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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Foam and Lauren Today,

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Speaker 1: I thought we would talk about something a few of

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Speaker 1: our listeners have fast us about in the past. Tesla Motors. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we did an episode on Elon Musk back on March thirteen.

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Speaker 1: It was called tech Stuff looks at Elon Musk Uh

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Speaker 1: sensibly enough, and I think in that episode we were like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll totally do an episode on Tesla Motors soon, and

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Speaker 1: then we never did that thing. One year later to

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Speaker 1: the day, it is March thirteen, two thousand and fourteen.

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Speaker 1: As we sit here in the studio, we are recording

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Speaker 1: a pair of episodes, as it turns out, on Tesla Motors,

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Speaker 1: because even though it's a young company, they've the company

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Speaker 1: has done a lot of stuff and there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of things to cover um largely in part to Mr Musk,

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Speaker 1: who has had quite the impact on the technological world

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Speaker 1: and multiple venues, not just in electric cars. Right. He

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Speaker 1: was not one of the original founders though, No, no,

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Speaker 1: Back in two thousand three, there were a pair of

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Speaker 1: silicon Valley investors named Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpinning who

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Speaker 1: formed the company Tesla Motors, and their goal was to

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Speaker 1: make a commercially successful electric car. In fact, they say

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Speaker 1: they will not stop until every car on the road

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Speaker 1: is electric. Now, neither of them had really any car experience,

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Speaker 1: I mean they drove them, but not making them. But

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Speaker 1: they felt that they had the business plan that would

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Speaker 1: make the electric car a viable option in the United

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Speaker 1: States in particular. And you got to remember, if you

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Speaker 1: know your car history, electric cars actually pre date internal

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Speaker 1: combustion engine cars, so this is sort of a throwback

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Speaker 1: in a way. But trying to make the electric car

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Speaker 1: actually work because everyone was always worried that the electric

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Speaker 1: car would have a very narrow range of like you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to go very far sure, and also

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Speaker 1: various um potential safety issues involving the materials the batteries

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Speaker 1: were made out of worry that if it got too cold,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to start your car, sure, and

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Speaker 1: and also just the the general cheapness and propensity of

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Speaker 1: of gasoline. Yeah, the fact that they had been around

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Speaker 1: and and been on top for a century meant that,

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Speaker 1: you know, making making a road two use a pun

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Speaker 1: into this industry. Yeah, there's the there's the high roll.

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Speaker 1: Uh that would be would be you know, it's a

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Speaker 1: significant challenge. So two thousand three they start up, and

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't be until April two thousand four that Mr

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk gets involved, right, he invested heavily in the company,

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Speaker 1: like to the tune of six point three million dollars

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Speaker 1: and joined its board of directors. Yep and ebro Hard

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Speaker 1: became the CEO of Tesla Motors that will become very

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Speaker 1: important in a little bit. And together they planned to

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Speaker 1: create for their first attempt, a high end sports car

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Speaker 1: called the Tesla Roadster, which they estimated the original actual price,

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Speaker 1: like what what customers would pay for it would be

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Speaker 1: ninety two thousand dollars per car, and they wanted to

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Speaker 1: have them on the road before the end of two

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Speaker 1: thousand six. Now this is April two thousand four when

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Speaker 1: this is being discussed, and that is a pretty ridiculously

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Speaker 1: lofty goal for anybody, let alone a consumer car company.

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Speaker 1: Y I yeah, car company that has no manufacturing factories, no,

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Speaker 1: like they have no anything, there's no infrastructure for them yet.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's very ambitious sure, and even more ambitious

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Speaker 1: was that that wasn't their sole goal that they were planning,

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Speaker 1: even at this very early stage, to to look ahead

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Speaker 1: to to produce a luxury electric sedan UM for for

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Speaker 1: competition with like Mercedes Benz and BMW stuff like that

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Speaker 1: UM and then with with proven sales and profits from

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Speaker 1: these two high end cars, to create a low cost

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Speaker 1: electric line for everybody. Right, So, these first few ideas

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Speaker 1: that they have, they admitted straight out like these are

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Speaker 1: high end items. This isn't the kind of stuff that

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Speaker 1: you're gonna look at for the family car, unless you know,

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Speaker 1: you happen to be of the Gates family or something. Uh,

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Speaker 1: It's it's definitely one of those where people of high

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Speaker 1: incomes are able to afford. In fact, there were many

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Speaker 1: people who were criticizing Tesla for having a business plan

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Speaker 1: that was catering only to rich people who wanted a

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Speaker 1: third car. That was pretty much the way a lot

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Speaker 1: of these early reports were going. Anyway, time passes and

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Speaker 1: not a lot to talk about. Between two thousand four

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Speaker 1: and two thousand six, that was really when they were

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Speaker 1: getting their business plan in order, starting to figure out

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Speaker 1: what their production chain was going to be. But in

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Speaker 1: August two thousand six, that's when they really started to

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Speaker 1: promote the fact that you could put down a deposit

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Speaker 1: on one of the first one hundred Tesla roadster sports cars.

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Speaker 1: And it was a paltry deposit, just a tiny little amount, right,

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Speaker 1: a little bit more than they had originally plan. It

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Speaker 1: was a hundred thousand dollars deposit deposit, meaning that there

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Speaker 1: was actually going to be more to pay afterward. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And a couple of notable people put down deposits. A

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Speaker 1: lot of them were environmentalists or Silicon Valley millionaires. Also

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Speaker 1: a famous actor, Mr George Clooney, he put down a

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Speaker 1: deposit for one. But at that point there's still no

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Speaker 1: roadster to actually drive yet, right, They hadn't really made

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Speaker 1: all that much headway on on that quite yet. As

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Speaker 1: February two seven, they announced plans to build a thirty

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Speaker 1: five million dollar plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to build

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Speaker 1: what would be come the model S sedan, that electrics,

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Speaker 1: that electric car you were talking about earlier than the

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Speaker 1: luxury sedan, right, Yeah, So that was gonna be the

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Speaker 1: place where that would be built. And so they start

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Speaker 1: to figure out that this is gonna be the method

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Speaker 1: that they follow in order to uh to follow up

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Speaker 1: the roadster plan once that was on uh into the streets.

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Speaker 1: Still not there yet though, so uh they missed their

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Speaker 1: two thousand six goal obviously of getting roadsters out there,

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Speaker 1: but they're still working on it. And at September two

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Speaker 1: thousand seven they hit another delay. And UH this was

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Speaker 1: because they were having a lot of internal problems. There

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Speaker 1: were budgets they were getting slipped. I mean already you

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Speaker 1: saw that they had planned on having being sports car,

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Speaker 1: which presumably means that they thought they were going to

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Speaker 1: sell it for more than what it costs to put

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Speaker 1: it together. This is the way generally business is done.

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Speaker 1: Sure that that price tag was eventually bumped up to

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Speaker 1: a hundred nine thousand UM, but but they were finding

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Speaker 1: out that some of their manufacturing processes were more expensive

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Speaker 1: than they had anticipated. Also that some of their manufacturing

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Speaker 1: plants didn't have the physical capacity to create the stuff

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Speaker 1: that they wanted to create, which is problematic. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you think this sounds kind of similar to when

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Speaker 1: we were talking about SpaceX and and the challenges musk

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Speaker 1: encountered in that, you'd be right. I mean, a lot

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Speaker 1: of these are very similar problems, obviously two different scales,

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Speaker 1: talking about driving on the roads versus blasting off into space.

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Speaker 1: But you know, it's one of those things where when

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Speaker 1: you come from an Internet background the way Musk did, uh,

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Speaker 1: and you then go into a manufacturing world, the world

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Speaker 1: is very different and there's some realities that you've got

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Speaker 1: to come face to face with. Absolutely. Meanwhile, speaking of manufacturing,

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Speaker 1: around the same time, Musk began talking with German manufacturer

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Speaker 1: UM Daimler about selling Tesla battery packs for for Dameler's

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Speaker 1: lightweight and expensive smart cars, which were not yet available

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Speaker 1: in the US at that time. Um there's there's actually

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Speaker 1: a really fun story about this, involving the Tesla ct

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Speaker 1: O j V strable, like getting finance to give him

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Speaker 1: a bag with twenty tho dollars in cash. So that's

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Speaker 1: sounding like a fun story already. So that an engineer's

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Speaker 1: friend who spoke Spanish could go to Mexico to Tijuana

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Speaker 1: to to the nearest UM Daimler smart card dealer and

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Speaker 1: drive back in a Smart Um and then they and

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Speaker 1: so they did that, that is what they actually did.

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Speaker 1: And then they gutted it and put in a custom

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Speaker 1: battery and engine to show it off to the Daimler

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Speaker 1: heads when they came and visited their facility. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you tell me fun story TiO Juana, Mexico, that's uh,

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Speaker 1: that's a pretty crazy tale. Yeah, in November and December

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Speaker 1: of two thousand seven, this is when controversy really hit

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Speaker 1: Tesla Motors. Okay, so ebro Hard had been the CEO

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Speaker 1: since around two thousand four, you know, once they had

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Speaker 1: really started formally kind of organizing this company, and he

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Speaker 1: gets ousted, booted from his own company. Remember he was

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Speaker 1: one of the co founders of this company. I think

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Speaker 1: he got demoted and then kind of left. Sharply, I'm

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Speaker 1: not I'm not positive it was a booting as much

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Speaker 1: as a self booting. I think it was both. There

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Speaker 1: was a lot of animosity involved there that Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: demoting was clearly like it sounded like he was being

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Speaker 1: demoted it into an advisory capacity, which kind of sounds

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Speaker 1: like he's not being really part of the company anyway.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it was definitely not a comfortable position, comfortable situation.

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Speaker 1: And Forbes actually wrote an article right around that time.

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Speaker 1: There was an article in Forbes about about this whole thing.

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Speaker 1: Saying that it wasn't a huge surprise um partly because

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Speaker 1: Eberhard had what they called limited management experience and he

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Speaker 1: was the first time CEO and wasn't ready to be

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Speaker 1: a leader for that And in fact, Musk said very

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Speaker 1: similar things, but um Aberhard didn't really take it very well.

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Speaker 1: He actually sued the company and Elon Musk and claimed

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Speaker 1: that Musk had defamed him and said that the defamation

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Speaker 1: result it was was, what it was centered on, was

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Speaker 1: that Eberhard was the reason that Tesla Motors had had

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Speaker 1: so many delays. And he also added there was a

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Speaker 1: breach in contract because under the contract he was supposed

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Speaker 1: to receive the second Tesla roadster ever made, and he

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Speaker 1: claimed that the car he ended up getting was a

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Speaker 1: lemon and at thousand dollars worth of parts that need

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Speaker 1: to be replaced or something along those lines like. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: he said that, uh, that he was cheated out of it.

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Speaker 1: Now Musk on his part, he countered Musk, by the way,

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Speaker 1: not really shy about sharing his opinion, particularly on any

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Speaker 1: sort of blog he has access. He's pretty direct. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he will write in detail exactly like he will, and

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Speaker 1: he goes very logically and very smugly. Yeah, yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a little little smugness there. But he said that Eberhard

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Speaker 1: had initially estimated that the cost of manufacture for a

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Speaker 1: roadster would be around sixty five thousand dollars, which is

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Speaker 1: what they based their nine two dollars starting price on,

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Speaker 1: but then it ended up being more like a hundred

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Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars per car just to make it, which

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Speaker 1: is way above even that that in increased a hundred

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Speaker 1: nine thousand dollar tag that they had come out with

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Speaker 1: a little bit later. Yeah, so that means they're selling

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Speaker 1: cars at a loss. Now, this might work if your

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Speaker 1: company makes I don't know, video game consoles and video games,

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Speaker 1: you might be able to sell a video game console

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Speaker 1: at a loss and make it up in the game

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Speaker 1: sales later, especially if you're selling things in the millions

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Speaker 1: of units. Yeah, make it up for volume. But in

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Speaker 1: this case, if you're selling every unit at a loss,

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Speaker 1: you don't make it up in volume. You just see

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of money going out the door. So

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Speaker 1: it was definitely a contentious situation. So Eberhard gets the

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Speaker 1: boot and uh for briefly. They ended up having a

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Speaker 1: a CEO from outside the company come in, uh named

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Speaker 1: Zev Drury. I believe that's how you pronounced the name.

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Speaker 1: He is a former Israeli paratrooper and Um had a

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Speaker 1: no nonsense attitude according to many reports, right and uh

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Speaker 1: so Drury would be CEO briefly and then must would

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Speaker 1: end up taking the helm later on. So then eventually

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Speaker 1: Musk becomes the CEO. Sure he would also put another

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Speaker 1: twenty million dollars of his own funding into the company

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Speaker 1: around that time, UM And simultaneously UM there was pressure

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Speaker 1: from the market. Other car companies like like Chevy, We're

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Speaker 1: starting to announce electric vehicles or even coming out with

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Speaker 1: prototypes at their own right, right, so, you know, hybrids

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Speaker 1: were already a thing at this point, but pure electric

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Speaker 1: vehicles were very much in that sort of prototype concept

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Speaker 1: car stage. But now there was a more serious push

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Speaker 1: behind it. I mean, Tesla had kind of proven just

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Speaker 1: by people putting down a hundred thousand dollars as a

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Speaker 1: deposit for a car that was still a year or

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Speaker 1: two out of of production that you know, if that

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Speaker 1: shows a demand, then other companies are going to jump

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Speaker 1: on that as well. And it wasn't until March two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight two years after Tesla had planned on

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Speaker 1: having the Roadster out there in the public, that Tesla

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Speaker 1: Motors actually began to produce the roadster. So the asking price,

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Speaker 1: like we said, was a hundred nine thousand dollars at

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Speaker 1: that point. And they announced at the same time that

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Speaker 1: the Roadster was becoming available, that the model S Sedan

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Speaker 1: would be available by twent ten and that same two

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Speaker 1: year time frame. Huh yeah, because they learned so much

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Speaker 1: from the first one. And in fact, we're gonna break

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Speaker 1: down what the roadster was all about in just a moment,

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Speaker 1: but before we do that, let's take a quick break

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Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Alright, So, the Tesla Roadster an

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Speaker 1: electric sports car, something that a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: really skeptical about. They didn't really think an electric vehicle

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Speaker 1: could have the performance of a sports car, right, one

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Speaker 1: of those other concerns about electric cars, right, Exactly what

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Speaker 1: was was getting the amount of power that someone who

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Speaker 1: likes a good zippy car would really need, right, the

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Speaker 1: idea being that you know, you know, those things have

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Speaker 1: terrible acceleration and even even once you accelerate top speeds,

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Speaker 1: what like, I don't want an electric car. This was

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Speaker 1: all about opening up people's eyes to what an electric

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Speaker 1: car could do. And it's a sports car with an

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Speaker 1: a c induction motor and a single speed gearbox, so

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Speaker 1: we're not talking about like a five speed transmission. I'll

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Speaker 1: go into more about what that gearbox does in the second.

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Speaker 1: It also has a battery pack that Tesla calls the

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Speaker 1: Energy storage system or e s S, and a power

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Speaker 1: electronics module or PEM. So you don't really have an engine.

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Speaker 1: There's the engine is like an internal combustion engine. That's

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Speaker 1: where you have all the gas and everything powering pistons moving. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is just an electric motor. Yep. You're talking about

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Speaker 1: electro magnetism really driving your vehicle here. And that single

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Speaker 1: speed fixed gears job is to reduce the revolutions per

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Speaker 1: minute or RPMs of the motor down to the right

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Speaker 1: RPMs for the axle. In other words, it's really converting

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Speaker 1: the turns of one element of the vehicle into turns

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Speaker 1: of another part of the vehicle so that the wheels

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Speaker 1: turn the proper speed. Otherwise, you know, you'd either be

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Speaker 1: crawling along or zipping through into the stratosphere. You know,

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Speaker 1: you don't want that. You want to have a nice

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Speaker 1: control of your vehicle. So yeah, there's no five speed

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Speaker 1: transmission and on the other on the flip side, there's

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Speaker 1: no clutch, so that's nice. Uh, you know, there's there's

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Speaker 1: only manual in a way because I'll get into it,

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Speaker 1: but there's only there's only like two speeds on this

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Speaker 1: thing and really just changes what the top speed and

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Speaker 1: acceleration are. What are those top speeds and accelerations? Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked. It's a three hundred horsepower equivalent,

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Speaker 1: so you can't wouldn't really say engine because it's a motor.

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Speaker 1: But it can go from zero to sixty miles per

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Speaker 1: hour or about ninety seven kilometers per hour or our

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Speaker 1: friends in other places besides the US in three point

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Speaker 1: seven seconds, so fewer than four seconds. It can go

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Speaker 1: zero to sixties. That's that's pretty impressive. And it's top

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Speaker 1: speed is around one five miles per hour or about

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Speaker 1: two hundred one kilometers per hour. The body of this

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Speaker 1: thing was a modified Lotus actually a Lotus frame that

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Speaker 1: was manufact actured in England and sent to Tesla for

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Speaker 1: final assembly, right because once again they didn't have a

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Speaker 1: manufacturing plant to do all this, Like you know, any

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Speaker 1: other major automotive company. They have these enormous factories where

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Speaker 1: you know, that's where you see like all the robot

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Speaker 1: arms coming in and zap and stuff and everything, and

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Speaker 1: these are handmade. Yeah, this is this is pretty impressive

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Speaker 1: stuff like you got this and Bentley where you get

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Speaker 1: that that handmade attention. So, this motor is able to

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Speaker 1: operate continuously at around a hundred twenty degrees celsius. And

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Speaker 1: the first roadsters were air cooled. In other words, they

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Speaker 1: had vents on the front of the vehicle and as

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Speaker 1: the vehicle would move, air would be forced over the

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Speaker 1: various elements inside the car and that kept it cool

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Speaker 1: enough because, as we all know, electronics plus heat equals

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Speaker 1: SAD electronics. So this was supposed to be efficient enough

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Speaker 1: where you wouldn't need a different kind of cooling system.

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Speaker 1: It also means there's no oil. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: change the oil in a roadster because it just uses

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Speaker 1: air to cool all the elements. So you're moving parts. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a big big deal. Also, the motor had a

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Speaker 1: had rather, the battery pack had a heating element as well,

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Speaker 1: because if you were in really really cold parts to

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Speaker 1: fix that potential, what if it's too cold to start

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Speaker 1: my battery exactly, so you spark the battery. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: really it's to get the chemical reactions in the battery

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Speaker 1: to move, to move at the right rate to generate

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Speaker 1: electricity a cold battery, the cold inhibits that chemical reaction, right,

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Speaker 1: So the heater was really meant to make sure that

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Speaker 1: chemical reaction keeps happening. Um. And the motor uses a

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Speaker 1: prietary design to convert electricity into torque without losing too

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Speaker 1: much energy in the form of heat. Uh. They talk

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Speaker 1: about using oxygen free copper to carry high current. Now,

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Speaker 1: Tesla claims that the efficiency of the motor to turn

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Speaker 1: electricity into torque is around eighty five to nine, which

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Speaker 1: is insane. That is completely ridiculous. But keep in mind

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Speaker 1: that that is the the the motor energy and not

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Speaker 1: the energy output of the entire car as a whole. Exactly. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: if you were to take the whole car and say,

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Speaker 1: all right, how much of the of the potential energy

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Speaker 1: stored in the batteries is converted into actual energy moving

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Speaker 1: the car, I'm guessing the efficiency is not at eight

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Speaker 1: five or ninety five, because that would be bonkers. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's I would say that that's pretty physically impossible, considering

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Speaker 1: that you have just attached a ton or so of

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Speaker 1: metal and etcetera to Yeah, that engine, I mean half

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Speaker 1: of the ton just goes to that e S S

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Speaker 1: that energy system that we were talking about, the storage system,

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Speaker 1: the battery essentially. Yeah, yeah, that way to about a

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Speaker 1: thousand pounds. Have thousand pounds not not a light battery.

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Speaker 1: You will not be changing that on your own. According

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Speaker 1: to Tesla, it packs four to five times the amount

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Speaker 1: of energy density stores of other batteries, meaning that it

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Speaker 1: can hold more energy than other batteries of that particular size.

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Speaker 1: It's also recyclable, which is good because it will eventually

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Speaker 1: run out. Sure um. And it's a lithium ion design, yes,

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Speaker 1: which actually was a big deal. The reason why Tesla

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Speaker 1: went with lithium ion is because that technology is really

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Speaker 1: well established. Like you probably have multiple electronics that run

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Speaker 1: on lithium ion batteries. I've got a couple right here

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Speaker 1: on me so y m s. People have some in

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Speaker 1: their pockets right now. So that meant that because they

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Speaker 1: were using this well established technology that has had uh

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Speaker 1: manufacturing processes laid out for years, it helped bring the

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Speaker 1: cost down of that element, which meant that it brings

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Speaker 1: the cost down of the overall vehicle to prevent overheating.

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Speaker 1: Once you've worked the battery up to a workable temperature,

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Speaker 1: um it had a liquid or has a liquid cooling circuit.

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Speaker 1: Um that's that's water and anti freeze that circulate in

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Speaker 1: sealed tubes through the array of cells. Right, So while

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Speaker 1: the power train didn't have a liquid cooling or oil cooling,

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Speaker 1: the these the actual batteries did, and that was again

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Speaker 1: to keep them at that optimal temperature. Just like you

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Speaker 1: were saying, Lauren, I mean you want you don't want

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Speaker 1: to be too cold, but you don't want to get

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Speaker 1: too hot either. So each cell in the Tesla roadster

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Speaker 1: battery is about the size of a double A battery,

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Speaker 1: So if you've ever seen one of those, that's about

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Speaker 1: the size of an individual cell. But there are a

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Speaker 1: few of those. Yeah, six thousand, eight hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: one of those stacked up equals one E S S. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So if you handed me six thousand, eight hundred thirty

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Speaker 1: one double A batteries, I think I would tell you

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Speaker 1: where that thousand pounds came from. Uh So, Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a it's certainly impressive, but the neat thing is this

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Speaker 1: is the energy system. This is providing all the energy

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Speaker 1: for the card to move forward, and like Tesla says,

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Speaker 1: there are no moving parts here, so it really cuts

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Speaker 1: down on the required maintenance you need to do. Now,

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Speaker 1: the roadsters travel range is about two hundred forty five

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Speaker 1: miles according to Tesla, which is about three hundred ninety

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Speaker 1: four kilometers. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that every single

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Speaker 1: roadster on a full charge is going to go and

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Speaker 1: then just immediately stop like in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

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Speaker 1: You know, uh, some of them could go actually much further.

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Speaker 1: But that's that's kind of what they say because that way,

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Speaker 1: you know, you you you hedge your bets a little

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Speaker 1: bit so people don't push the car further than it's

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Speaker 1: meant to go. Sure, sure, it's much more critical than

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Speaker 1: saying something about miles per gallon because it's a little

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Speaker 1: bit right when when you can't just stop at any

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Speaker 1: corner and getting rare battery gasoline. Right. In fact, that

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Speaker 1: was a big concern again, like we were saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: the worry that, hey, if I get an electric car,

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Speaker 1: what happens when the battery runs out. What happens when

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Speaker 1: I'm on a trip and the battery runs out? How

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Speaker 1: do I end up refueling? And Tesla's response was actually saying, well,

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Speaker 1: take a look at how far you drive on a

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Speaker 1: typical day. Most people aren't driving so far as to

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Speaker 1: completely drain their tank of gas, I mean, on on

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Speaker 1: their daily lives. You know, there are exceptions. We know

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Speaker 1: there are people out there who have to do a

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Speaker 1: lot more driving than others. But for your average person,

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Speaker 1: you might drive to a job, you might do some errands,

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Speaker 1: you might come home, and that might be enough to

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Speaker 1: you know, drain a quarter of a tank or something.

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Speaker 1: But you don't have to refuel every single day, whereas

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Speaker 1: with the Tesla Roadster you can just plug it in

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Speaker 1: every night. So um, that was kind of the argument

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Speaker 1: that Tesla made. They said that the battery life was

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Speaker 1: estimated at about seven years or one thousand miles, and

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Speaker 1: at that point you would need to replace it. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how expensive that is. I'm sure it's quite

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Speaker 1: expensive to replace your battery, but it's you know, it's

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Speaker 1: every seven years. The question is whether or not, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you're the kind of person who's buying a stay

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Speaker 1: of the art sports car. If you're still driving that

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Speaker 1: same sports car seven years later, you are not the

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Speaker 1: kind of person I thought you were, and frankly, I

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Speaker 1: don't know you anymore, or probably you can afford at

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Speaker 1: that juncture to replace the battery. Yeah, that's also that's

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Speaker 1: also a possibility. That's good point, good point, much much

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Speaker 1: less snarky than my point. That there are also sensors

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Speaker 1: in the battery system that will disconnect it automatically if

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Speaker 1: the car is in a crash or if any kind

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Speaker 1: of like smoke, humidity, or water are detected inside the

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Speaker 1: battery pack, which is really pretty important because lithium ion

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Speaker 1: batteries can totally explode when they get overheated. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is one of those reasons why if you've ever flown

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Speaker 1: on a plane and they tell you that they're going

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Speaker 1: to gate check luggage, that if there's anything that has

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Speaker 1: a lithium ion battery and it take it out, because

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Speaker 1: it doesn't happen often, but it can happen, So it's

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Speaker 1: one of those things where you'd rather take the precaution

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Speaker 1: to remove it. So again, it's sort of a preemptive

430
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 1: kind of measure. And a very important one as far

431
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 1: as safety is concerned. Now, next, you have the power

432
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,640
Speaker 1: Electronics Module, the p e M, which is the sort

433
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:47,639
Speaker 1: of computer brain of the Tesla, and it controls the

434
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: two watts of electrical power during peak acceleration. So when

435
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:54,439
Speaker 1: you really want to get that, uh, that effect. I

436
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: remember that they talk to people about, you know, trying

437
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,640
Speaker 1: to convince folks, uh to to really buy into this

438
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,120
Speaker 1: electric sports car idea. One of the things Tesla used

439
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 1: to do for people who are a little skeptical is

440
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,199
Speaker 1: they would take them for a test drive and they

441
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 1: would be sitting there at a standstill, and the driver

442
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: would tell the passenger, who is the person they're trying

443
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:17,480
Speaker 1: to impress, Uh, you know what, why don't we turn

444
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,679
Speaker 1: on the radio and see what's on and uh, you know,

445
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: listen to some music. And they would start to lean

446
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 1: forward and that's when the driver would slam on the

447
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: acceleration and the acceleration is so great that the person

448
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 1: could not reach the radio controls because of the force

449
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: they were feeling from the acceleration. It was a way

450
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: that they convinced people like, Okay, this car might be

451
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:44,879
Speaker 1: for me, so uh, anyway that what's of power is

452
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 1: equivalent to the amount of power you need to light

453
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: two thousand incandescent bulbs or if you want to go

454
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: you know, you know away from incandescent. You say, what

455
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: about those compact loorescence everyone's using these days? It could

456
00:24:56,119 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: like ten thousand of those yep. It also over these

457
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 1: were generative breaking, So that's when you're using the brakes

458
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 1: to help recapture some energy and convert it back into

459
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:09,439
Speaker 1: electricity and recharge the batteries. Now obviously this is not

460
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: meant to recharge the battery to full, but it helps

461
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: keep that battery nice and freshly. It gives you that

462
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:20,120
Speaker 1: two mile range. Yeah, and it also controls the voltages

463
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: and currents that you you have to keep in mind

464
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: whenever the maximum or minimum limits are coming into play.

465
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 1: That really means like, if you want more speed, you're

466
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: essentially saying more juice. It's kind of that. It's okay,

467
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:39,680
Speaker 1: So instead of opening the throttle, if you press the yeah,

468
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: same same sort of things. In this case, you're like

469
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: more electricity please. Um. Also, when you accelerate, the p

470
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,959
Speaker 1: M P E M converts your manual command, which is

471
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 1: pressing down on the accelerator. What we would normally call

472
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,199
Speaker 1: the gas pedal into a series of precisely timed voltages,

473
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: which gives the propulsion motor the commands to generate the

474
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 1: opper speed. Now now I get to charging it. That

475
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:07,719
Speaker 1: means that you get to use the handy dandy Electric

476
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: Vehicle Service equipment or e v S. E allah. How

477
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: Tesla makes all these things, these crazy acronyms that are

478
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 1: making their their technology sound even more weird and futuristic,

479
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: it's because science. So you can't install one of these

480
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: on your own unless you happen to be a qualified

481
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: electrical technician because it's talking about some heavy duty power here.

482
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: It does hook into your home system home electric system.

483
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 1: So the system, like Lauren was saying earlier, it has

484
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: a lot of automatic cutoffs, not just if you know water, yeah,

485
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: exactly in case of accident or also just at home.

486
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: So there's a smoke detector that's on the charger itself

487
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: that will turn off any electricity going to the car

488
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: if it detects smoke. So that's whether it's in you know,

489
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 1: coming from the car itself or anything else in the environment.

490
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: Um it also will turn off any electricity right into

491
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 1: the car if there's any tension that's detected, like unusual

492
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,919
Speaker 1: tension on the cable. So, for example, if the cable

493
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: is on the floor of your garage and someone else

494
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: drives into a two car garage and drives over that cable,

495
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: bill shut off the electricity to the roadster. And so

496
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 1: it also will automatically shut off the flow of electricity

497
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 1: when you try to detach it from the roadster, which

498
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 1: is good. Good, so you don't have any yeah, cable

499
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: shooting shooting deadly electric beams everywhere. That's how electricity comes out, right,

500
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: you know. We also mentioned that you don't have to

501
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 1: do that regular maintenance that you would on an internal

502
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:40,160
Speaker 1: combustion engine vehicle, at least not the kind that we're

503
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: used to, like no oil changes, you don't have to

504
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: do filter changes, you don't have to do emission tests,

505
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 1: you don't have to replace spark plugs, right right. They

506
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: do recommend that you still bring it in once every

507
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 1: year or about what's the yearly, likeeah, yeah, it's it's

508
00:27:57,920 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: The idea is that just to make sure everything's in

509
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: working order. And there are of course other things that

510
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: you would have to continue to maintain, like the tires.

511
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: Those those don't magically become hyper resilient or something. Science. Yeah,

512
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 1: if only now. Yeah, So, going on in June two

513
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 1: thousand eight, Tesla Motors decided to build its manufacturing plant,

514
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 1: but not in New Mexico, which is where they had

515
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 1: talked about doing it. Yeah. Yeah, California offered up some

516
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:28,719
Speaker 1: pretty awesome tax breaks. Yeah, so they decided that, um,

517
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 1: they're gonna open up a store there. And the store

518
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 1: opens in Los Angeles. In fact, they take a very

519
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: interesting approach to selling cars. Tesla does instead of using

520
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: um dealerships like third party dealerships, they sell direct to customers.

521
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: And that's going to become an interesting point in our

522
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: our second half, our second part rather so October two

523
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: thou eight, this is when Elon Musk officially becomes the

524
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: CEO of Tesla Motors. Uh and uh, you know, it's

525
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: also when things don't look so hot for the electric

526
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: car industry or really any distribe for any industry. Yeah,

527
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: that the global financial crisis was in full gear. Oh

528
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: that was like a pun I didn't even intend to. Oh,

529
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of me. Okay, alright, but no, but

530
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of me talking about this really terrible

531
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: global event where a lot of people lost a whole

532
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: lot of money in their homes. Um it was. It

533
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: was a big issue, especially for the auto industry at

534
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: the time, and um Uh Musk had to put off

535
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: the models delivery until the company could receive some federal

536
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: loan money. And in fact, Forbes would say that Musk's

537
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: leadership was absolutely critical, saying that you know who would

538
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: the federal government agree to loan money too if they

539
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: didn't have the crazy It wasn't Tony Stark. Yeah, essentially

540
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: you needed to have a Tony Stark, someone who could

541
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: charm them into I mean, I don't mean to be disingenuous,

542
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: but they were saying that Musk kind of gives off

543
00:29:54,360 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: this musk of leadership that people buy into, and he

544
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: was able to to convince the various political powers that

545
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: this is was an important investment and that it was

546
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: in fact something that would be good for the future.

547
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: He also did appeal to his brother Kimball, who he

548
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: had previously started some businesses up with before um for

549
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: for a little bit of like much needed emergency funds.

550
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: Towards the end of two thousand eight, there um and

551
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: Hey did all of this during his messy public divorce

552
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: from Justine musk Um and also while he was working

553
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: through a whole lot of weird rocket issues over its SpaceX.

554
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: Musk said at the time, at that point, every day

555
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: was like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.

556
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 1: So cheerful guy. In December two thousand eight, he uh,

557
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: he probably wasn't so cheerful either. A Tesla at that

558
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: point generated thirteen point eight million dollars, which sounds really interesting,

559
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: like how did they do that when you know the

560
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: roadster was the only vehicle that they had out there

561
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:58,479
Speaker 1: and they weren't able to produce it in a huge amounts.

562
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: How did they make eight million dollars? They did it

563
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: by selling low emission vehicle credits to other automakers. See,

564
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: in California, automakers have to comply with low emission standards.

565
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: The same for several other states too, But California has

566
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: some particularly strict anti pollution laws, all right, Except the

567
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: thing is is that you don't actually have to take

568
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 1: part in these anti pollution measures. You can fund other

569
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: businesses that are taking part in anti pollution measures, and

570
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: in return you get these credits, these low emission credits,

571
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: which essentially say hey, you have a license to uh

572
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: to ignore x amount of these restrictions if you have

573
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: the equivalent number of credits. And so it's really to

574
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: offset vehicles that don't meet those standards, and Tesla as

575
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: an electric vehicle, you know, with zero emissions, they had

576
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: these credits that they could sell, and so they did,

577
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: and so that was that was kind of the first

578
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: bit of uptick for the company financially speaking that it

579
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: had seen in a while. You know, it's it's they

580
00:31:57,200 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: started getting a little bit out of that of this

581
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: of death at this point. Um in January two thousand nine,

582
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: they would close a deal with daime Ler for Um

583
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: for a thousand smart battery packs, and later in the

584
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: year Dame Laer would buy a ten percent stake in Tesla,

585
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 1: and in March two thousand nine, Tesla Motors unveiled a

586
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: prototype and begins to take reservations for the model S.

587
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: So within the first week, more than five hundred people

588
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: sign up, and they said that the actual production wouldn't

589
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 1: begin until late two thousand eleven. So so again it

590
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: really goes to show that there was a lot of

591
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: interest in this company for people to go so far

592
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: as to invest money in a product that they had

593
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: not seen or sat in or driven at all. It

594
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 1: did not exist yet and that wouldn't exist for another

595
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: two years. But they were still willing to do it.

596
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: I mean, it really says a lot. Uh. You know

597
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: that there's so much buzz about the company at the time,

598
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: and and even more so when in June of two

599
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: thousand nine, Tesla actually one a four hundred sixty five

600
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: million dollar loan from the U. S Department of Energies

601
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: at fanst Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program um and that

602
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: was to help launch the Model S. But the caveat

603
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: here was that they couldn't get that money until they

604
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: owned a mass production facility. Okay, you know that the

605
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: whole gig of this loan was that the government really

606
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: wanted alternate energy vehicles out on the road. But they

607
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: wanted not like ten of them, not a hundred of them,

608
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 1: not eight hundred of them for special buyers. They wanted

609
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: mass production. They had been this entire time outsourcing the roadster,

610
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: manufacturing and assembling those cars one by one behind their

611
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: Menlo Park, California showroom. Pay no attention to the engineers

612
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: behind the guntain so yeah, I mean right now, if

613
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: we were to stop the podcast right now and say that,

614
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: let's say that this is June two thousand nine, things

615
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: would look a little uncertain for for Tesla Motor Company.

616
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure they're going to be able to

617
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: get that loan. They're not. They don't have that mass

618
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 1: production facility. They have a roadster that a lot of

619
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: people like, but it's really expensive, and they have another

620
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: vehicle that they've announced but no one's actually seen it yet.

621
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: So we're gonna stop here, but our next episode we'll

622
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: pick back up and talk about what Tesla has been

623
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: up to since June two tho nine and the events

624
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: that led to the unveiling of the Model S, as

625
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 1: well as the announcement of other vehicles that they have

626
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:21,919
Speaker 1: planned further down the line. So we're gonna break here,

627
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: but guys, if you have any suggestions for future episodes

628
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, let us know. Send us an email.

629
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 1: Our address is tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or

630
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle

631
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 1: is text Stuff hs W. And hey, you should go

632
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: to Tumbler too, because Lauren's been doing some awesome work

633
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,959
Speaker 1: over there. So yeah. She in fact, she's not shy

634
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: about talking about it. Uh, but no, it really is

635
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: great tech stuff HSW there as well. Also, Hey, our

636
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: six D tech Stuff episode is coming up, and we

637
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 1: are in honor of that doing a kind of uh

638
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: teken stuff behind the scenes of of tech Stuff episode

639
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: that we are taking lots of listener questions. So if

640
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 1: you guys are curious about any particular part of our

641
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: production process or the technology that we use to make

642
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:14,240
Speaker 1: this happen, or us or any of our wacky co hosts,

643
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 1: or just what it's like to work here at how

644
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com, um, go ahead and and get

645
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Speaker 1: in touch with us via any of those methods that

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Speaker 1: Jonathan just mentioned right, will definitely be uh, including questions.

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Speaker 1: We will be saying your name in the podcast, assuming

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Speaker 1: that your question is deemed to be appropriate and uh

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Speaker 1: and and answerable. Some unanswerable questions we may also take.

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Speaker 1: It will all be on a case by case basis,

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Speaker 1: but we like answering the unanswerable here. Yeah, yeah, we

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Speaker 1: give it a game. Try so let us know and

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Speaker 1: we will talk to you again really soon for more

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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it have

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Speaker 1: staff works dot com