Tesla Motors

There's no denying it - Tesla Motors is an auto industry success story. But how did they get their start? Why did they choose electric vehicles, and where is the company headed in the future? Listen in to learn more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the Wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house Stuff Works dot Com. I'm welcome
to podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm Ben Rowland. Ben.
We've got we've got a listener suggestion again today, right, yes,

(00:20):
we do. This one comes from Christopher Man and Christopher Man. Boy,
this is quite a while ago. A deep cut. It's
kind of a deep cut. But you know what, we've
got so many that are lined up in the queue
that you know, Christopher, apologize it took us this long,
but we're gonna talk today about Tesla Motors and uh,
they've got what three products out there right now at

(00:43):
this point, and more proposed, lots more proposed as a
matter of fact, as we'll find out, and there's some
new news that we want to get into. Um and
just kind of the the you know, the company overall,
as we've done with many other companies on the show. Right, yes,
and uh, what we'll start with just real quick, somebody
on the off chance that anybody who would listen to

(01:05):
our show is saying Tesla Motors, what's that? UM? I
really doubt that there's anyone in our audience who's thinking that.
But just in case, Tesla Motors is what would be
fairly called an upstart car company based in the United
States that is producing electric vehicles, all electric vehicles, all

(01:25):
electric vehicles, no, No one flagship electric vehicle, and the rest, um,
you know, typical I see vehicles. UM. This was founded
by UM, a fellow named Elon Musk and a fellow
named Martin Eberhard. Now Elon Musk is probably the person
that most folks are gonna associate with Tesla Motors. He's

(01:48):
sort of the Henry Ford of the operation. Sure, he's
the one the I C in the press conferences and
making all the public announcements. Right absolutely, UM, Martin Eberhard
had moved downe He was the CEO for a time
and later he transferred to the advisory board. And uh,

(02:09):
at this point, from what I can tell, they're not
on the best of charge. No, No, I don't think so.
I think there's a little bit of controversy going on
within their within their ranks. And you know what, let's
let's leave that to exactly. We'll table that, let people
look that up and whatever they want. We should say
that the headquarters for for Tesla or in Palo Alto, California.

(02:30):
And uh, they've got three products that they that they
currently are making or that they too that they're currently making,
one that's on its way. UM well, I don't even
know if that's the right way to say it. I
mean there's some there's some strange things happening. So there's
the Tesla Roadster, there's the Tesla Models, and then there's
soon to be the Tesla Model X. And I promise

(02:51):
we'll talk about all three of those. Um, but they've
got something that we should talk just a little bit
more about the company before we get into the actual products. UM.
The number of employees, I'm gonna stay right around three
thousand employees. So it's not a huge, huge company, but
it's growing, it's growing fast. Um. It's publicly traded on
the NASTAC I believe, and um they also that they're

(03:12):
they're partially owned by or actually they sell battery packs
to uh, Toyota and Daimlar A G right, Yeah, which
is a very smart thing to do for a company
in that position. You know, if you have if you're
a small company, which is a smaller company, and you
have any ability to monetize some of the products in
your in your more complex product. Now, the Tesla Roachster

(03:35):
was the first vehicle they came out with, and the
Tesla Roachster was not universally lauded. They focused on wealthy
early adopters, right, very wealthy, very early as well, and
very forgiving. But they they weathered the storm. Now, you

(03:55):
and I have always said, especially me, I'm a bit
cantankerous about this. When new technology comes out, I usually
don't want to be the first person to buy it
if it's expensive, because I assume, I just assume that's
more likely to break. Yeah, and the uh and you
know that that's when they're working out the flaws, when
they're working out the bugs in the in the design. Also, Um,

(04:16):
you know, as time goes on, as you and I
both know, um, everybody knows really that the price will
eventually drop. It's gonna come down. And I mean, if
you want one prime example or two prime examples, look
at digital cameras, Look at you know, flat screen televisions.
You know the HD televisions that we've got Now, Um,
those things worth fifteen thousand dollars at one point for

(04:36):
you know at screen, Um they've dropped down to you know,
you can buy them in Kroger now for one hundred dollars.
You know, that's it's an it's an amazing drop in price.
And we all know why that happens, supply demand, the
way that you know, the technology progresses so quickly, it's
easy to reproduce. Um. Just there's there's a lot of
different factors that lead to that economy of scale. I'm exactly.

(04:58):
I'm not going to say that, you know, a Tesla
road is going to be no, no, exactly, but but
I'm saying that, you know, it's not going to be
maybe the one dred and thirty thousand dollars that it
is right now, right, that's a good point. And and
just um put a put a button on that thing
that I mentioned earlier. Selling the batteries is a very
smart move because it allows them to continue monetizing all

(05:21):
of the research they had to do to get batteries
efficiently working in the first place. That's one of the
earlier criticisms about the Tesla Roadster, you know, it was
the battery bank. Sure, well, you know they do batteries
very well now and uh and as is uh you know,
testified to by the fact that they're they're selling to Toyota,
they're selling to Daimler AG and they've got this, uh,

(05:41):
this fantastically um well promoted, um exciting new model that
they've got out, the model S. I mean, there's a
there's a lot of buzz about this vehicle right now,
which I promise we're gonna get to. Um. But you know,
back to the cost of these things just quickly, um,
Ellen Musker and my in that, right, Ellen, Elon, Elon

(06:02):
musk I think that's how it is. Yeah, I'm gonna
miss that up a couple of times. So Elon Musk
Um his aims, as he said, you know, on his
own he said, his aim is to eventually mass produce
a fully electric car that the average consumer can afford.
And so all of this stuff that we're seeing now,
everything that you know that that Tesla Motors is doing
now is leading up to kind of you know, the

(06:22):
way we talked about. You know, the television is coming
down in price, the camera's coming down in price. You know,
whatever that is watches um any any object um, but
right now, I mean, I'll tell you that it's truth
on electric cars are expensive, They're not They're not terribly cheap.
And you know, with all the different uh um, I
don't know, tax credits and all of that. It gets
very confusing. But you know, there's still a pretty expensive venture,

(06:46):
you know, something that you know, you would have to
uh to really plan in order to to jump into
this thing. Right. Yeah, that's and that's a good point,
and it's it may remain that way for some time. Yeah,
I think so. I mean, let's just say good electric
car ares are very expensive. How about that. If you
want to buy something that's and I know, I know
you're okay, fair enough, but you want to buy something

(07:08):
that doesn't break, you have to pay extra. And that's
that's exactly what you pay for quality. You pay for
what you get, right, Yes, And I will say that
despite some of the value criticisms about the initial foray
of Tesla Motors with the Roadster, which um just to
drop some dates there, um, deliveries of the Tesla Roadster
began around July two thousand nine, so there's all very

(07:31):
recent history. And um, the roadster has some things that
I like, you know, zero to six m p h
um or nine seven kilometers in under four seconds not bad,
not bad at all, because there's not even gasoline in
that really fast. Yeah, and um, and just decide. Note
I am going to try to include things in the

(07:53):
metric system of now be Yeah, well we'll hopefully um
that should and confused things too much, right, because we've
got it. You've got a lot of numbers to go
over here. I'll just I'll include both numbers, but I
won't say which or which, So listeners at home fair
enough to put a check bark, but by which what
do you think is said? So anyway, there there are
some great things about this. Um. We talked about the acceleration.

(08:18):
We talked about the pricing of the car, which, as
we said, is is pretty um not steep. It's steep.
It's it's the roadster right now is about a hundred thousand,
five U S. Dollars And you mentioned it's quick, but
it but it does get it gets more than two
hundred miles per charge, something around like two forty five.

(08:38):
I think it's what it is and all electric sports car.
It looks really cool. I mean it's it's based on
the Lotus release right and um, I mean it's been
around for a while. I think the prototypes came out
in and around two thousand and six. Uh, they recently
stopped selling them, and I was kind of wondering why
this was going on, But I guess they stopped selling

(08:58):
them because there is a shortage in the the Lotus
a lease gliders as they call them, the cars that
are the donor cars. I guess for the for the
Tesla Roaster. They've run out of the their supply because
they had a contract with with Lotus to to create
these things, and I guess the contract ran out and
there's some kind of problem going on. I don't know
exactly what's happening there between them, but um, they just

(09:22):
have run out of these donor vehicles. Otherwise they still
would be producing the the the roaster, and I think
there's a plan to bring the roadster back very soon,
so it may just be a hiatus. I think that's
what's going on. Yeah, can we talk about the engine
just a little bit. Yeah, let's do it. Well, how
about the motor. Oh, that's the that's the first one.
I got you, you got me. We have talked before

(09:44):
about slipping with the engine in the motor. It's it's
very easy. I do that when I'm writing a lot so, Um,
I don't believe it. You're too good. That's true. That's true,
I do it. That's crazy. But so we know that,
as you pointed out, it is a motor, it is
an electric induction motor. It is super light as well.

(10:10):
I think everybody else who's used to the weight of
an icy motor is is gonna I see engine. Oh
my gosh, I'm gonna make it through this. Um point
being the Tesla Roadster motor only wighs seventy pounds, not bad,
and it um it's top speed is somewhere around a

(10:31):
hundred and thirty miles per hour. Yeah, yeah, Now, okay,
I do have to counter counterbalance this with with the
idea that the battery pack it's something like a thousand pounds. Yeah,
I mean way, the battery way is a lot. That's
the that's the downside of this whole energy storage. And
maybe not in the roadster. I'm not sure exactly how
much the roastor battery ways. I've got the numbers, you're somewhere.
You're right, it's about a thousand pounds in total, all right,

(10:53):
about a thousand pounds, and then you've got the seventy
pound motor. But still, overall, this is a very efficient package.
Because you know the way the Lotus Elease is designed,
it's designed for for speed. It's it's a it's a
very low weight, um, you know, very small, very very
minimalist design. I mean, it's really a smart design, I
guess from Lotus, and it was it was very clever

(11:16):
of Tesla to use that as their as their base
for the roadster. So just a couple more stats about
the induction motor within the rooster. It can go to rpm.
That's pretty that's pretty high up there. Yeah, when you consider,
I mean by comparison, what could a combustion engine that size. Well,

(11:36):
that's almost like like motorcycle revving. You know that that's
a good point. That level of spinning, I suppose, yeah,
because there's probably a better way to say that that
level is spitting. It's pretty good. That's a high rpm level. Um. Yeah,
you know what that is. The estimated range two and
fifty miles on a single charge. Not bad, not bad,

(11:58):
not bad. The thing that always gets me a little
bit about the idea of range is that they're far
fewer opportunities to charge that kind of car. I'll tell
you what, I've got a quite a bit of information
here about about range and charging and all that. In fact,
I want to I want to get to that later.

(12:18):
Let's let's move on to the Model S and the
X and then we'll and then we'll talk about the
future products and all that. But I do want to
talk about charging because that becomes that that's really the
the crux of my argument against this this whole thing.
So um boy, when I get to that, I'm gonna
have to give preface it with something. But let's talk
about the MODELIZE because that is popular. I like it.

(12:40):
I like the I like the looks of it. I
like the way it I like the way it appears.
I like the way it looks on the road. Um.
I don't know if I would buy one myself, not
yet because probably because of the price and a little
bit of the infrastructure, which, as you said, we'll get to.
The models came out in two thousand twelve. Deliveries began
in woon of that year. The Tesla Model S is

(13:03):
much more of a family car than the Roadster sure
when it was at four doors, more to actually fit
a family, and it's an all electric sedan. Um. Well,
I mean they're expensive, as we mentioned, they range anywhere
from seventy one thou for the base model up to
ninety six thousand for the performance model. Um, and that
kind of depends on the battery selection, which we'll talk

(13:25):
about later. Anywhere from sixty kill a lot hours up
to kill a lot hours. And um, it's one some
major awards already, which is pretty impressive, major awards. And
I just think of Christmas story when I heard say
that won the possibly the best review they Consumer Auto Guide,
who had ever written that's true? What they say about that?

(13:45):
Do you remember they said, this might not be the
best car we've ever driven or reviewed, but it's one
of them. It's it's way out there, which is they
did everything except say this is the best car. That's
pretty impressive really for a brand new car, especially a
brand new all electric sit in like this. I mean,
I don't know if anybody really expected it to be that,
you know, highly lauded at this point. Um. It won

(14:06):
the two thousand thirteen Motor Trend Car of the Year,
the two thousand thirteen World Green Car Award, Automobile Magazine's
Car of the Year, Time Magazine's Best twenty five Inventions
of the Year Award. So it's got some major victories
under its belt already. And I'll tell you the model
asked is extremely popular. The sales are good. It's topping

(14:27):
Chevy and Vault and Nissan, the Chevy, Vault and Nissan
Leaf um already and these are Q one numbers, but um,
it's already outsold them. Um. It's just it's it's really
uh and it's showing up on on the street. I
see it on my way home. Occasionally I'll see a couple,
not a lot of them, but a couple here and there. Um,
probably the same ones a few times, you know, over

(14:48):
and over again. But anyways, I've seen a few of
them around That says something of a vehicle when it's
you know, seventy two hundred thousand dollars. Yes, this is
I think it's fair to say that the this is
unprecedented because a lot of people were skeptical, myself included
about the possibility of the Tesla of Tesla Motors surviving.

(15:14):
It's an upstart, right, it's a brand new company. How
many times have we seen something like this happened, especially
with somebody in this this new all electric car field,
I guess to say, and it's not really new. I
understand that. But a small upstart company like this with
this type of product in this climate right now, doesn't
last very long. Typically Tesla is the the the exception,

(15:38):
I guess in this case, because they have really they've
proven themselves with the Roadster, they come out with this
model s and again widely you know, widely accepted, what
you know, wildly popular model that you know, a lot
of people really really believe in this, A lot of
people really want this to work. They want this to
be the one that that kind of breaks that barrier
that makes it you know, makes it possible, makes it
all doable, right, Yes, and with again the focus the

(16:02):
ultimate endgame of Tesla being to create all electric cars
that are affordable for the average person or family. Then
if you do buy an electric car, let's say, in
the next ten years, then the odds are that it
might be somehow related to the models. You know, it
could be okay, it could be yeah, No, I mean

(16:23):
I think that you know, even future companies, future future uh,
you know, endeavors in this in this field are going
to look at the model, says as there as kind
of like the the template for them. They're gonna say,
they're gonna say that this is the way that we
need to make this because this worked with the Model S,
and this is the only one that was able to
create something that actually people wanted to buy, that that

(16:45):
this this system works. This is how we're going to
base our business. And I think it's time we talk
about the Model X. Model X, which is clearly has
the coolest name. Yeah, I think it's cool, but I'm
not a fan really of this this one I like.
I'll tell you, I like the Roadster, I like the S.
I'm not crazy about the X, just because I'm not

(17:06):
an suv fan. But I think a lot of people
are really gonna enjoy driving an all electric suv because
they can't give up the you know, the functional aspects
of an suv. Um. You know, they say they can't
get Roadster obviously for for practical reasons. You know, it's
two seats and almost no luggage space or whatever. Um,
But if you've got an SUV that's all electric, that's

(17:26):
another game, right. And uh, just to be clear, this
is a crossover suv Okay, well similar, totally similar, a
little smaller somewhere between like a station wagon and suv
had a kid. Sure, we've caught that. Yeah, sure, why not.
It's a it's a it's a cooler minivan. How about that?

(17:48):
Is that is that fair? Yeah? That is fair. It's tough,
but it's fair because that's that is the truth. I'm
interested to see how how this is gonna work out. Um.
I think they're deduction is going to begin in late
late next years, Like yeah, late is A is gonna
supposed to start delivering the vehicles. And they're already taking

(18:09):
reservations for these things. So, you know, if you want
to get in on the ground floor on the Model X,
now is the time, you know, go ahead and contact Tesla.
You know, they've got a great website, lots of really
good information there. We we kind of outbend. I tell you,
there was so much information on that site, as you
can tell. I mean, can I can I just say
something right now? I'm over here and practically sweating because
I'm going through my notes so quickly trying to find

(18:31):
all of the stuff that I've got. There was so
much on Testla's site that I didn't know what to
bring in with me today. And when we're talking about
all these models, like they're talking about the Model X,
and you know the delivery dates, and you know the
ranges and all the battery sizes and the specs and everything.
There's so much information on Tesla's site. If you go
to Tesla Motors dot com, you can find all of
this stuff in a in a in a very clear,

(18:52):
very concise manner, very very you know, all in one place.
But we're attempting to go through this this Model X,
Model Model X rather c M stumbling on all this stuff.
The the Model X S SUV, which hopefully will begin
production in delivered delivered to consumers inteen. So we're gonna
start seeing that on the road, kind of like what

(19:13):
we're seeing the Model S right now. You know, the
early adopters are going to have it first, and we're
real early in the models production, so we're seeing a
few of them on the road, not a lot, but
I have a feeling that not too you know, not
too long off from now, we're gonna see, especially in
a busy metro area like this, we're gonna see a
lot of Model S vehicles. And I think that, you know,
when the Model X comes out, you and I are

(19:33):
gonna be seeing a lot of those around Atlanta and
anybody that's on maybe one of the coasts, like in
l A or over and over in New York, um,
all along that east coast. I think you're gonna see
a lot of the model x UM on the roads
as well, and you can look forward to it. Now,
you and I are going to be seeing a lot
of Tesla's because our area has a Tesla dealership, correct um.

(19:55):
And that leads me to something really important that we
have to discuss. But before we discuss it, what are
you listening to? You've been listening to something the whole
time we're doing this podcast. Well, it just seems like
I'm distracted. I'm not. I'm not. Actually, I'm distracted by
my own uh you know, clumsy notes. But um, I'm
also listening to an audio book and I'm not doing

(20:16):
it well on podcasting. I can guarantee you that. Thanks
Ben for anything I mentioned. But um, this is the
title of this one. This one goes. This one goes
all the way back to the beginning of the automobile
and a character that you and I like to talk
about a lot. Um. It's another Henry Ford topic, and
it's called this is a long title. It's called I
invented the Modern Age. The Rise of Henry Ford and
the most Important Car ever made. That's a pretty dramatic title, right,

(20:38):
I mean, it's a very bold it's a long it's
a long audio book. It's twelve hours and twenty two
minutes um. It's written by a historian. His name is
Richard Snow, and it's, of course Henry Ford's story, some
of the commonly told stories. And what I like about
this is it's got some of the lesser known stuff
that Henry was involved in. And you and I both
that's what we find very very interesting me about Henry

(21:00):
Ford is there's a lot of kind of I guess,
not well known stuff, you know, that the stuff that
people don't really like to talk about. But it covers
the you know, his rise, rise to fame through his
greatest invention, the Model T. Of course, Uh, there's lots
of scenes and incidents throughout you know Ford's life. You know,
everything that you know describes everything about who he is

(21:21):
and where he came from and how he got there,
um and how really the Model T shaped the entire
world that we live in today. I mean as far
as like the you know, the suburbs, I mean, that's
part of what Henry Ford helped create with the model
t UM. Everything just everything in modern cities UM is
built around this one invention. I want to hear this book. No,

(21:43):
I'm hoping to be traveling later in the year, and
it sounds like this would be a great book to
take along with me around twelve hours. UM. There's nothing
better than a good road trip, except maybe a good
road trip with some good stories to tell. And here
on the way, this is uh some mean that our
listeners might want to listen to too, listen to two

(22:04):
it works. Yeah, we'll keep it and uh the best
way to do that is to join up with audible
Podcasts dot com, which is sort of an online market
of hundreds of audiobooks, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands,
thank you, I missed the thousands because, uh, you know,

(22:26):
if you're driving around sometimes the radio is just not
gonna cut it. You know, how many times can you
hear at Justin Biebers? Yeah, well I don't know what
you're listening to, Ben anyways, Yeah you can. You can
pick and choose what you listen to. And if you've
got you know, twelve hours and twenty two minutes to
kill on a road trip. Uh, you know if you
like to hear people talk about history, and you know,
like how this is a perfect example, how how it

(22:47):
shapes everything all around you, especially on a road trip. Right, Um,
not a bad way to do it. And then I've
said this before, I'm gonna say this again, this particular example,
the one I'm talking about, if you were not listening
to us right now and to you know, to go
and get the free download. You know that we're gonna
talk about it's value. So it would normally cause you

(23:08):
twenty eight dollars to download this book. So you know,
just for listening to us, you get this, you know, this,
this trial that or this free download. Rather if you
don't select this one, that's fine. You know, there's, like
you said, a hundred thousand titles to choose from. So right,
you just need to go to audible podcast dot com
slash car stuff and you can get a free audio

(23:30):
book download of your choice just just for hanging out
listening to our show. YEP could be up to twenty value. Yeah, actually,
you know what it could go beyond that. I don't know.
I'm not sure how much the most expensive book is
but this is a free download to take advantage of it.
And uh that brings us to another chapter in Tesla

(23:52):
Motors that we have to talk about because it's really exciting.
One thing that Tesla does differently from every their company
is that they sell their own vehicles directly to consumers.
Now that is a blanket statement. Of course, a lot
of people will say, well, no, there are other companies
that do that, but they're not doing it in the

(24:13):
same way. Tesla owns its own dealerships, you know, which
is relatively unusual in the United States. In fact, it's
illegal in some states. True and um Tesla has for instance,
been working with Texas to modify the law. Right. I
am glad you mentioned Texas because that is a special case.
And uh, you know, I'm I don't even know if

(24:35):
I can begin to describe what's going on in Texas,
like how you how you go about getting a Tesla
vehicle in Texas. But you can find if you look
up information about about that case in specific, you'll find
out some of the hoops that you have to jump
through in order to do that. And I think they're
gonna find this in in several states along the way,
as they as they began to expand their their dealership network.

(24:55):
Um that you know, they're gonna have some troubles with
it here and there. But again that's the whole thing
with you know, the the dealerships from other auto manufacturers
is that there you know, these are these are privately
owned dealerships really and they're selling to the public. It's
it's completely different from the factory selling direct from their
own dealership and UH and state rules and regulations in

(25:15):
some states don't allow for that. So Texas is a
fantastic example. Yeah, Um, North Carolina and New Hampshire just
very recently, in June of this year, UH did decide
to allow Tesla Motors to sell their own vehicles and
their own dealerships. Virginia and Texas, though, are still not

(25:36):
not on board with it. I think that if I
could be make a bit of a bold claim here,
I think that in retrospect this is going to be
seen as an amazing move by Tesla. Now, of course, um,
before we continue, I do want to say now that
I've said something lowing so he scot, I'm trying to

(25:56):
balance everything I'm saying. I understood now I'm saying something low.
I do want to point out, um, that Tesla has
already had to issue its first recall of a vehicle
pretty minor, pretty minor, but they did have to do it.
So in two thousand nine, they had to do a
safety recall for UM Roadsters that were manufactured before April
twenty second of that year. And that's UM. Again, that's

(26:20):
the first, the very first year out of the gate
that they had to do this, and UM it was
it was a minor thing. It wasn't a replacement. It
was tightening of some bolts. That's literally all one. Yeah,
and they found it through what you said, routine testing.
So it's really not anything that you know, the customers said, hey,
I'm having a problem with this. You know, there's it's

(26:40):
causing a safety issue or anything. Like. They were proactive exactly.
They're very proactive about it, and they did the right
thing by by issuing this recall and just checking even
if it was tightened down, they're just checking every single
one of them to make sure. It's like, uh, you know,
like when you leave the house and you forget if
you closed the closed the garage door or not, and
you have to Yeah, it's like it causes me to
turn around. And that's probably the kind of thing that
they're saying too, is like, Okay, we know that some

(27:03):
of them went out with Lucy. We we've got to
check every one of them just just to be safe.
And I have one more test. I don't want to
call it Tesla negative. I think that's kind of funny.
What's that? So? You know, you and I are both
big top Gear fans. Most of our listeners probably are too.
So the Tesla Roadster before it comes out for public
consumption in two thousand nine. There's a two thousand eight

(27:24):
episode of top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson is just dogging
the roadster, you know, he's he's saying the range is bad,
fifty five miles and then it shows the car being
pushed into a garage. Boy, And so now top Gear
is I think a very humorous show and that's part

(27:44):
of the appeal. Sure they're handing it up a bit. Yeah,
and um, Tesla Motors tried to sue top Gear really yeah, Bible,
oh boy, we have to have to see. I have
to figure out how'm gonna end this podcast. Then what
just in case, um, well, Tesla Motors did lose the suit. Um,

(28:06):
but I think that's just being protective of the image
of that time and around and around the time they
came out. So I'm not trying to offend Tesla Motors,
nor am I trying to offend top gear. This is funny, bad.
I'm watching a sweat over there's I'm sweating. They're they're
not even gonna listen to this. Oh, they're gonna listen
to it. So um, we we will see. But despite

(28:28):
all of this, and those are very early I would
even I would typify both of those as growing pains. Um.
I think Tesla has a big future ahead of it. No, granted,
I think some of I think some of the hype
has outgrown itself, have been blown out of proportion, that
that's gonna happen, But for my money, uh, this is

(28:53):
the biggest movement in the in the business. I don't
know if all those claims about Tesla becoming the next
Apple are true, but it's very hard to say something
like that would be true. But it is I think
increasingly safe to say that the next electric car most
people are going to buy, if this trend continues, is

(29:13):
going to be a Tesla. That's very likely, you know,
Can I say something here and just I feel like
I want to go on to uh. I want to
go on to kind of the wrap up of this
whole thing, and I need to talk about the charging
stations and the infrastructure and things like that. I do
want to say something first, though, because I get a
lot of flak via email and Facebook or whatever. I
really do about anytime we talk about hybrids are all

(29:35):
electric cars or whatever. UM, I'm I'll tell you I'm
I'm very pro tesla, very pro model s. I think
these are these are really interesting, cool designs. There's there's
just some some problems that that I can't seem to
get over my head. It's a mental hurdle that I
have to get over, uh, to to be able to
accept this vehicle, you know, to be able to say

(29:56):
like I may get one of these someday and here here,
but I've got a lot of reasons why I won't. UM.
So you know, if I if I sound negative about
any of this, I don't mean to. I'm just telling
you the way I see this stuff that that's coming
out okay, and uh, And because I really do get
a lot of I get a lot of hate mail
about you know, so I read a lot of them.
I know I know it, I know it. So before

(30:18):
we talk about this, just understand that I'm in their corner.
It's just we've got to figure out a way to
get around this. They Tesla's got to figure out a
way to get about this, right, accept it? Okay? Alright,
So let's talk about charging, yes, because when we talked
about charging, we're talking about infrastructure, which, as we've talked about,
is one of them. It can be an elephant in

(30:40):
the room anytime you're talking about new energy sources. Alright,
So to date in the United States, there are seventeen
Tesla what they call supercharger stations. They're eight in California too,
in Washington State, one in Illinois to in Florida, four
on the East coast. Okay. And you can look at
the map. You can find them on Tesla motors dot
com and uh and and find exactly where they are

(31:02):
so you can, you know, figure out where you can
drive your Tesla exactly right. And they've all got ranges
listed around them, so you can see about how far
you can drive right, all right, doesn't right now, I'll
tell you it doesn't come even close to covering the
United States. It's it's they're very uh, they're very centrally
located on the on the coast, on the coast, I
should say. You know, down in the southern tip of Florida.
You're not gonna be able to get from the southern

(31:23):
tip of Florida to the east coast in in an
all electric vehicle in a Tesla without a lot of
pre planning and time for charging. Um. But these these
supercharger stations that they're talking about now, these are these
are kind of the new thing. And uh, Elon musk
Is is promising get this bend and I'll tell you
about this a minute. He's promising free travel forever in

(31:46):
Tesla in Tesla models like the Model S And I
know that sounds crazy, but he's promising free travel forever,
free travel. And I'll tell you how that works. Okay,
I'm very interested, all right, So so okay, and I'll
get to it, I promise. But as we go through this, uh,
this supercharger technology, which is new to Tesla or new

(32:06):
to everybody. Really, what it allows you to do is
allows you to make a brief stop at a Tesla
supercharger station you charge the car and go uh potentially
for free at the at a supercharger, right. You you
just pull in, it takes something like twenty minutes and
you get a fifty charge on your battery for that
for that uh twenty minutes, right, So it's like the
super fast technology. Um now, boy Ellen says that so

(32:33):
by buying a Tesla you have you have free long
distance travel throughout the country forever, and that's how he
states it right now. But I just mentioned that they
only have seventeen of these current supercharger stations to date. Well,
the plan is that they're going to triple the number
of stations by the end of next month, which is
pretty soon. I mean that's that's the end of August,
I believe because this news came out in July. Um

(32:57):
Over the next six months they plan to cover to
metro areas. In one year of North America's population will
be covered, so that's population centers. Doesn't mean that the
country itself, but population. And then in two years of
North America's population will have access to TESTA stations within
range of other TESTA stations, so you can drive to

(33:17):
and from them, right, Okay, sounds sounds very good. Now
I mentioned the supercharger stop is twenty two minutes, right, Okay,
the there's a there's an alternative to the supercharger stop
at these Tesla stations, and that is a battery swap.
And a lot of people who are proponents of electric
cars will say that you can do a battery swap
quick in these things. Well that's not always the case

(33:38):
because that battery ways one thousand pounds and not everywhere
is going to have a battery, right. So Tesla is
installing these stations, in these stations, these technicians that will
allow you to exchange the battery four fee. It's not
free like like you know, the supercharger thing is where
you charge up in twenty minutes. This takes ninety seconds

(33:59):
bend for them to change battery in a Tesla model
s UM and they can. They can do it for
eight dollars depending on the battery that you get in
the vehicle, because it's a sixty kill a lot or
an eight five kill a lot battery, so it's you know,
sixty and eighty dollars respectively. Um. The the electric battery
range is at the best about three miles, uh, you

(34:21):
know for the kill a lot version, you know, at
fifty five miles per hour, optical conditions all that, right. Um,
it's just a lot of people have have said that
maybe maybe that's the way to go. Maybe it's not
as economical because you can pull in and do this
in ninety seconds and be on your way, which is great, right,
Or you can pull in for twenty minutes and be

(34:43):
charge and go like maybe at the most a hundred
and fifty miles before you need another charge. Well, then
charging becomes kind of a problem because then it comes
down to you know, if you're plugging into a standard outlet,
it's something like you know, you charge for I'm looking
for my notes, but you charge for like maybe um
and hour and you get like twenty two miles out
of that. Where you charge in an hour at a

(35:03):
two forty what station, I'm just making stuff because I
can't find my nose, But like maybe in an hour
at a two and forty what plug and you'll get
thirty one miles for an hour of charge out of that. So,
you know, there's all these variables to come into this
whole thing. You gotta figure out what's most economical for you.
The battery, the battery power thing. You know, you've got

(35:24):
to really plan your trips accordingly for long distance that
it gets to be troublesome. But a lot of people
are saying, you know, my gas car gets a six
d mile range, has a six hundred mile range, and
it costs me, you know, maybe maybe if it's a
big tank, seventy dollars to fill it up, you know, twenty,
that'd be twenty gallons at three dollars and fifty cents
a gallon at seventy dollars um. And that's really only

(35:46):
getting thirty miles per gallon on iway, That's that's not
all that uncommon. Um. And you can get six hundred
miles out of a tank, so that's double. That's that's
twice the range. And and you can and the good
part about this is that you can get gas slean
anywhere right now. Um, you know, these these charging stations,
even when they cover all these in all these areas
in the States, you still have to plan where you're

(36:07):
gonna be when when the juice runs out. When you
have a gasoline powered car, it's pretty much any corner now. Yeah,
I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying
we should also historically consider that when gasoline cars first
came out, this was also a problem. Where would you
find the um where would you find the materials necessary

(36:30):
to make your engine run? Now, I think that's a
very good point, but I think it's a point that
is going to change over time. If they can and
this is a huge if Scott. If Tesla motors really
can cover of the United States, but two years of
the population of the United States, so there's gonna be

(36:50):
some some open areas. However, I mean, but I like
to take a lot of long road trips. I mean,
I have to really plan this out. And the other
tan is going to be Can I tell you one
thing that kind of shocking about this? Thing shocking? The
one thing that's really shocking about this is that you know,
if you do this battery swap, you you have to
return to the same location to pick up your original

(37:11):
battery after you you use the rental battery, the borrowed battery.
So that's that's a big problem for a lot of
people as well. Are you gonna do well, you can't
make you can't make a loop. Then you have to
make a trip that goes back the same direction, so
you know that's the problem and for some people, all right,
and and one more last thing and okay, so there's

(37:33):
a lot to do with the charging, and I've got
more to say about it than that where we're unning
kind of long, so let me let me kind of
get into this here. If you go to the Tesla
site and this is I'm afraid then this is another
one where I'm a little bit doubtful about things. But um,
they have the prices listed and you can even price
your own vehicle, your own model and everything and all
the options and features and everything. Um, however, they've got

(37:55):
this thing where it's there's there's the the estimated payment,
which is, you know, your normal monthly payment, and then
they have something called effective monthly cost. And to me,
this is deceptive. I don't know if you looked at
this online or not, but um, to me, it's very
deceptive because the effective monthly cost is the one that's
big and bold, and you know it's right above the

(38:16):
buy it now button. You are the the order of
the car button. And this is about how much money
you're gonna save versus a I see car. That's right,
And and you can start to you know, you go
down the page, you select the vehicle that you want,
and it gives you the the effective payment and then
the estimated payment, which is really the mount you're on
to pay. UM. So in this case, like I've got

(38:36):
a couple of examples, but I don't want to spend
too much time on these, um, but I'll tell you that,
like the the effective payment for the sixty kilowat vehicle
is five seventy nine, but your actual payment is going
to be nine sixteen a month. That's a big discrepant.
And you know that's for the car that seventy and
that's not changing anything on the on the whole sheet there. Um.

(38:57):
If you go down on you you can select a
lot of different things like business expenses, and you know
what you can write off and what you value your
time at, and you can vary all these different things.
So like if you value your time at fifty an hour,
then they figure out how much you save by not
having to go to the gas station and spend ten
minutes standing at the gas pump. So there are things
like that that add into this, and and everything brings

(39:19):
down the effective cost. And I tell you you can
get the effective cost down do you know anywhere to
you know, maybe a one dollars a month for the
effective cost. And that seems you know that that that
plays a little trick on my mind because of disingenuous,
because I'm really going to be writing a check for
nine and sixteen dollars each month for that thing, and
that's with a seventy two month lease, no, not at
least seventy two months purchase plan. Now that's that that

(39:45):
might be the sales people work in some magic there.
I think that is disingenuous. That kind of stuff happens
on a lot of manufacturer sites, and to me, that
that makes it a little bit less trustworthy because it's like, oh,
come on, guy, that's kind of that's kind of smoking mirrors,
you know, Okay, that that just it's it's a tiny

(40:05):
bit deceptive to me. I mean it really, it really is.
And I understand. I mean, if you if you're careful
about reading things, and I would hope that somebody is
buying a new car is careful about reading things, that uh,
you know, you would understand you know the difference in this,
and I mean when you get up to the one
that's you know, one hundred thousand dollars base or ninety
six thou dollars for the base price. I mean, the
payments really are going to be something like, you know,

(40:28):
twelve hundred dollars for this thing. It's gonna be very,
very expensive, but you can get the effective cost down
to a thousand dollars um, you know, and it all
depends on all of these little boxes and things that
you take off and what you determine as as the
value of your time dollars every well, you know, there's
a there's a lot of things like that, and I've
got a short list of of I don't know, just issues, problems,

(40:51):
things like that that I want to cover. But but
you've got one more thing there, and I've got I've
got like a few more things. Okay, how but let's
do that because I'm I feel like I could go on.
I gotta save, I gotta Okay, here's the deal. I'll
do one I'll do one thing, then you do the list.
Then I'll end on something that is positive tangentially related
ampost Okay. So um, so, first let's talk about the future.

(41:15):
I don't think it would be fair to close on
Tesla Motors unless we talk about the future as well.
More and more, I like this, Uh, I like this
Tesla guy Elon Musk. I think that he has the
vision necessary uh to be an Edison UM or a

(41:36):
Afford even I totally agree. And UM, I think that
you know, of course, he might not really enjoy the
comparison to Edison because he did name his company Tesla,
and that's I I fully understand that. Please don't sue me. UM.
But the this UM, this guy is a dynamo. You know,
he's got some big plans and he's been able to

(41:59):
follow through. Want a lot of these How many electric
references are you gonna drop in this? I have a list.
Don't act like you didn't drop that shocking joke. So
so one of the new things that some of the
new things that he announced that are pretty cool. Um,
they want to come out with a Tesla truck, which

(42:19):
would be, if they do it correctly, UM, successful full
electric truck. Now we know that there have been UM,
what's the nicest way to say it's successful attempts at
full electric pickup truction. Um. And then there's the model
sum hidden valet mode. Did you hear about this? With

(42:40):
a software update that they're they're hoping to give it
a valet mode, which they've been kind of on the
hush hush about. But I think the idea ultimately is
to um to respond to the the new autonomous driving
stuff features that are coming out for the Audi and

(43:01):
very cool. So right, a Tesla with a little genie
in a bottle, who will park your car when you're
too busy at the supercharging station? And uh then, um,
then he's got you know you you already let the
cat out of the bag on this one. The Tesla

(43:21):
Roadster surprise this, I think the I believe someone correct
me if I'm wrong. I believe that the ability to
charge and travel for free forever. UM. I believe that
that is a thank you to the owners of the roadsters.
I don't know if it's going to apply to the
model as, nor to the X, nor to this Tesla

(43:43):
truck whatever it ends up being called. UM. So there
are big things. Again, there are a lot of ifs.
Whenever we talked about the future. I do want to
say that UM to pass the ball here. I do
want to point out that Tesla recently had at the
time of this recording was recently had garnered quite a

(44:04):
bit of praise for paying off their government loans. Do
you remember that the way they paid them off was
that Allon Musk took over it and and paid himself,
which is a very Henry Ford thing to do. And Um,
this this company, While any electric car at this point

(44:27):
is going to have a huge amount of obstacles ahead
of it, this company is one of the companies that
is really cracking the case. And it makes it easier
for me to see a future with um with electric
cars that aren't just expensive toys, which let's be honest,
quite a few are. That's fair enough. Yeah, I totally

(44:49):
see that. I mean, like we've talked about all the
failed attempts that we've seen in the past, the tera Um,
some we send others anyways, we've we've seen other vehicles
that just haven't ever really come to come to fruition.
I guess the way that Tesla has, I mean, the
with the success they've got with you know, the Roster
and the Model ESS and and hopefully with the Model
X as well. I really do hope that they're they're

(45:11):
successful from this point forward. I think it's I do
and I agree with you about everything you're saying about
the about the CEO there too. I mean, I I
totally agree he's charismatic, he's got you know, I mean
the right idea. I think that they've got there. They're
on the right path. Um, the problems. The only thing
is that I wanted to talk about the issues that
I think, um, that I see right now. I mean,

(45:33):
claims like the free charging you know, Tesla's superchargetations forever.
I just don't see how that's possible. I mean, someone's
got to pay for that. They're also not making a
very big profit margin at all, that's true. Okay, so
maybe maybe they're they're wrapping it in somehow like that.
But I just I have a sinking bad feeling that
it's somehow you know, and maybe I'm way off, but

(45:54):
maybe it's I don't know, I'm not even gonna say it,
but I think that I have a feeling that the
money is coming from elsewhere that um anyways, UM, it's
maybe not the most convenient um option at this time,
because we talked about, you know, the lack of charging
stations completely covering the country. Um, you know, they're going

(46:15):
from one location of the next, maybe very difficult, or
you have to just exception, have to stop and plug
into a It adds a whole new level to any
kind of a family trip or road trip that you're on. Um,
it's it's maybe just not the most convenient, that's probably
the nicest way to say it. At this point, very
very expensive. Also, I mean, and I'm gonna say this

(46:36):
early on, and I know that you know it's still
it's going gangbusters right now, but it's still sort of
a gamble at this point. And if you buy an
electric vehicle at this point, I still see it as
a bit of a gamble um, and it's an expensive
gamble um. It's not something to be taken lightly. When
you're spending a hundred thousand dollars on a on a
sedan that you know you don't have any other whole

(47:00):
then you know they're gonna put install a charging station
nearby or that you know you can you know somehow
maintain this thing through your own home outlets or whatever,
through the the existing power bread Um. I just and
the last thing is that I just see so many
and this is it should be a positive bend, but
it's not. To me. I see a lot of promises
coming out of this company. Um, that I just don't

(47:22):
know if they're gonna honor everything. And I hope they do,
I really do, But I'm just so cautious about it
because of everything we've heard in the past, you know,
with all these other companies. But but they're they're guaranteeing
resale values of the cars. They're saying that you might
get They're saying you're gonna get money back possibly when
you trade the car in UM, You're they're saying that,
you know, they're gonna install this network of charging stations

(47:44):
and the superchargers, and UM, you know, there's gonna be
the battery swap option available, and you know, the pricing
is gonna it's gonna be free for travel across the
US and all this. So I just really hope that
they honor all these and and the other thing is,
like the numbers, they seem just a bit this active
in the pricing. And I've tried to I've really tried
to think about it, and I've I've looked at the

(48:05):
site often. I've gone back to the pricing area a
lot of times and kind of played around with, you
know what state that I would be buying the vehicle in,
and you know, how much I value my time at
and you know, all of that stuff, and and the
pricing just seems a little bit um iffy to me.
And I don't know, I don't know why that is,
but it's just something in the back of my head
that's telling me something about this isn't right. I see.

(48:27):
So this might You're you're saying, like, this is a
lot of talk and we're gonna have to see the wall. Yeah,
I guess, yeah, exactly. I just I just want to
want to see them back it up. And and you know,
I really really hope that they do. I really want
them to succeed. I do. Yeah, I do too. And
here's the thing that I said this would be positive.
I was messing with you a little bit, man, uh I.

(48:51):
Some recent statements of my new hero, Alon Musk have
persuaded me that he might have an entirely different endgame
in mind, because I don't know if you've checked out
some of the recent proposals he's made, but he would
like to build what's speculated to be um a new
public transit system across the United States. Did you hear

(49:12):
about this? So he might be shooting himself in the
foot with this but the idea is a friction free
three plus bullet train equivalent, which we have talked about before.
Just multiple podcasts focus on the cars for now. I
know it's like a finish your breakfast, please, please, please,

(49:33):
just finish this one project first. I'll tell you what though,
Um the moment it becomes affordable for someone like me
to buy a Model Les or a model whatever they're
gonna be, I'm gonna get one. I just want to
see what happens. And I feel safe saying that because

(49:53):
just to be honest, when it gets to the point
where someone like me can afford a Model Les, it'll
be tried and true. I'll be able to buy one used. Sure,
I'll be able to haggle with the dealer, understood. But
that is where we end our story on Tesla moders,
and we have to end it. I mean, I I
know we have to end it because of time, but
we've got I've got a sea of notes around me.

(50:17):
I don't want to go through any more of it.
But man, I think that almost some of these topics
that I've got here could almost be a show on themselves.
So there may be some more Tesla related topics to
come up stuff that we didn't get to cover in
today's podcast. How about that excellent point. Okay, then what
we'll do is we will officially call this podcast Tesla
one oh one, and then we'll go into um, some

(50:38):
other ones in the future. So you guys, thanks so
much for listening to us on Tesla. We hope that
we gave you an okay idea of the company, the
people behind it, the models they've made so far, their
plans for the future, and uh, their ambitions and as
for whether or not those ambitions will work out, you'll
just have to tune in that sun let us know.

(51:01):
If there's anything specifically you'd like to know about Teslamotor
Company that we didn't touch on today, you can drop
us a line on Facebook, give us a holler on Twitter,
or you can send us an email directly. Um, it
doesn't need to be hate mail. Yeah, please don't. Oh yeah,
please don't because we are on testas now. Just you know,

(51:22):
the the hybrid stuff is that I got me in
trouble in the past, and uh, and I don't want
it to be that way at this one. I am.
I'm I'm very pro testless, So keep the emails light
it's like the old it's the old question though, you know,
how do you how do you build a million? Gasking? Hey, look,
I have questions. I'm so, I've got a lot of questions.
So I mean, I I don't think that's it. There's

(51:44):
anything wrong, There's nothing. It just there. He kills me
that you're beating yourself. I'm I'm, I'm I guess the
other side of the scale. I'm the balance right, and
we're the ballot. I'm the you know, the ballance. I
guess we're we're talking about here the end of the Yes,
we're doing We're just talking about. We're talking about and
we'd like to talk with you. If you'd like to
join the conversation, please do send us an email at
car stuff at Discovery dot com. For more on this

(52:10):
and thousands of other topics, this is at how stuff
works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send
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M