Elon Musk and JB Straubel talked for 15 minutes on the origins of Tesla.
In 2003, JB and Elon and Rosen talked initially about a hydrogen plane but the lunch conversation turned to electric cars. Elon test drove the AC Propulsion T0 EV race car.
This ended up becoming making a Roadster EV race car.
Many mistakes were made initially.
The initial concept was to use the Lotus body frame and then use the AC Propulsion drive. However, the Elise did not work and by the end they used nothing in the AC Propulsion unit and almost none of the Lotus body.
Many car company startups have failed. Only two have not gone bankrupt (Ford and Tesla). It is very difficult to go to the Olympics as your first competition.
Elon Musk talked about how Twitter is the current least bad public square for communication. He said the bots and scams must be removed. He wants Twitter to become even-handed and transparent.
The scaling issues for 20 million vehicles per year are to get the mining and refining of lithium, nickel and iron phosphate to scale.
The current timeline for SpaceX is to send an unmanned mission in 3 or 5 years. If that worked then a manned mission could reach Mars by 2030.
Elon sees the next strongest EV companies as VW and some competitors from China.
Tesla is as much a software company as a hardware company. Elon was personally a software engineer for 20 years.
Elon and his team are not aware of anyon else working on real world AI.
Tesla may offer FSD and autopilot to other carmakers to license. Elon thinks that FSD will need to be proven for a year or so for other carmakers to want to license FSD/Autopilot.
Elon makes the case that Boring Company will enable roads and tunnels to match the dimensionality of buildings. This will eliminate congestion.
VTOL has the proof of concept with the helicopter. Helicopters have high noise and has limitations to only emergency use in many cities.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
