WEBVTT - Peter Rawlinson on Computer Automotive Engineering 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:11.119 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Master's in 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:16.160 Business with Barry red Holts on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.600 This week on the podcast What can I say about 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.880 Peter Rawlinson? Not only is he the guy who developed 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.440 the model S from a clean sheet of paper for Tesla, 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.680 but he's the man behind Lucid. He joined as chief 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:37.280 Technology Officer and eventually became CEO and drove the launch 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.800 of the Lucid Air, probably the most awarded car in 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:46.400 the modern era. It has sucked up every single accolade 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:51.320 that you can have for either an electric or traditional car. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.480 Five hundred miles of range, twelve hundred horsepower on the 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.760 top of the line. Not only that, they have a 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:02.240 mid tier car that's about half the price of the 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.679 six figure one. They're aiming to release an suv towards 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.280 the end of this year, and a low cost car 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.280 in the forty to fifty thousand dollars range in the 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:18.040 coming years. This is a fascinating company. Rowlinson has an 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:24.800 amazing history in the industry, Lotus, Jaguar, Tesler, and now Lucid. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.120 I thought this conversation was absolutely fascinating and I think 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.360 you will also with no further ado my conversation with 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:33.360 Peter Rawlinson. 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.120 Great to be here, barring, great to have you. 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:38.840 So let's start a little bit with your background. You 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.520 went to Imperial College at the University of London. Was 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.119 the career plan always automotive engineering or what were you thinking? 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.440 I didn't know what I was going to do. I 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.160 considered at school or something creative. I knew want to 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:58.840 design things, and in the end I did a mechanical 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.400 engineering course because it gave me the greatest optionality. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:07.360 Imperial College has some amazing alumni, Sir William Crooks who 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:11.400 invented the vacuum tube, HG. Wells, Peter Higgs of Higgs Boson, 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.520 Sir Alexander Fleming and Palinacillin. What was your experience like 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:16.760 at Imperial College. 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.520 Well, it was quite an experience for a kid from 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:22.680 Wales in the big city. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.200 So let's talk a little bit about your automotive background. 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:33.720 Chief engineer at Lotus Cars, Principal engineer Jaguar, two storied marquees. 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:35.919 Tell us a little bit about your experience with both 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:36.280 of those. 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.200 Yeah, I mean it was a wealth of experience. I 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.840 think if we look at my days at Jaguar, it 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.760 was a fascinating period because it was the dawn of 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.040 the use of computers to design cars. Up to that time, 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:52.240 cars had been designed on drawing. 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.000 Boards manually pensilv. 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:54.800 Parsley. 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.000 Yeah, absolutely, we took in nineteen eighties and I was 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.920 very fortunate that Jaguar made a big investment and a 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:09.600 big push to pioneering the use of computer to digitally 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.000 design a car and it never been done before. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.480 Seriously, I was. 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.560 One of the first people in the UK to use 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.320 CAD computer aided design prior to Jaguar, but it was 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.800 a Jaguar that we really started using it in earnest 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.320 and we used it in a joined up way with 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.400 CAE computer aided Engineering, so we could do the stress 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.520 analysis by finite element analysis, which was all new stuff. 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.800 It was cutting edge, and we found a way of 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:45.080 transferring files from colleague to colleague, from their computer, from 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:50.160 terminal to terminal, and effectively we developed our own intranet, 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.240 which is known as an intranet. Now, well this was 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.720 long before the Internet. We didn't even have a name 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.960 for it, and we were just transferring files and we 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:03.480 created this methodology of a digital process to design a car, 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.680 which was totally revolutionary in terms of how all the 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:11.720 systems were designed, the plants, how the designs were shared digitally, 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:16.680 and how they were analyzed computationally for stress and crash performance. 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.440 So technology has been a core part of your process 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.520 for bringing cars from a clean sheet to actually a 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:26.000 sellable product totally. 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.159 And I've been fortunate. I've always worked, until more recent 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.320 years at the cutting edge in advanced engineering. I was 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.680 responsible for advanced engineering at Lotus and at Jaguar was 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.400 responsible for advanced body structure design. 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:41.920 And it's that. 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:47.600 Sort of technological advancement that is really central to my 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:49.480 career and my being really. 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.520 And also trying. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.240 To do kind of the impossible with very small teams 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.800 of people, super smart people, very joined up, everyone knowing 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.280 what's going on, in the power of kind of an 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.920 elite team of really capable people, kind of like special Forces. 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:13.200 I love that analogy. So you go from Jaguar and 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.400 Lotus in twenty ten to Tesla as VP of Vehicle 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:22.680 Engineering and chief engineer of the Tesla Model Less. When 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.760 you arrived, that was a clean sheet piece of paper. 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.159 Well, I actually I joined in February nine, way before 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.320 twenty ten. It was formally announced quite a lot later. 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.000 But I actually spoke to a guy called Leland Musk 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.800 who called me an in England in January, and went 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.800 out and met him in January nine, and I was 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:48.960 there in the company in February nine. Long before there 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:50.880 was a conceptual prototype of models. 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.400 Back in those days, it was a little Lotus alon 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.240 where they took out the engine and dropped in a 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.880 bunch of batteries and electric motors. It's hard to imagine 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:05.080 that that beginning eventually led to the Model S. And 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.400 while the Model S is certainly long in the tooth, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.000 it's been around a while. When that car came out, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.720 it was pretty innovative and unique in the world. Tell 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.560 us about your experience helping to develop the Model S, 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.640 the car that arguably changed the entire automotive world totally. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.680 Well, it was a labor of love. I was working 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.320 crazy hours, I working regular one hundred hours a week 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:32.159 to achieve that against all odds. And so when I 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:36.280 joined the company, start had already been made. They'd been 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.680 working on it for about a year, and it was 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.200 a false storm. It was never going to work. So 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.280 I had a difficult decision to make the first week 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:45.920 I was there, I had to go and tell my boss, 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:49.120 my new boss, that really need to start again with 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:56.880 a clean sheet, and he had the wisdom to agree 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.799 with me, and so we started a fresh modthe less 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.960 from the ground up, and that was probably the second 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:05.520 week of February nine. 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:07.760 And then the car comes out in twenty twelve. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.600 It was record time, and it was just it was 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.480 a crazy because I mean I actually had a team 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.800 of about six people to start with. Everyone had left 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.000 and it was obvious I had to start from scratch, 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.520 from a clean computer screen. So I had to hire 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.440 the team, attract people to this company that no one 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.560 had heard of, which no one gave a shot of 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:33.840 being successful at There. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:35.920 Was certainly a lot of skepticism in the early. 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.320 Year totally, and there was this misconception wasn't sufficient expertise 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.679 and experience to do to do a car let alone, 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:49.680 something which was really cutting edge. But actually having that 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:55.480 clean sheet and having the authority the go ahead to 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.920 recruit my team and hand pick my team, that's what 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.320 changed everything, because I could actually hand pick an elite 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:05.680 team of the best engineers in the world, and I 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.760 called everyone i'd work from with before. That's why a 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:10.720 lot of Brits came out and designed models. It was 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.600 very much an international effort, but a lot of British 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.080 people because there's people I knew from my paths from 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:23.119 Jaguar exactly exactly, and it's sort of really we set 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.800 up Teslo Engineering. There wasn't a place to do it, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.800 and I was actually working in SpaceX. I had my 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:35.480 SpaceX security parts and I found that the second floor 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.520 of SpaceX was unused. It was early days at SpaceX. 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:40.880 I was just concrete floor. Let's say, can I have this. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.599 Let's set up Teslo Engineering upstairs in SpaceX. 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:45.120 Wow. 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.680 And we rolled some gray carpet do put some desks 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:52.520 there and about probably about twenty of us actually designed 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:57.480 the model less from the ground up through two thousand 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.880 and nine, and then eventually I grew the team to 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.480 about one hundred and fifty people through that three year period. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:10.200 But it was a fascinating time. It was when Tesla 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.080 was at the cutting edge. And the interesting thing was 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.520 the person who drove me the most was myself, because 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.800 here I had this incredible opportunity in life to show 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.920 what was possible and show what I could do. And 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:32.600 really one of the main weapons I had was digital 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:37.920 engineering to take everything I'd learned about cutting edge computational 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:45.600 engineering and simulation, digital wind tunnel, digital everything. So therefore 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:51.280 we could actually go later on prototypes and effectively go 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:56.400 for computational prototypes tens of thousands of times to get 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.240 things right. So when we actually built a proper prototype, 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:08.240 and the first proper prototype was late twenty ten, relatively late. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:13.239 And this was a core philosophy of my engineering process 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:20.960 to really turn things on the head. Normally there's an 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.720 emphasis on getting an early prototype so you can learn 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:28.200 early with your mistakes. My process was the absolute antithesis. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.320 Make all your mistakes on the computer, tested one thousand times, 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.679 ten thousand times, and then cut the metal when you're 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:40.199 damn sure, relatively late, and that prototype will be really good. 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.520 And that's what we did, and that's how we reduced 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.480 the time scale, and that car was in production three 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.440 and a half years from the day I said, right, 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.320 let's design it from scratch, back in February two thousand 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:54.800 and nine. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.199 So we're going to talk a little bit more about 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.079 Tesla later, but you said something that caught my ear. 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:06.240 At the time, the nine to twelve era Tesla was 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.480 at the cutting edge. You're implying they're no longer at 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:11.199 the cutting edge. Is that the case? 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:16.000 I think that the mantle has passed to Lucid. I 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.600 think Lucid is now at the cutting edge. I think 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.880 we are the company with a true sense of mission. 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.640 This week, I was proud to announce that we've created 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:31.240 a landmark number in the development of the ev which 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.600 is going to have a profound impact upon the planet, 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:38.520 and that is achieving five miles of range per kilar. 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:39.520 What tower of energy. 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:41.000 That's a giant efficiency. 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:42.520 It's a giant to leap forward. 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.520 Like a lot of the cars out there are two 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:47.560 ish if they're lucky three two. 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.600 You're very well versed in this barrier. Absolutely my car, guys, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.120 you know your stuff. And why this is important is 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.079 that we need to address the barriers to widespread adoption 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.760 of electric car. And the first barrier, it was range anxiety. 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:07.040 When we launched Lucid Air in the autumn the fall 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.600 of twenty one, we had a range of five twenty 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.400 miles with our very first product. Nobody believed it as possible, 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:15.880 and we did that with the modest battery size. It 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.400 wasn't a cumongous It wasn't dumb range with just stuffing 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:23.480 loads of anyone can do that. And you know this 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.080 is this is cutting edge stuff. And why this is 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.199 important is the next barrier to widespread adoption is the 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.200 cost of ownership, the cost of an EV. Why why 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.520 not everybody jumping to EV's now? It's because of cost. 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:39.880 And if you look at the breakdown of the cost 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.520 of building the bill of materials all the parts that 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.080 you put into an EV. For a high end EV, 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.680 about thirty seven percent of that value is the battery pack. 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.400 But for a more affordable family car it's over forty percent. 0:12:55.000 --> 0:13:00.520 There is no gasoline engine car equivalent to this balance 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.280 of cost. So what we are doing at LUCID is 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.760 addressing the cost of the batteries, and we're doing it 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.560 in an unorthodox way rather than saying, right, can we 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.680 make batteries cheaper through an economy of scale, or actually 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.520 saying do we need that many batteries in the first place? 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.360 Can we go further with higher technology? We've reinvented the 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.880 electric motor, we've reinvented the inverter to go further with 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.840 less batteries in the first place. And so if you 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.679 look at our products today. If you look at the 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.480 Loociderer Pure, we're able to do the car that's in 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.760 production right now. For any journey you take from A 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.800 to B, whether it's from home to the office, down 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.199 the shops, on your vocation, you will use less electricity 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.480 to go from A to B than any other car 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.000 on the market today, par none. And because it's the 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:55.040 most efficient, and because you're able to use less electricity, 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.000 not only will it cost you less as a user, 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:00.480 but it means you don't have to carry such a 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.840 large battery pack around, and that means better use of 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:11.320 the world's precious resources. Less minds for lithium, nickel, cobalt, 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:18.240 less dependence geopolitically in this world for the US, and 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.080 this is of a profound significance. We can go further 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.200 with less through technology. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.800 Let's talk a little bit about what led you to 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.480 join Lucid. You helped bring out the Models. You're chief 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.960 engineer of the Models project when you were at Tesla. 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.760 So let's start with that car. Not only did you 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.160 bring it to market incredibly quick, it won multiple awards 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.960 Onomabile Magazine, Automobile of the Year, Motor Trend, Car the Year, 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.280 All sorts, of big wins. What made the model ass 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:54.520 so successful. 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.040 I think it was a big picture thinking and right 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.560 down to detailed execution. To have both, I think you 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.240 need to have a strategic oversight of joined up thinking 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.080 of how systems interact relative to each other as a 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.120 complete ecosystem, and then you need to have that loving 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.000 attention to detail at I mean, there was there was 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.120 a there was a well known for my mantra that 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.280 every millimeter counts, and I felt that every gram counts, 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.920 particularly with an electric car, where every every duel of 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.680 the energy is a precious commodity. So it was really 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:37.680 a very interesting intellectual puzzle because when I arrived at 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:42.640 Tesla in February nine, prior to my arrival, friends von Holtsaersen, 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.760 who was the design chief, arrived around I think it 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:54.240 was about Autumn eight, no August eight, and before I 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.160 had arrived, the exterior styling design the shape of models 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.480 had been signed off on approved by between Frances and Elon, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.440 and that was pretty well predetermined before I arrived. Now 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:11.280 that set in stone effectively the outer shape constraint the 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.440 parameters that I as an engineer could work to. Now 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.080 that's very different from how we approach Lucida, and I 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.240 can go on to that later, but this presented a 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.280 very interesting and compelling intellectual puzzle, a three D puzzle. 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.920 How was I going to fit all the battery cells 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.200 in to give that car, to endow that car with 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:37.280 sufficient range? How was I going to fit in motors, transmission, 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:44.960 drive shafts, suspension people, packaged leg room, crumple zones, cooling, 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:50.800 just space for luggage, all of that within that predetermined 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.440 out of shape because it'd been signed off, and I 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.720 realized within a millisecond that that that wasn't going to 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.720 change much. So it was a fascinating three dimental puzzle. 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:08.880 It was like a tetrix on steroids, tetras on steroids. 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.600 To solve how we were going to fit all these 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.480 parts in the car. And I can give you. I 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.480 can give you a very interesting example. We wanted to 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.800 have a flat floor in the car to differentiate it 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:25.280 no transmission tunnel inside the cabin and traditional car's got 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:26.960 a transmission tunnel. 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:27.080 At the rear. 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.760 And because that is an obstruction to comfort for the. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.960 Occupants middle seat in the back, Oh. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.560 Who absolutely exactly, And so there was a design to 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.520 have a fully flat floor but one of the big 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.960 loads that you have to design force structurally in a 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:49.399 car at the seat belt seat belt pull tests, particularly 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.560 the lower anchor points which goes through the seat and 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.560 through the seat mountains into the floor, and so flat 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.200 sheet metal floor wouldn't have been strong enough. So it's 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.880 very clear we have to link the battery pack structure 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.119 under the floor through and make the battery pack contribute 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.760 to the seat belt strength. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So the 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.040 seat belt load to go through the floor through a 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.399 long bolt through the cross member which is in the 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.159 battery pack, and these had to go in a specific 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.680 location where the people fitted, and so that starts determining 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.000 where you can put the cross members in the battery pack. 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:31.680 So when I started laying out the architecture of all 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.960 the cells fitted in that battery pack, I noticed that 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:40.080 we could actually divide that into seven elements along the 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.480 rocker section and we'd be able to get these cross 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.840 members in precisely the right point. And why this is 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.359 a very interesting example of joined up thinking is that 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.480 then led to the design of the module of the 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.440 battery pack, and we ended up with sixteen modules of 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.040 four ndred and five fifty cells on the model less 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.040 and actually it had a determining factor upon the voltage 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:08.040 that the car ran at. 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:10.480 Can you believe that. 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:16.639 The sequel anchorage structural loads starts splitting up the pack 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:21.240 into discrete modules, which influenced the electrical voltage. One thing 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.400 truly joined up thinking. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.440 One thing leads to the next, which leads to the next, 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.439 and every decision you make has ramifications everything else totally. 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.159 And it's not the only thing. Because we knew we 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.679 were we didn't have silicon carbide switching technology in those days, 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:39.320 so we were using insulated gate bipolar transistors, which was 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:46.800 limiting us to you know, around four twenty four thirty folds. 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.679 So we knew what sort of range of and we 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.520 knew there could be some peak overloads, that voltage spikes 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.240 that we had to cover for. So we knew roughly 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.240 the voltage range that we could hit. But it was 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:05.840 sort of absolutely consistent with that how many cells can 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.359 we fit because each cell had amount of energy and 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:10.720 so the number of cells will determine the range of 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.679 the vehicles. He wanted to get us to maximize that 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.919 as well, and even the gaps between the cells, and 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.560 I was able to do that without changing the wheelbase 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.280 of the car from the original design, which was quite 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:23.359 an achievement, I can tell you. 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.840 So now let me pull you back from the engineering 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:31.280 wonkiness you come off of the giant success of the 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.879 Model S. What made you decide, Hey, that was fun, 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:38.800 let me go elsewhere and start with a clean sheet, 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.359 rather than stay at Tesla and work on whatever their 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:43.080 next vehicle was. 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.359 I'd glad you ask me that, because there's a actually 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.920 there's a sort of interlude between the two. So while 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:50.760 I was doing all this, my mom, my mother was 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.359 living in England, and she's a widow, and she was 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.280 in her nineties and her health was failing, and I 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.879 just had to go back. So I resigned my position 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.679 at Tesla in January twenty twenty. Was I went home 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:08.800 for Christmas end of twenty eleven and it was clear 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.480 that mum needed me, and so crazy I gave up 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.280 my job at Tesla, flying around with El on his 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.639 jet and I went home and I was literally cooking 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.040 dinner and washing the dishes for more and then her felt. 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.600 It's only when she passed that I really came out 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.800 and joined a little company and set up Lucid from. 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.960 It So were there any regrets after not going back 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.239 to Tesla? What did Elon say to you? You were 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.879 a key person for the success of the Model Ass. 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:40.720 He recruited you. How did he feel when you said 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:42.520 I'm going to do something else. 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:44.280 Well, he did have the good christ to ring me 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:46.320 up and asked me to come back, but it was 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:47.639 my decision was made. 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:50.720 So what was it like working for Musk? He's got 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:53.760 a little bit of a reputation. How was your relationship? 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.560 How did he affect what the Model Ass turned out 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:56.720 to be? 0:21:57.000 --> 0:21:58.520 So it's very interesting. 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.760 I think there was a common narrative that he pushes 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.680 everyone his subordinates really hard. 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:06.160 True. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.719 I never had that experience, really because I pushed myself 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.480 so crazy how to do it that there was someone 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:14.600 pushing me harder than he ever could, and it was 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:19.480 me because I'd had years and years of wanting to 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.440 do something like a model less and I could never 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.320 have done it at say Jakie or Lotus. But what 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.600 I had was the freedom of picking hand picking brilliant engineers, 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.000 and he was totally aligned with that. We totally had 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:37.159 a shared vision and SpaceX was built upon that. And 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.520 I was working in SpaceX that one in great engineers 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:45.040 worth one hundred mediocre people. It's all about how can 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.320 you track the best brains on the planet to come 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.080 up with a sense of mission. And that's what I did. 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:53.720 And actually I remember I actually even had a math 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.320 test for all my candidates and it was like, never mind, 0:22:57.320 --> 0:22:58.800 what qualifications You've got to do. 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:00.639 This math with me? People. 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.680 I've thought them all through the ringer and I personally 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:08.240 into everyone. And actually I built Lucid that way. I mean, 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.320 I don't know, I don't these days, but if you 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:16.639 look at the core capability, the core engineering talent at Lucid, 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:19.480 and many of them been with me for many, many years, 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:21.920 and a lot of my Tesla modelesque team came across 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:24.280 with me. And literally we've got hundreds of people have 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:27.840 come across from Tesla to Lucid. Lucy's like a beacon 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:30.680 of light now that hundreds of people have come across 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:35.520 and and they've drawn to this flame that we are 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:38.960 going to be the best technically, whatever whatever it takes. 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:40.880 We're going to get into Lucid in a few moments. 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.639 But you mentioned space, ax, I have to ask you 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:48.800 a question. Not only is Elon running Elon Musk running Tesla, 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:53.479 he's running space Ax, he's running Twitter or ostensible if 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:56.240 he handed it off to somebody, but it's pretty clear 0:23:56.280 --> 0:24:01.359 he's still very involved. He's running Xai. That's four companies. 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.280 How can one person successfully manage running for a company? 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:08.520