Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: We do expect actually to start fully autonomous unsupervised FSD
Speaker 2: in Texas and California next year, and that's obviously that's
Speaker 2: with the Model three in Model Y, and then we
Speaker 2: expect to be in production with the cyber cap, which
Speaker 2: is really highly optimized for autonomous transport in probably Well,
Speaker 2: I tend to be a little optimist with the time frames,
Speaker 2: but in twenty twenty six, so yeah, before twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 2: let me put it that way.
Speaker 3: Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 4: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 4: controlled by one man.
Speaker 3: Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 1: I mean legitimate.
Speaker 3: He says. He's always voted for Democrats, but this year
Speaker 3: it will be different.
Speaker 5: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 2: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 2: on him.
Speaker 5: Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 3: Anything he does, he's fascinating people. Welcome to Elon, Inc,
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Friday, October eleventh.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, David Papadopolis. We are here with the
Speaker 3: special episode because, as you just heard elon unveiled last
Speaker 3: night the Cyber Cab, I am joined by Craig Trudell,
Speaker 3: our Global Autos czar in London. Craig, welcome, Thanks for
Speaker 3: having me. Now, Craig, I slept through this thing. You
Speaker 3: got up stupid or earlier on. I mean, the Bloomberg
Speaker 3: system tells me that you badged in at two twenty
Speaker 3: two am. God bless you. How many cups of coffee
Speaker 3: are you on at this point? And have there been
Speaker 3: any drugs involved to keep you going?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: No ketamine for me. Just a couple of americanos will do.
Speaker 1: And I'm hanging in.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, excellent. So in addition to getting the breakdown
Speaker 3: from Craig, we're also going to hear from our old
Speaker 3: pals Max and Dana, who have sent us audio clips
Speaker 3: with their impressions of how this went last night. But Craig,
Speaker 3: let's start with just give us a sense of for
Speaker 3: all the folks like me out there who slept through
Speaker 3: this thing. What are the top lines here?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that clip that we just played off
Speaker 1: the top was instructive in that you know, the folks
Speaker 1: in the room definitely there was a lot of oohing
Speaker 1: and out eyeing and cheering at what Elon had to say,
Speaker 1: and you know, I give give him credit. You know,
Speaker 1: the cyber cab that he showed, it's a slick looking,
Speaker 1: you know, two seater. They showed a Robovan or reboven
Speaker 1: depending on how Elon was deciding to pronounce it, that
Speaker 1: you know, also also looked cool, you know, But in
Speaker 1: terms of when these are actually going to be ready,
Speaker 1: how many they're going to make, any sort of technical
Speaker 1: indications of real progress here and sort of hard and
Speaker 1: fast details, there was nothing we got through his presentation,
Speaker 1: and honestly, my reaction to it was was was that
Speaker 1: it that's all. That's all we.
Speaker 3: Got, Craig. How long did the presentation go on for, I.
Speaker 1: Think from beginning to end it was roughly forty minutes,
Speaker 1: But that included a little intro by the head of
Speaker 1: design for Tesla, and so it wasn't entirely Elon, and
Speaker 1: there were some interruptions of you know, people getting excited
Speaker 1: about what he had to say. So you know, this
Speaker 1: also included you know, sort of demos of the car
Speaker 1: and the van driving around the Warner Brothers lot, which
Speaker 1: you know, as Max said, earlier this week. We've seen
Speaker 1: demos now year after year after year. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like we've seen fewer of them more recently because
Speaker 1: the rest of the world has sort of woken up
Speaker 1: to just how difficult it's going to be to put
Speaker 1: these things on the road. But Elon is really sticking
Speaker 1: to it, and not only that, sort of betting the
Speaker 1: company on it.
Speaker 3: Right, he said, I believe that he's aspiration and this
Speaker 3: wouldn't be now for the Robotaxi itself, this would be
Speaker 3: for their other for the current fleet and with its
Speaker 3: autonomous capabilities, he's hoping to have them greenlit to to
Speaker 3: operate autonomously. I believe in the cities in California and Texas.
Speaker 4: Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And we heard that in the clip off the top.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think for him to refer to I
Speaker 1: guess I also just want to kind of parse what
Speaker 1: he's saying there. He's saying unsupervised full self driving. I
Speaker 1: would think that full self driving would indicate not needing
Speaker 1: to be supervised. But I guess that's where we are
Speaker 1: after you know, Tesla having sold these features as you know,
Speaker 1: fully self driving when they are anything but four years now.
Speaker 4: So you know.
Speaker 1: I think that just speaks to this idea of when
Speaker 1: he when he gives these timelines, you have to take
Speaker 1: them with a great big grain of salt.
Speaker 3: But the top lines are apparently perhaps under thirty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars this thing shall cost in production by twenty twenty six,
Speaker 3: and maybe no steering wheel, no pedals on this thing.
Speaker 3: Let's listen for a second to Dana Dana Hall's take
Speaker 3: on this.
Speaker 5: When I heard the phrase individual mass transit, I kind
Speaker 5: of flipped out. The event was interesting. We saw the Robojaxi,
Speaker 5: we saw a robo van, we saw optimists serving drinks.
Speaker 5: But as like an event, I don't know. I underwhelmed.
Speaker 5: I think the expectations for this were really high. I'm
Speaker 5: sure it was a super fun party for people that
Speaker 5: were there, but I just just didn't do it for me.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 5: It was light on the details, light on the business model,
Speaker 5: timeframe is still ways off.
Speaker 3: Optimism of serving drinks crag. That seems kind of cool,
Speaker 3: all right, but so Dana says, light on details. Wall
Speaker 3: Street very much agrees with that. At one bank, the analysts,
Speaker 3: I think it was Jeffries, they said Musk's Robotaxi was
Speaker 3: quote toothless. I'm not exactly sure we wanted this thing
Speaker 3: to have teeth, but I get the point. Craig Dana
Speaker 3: is correct. Expectations were high, and there was a lot
Speaker 3: riding on this because the stock had soared in the
Speaker 3: run up to this event, maybe more than fifty percent.
Speaker 1: I believe now almost seventy percent.
Speaker 3: Seventy percent. It's down a good chunk. We are recording,
Speaker 3: to be clear, before the market opens on Wall Street.
Speaker 3: But in pre market trading, it's good. It's down a
Speaker 3: good amount.
Speaker 4: Is it not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was down as much as as almost seven
Speaker 1: percent before the before the market open, so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you refer to the Jeffreys report that those
Speaker 1: particular analysts cover Uber and Lyft, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was very interesting that you saw analysts sort of come
Speaker 1: out of the woodwork who cover those companies and say,
Speaker 1: all right, guys, you know, sort of all clear here.
Speaker 1: It speaks to the idea that, you know, not only
Speaker 1: are our folks who cover Tesla for a living sort
Speaker 1: of walking away from this event with without you know,
Speaker 1: much in the way of of sort of high hopes,
Speaker 1: but analysts who cover the ride hailing companies also you know,
Speaker 1: we're really closely watching this because they were concerned that,
Speaker 1: you know, after Musk talking about this year after year
Speaker 1: after year, maybe now is finally going to be the
Speaker 1: time that that he's ready to launch a service that
Speaker 1: would compete with the uber and lifts of the world.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't think that anybody sort of
Speaker 1: you know, had a takeaway from last night that you know,
Speaker 1: what those companies need to worry about this.
Speaker 3: I guess the glass half full take on this would be, well,
Speaker 3: this is the initial market reaction. They're not in love
Speaker 3: with it with all the details and what they saw,
Speaker 3: but heck, after a seventy percent pop in the stock,
Speaker 3: if you give back seven percent, that ain't too bad.
Speaker 3: We shall see how it trades the rest of the
Speaker 3: day and in coming days and see if these concerns
Speaker 3: that we're seeing this morning keep building or if they're
Speaker 3: just a temporary blip. Let's also listen to our man
Speaker 3: Max Chafkin and get his take.
Speaker 4: I just watched the cyber Cab unveiling. Now I got
Speaker 4: a caveat this. I was in the back of a
Speaker 4: taxi watching it on a small screen, coming home from
Speaker 4: a event I'd had maybe a glass and a half
Speaker 4: of wine, so you know, caveats there. But I have
Speaker 4: to say it was not I don't think it was
Speaker 4: the best case scenario for Elon. We talked about it
Speaker 4: being on a sound stage. It looked like a sound stage.
Speaker 4: There were like what looked like sort of plywood cutouts
Speaker 4: of vehicles to make it look like a real street.
Speaker 4: It looked like a staged thing, and the entire event
Speaker 4: was sort of about looking forward and you know, sketching
Speaker 4: out this glorious future that Elon has talked about many
Speaker 4: times and how much cheaper it's going to be when
Speaker 4: you have robots, and how many more parking spaces they'll be,
Speaker 4: and how much more green space they'll be. And it
Speaker 4: really was the kind of standard futurist stuff that we
Speaker 4: have been hearing from autonomous vehicle pioneers for fifteen years,
Speaker 4: and there was very little in specifics. Now, I will
Speaker 4: say the cyber cab itself is pretty striking. They had
Speaker 4: I think twenty of them there, so it's definitely a
Speaker 4: long way from as market, and you know, it looks cool,
Speaker 4: it looks futuristic. I just am not sure it's a
Speaker 4: future that is anywhere near for us. And and and
Speaker 4: you know, I almost almost tempted to say not in
Speaker 4: our lifetimes.
Speaker 3: I have to say I do agree with Max and
Speaker 3: with you Craig, that, uh, this thing looks pretty badass,
Speaker 3: right for a guy who's got a current fleet that
Speaker 3: looks a little stale and stayed and old. This thing
Speaker 3: pops visually.
Speaker 1: I think it does. And and I just would again,
Speaker 1: you know, not not to be this sort of Debbie downer,
Speaker 1: but you know, Elon is fond of saying prototypes are easy.
Speaker 1: Production is hard, and I think that that's a really
Speaker 1: apt thing here that like, you know, he he built
Speaker 1: a very eat prototype here. I think the Robovan prototype
Speaker 1: is cool. It reminds me a lot of the Crew's origin,
Speaker 1: which was a bit smaller of a sort of bread
Speaker 1: loaf shaped vehicle that debuted years ago. But again, just
Speaker 1: to sort of go back to sort of throwing a
Speaker 1: bit of cold water on things here, GM a few
Speaker 1: months back decided to scrap plans to to you know,
Speaker 1: make that cruise origin because of federal motor safety standards
Speaker 1: that that you know, they had petitioned for exemptions to
Speaker 1: those rules, and for years that petition went you know,
Speaker 1: unacted upon, and so I just have a strong suspicion that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to end up talking maybe a
Speaker 1: year or two from now about Elon taking you know,
Speaker 1: either one of these vehicles to Nitsa and not being
Speaker 1: happy about them, just sort of giving their instant blessing
Speaker 1: for these being actually ready for the road.
Speaker 3: Craig, any final thoughts from you, sir before we let
Speaker 3: you go and crash to sleep.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this this event sort of, you know, sums
Speaker 1: up exactly why Elon is such a polarizing character, because
Speaker 1: on one hand, you can see in this this is
Speaker 1: this is the visionary who dares to think it's you know,
Speaker 1: possibly feasible to you know, shoot off rockets and land
Speaker 1: them back on bard ships in the ocean. He's gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, do it all again and completely revolutionize you know,
Speaker 1: road transport. I think what we've just learned over the
Speaker 1: last decade or so, and and this gets back to,
Speaker 1: you know, what Max was saying is it may be
Speaker 1: more difficult to put a safe self driving car on
Speaker 1: the road than to to land rocket ships back here
Speaker 1: on Earth after shooting them off into space. And it
Speaker 1: just speaks to this sort of you know, level of
Speaker 1: technical challenge and capability that is going to be required
Speaker 1: for these autonomous vehicles to be acceptable to society.
Speaker 3: Very good point, and it reminds me of something somewhat related,
Speaker 3: which is watching him on stage there after having just
Speaker 3: seen him on stage with Trump and Butler, Pennsylvania. I
Speaker 3: will say this, he was much more in his element
Speaker 3: here right, Like you know, you had to like the
Speaker 3: slick leather jacket going. He was kind of right. He
Speaker 3: just seemed cool and confident and and like I said,
Speaker 3: in his element, whereas I don't think he knew what
Speaker 3: the hell to do when he was on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania. Craig,
Speaker 3: thanks for joining us. Go get some sleep. We'll have
Speaker 3: you back on again soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys.
Speaker 3: This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Nailmi Shaven and
Speaker 3: Rayhan Harmanci are our senior editors. The idea for this
Speaker 3: very show also came from Rayhan Blake Maple's Handles Engineering
Speaker 3: and Dave Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrikson.
Speaker 3: The elon Ing theme is written and performed by Taka
Speaker 3: Yasuzawa and Alex Sugira. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer,
Speaker 3: and Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A
Speaker 3: big thanks, as always to our supporter Joel Weber. I'm
Speaker 3: David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review
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Speaker 3: next week.