January 24, 2025 • 42 mins
Alex Roy, general partner at New Industry Venture Capital, joins Hannah and Matt to talk about his new cross-country driving record using Tesla's Full-Self Driving. Plus, why are the prices of used EVs so low, and is battery degradation real?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I'm Matt Miller and
I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Hot Pursuit.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
All right.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
We have a really cool episode today because one of
my favorite guests that we've ever had was Alex Roy,
Cannonball run record holder at one point. I don't think
he holds it now, but in a normal Cannonball run,
which is like the Burt Reynolds, you know, starting in
New York, ending in La driving as fast as you
can and avoiding the cops. But now he's done something different.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, and this is actually a new record, which is
the FSD drive Coast to Coast, which he did in
forty five hours thirty six minutes. That's including five hours
worth of charge time.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And it's extra special because you and I were with
him the night that he left.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, and he swore us to secrecy, but he was
all pumped up with his lovely co driver who is
going incognito mostly. Yes, Yeah, that was very cool. I
mean I just can't imagine going out the night before
the morning, you know you're going to set off and
just drive for days.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah. And by the way, I so I've met Alex before,
but only briefly, and but I've been following him forever.
He's also like both he and Carrie when I met
them at the Classic Car Club. You know when you
meet someone and you feel like you have been best
friends forever. I instantly had that, and.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
You know, the New Yorker and me, of course, when
I meet people like that, I'm just like, well, we'll see,
we'll see. Like I can feel it that I really
like them and they feel very copaesthetic and simpatico. But
I'm always just like, we'll see. But no, there's no
other there's no there's no other shoe dropping. It's it's authentic,
it's genuine. It's very nice. And I've known Alex for
(02:03):
a long time and he's one of those people that
you don't try to stay in contact with, you just
are in contact with, and then you look back and
you're like, oh, yeah, i've known him for I don't know,
ten twelve years.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well I'm looking forward to that. I'm from Ohio, so
there's no skepticism in me, and like when I met Carrie,
we both have lived in Berlin for a long time.
We're both fairly new parents, and oh, I didn't know
that yeah, we have like so many things in common
that I was like, wow, we we should go have dinner.
So it was great, and I'm really glad we were
(02:36):
a part of their trip, their journey. Let's get into
our interview with Alex Roy. I'm so glad you could
join us.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
We need to celebrate. This is a celebration. Really.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
The last time we saw you, Alex, you were this
was it was the night before the morning of oh
oh yeah, and we were sworn to secrecy about what
you were about to undertake.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
So I am a firm believer that one should keep
these things a secret until for a long time after
one does it, or at least a little bit of time,
because there's always someone out there who feels super competitive
who might want.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
To sabotage the drive.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
This is less of an issue with you know, electric
and autonomous drives because they're slower. But you know, there
was a time when people who did cannonball drives would
call it the police and call in other cars and
it got pretty hairy.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah it was dirty.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
That's not the case anymore, but still, you know, you
never know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Wait, so, first of all, I knew about this, But
I host a daily television show, and so every day
when there was something, you know, there's often news about Tesla.
For example, it was hard for me to keep my
mouth shut until you finally released the results on your
LinkedIn page, and then I talked about like every day
for a week. So I kept steering people towards your
(03:57):
LinkedIn page summarize for us exactly what you did.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Okay, so you know, the cannonball run is of historical
legacy American car culture.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
People drive cross country as fast as possible. Uh, but
it's always been done.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
As fast as possible.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
And we know with the you know advent of you know,
driver assistance systems and now you know, autonomous vehicles, it
becomes a lot more interesting to try stuff that hasn't
been done before. Notably, how fast can you get a
vehicle cross country that is send me autonomous or autonomous?
And so Elon Mullusk said, I think it was eight
or nine years ago that it would be possible to
(04:38):
summon your vehicle, your Tesla cross country. It would just
come to you, and no one had tried it before
to the best of my knowledge, under cannonball conditions meaning
NonStop except for charging your gas, and so I'm like,
why not do that? And so in late December, on
a date I shall not yet, well everybody knows it
was late summer, I went country with my co driver,
(05:02):
Sea Fox, whose identity is still not public, but we
have met her.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I mean, there are pictures of her on your site.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yes she uh, let's just say.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Her name is Sea Fox as you put it on
your LinkedIn page.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Well you know, but look, hey, look her name is
Carrie Schuler and she's worked for Porsche.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
She's great. She's been in fashion, she was a stylist, but.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Most importantly Tesla owner and like I think eight or
ten years living in Germany, high speed driving experience.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
She's been to racist school. She's one of a kind.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
So we went across and tried to come up with
a rule set that poorted kind of canniball history to
autonomous driving. And you know, the rules are no stopping
except to charge. And since the metrics aren't top speed,
the metrics are how close to one hundred autonomous driving
can we get? That's that's the goal, and that's the bar.
(06:01):
Whatever we do is the bar. And then in the future,
as future software iterations come from Tesla or a competitor
comes out with a vehicle that is capable of doing
something similar. People now have a way of measuring the
both the quality and the capability of an autonomous driving system,
and so I kind of humorously called this the Cannibal Run,
(06:25):
the nerve burg Ring of autonomy, because it's a bench bar.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
And you know, everybody, Hannah, you've driven the Neurveburgering, haven't you?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I haven't. No, I haven't.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
You've never driven it.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
I have driven it, And did you find that challenging?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I found it very challenging. It was literally twenty five
years ago, but it was awesome, right. I didn't drive
it terrified. I didn't drive it as fast as I
could because I was scared that I would crash.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You know, we're in the same boat.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I went for the first time last year, and I
was suddenly I got it. Like the peak people car
makers take their cars there as fast as they can
because they know most people will.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Never drive that fast there.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
But that the potential, like the potentiality and like of
what your car could do if you wanted to is
the lives in the minds of everyone who buys a
sports car and so what if we took the Nurber
Ring and did it for autonomy and that's the cannonball run.
So we got cross country in forty five hours and
(07:26):
thirty six minutes.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Was it New York to Phoenix or New York to
La or what did you?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
New York to La?
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Which is the classic cannonball where in La?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And well we have specifics for the Angelinos.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
So the finish line is the portafinu in And which
is set just south of LA. And the start line
is the Red Ball Garage in midtown Manhattan. And so
actually forty five thirty six is pretty good, would be
pretty good even for like one hundred percent human driven time.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It's a little less than six hours at charge time.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
So thirty nine forty four I have time, which is
actually a really good time.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
What's your fastest what's your fastest time ever? Alex?
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Uh, My fastest time is thirty one hours and four
minutes in Uh, you know BMW five, I mean the
current canniball record internal combustion. I think it's like twenty
five and change.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Who has that?
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Oh my buddy Arnie Towman, he went across during the
COVID lockdowns. And I don't know if that'll ever be beaten,
but I have predicted years ago that someday an electric
vehicle would break the gas time because if you look
at the rate of improvement electric vehicle technology, it looks
like the lines will cross in the next I think
(08:41):
ten years, and then after that autonomous driving. Eventually, I'm
certain that a drive this vehicle could be electric will
break Arnie Toeman's time of twenty five hours and change.
I'm convinced of it because eventually, and this is where
this is all going, when the technology is capable of
(09:04):
driving safer than a human in most conditions, eventually you'll
be able to raise the speed limit of that vehicle
in the software, and then it will it'll break the
human record.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
That's inevitable.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
I don't want to get too drawn off on a tangent,
but are we already there that the technology is safer
than humans? Like, aren't there driverless taxis in San Francisco
and Phoenix and you know that just don't crash very much.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Well, I ride Weimo's every day. I live in Scottsdale,
and they're terrific. Waimo has released data indicating that they
are and this depends on how you measure it. That
they are safer than the average human driver where they operate,
But where they operate is the key phrase here, because
at highway speeds in bad weather things get more complicated.
(09:55):
We've not yet seen any driverless vehicle operate in those conditions,
you know, for a lot of miles, and they're not
available to public yet anyway, they're being tested. So I'm
confident based on Weymo's progress that they will eventually do
highway speeds in all conditions, but they do not yet
offer commercial service that goes, you know, outside of an
(10:17):
urban area like Scottsdale, or like Phoenix, Metro and San Francisco.
Eventually they will, and so will everybody who wants to
be in this business. You have to because if you
want to if you want to sell I think a
car to someone in twenty five years, it's going to
have to have autonomous capabilities, drier less capabilities. It's not
(10:38):
gonna be restricted to fleets and people like to go
on vacation.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And you're making a distinction between autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles,
you know, because I think oftentimes those are just lumped
together as if you have one you have the other.
But it sounds like there's a specific separation in your
mind between the two.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
So uh, there was a time when, you know, consultants
years ago said that the future of all cars was
case connected, autonomous, shared, and electric, and I said that,
I'm like, that's insane. Americans don't really like sharing. Many
of them don't want electric car connectivity.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, I think if you if you have red state,
people own guns. They don't want to be connected.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
They want their privacy and elect Well, uh yeah, and
that's an autonomous Well, I think a lot of people
will want a choice. I like to say that I'm
pro choice in the war on driving, So I like
to have an autonomus vehicle that has a steering wheel.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, actually it is. That's on the Human Driving Associations here,
it's I sell those.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
But you know, I think the distinction between electric and
eternal combustion is more of a political one because there
are countries like China where I think one hundred percent
of cars sold will be electric within a few years,
and Norway it's it's I don't know, do you know what, Hannah,
do you know it's close.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I mean, it's toughs biggest Marketer, it was forever.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, yeah, and so but you know, with the recent
election in the US, I think we're going to see
gas and hybrids have a new lease on life.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
So uh.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
But there is a weird thing about internal combustion cars
and autonomy because autonomous UH driving software is generally very smooth.
The best systems are quite smooth. Sometimes the vehicles I
don't want to name names vehicles, gas vehicles or hybrid
vehicles that have suboptimal transmission.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I don't think anyone listens to this, So you can
name names if you wanted.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
To stay all right, So back in the day, this
is seven eight years ago. I tested a Mercedes E Class,
which is a great car, but when you used its
drive pilot drive pilot system, which was like their first
generation UH drivers and software, the band in which it
operated interacted with the trans mission shift points in such
(13:01):
a way that it was really uncomfortable to use it.
And I was like, wow, I wish this car had
been electric, because then you have the linear power of
electric drivetrain and the linear performance of the of the
driver assistance. And so I mean, I think it's inevitable
all vehicles will be electric, But how long that takes
as a political issue.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
I just want to tell you that chat gpt tells
me in Norway, ninety six point four percent of all
new cars registered last year we're fully electric, battery electric vehicles,
and they cite electrive dot com as their source.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
So thank you. That's a good fi.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, I'm obsessed with chat gpt. By the way, what's
the difference between autonomous and semi autonomous and fully autonomous?
Like I'm in a FD I'm I'm in a GMC
Yukon Denali Ultimate right now and it's got supercrews which
is really cool, but it obviously doesn't take me, you know,
on and off the highway from my house to the
(14:01):
grocery store kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Well, uh, this is a this is a semantic problem
because for a long time, self driving meant you, well,
if you go to India, a self driving car is
a tax to the human driver because you don't have
to do the driving. And so for many years, self
driving was a vehicle that was driverless. But then when
(14:25):
companies started releasing driver assistance and called it self driving,
it kind of muddy the waters. And Tesla came out
with full self driving, which but that's it still requires
a supervisor. And so then you know, WEIMA went from
marketing they had a website called Let's Talk self Driving,
they switched to Let's Talk Autonomous Driving because they felt
like self driving stolen.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
It sucks and so and then autonomous got kind of
stolen by companies marketing self driver assistance, and so it
became a total hot. So today, I would argue that
if it's capable of driverless operation, you have to just
call it driverless, because otherwise it gets thrown in the
(15:11):
in the soup with driver assistance systems. So I would
say in a perfect world, autonomous would being driverless. It
doesn't always mean that, so I always use semi as
the prefix to distinguish that there's someone in a seat
and to classify this specifically what we did Carrie and
I I call it the production autonomy record, because the
(15:35):
Tesla is the only car you can buy which is
potentially capable of fully autonomous driverless operation.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
It isn't yet, but it.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
I'd convinced that it will be.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
And this is and I used to work at a
competing company at our GOAI, but I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Convinced that they can't. And the only other record that
I'm aware that.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Exists in this category would be is a wild card.
A guy named Jay Roberts, bravest man I know, has
a Prius and he put a device called the Comma AI.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Have you heard of Comma.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
No, but I see it was one of your witnesses
on your on your run.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
So George Hatts, who's a very famous hacker, h first
person a hack a PlayStation on an iPhone Tesla try
to hire him and said no, he he has a
device called the Comma AI unit. It's it's you pull
out your rearview mirror. You stick this thing, which is
a cell phone that with a connector that sticks where
the mirror went, and it connects to the CANbus of
(16:37):
your car with a single cable and it will convert.
It will basically enable not every car, but many cars
two capabilities similar to Tesla autopilot, so you can now
have send me autonomous features. The common unit was reviewed
by Consumer Reports years ago, and I think they said
it was the best on the market, or vert or
second better than anything else except I think autopilot. And so, uh,
(17:02):
Jay Roberts took put this in his Prius and went
across country a few months ago and set a record.
I call that the what I think it's the aftermarket
autonomy record.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Now I know this is a deeply uncool question. I
just have to ask really quickly, but is that a
legal device or is it? Kind of like radar detectors
that you know really aren't legal, but we can all
get them.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
So a comma in it's completely illegal, you can. I
think what makes it legal is you buy it and
then but it doesn't come with the software on it
and you have to download the software.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Let's go work around.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
There was a funny story years ago where Hots I think,
went to a party with a head.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Of Nitza Mark Rosekind.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
They were both in the room together at rose Kind
It's like, what's this guy's here? So you should in fact,
if you want to talk to rose Kind, I know him.
I'll get him on your show. I called rose Kind
while we were in the car doing this to tell
him and he's like, this is the crazy thing you've
ever heard anyway, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But that's great.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
So much safer is the thing, Alex Like, I think
a lot of people fear that these vehicles are going
to be hitting old women in crosswalks all the time.
But the fact is, the autonomous vehicles that are out
there right now are just killing far fewer people than
the human driven vehicles that are out there right now.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
I would say, I wouldn't say all autonomous vehicles are safer,
but I would say that the cutting edge, like a
waimo is And I have been in some systems in
other countries that I was not convinced that they should
be on the road. And the thing about a system
like Tesla's is that it still requires a human supervisor.
(18:41):
So if that supervisor is a bad human driver, they're
going to be a bad supervisor and then they.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
May not catch a mistake the vehicle makes.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
And a lot of Tesla crashes are classified as human
responsible crashes, like the supervisor responsible, But there is a
that's a gray area because the relationship between the handoff
when the system's on and then it makes the person
takes over, it's not always so cut and dry. So
I'm a firm believer in WEIMO today and I'm optimistic
(19:13):
about Tesla in the future.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Can I ask if you've heard from Tesla about this endeavor?
Were they aware of it beforehand? Even have you have
they reached out after and you know has Elon made contact?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So this time all right?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
So this this time out, I have not heard from
Tesla officially directly. In ten years ago and seven ten
years ago and eight years ago when I went across
country UH in a Model S and set the speed
the full on canniball electric canniball record, Tesla, did I receive.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Emails from people inside Tesla said this is great UH, and.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
A lot of the Tesla influencer community, we're super positive
about what we just did. The answer is no, they
did not reach out, but I know they're watching and
they are friendly and supportive. Like when I get my
Tesla serviced incredibly, I have a great experience, and I
know that's not the common experience, and so I suspect
(20:18):
good that they've been flagged.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
They've been flag.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I never asked for anything, and I never know. I
don't make demands, but they've been good to me. I
hope that is true for more people.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
So you started the Red Ball garage here in New York,
and do you start out with your hands on the
wheels and your feet on the pedals or how often
did you actually have to touch the wheel and what
situations did you have to take over?
Speaker 4 (20:47):
So there are Tesla influencers who make videos where they
sit with their hands like you know, like.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
This, or like on their legs.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
I follow the best practices that Waimo and the other
big players have adopted after years of testing eight self
driving testing such cars, so hands hovering right behind the
wheel nine to nine percent of the time because if
something should go wrong, you might have less than a
(21:16):
second to react, and if your hands are in your lap,
you're not gonna be able to react.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So when we first started, we.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Had to That was Tesla FSD software version twelve five
to sixty four late December, So at that point you
had to actually the car had to be You could
not engage FSD from a stop.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
From in front of the garage where we were, so.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
We had to pull out in the street, engage it
with a button, and then hands hovering near the wheel.
The total disengagements between New York and LA were thirty two,
but twenty one of those were what we call voluntary
disengagements that we had to do in order to get
the car into a charging stall to charge it. So
(22:00):
that leaves eleven that were non charge and related. Of
those eleven, only two were the really bad kind, which
is what you call an involuntary disengagement, and that is
when your driving, it's the car is driving, you're supervising.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
And without any warning, it suddenly says take over.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Now it flashes red you know, alert's go off. That
happened twice for reasons that are unclear software fault, we
don't know. And then there were two that voluntary takeovers
for the car making a navigation error, and on two
occasions we had to reboot the system software while driving,
(22:41):
once while driving, once while stop, which is something also suboptimal.
So the total the metrics that matter are engagement rate
and number of involuntary disengagements.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
The total engagement rate was ninety eight point five.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Two percent, which is a very good number, and I
think that you will see that creep up towards one
hundred in the next couple of years. And obviously for
that to occur, the engage the disengagement rate will have
to fall to zero, and I'm convinced it will.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
But that means of the thirty six hours and change.
For most of that the car was driving itself, like
thirty five hours and forty five minutes or something.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Well, yeah, actually it's but it's more than that that.
The drivetime was thirty nine forty four, So I'm I'm
I don't have the number off the top of my head.
It was, you know, it was doing the driving with
us supervising, you know, something like into thirty nine hours
and change, which is it's incredible, It is incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I see in the metrics here that the average driving
speed was seventy one miles per hour, which is great.
If you had twenty one charge stops for a total
of five hours fifty two.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Minutes, that's nuts.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, that's that's crazy. And then I see also you
say there's other errors one so what was that?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I remember which one that was? And I'm looking at.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Your what you posted on X the long article that
you wrote about Yeah, with all of the metrics.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah, so the if I remember that correctly, the vehicle
made all right. So I think there were three navigation errors,
but in two cases we took over. In one case
we let it play out. To be specific, the vehicle
when leaving a charging station doesn't always get back to
(24:37):
the highway in as directly, and so in one case, and.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
That's the one outlier of the other error. I think
it made a.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Left instead of a right, which would have added you know,
ten or twelve minutes to the overall time, and I
think we let it just play out. I think we
just let it go to see what would happen. The
two system resets were the weird ones because most people
would not feel comfortable rebooting a car while in motion,
(25:07):
So we did it once. I've done it many times,
of course, you know, many years of Tesla ownership. We
did it once in motion, and the second time we
were at a charging stop, and we could see on
the navigation screen that it was not going to naviget out.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Correctly, and so we just rebooted to see what would happen.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I mean, these are It's funny because people really want
to focus on this particular thing, and yet anyone who's
ever used computer knows that over time, all computers have issues.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
They have issues.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
I'm surprised that we had so few, and then Tesla's
come this far, and I don't consider myself a Tesla
fanboy at all, and yet the improvement over ten years
in Tesla system software isn't credible. And when I get
into a lot of other OEM vehicles today that are electric.
Forget the driver assistance and their stuff, just electric cars,
(26:01):
software defined vehicles in the zeitgeist. I am shocked and
how terrible these systems aren't, how frequently they crash with
basic things. So not an apologist for Tesla optimistic that
they will get there, everyone will eventually.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
My focus is on the small amount of charging time,
because not only did you drive all the way across
the country. You know, if I did that in a
gas vehicle, I would definitely spend ten hours at a
gas station just to chill. And also you're driving at
high speeds, so I imagine the battery would be drained more quickly.
(26:39):
So I think charging for less than six hours seems
like a very small amount of time.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
It seems small for us as civilian, normal people with
kids and families and like civilians.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Not cannonball record holders.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Okay, fair, fair, in cannonball terms, six hours is a
glacial It's like the place era, you know, So when
I went across in thirty one hours back in the day,
our target time for refueling was thirty minutes the whole way,
and we got we did it in like thirty one.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
No across like twenty eight hundred miles basically, yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Over thirty minutes.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
And there are people who've done it with less because
they carried more fuels.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
We had like six charging stops, six gas stops.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Now, interesting thing about electric vehicles is that you have
to because charging.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Takes so much longer than your fueling.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
You you start thinking like Lama team managers because it's like, Okay,
do you want to go with like do you want
to charge one hundred percent because that would mean like
fourteen stops, or are we going to go with a
twenty eight stop strategy which means charging at forty percent?
So you have to be looking at the battery chemistry
and the temperate exterior temperatures, battery temperatures start optimizing for
(27:53):
charge rates there, and every vehicle is a different charging
curve and the chargers themselves different different charge rates and reliability.
Imagine if we went to gas stations today and shell
a shell station pump it, you know, twice the speed
of an xon, which one would you go to? So
(28:14):
even though it's only like a minimums make a difference.
And so that's how that's how charges are. So, uh,
there has been the for many years, Tesla's dominated cannonball
records electric records because the supercharger network had ninety nine
percent up time and the fastest speeds. Electrify America showed up,
and you know, they offer higher charging speeds, but only
(28:35):
with a couple of cars like a Lucid or a Tychon,
a Portia Tychon and so.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
But their reliability rate is somewhere like sixty.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Percent versus ninety nine per Tesla.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
So this has been gained back and forth people like
myself and a friend named Kyle Connor. He's got a
out of spec his channel. He and I have been
We've had talks and turned out like, well, when will
someone that's not Tesla break the record? So he's tried,
We both tried, and he came close in a Tykon
once and in the Lucid once, and recently he broke
(29:08):
the ev canniball record in a second gen Tychon, and.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Solely because.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
The charging curve of the new second gen Tychon battery
is faster. It's better than anyone else's. However, there is
a trade off, which is that the range of the
car is much shorter.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
But if you get it just right, you could do it.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I think he did it in like thirty nine and change,
which is two and a half hours faster than the
Tesla record, which.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Has stood for a few years.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
So the new race in electric vehicles.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Is going to be for how to maintain long range
out of the battery while getting those charging curves faster.
And the new tychon is and the new Lucids the
latest vert their opposite theories. Lucid is optimizing for maximizing
range and their charging curve.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Is quite good.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
The Tychon is much less range for a faster curve.
So I think we'll see these times fall once you
get those times from you know, six hours in my
last drive down to say three or two or say one,
that's when we're going to start looking OEMs can start
looking at how will they break the internal combustion record.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I want to ask you about battery degradation here, and
especially as it relates to resell resale values of Tesla's
and ty Koons and that sort of thing. Is that
a valid concern because I've been watching the secondary market
values of EV's just completely tank. What's your experience with that?
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Uh, Well, for the average person, it's not an issue
because they're least singer three years financing.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Maybe a five to seven.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
But we want to buy after someone's least, you know, yeah, of.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Course, well you know, uh, the first generation is out
of almost everybody. We're not not awesome ten year old
teslas today modeless as you can get them for like
twenty five or thirty k. Their range was shorter out
of the gate, and it's even shorter now. But they're
pretty good values if you are happy getting into like
(31:16):
kind of the weird world of non warranty teslas. I
wouldn't buy, I mean, I wouldn't buy probably any old
EV except a Tesla. And the Gen one Tycons are
awesome cars, really well made. The software is a different issue,
(31:38):
but everything else about him is great. Matt Farrah just
bought a Gen one Tychon Grand Turismo, which is stunningly beautiful.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
The wagon version. They're so hot.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Yeah, but I mean, look, once someone else is taken
the hit, it's probably a good deal. But the real
question is when will battery chemistry technology improve such that
this is not an issue because gas cars that are
fifty years old can be restored to efficiency, so new
chemistries have to come and there's a few different approaches.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
We've not yet seen them do what.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
We want, and I think that depreciation is going to
be terrible for many years to come. I this isn't
But there's a separate reason, and that's why I don't
buy used dvs, which is some of them, Tesla, lucid
Rivian are software upgradeable, like they probably have a long,
(32:32):
a long, happy life with improvements to what they can do.
Tesla most of all, but the other but lucid Rivian
right right next to them.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Uh. And so, uh, you.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Want to have the latest hardware because the better hardware is.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Going to mean a longer, happy ownership cycle.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
But if you buy an EV that's from like a
legacy OEM, that's like basically, uh, you're locked in. They're
never gonna the software is never really going to do
much more than it does out of the gate. I'm
not interested in that.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I mean, that's why I think you see so few
two or three.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Time owners of evs.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Unless it's lucid Rivy and Tesla, the owners are very loyal.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
The other ones the portie you can't you can't change.
I always wonder about battery swaps too. I mean as
battery technology gets better and better, can you just pull
out an old techon battery and put in something that's
twice as one.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
I don't know if if Porsche will do it, Tesla
will swap, well, you'll sell you a.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
New battery back.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
It's like it's fifteen twenty grand.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
It could be more.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Battery swaps were discussed and Tesla said they were going
to do it, and then in the early days, in fact,
they said they were going to do it for instead
of charging, you would just swap batteries.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
They decided not to continue with that. In China there.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Are I don't know who it is, at least one OEM.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
That does battery swaps.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
I think that's not a I don't think that's a
really viable long term solution because the infrastructure required.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
It's it's no. I just mean though, if you look
at if you buy an old Camaro, you know that
has a little motor and you want to put in
a big V eight. People do that all the time,
right you can? So can you eventually do the same
thing with electric cars? Can you say I love the
look of the taekon Grand Trismo, but I don't really
love the software and the battery. So I'm gonna buy
(34:19):
this thing and put in the hot rod version.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Uh well, the battery and you know, and the motors
are two different things. You could I mean, someone could
swap the motor, I suppose, but the architecture of these cars,
the early.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Ones, is really not designed to for it changes.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
I mean, other than battery for service purposes. I think
it's early days. Look, the future of hot riding, obviously
is kids in the future are not just gonna swap
right hardware.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
They're gonna know some coding.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
That's the future of hot riting. So what you see
for ECU like remapping and people chipping their cars and
writing new software a little bit today, that's gonna be
you know, in fifty years. Kids are gonna take They're
gonna look at this car.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
They're good.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I think they're gonna look at like at early Lucid,
and they're gonna say, Okay, I don't care about destroying
my bradish and longevity. I want to dump four x
the power out of this thing into the motor right now.
And they're gonna hack it and they're gonna make that happen.
And at that point the depreciation will have been like
ninety seven percent I mean of the value of the car,
(35:19):
and they're not going to care.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
That's the future. But people forget.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
It's decades to get It will be decades before the
evav car market approaches the maturity of what we've had
for fifty years in eternal combustion.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
So I'll get there, Alex. If you could have one
electric car, is there one that you think? Is there
one that you love? Is there is there an ee
that you think about when you go to sleep at night?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Like?
Speaker 4 (35:49):
No, no, because the selection is so limited today. I mean,
I just took delivery of a brand new model S
which is not as comfortable as the lucid uh and
doesn't quite handle like a Tychon, but it does.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Everything else I want.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Charging network and the driver's system software is the best
there is.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Well, here's here's a more of a philosophical question. Why
don't you feel Why don't we feel an emotional pull
to any electric vehicles? Besides the obvious and oh I.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Do, okay, there is one.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
The most unbelievable vehicle I ever drove was a Rimock one,
the first Oh wow Rimock supercar.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Yeah, hyper call, did you drive that Incroach?
Speaker 4 (36:34):
Yes, very cool and uh yeah, and that was and
I went down there with.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Jaff Musual went down there and was crush. I went
down there and I.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Drove that for like fifteen minutes alone.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Holding your hand. He wasn't with me. No.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
And the thing about that car is that you there
wasn't the level of like sound deadening in the vehicle
as you'd find in a lot of luxury cars and
sports cars.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
So you could hear all of the motors and drive trains.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
You could hear so much of what was happening.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Underneath you.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Uh that I felt connected to the to the car
in a different way because in most almost any internal
combustion car, you only hear two things the engine and
wind noise, whereas in an electric car you hear road
noise and that's often all you hear. And so the
level the noise levels in that car were so the
(37:36):
noise was so different from any other car. I felt
like I was learning how to drive again.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Wow, And yeah, I was like a reburse really.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yeah, it's really it was really cool. And I think
that there's there are I think like as yet unseen in.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Magical futures for drivers, especially.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
With Mate Rimmak, being the guy behind both Rimock and
now Ceoti is a friend of yours hand I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I wouldn't say we're friends. I would love to be
friends with him. We're certainly friendly.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Wait what if he's listening and he thinks you're friends?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Bejected, I'm very honored. We're certainly friendly. I really enjoy
talking with him.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
So I think the most interesting people are like a
handful of people in the world who both understand the
internal combustion era and have done engineering work in ev
because they understand, yes, the psychology of drivers, and you know,
the Tesla fans are really interesting people. The hardcore ones
are peculiar because they are so obsessed with Tesla. They
(38:43):
obsess over everything that zero six people and also the
driverless stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
So Tesla it's.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Like the people project onto what they want. But Tesla's
are weird because they're meant. They're meant to be super fastive,
fun to drive, and yet so many people are like,
but they'll be soon, which you know, kind of what's
the word, uh that cross purpose half of their Yeah? Yeah,
So the it's the only brand on the planet which
(39:14):
allows people to virtue signal and vice signal at the
same time. And this is why Tusla has narrative command
of the EV and AV you know, enthusiasts, because anyone
can believe what they want because it satisfies both of
the needs they project onto the brand.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
No one else does that.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Portia in some cases a little bit comes close with
some of the really cool like hybrid Turbot the top
of the line, Cayenne and Panamara come close.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
All right, that was very cool, And I really do
recommend people go back and listen to our original podcast
with Alex Roy because he explained so eloquently the connection
that we feel with with cars, especially with internal combustion engines.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, and the thing I love about Alex is he
he is he speaks his mind, and he yes he's
driving in Tesla, but he says he's not a fan boy.
He's he's critical. He's self aware of the benefits and
negatives of electric vehicles.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
You know. He drives an.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Old Wooden Morgan, one of those three wheel things.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
He the good one version with on the front, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
So I do feel like sometimes when you have people
driving electric vehicles, they only drive electric vehicles and they're very,
very invested in pushing evs for the rest of the
world all the time, and and that is good for them,
but it does make me question their independence of thought sometimes.
And Alex is very good about He dabbles in everything,
(40:46):
and you know, he says the positives and negatives.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Actually, the two of you have that kind of integrity
gene in common, like you cannot be bought. And I
think that's I think that's pretty rare though.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
I mean, you see me get upset match.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Yes I have, and I'm by the way, I'm surrounded
by journalists all the time. But I think it's rare
that that someone has that much integrity, which I always
recognized in you, which is why I love working with you.
But Alex two and actually I notice a lot of
the full self driving freaks are like that. It was
(41:22):
great to get Alex's take.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And uh, you know, the one thing I wanted to ask,
which I purposefully didn't, is what is he working on next?
Because you know, he's always cooking something.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And he won't tell, and he won't tell. I wanted
to ask, and I still may. I'll call him later.
I wonder how he set the speed, because you know,
when you're driving super fast and you've always got to
kind of regulate that speed in case, you know, a
semi in the right lane pulls over. Yes, but if
it's self driving, do you just tell the tesla like, hey,
(41:53):
figure it out, we want to go as fast as
we can.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Well, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I guess
I assume that it a automatically. It had just speed automatically,
you know, like cruise control would.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Right, But you just said it as high as it
can possibly go, like the cus control Max.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
See what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
It's a good question.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Well, I guess it's all the more reason to have
him on again because he's gonna do this three times. Right,
that was the first run of three. All right, that's
all we have for you this week.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, thanks for your letters. Email us at hot Pursuit
at bloomberg dot net. I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott,
and this is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I'm Matt Miller and
I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Hot Pursuit.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
All right.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
We have a really cool episode today because one of
my favorite guests that we've ever had was Alex Roy,
Cannonball run record holder at one point. I don't think
he holds it now, but in a normal Cannonball run,
which is like the Burt Reynolds, you know, starting in
New York, ending in La driving as fast as you
can and avoiding the cops. But now he's done something different.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, and this is actually a new record, which is
the FSD drive Coast to Coast, which he did in
forty five hours thirty six minutes. That's including five hours
worth of charge time.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And it's extra special because you and I were with
him the night that he left.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, and he swore us to secrecy, but he was
all pumped up with his lovely co driver who is
going incognito mostly. Yes, Yeah, that was very cool. I
mean I just can't imagine going out the night before
the morning, you know you're going to set off and
just drive for days.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah. And by the way, I so I've met Alex before,
but only briefly, and but I've been following him forever.
He's also like both he and Carrie when I met
them at the Classic Car Club. You know when you
meet someone and you feel like you have been best
friends forever. I instantly had that, and.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
You know, the New Yorker and me, of course, when
I meet people like that, I'm just like, well, we'll see,
we'll see. Like I can feel it that I really
like them and they feel very copaesthetic and simpatico. But
I'm always just like, we'll see. But no, there's no
other there's no there's no other shoe dropping. It's it's authentic,
it's genuine. It's very nice. And I've known Alex for
(02:03):
a long time and he's one of those people that
you don't try to stay in contact with, you just
are in contact with, and then you look back and
you're like, oh, yeah, i've known him for I don't know,
ten twelve years.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well I'm looking forward to that. I'm from Ohio, so
there's no skepticism in me, and like when I met Carrie,
we both have lived in Berlin for a long time.
We're both fairly new parents, and oh, I didn't know
that yeah, we have like so many things in common
that I was like, wow, we we should go have dinner.
So it was great, and I'm really glad we were
(02:36):
a part of their trip, their journey. Let's get into
our interview with Alex Roy. I'm so glad you could
join us.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
We need to celebrate. This is a celebration. Really.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
The last time we saw you, Alex, you were this
was it was the night before the morning of oh
oh yeah, and we were sworn to secrecy about what
you were about to undertake.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
So I am a firm believer that one should keep
these things a secret until for a long time after
one does it, or at least a little bit of time,
because there's always someone out there who feels super competitive
who might want.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
To sabotage the drive.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
This is less of an issue with you know, electric
and autonomous drives because they're slower. But you know, there
was a time when people who did cannonball drives would
call it the police and call in other cars and
it got pretty hairy.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah it was dirty.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
That's not the case anymore, but still, you know, you
never know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Wait, so, first of all, I knew about this, But
I host a daily television show, and so every day
when there was something, you know, there's often news about Tesla.
For example, it was hard for me to keep my
mouth shut until you finally released the results on your
LinkedIn page, and then I talked about like every day
for a week. So I kept steering people towards your
(03:57):
LinkedIn page summarize for us exactly what you did.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Okay, so you know, the cannonball run is of historical
legacy American car culture.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
People drive cross country as fast as possible. Uh, but
it's always been done.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
As fast as possible.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
And we know with the you know advent of you know,
driver assistance systems and now you know, autonomous vehicles, it
becomes a lot more interesting to try stuff that hasn't
been done before. Notably, how fast can you get a
vehicle cross country that is send me autonomous or autonomous?
And so Elon Mullusk said, I think it was eight
or nine years ago that it would be possible to
(04:38):
summon your vehicle, your Tesla cross country. It would just
come to you, and no one had tried it before
to the best of my knowledge, under cannonball conditions meaning
NonStop except for charging your gas, and so I'm like,
why not do that? And so in late December, on
a date I shall not yet, well everybody knows it
was late summer, I went country with my co driver,
(05:02):
Sea Fox, whose identity is still not public, but we
have met her.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I mean, there are pictures of her on your site.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yes she uh, let's just say.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Her name is Sea Fox as you put it on
your LinkedIn page.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Well you know, but look, hey, look her name is
Carrie Schuler and she's worked for Porsche.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
She's great. She's been in fashion, she was a stylist, but.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Most importantly Tesla owner and like I think eight or
ten years living in Germany, high speed driving experience.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
She's been to racist school. She's one of a kind.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
So we went across and tried to come up with
a rule set that poorted kind of canniball history to
autonomous driving. And you know, the rules are no stopping
except to charge. And since the metrics aren't top speed,
the metrics are how close to one hundred autonomous driving
can we get? That's that's the goal, and that's the bar.
(06:01):
Whatever we do is the bar. And then in the future,
as future software iterations come from Tesla or a competitor
comes out with a vehicle that is capable of doing
something similar. People now have a way of measuring the
both the quality and the capability of an autonomous driving system,
and so I kind of humorously called this the Cannibal Run,
(06:25):
the nerve burg Ring of autonomy, because it's a bench bar.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
And you know, everybody, Hannah, you've driven the Neurveburgering, haven't you?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I haven't. No, I haven't.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
You've never driven it.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
I have driven it, And did you find that challenging?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I found it very challenging. It was literally twenty five
years ago, but it was awesome, right. I didn't drive
it terrified. I didn't drive it as fast as I
could because I was scared that I would crash.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You know, we're in the same boat.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I went for the first time last year, and I
was suddenly I got it. Like the peak people car
makers take their cars there as fast as they can
because they know most people will.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Never drive that fast there.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
But that the potential, like the potentiality and like of
what your car could do if you wanted to is
the lives in the minds of everyone who buys a
sports car and so what if we took the Nurber
Ring and did it for autonomy and that's the cannonball run.
So we got cross country in forty five hours and
(07:26):
thirty six minutes.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Was it New York to Phoenix or New York to
La or what did you?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
New York to La?
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Which is the classic cannonball where in La?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And well we have specifics for the Angelinos.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
So the finish line is the portafinu in And which
is set just south of LA. And the start line
is the Red Ball Garage in midtown Manhattan. And so
actually forty five thirty six is pretty good, would be
pretty good even for like one hundred percent human driven time.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It's a little less than six hours at charge time.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
So thirty nine forty four I have time, which is
actually a really good time.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
What's your fastest what's your fastest time ever? Alex?
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Uh, My fastest time is thirty one hours and four
minutes in Uh, you know BMW five, I mean the
current canniball record internal combustion. I think it's like twenty
five and change.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Who has that?
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Oh my buddy Arnie Towman, he went across during the
COVID lockdowns. And I don't know if that'll ever be beaten,
but I have predicted years ago that someday an electric
vehicle would break the gas time because if you look
at the rate of improvement electric vehicle technology, it looks
like the lines will cross in the next I think
(08:41):
ten years, and then after that autonomous driving. Eventually, I'm
certain that a drive this vehicle could be electric will
break Arnie Toeman's time of twenty five hours and change.
I'm convinced of it because eventually, and this is where
this is all going, when the technology is capable of
(09:04):
driving safer than a human in most conditions, eventually you'll
be able to raise the speed limit of that vehicle
in the software, and then it will it'll break the
human record.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
That's inevitable.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
I don't want to get too drawn off on a tangent,
but are we already there that the technology is safer
than humans? Like, aren't there driverless taxis in San Francisco
and Phoenix and you know that just don't crash very much.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Well, I ride Weimo's every day. I live in Scottsdale,
and they're terrific. Waimo has released data indicating that they
are and this depends on how you measure it. That
they are safer than the average human driver where they operate,
But where they operate is the key phrase here, because
at highway speeds in bad weather things get more complicated.
(09:55):
We've not yet seen any driverless vehicle operate in those conditions,
you know, for a lot of miles, and they're not
available to public yet anyway, they're being tested. So I'm
confident based on Weymo's progress that they will eventually do
highway speeds in all conditions, but they do not yet
offer commercial service that goes, you know, outside of an
(10:17):
urban area like Scottsdale, or like Phoenix, Metro and San Francisco.
Eventually they will, and so will everybody who wants to
be in this business. You have to because if you
want to if you want to sell I think a
car to someone in twenty five years, it's going to
have to have autonomous capabilities, drier less capabilities. It's not
(10:38):
gonna be restricted to fleets and people like to go
on vacation.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And you're making a distinction between autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles,
you know, because I think oftentimes those are just lumped
together as if you have one you have the other.
But it sounds like there's a specific separation in your
mind between the two.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
So uh, there was a time when, you know, consultants
years ago said that the future of all cars was
case connected, autonomous, shared, and electric, and I said that,
I'm like, that's insane. Americans don't really like sharing. Many
of them don't want electric car connectivity.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, I think if you if you have red state,
people own guns. They don't want to be connected.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
They want their privacy and elect Well, uh yeah, and
that's an autonomous Well, I think a lot of people
will want a choice. I like to say that I'm
pro choice in the war on driving, So I like
to have an autonomus vehicle that has a steering wheel.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, actually it is. That's on the Human Driving Associations here,
it's I sell those.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
But you know, I think the distinction between electric and
eternal combustion is more of a political one because there
are countries like China where I think one hundred percent
of cars sold will be electric within a few years,
and Norway it's it's I don't know, do you know what, Hannah,
do you know it's close.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I mean, it's toughs biggest Marketer, it was forever.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, yeah, and so but you know, with the recent
election in the US, I think we're going to see
gas and hybrids have a new lease on life.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
So uh.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
But there is a weird thing about internal combustion cars
and autonomy because autonomous UH driving software is generally very smooth.
The best systems are quite smooth. Sometimes the vehicles I
don't want to name names vehicles, gas vehicles or hybrid
vehicles that have suboptimal transmission.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I don't think anyone listens to this, So you can
name names if you wanted.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
To stay all right, So back in the day, this
is seven eight years ago. I tested a Mercedes E Class,
which is a great car, but when you used its
drive pilot drive pilot system, which was like their first
generation UH drivers and software, the band in which it
operated interacted with the trans mission shift points in such
(13:01):
a way that it was really uncomfortable to use it.
And I was like, wow, I wish this car had
been electric, because then you have the linear power of
electric drivetrain and the linear performance of the of the
driver assistance. And so I mean, I think it's inevitable
all vehicles will be electric, But how long that takes
as a political issue.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
I just want to tell you that chat gpt tells
me in Norway, ninety six point four percent of all
new cars registered last year we're fully electric, battery electric vehicles,
and they cite electrive dot com as their source.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
So thank you. That's a good fi.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, I'm obsessed with chat gpt. By the way, what's
the difference between autonomous and semi autonomous and fully autonomous?
Like I'm in a FD I'm I'm in a GMC
Yukon Denali Ultimate right now and it's got supercrews which
is really cool, but it obviously doesn't take me, you know,
on and off the highway from my house to the
(14:01):
grocery store kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Well, uh, this is a this is a semantic problem
because for a long time, self driving meant you, well,
if you go to India, a self driving car is
a tax to the human driver because you don't have
to do the driving. And so for many years, self
driving was a vehicle that was driverless. But then when
(14:25):
companies started releasing driver assistance and called it self driving,
it kind of muddy the waters. And Tesla came out
with full self driving, which but that's it still requires
a supervisor. And so then you know, WEIMA went from
marketing they had a website called Let's Talk self Driving,
they switched to Let's Talk Autonomous Driving because they felt
like self driving stolen.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
It sucks and so and then autonomous got kind of
stolen by companies marketing self driver assistance, and so it
became a total hot. So today, I would argue that
if it's capable of driverless operation, you have to just
call it driverless, because otherwise it gets thrown in the
(15:11):
in the soup with driver assistance systems. So I would
say in a perfect world, autonomous would being driverless. It
doesn't always mean that, so I always use semi as
the prefix to distinguish that there's someone in a seat
and to classify this specifically what we did Carrie and
I I call it the production autonomy record, because the
(15:35):
Tesla is the only car you can buy which is
potentially capable of fully autonomous driverless operation.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
It isn't yet, but it.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
I'd convinced that it will be.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
And this is and I used to work at a
competing company at our GOAI, but I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Convinced that they can't. And the only other record that
I'm aware that.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Exists in this category would be is a wild card.
A guy named Jay Roberts, bravest man I know, has
a Prius and he put a device called the Comma AI.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Have you heard of Comma.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
No, but I see it was one of your witnesses
on your on your run.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
So George Hatts, who's a very famous hacker, h first
person a hack a PlayStation on an iPhone Tesla try
to hire him and said no, he he has a
device called the Comma AI unit. It's it's you pull
out your rearview mirror. You stick this thing, which is
a cell phone that with a connector that sticks where
the mirror went, and it connects to the CANbus of
(16:37):
your car with a single cable and it will convert.
It will basically enable not every car, but many cars
two capabilities similar to Tesla autopilot, so you can now
have send me autonomous features. The common unit was reviewed
by Consumer Reports years ago, and I think they said
it was the best on the market, or vert or
second better than anything else except I think autopilot. And so, uh,
(17:02):
Jay Roberts took put this in his Prius and went
across country a few months ago and set a record.
I call that the what I think it's the aftermarket
autonomy record.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Now I know this is a deeply uncool question. I
just have to ask really quickly, but is that a
legal device or is it? Kind of like radar detectors
that you know really aren't legal, but we can all
get them.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
So a comma in it's completely illegal, you can. I
think what makes it legal is you buy it and
then but it doesn't come with the software on it
and you have to download the software.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Let's go work around.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
There was a funny story years ago where Hots I think,
went to a party with a head.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Of Nitza Mark Rosekind.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
They were both in the room together at rose Kind
It's like, what's this guy's here? So you should in fact,
if you want to talk to rose Kind, I know him.
I'll get him on your show. I called rose Kind
while we were in the car doing this to tell
him and he's like, this is the crazy thing you've
ever heard anyway, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But that's great.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
So much safer is the thing, Alex Like, I think
a lot of people fear that these vehicles are going
to be hitting old women in crosswalks all the time.
But the fact is, the autonomous vehicles that are out
there right now are just killing far fewer people than
the human driven vehicles that are out there right now.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
I would say, I wouldn't say all autonomous vehicles are safer,
but I would say that the cutting edge, like a
waimo is And I have been in some systems in
other countries that I was not convinced that they should
be on the road. And the thing about a system
like Tesla's is that it still requires a human supervisor.
(18:41):
So if that supervisor is a bad human driver, they're
going to be a bad supervisor and then they.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
May not catch a mistake the vehicle makes.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
And a lot of Tesla crashes are classified as human
responsible crashes, like the supervisor responsible, But there is a
that's a gray area because the relationship between the handoff
when the system's on and then it makes the person
takes over, it's not always so cut and dry. So
I'm a firm believer in WEIMO today and I'm optimistic
(19:13):
about Tesla in the future.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Can I ask if you've heard from Tesla about this endeavor?
Were they aware of it beforehand? Even have you have
they reached out after and you know has Elon made contact?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So this time all right?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
So this this time out, I have not heard from
Tesla officially directly. In ten years ago and seven ten
years ago and eight years ago when I went across
country UH in a Model S and set the speed
the full on canniball electric canniball record, Tesla, did I receive.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Emails from people inside Tesla said this is great UH, and.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
A lot of the Tesla influencer community, we're super positive
about what we just did. The answer is no, they
did not reach out, but I know they're watching and
they are friendly and supportive. Like when I get my
Tesla serviced incredibly, I have a great experience, and I
know that's not the common experience, and so I suspect
(20:18):
good that they've been flagged.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
They've been flag.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I never asked for anything, and I never know. I
don't make demands, but they've been good to me. I
hope that is true for more people.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
So you started the Red Ball garage here in New York,
and do you start out with your hands on the
wheels and your feet on the pedals or how often
did you actually have to touch the wheel and what
situations did you have to take over?
Speaker 4 (20:47):
So there are Tesla influencers who make videos where they
sit with their hands like you know, like.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
This, or like on their legs.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
I follow the best practices that Waimo and the other
big players have adopted after years of testing eight self
driving testing such cars, so hands hovering right behind the
wheel nine to nine percent of the time because if
something should go wrong, you might have less than a
(21:16):
second to react, and if your hands are in your lap,
you're not gonna be able to react.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So when we first started, we.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Had to That was Tesla FSD software version twelve five
to sixty four late December, So at that point you
had to actually the car had to be You could
not engage FSD from a stop.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
From in front of the garage where we were, so.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
We had to pull out in the street, engage it
with a button, and then hands hovering near the wheel.
The total disengagements between New York and LA were thirty two,
but twenty one of those were what we call voluntary
disengagements that we had to do in order to get
the car into a charging stall to charge it. So
(22:00):
that leaves eleven that were non charge and related. Of
those eleven, only two were the really bad kind, which
is what you call an involuntary disengagement, and that is
when your driving, it's the car is driving, you're supervising.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
And without any warning, it suddenly says take over.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Now it flashes red you know, alert's go off. That
happened twice for reasons that are unclear software fault, we
don't know. And then there were two that voluntary takeovers
for the car making a navigation error, and on two
occasions we had to reboot the system software while driving,
(22:41):
once while driving, once while stop, which is something also suboptimal.
So the total the metrics that matter are engagement rate
and number of involuntary disengagements.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
The total engagement rate was ninety eight point five.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Two percent, which is a very good number, and I
think that you will see that creep up towards one
hundred in the next couple of years. And obviously for
that to occur, the engage the disengagement rate will have
to fall to zero, and I'm convinced it will.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
But that means of the thirty six hours and change.
For most of that the car was driving itself, like
thirty five hours and forty five minutes or something.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Well, yeah, actually it's but it's more than that that.
The drivetime was thirty nine forty four, So I'm I'm
I don't have the number off the top of my head.
It was, you know, it was doing the driving with
us supervising, you know, something like into thirty nine hours
and change, which is it's incredible, It is incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I see in the metrics here that the average driving
speed was seventy one miles per hour, which is great.
If you had twenty one charge stops for a total
of five hours fifty two.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Minutes, that's nuts.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, that's that's crazy. And then I see also you
say there's other errors one so what was that?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I remember which one that was? And I'm looking at.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Your what you posted on X the long article that
you wrote about Yeah, with all of the metrics.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah, so the if I remember that correctly, the vehicle
made all right. So I think there were three navigation errors,
but in two cases we took over. In one case
we let it play out. To be specific, the vehicle
when leaving a charging station doesn't always get back to
(24:37):
the highway in as directly, and so in one case, and.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
That's the one outlier of the other error. I think
it made a.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Left instead of a right, which would have added you know,
ten or twelve minutes to the overall time, and I
think we let it just play out. I think we
just let it go to see what would happen. The
two system resets were the weird ones because most people
would not feel comfortable rebooting a car while in motion,
(25:07):
So we did it once. I've done it many times,
of course, you know, many years of Tesla ownership. We
did it once in motion, and the second time we
were at a charging stop, and we could see on
the navigation screen that it was not going to naviget out.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Correctly, and so we just rebooted to see what would happen.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I mean, these are It's funny because people really want
to focus on this particular thing, and yet anyone who's
ever used computer knows that over time, all computers have issues.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
They have issues.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
I'm surprised that we had so few, and then Tesla's
come this far, and I don't consider myself a Tesla
fanboy at all, and yet the improvement over ten years
in Tesla system software isn't credible. And when I get
into a lot of other OEM vehicles today that are electric.
Forget the driver assistance and their stuff, just electric cars,
(26:01):
software defined vehicles in the zeitgeist. I am shocked and
how terrible these systems aren't, how frequently they crash with
basic things. So not an apologist for Tesla optimistic that
they will get there, everyone will eventually.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
My focus is on the small amount of charging time,
because not only did you drive all the way across
the country. You know, if I did that in a
gas vehicle, I would definitely spend ten hours at a
gas station just to chill. And also you're driving at
high speeds, so I imagine the battery would be drained more quickly.
(26:39):
So I think charging for less than six hours seems
like a very small amount of time.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
It seems small for us as civilian, normal people with
kids and families and like civilians.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Not cannonball record holders.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Okay, fair, fair, in cannonball terms, six hours is a
glacial It's like the place era, you know, So when
I went across in thirty one hours back in the day,
our target time for refueling was thirty minutes the whole way,
and we got we did it in like thirty one.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
No across like twenty eight hundred miles basically, yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Over thirty minutes.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
And there are people who've done it with less because
they carried more fuels.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
We had like six charging stops, six gas stops.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Now, interesting thing about electric vehicles is that you have
to because charging.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Takes so much longer than your fueling.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
You you start thinking like Lama team managers because it's like, Okay,
do you want to go with like do you want
to charge one hundred percent because that would mean like
fourteen stops, or are we going to go with a
twenty eight stop strategy which means charging at forty percent?
So you have to be looking at the battery chemistry
and the temperate exterior temperatures, battery temperatures start optimizing for
(27:53):
charge rates there, and every vehicle is a different charging
curve and the chargers themselves different different charge rates and reliability.
Imagine if we went to gas stations today and shell
a shell station pump it, you know, twice the speed
of an xon, which one would you go to? So
(28:14):
even though it's only like a minimums make a difference.
And so that's how that's how charges are. So, uh,
there has been the for many years, Tesla's dominated cannonball
records electric records because the supercharger network had ninety nine
percent up time and the fastest speeds. Electrify America showed up,
and you know, they offer higher charging speeds, but only
(28:35):
with a couple of cars like a Lucid or a Tychon,
a Portia Tychon and so.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
But their reliability rate is somewhere like sixty.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Percent versus ninety nine per Tesla.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
So this has been gained back and forth people like
myself and a friend named Kyle Connor. He's got a
out of spec his channel. He and I have been
We've had talks and turned out like, well, when will
someone that's not Tesla break the record? So he's tried,
We both tried, and he came close in a Tykon
once and in the Lucid once, and recently he broke
(29:08):
the ev canniball record in a second gen Tychon, and.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Solely because.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
The charging curve of the new second gen Tychon battery
is faster. It's better than anyone else's. However, there is
a trade off, which is that the range of the
car is much shorter.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
But if you get it just right, you could do it.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I think he did it in like thirty nine and change,
which is two and a half hours faster than the
Tesla record, which.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Has stood for a few years.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
So the new race in electric vehicles.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Is going to be for how to maintain long range
out of the battery while getting those charging curves faster.
And the new tychon is and the new Lucids the
latest vert their opposite theories. Lucid is optimizing for maximizing
range and their charging curve.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Is quite good.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
The Tychon is much less range for a faster curve.
So I think we'll see these times fall once you
get those times from you know, six hours in my
last drive down to say three or two or say one,
that's when we're going to start looking OEMs can start
looking at how will they break the internal combustion record.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I want to ask you about battery degradation here, and
especially as it relates to resell resale values of Tesla's
and ty Koons and that sort of thing. Is that
a valid concern because I've been watching the secondary market
values of EV's just completely tank. What's your experience with that?
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Uh, Well, for the average person, it's not an issue
because they're least singer three years financing.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Maybe a five to seven.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
But we want to buy after someone's least, you know, yeah, of.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Course, well you know, uh, the first generation is out
of almost everybody. We're not not awesome ten year old
teslas today modeless as you can get them for like
twenty five or thirty k. Their range was shorter out
of the gate, and it's even shorter now. But they're
pretty good values if you are happy getting into like
(31:16):
kind of the weird world of non warranty teslas. I
wouldn't buy, I mean, I wouldn't buy probably any old
EV except a Tesla. And the Gen one Tycons are
awesome cars, really well made. The software is a different issue,
(31:38):
but everything else about him is great. Matt Farrah just
bought a Gen one Tychon Grand Turismo, which is stunningly beautiful.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
The wagon version. They're so hot.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Yeah, but I mean, look, once someone else is taken
the hit, it's probably a good deal. But the real
question is when will battery chemistry technology improve such that
this is not an issue because gas cars that are
fifty years old can be restored to efficiency, so new
chemistries have to come and there's a few different approaches.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
We've not yet seen them do what.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
We want, and I think that depreciation is going to
be terrible for many years to come. I this isn't
But there's a separate reason, and that's why I don't
buy used dvs, which is some of them, Tesla, lucid
Rivian are software upgradeable, like they probably have a long,
(32:32):
a long, happy life with improvements to what they can do.
Tesla most of all, but the other but lucid Rivian
right right next to them.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Uh. And so, uh, you.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Want to have the latest hardware because the better hardware is.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Going to mean a longer, happy ownership cycle.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
But if you buy an EV that's from like a
legacy OEM, that's like basically, uh, you're locked in. They're
never gonna the software is never really going to do
much more than it does out of the gate. I'm
not interested in that.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I mean, that's why I think you see so few
two or three.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Time owners of evs.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Unless it's lucid Rivy and Tesla, the owners are very loyal.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
The other ones the portie you can't you can't change.
I always wonder about battery swaps too. I mean as
battery technology gets better and better, can you just pull
out an old techon battery and put in something that's
twice as one.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
I don't know if if Porsche will do it, Tesla
will swap, well, you'll sell you a.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
New battery back.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
It's like it's fifteen twenty grand.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
It could be more.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Battery swaps were discussed and Tesla said they were going
to do it, and then in the early days, in fact,
they said they were going to do it for instead
of charging, you would just swap batteries.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
They decided not to continue with that. In China there.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Are I don't know who it is, at least one OEM.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
That does battery swaps.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
I think that's not a I don't think that's a
really viable long term solution because the infrastructure required.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
It's it's no. I just mean though, if you look
at if you buy an old Camaro, you know that
has a little motor and you want to put in
a big V eight. People do that all the time,
right you can? So can you eventually do the same
thing with electric cars? Can you say I love the
look of the taekon Grand Trismo, but I don't really
love the software and the battery. So I'm gonna buy
(34:19):
this thing and put in the hot rod version.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Uh well, the battery and you know, and the motors
are two different things. You could I mean, someone could
swap the motor, I suppose, but the architecture of these cars,
the early.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Ones, is really not designed to for it changes.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
I mean, other than battery for service purposes. I think
it's early days. Look, the future of hot riding, obviously
is kids in the future are not just gonna swap
right hardware.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
They're gonna know some coding.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
That's the future of hot riting. So what you see
for ECU like remapping and people chipping their cars and
writing new software a little bit today, that's gonna be
you know, in fifty years. Kids are gonna take They're
gonna look at this car.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
They're good.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I think they're gonna look at like at early Lucid,
and they're gonna say, Okay, I don't care about destroying
my bradish and longevity. I want to dump four x
the power out of this thing into the motor right now.
And they're gonna hack it and they're gonna make that happen.
And at that point the depreciation will have been like
ninety seven percent I mean of the value of the car,
(35:19):
and they're not going to care.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
That's the future. But people forget.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
It's decades to get It will be decades before the
evav car market approaches the maturity of what we've had
for fifty years in eternal combustion.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
So I'll get there, Alex. If you could have one
electric car, is there one that you think? Is there
one that you love? Is there is there an ee
that you think about when you go to sleep at night?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Like?
Speaker 4 (35:49):
No, no, because the selection is so limited today. I mean,
I just took delivery of a brand new model S
which is not as comfortable as the lucid uh and
doesn't quite handle like a Tychon, but it does.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Everything else I want.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Charging network and the driver's system software is the best
there is.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Well, here's here's a more of a philosophical question. Why
don't you feel Why don't we feel an emotional pull
to any electric vehicles? Besides the obvious and oh I.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Do, okay, there is one.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
The most unbelievable vehicle I ever drove was a Rimock one,
the first Oh wow Rimock supercar.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Yeah, hyper call, did you drive that Incroach?
Speaker 4 (36:34):
Yes, very cool and uh yeah, and that was and
I went down there with.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Jaff Musual went down there and was crush. I went
down there and I.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Drove that for like fifteen minutes alone.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Holding your hand. He wasn't with me. No.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
And the thing about that car is that you there
wasn't the level of like sound deadening in the vehicle
as you'd find in a lot of luxury cars and
sports cars.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
So you could hear all of the motors and drive trains.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
You could hear so much of what was happening.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Underneath you.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Uh that I felt connected to the to the car
in a different way because in most almost any internal
combustion car, you only hear two things the engine and
wind noise, whereas in an electric car you hear road
noise and that's often all you hear. And so the
level the noise levels in that car were so the
(37:36):
noise was so different from any other car. I felt
like I was learning how to drive again.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Wow, And yeah, I was like a reburse really.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yeah, it's really it was really cool. And I think
that there's there are I think like as yet unseen in.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Magical futures for drivers, especially.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
With Mate Rimmak, being the guy behind both Rimock and
now Ceoti is a friend of yours hand I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I wouldn't say we're friends. I would love to be
friends with him. We're certainly friendly.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Wait what if he's listening and he thinks you're friends?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Bejected, I'm very honored. We're certainly friendly. I really enjoy
talking with him.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
So I think the most interesting people are like a
handful of people in the world who both understand the
internal combustion era and have done engineering work in ev
because they understand, yes, the psychology of drivers, and you know,
the Tesla fans are really interesting people. The hardcore ones
are peculiar because they are so obsessed with Tesla. They
(38:43):
obsess over everything that zero six people and also the
driverless stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
So Tesla it's.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Like the people project onto what they want. But Tesla's
are weird because they're meant. They're meant to be super fastive,
fun to drive, and yet so many people are like,
but they'll be soon, which you know, kind of what's
the word, uh that cross purpose half of their Yeah? Yeah,
So the it's the only brand on the planet which
(39:14):
allows people to virtue signal and vice signal at the
same time. And this is why Tusla has narrative command
of the EV and AV you know, enthusiasts, because anyone
can believe what they want because it satisfies both of
the needs they project onto the brand.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
No one else does that.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Portia in some cases a little bit comes close with
some of the really cool like hybrid Turbot the top
of the line, Cayenne and Panamara come close.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
All right, that was very cool, And I really do
recommend people go back and listen to our original podcast
with Alex Roy because he explained so eloquently the connection
that we feel with with cars, especially with internal combustion engines.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, and the thing I love about Alex is he
he is he speaks his mind, and he yes he's
driving in Tesla, but he says he's not a fan boy.
He's he's critical. He's self aware of the benefits and
negatives of electric vehicles.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
You know. He drives an.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Old Wooden Morgan, one of those three wheel things.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
He the good one version with on the front, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
So I do feel like sometimes when you have people
driving electric vehicles, they only drive electric vehicles and they're very,
very invested in pushing evs for the rest of the
world all the time, and and that is good for them,
but it does make me question their independence of thought sometimes.
And Alex is very good about He dabbles in everything,
(40:46):
and you know, he says the positives and negatives.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Actually, the two of you have that kind of integrity
gene in common, like you cannot be bought. And I
think that's I think that's pretty rare though.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
I mean, you see me get upset match.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Yes I have, and I'm by the way, I'm surrounded
by journalists all the time. But I think it's rare
that that someone has that much integrity, which I always
recognized in you, which is why I love working with you.
But Alex two and actually I notice a lot of
the full self driving freaks are like that. It was
(41:22):
great to get Alex's take.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And uh, you know, the one thing I wanted to ask,
which I purposefully didn't, is what is he working on next?
Because you know, he's always cooking something.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And he won't tell, and he won't tell. I wanted
to ask, and I still may. I'll call him later.
I wonder how he set the speed, because you know,
when you're driving super fast and you've always got to
kind of regulate that speed in case, you know, a
semi in the right lane pulls over. Yes, but if
it's self driving, do you just tell the tesla like, hey,
(41:53):
figure it out, we want to go as fast as
we can.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Well, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I guess
I assume that it a automatically. It had just speed automatically,
you know, like cruise control would.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Right, But you just said it as high as it
can possibly go, like the cus control Max.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
See what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
It's a good question.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Well, I guess it's all the more reason to have
him on again because he's gonna do this three times. Right,
that was the first run of three. All right, that's
all we have for you this week.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, thanks for your letters. Email us at hot Pursuit
at bloomberg dot net. I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott,
and this is Bloomberg
Hosts And Creators
Hannah Elliott
Matt Miller
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