Tesla既是一家软件公司，也同样是一家硬件公司。你知道，我个人编写软件

有20年了，所以，嗯，我非常尊重和钦佩软件工程。嗯，我认为它极其重要，而且，嗯，我认为这就是为什么Tesla能够招募到，呃，一些世界上最优秀的软件工程师，因为我们、我们如此重视软件工程，不把它视为事后才考虑的东西。嗯，呃，所以，你知道，我们用于自动辅助驾驶的自动驾驶AI团队，呃，才华横溢，而且、而且拥有一些最、最聪明的软件工程师，他们属于世界上最聪明的软件工程师。嗯，所以，而且我不会轻易称赞别人，所以我们拥有一支不可思议的团队。我们拥有世界上最好的现实世界AI团队，地球上、地球上最好的现实世界AI团队。嗯，而且，嗯，而且我们正看到越来越多，呃，才华横溢的人加入我们的团队。所以，嗯，而且我们确实没有看到任何人

其他接近解决现实世界 AI 的人，嗯，他们可能存在，但如果存在，他们对此表现得非常低调，而且那会定期拉来我们的团队，说，比如，我们知道有谁在做这件事吗，因为，你知道，我们认识很多 AI 领域的顶尖人才，也知道他们在做什么，而除了 Tesla 之外，我们就是没有看到任何我们所知的其他人在现实世界 AI 方面取得任何重大进展，嗯，所以，是的，我，我确实相当有信心，我们不仅会保持软件方面的领先，而且会扩大领先优势。谢谢。嗯，我们收到一个关于超级充电网络的问题：对于向不驾驶 Tesla 的其他驾车者开放它，你有什么看法？那难道不会危及目前你们的一项巨大竞争优势吗？呃，我们已经开放了

欧洲的 Tesla 超级充电站，供嗯其他呃电动汽车使用，而且我们打算把这项措施推广到呃全球。嗯，在美国稍微棘手一些，因为我们的连接器与行业其他公司的不同，但我们会在美国的超级充电站增加行业其他连接器作为一个选项，所以我们会完全，我们正在尽最大可能做有利于推进电气化的正确之事，即使这会削弱我们的竞争优势。你呃，你认为你有一天会把 Tesla、SpaceX 等各项业务全部纳入一个伞形集团之下吗，还是暂时想让它们保持独立？我认为它们，它们算是各自独立的目标，拥有呃不同的可共享设备，而且我认为，你知道，我看不出太多

把它们合并的好处。嗯，有时候会有一些人，嗯，你知道，比如我们遇到一些非常有才华的人，他们其实愿意加入，但他们，他们想同时在 SpaceX 和 Tesla 做事。呃，比如说，我们拥有嗯世界上最优秀的先进材料团队之一，可能是最优秀的，但肯定是最优秀的团队之一。嗯，而且呃，那个团队里的很多人都愿意加入，但前提是他们能同时研究火箭和汽车。那就很好，嗯，就这么办。于是我们可以在火箭与汽车之间分享一些想法，它们显然不存在竞争，你知道，它们，它们并不是不同的竞争领域。嗯，所以，你知道，假如你说，如果某个人是一位真正不可思议的呃技术专家、创新者、工程师，他们

想做有趣的事情，所以事情越有趣，你知道，比如，当然，钱是，你知道，他们能从，你知道，任何人都会花很多钱雇用他们，所以嗯，那就不是钱的问题，真正的问题只是这些项目有多有趣。因此确实有少数情况是，嗯，我们可以招募世界上一些最聪明的，你知道，工程师、科学家、技术专家，但他们，他们想同时研究火箭和汽车，确实有少数这样的情况。谢谢。你认为，我知道我们，我知道我们已经超时了，但我还想设法再问一个，然后如果你需要走，那就走，但如果你愿意继续谈，我们就，我们就继续留你。嗯，你认为个人交通领域的下一项重大创新是什么

嗯，我认为隧道被低估了，没有得到应有的重视。隧道永远不会让你失望。这里有个问题，这里有个关于隧道的问题，对吧？所以，比方说，如果你看看纽约的罗伯特·摩西，他修建了大量高速公路，这些公路本应解决拥堵，但它们所做的只是导致更多拥堵。你如何避免隧道造成完全相同的结果，同时还在这个过程中变得非常昂贵？外国。我不得不说，这个，这个所谓诱发需求的观念，是我一生中听过的最愚蠢的观念之一。嗯，如果，如果你知道，增加道路只会增加车流量，那我们为什么不把道路删掉，从而减少车流量？我认为，如果你那样做，会引发一片哗然。真正的问题是，我们没有，如果你以，比方说，拥堵的城市为例，这些城市

实际上，几乎所有大城市都很拥堵，你面临一个根本性的维度问题。比如说，你有这些高楼或多层建筑，里面有，呃，你知道，人们，人们，你知道，生活在3D空间里，然后你想通过一个2D道路网络把他们送进送出这些建筑，你怎么可能指望这样行得通呢？嗯，所以，呃，尤其是如果他们都想，你知道，大致在同一时间到达和离开，这显然就是造成交通拥堵的配方。所以现在，如果你进入3D空间，无论是向上进入3D，还是向下进入3D，现在你就与建筑物的维度相匹配了。嗯，建筑物是3D的，而，而，如果道路网络，或者你可能会有飞行汽车，呃，也是3D的，那么你就会彻底缓解交通

问题。嗯，所以不要把标题想成单层隧道，而要想成你想要多少层就有多少层。嗯，采用任何必要的层数，把交通降到固定电话的程度，人们不会认为这行得通。嗯，而且我们已经，我们在拉斯维加斯有一个概念验证清单，那条隧道，呃，从会展中心通往拉斯维加斯大道，而且很快就会连接拉斯维加斯所有的酒店和机场。嗯，菲尔会亲自试一试，它在拉斯维加斯已经运行得非常好，而市里的县政府对于天气是否会有效存在一些怀疑。嗯，我认为那条测试隧道只是在克拉克县和拉斯维加斯的，你知道，地方政府投票中勉强获得通过，而拉斯

维加斯，但，呃，在他们看到最初的测试隧道并亲自写进其中之后，呃，我们获得了一致投票，支持将它扩展到全市，所以这应该能说明一些问题。你是否有可能在三维空间里朝另一个方向发展，考虑那些“vetoles”以及潜在的飞行器？嗯，我喜欢“细节”这个想法，但是，嗯，你知道，我们已经有直升机形式的“否决权”了。所以，但在空中进入3D空间的问题，嗯，是，是，嗯，现在你有了一些会产生大量噪音的东西，呃，而且它们在接管着陆时产生的风力非常强。嗯，我是说，如果你只是，比如看着一架小型无人机，然后说，并想象那东西很大，它会创造什么纪录，又会产生多大的风力

而现在它们到处飞，就像一个装满超级吵闹蜜蜂的巨大蜂巢。嗯，我认为这不是人们想要的，而且在大多数城市，呃，直升机实际上都被禁止了，紧急用途除外，原因就是这个。所以，嗯，然后还有对天气的依赖。因此，如果，如果天气，如果有大风，或者大雪、雨、雨夹雪，呃，现在你就不能飞了。嗯，所以，但现在你被迫停运，哪儿也去不了。嗯，然后，如果有所有这些，呃，你知道，“否决权”在城市上空到处飞，那么东西掉到你头上的概率也高得多，对吧？我是说，我认为人们的舒适程度会大幅下降，呃，你知道，如果有人可能没有妥善保养他们的，你知道，飞行汽车，结果掉下

一个轮子砸到你头上。嗯，我知道，我认为这会让大多数人感到不适。嗯，而且，而且让它们飞过你的后院，让陌生人整天盯着你看，可能也令人不适。所以我认为这些都是，呃，我认为“生命体征”不会成功的原因。很好。我刻意避免把它们称作飞行汽车，因为它们不，大多数都不能在道路上行驶。不过不，你说得对，但除此之外它们都很棒。嗯，呃，你在2020年告诉卡拉·斯威舍，嗯，如果Tesla投资者知道你，你所知道的情况，他们会对公司的状况感到恐慌。那是2年前，那么你当时指的是什么？我不确定我当时指的是什么，呃，2020年。嗯，我是说，我认为这并不是，呃，告诉

投资者应该，应该恐慌，只是幕后正在被出售的问题数量之多，我认为会，会让他们大吃一惊。而且，呃，这就像，你知道，就像那个比喻：你看到鸭子在池塘上平静地前进，但与此同时，它的腿在水下疯狂地形成图案。这确实几乎一直都在发生。嗯，所以，有一系列永不停歇、需要解决的问题，呃，在，嗯，Tesla或SpaceX那里都是如此，实际上我怀疑大多数公司都是如此。嗯，而且，呃，现在我们确实会解决它们。嗯，但我认为，如果大多数人意识到，为了让公司正常运转，必须实时解决多少事情，他们会觉得非常可怕。就在昨晚，我，我基本上完全没睡。呃，我当时

从周日晚上一直醒着，直到，嗯，其实直到昨晚我根本都没睡，你知道。所以，怎么回事，我真的工作了一整夜，呃，就是从周日到周一。目前水下正在划动的是什么？是否正在发生什么事情，让你担心Tesla的未来，还是你认为公司现在已经完全安全了？不，它，它是，我认为Tesla的未来极其强劲。嗯，所以Tesla，呃，没有债务，它有大量现金，而且，呃，你知道，上海的隐蔽限制带来了一种短期的，嗯，小波折。呃，但据我其余所知，Tesla的未来无比光明。嗯，而且我认为我们将，呃，产生，呃，巨额自由现金流。你认为凭借你们的现金

以及显然你们目前的市值，你们是否会考虑收购另一家汽车制造商，无论是成熟的OEM还是一家新企业？嗯，呃，嗯，我认为现在极不可能。很好，最后，我们收到了几个关于超级电容器的问题。你认为它们可能有潜力，具有作为锂离子电池替代储能方案的潜力吗？有趣的是，呃，特定电容器或超级电容器，嗯，说来也怪，呃，而且我攻读物理学学位时确实对此研究了几年。嗯，我在，呃，硅谷有一家名叫“政治研究”的公司，至少在当时，它制造了世界上能量最高、能量密度最高的电容器。嗯，当时它们使用的是钌钽，呃，合金，这种合金，嗯，

非常稀有，其中“他”尤其非常稀有。所以，嗯，那，那无法扩大到，到大规模生产。嗯，因为根本就没有足够、足够的钌。嗯，所以那，而且，但我对这个问题思考了很多。事实上，我的主要目标，嗯，如果我继续做研究生并在斯坦福大学攻读博士学位，嗯，本来会是设法弄清楚，呃，如何制造超高能量密度电容器。嗯，而我当时的那种理论是使用先进的芯片制造设备，呃，制造固态电容器，呃，使其在分子层面达到精确。嗯，而且，嗯，这，这，呃，有一点，我们不是新物理学，而是探，探索量子、量子力学的一些，一些领域，因为你必须尽量降低这种概率，即

电子可以算是从，呃，一边，你知道，本质上穿过绝缘体形成一条隧道，从导体到绝缘体。所以，嗯，我想，当你算是到达单个，或，或者当你，当你到达，到达少量原子的尺度时，事情会变得相当复杂，而且颇为奇怪。嗯，但不管怎样，这属于一种，长话短说，我认为整个汽车行业实现电气化根本不需要电容器。谢谢。我们有一个关于金钱的问题，而且再说一次，我知道自己在说什么，所以我知道，不用担心。嗯，能否，嗯，我们收到了一个关于采矿的问题。显然，你已经达成了多项采矿交易，试图确保原材料供应。你认为未来是否可能更进一步，真正收购一家矿业公司？这并非不

可能。对于加速世界向可持续能源转型所面临的任何限制，我们都会处理。并不是说我们想收购矿业公司，但如果这是加速，呃，转型的唯一方式，那么我们会，我们会那样做。对于，呃，加速可持续能源所需的事情，不存在任何武断的限制。我们只会处理加速可持续能源所需的任何一系列事情，而从事采矿和精炼，或收购一家矿业公司，只要我们认为我们能做到，我们能显著改变那家矿业公司的发展轨迹，都是可能的。是的。你是否，这是一个稍微私人的问题，你是否想过你的孩子最终可能会在Tesla工作？显然不是刚出生的那个，她才几个月大，但是

年长的那些呢？是的，嗯，好的，我年长的，呃，孩子们说过，他们要做自己的事情，我对此表示支持。嗯，他们当中没有人说过想在Tesla或SpaceX工作。呃，他们，他们想做自己的事情，而且，嗯，显然我支持他们那样做。嗯，呃，我认为他们想为自己做点事情，并且，呃，你知道，你知道，在世界上走出自己的路，这没问题。而且未来某个时候，他们有可能，嗯，也许他们凭自己做成了一些事情，然后，然后决定想在Tesla、SpaceX做点事情，我也会支持。但，但目前他们，他们想做自己的事情。很好。如果要我根据，根据小X来判断，呃，我知道，看到一个孩子级别的火箭，比，比他更，它接下来

他喜欢的水平，我是说，这真的属于更高层次，所以，如果，如果他对火箭的喜爱程度从H2继续到他长大以后，那么，那么他可能会感兴趣，他会有兴趣从事火箭工作。很好，谢谢。嗯，你有时间再回答一个问题吗？当然。嗯，太好了，很好。嗯，你刚才谈到世界上很丰富的东西，铁很丰富，氧很丰富，而氢在宇宙中也非常丰富。在宇宙中，但在地球上不是。在地球上不是。你有没有考虑过，如果我们真的想加速摆脱化石燃料的转型，你认为它能发挥作用吗？不能。好了。我，我实在怎么强调这一点都不为过，我被问到氢的次数可能远远超过100次

也许有200次。嗯，重要的是要明白，呃，如果，如果你想要一种储能方式，氢是个糟糕的选择。它的能量密度极低，抱歉，是它的密度极其、极其低，所以实际上，它的体积能量密度很差

2022 we're very glad you can be with us whether you're here in the room in central London or joining us on our Global live stream my name is Peter Campbell I'm the Global Motor industry correspondent at the ft and it is a great pleasure to introduce and share this session for you let me tell you how this is going to work in a few minutes we're going to have JB Straubel back on stage and Elon Musk joining us remotely but it's going to spend the first 10 to 15 minutes of the session talking about the history of Tesla now these two guys were Central to the company and its growth and everything it has achieved to date and they have never before appeared on stage together to talk about the origins of the business so this is a unique chance to ask them about

that and hear about that and then for the rest of the session we're going to have time just with Elon on his own where we'll have questions about Tesla today and tomorrow and maybe one or two questions about some other projects He has going on just a reminder to you please do ask your questions on the chat box or if you're in the room using slido but with no further Ado because of all our guests here's the one who needs least introduction I'd like you to welcome back to the stage JB straable and joining us remotely Elon Musk thank you good evening thank you so much for being with us both of you I want to go back to something that was alluded to earlier in the session and the lunch that changed the world as Patrick called us when the two of you sat down

and came up with a plan that led to Tesla take us through that who started it whose idea was the lunch where did it go Elon we'd love you to start I'm sure well actually and JB uh completely I think we could hear maybe his perspective as well um but uh uh yeah I got a call uh someone out of the blue uh from uh JV and um uh Rosen um uh and I I think once I'm not sure exactly what the subject matter was but it was it's something involving space or maybe hydrogen airplanes or something and um so we got together for lunch and at some point the conversation turned to electric vehicles and um uh had uh JB and and Rosner both worked on an electric vehicle company um that I guess ultimately wasn't successful and I mentioned that uh the I I'd actually had a strong

interest in electric vehicles for a long time and I thought electric vehicles were the future of transport and um and in fact I had worked at a company developing high-ended density capacitors uh Ultra capacitors for potential use in electric vehicles and that was going to be my area of study during Graduate Studies at Stanford which ultimately uh dropped out of but um anyway that led to jba suggesting that I get a test drive in the the t0 Prototype from AC propulsion which is a small company in Southern California and um because that sort of had a proof of concept uh electric sports car and um I said that'd be great I'd love to get a test drive and that was in 2003 and um and and then I I did I get it got a test drive in the the t0 um and I tried to

convince them to commercialize the t0 I tried very hard actually to to get AC propulsion to commercialize the the t0 electric sports car um and then after they um they they said they really did not want to do that um I I said well do you mind if uh then I do that if you mind if I I create a commercial uh electric sports car and they said yeah no problem and so uh my you know that my intent was to basically create and uh company to commercialize the the t0 with JB um and uh and then the uh to engage AC propulsion said well you know there's some other uh groups that also want to commercialize the t0 uh concept and uh what do you what do you think about teaming up with them and um and one of the groups that was introduced to me uh was uh uh Mark toppening

at Ian Wright and what never had uh that but but it's very important to emphasize that there was no actual company of the that existed in any meaningful form at that point so it was really just three guys and then JB and me and and then we decided to team up and create a an exploration create a commercial version of the t0 electric sports car um yeah I mean JB at any uh what's what's your perspective no that that's a pretty uh pretty close history of how I remember it as well and and uh I mean my perspective on the thing was us trying to to chat with you about this electric hydrogen airplane concept that we were uh you know I was at the time trying to work on and and uh I do recall that not going extremely well actually for the first part of the lunch

I think uh I can't remember the color colorful adjectives you used but they weren't they weren't very uh you weren't very excited about the hydrogen airplane for good reason um so yeah then I think our our topics our conversation completely turned to talking about Lithium-ion batteries you know state of the art of Lithium-ion batteries and what was possible potentially possible you know stringing together you know at the time large numbers of small Lithium-ion batteries which were you know not very mature in those days but but could be potentially connected into really big battery packs to make make an EV that could potentially have hundreds of miles of range which you know today seems kind of you know commonplace but in 2003 it was absolutely unheard

of it would literally set World Records you know for range and uh yeah I mean you you uh you understood that concept I think in the potential of it better than anyone else that uh that we'd ever talk to about it and were immediately enthused about it and excited so that was I mean shortly after as you said you know we met up with AC propulsion and uh uh kind of We're Off to the Races and then what there were a lot of early rejections when you talked to some car makers obviously you settled on Lotus for the first Roadster um but you went around some others was there ever a point you know between the lunch and and getting the Roadster off the ground where you almost gave up you thought that actually you couldn't make it work not from a chemistry point of

view but commercially I mean I can jump in maybe first on that you know there were a lot of challenges in those early days I mean the the technology was not um it was not a sure thing that all those pieces would work together and and uh you know some of the the safety aspects around the battery were pretty thorny in the early days and uh it was before I think most people had figured out how to you know manage that and um I think in at Tesla I think we had an early you know chance to really you know figure that out in a very robust way and you know make them far far safer than internal combustion actually has proved out to be through the statistics and through data um but that was not the common perception so so that was that was hard and that was risky

uh obviously there were a lot of financial turns and tribulations it wasn't exactly smooth sailing from idea of an electric Roadster through into commercialization uh it was it was a insane nightmare basically um and uh we screwed the pooch six ways to Sunday um and made so many mistakes it's embarrassing um basically the almost everything about the first design of the Tesla Roadster was wrong um and wouldn't work um but uh and the we didn't first of all we had no idea how to build a car uh so uh and and then no one really knew how to build a you know a a commercial uh lithium-ion battery car uh no one had ever done it um so um so like the original idea sort of uh which sounds appealing but was fundamentally flawed was to um use the Lotus Elise chassis

um and then combine that with AC propulsions drivetrain technology and and boom you've got like very the two pieces necessary to create a car it should be straightforward uh and um just do that and and and uh great uh unfortunately uh those were uh two fundamentally flawed uh premises the um the Lotus Elise chassis did not work uh meaning that so the car ended up being 40 heavier and we couldn't fit the battery pack in the Elise it was a very tiny car so we had to change basically everything about the Elise I think we kept maybe six percent of the parts were in common uh all crash tests were invalidated the structure was invalidated because of the the the greater mass and the mass distribution being fundamentally different from a gasoline car and um yeah

uh if right it in retrospect it would have actually been much smarter to start from with a clean sheet design and not try to modify the Elise because we ended up with a lot of the limitations of the Elise but almost nothing to gain in terms of reuse of parts so that was a staggeringly dumb decision um and then uh on the on the drivetrain side it turned out that I think almost none of the AC propulsion Technologies were viable in a uh production car um I mean JB did we end up using any of the AC propulsion stuff pretty much nothing by the time it went to the first customer yes it was a very it was a very helpful first proof of concept that uh maybe pointed the way that was what might be possible but none of it was uh I mean the commercial commercializing

all of it as Elon said was uh was a lot of mistakes and trials and tribulations and uh it was very hard to build more than two of those motor controllers in the first days with analog components those were still analog motor control I mean it would get hot and the motor would perform differently you know the throttle would respond differently in a hot day versus a cold day so yeah everything pretty much had to be redone from scratch So Gone so so what we're saying is that we're huge idiots and we're totally wrong about the the fundamental premises of creating the Tesla Roadster um uh uh and you ended up not being able to use any of the AC propulsion drivetrain technology uh using essentially almost none of the original Lotus lease um but we're still left

with a lot of the limitations of the Elise being a car that was a bit too small very difficult to get in and out of um and very Bare Bones um and an independent on Lotus to make it and then every time Lotus would have financial difficulties they would increase the price on us and uh and charge us more money um so uh that made it very difficult to um control the price of the car uh so um and then the supply chain was also a complete mess the initial idea was to basically Outsource everything and uh then uh almost none of the companies to which we outsourced the various parts of the cars were able to succeed in making those parts so we had to find a new supplier for the car body um because or Cyrus Supply originally picked was flat out unable to do it um

this was not a decision that I was building but the we had outsourced making the battery to a barbecue uh company in in Thailand um this is a bit silly uh to say okay we're going to make the most sophisticated battery ever made um and the Barbecue Company is going to make it um that obviously they did not know how to make uh um it was pretty silly um so we're at the end Source battery production to California we made it basically ended up making the battery ourselves um uh yeah it's one thing after another basically uh just a flat out uh running dumpster fire of stupidity I would say was the beginning of the company um and uh and then we had to recover from there and it was very difficult so there are lots of other EV startups out there potentially in

the hundreds today all wanting to do what you did you guys uh you blazed the trail 10 years before the industry really caught up with you you had the advantage of having no one else playing in the same area but the disadvantage that all the time you were trying to break through Virgin Snow was it more difficult to do it 10 years ago than you think it is today and if if there's one piece of advice that you could offer to the various EV startups what would it be well I I mean I I think most of them just completely forget about the first like eight to ten years of Tesla that's the kind of amazing part to me you know they kind of see success and then they're like oh that looks good let's do that let's let's be one let's do you know copy that but um I mean

it was it was brutal confusion and tons of mistakes and a lot of money invested for a lot of years um I personally think it's a lot actually harder today even still for a startup to compete because the first question is so what is the niche that even makes sense to have a new startup EV company relative to all the products from other oems or to Tesla you know what are they going to do better than Tesla Tesla didn't exist there was no Tesla in the world 17 years ago so that that was sort of the imperative and gave a Runway to to make a lot of mistakes and still make it work you know yeah I think just it's very important to uh emphasize here the you know I think um something I wouldn't uh JB would have wanted to go through the extreme pain of creating electric

an electric car company if the traditional automakers were going to make an electric make electric cars um and you know just an important thing for the world that needs to happen to move to a sustainable technology future and but but if at the time that we created Tesla uh the there were no startups doing electric cars and the uh the big car companies had uh really no electric car programs going and the few tiny tiny electric car programs the head guard they were shutting down so therefore unless we try to create an electric car there was not one going to be created um it's not from the standpoint of thinking hey uh here's a super lucrative idea let's make start a car company the history of Cart Company startups is horrific um that and they've almost

all gone bankrupt it's an incredibly big grave Rock great graveyard of car startups that all died um you've only heard a tiny number of them you know sort of the tacos and Deloreans of the world but there are hundreds of others that people didn't hear about um so and and at this point in the United States the only two American card companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla and Tesla went back almost went bankrupt so many times I lost count so basically it's a world of hurt to start a car company is Mega pain it is not easy money it's the furthest thing for easy money you could possibly imagine um so uh and what I see with some of these new car companies is that they are they're jumping in at the defend and trying to create a high volume

vehicle that when they have never made a vehicle before this is um but you know not practicing your athletic Sport and then going to the Olympics you're not going to win this is crazy um you really need to start out small make your mistakes at a small scale um and make sure you've got a lot of reserved capital and then gradually build up from the dumb things that you do at the beginning and be less dumb over time otherwise what will happen is a vast uh losses of money um the car industry is very competitive it's it's it's the opposite of a natural monopoly you have sort of national monopolies in things like social media or say Google search um by card companies so naturally uh I'm not monopolies they're hyper competitive and they're used to being hyper

competitive uh throughout the world they have entrenched customers dealers service actories uh existing expertise these are these are veteran veteran armies like in in fortresses so it's like it's yeah I mean it's extremely difficult now you happen to mention in that answer the word social media which brings us very neatly onto the question of uh Twitter so JB I'm going to say thank you so much that was fascinating a brief history there of Tesla and the early years and the mistakes that you made um so thank you very much for being with us on stage thank you well the Twitter friend is not a lot that I can say uh because you know this is that Twitter's publicly traded company and um you know there are a lot of constraints in what I can say so not sure what

you would like to ask but most of the questions the answer is going to be no comment that's all right I can have a go let me ask you to put your product development hat on and if you pair Twitter all the way back what is it and what do you think it can be in 10 years time well what I said is that I think Twitter um is currently the the best or looked at another way the least bad uh Public Square um if a forum for the exchange of ideas uh nationally and internationally and and but I think it could be a lot better at that in order to be better at that it needs to really get rid of the the Bots and the the scams and spammers and you know basically and and anyone trying to uh create sort of fake influence on the side pipe whereas one person or one entity

operating 100 000 accounts um or you know obviously scammers are not good um and and Twitter really uh at least do a much better job at that um the it also needs to build trust more trust with users I think the way to do that is by open sourcing the algorithm so everyone can see how the algorithm works and can uh suggest improvements and changes I would literally literally just put the uh the Twitter algorithm on on GitHub and say like hey anyone want to suggest changes to this please go ahead um and and just you really want transparency to build trust and then any any change any sort of adjustments to tweets or uh in any human intervention uh with any account on Twitter should be highlighted as a Twitter person took of the following action with your

account or with this tweet so that you're not sort of sitting there in the dock wondering why did this tweet not get any attention or why did this one get a lot of attention um it's far too random um and um you know and then I think Twitter needs to be much more even-handed it currently has a strong left bias uh because it's based in San Francisco I don't think people that they're necessarily intent I or at least have some of them don't attend to to have a left bias they're just from their perspective uh it seems moderate but they're just coming at it from an environment that is that is very far left so uh but but then this this fails to build trust into in the rest of the United States and and also perhaps in other parts of the world uh because uh Twitter

needs to be even-handed and and be um you know I think I said publicly uh Victory would be that the um the most far right 10 and the most part left 10 percent are equally upset um like I don't think this is a situation where you're going to get necessarily of Praise you're just gonna you're just gonna balance the anger so how how do you because people well people and will automatically associate you with Tesla and you with Twitter is there any risk in your mind that the actions that you're going to take at Twitter which you've admitted freely will upset some people um potentially lead to a commercial impact on Tesla um I'm confident that we will be able to sell all the cars we can make I mean currently the the lead time for ordering a Tesla is ridiculously

so our issue is not demand it is production but that's at the moment because of the global Supply chains and the chip shortages that's less around electric car demand which we are expecting to go absolutely through the roof and you obviously have very ambitious targets for that at Tesla yeah I mean even before there was uh the supply chain issues Tesla uh demand exceeded production so um now now it's Advantage exceeding production to a ridiculous degree um uh we're actually probably going to limit uh just stop taking orders for for anything beyond uh a certain period of time because you know some of the timing is like a year away uh so um anyway uh the the frustration that we're seeing from customers is uh under being unable to to get them a car um not

uh are they willing or interested in buying a car um so our basically I think zero about demand generation and a lot about production and engineering and supply chain I I have two more questions on Twitter if I may before we turn for the rest of the session um to Tesla how confident are you the deal will happen and is there a risk this is all one question and is there a risk um because you're putting a lot of your personal stake up for this to fund it is there a risk that if it all goes south you're imperiling your stake in Tesla potentially hurting Tesla financially and maybe even SpaceX um if it all goes to pod that's the technical term sure um so I mean I think there's still a lot of things that need to get done before the steal concludes obviously

there's not yet even been a shareholder vote um and and Twitter has not yet filed the proxy for a shareholder vote um so there are still you know some outstanding questions that need to be resolved um and uh so it is certainly not a done deal that just objectively it is not a gonna deal um you know the best case scenario is that this would be yeah I think perhaps done in in uh two or three months um yeah and the final question and this is this is really the two paid elephant in the room are you planning to let Donald Trump back on well I I think there's there's a general question of should was it Twitter have women at bands um and you know I've talked with Jack Dorsey about this and uh he and I are of the same mind which is that uh permanent fans should

be uh extremely rare and really reserved for uh people where they're trying to uh for for accounts that are uh Bots or spam scam accounts where there's just no legitimacy to the account at all um I I do think that uh it was not correct to ban Donald Trump I think that was that was a mistake um because it uh it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice he is not going to be on Truth social um as will a large part of the sort of the the right in the in the United States um and so I think this could end up being frankly worse than having a you know a single form where everyone can debate um so um I guess the answer is that I I I would reverse the Perma ban I would say I'm not I don't own Twitter

yet so this is not like a thing that will definitely happen because what if I don't own Twitter uh but my opinion and Jack Dorsey I want to be clear shares this opinion uh is that we should not have permabads um now now that doesn't mean that somebody gets to say whatever they wanted to say if they say something that is uh illegal or um otherwise you know uh just you know just destructive to the world then then that there should be perhaps a timeout a temporary suspension or that particular tweet uh should be uh uh made invisible or or have very limited uh traction um but I think pro events just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a Town Square uh where everyone can voice their opinion it was a fun I think it was a morally bad decision to be clear

and and foolish in the extreme even even after he egged on the crowd who went to the U.

S Capitol some of them carrying nooses you still think it was a mistake to remove him I think the if there are tweets that are wrong they should and bad those should be uh uh either deleted or made it visible and a suspension uh a temporary suspension is appropriate but not a permanent ban so if the deal completes he might potentially come back on but with the understanding that if he does something similar again he'll be back in the Simpson uh he has publicly stated that he will not be coming back to Twitter and that he will only be on true social and this is the point that I'm trying to make which is perhaps not getting across is that there is that banning Trump from Twitter didn't end Trump's voice it will amplify it among the rights and this is why

it is morally wrong and flat out stupid okay thank you we will um let's turn uh to Tesla again I'd like to ask you about your Ambitions for the future you've said you want the company to be able to make 20 million cars a year by 2030 which would make it the same size as Toyota and Volkswagen combined today um give us a sense what does the business look like by 2030 to make 20 million cars plants for prints models yes well this is not a form for announcing new product is new Tesla products um the uh the 20 million by 2030 is an aspiration not a promise um and the the reason for uh aiming for something like that is there are approximately two billion uh cars and trucks in the world and for us to really make a dent in sustainable energy and electrification

uh I think we need to to replace at least one percent of the fleet per year uh to really be meaningful um and and that's that's where the 20 million units comes from uh is is let's let's try to replace one percent of the global wage of two billion cars and trucks per year and um that's our aspiration it's not a promise it's an aspiration uh I think we've got a good chance of getting there and uh people will see based on the products that we unveil uh we'll be able to judge for themselves whether that goal is realistic or not now you've gone from zero plants to four plants that would require you to get to possibly about 20 plants depending how they're wrapped up is that phase more difficult what you've got ahead of you by 2030 than what's gone behind given

you've already done it or do you still think it's more difficult to ramp to that level foreign I think it's close it's roughly [Music] um the sheer amount of stuff that tails is done is I think quite mind-boggling uh we have an incredible team at Tesla and um executing very well and our annual growth rates are faster than any large manufacturer product in the history of Earth but I think the next fastest was the growth of the Model T and we're faster than the Model T so you know if that growth rate continues then obviously we will reach 20 million Vehicles a year but we may stumble and and uh and uh not reach that goal so um but I'd say on roughly it's roughly equally difficult to have gotten to this point as will be to get to 20 million and what's the

biggest uncertainty with getting to 2030 is it manufacturing ramping is it the raw materials is it something else um there are some raw material constraints that we see coming um in the theme production probably in about three years um and in cathode production the cathode the two main cathode choices are nickel and uh iron phosphate um obviously iron is extremely plentiful the Earth is uh 32 Iron by composition so uh if a little bit of trivia if someone says what is Earth made of the single biggest element that Earth is made of is iron the second biggest element that Earth is made of is oxygen which is about 30 30 of Earth Mass so clearly is not not in short supply um uh the the phosphate is slightly more of a challenge but still quite common um so I

do not see any fundamental scaling constraints and lithium is also quite common so lithium is practically everywhere uh the so so this is not a question of a shortage of of like as though it's some Rare Element it's really just that the um the lithium Mining and especially the refining capacity and and that of the of taking iron or phosphorus and turning it into battery grade iron phosphate um or or nickel and turning it into battery grade nickel uh is it's really the the equipment I think this the single exist right would be the equipment necessary to convert the ore into battery grade materials we're working on that with suppliers so I'm not saying that this is an impossible thing to address it is simply uh one of the problems along the way to getting

20 million vehicles lfp batteries are much less recyclable than the other batteries you use how much of that is an issue in terms of overall environmental impact of what the company does if you end up using lots and lots of them uh no the word she said is not true uh iron phosphate batteries are fully recyclable I'm not sure we're getting your information but iron phosphate is equally recyclable and so is that store nickel base batteries um thank you I stand corrected um can I ask why you think Tesla needs to grow so much by 2030 because the what you set out when you in the early years was that you wanted Tesla to help um tilt the world away from fossil fuels and to some extent it looks like it's already succeeded um yes I I think you're sort of putting

too much emphasis on this 20 million Vehicles by 20 30 as though this is some Grand promise uh some heal upon which we will die um that is it is simply an aspiration um and we may we may achieve it or we may not um uh we our goal is to accelerate the Advent of sustainable energy and and so that's why we want to make a lot of cars and also a lot of stationary battery packs because the three pillars of a sustainable energy future are electric transport uh stationary battery packs and solar and wind and geothermal and hydro basically sustainable energy sources but solar and wind particularly are intermittent and so you need stationary battery packs to store the energy when the sun doesn't shine as you you know you have your constant uh electricity provision

or when the wind doesn't blow so um but you can have a you can completely convert I want to be very clear about this all of Earth all of Earth can can easily be powered by solar and wind stationary battery packs and electric transport well you could power several if even if Earth's economy were to you could you could do 10 times what Earth economy is with with solar wind batteries and early transport not it's not a close thing that that I think most people just have not done the basic math of just how much energy hits the earth from the sun it's a kilowatt per square meter or is it another way a gigawatt per square kilometer so if you have a 20 efficient solar system uh that's 200 megawatts per square kilometer um it's a lot basically uh you could power

all of Europe with a section of Spain uh section of Spain um you could uh Power all of um the United States with a a corner of Utah or Texas now obviously it would make more sense to spread this out and not I'm just using this as a figure of speech or to show that it is a small amount of area that is necessary uh to power the United States or or Europe uh it is not some vast area um and I invite anyone to do the basic math it's it's not hard um 200 megawatts per square kilometer okay so how many what's the power needed um how many that'll tell you how many square kilometers uh then you will need uh batteries to store that um the um I think our calculation of the automatic area of the batteries needed to store all the energy to power the United States

was roughly one square mile literally so do you think do you think Tesla has succeeded in its goal then or do you think there's still much more to do you know I think you know we we've not succeeded in the goal if you consider the goal to be uh getting the automotive industry to move strongly towards electric vehicles I think that part of the goal we have succeeded in that and that was explicitly part of our goal is to to get the industry moving towards electric vehicles because they they were doing nothing in that direction when we started um and for the longest time they were uh dismissing the concept of electric vehicles um and then uh Tesla started taking market share away from them and that changed their mind how long do you think you're likely to

stay at Tesla as long as they can be useful and what are the what else is there in terms of potential future projects that piques your interest you're obviously going to be quite involved in Twitter if the deal goes through but you've got Tesla you've got SpaceX you've got boring you've got neuralink as you're looking around thinking you potentially have capacity um what else is there in terms of the kind of I don't know betterment of The Human Condition or improving Earth that you feel you might want to turn your attention to in future well I I'm trying to take the set of actions that I think most likely make the future good um and hopefully you know pave the road to hell with good intentions so um so I think Tesla's about accelerating sustainable energy

because we're obviously a sustainable energy future on Earth for us to be good then SpaceX is about extending life beyond Earth to so that we may become a multi-planetary species and with starlink providing internet coverage to the the least served in the world um that those are that they're into rural communities or places that just don't have good internet or it's very expensive um and um but I think it's important that we become a multi-flatant species and a space-faring civilization um because eventually the sun will expand and destroy our life on Earth so if if one is an environment a true environmentalist or cares about the future of life it is obviously important that life become multi-planetary and ultimately a multi-stellar so we must make that

first step um what do you think the next goals are then for SpaceX and do you have a date in mind for when you think they will get to Mars foreign I think I think we should be able to [Music] maybe get Starship to Mars uh on crude in um three to five years um and then I think if that successful then we may be able to send a crude Mission to Mars uh before the end of the decade um the the the windows for going tomorrow as a career every two years so the planets are align for a orbital transfer uh every every 26 months so that that's you get a a kick at the can every 20 seconds so we're making a lot of progress with Starship We will hopefully have our first uh launch attempt uh this summer um or it basically the next next two or three months um and we're

building up the we've got a factory for selling ships so there's a whole bunch of Starships coming behind the one that will attempt launch uh soon so if that one doesn't work we have um we'll have many more behind that and we're continuously improving the design so each one is better than the last um and Starship really is a a game changer to an extraordinary degree with respect to access to space because it will be it's the first a little rocket that is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable um there's never been a fully reusable over the rocket um Falcon 9 is the most reusable rocket since we're able to fairly rapidly reuse the Boost stage and the fairing um and that's maybe 70 percent of the other cost a permission is saved um but we still lose

the upper stage on every Mission so with with Starship both the booster and the upper stage both the ship and the booster will be recovered um and they'll be recovered very rapidly and uh in theory you could launch the booster I don't know 10 or 12 times a day and the ship because of over the limitations maybe you could launch it three times a day um and it's also a very big vehicle so on the order of roughly 100 tons 100 tons of useful Earth to orbits so it's Saturn V scale uh payload orbit but fully reusable um if it was Expendable it would probably do I don't know 250 tons to orbit um and I think with further improvements even with full reusability we can probably get it to 150 tons two of it um but to put this into perspective if you have a fleet

of Starships uh launching with the ability to launch uh every day or multiple times a day um Starship will do more than a thousand times the payload to orbit of all other rockets on Earth combined can I thank you that was fascinating can I bring us down to earth gently um and ask you about China in relation to Tesla where do you how important is the market for you do you think China contributes most of your growth in the future um no I think China is obviously a very significant Market that it is um you know it says probably 25 to 30 of our Market uh long term um the rest of the world is probably three quarters of it do you see I promised I didn't have any more Twitter questions but I had this is sort of a Twitter question do you um do you see any risk

at all that China uses your ownership of Twitter potentially to interfere or block Tesla's operations in the country because obviously China has has banned Twitter I've seen no indication to that effect okay how um how close would you say you are personally to the Chinese government because when you set up the factory in Shanghai the walls were Rewritten around joint ventures to allow you to do that well um yeah I was suddenly asked many times by the government attorney to to do a factory in China I said well we we're not going to do one which is 51 locally owned um and so if they're willing to to change rules not just for us but for everyone um then then we would move forward and so they did um and I think it's been very successful so far and the guy

was very happy about it and so I don't know things are proceeding fairly well how many other plants are you expecting to open in China in the near future um well we're not expecting to open uh any any additional plants in China in the near future we will we will be expanding our Shanghai Factory um but we are our focused on production is going to be on the two new factories that we've recently completed uh in Berlin and in Austin Texas and US getting those to high volume production is the is the near-term challenge now we had Herbert Des Volkswagen chief executive who you know well at the summit yesterday and we asked him what his big question was for you and it was how do you scale production in China Germany and Texas simultaneously because for any

experienced OEM even the ones with 100 Years of doing this that's a challenge yes I think generally the difficulty of manufacturing and scaling manufacturing is very much underappreciated uh I've said many times that prototypes are easy production is hard um and we can easily whip out a prototype of any kind of car you could possibly imagine with a small team in six months now you know we have a team of 100 people in six months now to bring that to fruition with high volume or direction is 10 000 people in two years and that's three times faster than the rest of Industry um so overwhelmingly the problem with with cars is production overwhelmingly it's you know 99 of the difficulty um so he's certainly correct that that the difficulty is scaling um but

if you look if you look at our track record thus far in scaling production uh We've scaled production at like I said a rate faster than any car company in the on the history of Earth or any company making a large sophisticated product of any kind so provided we continue to execute at that rate um we'll do fine um and even if that rate slows down a little it'll still be faster than any other company on Earth now what I want to ask you about two specific rumors that have swirled around future production plants for you um are you going to build a plant in Indonesia um as I said this is not the forum for us to make a major company announcements and finally have you looked at building a plant in the UK do you think you might ever build a plant in the UK in

the future I refer back to my prayer answer it was worth a try right mm-hmm can I can I ask um can I ask about autonomy right so you have this way that you think about autonomy using cameras on the vehicles and you want to get to almost a kind of human level AI to get the the cars to drive themselves fully in the real world um but a lot of people who work in AI I think human level AI is a long long way off how do you square that Circle about the approach that you're taking and the speed at which you want to deploy full self-driving technology well I don't think you need full human level intelligence to drive a car um you need sufficient human level intelligence to drive a car but not uh you know you're not you don't need like deep conceptual understanding

of you know esoteric Concepts or anything like that uh you need sufficient intelligence to um match what human neural Nets do when driving a car and I think you know anyone who's driven a car for any length of time once you're you you know once you have some years of experience driving a car the cognitive load on driving a car is not high you're able to think about other things listen to music have a conversation and still drive safely so it's not like matching everything a human does um but it is still matching enough of the the neural Nets to what you know to look at the Silicon neural Nets need to at least be on par with the biological neural Nets uh to uh enable safe driving and I think we're quite close to achieving that um and but I recommend that

uh don't take my word for it just sign up for our beta program and try it out uh we'll look at the videos that people are posting um who are in our beta program we have like I think at this point about hundred thousand people in our beta program so it's not exactly top secret how how hard is it as a problem to solve because you've made predictions in the past about autonomy um you know some of those haven't come to fruition at the same time as your understanding of the problem of autonomy changed over the last few years uh yes the I'd say that self-driving is one of those things where um there are a lot of false stones or you know where um you think you're getting there but then you end up asymptoting um your your progress is initially linear and then

and it looks logarithmic and sort of tapers off um because you're in a like in a local maximum that you do not realize you were in now at this point I think we are no longer in trapped in a local maximum and uh obviously I could be wrong but I I think we are actually quite close to achieving self-driving at a safety level that is uh better than human and it appears my best guess is that we will get there this year um but we're really not far from it um and like I said the best way to assess this is to be in our beta program or look at the videos of those who are in the beta program and and look at the the progress that has had that has occurred and if the progress is dramatic um and I'm confident we will not really get to the safety level of a human we'll

get far in excess of the safety level of a human um so I think ultimately probably a factor of 10 uh is safer than a human as measured by the probability of injury like given where you're trying to get to with this the you know the factor above human driving the potential lives that could be saved with that I need to ask you about some of the accidents and fatalities that have happened with vehicles previously um the people who died do you consider that that was a price worth paying to get to the level where we want to be to save more human lives in the future well it's important to note that uh and and we have never said ever that Tesla uh the Tesla autopilot does not require attention we have always made that extremely clear repeatedly you can't even

turn it on without acknowledging that it requires a supervision um we remind you of that every time you turn it on to to ad nauseam so this was not a case of setting expectations that the card could simply drive itself in the past and then not meeting those expectations that is completely untrue um now I it is also the case however and and I knew this would be true from the beginning that um people don't the the people who are whose lives are saved with autopilot or autonomy don't know that the lives were saved um and and so you know if you look at say death's annual Automotive deaths every year it's about around a million people per year die from Automotive accidents of maybe 10 million uh per year are severely injured um and so with autonomy you um

you know the cause you know driving or it's a sister driving right now but it will be fully autonomous in the future um like I said those who who didn't realize they would have crashed or hit a pedestrian or a cyclist they don't know that um but but the so see basically even if you if you um let's say save 90 of the people that uh would otherwise have died the remaining 10 percent who did die will still sue you now but I think it is I say like in the grand scheme of things what is the morally right decision is and I'm a strong believer in the in during the reality of good over the perception of good and utter contempt for those who simply who prefer the perception of good over the reality of it and so so we're just going to take the Heat but if we believe

that uh that that quality of injury is reduced and we have very very confident with that uh and and but we also know that we're going to be sued despite doing the right thing we will do the right thing and get sued thank you we have it will not necessarily surprise you to hear a lot of audience questions that have come in um in the last few minutes I'm going to try and rattle through as many as we can what is Tesla's approach to smaller and more affordable end of the market you're going to go smaller than the model of three but could you get into a scooter micro Mobility something else uh scooters are very dangerous I would not recommend anyone drive a scooter if there's ever an argument between a scooter and a car the scooter will always what about smaller

than a model three what do you how far can you go down the entry level of the market [Music] well I said this is not some forum for roundabout product announcements no matter how no matter how cleverly the question is asked um so uh you know well we that there's some probability that Tesla will do a smaller cloud in the middle three um I would say more than that okay that's fine that wasn't my question that was an audience question um does Tesla would you ever consider licensing your platform to other oems presumably that would help switch the industry towards uh Electric Mobility in your opinion well we've already open sourced all our patents anyone can use our pads for free so uh all right um you know we we only patent things in order to prevent others

from creating this Minefield of patents that that inhibit progress with electric vehicles um but several years ago uh you know I came from conclusion we're never going to really prosecute anyone for using our patents so let's just say um you can use any Tesla patterns for free um so I think hopefully that's helpful to others um and uh but but I think the you know the regular car industry the traditional car makers um will solve electrification it's not fundamentally difficult at this point to make electric cars um the thing that I think they may be interested in licensing is Tesla uh autopilot full self-driving um and I think that would save a lot of lives um but but I think we still have we have to prove prove ourselves for I don't know maybe another

year or so um and and then perhaps there will be some um other carmakers who uh may wish to license Tesla autopilot um and we'd be very open to that thank you um of all the other EV startups which one has impressed you the most well I think the company making the most progress besides Tesla is actually VW which is not a startup but could be viewed in some ways as a startup from an electric vehicle standpoint so VW is doing the most uh on on the electric vehicle front um I think there will be some very strong companies uh coming out of China um there's just like a lot of super talented hard-working people in China that are um strongly believe in in manufacturing and and they will they go they'll they won't just be voting the Midnight Oil they'll be burning

the 3am oil so um they won't even leave the leave the factory type of thing whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all we've got a question on the Cyber truck um is it a is there a risk um that you you lose the pickup segment to Ford GM and rivien if you don't launch the Cyber truck or get it to Market soon no good um we've had another question coming what is the first cyber truck then we could possibly fulfill for three years after the start of production okay thank you we've had a question coming about China um you've been critical of lockdowns in the past uh uh particularly when it happened in the U.

S Shanghai is currently locked down most of the western world is able to carry on functioning at the moment because of vaccines but China is is going towards a zero covert approach what do you make of the Chinese government's actions well um the you know had some conversations with the Chinese government um in in recent days and it's uh clear that the uh lockdowns are are being lifted rapidly so I would not expect this to be um a significant issue in in the coming weeks um you know the in the past where I was sort of upset with lockdowns is where those lockdowns differentially affected Tesla but not others um so in the case of California and the Bay Area County specifically um every other car factory in North America was allowed to start but not Tesla

even though we there was no basis for that it was simply because we were located in Alameda County in California um and but they had no rational it was arbitrary and and uh unfair and and um you know that's that's the reason for why we're quite upset about uh kind of Tesla being singled out as the only car company in America that was allowed to start even though I think our health care practices are probably better than anyone else thank you we've had a question on software at what point did you realize that software was going to be key to Tesla's success and particularly as others are coming into software how do you maintain leadership in it well Tesla is I think as much a software company as it is a hardware company you know I personally wrote software

for 20 years so um I have great respect and admiration for software engineering um I think it's incredibly important and um I think that's why Tesla's been able to recruit uh some of the world's best software Engineers is because we we value software engineering so highly and do not regard it as an afterthought um uh so you know our autopilot for self-driving AI team is uh incredibly talented and and some of the most the smartest software engineers in the world um so and I do not give compliments lightly so we have an incredible team we have the best real world AI team in the world the the best real world AI team that on Earth um and um and we're seeing more and more uh incredibly talented people join our team so um and we're really not seeing anyone

else being close to solving real world AI um they may exist but if so they're being very subtle about it and that periodically pull our team and say like do we know anyone who is doing this because you know we know who a lot of the the top people are in Ai and what they're doing and and we just don't see anyone else that we're aware of making any significant progress in real world AI apart from Tesla um so yeah I I do I am quite confident that we'll not merely maintain our software lead but increase it thank you um we've had a question come in on the supercharger Network what are your thoughts about opening it to other motorists who don't drive Teslas and doesn't that risk what is currently one of your great competitive advantages uh we've already opened

Tesla superchargers to um other uh electric cars in Europe and we intend to roll that out uh worldwide um it's a little trickier in the us because we have a different connector than the the rest of the industry but we will be adding the rest of Industry connectors as an option to superchargers in us so we'll be fully we're trying as best as possible to do the right thing for the advancement of electrification even if that diminishes our competitive advantage do you uh do you think you'll ever wrap all your various operations Tesla SpaceX Etc under one umbrella group or do you want to keep them separate for the time being I think they're they're sort of separate objectives with uh different shareable devices and I think you know I don't see a ton of merits

in combining them um at times there are people um you know where we have some say very talented people who who actually are willing to join but they they want to do things both at SpaceX and Tesla uh so for example we've got um one of the best Advanced Materials teams in the world it might be the best but it's certainly one of the best um and uh a lot of people on that team were willing to join but only if they could work on both rockets and cars it was like great um let's do that and and so we can sort of share some of the ideas uh between rockets and cars which are obviously not competitive you know they're they're not different competitive segments um so you know if you say like if somebody's a really incredible uh technologist innovator engineer they

want to work on interesting things so the more interesting you know like sure like money is you know they can get money from you know anyone would hire them for a lot of money so um then it's it's not a money thing it's really just how interesting are the projects and so there are just a few cases where um we can recruit some of the smartest you know Engineers scientists technologists in the world but they they want to work on both rockets and cars and there's a few cases like that thank you what do you I know we've I know we've run over time but it's one more I'm going to try and get in and then if you need to go go but if you're happy to keep talking we'll we'll keep you um what is the uh what do you think's the next big innovation in personal transportation

well I think tunnels are underrated underappreciated tunnels Will Never Let You Down here's the question here's the question on tunnels right so if you look at say for instance Robert Moses in New York built loads of Highways they were supposed to solve congestion and all they did was led to more congestion how do you avoid tunnels doing exactly the same but just being very expensive in the process foreign I have to say the this this notion of induced demand is one of the single dumbest Notions I have ever heard my entire life um if if you know if adding roads just increases traffic why don't we delete them and decrease traffic and I think you'd have an uproar if you did that the the real problem is that we have not if you take say congested cities which

really almost all large cities are congested you have a fundamental dimensional problem you have say these tall buildings or multi-level buildings where you've got uh you know people people you know living in 3D and then you want to take them in and out of those buildings on a 2d Road Network like how would you possibly expect that to work um so uh especially if they want to all to you know arrive and depart at roughly the same time this is just a recipe for traffic obviously so now if you go 3D which you go 3D up or you go 3D down now you have you're matching the dimensionality of the buildings um the buildings are 3D that the the and if the road Network or you could potentially have flying cars uh is 3D then you will completely alleviate the traffic

problem um so think of titles not as a single layer of tunnels but as as many layers as you want um as whatever layer count isn't is necessary to drop traffic to landline that people wouldn't think it would work um and we've already we have a proof of concept list in Las Vegas with the tunnel uh going from the convention center to the strip and that will soon be connecting all of the hotels and the airport uh in in Las Vegas um and Phil will just try it out for themselves it's working really well uh already in Vegas and there was some skepticism um among the county in the city as weather would be effective um and I think the the test tunnel just barely succeeded in in a vote with the the you know the with the local government in Clark County and and Las

Vegas but uh once they saw the initial test tunnel and wrote in it themselves uh we got a unanimous vote in favor of expanding it to the whole city so that should tell you something could you ever potentially go in the other direction three-dimensionally and look at vetoles and potentially flying vehicles well I like the idea of details but um you know we already have vetoes in the form of a helicopter so but the problem with with going 3D in the air um is is that um you you now have things that make a lot of noise uh that uh and the wind force that they generate when taking over Landing is very high um I mean if you just say like look at a little drone and say and I imagine that that thing was big what a record it would make and how much wind force would

it generate and now they're going all over the place like a giant beehive of super noisy bees um I don't think people is what people want and most cities uh helicopters are actually banned except for emergency purposes because of this reason so um then there's also the weather dependency so if if it's if there's if there are high winds or or heavy snow rain sleet uh now the you can't fly um so but now you're shut down and and can't go anywhere um then there's the the probability of something falling on your head is much higher if there are all these uh you know vetoes flying all over the city right I mean I think people's Comfort level would be quite reduced uh you know should someone have perhaps not properly serviced their you know flying car and drops

a wheel on your head um I know that that I think would be discomforting to most people um and and also having them fly over your backyard and and having a strangers stare at you all day is probably also discomforting so I think these are all uh reasons why I have I think vitals will not succeed perfect I deliberately avoided calling them flying cars because they don't most of them don't drive on the road but no you're right but apart from that they're great um uh you told Kara Swisher in 2020 um that if Tesla investors knew what you you knew they would Panic about the state of the company that was two years ago so what were you referring to at the time I'm not sure what I was referring to at the time uh 2020 um I mean I think it's it's not that uh tells

the investors should should Panic it's just that the sheer number of problems being sold behind the scenes I think would would blow their minds and uh it's it what you know it's like that analogy of of you see that the duck serenely moving along the pond but the meanwhile the legs are patterning like crazy underneath this is really what's happening pretty much all the time um so the there there are a Non-Stop series of issues that need to be solved uh with um Tesla or with SpaceX really with most companies I suspect um and uh now we do solve them um but I think it would be very scary to most people to realize just how many things have to get solved on a real-time basis for the company to function well just last night I I basically got no sleep uh I was

up on Sunday night until well I really just didn't get any sleep until until last night you know so what is I was literally working all night uh just a Sunday through Monday what is paddling under the water at the moment is there something going on that makes you worry about the future of Tesla or do you think the company is now completely secure no it it's it's I think the future of Tesla is extremely strong um so Tesla is uh has no debt it has a lot of cash and uh you know there's there's a sort of a short-term um hiccup with the covert restrictions in in Shanghai uh but I I as for the rest of my knowledge the future of Tesla is incredibly bright um and I think we will uh throw off uh a tremendous amount of free cash flow do you think with your cash

and obviously your market cap at the moment you would ever consider buying another car maker whether an established OEM or a new business um uh well I think it's highly unlikely now great finally we've had a couple of questions coming on super capacitors do you think they might be potential have potential as an alternative energy storage solution to lithium-ion batteries what's interesting uh specific capacitors or Ultra capacitors are um oddly enough uh and I did research in that for a couple years uh while doing my Physics degree um I had a company in uh Silicon Valley called political research which at the time at least made the highest energy highest energy density capacitors in the world um now they used a ruthenium tantalum uh alloy which is um

very rare with him especially is very rare so um the that that would not scale to to high volume um because it simply isn't not enough enough ruthenium um so that and but I thought about the problem quite a lot and in fact my primary goal um had I continued as a graduate student and done a PhD at Stanford um would have been to try to figure out uh how to build ultra high energy density capacitors um and the the sort of theory I had at the time was to use Advanced chip making equipment uh to build a solid state capacitors uh that would be accurate at the molecular level um and um that this this uh a little bit of we're not new physics but explore exploring some some areas of of quantum quantum mechanics because you have to minimize the probability that

electrons can sort of tunnel from uh one you know essentially a tunnel across the insulator from the conductor to the insulator so um I guess make things get get quite complicated and rather weird at the sort of single or or when you when you get to get to a small number of atoms um but anyway it belongs to kind of long story short I think the capacitors are not needed at all for electrification of the entire Auto industry thank you we've got a question on money and again I know what I'm talking about so I know that don't worry um could um we've had a question on mining you've obviously done a number of mining deals trying to secure raw materials do you think you could ever go a step further and actually buy a mining company in the future it's not out

of the question we will address whatever the limitations are on accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy it's not that we wish to buy mining companies but if that's the only way to accelerate uh transition then we will that that will do that there are no arbitrary limitations on uh what's needed to accelerate sustainable energy we'll just tackle whatever set of things are needed to accelerate sustainable energy and doing Mining and refining or buying a mining company provided we think we can do we can change that mining company's trajectory significantly our possibilities yeah do you this is a slightly personal one do you ever think your children could end up working at Tesla obviously not the new one she's only a few months old but the

older ones yeah um well my Elder uh children have said that they were to do their own thing which I support um that none of them have said that they wish to work at Tesla or SpaceX uh they they want to do their own thing and um obviously I support them doing that um uh I think they want to do something for themselves and uh you know you know make their own way in the world and that's fine and it's possible at some point in the future that they um perhaps they do something of themselves and then and then decide that they'd like to do something a Tesla SpaceX and I'd support that too but but currently they they want to do their own thing perfect if I were to judge by it by a little x uh I know seeing a kid level Rockets more than than he does it's next

level he likes it I mean it's really Next Level so if if his level of rockets continues from H2 and to when he's older then then he may be interested he will be interested in working on Rockets perfect thank you um do you have time for time for one more question sure um excellent good um you talked uh earlier about things that are abundant in the world irons abundant Oxygen's abundant and hydrogen is also very abundant in the universe in the universe but not on Earth not on earth have you ever considered do you think that it has a role to play if we really want to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels no there we go I I really can't emphasize this enough the number of times I've been asked about hydrogen it might be like well over 100 times

maybe 200 times um it's important to understand that uh if if you want a means of energy storage hydrogen is a bad choice it is has extremely low energy density sorry it's extreme extremely low density and so it's actually it's volumetric energy density is poor