WEBVTT - The Tesla Tale Part One 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.520 Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.600 works dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.040 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Foam and Lauren Today, 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.520 I thought we would talk about something a few of 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.880 our listeners have fast us about in the past. Tesla Motors. Yeah, 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.479 we did an episode on Elon Musk back on March thirteen. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.920 It was called tech Stuff looks at Elon Musk Uh 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.040 sensibly enough, and I think in that episode we were like, yeah, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.640 we'll totally do an episode on Tesla Motors soon, and 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.360 then we never did that thing. One year later to 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.200 the day, it is March thirteen, two thousand and fourteen. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.360 As we sit here in the studio, we are recording 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.560 a pair of episodes, as it turns out, on Tesla Motors, 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.720 because even though it's a young company, they've the company 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:55.960 has done a lot of stuff and there's a lot 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:01.080 of things to cover um largely in part to Mr Musk, 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.559 who has had quite the impact on the technological world 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.160 and multiple venues, not just in electric cars. Right. He 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.600 was not one of the original founders though, No, no, 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:13.880 Back in two thousand three, there were a pair of 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:18.360 silicon Valley investors named Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpinning who 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.360 formed the company Tesla Motors, and their goal was to 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.720 make a commercially successful electric car. In fact, they say 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.119 they will not stop until every car on the road 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:34.200 is electric. Now, neither of them had really any car experience, 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.000 I mean they drove them, but not making them. But 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.480 they felt that they had the business plan that would 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.400 make the electric car a viable option in the United 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.640 States in particular. And you got to remember, if you 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.680 know your car history, electric cars actually pre date internal 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.840 combustion engine cars, so this is sort of a throwback 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:55.960 in a way. But trying to make the electric car 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.720 actually work because everyone was always worried that the electric 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.920 car would have a very narrow range of like you 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.760 wouldn't be able to go very far sure, and also 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.520 various um potential safety issues involving the materials the batteries 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.799 were made out of worry that if it got too cold, 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.320 you wouldn't be able to start your car, sure, and 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.680 and also just the the general cheapness and propensity of 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.120 of gasoline. Yeah, the fact that they had been around 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.560 and and been on top for a century meant that, 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.799 you know, making making a road two use a pun 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.000 into this industry. Yeah, there's the there's the high roll. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.760 Uh that would be would be you know, it's a 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.120 significant challenge. So two thousand three they start up, and 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.120 it wouldn't be until April two thousand four that Mr 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.840 Elon Musk gets involved, right, he invested heavily in the company, 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.079 like to the tune of six point three million dollars 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.040 and joined its board of directors. Yep and ebro Hard 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.760 became the CEO of Tesla Motors that will become very 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.040 important in a little bit. And together they planned to 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.919 create for their first attempt, a high end sports car 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:08.799 called the Tesla Roadster, which they estimated the original actual price, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:10.880 like what what customers would pay for it would be 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:15.240 ninety two thousand dollars per car, and they wanted to 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.600 have them on the road before the end of two 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.079 thousand six. Now this is April two thousand four when 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.360 this is being discussed, and that is a pretty ridiculously 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.040 lofty goal for anybody, let alone a consumer car company. 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:30.840 Y I yeah, car company that has no manufacturing factories, no, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.520 like they have no anything, there's no infrastructure for them yet. 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.120 So it's it's very ambitious sure, and even more ambitious 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.760 was that that wasn't their sole goal that they were planning, 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:44.440 even at this very early stage, to to look ahead 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.560 to to produce a luxury electric sedan UM for for 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.000 competition with like Mercedes Benz and BMW stuff like that 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.320 UM and then with with proven sales and profits from 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.960 these two high end cars, to create a low cost 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.680 electric line for everybody. Right, So, these first few ideas 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.160 that they have, they admitted straight out like these are 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.960 high end items. This isn't the kind of stuff that 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.080 you're gonna look at for the family car, unless you know, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.240 you happen to be of the Gates family or something. Uh, 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.280 It's it's definitely one of those where people of high 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.720 incomes are able to afford. In fact, there were many 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.640 people who were criticizing Tesla for having a business plan 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.159 that was catering only to rich people who wanted a 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:28.440 third car. That was pretty much the way a lot 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:33.320 of these early reports were going. Anyway, time passes and 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.840 not a lot to talk about. Between two thousand four 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.080 and two thousand six, that was really when they were 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.400 getting their business plan in order, starting to figure out 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.440 what their production chain was going to be. But in 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.640 August two thousand six, that's when they really started to 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.440 promote the fact that you could put down a deposit 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.400 on one of the first one hundred Tesla roadster sports cars. 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.480 And it was a paltry deposit, just a tiny little amount, right, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.120 a little bit more than they had originally plan. It 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.960 was a hundred thousand dollars deposit deposit, meaning that there 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.760 was actually going to be more to pay afterward. Uh. 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.800 And a couple of notable people put down deposits. A 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:15.000 lot of them were environmentalists or Silicon Valley millionaires. Also 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:20.080 a famous actor, Mr George Clooney, he put down a 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.080 deposit for one. But at that point there's still no 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:27.160 roadster to actually drive yet, right, They hadn't really made 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.280 all that much headway on on that quite yet. As 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:35.160 February two seven, they announced plans to build a thirty 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:39.400 five million dollar plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to build 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.279 what would be come the model S sedan, that electrics, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.800 that electric car you were talking about earlier than the 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.599 luxury sedan, right, Yeah, So that was gonna be the 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.680 place where that would be built. And so they start 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.240 to figure out that this is gonna be the method 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.520 that they follow in order to uh to follow up 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.640 the roadster plan once that was on uh into the streets. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.600 Still not there yet though, so uh they missed their 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.360 two thousand six goal obviously of getting roadsters out there, 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.040 but they're still working on it. And at September two 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:17.039 thousand seven they hit another delay. And UH this was 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.520 because they were having a lot of internal problems. There 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.360 were budgets they were getting slipped. I mean already you 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.840 saw that they had planned on having being sports car, 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.520 which presumably means that they thought they were going to 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.440 sell it for more than what it costs to put 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.000 it together. This is the way generally business is done. 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.240 Sure that that price tag was eventually bumped up to 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.719 a hundred nine thousand UM, but but they were finding 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.680 out that some of their manufacturing processes were more expensive 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.680 than they had anticipated. Also that some of their manufacturing 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.080 plants didn't have the physical capacity to create the stuff 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.280 that they wanted to create, which is problematic. Yeah. Yeah, 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:56.640 if you think this sounds kind of similar to when 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.840 we were talking about SpaceX and and the challenges musk 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.720 encountered in that, you'd be right. I mean, a lot 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.440 of these are very similar problems, obviously two different scales, 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.640 talking about driving on the roads versus blasting off into space. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:11.600 But you know, it's one of those things where when 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.400 you come from an Internet background the way Musk did, uh, 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.800 and you then go into a manufacturing world, the world 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.360 is very different and there's some realities that you've got 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.680 to come face to face with. Absolutely. Meanwhile, speaking of manufacturing, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.320 around the same time, Musk began talking with German manufacturer 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.720 UM Daimler about selling Tesla battery packs for for Dameler's 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.120 lightweight and expensive smart cars, which were not yet available 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.559 in the US at that time. Um there's there's actually 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.000 a really fun story about this, involving the Tesla ct 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.120 O j V strable, like getting finance to give him 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.120 a bag with twenty tho dollars in cash. So that's 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.880 sounding like a fun story already. So that an engineer's 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.240 friend who spoke Spanish could go to Mexico to Tijuana 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:00.640 to to the nearest UM Daimler smart card dealer and 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.920 drive back in a Smart Um and then they and 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:05.720 so they did that, that is what they actually did. 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.080 And then they gutted it and put in a custom 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.760 battery and engine to show it off to the Daimler 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.480 heads when they came and visited their facility. So yeah, 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:21.680 if you tell me fun story TiO Juana, Mexico, that's uh, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.960 that's a pretty crazy tale. Yeah, in November and December 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.480 of two thousand seven, this is when controversy really hit 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.080 Tesla Motors. Okay, so ebro Hard had been the CEO 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.840 since around two thousand four, you know, once they had 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.400 really started formally kind of organizing this company, and he 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.960 gets ousted, booted from his own company. Remember he was 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.680 one of the co founders of this company. I think 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.240 he got demoted and then kind of left. Sharply, I'm 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.520 not I'm not positive it was a booting as much 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:53.720 as a self booting. I think it was both. There 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:55.880 was a lot of animosity involved there that Yeah, the 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.320 demoting was clearly like it sounded like he was being 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:03.040 demoted it into an advisory capacity, which kind of sounds 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.760 like he's not being really part of the company anyway. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.920 So yeah, it was definitely not a comfortable position, comfortable situation. 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.280 And Forbes actually wrote an article right around that time. 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.839 There was an article in Forbes about about this whole thing. 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:22.760 Saying that it wasn't a huge surprise um partly because 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.160 Eberhard had what they called limited management experience and he 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.040 was the first time CEO and wasn't ready to be 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.920 a leader for that And in fact, Musk said very 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:39.240 similar things, but um Aberhard didn't really take it very well. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.600 He actually sued the company and Elon Musk and claimed 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.559 that Musk had defamed him and said that the defamation 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.240 result it was was, what it was centered on, was 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.120 that Eberhard was the reason that Tesla Motors had had 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.280 so many delays. And he also added there was a 0:09:56.320 --> 0:10:01.120 breach in contract because under the contract he was supposed 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.920 to receive the second Tesla roadster ever made, and he 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.760 claimed that the car he ended up getting was a 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:12.280 lemon and at thousand dollars worth of parts that need 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.640 to be replaced or something along those lines like. Essentially, 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.520 he said that, uh, that he was cheated out of it. 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.040 Now Musk on his part, he countered Musk, by the way, 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:27.040 not really shy about sharing his opinion, particularly on any 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.760 sort of blog he has access. He's pretty direct. Yeah, 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.760 he will write in detail exactly like he will, and 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:38.200 he goes very logically and very smugly. Yeah, yeah, there's 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.040 a little little smugness there. But he said that Eberhard 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.000 had initially estimated that the cost of manufacture for a 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.120 roadster would be around sixty five thousand dollars, which is 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.920 what they based their nine two dollars starting price on, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.000 but then it ended up being more like a hundred 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:57.960 forty thousand dollars per car just to make it, which 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.800 is way above even that that in increased a hundred 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.800 nine thousand dollar tag that they had come out with 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:05.800 a little bit later. Yeah, so that means they're selling 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.760 cars at a loss. Now, this might work if your 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.520 company makes I don't know, video game consoles and video games, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.280 you might be able to sell a video game console 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:15.600 at a loss and make it up in the game 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.319 sales later, especially if you're selling things in the millions 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.600 of units. Yeah, make it up for volume. But in 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.040 this case, if you're selling every unit at a loss, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.640 you don't make it up in volume. You just see 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.559 lots and lots of money going out the door. So 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:36.560 it was definitely a contentious situation. So Eberhard gets the 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.480 boot and uh for briefly. They ended up having a 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:44.520 a CEO from outside the company come in, uh named 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.760 Zev Drury. I believe that's how you pronounced the name. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.520 He is a former Israeli paratrooper and Um had a 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.439 no nonsense attitude according to many reports, right and uh 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:00.240 so Drury would be CEO briefly and then must would 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.040 end up taking the helm later on. So then eventually 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.600 Musk becomes the CEO. Sure he would also put another 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.000 twenty million dollars of his own funding into the company 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:15.319 around that time, UM And simultaneously UM there was pressure 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.880 from the market. Other car companies like like Chevy, We're 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.000 starting to announce electric vehicles or even coming out with 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.800 prototypes at their own right, right, so, you know, hybrids 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.840 were already a thing at this point, but pure electric 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.560 vehicles were very much in that sort of prototype concept 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.520 car stage. But now there was a more serious push 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.000 behind it. I mean, Tesla had kind of proven just 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.600 by people putting down a hundred thousand dollars as a 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.240 deposit for a car that was still a year or 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.960 two out of of production that you know, if that 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.319 shows a demand, then other companies are going to jump 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.959 on that as well. And it wasn't until March two 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.240 thousand and eight two years after Tesla had planned on 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.480 having the Roadster out there in the public, that Tesla 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:01.560 Motors actually began to produce the roadster. So the asking price, 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:03.480 like we said, was a hundred nine thousand dollars at 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.160 that point. And they announced at the same time that 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.280 the Roadster was becoming available, that the model S Sedan 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.280 would be available by twent ten and that same two 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.920 year time frame. Huh yeah, because they learned so much 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.160 from the first one. And in fact, we're gonna break 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.200 down what the roadster was all about in just a moment, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.280 but before we do that, let's take a quick break 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:29.400 to thank our sponsor. Alright, So, the Tesla Roadster an 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.319 electric sports car, something that a lot of people are 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.480 really skeptical about. They didn't really think an electric vehicle 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.319 could have the performance of a sports car, right, one 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.120 of those other concerns about electric cars, right, Exactly what 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:44.880 was was getting the amount of power that someone who 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.680 likes a good zippy car would really need, right, the 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:49.640 idea being that you know, you know, those things have 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.559 terrible acceleration and even even once you accelerate top speeds, 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.000 what like, I don't want an electric car. This was 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.720 all about opening up people's eyes to what an electric 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.720 car could do. And it's a sports car with an 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.600 a c induction motor and a single speed gearbox, so 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.640 we're not talking about like a five speed transmission. I'll 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.000 go into more about what that gearbox does in the second. 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.640 It also has a battery pack that Tesla calls the 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.480 Energy storage system or e s S, and a power 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:24.640 electronics module or PEM. So you don't really have an engine. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.120 There's the engine is like an internal combustion engine. That's 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:31.360 where you have all the gas and everything powering pistons moving. Yeah, 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.800 this is just an electric motor. Yep. You're talking about 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.760 electro magnetism really driving your vehicle here. And that single 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.360 speed fixed gears job is to reduce the revolutions per 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.160 minute or RPMs of the motor down to the right 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.400 RPMs for the axle. In other words, it's really converting 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.680 the turns of one element of the vehicle into turns 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:55.680 of another part of the vehicle so that the wheels 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.880 turn the proper speed. Otherwise, you know, you'd either be 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.040 crawling along or zipping through into the stratosphere. You know, 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:04.400 you don't want that. You want to have a nice 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.560 control of your vehicle. So yeah, there's no five speed 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.320 transmission and on the other on the flip side, there's 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.200 no clutch, so that's nice. Uh, you know, there's there's 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.720 only manual in a way because I'll get into it, 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.880 but there's only there's only like two speeds on this 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.880 thing and really just changes what the top speed and 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.280 acceleration are. What are those top speeds and accelerations? Well, 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.200 I'm glad you asked. It's a three hundred horsepower equivalent, 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.080 so you can't wouldn't really say engine because it's a motor. 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.080 But it can go from zero to sixty miles per 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.080 hour or about ninety seven kilometers per hour or our 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.200 friends in other places besides the US in three point 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.960 seven seconds, so fewer than four seconds. It can go 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.000 zero to sixties. That's that's pretty impressive. And it's top 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.320 speed is around one five miles per hour or about 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.880 two hundred one kilometers per hour. The body of this 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.320 thing was a modified Lotus actually a Lotus frame that 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.120 was manufact actured in England and sent to Tesla for 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.280 final assembly, right because once again they didn't have a 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.640 manufacturing plant to do all this, Like you know, any 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.760 other major automotive company. They have these enormous factories where 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:14.280 you know, that's where you see like all the robot 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.800 arms coming in and zap and stuff and everything, and 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.200 these are handmade. Yeah, this is this is pretty impressive 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.480 stuff like you got this and Bentley where you get 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.480 that that handmade attention. So, this motor is able to 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.480 operate continuously at around a hundred twenty degrees celsius. And 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.480 the first roadsters were air cooled. In other words, they 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.560 had vents on the front of the vehicle and as 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.240 the vehicle would move, air would be forced over the 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.720 various elements inside the car and that kept it cool 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.600 enough because, as we all know, electronics plus heat equals 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:51.400 SAD electronics. So this was supposed to be efficient enough 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.840 where you wouldn't need a different kind of cooling system. 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.120 It also means there's no oil. You don't have to 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.000 change the oil in a roadster because it just uses 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.760 air to cool all the elements. So you're moving parts. Yeah, 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:10.119 that's a big big deal. Also, the motor had a 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.879 had rather, the battery pack had a heating element as well, 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.800 because if you were in really really cold parts to 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.240 fix that potential, what if it's too cold to start 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.720 my battery exactly, so you spark the battery. Yeah, it 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.200 really it's to get the chemical reactions in the battery 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.280 to move, to move at the right rate to generate 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:34.720 electricity a cold battery, the cold inhibits that chemical reaction, right, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:36.800 So the heater was really meant to make sure that 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.320 chemical reaction keeps happening. Um. And the motor uses a 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.960 prietary design to convert electricity into torque without losing too 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.920 much energy in the form of heat. Uh. They talk 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.760 about using oxygen free copper to carry high current. Now, 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.040 Tesla claims that the efficiency of the motor to turn 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.640 electricity into torque is around eighty five to nine, which 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.520 is insane. That is completely ridiculous. But keep in mind 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.520 that that is the the the motor energy and not 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.560 the energy output of the entire car as a whole. Exactly. Yeah. So, 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:11.520 if you were to take the whole car and say, 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.600 all right, how much of the of the potential energy 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.800 stored in the batteries is converted into actual energy moving 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.360 the car, I'm guessing the efficiency is not at eight 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.160 five or ninety five, because that would be bonkers. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.400 that's I would say that that's pretty physically impossible, considering 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.760 that you have just attached a ton or so of 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.840 metal and etcetera to Yeah, that engine, I mean half 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.240 of the ton just goes to that e S S 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.399 that energy system that we were talking about, the storage system, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.919 the battery essentially. Yeah, yeah, that way to about a 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.280 thousand pounds. Have thousand pounds not not a light battery. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.920 You will not be changing that on your own. According 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.040 to Tesla, it packs four to five times the amount 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.000 of energy density stores of other batteries, meaning that it 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:58.440 can hold more energy than other batteries of that particular size. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.760 It's also recyclable, which is good because it will eventually 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.480 run out. Sure um. And it's a lithium ion design, yes, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.479 which actually was a big deal. The reason why Tesla 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.760 went with lithium ion is because that technology is really 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:16.000 well established. Like you probably have multiple electronics that run 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.359 on lithium ion batteries. I've got a couple right here 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.359 on me so y m s. People have some in 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.679 their pockets right now. So that meant that because they 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.360 were using this well established technology that has had uh 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.040 manufacturing processes laid out for years, it helped bring the 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.879 cost down of that element, which meant that it brings 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.280 the cost down of the overall vehicle to prevent overheating. 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.440 Once you've worked the battery up to a workable temperature, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.560 um it had a liquid or has a liquid cooling circuit. 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.720 Um that's that's water and anti freeze that circulate in 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.280 sealed tubes through the array of cells. Right, So while 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.919 the power train didn't have a liquid cooling or oil cooling, 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.040 the these the actual batteries did, and that was again 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.159 to keep them at that optimal temperature. Just like you 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:02.719 were saying, Lauren, I mean you want you don't want 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:04.160 to be too cold, but you don't want to get 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:09.200 too hot either. So each cell in the Tesla roadster 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.320 battery is about the size of a double A battery, 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:13.879 So if you've ever seen one of those, that's about 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.719 the size of an individual cell. But there are a 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:21.000 few of those. Yeah, six thousand, eight hundred and thirty 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.320 one of those stacked up equals one E S S. Yeah. 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.320 So if you handed me six thousand, eight hundred thirty 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.359 one double A batteries, I think I would tell you 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.080 where that thousand pounds came from. Uh So, Yeah, it's 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.800 a it's certainly impressive, but the neat thing is this 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.679 is the energy system. This is providing all the energy 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.920 for the card to move forward, and like Tesla says, 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.959 there are no moving parts here, so it really cuts 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.840 down on the required maintenance you need to do. Now, 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.280 the roadsters travel range is about two hundred forty five 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.240 miles according to Tesla, which is about three hundred ninety 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.879 four kilometers. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that every single 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.480 roadster on a full charge is going to go and 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.880 then just immediately stop like in a Warner Brothers cartoon. 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.600 You know, uh, some of them could go actually much further. 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.200 But that's that's kind of what they say because that way, 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:15.800 you know, you you you hedge your bets a little 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.240 bit so people don't push the car further than it's 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.040 meant to go. Sure, sure, it's much more critical than 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.480 saying something about miles per gallon because it's a little 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.960 bit right when when you can't just stop at any 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.679 corner and getting rare battery gasoline. Right. In fact, that 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.000 was a big concern again, like we were saying, you know, 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.520 the worry that, hey, if I get an electric car, 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:36.840 what happens when the battery runs out. What happens when 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.160 I'm on a trip and the battery runs out? How 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:44.160 do I end up refueling? And Tesla's response was actually saying, well, 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:45.960 take a look at how far you drive on a 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.520 typical day. Most people aren't driving so far as to 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.080 completely drain their tank of gas, I mean, on on 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:56.239 their daily lives. You know, there are exceptions. We know 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:57.600 there are people out there who have to do a 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.639 lot more driving than others. But for your average person, 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:03.879 you might drive to a job, you might do some errands, 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.359 you might come home, and that might be enough to 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.359 you know, drain a quarter of a tank or something. 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.840