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Hot: Elon Musk Interview On “Ride The Lightning” Podcast — A Tesla Geek’s Dream

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Published on June 2nd, 2019 |

by Paul Fosse

Hot: Elon Musk Interview On “Ride The Lightning” Podcast — A Tesla Geek’s Dream

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June 2nd, 2019 by Paul Fosse

Image from Ride The Lightning YouTube

The Tesla community was excited when they heard that Ryan McCaffrey had scored an interview with Elon Musk for his 200th episode of the “Ride The Lightning” podcast, and he did not disappoint!

To listen to the podcast, you can go to major podcast services, like iTunes or Stitcher, or you can listen to it on YouTube. Here’s a timestamped summary:

0m — Intro to the podcast
1m — Asks, “When did you know the Model S was special?” Also talks about the hiring of Franz.
3m — Designed the Model S as a car he would love — he tried to make something he was sure he would love and hopefully others would love it too.
6m — “Could you foresee the impact the car was going to have on the world?” Elon says he was pessimistic, expected maybe a 10% chance of success.
8m — “Even if we sold 100% electric cars today, it would take 15 years to replace existing cars.”
9m — Ryan’s theory was that Ludicrous Mode was created because nobody copied the Model S, so Tesla was going to shame them.
10m — Elon: Everyone thought EVs would fail in 2008 and 2012.
11m — Everyone said it was impossible to make a high-performance, long-range EV, but physics said it was possible. They then said nobody would buy it. [Editor’s note: This and this.]
13m — Companies are finally building EVs, especially in China. Was hard to compete in China when not locally produced.
14m — Countries will start to ban gas cars, which will impact their gas car sales as those bans approach.
16m — “What was your toughest design choice on Model 3?” Two screens to one screen. Hard to make the Model 3 look good. Central heat exchanger.
18m — Width of the Model 3 driven by the size of parking machines in Japan. Pushed the cabin forward to give it more room. Glass roof adds a lot to the headroom.
19m — Elon explains why the Model 3 doesn’t have a heads-up display.
20m — New Roadster is dessert. Will not produce more than 10,000 a year. It will outperform every gas car at every level.
22m — Can’t say what is in the Founder’s Series. Can go in any direction at 2G’s with cold gas thrusters.
23m — Kept new Roadster a secret by using a separate nondescript building.
24m — Model Y is MUCH roomier on the inside than it looks on the outside, confirming what I wrote in my Model Y styling tricks article. Elon confirmed styling similarity was very much intentional.
26m — Door handles and falcon-wing door movement are designed for beauty. Elon explained the complexity of the logic used to decide when to open Model X doors.
29m — Tesla is trying to make the manufacturing of the Model Y easy because it is too risky to do otherwise. Changing up design for SUV capability, seating 7, ride height, and more cargo capacity while still have a low drag coefficient and not increasing the frontal area too much, in order to keep range high.
31m — Manufacturing improvements for the Y include casting for the rear underbody (70 parts in Model 3 to one part in Model Y, reducing weight and cost).
32m — Underplayed his hand at the Model Y reveal to avoid stealing too many sales from Model 3 (see: Osborne effect).
34m — Probably building Model Y in Fremont, but gating factor is the giant stamping tools for the body. Optimizing for speed of execution. Found extra unused space.
36m — Talked about games in cars, Unity and Unreal Engine. Cuphead is running on Tesla now and is incredibly hard. Storage a limitation, so may only be able to have one game at a time.
39m — Tesla app store: as number of vehicles grows, it makes more sense, but not yet. Today, just have “a few cool games.”
42m — Spotify vs Slacker: just not a priority.
45m — Earning $30,000 a year from your Tesla.
46m — Doesn’t know how to make a $20,000 car yet, needs more R&D and time to get there. Gas cars have had 150 years to get there.
48m — Autonomy changes the game. Use the Tesla Network to make your lease payment. This will make a Tesla affordable to everyone!
51m — Tesla pickup truck will start at less than $50,000. Will look very sci-fi. “Will be more capable than an F-150 and a better sports car than the Porsche 911.” Teaser image is of the front.
54m — V3 Superchargers first deployed on long-distance routes and are replacing V1 sites. Most V2 sites are pretty fast already.
55m — Elon hasn’t gotten any calls from other carmakers yet to use Tesla’s Supercharger networks.
57m — Semi and pickup will both be very important and high-volume products.
59m — Ryan thanks Elon for everything he does!

Conclusion
Ryan did a great job asking questions nobody has asked before, so this is a special one for fans of Tesla and/or Elon Musk. I tried to timestamp the topics so that if you don’t have time for the whole interview you can use your time to just listen to the parts you care the most about. I recommend you listen to the whole thing if you have time.

About the Author

Paul Fosse A Software engineer for over 30 years, first developing EDI software, then developing data warehouse systems. Along the way, I've also had the chance to help start a software consulting firm and do portfolio management. In 2010, I took an interest in electric cars because gas was getting expensive. In 2015, I started reading CleanTechnica and took an interest in solar, mainly because it was a threat to my oil and gas investments. Follow me on Twitter @atj721 Tesla investor. Tesla referral code: https://ts.la/paul92237

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Volvo XC90 SUV is on display on day three of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) at the National Exhibition and Convention Center on November 7, 2018 in Shanghai, China.VCG | Getty ImagesThe United States has rejected separate requests from General Motors and Chinese-owned Volvo Cars for an exemption to a 25% U.S. tariff on their Chinese-made sport utility vehicle models.
GM, the largest U.S. automaker, and Sweden's Volvo both said they were aware of the respective denials of their nearly year-old petitions. Both companies had not raised the sticker price to account for tariffs, which came into play last July.
The denial of GM's petition for its Buick Envision came in a May 29 letter from the U.S. Trade Representative's office saying the request concerned “a product strategically important or related to 'Made in China 2025' or other Chinese industrial programs.”
The midsize SUV, with a starting price of about $35,000, has become a target for U.S. critics of Chinese-made goods, including leaders of the United Auto Workers union and members in key political swing states such as Michigan and Ohio.
Buick Envision sales fell in the United States by nearly 27%to 30,000 last year and fell another 21% in the first three months of 2019.
Only a small number of vehicles are built in China and sold in the United States.
Last month, the U.S. Trade Representative's Office also rejected a request by Volvo Cars for its mid-size XC60 SUVs, its top selling U.S. vehicle.
Volvo, which is owned by China's Geely, had already last year begun switching production of U.S.-bound XC60s from China to Europe as part of a global shake up of production plans for most of its lineup in an effort to dodge tariffs.
A spokeswoman said the XC60 shift, Volvo's biggest move to mitigate the impact of tariffs, was completed in the Spring,meaning Volvo was no longer paying tariffs on XC60 imports and would not see any fresh cost impact due to the rejection.
Volvo had argued in its exemption request that it could “anticipate” the XC60 would be eventually produced in its recently opened South Carolina plant, where it is building S60 sedans, but the spokeswoman said no decision had been taken.
“(New production setup) is a cost so that would of course depend on the permanence of tariffs and what the situation looks like going forward. It's a continuous evaluation that we always do with the flexible manufacturing footprint,” she said.
Besides the shift, Volvo has also split production of its S60 luxury sport sedan between the two countries; altered some European production plans; and reduced shipments of its S90 sedan, which is only produced in China, to the United States.
U.S. retail sales for the S90 sedan this year to May were down 63.7 percent year on year, company data showed.
GM had argued in its request that Envision sales in China and the United States would generate funds “to invest in our U.S. manufacturing facilities and to develop the next generation of automotive technology in the United States.”
GM said last year the “vast majority” of Envisions, about 200,000 a year, are sold in China.
Because of the lower U.S. sales volume, “assembly in our home market is not an option” for the Envision, which competes with such mid-size crossover vehicles as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Cadillac XT5. Ahead of the July 2018 start for higher import tariffs, GM shipped in a six-month supply of Envisions at the much lower 2.5 percent tariff rate, Reuters reported in August 2018.

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