일론 머스크 전설의 인터뷰 (2009)

Elon Musk is here he is chief executive of two startup companies with Bowl missions he leads Tesla Motors the electric car company there's attracted attention from both car Enthusiast and environmentalist as well the company's powerful Roadster which can travel from 0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds is entirely powered by batteries the company plans to break into the mainstream auto market with an electric sedan as early as 2011 musk is also found a CE of space exploration Technologies a company trying to SL the cost of space travel last year the company signed an agreement

with NASA to send cargo to the International Space Station and if that is not enough he's also chairman of a growing company called Solar City that installs solar panels on homes and businesses he has thrived in Silicon Valley one of the co-founders of PayPal the online payments company that eBay bought for $1.5 billion in 2002 I am pleased to have him here at this table for the first time welcome thank you thanks for having me U I've been a big found of the show for a long time let's just talk about you first so that

if the audience does not know growing up in South Africa yeah yeah and what how how did you end up in Canada um well um I guess growing up in South Africa I was actually was very technology oriented and I I taught myself how to program computers mostly because I wanted to program games um and I when when I was about 12 I I programmed sold my first game and whenever I read about technology um and and great innovation it's it it was coming from from the United States and um so I it was you

know that's where I wanted to be and I tried to convince my parents to move move there and uh neither of them would they they would have wased I tried to my mother I try neither would do it my mother later moved uh back to to initially Canada and then and then the US um and so when I was 17 uh as soon as I got my Canadian passport um 3 weeks later I was in Canada so here you are and and you come to Canada and make it to the United States and then you

and and several other guys come together and create PayPal right and then you sell at eBay for 1 Point whatever it was5 billion yeah so after PayPal um uh that that gave me you know a fair bit of capital um and uh uh there there were there were three areas when I was in college there were three areas that I thought would most affect the future of humanity um and and those were the internet uh the transition to a sustainable energy and Transportation uh sector and the third was space exploration in particular the extension of

life to multiple planets um now I didn't ever expect to be invol the third one but I but I just that seemed to me that's something that would be very important for the future um and with the the capital that I got from sale of PayPal um I was able to go into both those those areas um and uh and so H hence uh uh SpaceX and and in in the space and and then in in the sustainable energy and transportation you've got Solar City and and Tesla talk about space exploration just for a moment

how is it going in terms of uh creating the systems that will engage us in space exploration not just for governments and not just for NASA but for private citizens as well well you have to divide the efforts that are going on into what what is an an orbit class effort versus a suborbital class effort and there's really a very big difference but the general public doesn't understand the difference between getting to space and getting getting to orbit and so it's it's important to make that distinction um to to do a suborbital flight you need

a terminal velocity of a varant Mark II right uh to do to get to orbit you need ter velocity of Mark 25 it's it's a huge huge difference um and because the energy required to do that scales with the square of the Velocity so um sub orbital might be nine units of energy uh orbit is 625 units of energy so it's only about 1 and a half% uh of the energy of orbit is required to get to sub orbit so so there there's there a number of efforts in the sub orbital category that certainly could

grow one day to to to orbital um there's Jeff Bezos has has an effort um and uh I know that that's something that that's pry Branson involved in this or Not Branson absolutely um not not so much directly from the technology standpoint but from he's he's funding that development at scaled composits in in California and what are you doing so we're in the we're in the in the in the orbit class um and and that's it's a lot more capital and U and and and that's really where you're sort of pushing the the Ragged edge

of of what's what's physically possible um and uh last year we got to orbit uh with for the first time with with our rocket um and um uh that was certainly a huge relief and a milestone yeah and so what's the next step um you're going to rock it into orbit yeah so uh next month we we were putting a satellite for Malaysia into orbit uh and then from Malaysia for for Malaysia for Malaysia yes Malaysian satellite um and uh but but in the rocket business uh the rocket company does the launch it's not like

the airline business so you don't sell the rocket you sell the launch right um and and then later this year we'll be launching out big rocket from Cape Canaveral that's the Falcon 9 and that's the one that's going to be servicing the space station among other things is there philosophy here that somehow the private sector can do a lot more than than it has done in in areas that seem because of the because of the size Rel you know reserved for government yeah definitely the the private sector is very good at at optimization uh and

and Innovation I mean private sector is better at doing things than the government uh I think that's that's that's fair to say um but uh you know there are certain things that that that the government that that are to the government like basic research and that sort of thing um but um yeah so as far as uh SpaceX the the reason that there hasn't been a huge uh number of hu a big Improvement in in the space industry because it is such a significant uh amount amount of capital that's needed to start a rocket company

and and it's a very difficult technical Challenge and the number of people that that really understand rocket Tre in the world is a very small number um so it's it's just it's really huge barriers to entry um and and that's why we haven't seen the forcing function of improvement that that there should have been over the years and your understanding came from sort of from this was not what you studied in college well I studied physics um but well studying physics and studying rocket science is a very different thing yeah no the basics gives you

the basics good framework good analytical framework um so uh but no I picked it up along the way yeah now bring me to the car and and I drove a car this afternoon so far so good which was terrific it's the Roadster yeah uh I don't know whether it's particularly a car that appeals to people in in Silicon Valley because of interest in technology and high performance and lots of other things or or what whether they're a lot of rich people people and who willing to spend that kind of money for for something they think

is on The Cutting Edge of causes they believe in sustainable energy right right tell me about how where you are in this development of this uh electric car which has most of all this extraordinary sort of power yeah you know yeah zero to T 60 time at 3.9 seconds and and the this is extraordinary when you think about the sports cars and anything else that's out on the road today yeah in fact on the the Top Gear test track our standard roadsta um beat a Porsche GT3 exactly Point that's a reference and and the Roadster

sport will do even better yeah um so but you've also said in terms of where you want to go that that developing a high performance sports car is not what this is about absolutely this is about something else and you want to develop a sedan yeah the the the whole purpose behind Tesla the reason um I put so much of my my time and money into helping create the business is uh is is we want to serve as a catalyst for accelerating the electric car Revolution um because you have a consumption of of of a

public good um it's it's one of the most it's it's really a common problem in economics you have the same thing in in in fishing where because there's no cost to to fishing stocks people just overfish and you know and you have disaster that that that ensues and and here we we're not paying for the cost of of the CO2 concentration in the oceans and atmospheres we're not paying for all these the ancillary effects the wars and all the other things at at at the at the gas pump so the only way to brige that

is is with Innovation um is to try to tr try to make electric cars better sooner than they would otherwise be well what what that means is that but but there's there's an advantage that that that um because the the the consumption of that energy is much more efficient in an electric car and this and this is uh I'll get to you know why why is the Tesla roads twice as efficient as as a Toyota Prius which is obviously not not a sports car right um and uh the reason is because an electric motor is

fun fundamentally uh super efficient at turning energy into motion um so a good electric motor uh such as the one that that we have in the tesar Roa is about 90% efficient at turning the electricity into motion uh whereas a gasoline internal combustion engine is somewhere typically in the range of around 17 or 18% most of what it does is generate heat um so so even though it's only 2 and a half gallons gasoline that 2 and a half gallons of energy content goes really far compared with uh you know if you had a if

that if that was I think it's taken a while for the industry to come around to to this point but I think it's it's largely uh at this point it's it's it's almost become conventional wisdom that the future is is electric cars the only question is this interim period of of this transitional period um but but if you look at the pace of of battery Improvement um it's clear that that's what I mean it's inevitable the future will be entirely electric it certainly does say that you know right now the reason to create a sports

car A Roadster as the first stage of this is because it attracts attention or what oh the so good great great question so because people often misinterpret why we have created a sports car because they they will say you know the implication will be cars for Rich guys is not a way to solve the energy problem right exactly and there s of like that I feel that there was somehow a shortage of sports cars for Rich guys or something like that and that was not you know if if you're if any new technology is expensive

when when it starts out um and you can point to pretty much anything and and the cuz the first thing that that you the engineers are trying to do is make it work and then when you made it make it work then you optimize and you optimize and you optimize and you you look at the early days of of computers or cell phones or almost anything even the early days of of of gasoline cars they used to be toys for rich people until they were made affordable and and M came yeah and and and and

then you combine that b the car and and then you combine that with the fact that we we were just a little startup um and um you know there there's just no way that we could afford a billion dollars to make a a giant car plant that that would uh uh make you know hundreds of thousands of cars a year because that's the kind of volume you have to get to to make to make cheap cars um and uh and then and it's also the first iteration of technology so we had both a volume problem

and uh a a a new technology problem and so that naturally that you have to to reach scale you have to reach scale and you have to work the bugs out of the system and and so you got to make and you want to make your mistakes at a small scale okay so how's that going reaching scale and and and being able to to create um a marketing a business plan that'll enable you to reach a large audience you know and and create and continue the development of the technology that will make it even more

attractive it's it's going really well actually um so it was we had a few bumpy bumpy years in the beginning but at this point we're we're producing at a steady State uh of about an annualized production rate of about a th000 roads to sports cars a year we unveiled our sedan a few months ago um which is a much more functional car and it's it's a $50,000 car so it's basically it's about half the price of the road and the production run say for the year 2010 for the road to will be about a thousand

and for the sedan sedan the sedan is only coming out in two years so in 2011 will be the first year and what's the what's the projection for that we're expecting to do 20,000 units a year for the sedan it's always difficult to predict these things exactly but but our Target is is is we'll produce a total of about 100,000 of them in about 20,000 a year and there going to be many variations on that we'll do an SUV and we'll do you know other things and then we'll do our our third generation uh uh

platform beyond the the the sedan the model sedan will be a sub $30,000 car so we're trying to get to mass production as soon as we we possibly can um and and but that's both from the cause that that we make ourselves as well as the cause we do in partnership with others like the the diner deal you may have read about and yeah so so um how do you measure the odds of success personally I would say success for me for Tesla is that we've accelerated the Advent of electric cars by at least five

years um so that that that but that the goal to to accelerate the Advent of electric cars or to create a great electric car company I think the two US I me or Ian that you do one you do the other okay yeah and why is it that it's it's happening by a guy who created a startup in 2003 rather than a whole range of sort of industrial automobile companies around the world not just here Fiat is a successful car company and in that own Chrysler right well disruptive technology like where you really have a

big technology discontinuity it tends to come from new companies right um you know you could ask the same question of why does Google come from why did Google come from Larry Larry uh it because some of the criticism that comes at you and the company now is that that you went out to seek a lot of external financing and did not reach your goals well we it's taking us longer to reach our goals but but we definely our gos what was it raise 100 million raised 40 or what was it what was the goal well

I think you know some of some of the the stumbles were were Silly mistakes we made ourselves some of them were were Market externalities um and uh we were getting ready to raise or we're in the process of raising about $100 million round uh that began in in sort of the summer of last year um and then ran into uh you know Force Five hricane an economic circumstance that took everything aside yeah um and so we so that that forced us to scale back our plans a little bit we had to do do a a

layoff um and uh we had to raise the money uh internally from existing investors I had to put up a lot of the money personally um and uh because there was just no money um and so that that was it was sort of a hair raising time for for the company but at this point uh we're actually in good shape we expect to be profitable in the third quarter and that comes from the success of the Roadster yeah and and the Roadster and we also have a power train supply business to diamler as well for

the for an electric smart that we're doing with them make the Smart Car an electric car yeah you know the Smart car was always intended to be an electric car but they they could never get the battery right um so uh a year and a half ago um uh we met with diimler and uh they uh I was trying to convince them to work with us we actually I mean we we've really tried hard to work with a lot of different car companies and um and what happened well I guess they they think well they

took the attitude of what you know what is some little startup in Silicon Valley know that that that we don't know or couldn't do and and what would you say to them well we we say Drive our car and look at our technology and I don't know it just never seemed to sort of sink in but Daimler uh for dler did actually so I I I went went through stot um went on the way to India actually uh and uh met with uh Dr wer the head of global R&D and and we had a conversation

I said well what does it take for us to to to work together we'd love to do something we' love to do something with you know an affordable Mass market car that you know we ourselves couldn't do right now because we we don't have the capital resources line most of it yeah and and and um so I said what you know what what electric smart and cuz the smart was always intended to be an electric a car and and and what would it take for us to work together and he said well if you could

do a prototype that would that would really go a long way so we did we worked uh really hard the power train team uh led by JB strael to nor job and uh 40 days later when when when they came out to visit we said here's the car take a drive um and and they they they really liked what they saw and so what did they do then um then they said okay well let's let's take sort of another step further and and they they gave us a little little R&D contract and and eventually got

to the point where where we got a contract for uh to to supply a th000 cars for them and then if we do well in that we'll we'll potentially go into you know tens of thousands of cars so so but this is a car that any everyone could afford and uh and could hopefully come quite soon do you have a profile of the people who you think will want to buy these roadsters yeah absolutely it's it's the kind of person who uh who who likes a performance car uh maybe they own a Porsche or a

you know you know Lamborghini or you know um this car is actually faster than Lamborghini 0 to 60 yeah it's it's it's I think faster than almost anything anything anything I know of yeah I mean there like things the really sort of million dooll supercars obviously those those will be like the F Enzo is going to be faster um but but it's it's pretty much faster than than any normal normal sports car um and and it's really easy to drive if you want a high performance car with a clean conscience this is the only option

and the sedan is going to be for someone that wants a a great sedan and and and also you know clean conscience and and so are going to be cheaper to operate than yeah so right you are as you well know a controversial guy as well uh I try to I try not to be controversial seems to find me it finds you it it finds you because you think big you're a software guy who has um been successful in the private sector y you know and see no reason you can't do things that other people

have not been able to do no l how large the corporate Enterprise create the best electric car or B put privately astronauts in space right which you say you will do in two years well yeah it sort of depends on when NASA asks us to do that um if so uh if if NASA turns on the on on access to do that this year which we're hopeful they will the the White House has a uh convene a panel on the future of human space flight that that panel is going to make the recommendations in a

few months I I hope that some of those recommendations will be favorable to to SpaceX because the the alternative is if if if SpaceX doesn't do it uh we will be entirely dependent on the Russians uh to carry our astronauts to the space station after 2010 um and billions of dollars will be spent on essentially a soul Source situation to the Russians which I think is is is outrageous you haven't taken advantage of the opportunity to go in space yourself have you no I've not have you won wanted to I if it was if it

was purely a matter a matter of personal interest I would I would have done it already I mean I do want it I do want itge interested in that or no Sergey is expressed some interest in that some interest yes um yeah I I I would like to go at some point um but it's uh I'm also in the point where I I it's difficult for me to take personal risks I used to take a lot of personal risks because of children I've you got my you know kids and and responsibilities with the companies as

well and and so if I if I do things with have personal risk at this point I risk more than than my own you're right uh much success to you thank you for coming thank you for joining us see you next time