Chris Anderson:
Elon, hey, welcome back to TED.
00:12
It's great to have you here.
00:15
Elon Musk: Thanks for having me.
00:16
CA: So, in the next half hour or so,
00:18
we're going to spend some time
00:21
exploring your vision for what
an exciting future might look like,
00:23
which I guess makes
the first question a little ironic:
00:27
Why are you boring?
00:31
I ask myself that frequently.
00:34
We're trying to dig a hole under LA,
00:39
and this is to create the beginning
00:43
of what will hopefully
be a 3D network of tunnels
00:46
to alleviate congestion.
00:51
So right now, one of the most
soul-destroying things is traffic.
00:53
It affects people
in every part of the world.
00:59
It takes away so much of your life.
01:02
It's particularly horrible in LA.
01:08
CA: I think you've brought with you
01:12
the first visualization
that's been shown of this.
01:14
EM: Yeah, absolutely.
So this is the first time --
01:18
Just to show what we're talking about.
01:20
So a couple of key things
that are important
01:22
in having a 3D tunnel network.
01:24
First of all, you have to be able
01:28
to integrate the entrance
and exit of the tunnel
01:30
seamlessly into the fabric of the city.
01:32
So by having an elevator,
01:34
sort of a car skate,
that's on an elevator,
01:38
you can integrate the entrance
and exits to the tunnel network
01:43
just by using two parking spaces.
01:47
And then the car gets on a skate.
01:50
There's no speed limit here,
01:52
so we're designing this to be able
to operate at 200 kilometers an hour.
01:54
EM: 200 kilometers an hour,
or about 130 miles per hour.
02:00
So you should be able
to get from, say, Westwood to LAX
02:04
in six minutes -- five, six minutes.
02:11
CA: So possibly, initially done,
02:17
it's like on a sort
of toll road-type basis.
02:19
CA: Which, I guess,
alleviates some traffic
02:22
from the surface streets as well.
02:24
EM: So, I don't know
if people noticed it in the video,
02:26
but there's no real limit
to how many levels of tunnel you can have.
02:29
You can go much further deep
than you can go up.
02:34
The deepest mines are much deeper
than the tallest buildings are tall,
02:37
so you can alleviate any arbitrary
level of urban congestion
02:41
with a 3D tunnel network.
02:46
This is a very important point.
02:48
So a key rebuttal to the tunnels
is that if you add one layer of tunnels,
02:49
that will simply alleviate congestion,
it will get used up,
02:56
and then you'll be back where you started,
back with congestion.
02:58
But you can go to any
arbitrary number of tunnels,
03:02
any number of levels.
03:04
CA: But people -- seen traditionally,
it's incredibly expensive to dig,
03:05
and that would block this idea.
03:09
Well, they're right.
03:13
To give you an example,
the LA subway extension,
03:14
which is -- I think it's
a two-and-a-half mile extension
03:18
that was just completed
for two billion dollars.
03:21
So it's roughly a billion dollars a mile
to do the subway extension in LA.
03:24
And this is not the highest
utility subway in the world.
03:29
So yeah, it's quite difficult
to dig tunnels normally.
03:33
I think we need to have
at least a tenfold improvement
03:37
in the cost per mile of tunneling.
03:41
CA: And how could you achieve that?
03:44
EM: Actually, if you just do two things,
03:48
you can get to approximately
an order of magnitude improvement,
03:50
and I think you can go beyond that.
03:53
So the first thing to do
is to cut the tunnel diameter
03:55
by a factor of two or more.
04:00
So a single road lane tunnel
according to regulations
04:01
has to be 26 feet,
maybe 28 feet in diameter
04:05
to allow for crashes
and emergency vehicles
04:08
and sufficient ventilation
for combustion engine cars.
04:11
But if you shrink that diameter
to what we're attempting,
04:16
which is 12 feet, which is plenty
to get an electric skate through,
04:19
you drop the diameter by a factor of two
04:23
and the cross-sectional area
by a factor of four,
04:26
and the tunneling cost scales
with the cross-sectional area.
04:30
So that's roughly a half-order
of magnitude improvement right there.
04:33
Then tunneling machines currently tunnel
for half the time, then they stop,
04:36
and then the rest of the time
is putting in reinforcements
04:41
for the tunnel wall.
04:44
So if you design the machine instead
04:46
to do continuous
tunneling and reinforcing,
04:48
that will give you
a factor of two improvement.
04:50
Combine that and that's a factor of eight.
04:53
Also these machines are far from being
at their power or thermal limits,
04:55
so you can jack up the power
to the machine substantially.
04:59
I think you can get
at least a factor of two,
05:03
maybe a factor of four or five
improvement on top of that.
05:05
So I think there's a fairly
straightforward series of steps
05:09
to get somewhere in excess
of an order of magnitude improvement
05:13
in the cost per mile,
05:16
and our target actually is --
05:18
we've got a pet snail called Gary,
05:21
this is from Gary the snail
from "South Park,"
05:24
I mean, sorry, "SpongeBob SquarePants."
05:26
So Gary is capable of --
05:31
currently he's capable
of going 14 times faster
05:35
than a tunnel-boring machine.
05:39
CA: You want to beat Gary.
05:44
EM: We want to beat Gary.
05:46
He's not a patient little fellow,
05:49
and that will be victory.
05:51
Victory is beating the snail.
05:54
CA: But a lot of people imagining,
dreaming about future cities,
05:57
they imagine that actually
the solution is flying cars, drones, etc.
06:00
You go aboveground.
06:04
Why isn't that a better solution?
06:06
You save all that tunneling cost.
06:08
EM: Right. I'm in favor of flying things.
06:10
Obviously, I do rockets,
so I like things that fly.
06:12
This is not some inherent bias
against flying things,
06:16
but there is a challenge with flying cars
06:19
in that they'll be quite noisy,
06:22
the wind force generated
will be very high.
06:25
Let's just say that if something's
flying over your head,
06:32
a whole bunch of flying cars
going all over the place,
06:34
that is not an anxiety-reducing situation.
06:38
You don't think to yourself,
"Well, I feel better about today."
06:45
You're thinking,
"Did they service their hubcap,
06:50
or is it going to come off
and guillotine me?"
06:53
CA: So you've got this vision
07:00
of future cities with these rich,
3D networks of tunnels underneath.
07:01
Is there a tie-in here with Hyperloop?
07:07
Could you apply these tunnels
to use for this Hyperloop idea
07:09
you released a few years ago.
07:12
EM: Yeah, so we've been
sort of puttering around
07:14
with the Hyperloop stuff for a while.
07:18
We built a Hyperloop test track
adjacent to SpaceX,
07:20
just for a student competition,
07:24
to encourage innovative
ideas in transport.
07:26
And it actually ends up being
the biggest vacuum chamber in the world
07:29
after the Large Hadron Collider,
07:34
So it was quite fun to do that,
but it was kind of a hobby thing,
07:41
and then we think we might --
07:46
so we've built a little pusher car
to push the student pods,
07:50
but we're going to try seeing
how fast we can make the pusher go
07:56
if it's not pushing something.
08:00
So we're cautiously optimistic
08:02
we'll be able to be faster
than the world's fastest bullet train
08:05
even in a .8-mile stretch.
08:10
CA: Whoa. Good brakes.
08:12
EM: Yeah, I mean, it's -- yeah.
08:14
It's either going to smash
into tiny pieces or go quite fast.
08:17
CA: But you can picture,
then, a Hyperloop in a tunnel
08:21
running quite long distances.
08:25
And looking at tunneling technology,
08:29
it turns out that
in order to make a tunnel,
08:30
In order to seal against the water table,
08:36
you've got to typically design
a tunnel wall to be good
08:38
to about five or six atmospheres.
08:43
So to go to vacuum is only one atmosphere,
08:47
So actually, it sort of turns out
that automatically,
08:51
if you build a tunnel that is good enough
to resist the water table,
08:56
it is automatically
capable of holding vacuum.
09:00
CA: And so you could actually picture,
09:05
what kind of length tunnel
is in Elon's future to running Hyperloop?
09:07
EM: I think there's no real length limit.
09:13
You could dig as much as you want.
09:16
I think if you were to do something
09:19
like a DC-to-New York Hyperloop,
09:21
I think you'd probably want
to go underground the entire way
09:27
because it's a high-density area.
09:29
You're going under
a lot of buildings and houses,
09:31
and if you go deep enough,
09:35
you cannot detect the tunnel.
09:37
Sometimes people think,
well, it's going to be pretty annoying
09:39
to have a tunnel dug under my house.
09:42
Like, if that tunnel is dug
09:44
more than about three or four
tunnel diameters beneath your house,
09:45
you will not be able
to detect it being dug at all.
09:49
In fact, if you're able
to detect the tunnel being dug,
09:52
whatever device you are using,
09:59
you can get a lot of money
for that device from the Israeli military,
10:01
who is trying to detect
tunnels from Hamas,
10:04
and from the US Customs and Border patrol
that try and detect drug tunnels.
10:07
that earth is incredibly good
at absorbing vibrations,
10:15
and once the tunnel depth
is below a certain level,
10:19
it is undetectable.
10:22
Maybe if you have a very sensitive
seismic instrument,
10:24
you might be able to detect it.
10:27
CA: So you've started
a new company to do this
10:29
called The Boring Company.
10:31
Very nice. Very funny.
10:33
EM: What's funny about that?
10:36
CA: How much of your time is this?
10:40
two or three percent.
10:47
CA: You've called it a hobby.
10:49
This is what an Elon Musk
hobby looks like.
10:50
EM: I mean, it really is, like --
10:54
This is basically interns
and people doing it part time.
10:57
We bought some second-hand machinery.
11:03
It's kind of puttering along,
but it's making good progress, so --
11:08
CA: So an even bigger part of your time
11:12
is being spent on electrifying
cars and transport through Tesla.
11:13
Is one of the motivations
for the tunneling project
11:19
the realization that actually,
11:22
in a world where cars are electric
and where they're self-driving,
11:24
there may end up being
more cars on the roads
11:28
on any given hour than there are now?
11:31
A lot of people think
that when you make cars autonomous,
11:38
they'll be able to go faster
and that will alleviate congestion.
11:42
And to some degree that will be true,
11:47
but once you have shared autonomy
where it's much cheaper to go by car
11:48
and you can go point to point,
11:54
the affordability of going in a car
will be better than that of a bus.
11:56
Like, it will cost less than a bus ticket.
12:02
So the amount of driving that will occur
will be much greater with shared autonomy,
12:04
and actually traffic will get far worse.
12:09
CA: You started Tesla
with the goal of persuading the world
12:12
that electrification
was the future of cars,
12:16
and a few years ago,
people were laughing at you.
12:19
I don't know. I don't know.
12:27
CA: But isn't it true that pretty much
every auto manufacturer
12:30
has announced
serious electrification plans
12:33
for the short- to medium-term future?
12:36
I think almost every automaker
has some electric vehicle program.
12:43
They vary in seriousness.
12:48
Some are very serious
about transitioning entirely to electric,
12:49
and some are just dabbling in it.
12:53
And some, amazingly,
are still pursuing fuel cells,
12:57
but I think that won't last much longer.
12:59
CA: But isn't there a sense, though, Elon,
13:01
where you can now just declare victory
and say, you know, "We did it."
13:03
Let the world electrify,
and you go on and focus on other stuff?
13:07
I intend to stay with Tesla
as far into the future as I can imagine,
13:16
and there are a lot of exciting
things that we have coming.
13:20
Obviously the Model 3 is coming soon.
13:25
We'll be unveiling the Tesla Semi truck.
13:27
CA: OK, we're going to come to this.
13:32
So Model 3, it's supposed
to be coming in July-ish.
13:34
EM: Yeah, it's looking quite good
for starting production in July.
13:39
One of the things
that people are so excited about
13:45
is the fact that it's got autopilot.
13:47
And you put out this video a while back
13:50
showing what that technology
would look like.
13:53
CA: There's obviously autopilot
in Model S right now.
13:59
What are we seeing here?
14:02
EM: Yeah, so this is using
only cameras and GPS.
14:03
So there's no LIDAR
or radar being used here.
14:09
This is just using passive optical,
which is essentially what a person uses.
14:12
The whole road system
is meant to be navigated
14:17
with passive optical, or cameras,
14:19
and so once you solve cameras
14:23
then autonomy is solved.
14:29
If you don't solve vision,
it's not solved.
14:31
So that's why our focus is
so heavily on having a vision neural net
14:34
that's very effective for road conditions.
14:40
CA: Right. Many other people
are going the LIDAR route.
14:43
You want cameras plus radar is most of it.
14:46
EM: You can absolutely
be superhuman with just cameras.
14:48
Like, you can probably do it
ten times better than humans would,
14:52
CA: So the new cars being sold right now
have eight cameras in them.
14:56
They can't yet do what that showed.
15:01
When will they be able to?
15:05
EM: I think we're still on track
for being able to go cross-country
15:08
from LA to New York by the end
of the year, fully autonomous.
15:14
CA: OK, so by the end
of the year, you're saying,
15:18
someone's going to sit in a Tesla
without touching the steering wheel,
15:22
tap in "New York," off it goes.
15:26
CA: Won't ever have to touch the wheel --
by the end of 2017.
15:29
EM: Yeah. Essentially,
November or December of this year,
15:34
we should be able to go all the way
from a parking lot in California
15:38
to a parking lot in New York,
15:43
no controls touched at any point
during the entire journey.
15:45
But part of that is possible
15:52
because you've already got a fleet
of Teslas driving all these roads.
15:53
You're accumulating a huge amount
of data of that national road system.
15:56
EM: Yes, but the thing
that will be interesting
16:03
is that I'm actually fairly confident
it will be able to do that route
16:06
even if you change the route dynamically.
16:12
So, it's fairly easy --
16:16
If you say I'm going to be really good
at one specific route, that's one thing,
16:20
but it should be able to go,
really be very good,
16:23
certainly once you enter a highway,
16:28
to go anywhere on the highway system
16:30
in a given country.
16:33
So it's not sort of limited
to LA to New York.
16:36
We could change it
and make it Seattle-Florida,
16:38
that day, in real time.
16:41
So you were going from LA to New York.
16:44
Now go from LA to Toronto.
16:46
CA: So leaving aside
regulation for a second,
16:50
in terms of the technology alone,
16:53
the time when someone
will be able to buy one of your cars
16:55
and literally just take the hands
off the wheel and go to sleep
16:59
and wake up and find that they've arrived,
17:03
how far away is that, to do that safely?
17:05
EM: I think that's about two years.
17:07
So the real trick of it
is not how do you make it work
17:09
say 99.9 percent of the time,
17:13
because, like, if a car crashes
one in a thousand times,
17:16
then you're probably still not going
to be comfortable falling asleep.
17:20
You shouldn't be, certainly.
17:27
It's never going to be perfect.
17:32
No system is going to be perfect,
17:34
but if you say it's perhaps --
17:36
the car is unlikely to crash
17:40
in a hundred lifetimes,
or a thousand lifetimes,
17:42
then people are like, OK, wow,
if I were to live a thousand lives,
17:46
I would still most likely
never experience a crash,
17:50
then that's probably OK.
17:53
I guess the big concern of yours
is that people may actually
17:55
get seduced too early
to think that this is safe,
17:58
and that you'll have some horrible
incident happen that puts things back.
18:00
EM: Well, I think that the autonomy system
is likely to at least mitigate the crash,
18:05
except in rare circumstances.
18:11
The thing to appreciate
about vehicle safety
18:14
is this is probabilistic.
18:16
I mean, there's some chance that any time
a human driver gets in a car,
18:20
that they will have an accident
that is their fault.
18:24
So really the key threshold for autonomy
18:29
is how much better does autonomy
need to be than a person
18:33
before you can rely on it?
18:38
CA: But once you get
literally safe hands-off driving,
18:39
the power to disrupt
the whole industry seems massive,
18:43
because at that point you've spoken
of people being able to buy a car,
18:45
drops you off at work,
and then you let it go
18:50
and provide a sort of Uber-like
service to other people,
18:52
maybe even cover the cost
of your lease of that car,
18:57
so you can kind of get a car for free.
19:00
Is that really likely?
19:02
EM: Yeah. Absolutely
this is what will happen.
19:03
So there will be a shared autonomy fleet
19:06
where you buy your car
19:08
and you can choose
to use that car exclusively,
19:09
you could choose to have it be used
only by friends and family,
19:13
only by other drivers
who are rated five star,
19:16
you can choose to share it sometimes
but not other times.
19:21
That's 100 percent what will occur.
19:28
It's just a question of when.
19:31
So you mentioned the Semi
19:35
and I think you're planning
to announce this in September,
19:37
but I'm curious whether there's
anything you could show us today?
19:40
EM: I will show you
a teaser shot of the truck.
19:43
EM: That's definitely a case
where we want to be cautious
19:52
about the autonomy features.
19:55
CA: We can't see that much of it,
20:01
but it doesn't look like
just a little friendly neighborhood truck.
20:02
It looks kind of badass.
20:06
What sort of semi is this?
20:07
EM: So this is a heavy duty,
long-range semitruck.
20:11
So it's the highest weight capability
20:15
and with long range.
20:20
So essentially it's meant to alleviate
the heavy-duty trucking loads.
20:23
And this is something which
people do not today think is possible.
20:29
They think the truck doesn't have enough
power or it doesn't have enough range,
20:34
and then with the Tesla Semi
20:38
we want to show that no, an electric truck
20:40
actually can out-torque any diesel semi.
20:43
And if you had a tug-of-war competition,
20:49
the Tesla Semi
will tug the diesel semi uphill.
20:53
CA: That's pretty cool.
And short term, these aren't driverless.
21:03
These are going to be trucks
that truck drivers want to drive.
21:06
EM: Yes. So what will be
really fun about this
21:10
is you have a flat torque RPM curve
with an electric motor,
21:13
whereas with a diesel motor or any kind
of internal combustion engine car,
21:18
you've got a torque RPM curve
that looks like a hill.
21:22
So this will be a very spry truck.
21:25
You can drive this
around like a sports car.
21:28
There's no gears.
It's, like, single speed.
21:31
CA: There's a great movie
to be made here somewhere.
21:34
I don't know what it is
and I don't know that it ends well,
21:36
but it's a great movie.
21:39
EM: It's quite bizarre test-driving.
21:41
When I was driving the test prototype
for the first truck.
21:44
It's really weird,
because you're driving around
21:48
and you're just so nimble,
and you're in this giant truck.
21:50
CA: Wait, you've
already driven a prototype?
21:53
EM: Yeah, I drove it
around the parking lot,
21:57
and I was like, this is crazy.
21:59
CA: Wow. This is no vaporware.
22:00
EM: It's just like,
driving this giant truck
22:03
and making these mad maneuvers.
22:05
CA: This is cool.
OK, from a really badass picture
22:07
to a kind of less badass picture.
22:09
This is just a cute house
from "Desperate Housewives" or something.
22:12
What on earth is going on here?
22:15
EM: Well, this illustrates
the picture of the future
22:18
that I think is how things will evolve.
22:21
You've got an electric car
in the driveway.
22:24
If you look in between
the electric car and the house,
22:26
there are actually three Powerwalls
stacked up against the side of the house,
22:30
and then that house roof is a solar roof.
22:34
So that's an actual solar glass roof.
22:37
EM: That's a picture of a real --
well, admittedly, it's a real fake house.
22:40
That's a real fake house.
22:44
CA: So these roof tiles,
22:49
some of them have in them
basically solar power, the ability to --
22:51
EM: Yeah. Solar glass tiles
22:57
where you can adjust
the texture and the color
22:59
to a very fine-grained level,
23:04
and then there's
sort of microlouvers in the glass,
23:06
such that when you're looking
at the roof from street level
23:12
or close to street level,
23:15
all the tiles look the same
23:17
whether there is a solar cell
behind it or not.
23:19
So you have an even color
23:26
from the ground level.
23:29
If you were to look at it
from a helicopter,
23:32
you would be actually able
to look through and see
23:35
that some of the glass tiles have
a solar cell behind them and some do not.
23:37
You can't tell from street level.
23:41
CA: You put them in the ones
that are likely to see a lot of sun,
23:43
and that makes these roofs
super affordable, right?
23:46
They're not that much more expensive
than just tiling the roof.
23:48
We're very confident
that the cost of the roof
23:53
plus the cost of electricity --
23:57
A solar glass roof will be less
than the cost of a normal roof
24:01
plus the cost of electricity.
24:04
this will be economically a no-brainer,
24:07
we think it will look great,
24:11
and it will last --
24:13
We thought about having
the warranty be infinity,
24:15
but then people thought,
24:18
well, that might sound
like were just talking rubbish,
24:20
but actually this is toughened glass.
24:22
Well after the house has collapsed
24:28
and there's nothing there,
24:31
the glass tiles will still be there.
24:33
CA: I mean, this is cool.
24:38
So you're rolling this out
in a couple week's time, I think,
24:40
with four different roofing types.
24:43
EM: Yeah, we're starting off
with two, two initially,
24:45
and the second two
will be introduced early next year.
24:48
CA: And what's the scale of ambition here?
24:51
How many houses do you believe
could end up having this type of roofing?
24:53
EM: I think eventually
24:59
almost all houses will have a solar roof.
25:02
The thing is to consider
the time scale here
25:07
to be probably on the order
25:11
So on average, a roof
is replaced every 20 to 25 years.
25:17
But you don't start replacing
all roofs immediately.
25:23
But eventually,
if you say were to fast-forward
25:26
to say 15 years from now,
25:30
it will be unusual to have a roof
that does not have solar.
25:33
CA: Is there a mental model thing
that people don't get here
25:37
that because of the shift in the cost,
the economics of solar power,
25:40
most houses actually have
enough sunlight on their roof
25:45
pretty much to power all of their needs.
25:49
If you could capture the power,
25:51
it could pretty much
power all their needs.
25:53
You could go off-grid, kind of.
25:55
EM: It depends on where you are
25:56
and what the house size is
relative to the roof area,
25:58
but it's a fair statement to say
26:01
that most houses in the US
have enough roof area
26:03
to power all the needs of the house.
26:08
CA: So the key to the economics
26:11
of the cars, the Semi, of these houses
26:15
is the falling price
of lithium-ion batteries,
26:19
which you've made a huge bet on as Tesla.
26:22
In many ways, that's almost
the core competency.
26:25
that to really, like, own that competency,
26:30
you just have to build
the world's largest manufacturing plant
26:35
to double the world's supply
of lithium-ion batteries,
26:38
with this guy. What is this?
26:41
EM: Yeah, so that's the Gigafactory,
26:44
progress so far on the Gigafactory.
26:47
Eventually, you can sort of roughly see
26:50
that there's sort of
a diamond shape overall,
26:52
and when it's fully done,
it'll look like a giant diamond,
26:55
or that's the idea behind it,
26:59
and it's aligned on true north.
27:02
It's a small detail.
27:03
CA: And capable of producing, eventually,
27:05
like a hundred gigawatt hours
of batteries a year.
27:09
EM: A hundred gigawatt hours.
We think probably more, but yeah.
27:12
CA: And they're actually
being produced right now.
27:15
EM: They're in production already.
CA: You guys put out this video.
27:18
I mean, is that speeded up?
27:21
EM: That's the slowed down version.
27:22
CA: How fast does it actually go?
27:26
EM: Well, when it's running at full speed,
27:28
you can't actually see the cells
without a strobe light.
27:31
CA: One of your core ideas, Elon,
about what makes an exciting future
27:40
is a future where we no longer
feel guilty about energy.
27:43
Help us picture this.
27:47
How many Gigafactories, if you like,
does it take to get us there?
27:48
EM: It's about a hundred, roughly.
27:53
It's not 10, it's not a thousand.
27:55
Most likely a hundred.
27:57
CA: See, I find this amazing.
28:00
You can picture what it would take
28:01
to move the world
off this vast fossil fuel thing.
28:05
It's like you're building one,
28:09
it costs five billion dollars,
28:11
or whatever, five to 10 billion dollars.
28:14
Like, it's kind of cool
that you can picture that project.
28:16
And you're planning to do, at Tesla --
announce another two this year.
28:20
EM: I think we'll announce locations
28:25
for somewhere between two
and four Gigafactories later this year.
28:28
Yeah, probably four.
28:32
No more teasing from you for here?
28:38
Like -- where, continent?
28:42
EM: We need to address a global market.
28:49
I think we should talk for --
28:59
Actually, global market.
29:04
I'm going to ask you one question
about politics, only one.
29:06
I'm kind of sick of politics,
but I do want to ask you this.
29:10
You're on a body now
giving advice to a guy --
29:13
CA: Who has said he doesn't
really believe in climate change,
29:21
and there's a lot of people out there
who think you shouldn't be doing that.
29:24
They'd like you to walk away from that.
29:28
What would you say to them?
29:30
EM: Well, I think that first of all,
29:32
I'm just on two advisory councils
29:36
where the format consists
of going around the room
29:38
and asking people's opinion on things,
29:41
and so there's like a meeting
every month or two.
29:44
That's the sum total of my contribution.
29:49
But I think to the degree
that there are people in the room
29:52
who are arguing in favor
of doing something about climate change,
29:55
I've used the meetings I've had thus far
30:06
to argue in favor of immigration
and in favor of climate change.
30:09
And if I hadn't done that,
30:16
that wasn't on the agenda before.
30:18
So maybe nothing will happen,
but at least the words were said.
30:21
So let's talk SpaceX and Mars.
30:31
Last time you were here,
30:35
you spoke about what seemed like
a kind of incredibly ambitious dream
30:36
to develop rockets
that were actually reusable.
30:40
And you've only gone and done it.
30:44
EM: Finally. It took a long time.
30:47
CA: Talk us through this.
What are we looking at here?
30:48
EM: So this is one of our rocket boosters
30:51
coming back from
very high and fast in space.
30:53
So just delivered the upper stage
30:58
I think this might have been
at sort of Mach 7 or so,
31:03
delivery of the upper stage.
31:07
CA: So that was a sped-up --
31:13
EM: That was the slowed down version.
31:15
CA: I thought that was
the sped-up version.
31:18
But I mean, that's amazing,
31:21
and several of these failed
31:22
before you finally
figured out how to do it,
31:23
but now you've done this,
what, five or six times?
31:26
EM: We're at eight or nine.
31:29
CA: And for the first time,
31:32
you've actually reflown
one of the rockets that landed.
31:33
EM: Yeah, so we landed the rocket booster
31:36
and then prepped it for flight again
and flew it again,
31:39
so it's the first reflight
of an orbital booster
31:42
where that reflight is relevant.
31:47
So it's important to appreciate
that reusability is only relevant
31:49
if it is rapid and complete.
31:52
So like an aircraft or a car,
31:57
the reusability is rapid and complete.
32:00
You do not send your aircraft
to Boeing in-between flights.
32:03
CA: Right. So this is allowing you
to dream of this really ambitious idea
32:08
of sending many, many, many people to Mars
32:13
in, what, 10 or 20 years time, I guess.
32:16
CA: And you've designed
this outrageous rocket to do it.
32:20
Help us understand
the scale of this thing.
32:23
EM: Well, visually
you can see that's a person.
32:25
Yeah, and that's the vehicle.
32:32
CA: So if that was a skyscraper,
32:36
that's like, did I read that,
a 40-story skyscraper?
32:37
EM: Probably a little more, yeah.
32:41
The thrust level of this is really --
32:44
This configuration is about four times
the thrust of the Saturn V moon rocket.
32:50
CA: Four times the thrust of the biggest
rocket humanity ever created before.
32:56
CA: As one does.
EM: Yeah.
33:04
In units of 747, a 747 is only about
a quarter of a million pounds of thrust,
33:09
so for every 10 million pounds of thrust,
33:15
So this would be the thrust equivalent
of 120 747s, with all engines blazing.
33:19
CA: And so even with a machine
designed to escape Earth's gravity,
33:26
I think you told me last time
33:30
this thing could actually
take a fully loaded 747,
33:31
people, cargo, everything,
33:35
EM: Exactly. This can take
a fully loaded 747 with maximum fuel,
33:38
maximum passengers,
maximum cargo on the 747 --
33:44
this can take it as cargo.
33:48
CA: So based on this,
33:52
you presented recently
this Interplanetary Transport System
33:53
which is visualized this way.
33:58
This is a scene you picture in, what,
30 years time? 20 years time?
34:02
People walking into this rocket.
34:06
EM: I'm hopeful it's sort of
an eight- to 10-year time frame.
34:09
Aspirationally, that's our target.
34:14
Our internal targets
are more aggressive, but I think --
34:16
EM: While vehicle seems quite large
34:24
and is large by comparison
with other rockets,
34:27
I think the future spacecraft
34:29
will make this look like a rowboat.
34:33
The future spaceships
will be truly enormous.
34:38
Why do we need to build a city on Mars
34:45
with a million people
on it in your lifetime,
34:49
which I think is kind of
what you've said you'd love to do?
34:52
EM: I think it's important to have
34:56
a future that is inspiring and appealing.
35:01
I just think there have to be reasons
35:03
that you get up in the morning
and you want to live.
35:06
Like, why do you want to live?
35:09
What's the point? What inspires you?
35:11
What do you love about the future?
35:12
And if we're not out there,
35:14
if the future does not include
being out there among the stars
35:16
and being a multiplanet species,
35:20
I find that it's incredibly depressing
35:22
if that's not the future
that we're going to have.
35:24
CA: People want to position this
as an either or,
35:32
that there are so many desperate things
happening on the planet now
35:34
from climate to poverty
to, you know, you pick your issue.
35:38
And this feels like a distraction.
35:42
You shouldn't be thinking about this.
35:45
You should be solving what's here and now.
35:46
And to be fair, you've done
a fair old bit to actually do that
35:49
with your work on sustainable energy.
35:52
But why not just do that?
35:54
EM: I think there's --
35:59
I look at the future
from the standpoint of probabilities.
36:04
It's like a branching
stream of probabilities,
36:09
and there are actions that we can take
that affect those probabilities
36:13
or that accelerate one thing
or slow down another thing.
36:19
I may introduce something new
to the probability stream.
36:24
Sustainable energy
will happen no matter what.
36:30
If there was no Tesla,
if Tesla never existed,
36:33
it would have to happen out of necessity.
36:35
If you don't have sustainable energy,
it means you have unsustainable energy.
36:40
Eventually you will run out,
36:43
and the laws of economics
will drive civilization
36:45
towards sustainable energy,
36:51
The fundamental value
of a company like Tesla
36:54
is the degree to which it accelerates
the advent of sustainable energy,
36:57
faster than it would otherwise occur.
37:01
So when I think, like,
37:05
what is the fundamental good
of a company like Tesla,
37:06
I would say, hopefully,
37:09
if it accelerated that by a decade,
potentially more than a decade,
37:10
that would be quite a good thing to occur.
37:16
That's what I consider to be
37:18
the fundamental
aspirational good of Tesla.
37:20
Then there's becoming a multiplanet
species and space-faring civilization.
37:25
This is not inevitable.
37:31
It's very important to appreciate
this is not inevitable.
37:33
The sustainable energy future
I think is largely inevitable,
37:36
but being a space-faring civilization
is definitely not inevitable.
37:39
If you look at the progress in space,
37:44
in 1969 you were able
to send somebody to the moon.
37:48
Then we had the Space Shuttle.
37:54
The Space Shuttle could only
take people to low Earth orbit.
37:57
Then the Space Shuttle retired,
38:01
and the United States
could take no one to orbit.
38:02
So that's the trend.
38:06
The trend is like down to nothing.
38:07
People are mistaken when they think
38:11
that technology
just automatically improves.
38:13
It does not automatically improve.
38:16
It only improves if a lot of people
work very hard to make it better,
38:18
and actually it will, I think,
by itself degrade, actually.
38:22
You look at great civilizations
like Ancient Egypt,
38:28
and they were able to make the pyramids,
38:30
and they forgot how to do that.
38:32
And then the Romans,
they built these incredible aqueducts.
38:34
They forgot how to do it.
38:37
CA: Elon, it almost seems,
listening to you
38:40
and looking at the different
things you've done,
38:42
that you've got this unique
double motivation on everything
38:45
that I find so interesting.
38:47
One is this desire to work
for humanity's long-term good.
38:51
The other is the desire
to do something exciting.
38:56
And often it feels like you feel
like you need the one to drive the other.
38:58
With Tesla, you want
to have sustainable energy,
39:03
so you made these super sexy,
exciting cars to do it.
39:06
Solar energy, we need to get there,
39:11
so we need to make these beautiful roofs.
39:12
We haven't even spoken
about your newest thing,
39:14
which we don't have time to do,
39:17
but you want to save humanity from bad AI,
39:18
and so you're going to create
this really cool brain-machine interface
39:20
to give us all infinite memory
and telepathy and so forth.
39:24
And on Mars, it feels
like what you're saying is,
39:28
yeah, we need to save humanity
39:30
and have a backup plan,
39:34
but also we need to inspire humanity,
39:35
and this is a way to inspire.
39:39
EM: I think the value
of beauty and inspiration
39:45
is very much underrated,
39:49
But I want to be clear.
39:53
I'm not trying to be anyone's savior.
39:54
I'm just trying to think about the future
39:58
CA: Beautiful statement.
40:06
I think everyone here would agree
40:10
None of this is going
to happen inevitably.
40:13
The fact that in your mind,
you dream this stuff,
40:15
you dream stuff that no one else
would dare dream,
40:19
or no one else
would be capable of dreaming
40:22
at the level of complexity that you do.
40:24
The fact that you do that, Elon Musk,
is a really remarkable thing.
40:28
Thank you for helping us all
to dream a bit bigger.
40:31
EM: But you'll tell me if it ever
starts getting genuinely insane, right?
40:34
CA: Thank you, Elon Musk.
That was really, really fantastic.
40:40
That was really fantastic.
40:43