Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Foam and Lauren Today,
Speaker 1: I thought we would talk about something a few of
Speaker 1: our listeners have fast us about in the past. Tesla Motors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did an episode on Elon Musk back on March thirteen.
Speaker 1: It was called tech Stuff looks at Elon Musk Uh
Speaker 1: sensibly enough, and I think in that episode we were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll totally do an episode on Tesla Motors soon, and
Speaker 1: then we never did that thing. One year later to
Speaker 1: the day, it is March thirteen, two thousand and fourteen.
Speaker 1: As we sit here in the studio, we are recording
Speaker 1: a pair of episodes, as it turns out, on Tesla Motors,
Speaker 1: because even though it's a young company, they've the company
Speaker 1: has done a lot of stuff and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things to cover um largely in part to Mr Musk,
Speaker 1: who has had quite the impact on the technological world
Speaker 1: and multiple venues, not just in electric cars. Right. He
Speaker 1: was not one of the original founders though, No, no,
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand three, there were a pair of
Speaker 1: silicon Valley investors named Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpinning who
Speaker 1: formed the company Tesla Motors, and their goal was to
Speaker 1: make a commercially successful electric car. In fact, they say
Speaker 1: they will not stop until every car on the road
Speaker 1: is electric. Now, neither of them had really any car experience,
Speaker 1: I mean they drove them, but not making them. But
Speaker 1: they felt that they had the business plan that would
Speaker 1: make the electric car a viable option in the United
Speaker 1: States in particular. And you got to remember, if you
Speaker 1: know your car history, electric cars actually pre date internal
Speaker 1: combustion engine cars, so this is sort of a throwback
Speaker 1: in a way. But trying to make the electric car
Speaker 1: actually work because everyone was always worried that the electric
Speaker 1: car would have a very narrow range of like you
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to go very far sure, and also
Speaker 1: various um potential safety issues involving the materials the batteries
Speaker 1: were made out of worry that if it got too cold,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to start your car, sure, and
Speaker 1: and also just the the general cheapness and propensity of
Speaker 1: of gasoline. Yeah, the fact that they had been around
Speaker 1: and and been on top for a century meant that,
Speaker 1: you know, making making a road two use a pun
Speaker 1: into this industry. Yeah, there's the there's the high roll.
Speaker 1: Uh that would be would be you know, it's a
Speaker 1: significant challenge. So two thousand three they start up, and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be until April two thousand four that Mr
Speaker 1: Elon Musk gets involved, right, he invested heavily in the company,
Speaker 1: like to the tune of six point three million dollars
Speaker 1: and joined its board of directors. Yep and ebro Hard
Speaker 1: became the CEO of Tesla Motors that will become very
Speaker 1: important in a little bit. And together they planned to
Speaker 1: create for their first attempt, a high end sports car
Speaker 1: called the Tesla Roadster, which they estimated the original actual price,
Speaker 1: like what what customers would pay for it would be
Speaker 1: ninety two thousand dollars per car, and they wanted to
Speaker 1: have them on the road before the end of two
Speaker 1: thousand six. Now this is April two thousand four when
Speaker 1: this is being discussed, and that is a pretty ridiculously
Speaker 1: lofty goal for anybody, let alone a consumer car company.
Speaker 1: Y I yeah, car company that has no manufacturing factories, no,
Speaker 1: like they have no anything, there's no infrastructure for them yet.
Speaker 1: So it's it's very ambitious sure, and even more ambitious
Speaker 1: was that that wasn't their sole goal that they were planning,
Speaker 1: even at this very early stage, to to look ahead
Speaker 1: to to produce a luxury electric sedan UM for for
Speaker 1: competition with like Mercedes Benz and BMW stuff like that
Speaker 1: UM and then with with proven sales and profits from
Speaker 1: these two high end cars, to create a low cost
Speaker 1: electric line for everybody. Right, So, these first few ideas
Speaker 1: that they have, they admitted straight out like these are
Speaker 1: high end items. This isn't the kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: you're gonna look at for the family car, unless you know,
Speaker 1: you happen to be of the Gates family or something. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's it's definitely one of those where people of high
Speaker 1: incomes are able to afford. In fact, there were many
Speaker 1: people who were criticizing Tesla for having a business plan
Speaker 1: that was catering only to rich people who wanted a
Speaker 1: third car. That was pretty much the way a lot
Speaker 1: of these early reports were going. Anyway, time passes and
Speaker 1: not a lot to talk about. Between two thousand four
Speaker 1: and two thousand six, that was really when they were
Speaker 1: getting their business plan in order, starting to figure out
Speaker 1: what their production chain was going to be. But in
Speaker 1: August two thousand six, that's when they really started to
Speaker 1: promote the fact that you could put down a deposit
Speaker 1: on one of the first one hundred Tesla roadster sports cars.
Speaker 1: And it was a paltry deposit, just a tiny little amount, right,
Speaker 1: a little bit more than they had originally plan. It
Speaker 1: was a hundred thousand dollars deposit deposit, meaning that there
Speaker 1: was actually going to be more to pay afterward. Uh.
Speaker 1: And a couple of notable people put down deposits. A
Speaker 1: lot of them were environmentalists or Silicon Valley millionaires. Also
Speaker 1: a famous actor, Mr George Clooney, he put down a
Speaker 1: deposit for one. But at that point there's still no
Speaker 1: roadster to actually drive yet, right, They hadn't really made
Speaker 1: all that much headway on on that quite yet. As
Speaker 1: February two seven, they announced plans to build a thirty
Speaker 1: five million dollar plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to build
Speaker 1: what would be come the model S sedan, that electrics,
Speaker 1: that electric car you were talking about earlier than the
Speaker 1: luxury sedan, right, Yeah, So that was gonna be the
Speaker 1: place where that would be built. And so they start
Speaker 1: to figure out that this is gonna be the method
Speaker 1: that they follow in order to uh to follow up
Speaker 1: the roadster plan once that was on uh into the streets.
Speaker 1: Still not there yet though, so uh they missed their
Speaker 1: two thousand six goal obviously of getting roadsters out there,
Speaker 1: but they're still working on it. And at September two
Speaker 1: thousand seven they hit another delay. And UH this was
Speaker 1: because they were having a lot of internal problems. There
Speaker 1: were budgets they were getting slipped. I mean already you
Speaker 1: saw that they had planned on having being sports car,
Speaker 1: which presumably means that they thought they were going to
Speaker 1: sell it for more than what it costs to put
Speaker 1: it together. This is the way generally business is done.
Speaker 1: Sure that that price tag was eventually bumped up to
Speaker 1: a hundred nine thousand UM, but but they were finding
Speaker 1: out that some of their manufacturing processes were more expensive
Speaker 1: than they had anticipated. Also that some of their manufacturing
Speaker 1: plants didn't have the physical capacity to create the stuff
Speaker 1: that they wanted to create, which is problematic. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you think this sounds kind of similar to when
Speaker 1: we were talking about SpaceX and and the challenges musk
Speaker 1: encountered in that, you'd be right. I mean, a lot
Speaker 1: of these are very similar problems, obviously two different scales,
Speaker 1: talking about driving on the roads versus blasting off into space.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's one of those things where when
Speaker 1: you come from an Internet background the way Musk did, uh,
Speaker 1: and you then go into a manufacturing world, the world
Speaker 1: is very different and there's some realities that you've got
Speaker 1: to come face to face with. Absolutely. Meanwhile, speaking of manufacturing,
Speaker 1: around the same time, Musk began talking with German manufacturer
Speaker 1: UM Daimler about selling Tesla battery packs for for Dameler's
Speaker 1: lightweight and expensive smart cars, which were not yet available
Speaker 1: in the US at that time. Um there's there's actually
Speaker 1: a really fun story about this, involving the Tesla ct
Speaker 1: O j V strable, like getting finance to give him
Speaker 1: a bag with twenty tho dollars in cash. So that's
Speaker 1: sounding like a fun story already. So that an engineer's
Speaker 1: friend who spoke Spanish could go to Mexico to Tijuana
Speaker 1: to to the nearest UM Daimler smart card dealer and
Speaker 1: drive back in a Smart Um and then they and
Speaker 1: so they did that, that is what they actually did.
Speaker 1: And then they gutted it and put in a custom
Speaker 1: battery and engine to show it off to the Daimler
Speaker 1: heads when they came and visited their facility. So yeah,
Speaker 1: if you tell me fun story TiO Juana, Mexico, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty crazy tale. Yeah, in November and December
Speaker 1: of two thousand seven, this is when controversy really hit
Speaker 1: Tesla Motors. Okay, so ebro Hard had been the CEO
Speaker 1: since around two thousand four, you know, once they had
Speaker 1: really started formally kind of organizing this company, and he
Speaker 1: gets ousted, booted from his own company. Remember he was
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of this company. I think
Speaker 1: he got demoted and then kind of left. Sharply, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not positive it was a booting as much
Speaker 1: as a self booting. I think it was both. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of animosity involved there that Yeah, the
Speaker 1: demoting was clearly like it sounded like he was being
Speaker 1: demoted it into an advisory capacity, which kind of sounds
Speaker 1: like he's not being really part of the company anyway.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was definitely not a comfortable position, comfortable situation.
Speaker 1: And Forbes actually wrote an article right around that time.
Speaker 1: There was an article in Forbes about about this whole thing.
Speaker 1: Saying that it wasn't a huge surprise um partly because
Speaker 1: Eberhard had what they called limited management experience and he
Speaker 1: was the first time CEO and wasn't ready to be
Speaker 1: a leader for that And in fact, Musk said very
Speaker 1: similar things, but um Aberhard didn't really take it very well.
Speaker 1: He actually sued the company and Elon Musk and claimed
Speaker 1: that Musk had defamed him and said that the defamation
Speaker 1: result it was was, what it was centered on, was
Speaker 1: that Eberhard was the reason that Tesla Motors had had
Speaker 1: so many delays. And he also added there was a
Speaker 1: breach in contract because under the contract he was supposed
Speaker 1: to receive the second Tesla roadster ever made, and he
Speaker 1: claimed that the car he ended up getting was a
Speaker 1: lemon and at thousand dollars worth of parts that need
Speaker 1: to be replaced or something along those lines like. Essentially,
Speaker 1: he said that, uh, that he was cheated out of it.
Speaker 1: Now Musk on his part, he countered Musk, by the way,
Speaker 1: not really shy about sharing his opinion, particularly on any
Speaker 1: sort of blog he has access. He's pretty direct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he will write in detail exactly like he will, and
Speaker 1: he goes very logically and very smugly. Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a little little smugness there. But he said that Eberhard
Speaker 1: had initially estimated that the cost of manufacture for a
Speaker 1: roadster would be around sixty five thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 1: what they based their nine two dollars starting price on,
Speaker 1: but then it ended up being more like a hundred
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars per car just to make it, which
Speaker 1: is way above even that that in increased a hundred
Speaker 1: nine thousand dollar tag that they had come out with
Speaker 1: a little bit later. Yeah, so that means they're selling
Speaker 1: cars at a loss. Now, this might work if your
Speaker 1: company makes I don't know, video game consoles and video games,
Speaker 1: you might be able to sell a video game console
Speaker 1: at a loss and make it up in the game
Speaker 1: sales later, especially if you're selling things in the millions
Speaker 1: of units. Yeah, make it up for volume. But in
Speaker 1: this case, if you're selling every unit at a loss,
Speaker 1: you don't make it up in volume. You just see
Speaker 1: lots and lots of money going out the door. So
Speaker 1: it was definitely a contentious situation. So Eberhard gets the
Speaker 1: boot and uh for briefly. They ended up having a
Speaker 1: a CEO from outside the company come in, uh named
Speaker 1: Zev Drury. I believe that's how you pronounced the name.
Speaker 1: He is a former Israeli paratrooper and Um had a
Speaker 1: no nonsense attitude according to many reports, right and uh
Speaker 1: so Drury would be CEO briefly and then must would
Speaker 1: end up taking the helm later on. So then eventually
Speaker 1: Musk becomes the CEO. Sure he would also put another
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars of his own funding into the company
Speaker 1: around that time, UM And simultaneously UM there was pressure
Speaker 1: from the market. Other car companies like like Chevy, We're
Speaker 1: starting to announce electric vehicles or even coming out with
Speaker 1: prototypes at their own right, right, so, you know, hybrids
Speaker 1: were already a thing at this point, but pure electric
Speaker 1: vehicles were very much in that sort of prototype concept
Speaker 1: car stage. But now there was a more serious push
Speaker 1: behind it. I mean, Tesla had kind of proven just
Speaker 1: by people putting down a hundred thousand dollars as a
Speaker 1: deposit for a car that was still a year or
Speaker 1: two out of of production that you know, if that
Speaker 1: shows a demand, then other companies are going to jump
Speaker 1: on that as well. And it wasn't until March two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight two years after Tesla had planned on
Speaker 1: having the Roadster out there in the public, that Tesla
Speaker 1: Motors actually began to produce the roadster. So the asking price,
Speaker 1: like we said, was a hundred nine thousand dollars at
Speaker 1: that point. And they announced at the same time that
Speaker 1: the Roadster was becoming available, that the model S Sedan
Speaker 1: would be available by twent ten and that same two
Speaker 1: year time frame. Huh yeah, because they learned so much
Speaker 1: from the first one. And in fact, we're gonna break
Speaker 1: down what the roadster was all about in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but before we do that, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Alright, So, the Tesla Roadster an
Speaker 1: electric sports car, something that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: really skeptical about. They didn't really think an electric vehicle
Speaker 1: could have the performance of a sports car, right, one
Speaker 1: of those other concerns about electric cars, right, Exactly what
Speaker 1: was was getting the amount of power that someone who
Speaker 1: likes a good zippy car would really need, right, the
Speaker 1: idea being that you know, you know, those things have
Speaker 1: terrible acceleration and even even once you accelerate top speeds,
Speaker 1: what like, I don't want an electric car. This was
Speaker 1: all about opening up people's eyes to what an electric
Speaker 1: car could do. And it's a sports car with an
Speaker 1: a c induction motor and a single speed gearbox, so
Speaker 1: we're not talking about like a five speed transmission. I'll
Speaker 1: go into more about what that gearbox does in the second.
Speaker 1: It also has a battery pack that Tesla calls the
Speaker 1: Energy storage system or e s S, and a power
Speaker 1: electronics module or PEM. So you don't really have an engine.
Speaker 1: There's the engine is like an internal combustion engine. That's
Speaker 1: where you have all the gas and everything powering pistons moving. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is just an electric motor. Yep. You're talking about
Speaker 1: electro magnetism really driving your vehicle here. And that single
Speaker 1: speed fixed gears job is to reduce the revolutions per
Speaker 1: minute or RPMs of the motor down to the right
Speaker 1: RPMs for the axle. In other words, it's really converting
Speaker 1: the turns of one element of the vehicle into turns
Speaker 1: of another part of the vehicle so that the wheels
Speaker 1: turn the proper speed. Otherwise, you know, you'd either be
Speaker 1: crawling along or zipping through into the stratosphere. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't want that. You want to have a nice
Speaker 1: control of your vehicle. So yeah, there's no five speed
Speaker 1: transmission and on the other on the flip side, there's
Speaker 1: no clutch, so that's nice. Uh, you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: only manual in a way because I'll get into it,
Speaker 1: but there's only there's only like two speeds on this
Speaker 1: thing and really just changes what the top speed and
Speaker 1: acceleration are. What are those top speeds and accelerations? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked. It's a three hundred horsepower equivalent,
Speaker 1: so you can't wouldn't really say engine because it's a motor.
Speaker 1: But it can go from zero to sixty miles per
Speaker 1: hour or about ninety seven kilometers per hour or our
Speaker 1: friends in other places besides the US in three point
Speaker 1: seven seconds, so fewer than four seconds. It can go
Speaker 1: zero to sixties. That's that's pretty impressive. And it's top
Speaker 1: speed is around one five miles per hour or about
Speaker 1: two hundred one kilometers per hour. The body of this
Speaker 1: thing was a modified Lotus actually a Lotus frame that
Speaker 1: was manufact actured in England and sent to Tesla for
Speaker 1: final assembly, right because once again they didn't have a
Speaker 1: manufacturing plant to do all this, Like you know, any
Speaker 1: other major automotive company. They have these enormous factories where
Speaker 1: you know, that's where you see like all the robot
Speaker 1: arms coming in and zap and stuff and everything, and
Speaker 1: these are handmade. Yeah, this is this is pretty impressive
Speaker 1: stuff like you got this and Bentley where you get
Speaker 1: that that handmade attention. So, this motor is able to
Speaker 1: operate continuously at around a hundred twenty degrees celsius. And
Speaker 1: the first roadsters were air cooled. In other words, they
Speaker 1: had vents on the front of the vehicle and as
Speaker 1: the vehicle would move, air would be forced over the
Speaker 1: various elements inside the car and that kept it cool
Speaker 1: enough because, as we all know, electronics plus heat equals
Speaker 1: SAD electronics. So this was supposed to be efficient enough
Speaker 1: where you wouldn't need a different kind of cooling system.
Speaker 1: It also means there's no oil. You don't have to
Speaker 1: change the oil in a roadster because it just uses
Speaker 1: air to cool all the elements. So you're moving parts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big big deal. Also, the motor had a
Speaker 1: had rather, the battery pack had a heating element as well,
Speaker 1: because if you were in really really cold parts to
Speaker 1: fix that potential, what if it's too cold to start
Speaker 1: my battery exactly, so you spark the battery. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: really it's to get the chemical reactions in the battery
Speaker 1: to move, to move at the right rate to generate
Speaker 1: electricity a cold battery, the cold inhibits that chemical reaction, right,
Speaker 1: So the heater was really meant to make sure that
Speaker 1: chemical reaction keeps happening. Um. And the motor uses a
Speaker 1: prietary design to convert electricity into torque without losing too
Speaker 1: much energy in the form of heat. Uh. They talk
Speaker 1: about using oxygen free copper to carry high current. Now,
Speaker 1: Tesla claims that the efficiency of the motor to turn
Speaker 1: electricity into torque is around eighty five to nine, which
Speaker 1: is insane. That is completely ridiculous. But keep in mind
Speaker 1: that that is the the the motor energy and not
Speaker 1: the energy output of the entire car as a whole. Exactly. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: if you were to take the whole car and say,
Speaker 1: all right, how much of the of the potential energy
Speaker 1: stored in the batteries is converted into actual energy moving
Speaker 1: the car, I'm guessing the efficiency is not at eight
Speaker 1: five or ninety five, because that would be bonkers. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I would say that that's pretty physically impossible, considering
Speaker 1: that you have just attached a ton or so of
Speaker 1: metal and etcetera to Yeah, that engine, I mean half
Speaker 1: of the ton just goes to that e S S
Speaker 1: that energy system that we were talking about, the storage system,
Speaker 1: the battery essentially. Yeah, yeah, that way to about a
Speaker 1: thousand pounds. Have thousand pounds not not a light battery.
Speaker 1: You will not be changing that on your own. According
Speaker 1: to Tesla, it packs four to five times the amount
Speaker 1: of energy density stores of other batteries, meaning that it
Speaker 1: can hold more energy than other batteries of that particular size.
Speaker 1: It's also recyclable, which is good because it will eventually
Speaker 1: run out. Sure um. And it's a lithium ion design, yes,
Speaker 1: which actually was a big deal. The reason why Tesla
Speaker 1: went with lithium ion is because that technology is really
Speaker 1: well established. Like you probably have multiple electronics that run
Speaker 1: on lithium ion batteries. I've got a couple right here
Speaker 1: on me so y m s. People have some in
Speaker 1: their pockets right now. So that meant that because they
Speaker 1: were using this well established technology that has had uh
Speaker 1: manufacturing processes laid out for years, it helped bring the
Speaker 1: cost down of that element, which meant that it brings
Speaker 1: the cost down of the overall vehicle to prevent overheating.
Speaker 1: Once you've worked the battery up to a workable temperature,
Speaker 1: um it had a liquid or has a liquid cooling circuit.
Speaker 1: Um that's that's water and anti freeze that circulate in
Speaker 1: sealed tubes through the array of cells. Right, So while
Speaker 1: the power train didn't have a liquid cooling or oil cooling,
Speaker 1: the these the actual batteries did, and that was again
Speaker 1: to keep them at that optimal temperature. Just like you
Speaker 1: were saying, Lauren, I mean you want you don't want
Speaker 1: to be too cold, but you don't want to get
Speaker 1: too hot either. So each cell in the Tesla roadster
Speaker 1: battery is about the size of a double A battery,
Speaker 1: So if you've ever seen one of those, that's about
Speaker 1: the size of an individual cell. But there are a
Speaker 1: few of those. Yeah, six thousand, eight hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: one of those stacked up equals one E S S. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you handed me six thousand, eight hundred thirty
Speaker 1: one double A batteries, I think I would tell you
Speaker 1: where that thousand pounds came from. Uh So, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's certainly impressive, but the neat thing is this
Speaker 1: is the energy system. This is providing all the energy
Speaker 1: for the card to move forward, and like Tesla says,
Speaker 1: there are no moving parts here, so it really cuts
Speaker 1: down on the required maintenance you need to do. Now,
Speaker 1: the roadsters travel range is about two hundred forty five
Speaker 1: miles according to Tesla, which is about three hundred ninety
Speaker 1: four kilometers. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that every single
Speaker 1: roadster on a full charge is going to go and
Speaker 1: then just immediately stop like in a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, some of them could go actually much further.
Speaker 1: But that's that's kind of what they say because that way,
Speaker 1: you know, you you you hedge your bets a little
Speaker 1: bit so people don't push the car further than it's
Speaker 1: meant to go. Sure, sure, it's much more critical than
Speaker 1: saying something about miles per gallon because it's a little
Speaker 1: bit right when when you can't just stop at any
Speaker 1: corner and getting rare battery gasoline. Right. In fact, that
Speaker 1: was a big concern again, like we were saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the worry that, hey, if I get an electric car,
Speaker 1: what happens when the battery runs out. What happens when
Speaker 1: I'm on a trip and the battery runs out? How
Speaker 1: do I end up refueling? And Tesla's response was actually saying, well,
Speaker 1: take a look at how far you drive on a
Speaker 1: typical day. Most people aren't driving so far as to
Speaker 1: completely drain their tank of gas, I mean, on on
Speaker 1: their daily lives. You know, there are exceptions. We know
Speaker 1: there are people out there who have to do a
Speaker 1: lot more driving than others. But for your average person,
Speaker 1: you might drive to a job, you might do some errands,
Speaker 1: you might come home, and that might be enough to
Speaker 1: you know, drain a quarter of a tank or something.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to refuel every single day, whereas
Speaker 1: with the Tesla Roadster you can just plug it in
Speaker 1: every night. So um, that was kind of the argument
Speaker 1: that Tesla made. They said that the battery life was
Speaker 1: estimated at about seven years or one thousand miles, and
Speaker 1: at that point you would need to replace it. I
Speaker 1: don't know how expensive that is. I'm sure it's quite
Speaker 1: expensive to replace your battery, but it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: every seven years. The question is whether or not, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're the kind of person who's buying a stay
Speaker 1: of the art sports car. If you're still driving that
Speaker 1: same sports car seven years later, you are not the
Speaker 1: kind of person I thought you were, and frankly, I
Speaker 1: don't know you anymore, or probably you can afford at
Speaker 1: that juncture to replace the battery. Yeah, that's also that's
Speaker 1: also a possibility. That's good point, good point, much much
Speaker 1: less snarky than my point. That there are also sensors
Speaker 1: in the battery system that will disconnect it automatically if
Speaker 1: the car is in a crash or if any kind
Speaker 1: of like smoke, humidity, or water are detected inside the
Speaker 1: battery pack, which is really pretty important because lithium ion
Speaker 1: batteries can totally explode when they get overheated. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is one of those reasons why if you've ever flown
Speaker 1: on a plane and they tell you that they're going
Speaker 1: to gate check luggage, that if there's anything that has
Speaker 1: a lithium ion battery and it take it out, because
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen often, but it can happen, So it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where you'd rather take the precaution
Speaker 1: to remove it. So again, it's sort of a preemptive
Speaker 1: kind of measure. And a very important one as far
Speaker 1: as safety is concerned. Now, next, you have the power
Speaker 1: Electronics Module, the p e M, which is the sort
Speaker 1: of computer brain of the Tesla, and it controls the
Speaker 1: two watts of electrical power during peak acceleration. So when
Speaker 1: you really want to get that, uh, that effect. I
Speaker 1: remember that they talk to people about, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to convince folks, uh to to really buy into this
Speaker 1: electric sports car idea. One of the things Tesla used
Speaker 1: to do for people who are a little skeptical is
Speaker 1: they would take them for a test drive and they
Speaker 1: would be sitting there at a standstill, and the driver
Speaker 1: would tell the passenger, who is the person they're trying
Speaker 1: to impress, Uh, you know what, why don't we turn
Speaker 1: on the radio and see what's on and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: listen to some music. And they would start to lean
Speaker 1: forward and that's when the driver would slam on the
Speaker 1: acceleration and the acceleration is so great that the person
Speaker 1: could not reach the radio controls because of the force
Speaker 1: they were feeling from the acceleration. It was a way
Speaker 1: that they convinced people like, Okay, this car might be
Speaker 1: for me, so uh, anyway that what's of power is
Speaker 1: equivalent to the amount of power you need to light
Speaker 1: two thousand incandescent bulbs or if you want to go
Speaker 1: you know, you know away from incandescent. You say, what
Speaker 1: about those compact loorescence everyone's using these days? It could
Speaker 1: like ten thousand of those yep. It also over these
Speaker 1: were generative breaking, So that's when you're using the brakes
Speaker 1: to help recapture some energy and convert it back into
Speaker 1: electricity and recharge the batteries. Now obviously this is not
Speaker 1: meant to recharge the battery to full, but it helps
Speaker 1: keep that battery nice and freshly. It gives you that
Speaker 1: two mile range. Yeah, and it also controls the voltages
Speaker 1: and currents that you you have to keep in mind
Speaker 1: whenever the maximum or minimum limits are coming into play.
Speaker 1: That really means like, if you want more speed, you're
Speaker 1: essentially saying more juice. It's kind of that. It's okay,
Speaker 1: So instead of opening the throttle, if you press the yeah,
Speaker 1: same same sort of things. In this case, you're like
Speaker 1: more electricity please. Um. Also, when you accelerate, the p
Speaker 1: M P E M converts your manual command, which is
Speaker 1: pressing down on the accelerator. What we would normally call
Speaker 1: the gas pedal into a series of precisely timed voltages,
Speaker 1: which gives the propulsion motor the commands to generate the
Speaker 1: opper speed. Now now I get to charging it. That
Speaker 1: means that you get to use the handy dandy Electric
Speaker 1: Vehicle Service equipment or e v S. E allah. How
Speaker 1: Tesla makes all these things, these crazy acronyms that are
Speaker 1: making their their technology sound even more weird and futuristic,
Speaker 1: it's because science. So you can't install one of these
Speaker 1: on your own unless you happen to be a qualified
Speaker 1: electrical technician because it's talking about some heavy duty power here.
Speaker 1: It does hook into your home system home electric system.
Speaker 1: So the system, like Lauren was saying earlier, it has
Speaker 1: a lot of automatic cutoffs, not just if you know water, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly in case of accident or also just at home.
Speaker 1: So there's a smoke detector that's on the charger itself
Speaker 1: that will turn off any electricity going to the car
Speaker 1: if it detects smoke. So that's whether it's in you know,
Speaker 1: coming from the car itself or anything else in the environment.
Speaker 1: Um it also will turn off any electricity right into
Speaker 1: the car if there's any tension that's detected, like unusual
Speaker 1: tension on the cable. So, for example, if the cable
Speaker 1: is on the floor of your garage and someone else
Speaker 1: drives into a two car garage and drives over that cable,
Speaker 1: bill shut off the electricity to the roadster. And so
Speaker 1: it also will automatically shut off the flow of electricity
Speaker 1: when you try to detach it from the roadster, which
Speaker 1: is good. Good, so you don't have any yeah, cable
Speaker 1: shooting shooting deadly electric beams everywhere. That's how electricity comes out, right,
Speaker 1: you know. We also mentioned that you don't have to
Speaker 1: do that regular maintenance that you would on an internal
Speaker 1: combustion engine vehicle, at least not the kind that we're
Speaker 1: used to, like no oil changes, you don't have to
Speaker 1: do filter changes, you don't have to do emission tests,
Speaker 1: you don't have to replace spark plugs, right right. They
Speaker 1: do recommend that you still bring it in once every
Speaker 1: year or about what's the yearly, likeeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: The idea is that just to make sure everything's in
Speaker 1: working order. And there are of course other things that
Speaker 1: you would have to continue to maintain, like the tires.
Speaker 1: Those those don't magically become hyper resilient or something. Science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if only now. Yeah, So, going on in June two
Speaker 1: thousand eight, Tesla Motors decided to build its manufacturing plant,
Speaker 1: but not in New Mexico, which is where they had
Speaker 1: talked about doing it. Yeah. Yeah, California offered up some
Speaker 1: pretty awesome tax breaks. Yeah, so they decided that, um,
Speaker 1: they're gonna open up a store there. And the store
Speaker 1: opens in Los Angeles. In fact, they take a very
Speaker 1: interesting approach to selling cars. Tesla does instead of using
Speaker 1: um dealerships like third party dealerships, they sell direct to customers.
Speaker 1: And that's going to become an interesting point in our
Speaker 1: our second half, our second part rather so October two
Speaker 1: thou eight, this is when Elon Musk officially becomes the
Speaker 1: CEO of Tesla Motors. Uh and uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: also when things don't look so hot for the electric
Speaker 1: car industry or really any distribe for any industry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that the global financial crisis was in full gear. Oh
Speaker 1: that was like a pun I didn't even intend to. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of me. Okay, alright, but no, but
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of me talking about this really terrible
Speaker 1: global event where a lot of people lost a whole
Speaker 1: lot of money in their homes. Um it was. It
Speaker 1: was a big issue, especially for the auto industry at
Speaker 1: the time, and um Uh Musk had to put off
Speaker 1: the models delivery until the company could receive some federal
Speaker 1: loan money. And in fact, Forbes would say that Musk's
Speaker 1: leadership was absolutely critical, saying that you know who would
Speaker 1: the federal government agree to loan money too if they
Speaker 1: didn't have the crazy It wasn't Tony Stark. Yeah, essentially
Speaker 1: you needed to have a Tony Stark, someone who could
Speaker 1: charm them into I mean, I don't mean to be disingenuous,
Speaker 1: but they were saying that Musk kind of gives off
Speaker 1: this musk of leadership that people buy into, and he
Speaker 1: was able to to convince the various political powers that
Speaker 1: this is was an important investment and that it was
Speaker 1: in fact something that would be good for the future.
Speaker 1: He also did appeal to his brother Kimball, who he
Speaker 1: had previously started some businesses up with before um for
Speaker 1: for a little bit of like much needed emergency funds.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of two thousand eight, there um and
Speaker 1: Hey did all of this during his messy public divorce
Speaker 1: from Justine musk Um and also while he was working
Speaker 1: through a whole lot of weird rocket issues over its SpaceX.
Speaker 1: Musk said at the time, at that point, every day
Speaker 1: was like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.
Speaker 1: So cheerful guy. In December two thousand eight, he uh,
Speaker 1: he probably wasn't so cheerful either. A Tesla at that
Speaker 1: point generated thirteen point eight million dollars, which sounds really interesting,
Speaker 1: like how did they do that when you know the
Speaker 1: roadster was the only vehicle that they had out there
Speaker 1: and they weren't able to produce it in a huge amounts.
Speaker 1: How did they make eight million dollars? They did it
Speaker 1: by selling low emission vehicle credits to other automakers. See,
Speaker 1: in California, automakers have to comply with low emission standards.
Speaker 1: The same for several other states too, But California has
Speaker 1: some particularly strict anti pollution laws, all right, Except the
Speaker 1: thing is is that you don't actually have to take
Speaker 1: part in these anti pollution measures. You can fund other
Speaker 1: businesses that are taking part in anti pollution measures, and
Speaker 1: in return you get these credits, these low emission credits,
Speaker 1: which essentially say hey, you have a license to uh
Speaker 1: to ignore x amount of these restrictions if you have
Speaker 1: the equivalent number of credits. And so it's really to
Speaker 1: offset vehicles that don't meet those standards, and Tesla as
Speaker 1: an electric vehicle, you know, with zero emissions, they had
Speaker 1: these credits that they could sell, and so they did,
Speaker 1: and so that was that was kind of the first
Speaker 1: bit of uptick for the company financially speaking that it
Speaker 1: had seen in a while. You know, it's it's they
Speaker 1: started getting a little bit out of that of this
Speaker 1: of death at this point. Um in January two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: they would close a deal with daime Ler for Um
Speaker 1: for a thousand smart battery packs, and later in the
Speaker 1: year Dame Laer would buy a ten percent stake in Tesla,
Speaker 1: and in March two thousand nine, Tesla Motors unveiled a
Speaker 1: prototype and begins to take reservations for the model S.
Speaker 1: So within the first week, more than five hundred people
Speaker 1: sign up, and they said that the actual production wouldn't
Speaker 1: begin until late two thousand eleven. So so again it
Speaker 1: really goes to show that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: interest in this company for people to go so far
Speaker 1: as to invest money in a product that they had
Speaker 1: not seen or sat in or driven at all. It
Speaker 1: did not exist yet and that wouldn't exist for another
Speaker 1: two years. But they were still willing to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really says a lot. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: that there's so much buzz about the company at the time,
Speaker 1: and and even more so when in June of two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, Tesla actually one a four hundred sixty five
Speaker 1: million dollar loan from the U. S Department of Energies
Speaker 1: at fanst Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program um and that
Speaker 1: was to help launch the Model S. But the caveat
Speaker 1: here was that they couldn't get that money until they
Speaker 1: owned a mass production facility. Okay, you know that the
Speaker 1: whole gig of this loan was that the government really
Speaker 1: wanted alternate energy vehicles out on the road. But they
Speaker 1: wanted not like ten of them, not a hundred of them,
Speaker 1: not eight hundred of them for special buyers. They wanted
Speaker 1: mass production. They had been this entire time outsourcing the roadster,
Speaker 1: manufacturing and assembling those cars one by one behind their
Speaker 1: Menlo Park, California showroom. Pay no attention to the engineers
Speaker 1: behind the guntain so yeah, I mean right now, if
Speaker 1: we were to stop the podcast right now and say that,
Speaker 1: let's say that this is June two thousand nine, things
Speaker 1: would look a little uncertain for for Tesla Motor Company.
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure they're going to be able to
Speaker 1: get that loan. They're not. They don't have that mass
Speaker 1: production facility. They have a roadster that a lot of
Speaker 1: people like, but it's really expensive, and they have another
Speaker 1: vehicle that they've announced but no one's actually seen it yet.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna stop here, but our next episode we'll
Speaker 1: pick back up and talk about what Tesla has been
Speaker 1: up to since June two tho nine and the events
Speaker 1: that led to the unveiling of the Model S, as
Speaker 1: well as the announcement of other vehicles that they have
Speaker 1: planned further down the line. So we're gonna break here,
Speaker 1: but guys, if you have any suggestions for future episodes
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, let us know. Send us an email.
Speaker 1: Our address is tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or
Speaker 1: drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: is text Stuff hs W. And hey, you should go
Speaker 1: to Tumbler too, because Lauren's been doing some awesome work
Speaker 1: over there. So yeah. She in fact, she's not shy
Speaker 1: about talking about it. Uh, but no, it really is
Speaker 1: great tech stuff HSW there as well. Also, Hey, our
Speaker 1: six D tech Stuff episode is coming up, and we
Speaker 1: are in honor of that doing a kind of uh
Speaker 1: teken stuff behind the scenes of of tech Stuff episode
Speaker 1: that we are taking lots of listener questions. So if
Speaker 1: you guys are curious about any particular part of our
Speaker 1: production process or the technology that we use to make
Speaker 1: this happen, or us or any of our wacky co hosts,
Speaker 1: or just what it's like to work here at how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com, um, go ahead and and get
Speaker 1: in touch with us via any of those methods that
Speaker 1: Jonathan just mentioned right, will definitely be uh, including questions.
Speaker 1: We will be saying your name in the podcast, assuming
Speaker 1: that your question is deemed to be appropriate and uh
Speaker 1: and and answerable. Some unanswerable questions we may also take.
Speaker 1: It will all be on a case by case basis,
Speaker 1: but we like answering the unanswerable here. Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: give it a game. Try so let us know and
Speaker 1: we will talk to you again really soon for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it have
Speaker 1: staff works dot com