(smooth R&B music)
- Hello and welcome, everyone,
to Teslanomics Live.
I'm your host, Ben Sullins,
and today is a special day,
because we have a lot
of really juicy tidbits
from Elon, from an
interview he did last week.
So we're going to jump into those
and then cover a few other stories.
And then, later in the week,
we'll publish these as individual clips
in case you can't watch the
full show here with us today.
I want to thank everyone
for joining me on Crowdcast,
where we do our Q&A.
This is a separate area than YouTube
and we also publish that later in the week
but we do it live here just for the folks
that joined the community
and really want to engage
in this discussion.
And, so, in order to be a part of that,
if you're interested,
you can go to teslanomics.co/join
and become a part of the community.
And then on Mondays
you'll get your invite.
So, thank you everyone there on Crowdcast
waiting for the Q&A.
Make sure to go vote on all the questions,
so we can have the most
interesting ones up at top,
and everyone on YouTube, again,
just thanks for joining me
and hopefully we'll have some fun.
I know you're going to have some fun here.
So, first and foremost,
I want to talk about
something that is coming up rather soon,
and that is that the
Tesla Referral program
is set to expire.
Again, we don't know if will be continued.
Every time, they kind
of tease us with this.
But, officially, at the end of April,
at the end of this month,
so in like two weeks,
you will no longer be able
to get free super charging
on a new S or X.
Nor will you be able to get
that extended five-year warranty
on the solar panels, if
you were going to do that,
so if you're in the market,
you're thinking about it,
you're on the verge of it,
you can get my code at teslanomics.co/td,
doesn't cost you anything
or anything like that,
you just sign up there
and you get an email
and then I'll be happy
to answer any questions
you guys have.
As a community, we've helped more people
than anyone else join
this electric lifestyle
that we all live
and we've collectively
saved over 300,000 pounds
of CO2 from entering the atmosphere,
which is a pretty special feat.
So, if you guys interested,
you can go check that out.
I just wanted to give that a mention
because it's coming up.
And again, they may continue it,
but there's no official word on that yet
so I would hate to just
be kind of complacent
and not mention it and
then you guys miss out,
because free super charging
is a pretty awesome benefit,
to owning an S or and X.
So, there's my little plug for that.
Without further ado, let's
get into the fun stuff
that happened last week,
I believe it was last Friday.
Gayle King from CBS This Morning
had an exclusive interview with Elon,
where they actually filmed
inside of the factory
and I have a few clips to
share with you from that,
and then we'll kind of talk
through each one of those clips
at the end.
They posted a seven-minute video there
and then they have several
other little highlights as well.
So I'm just going to
go through kind of my,
I think I have four clips here,
that are the most interesting
and kind of put them in context for you,
and then we'll move on.
So, here goes the first one.
This is Elon talking
about production hell.
- You said to your team,
- Mhmm,
- "Everybody get ready to meet the demand.
"We're going to be in production hell."
- Yes.
- But you didn't expect this
kind of production hell,
or did you?
- Uh, no. It's worse than I thought.
- Why is that? Why is it
harder? What happened?
- We got complacent
about some of the things
that we thought were our core technology.
We put too much new technology
into the Model 3 all at once.
- Mhmm.
- So, to me, the
interesting thing about that
is that he said they
put too much technology
in the Model 3 all at once.
And, I'm surprised by that.
Excuse me, that's the same thing they said
about the Model X,
where it makes a whole lot of sense
because the Model X is, if
you've ever been in one,
like this whole other level of technology
and advancement.
It's a completely different
level than the Model S.
Model S is a completely
different level than the Model 3.
So, for him to say that,
to me was pretty surprising
when I heard that.
I am interested in that
maybe they put too much tech
into the assembly line in how they were
actually trying to make them.
And then, you know, Elon
actually continued on here,
with the next clip,
where he talks about production hell
and kind of how that works.
So here you go. Here's the
second clip where he's talking
about the manufacturing
process a little bit
and I was surprised when I heard this,
as was Gayle, as you'll see.
- Elon, part of the thing
I heard about the Model 3
is that there's too many robots,
that maybe...
- Yeah, I agree.
- You think so too? That
maybe you need more people
in here working.
- We do.
- [Gayle] In some cases,
the robots actually slow the production.
- Yes, they do.
There's this crazy, complex
network of conveyor belts
and it was not working
so we got rid of that whole thing.
- This is cool, Elon.
- Yeah.
- So, that was real surprising to me
and, following on from that,
there was this tweet,
where Elon even said that.
Where he said,
there was somebody quoted
him, from the article,
it said, "Elon Musk agrees
that Tesla is relying
"on too many robots to make the Model 3
"and needs more workers."
And Elon,
shout out to him, kudos to him,
owns it and says,
"Yeah, excessive automation
at Tesla was a mistake.
"To be precise, my mistake.
"Humans are underrated."
This made me jump for joy
because a lot of what I've seen from Elon,
and Tesla at times,
is a very defensive stance
on a lot of these things.
And, for him to own up to this,
calling it his mistake,
and one that I think where
you're essentially say that
the technology isn't here and ready to do
the job of a human 100% yet,
that humans are underrated,
it really speaks to the opposite
of that hubris we saw with
the Delete Facebook thing,
over to a form of humility.
And I was really excited
when I saw that because it just shows
that he's human and he gets it.
As somebody that's managed
teams for many years
and believes in the value
of a human over a machine,
this was exciting to me.
So I applaud Elon for really owning that
and coming to terms with that,
and hopefully,
that will lead to actual
better production.
Because, I know that as a customer,
that's probably what
we're all waiting for.
Okay, now the next one
is an interesting one,
where Elon actually gave us a glimpse
into his life at Tesla
and what's kind of going on there.
'Cause as you know, he's
sleeping at the factory
so here's a look inside of
where Elon is actually sleeping.
Let's take a look at that.
- He says he has resorted
to pulling all nighters
at the plant.
- When things get really intense
I don't have time to go
home and shower and change
so I just sleep here.
- I want to see. Where is that?
- Right here.
- I want to see.
- Uh, I mean, it's pretty
boring overall, really.
(laughs)
- It's actually cold in here too.
- Yeah, I like it cold.
- You like it cold?
- I sleep on that couch right there.
- And you're just laying here,
- Yeah.
- on the couch.
- Yeah.
The last time I was here I
slept literally on the floor
because the couch was too narrow.
- Yeah, I was going to say.
Elon, I have to say,
it's not even a comfortable couch either.
- No, it's terrible.
This is not a good couch.
- What does the number say
for the last seven days?
What is the number?
- 2,071.
- You're pleased with that?
- Yeah.
- For the time being?
- Yeah.
- Okay, so (laughs) he wasn't joking,
which is shocking.
And, what is up with this couch?
So, I thought it would be fun,
we can actually help Elon here,
because it appears that he
might need some help with this,
and so I created a GoFundMe account
to buy Elon a couch.
The goal is a thousand bucks.
I looked on wayfair.com,
where we buy our home stuff here,
and I thought, a thousand bucks,
you could get a pretty decent couch
and probably ship it out to Fremont.
So, there you go,
I'll put a link to this
in the description,
and the idea would be
to share this with Elon.
And if he isn't interested
or doesn't reply,
then we can take that money and donate it
to a charity for E.V.s or something else.
Let me know what you think.
I'll put a link to this GoFundMe
in the description there,
after this video, after
the live stream is done
so you can donate.
But, hopefully, by
helping Elon in this way
we can also help ourselves,
as Tesla enthusiasts and fans,
by giving him a better rest,
which then in turn leads
to better production.
Who knows.
Anyway, I thought this would be
a fun little thing to do.
And, if it doesn't go anywhere,
then hey, at least we can
give whatever money is raised
to some sort of charity
to help E.V. adoption
here in the United States.
So, the last clip I have for you,
is coming about the production
of the Model 3 itself.
And we have some numbers to look at,
which I'm very excited
about as you could imagine.
And so what I'll do is
I'll play this clip and then
we'll actually do some math.
So, here, you go. Elon
talking about the production
of the Model 3.
- But since then, we've continued
to do 2,000 cars a week.
- Do you think that this
is sustainable? This pace?
- Yeah.
- Is it sustainable?
- Yeah.
So we'll probably have, I don't know,
three or fourfold
increase in Model 3 output
in the second quarter.
- But most critics have
predictions like those before,
a future the automaker has yet to reach.
- So, I was interested in this
because he's talking about a 3-4x increase
for Q2, which is a huge increase.
That is like an insane amount.
So, I went over, took a look
at the Bloomberg Tracker,
and they actually just
ratcheted this down.
They updated it today and
they're at 2,866 right now,
per week, is what they're saying,
what they're estimating Tesla is making.
And you can see that.
It was over 3,000 for a brief moment,
I think when I checked this morning
before they finally updated.
So, if we plug all these
numbers into our model,
which I have here, and
if you don't recall this,
I built this last week.
You can go check out that video
and see more about it, see how it works.
But you can essentially plug
in some different numbers
and it will calculate
exactly what it looks like
based on that S-curve,
so we're using the log growth
curve as our model here,
and this is what we've been told by Elon,
that this is how it works.
And we just punch in these numbers.
So if we punch in 4/16, after
the page refreshes, of course.
4/16 for time 2.
So time 1 is set. This
is January 7th at 1,000.
And so this is what they reported.
Now we're at 4/16 and
we have met 2,500 here
but let's go down,
because what Tesla's
actually said was 2,071
and I believe that was as of 4/10.
So let's change that to 4/10
and let's ratchet this down
to, let me see if I can just drag it,
there we go.
This interface isn't the best.
I might update that later today.
Okay, so if we go to 2,071
on 4/10, which is I believe,
when they were filming this,
you can see what it looks like here.
So at that trajectory,
if the peak, meaning the top of this,
is 10,000 per week that
they're able to make,
then they'll be making around
200,000 Model 3s in 2018.
Now, they would hit 5,000 in September
using this model though.
So that's not exactly what I
think that they're hoping to do
and the way this model works is,
you take that 1,000 mark here,
and then you go to the,
you know, at January 7th,
and then you go out to 4/10
and you see the increase there,
so that gives it that
kind of that steepness
and you know where the peak is.
And so, the basic math here
is using all those variables
to apply this log growth curve.
Now, some people, are going
to disagree with this.
They're going to think kind
of different things about it
but just the basic math
of how this adds up,
if this were to stand,
it would be September before
they would actually hit that.
So, of course, nothing ever
plays out exactly like this,
so we'll monitor this over time
and try to see how it goes.
I'm curious what you
guys think about that.
All the different clips there,
the different stuff that Elon said,
I think it was really revealing
about how things are going
and the efforts that they're making
and kind of what we can
hope to see from them
for the rest of this year.
So leave a comment down below
and let me know what you
guys think about that.
Now, the next story is similar,
but this is more of a leak.
This isn't an official
statement from Tesla.
This is that,
Reuters is reporting,
that Tesla targets November 2019
for the start of Model Y production.
Now, Model Y, if you recall,
we'll go through a refresher here,
but let me just read you
the blurb from Reuters.
Tesla is taking preliminary supplier bids
for work on its Model Y S.U.V.
The company sets an initial
target of November 2019
for production in the
U.S. and 2021 in China.
Elon Musk said earlier this year
that Tesla was aiming for
production of 1 million
Model Ys a year. That's a big number,
So, the Model Y, if you
recall is to the Model X
what the Model 3 is to the Model S.
That's confusing if English
isn't your first language,
it's probably super confusing, sorry.
But, basically, it's a crossover
S.U.V., a small S.U.V.,
that is going to be the cheaper version
of the Model X, essentially.
It's going to be the watered down,
cheaper version of Model X,
which honestly is still
going to be amazing
because the Model X is this
whole crazy level of awesome,
that the Model Y,
even if it is a completely
watered down version,
is going to be phenomenal.
I mean, Model 3 is pretty
amazing compared to the Model S.
Model S, I think, is still far better.
Model X in this case, because
it's so crazy advanced,
even a completely watered
down version of that,
is still going to be on par
with probably what the Model S is.
So, I'm super excited about this.
Now, there is a quote here from Teslarati,
because there's some really
interesting bits about this.
And, the quote says that
they're going to be using
something called a flexible circuit.
And this is a new way of
handling wiring in the vehicle.
So, the quote is that
"this will enable faster manufacturing,
"and an overall less complex design.
"Tesla's flagship Model S and
Model X have approximately
"3 kilometers of wiring within a vehicle."
That is a lot.
"While Tesla's highly
anticipated Model 3,"
this is a bit of an older article,
"will have roughly half that
at 1.5 kilometers of wiring.
"The Model Y, on the other
hand, with these flex circuits
"will only have 100 meters."
100 meters. That's a 95%
reduction over the Model 3,
which is already a 50% reduction
over the Model S and X,
roughly.
So this is crazy.
I can't believe if this
technology really pans out
because that could mean
the margins on this
and the speed at which
they can manufacture it
will beat even what the
Model 3 is able to do.
Now, they're targeting 2019.
We still don't have an unveiling,
we don't know what the design looks like.
Many of us in the community
assume that this year
we're going to see that unveiling.
We'll hope to attend that and
share that experience with you
of course, if we're able to.
And then, from then,
they'll be taking reservations we assume.
This will be another,
you know 500,000 people,
popping down 1,000 bucks,
maybe 1,500 bucks for this car.
I will likely be one of them
because I think this will be,
I'm more interested,
actually, in this model,
than I am any of the other ones right now.
I mean, the Model X is fantastic,
but it is a little bit big and the doors,
with my old home and the small garage,
don't really work.
So, unlike my friends that
actually went house shopping
and bought a house that
would fit a Model X,
I'm not doing that.
Okay, so, there's a couple
other things about this.
One is why would they do this?
So, I did this analysis before.
I have a video,
That I'll put in a link
to it in the description,
where I actually talked about the Model Y
in terms of everything we knew.
This was, I think, back in September.
At the time, here were the numbers,
and I assumed these kind of held true
for the rest of the year,
but basically these are
the U.S. auto sales,
oh, sorry, for August 2017 year to date.
So you can see that the cross-over market
is the largest one overall,
with 3.43 million vehicles sold,
which is 30% of the total.
So that's a huge number.
This the largest segment in the U.S.
So Tesla, it makes a lot of
sense for them to go after this,
right?
As compared to, you know,
some of the other areas,
like the midsize sedans,
or the small compact cars,
and those kind of things.
So, this is the fastest
growing and largest segment
of the cars sold in the United States.
Makes 1000% sense to go after it.
I'm really hoping that it's successful.
The only questions I have left
are where are they going to build it?
I did read that they're planning
on building it at Fremont,
which I don't understand
where they could do that.
Maybe they're expanding, or
they're going to be offloading
Model 3 production somewhere else,
which seems unlikely at this point.
How much it will it
cost? That's another one.
We could probably do some extrapolation,
you know, take the Model
S versus Model 3 price,
and do some similar math,
try to apply that to the Model
X versus the Model Y here.
You're probably looking at
$50-60,000, my rough guess.
And then, is this flex circuit
wiring thing going to work?
They've tried a lot, every
time Tesla makes a new vehicle,
they're pushing the boundaries
of the manufacturing process,
really that's what they're trying to build
that core competency of.
And so, if that works,
then this'll be a home run,
but if not, that could be
a real challenge for them
so lots of questions still.
I'm hoping to have some more answers,
as well as I'm hoping to
see what the car looks like.
I hope to ride in it.
I hope to get the chance to do that
and I hope to share that
experience with you all.
So stay tuned. Lots of stuff
going on with the Model Y.
I was really excited when I heard this.
A lot of us were already
kind of anticipating it
so it kind of makes sense
that this is happening.
Alright, next up, I want to
talk a little bit about SpaceX.
Now, SpaceX, they did some stuff recently,
it's pretty interesting.
They're set to become
the third most valuable
venture-backed U.S. company.
They authorized raising of
$507 million on April 5.
Now this is cool because I think
SpaceX is going to have a
larger impact on our lives
than Tesla will, actually,
and as far as where Elon's heart is,
I still speculate that it's in SpaceX,
not as much as Tesla.
And if you don't know why I say that,
go read his biography
and you're understand.
So, just bit about this.
I'm going to read this
because it's so short,
and then I'm going to go
into some other things
that they talked about with SpaceX.
So, the value of Elon Musk's
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
keeps reaching new heights.
The rocket maker authorized
$507 million fundraising round
on April 5 at valuation of $25 billion,
according to PitchBook data.
With that increase in SpaceX's worth,
Musk's fortune would rise
about $1.4 billion to $21.3 billion,
according to Bloomberg
Billionaires Index calculation,
which is kind of a dumb
thing to have, but fine.
SpaceX is poised to become
the third-most valuable
venture-backed startup in the U.S.,
after Uber and AirBnb, PitchBook said.
Musk plans to fly roughly
30 missions this year
and has completed seven to date.
In fact, I think one
is going off right now,
or this morning, or today, or later today.
I can't even keep track, they're
launching so many of them.
On Monday, SpaceX is slated
to launch a Falcon 9 rocket
from Cape Canaveral, that's
the one I'm talking about,
so if you guys are watching that,
or are going to watch it later,
I'm always thrilled my son
always seems to love those.
So, with that, there was
some other stuff about SpaceX
that came out,
so I'll package this all up
into a nice bundle for you.
One is that Gwynne Shotwell,
the President of SpaceX,
gave a talk at Ted, recently,
where there was this back and forth
between her and Christ Anderson.
So, I'll read you the little blurb here,
because I think this is super interesting.
They're talking about BFR,
which stands for Big Falcon Rocket,
and the plan is to fly
BFR like an aircraft,
doing point-to-point travel,
taking off from New York City or Vancouver
and flying halfway around the globe
in roughly 40 minutes.
Anderson says, incredulously,
"This is never going to happen."
And Gwynne shoots back,
"Oh no, it's definitely going to happen.
"And within a decade.
"The timeframe for landing humans on mars
"looks about the same," she says,
"since both projects are
built on the same technology.
And to the question of why,
with all the problems here on earth,
SpaceX has their eyes on the stars.
Shotwell has a vision.
"This is the first step to us
moving to other solar systems
"and potentially other
galaxies," she says.
"This is the only time
I out-visioned Elon.
"I want to meet people, or
whatever they call themselves,
"in another solar system."
So that is a bold, bold statement.
And kudos to Gwynne because if you guys,
again, know the story of her,
she's a badass President that is really
making things happen
and so cheers to you, Gwynne,
for sharing this with us
because I think it gets
people, nerds like me,
and you know, just everyone
really in the world,
super excited about these possibilities
and what the future holds,
and we need companies like this.
So, anyways, with that,
if you don't remember
what the BFR is, or what it does,
here is a shot that Elon posted,
of the main body tool.
This is the thing that will
actually make the body of it,
compared to a Model 3.
So you can see kind of
how ginormous it is.
And then, here is the
video of it actually going.
Now, this simple idea is
that if you get outside
of our gravitational field
and you can go into low earth orbit,
then you can travel around
the world incredibly fast.
You know, these satellites and things,
fly around the plant at
speeds you can't even fathom
here on earth
and it's because they're not
as affected by the gravity
and they're so far away
that that one little turn,
as the earth spins,
if you're going the opposite direction,
it equates to a huge amount of distance
in a very short period of time.
So, the idea here is that
you would get onto this BFR,
and there's 100 people per pod.
It would take off, go into
low earth orbit, I believe,
and then it would come
back and autonomously land
at some other destination.
I think this one they have here,
it's from New York to Shanghai,
but you get the idea
that it could kind of go
from anywhere to anywhere.
Because you have the
ability to, literally,
use the earth's rotation
to your advantage.
It's a pretty incredible feat.
And of course they're mastering
the rocket re-usability
and the ability to take
off and land autonomously.
I think in 10 years this
could be a possibility.
It's funny, I'm more
optimistic about this,
than I am on self-driving cars.
I think this will be easier
to do than self-driving cars,
simply because there are less barriers.
You have the physics to deal with
but you have less,
you don't have like a drunk human
that is going to run into
you while you're flying this.
So you get the idea.
Pretty amazing.
I love that we're talking about this
and that this is even happening,
and it reminds me of an
old joke that someone said,
this comedian, I'm
paraphrasing, where he said,
if we're talking about from the U.S.
If Australia's 23 hours
away, it's a 23-hour flight,
can't we just go up in
the air for an hour,
let the earth spin and
let them come to us?
And that's essentially what this is.
That's truthfully what's happening here.
So it's pretty amazing
and so I'm curious what
you guys think about this
so leave me a comment down below,
and whether or not you would
take a ride on the BFR.
Who knows, maybe there'll
be a referral program prize
down the road.
Alright, guys, thanks for joining me here.
I'm going to cut the YouTube stream
and then I'm going to go over to Q&A.
Again, if you want to be a
part of that down the road,
you can do so by joining
our list at teslanomics.co
and, don't forget, when you free the data,
your mind will follow.
Thanks for watching
and stay tuned for many more
videos coming out this week
as well as a live...
