CyberCab Redux and Starship Road Trip | Tesla Motors Club Podcast #70

Hey, everybody, and welcometo the Tesla Motors Club podcast.

My name is Seb.

I'm Doug.

And I'm Mike,On today's episode, we'll talkabout the October Cybercab event,because we haven't done this in a while.

We'll give you a quick redux.

We'll also do some updates on everythingthat happened since we last did a show.

And then Doug took a pretty cool roadtrip to see Starship launch out of Texas.

Episode 70 starts now.

Gentlemen, I hope youhad a good Thanksgiving.

I'm still fullof turkey or whatever.

Actually, I had minimal amountof turkey this year, but I'm kindof stuffed with ham these days.

So how are you guys doing?

Goodwell.

Went roast beef this yearinstead of turkey or ham.

Ha haThat makes so much sense.

, forget the turkey.

It's,ha.

not, it's just not, that good.

Yeah, it's a little overrated,but, you can tell most people that.

It's traditional.. I

don't think it's overrated.

I think most people don't really like it.

It tends to be dry, youknow, if it's not made well,You're just notdoing it right, that's all.

Maybe, maybe.

Well guys, I mentioned it in theintro, it's been a while sincewe've done theIt has been.

and I feel like we've learned acouple of details, new things sincethe CyberCab reveal in October.

One of them, an update to FSD.

So Doug, bring us up to speed,like what happened since, likehow do we look at the event now?

the event was kind ofinteresting when we watched it.

, we did a live stream thatwas pretty well attended.

, but, there were verylittle actual details.

Elon had delayed the thing by 2 months.

, , that gave us the sense that, oh, he'sreally trying to have something to show.

, they did it at, Warner Brothers,but there were no real details.

when is this thing actuallygoing to be available?

, there's price suggestions,but no actual pricing.

, he said very little, but the thingshe did say were kind of strange.

, he rolled up in the cyber cab, whichwas, , kind of a gold hue sort of thing.

, it seemed to take some , designcues from the cyber truck, butnot much, , it still had curved.

lines.

It had a, light bar in the front,and that single color metallic, feelbut he didn't say much about it.

He basically said you could sit in it and,spend more time playing with your phone.

that's my, goal in life.

with your phonemore.

It's just more.

time on my phone.

yeah, time like this whereI feel like, , Elon is a littlebit divorced from reality.

He called it, mass individualtransport, something like that,which is such an oxymoron.

It's like saying full selfdriving supervised, you know?

Um, I mean, mass transportis mass transport, which islike, you know, guess what?

It's a bus.

buses exist already.

Electric buses exist already.

, now having nice at your beck andcall point to point transport, it'sequivalent to like,, an uber todaywithout having to tip your driver.

But there are very little details.

And one thing that also struckme as odd was that he presentedthe thing as something thatwould be sold to individuals.

we've talked before that, , it seemslike they would be shifting more toselling the service as a selling a car.

But, , that's not the carI would buy for myself.

If I was going to geta two seater, I'd get.

, a fun roadster with a wheel I can turn,you know, , I don't see how, that sortof vehicle can be sold to individualswithout any form of actually driving it.

I mean, at some point you want itto like, park a little better orI'm trying to get into , my garage.

I want it to shift alittle bit to the left.

I mean, I, I can't see forawhile, being able to tell the carre-park, , 10 centimeters to the left.

, which some people need to do.

, and the only thing I can think about itthough, is suggesting that individualswould buy this thing to then makemoney for them as an automated taxi.

It's a business.

Yeah.

It's a business.

I don't really see individuals doing that.

, and then what about liability?

, if I own it and it does somethingbad causes an accident or, evenworse, kill somebody, , I think I'mthe one liable, the passenger inthe car with no controls at all?

Can't be the one held liable.

It has to be the owner.

And I've always thought the only way anyof these things could actually work is ifwhoever's supplying the software , and,or the hardware, meaning Tesla in thiscase is the one to take, , liability.

I mean, certainly WaymoGoogle or alphabet is taking.

liability if a Waymo does something wrong.

Mercedes has takenliability for their self driving,but that was a very limitedthing,right?

It was like 30 miles an hour on abut nevertheless,they, sold it, Sothey're taking liability.

They're veryclear about it.

that's the way it has to be, right?

of course Elon said nothing about it,interesting because.

At the LA car show this year, I wasthere the day it opened on a Fridayand Tesla had a floor show for thefirst time in, I don't know, 12 yearsor so that they actually showed upYeah, often theydon't go to those things.

and they had the model threeand model Y, the cyber truck, butthey actually had the robo taxi there.

And it was interesting just kind ofstanding back and listening to the peopleas they circled around it and commented.

nobody was terribly impressed with it andeverybody commented only sat two people.

Were there any Teslarepresentatives therenot at the robo taxi.

They were all around thecyber truck and the Y.

It's just that I can't nail downwhat the thing is actually called asfar as what Tesla wants to call it.

even now, is it a cyber cab?

is it,don't think they know yet.

robo taxi, is , a moregeneric term, but yeah, it's twoseater, which seemed odd to me.

Well, atwo seater with no room for luggage.

I thought it hadspace for luggage in thetrunk.

Very small.

to either be people or luggage.

if you're, out, drinking with friends orwhatever, , you're not likely to have awhole lot of stuff with you, maybe, yourwallet, you know, you don't really needmuch else, , depending on the weather.

, but if you're coming from an airport,you might be more on your own and wouldhave a suitcase to put in the back.

So just seems like low hangingfruit I mean, why limit it like that?

And certainly, if you're goingto own it, you would want avehicle with the versatility ofeither caring for people or having stuff.

SoAbsolutely.

they just decide,oh, we only need two seats.

I wouldn't be surprised if that'swhat Tesla ends up making andselling, even though it doesn'tmake a whole lot of sense, because.

Tesla tends not to change thingstoo much , once they've decidedthis is what it is, , and that'sprobably, , Elon's leadership style.

Well, we've, talked aboutit on the show before, right?

I think Louis made a very passionateplea that Tesla would have to comeforward and just take accountabilityor change definition of who'sliable in the case of an accident.

So we'll see if that ever happens.

But , the business model isquestionable from my perspective.

I just don't see the appealin buying just the cyber cabto have that drive me around.

If I could get the sameexperience from a 3, or a Y, oran S, or a Cybertruck, right?

If it's all the same,Probably a three isnicer than that cyber cab.

and if the robo taxi, software,, actually gets there, what, version20, you know, whichever, if we'reon 13 now, think you still wantto be able to control your car.

Even if we look at I robot, right?

The event was called we robot.

And even the producer for themovie complained that, it lookedlike Elon had basically just copiedeverything from the movie to therobo van or robo van to the robots.

and the car of course lookedlike this Audi they had.

And even that, Audi had an option.

you know, Will Smith islike, I'm going manual.

AndItout the wheel.

had a steering wheel.

that flicked up , that you could drive.

and yeah, if I were owningit, I would want that.

, and I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla didsomething like that, given that, they'veshown a trend towards steer by wire.

Again, Will Smith.

It could even be like, in someMen in Black movie, they had a carand it wasdriven with a, PS2 controllerOh, that's right.

That's right.

Well, to your point, that mightactually make the case for theyoke, because with that form factor,you could hide it in the dash.

A full wheel would be hard to conceal.

A yoke, youcouldprobably,even rotate andjust slide into a slot.

Right?

I like that.

Mm hmm.

I like that.

I saw it in some movie.

It's not like I'm making it up.

Yeah.

Well, not to be too negativeabout the event either, right?

I think that it was aninteresting, futuristic vision.

We've criticized certain points inthe last few episodes, but one of thethings that were rumored is that thecars themselves may have been runningFSD version 13, which is now out, right?

Dirty Tesla, who's been on theshow, I think was one of thefirst ones to publish a video.

So did you guys look at those videos yet?

Do youhave, theversion yet?

I do not.

I've tried three times to getthe car to download somethingnew, and it's refused meeverytime.

I noticed that it'sthe YouTubers, Those are thepeople that got it first.

Hmm.

Yeah.

I'm definitely not onthat list.

just sort of wonderinghow well distributed , this is.

But Mike, you dohave a car with hardware 4,I do.

I, only have hardware three.

,Mike: but actually that's it.

Good point because the hardware forfolks will be getting the new 13.

The hardware three folks are kindof left in the cold as it were forsome indeterminate amount of time.

And that switchhappened with 12, didn't it?

kind of.

where the hardware people gotversion 12 before the hardware 3.

IWe got it first.

Yeah.

it used to be that it seemed likeeverything was written for us hardware3 folks, but now it's the opposite.

Everything is written for thehardware 4 folks, and then theyhave to, try to squeeze it downinto whatever our resources are.

So does it speak the end for us?

Elon did have , a statementback at the, Q3 earnings call.

Yeah.

It's been a while since we did ashow back in the Q3 earnings call.

it did come up as a questionand , he said we don't yet.

know.

So at least he's admitting theypromised before that hardware3 had everything it needed.

And so this is the 1st time headmitted that, "Okay, we don't know.

"And of course, they don't know.

They don't know.

about hardware 4 either.

was thinking about this a littlebit, Doug, and let me bounce this off you.

, if I waS a hardware 3 car, and Iwanted to go up to hardware 4, it'snot just the computer, it's also thecameras that have to be upgraded.

,It's notjust one component, it's the wholepackage.

What he said was that, if itturned out that hardware three did nothave what was needed for proper FSD,then that, people like me, and I assumeit's just people that paid for FSD,years past, would get a free upgrade.

It's not clear to me whatthat upgrade would mean.

He did allude to the cameras.

He suggested that the cameras aregood enough And I guess by sayingthat, you would just need a newcomputer he said it's designed tobe modular.

If they're good enough, thenwhy go through all the trouble ofupgrading the cameras on hardware four?

well, I wouldn't saythat's a whole lot of trouble.

I mean, it's that there are bettercameras available and it justmakes sense, as you're installingnew, if only for , the fact thatpeople use , the dash cam feature.

I would definitely like to have higherresolution, better cameras because oftimes at night I've been victim of hit andrunYep.

It couldn't quite makeout the license plate.

I don't know if currentcameras are good enough yet, butthey might be, , I had some sensethat version 13 was taking advantageof the better resolution cameras.

So.

. I wouldn't be surprised

,, given the way I think I understandthat vector space of where stuffis, , it probably doesn't need betterresolution, , better resolution mightmake it safer for some things, , but Idon't think it's necessarily necessary.

The question is, if it turns outthat hardware three is not ableto do robo taxi how do you, , costefficiently get us to be capable?

, certainly you could put another computerin, but I think that computer wouldhave to be specially designed becausethe connectors areall different now.

They are.

Form factor is completely different.

And now are you talking aboutbuilding an ASIC, application,, specific, , I C, just forhardware three update people.

Does that make sense over giving us somehuge discount on a new car, for example.

Paying the same price and then justbeing able to transfer FSD wouldn'tbe enough at that point, right?

here's a question foryou from a business point ofview, let's say Elon's right.

And he's going to offer an upgradepath to the hardware three folks.

Who's he going to offer it to?

Is it going to be everybody?

Or is it just going to bepeople that bought FSD?

That's a much smaller population.

And that's going to drive up theper unit cost for the upgrade.

At some point, , not worth it.

if they make it,it would certainly only be freefor the people that paid for it.

If you went through thetrouble of making it.

They might offer it for people to buy it.

they might, they have in thepast.

if they have to do itanyway, they might do that.

They'd have to price it just right though,they, constantly are trying to encouragepeople to buy new, they're pretty goodabout doing their pricing and stuff.

So I'm sure , they'llfind that optimal space.

, and they've done similarthings in the past.

Paying for making a mistake beforehand.

, I would say the comparison wouldbe for, the original roadsterthat first delivered 2008 or so.

They made a promise.

You could basically buy this, , batteryreplacement program if you wereconcerned that your battery was gonnadie and not last so long, you could pay.

But it was totally a cash grab.

It was like, they needed moneyright then for the company.

similar to how they, , cut the price ofFSD and I bought it, at a FOMO price,it's basically free money right now forsomething that you're promising later.

, and, it was maybe underpriced, but youcould pay that money now with the promise.

That, some years down the line, therewould be a replacement battery available.

, eventually they did have to develop thatreplacement battery because they made, that promise and people paid for it.

, and obviously , there are onlyso many roadsters, , total madeso, I'm not sure what the numbers are,how many, Hardware 3 vehicles are outthere, how many of them paid for FSD,but, , it's something to think about.

At least it's somewhat reassuringthat he's on record during an earningscall saying that he'll make us whole.

The question is how they actually do it.

Do they do a good job of itor do they just do the bareminimum for legal purposesAccording to chat GPT, only2500 units of the original roadsterwere sold, which is kind of insanethat that's what started it all.

That sounds about right.

It really was a niche vehicle.

It was very expensive.

about 100 K. Literally, , a lot of

people got the original Roaster becauseit was the only EV you could actually buy.

, and then by 2010 you had , the ChevyVolt and there was the Nissan Leaf.

And even though, those are somewhatlimited vehicles, particularly in thefirst, generation, , they were a lotcheaper than, a hundred K two seater,I did want to mention, bythe way, as we're talking abouthow many roadsters were sold.

Recently, was it late October?

I think Tesla has surpassed7 million vehicles producedover the company's lifetime.

Isn't that, the milestone?

Yeah.

it's impressive.

And the model Y has, formultiple quarters been the best sellingvehicle, , in the world, I think.

which is pretty impressive.

Mm hmm.

Before we completely go offfrom that cyber cab event, theother half of it was Optimus, it wascalled the We Robot event, right?

So here's the real robots.

, at the time when we watchedthe thing, they had the robotsinteracting with people there wasa robot that was serving drinks.

They're walking around and they'redoing dances . And, , to me, they

were clearly being remotely operated,, particularly when they started talking,?

, they're like talking to theAnd they're, being coy about it.

They're like, no.

and so since then, , mysuspicion has been proved out that theydefinitely were remote operated, though.

I did get, , quite a bitof hate , , in comments.

I'm like, okay, clearthings remotely operate.

What do you mean?

Clearly?

you're expressing an opinion.

Like, I'm expressing,An educatedan educated opinionbased on what I see.

Um, and there were a few videosthe , not unbiased, , let me justsay, , Tesla fan boy type folks, which,it's fine to be a fan or whatever,but they were like, wow, this thingis talking to me and so intelligent.

I'm like, dude, come on.

You realize that's just somebody,talking through the thing.

and was eventually, , proven out.

But why?

still impressive ifit's being teleoperated.

, the wonders of the hardware and theamount of dexterity and whatnot.

even if it's remote operated, I'msure that it had, pre programmedmotions that the operator couldjust, it's like a macro, you know,that you press and then runwas having flashbacks to WordPerfect with macros when you saidAnd Excel.

every time I did a dance, if it did,some kind of, hula dance that was clearlyjust press a button and it does it.

so, , that's fine.

But why not just be honest about it?

All I can think is that Actually,the whole event was about sellingdream or a vision of the future.

So here's the vision and like you goto the movies, you know, you suspenddisbelief , and there's a little bitof movie magic that makes things lookreal , even though they're not real.

And maybe that was the idea,,just to give that sense.

But,Well, they were on the movie set.

feel like they should have beena little more straightforward of it.

Now there was a video thatcame out on Thanksgiving,showing Optimus, catching a ball.

It said, I got a new hand forBlack Friday does look likemaybe it's a different hand.

It has kind of a glove over it.

So you can't really see, the mechanism somuch.

It's Velcro.

Yeah.

just to describe the video,someone's toughing like a tennisball to Optimus and then Optimusis catching it rather adroitly.

Um, , then looks to the side andsort of nods some of those motionsfeel like it's tele operated.

but the catching, I would find thecatching a little bit more impressive ifthat is tele operated because that meansit has to be relatively low latency.

Butit seems to me you could justprogram, okay, catch a ball.

To me,that's, , a lessimpressivething that robots havebeen doing for decades.

it's standing upright.

That's impressive itself.

because it has to balance, youTrying to keepbalance as you're moving.

Yeah.

but that's been asomewhat solved problem.

Any tele operation has to be a hybrid typething because it has to be able to senseon its own how do I maintain balance.

, in fact, at the, We Robotevent, every time you sawsomeone talking with the robot,its feet were just planted and,it would do its little dance.

The part of that littledance . , , there's got to be

something to maintain balance,at the moment, it's, agreat demo of the actuators.

Like no doubt the technology,the way it's put together, theway it looks, it's impressive.

. But I'm not a fan of the whole selling

it as if this thing is going tocome out nextmonth,I've seen more impressiverobots from other companiesthat have been doing for longer.

I think the main interesting thing aboutTesla doing it is that they are morelikely than anybody else to actually justsell it to normal people And are plentyof Tesla fans that would buy it as it isright now, you know, not able to do muchand then get occasional software updates.

Oh, now I can hula dance.

Oh,now it can catch a ball.

you'll be waiting for theequivalent of FSD on your optimus,Hula dancing robot.

waiting for itto be more autonomous.

You're waiting for it to be able to,walk upstairs on its own or and thenwe'll all be so impressed like welegitimately are with their own cars.

It can actually go in reverse now whenit couldn't before, , that would bepart of the original promise, but whenyou get little features dripped out toyou and it's getting steadily better.

You're probably a bit more,, acceptingof that and maybe even more excited,Mm hmm.

Mmthere was a comment.

said, see Mark Roberand the basketball hoop.

yeah, that's impressive.

my, point is that it's been donein undergrad robotics classes for decadesnow is, , you see a couple frames ofthe ball moving and, you know, the basicparabolic equation and you can predictpretty quickly where it's going to be andthen, , move whatever hand to catch it.

, and yeah, the Mark Rober, basketballhoop, basically the hoop moveswhere the ball is going to beso that you can't miss the hoop.

Right.

So this is a similarhmm.

programming wise.

That's not, , impressive, outsideof, uh, an undergrad class.

So,I'm going to get on mysoap box for just a second.

I think that the interesting commonalitybetween Optimus and the Cybercab for meis that it seems like there's solutions insearch of a problem to a certain extent.

Cause when Tesla started, whatgot me attracted was the idea of.

Accelerating the transitionto renewable transportation.

I think that was themission statement, right?

And now with CyberCab and Optimus,you know, if there was a real businesscase for Tesla to start using thesekinds of robots in their warehouses,they could buy them technicallyfrom Boston Dynamics, right?

If there was such acompelling business case.

But rather, it seems like they'rebuilding these in anticipationof some new technology.

Futuristic vision of the futurethat, you know what I mean?

It's like, it's cool, no doubt,but I just, it feels differentfrom how they started as a company.

Right.

I, bought into the early visionI have some feelingsabout some of that.

I would say that Tesla succeeded, Interms of, Accelerating the advent of EVs.

I don't know when it wouldbe that we'd have, , an EVthat normal people could buy.

If not for Tesla,agreed.

because theyreally, pushed it forward.

And, Elon Musk, personally isprobably responsible for a lot of that.

whereas, okay, , for one thing, thesekind of robots on the assembly line make.

Next to no sense.

What makes sense are those KUKA, robotsthatdo purpose things.

Tesla, it's their philosophy tobe very vertically integrated.

There's also not necessarily apositive thing, but there is anot-invented-here kind of culture.

where, they don't want to do thingsthe way other people do things, youcan have that, , concept of startingfrom first principles, but you don'talways have to reinvent the wheel.

And I've seen them get bit afew times with that attitude.

There was a time when, servicewas a complete mess becausenobody knew, , what was going on.

And a friend of mine, a Tesla employeeexplained to me that, , Tesla hadbeen licensing some software thatorganized service and then somebody.

probably Elon decided that weshould just have our own software.

We can do it better.

wrote their own software.

But, their own software didn't workso well yet, but they had also stoppedpaying, for the, existing, you know,this is such a solved problem, right?

There's so many, , car dealershipsout there have, service and theyhave all their, service stuffdealt with some software and Tesladecided to reinvent the wheel there.

Now, , probably by now, . It's

pretty good they have a fast feedbackcycle so they can , , iterate andmake it better for themselves.

But, Anyway, that's, partof Tesla's culture.

and then the other thing is Elon,I feel like he gets bored and hewants to you know, he wants to dowhat's fancy, what's interesting.

he wants to.

Be the center of conversation.

that's why he wants, , his own AIcompany, , his own, , social mediacompany, , and he gets to control itand be the center of attention there.

Well, since you touched on Twitter,why don't we talk about that for asecond, but did see a comment in the chat.

Somebody was saying that Optimuswas built so that we couldcolonize Mars more easily.

That's actually a fair pointgiven how Elon operates, right?

That might be a driving factorin, Maybe prioritizing thatproduct over a different one.

these are things that Elon saysabout a lot of stuff, , they sortof promoted the Cybertruck as being,something you could drive on Mars.

I'm sorry, you can'tdrive that thing on Mars.

Allthat'swork in that low , of a pressurethough maybe a modified version might,Also, trying to getit there may be a littlebitcomplicated, no?

Oh, he's working onYeah?

I'm pretty sure he could get that.

, is it 100 tons to orbitor something like that?

Just the, the size of it, right?

Like the James Webb telescope,didn't that need to be folded?

And maybe they'll makea foldable Cybertruck,Oh, thesize,rocketfairingsare,that big?

there are fairings big?

enough to put a school bus in, and bigger.

the shuttle could takea, school bus pretty much.

I didn't realize that.

so, yeah, Elon could get aCybertruck into orbit if he wanted toDon'ttempt him.

think about howmuch space was left when you saw theFalcon Heavy launch, how much spacewas in that fairing when that fairingopened up and you saw the roadster.

Right.

especially with the FalconHeavy, you could have put aCybertruck in there, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, good point.

Well, going back to software, one commentI did want to make is that however longit did take to build that software thatthey use, I think it's pretty cool thatwhen I drive up to the service center,the gate rolls up when I approach.

They have my car pulled up on the screen.

They know my name.

I mean,it is kind of cool, you know.

And that's the advantage ofdoing stuff like that in house.

but sometimes they, do that switch alittle early, and that, that's Elon too.

Right.

He's living in the future, eventhough you're not ready now.

Yeah,a hundred percent.

So I know Mike, you actually mentionedthat Tesla is now allowing peopleto buy out the car at the end of thelease.

That's correct.

As of the 27th.

It was officially announcedstarting the 27th, that anybodywith a Tesla could buy back.

Their car off their lease, anyTesla, which on the surface soundsreally good, except some people havebeen doing the math from, , 2021,2022, , model Ys, for example, whichwere selling for 70, back in the day.

, and the residual is such thatit's not worth, buying back.

I mean, the math doesn't workout, so you gotta be careful.

, I suspect the buyback is more ofattraction for people getting theirleases today with the 7, 500 creditand some really cheap financing rates.

But, it's also an acknowledgement,I think, from Tesla that turningModel 3s and Model Ys into Robotaxisis not going to happen, despitewhat we were told way back when.

Right.

yeah.

so that was the reason thatthey didn't do lease buybacks.

I mean, they specificallystated that, oh, thesewill be the robotaxisRight.

This would be the pool we work from.

So they were, , optimisticthat, , by the time.

Two years or whatever that leasewould be up, tesla would want tokeep them and make all the moneyfrom using them as,, automated Ubers.

, so that didn't quite panout, but, is it a good deal?

, in the past, , the Teslalease was pretty bad.

I thought, , back when I waswaiting for my Model 3, , I couldhave leased the model S for athousand dollars a month, which.

didn't make any sense given thatonly drove 15 miles a week orsomething The costper mile would have been ridiculous.

but it's a status symbol, think, ofall the attraction of, the opposite sex.

You could getyeah, um, yeah, I could use my moneymore efficiently if that was the goal.

So they're buying the leaseback like any normal car companyor dealership , would do now.

Am I interpreting thatPretty much.

Pretty much.

There is a, I think it's a $350 fee.

To initiate the buyout.

Yeah, it seems to bepretty straightforward.

You go to your app, tell Teslathat you want to buy it back.

You pay your fee and you're off andrunning just paperwork and financing atthat point.

Is it agood deal?

I guess, it's a car that you'refamiliar with and you want to keep it.

But part of the reason to lease atall is to, you, get the next car,right?

Of course.

I think people are leasingcause want the new tech,I would probably still makethe argument of that people thatare sort of new to EVs might wantto lease just because the technologyis moving fairly quickly in thoughI've had my car since 2018 and,prettyhappy with it, and I've driven, , older model s's.

I just love them.

I'm like,this is a great car.

you don't find them a harsh ride.

I like that.

My, father in law'sgot a 2016 and it'sYeah.

harsh.

that's what I'm used to.

I'm used to feeling the road.

I like it too.

look.

don't think I'm the average Tesla ownerat this pointanymore because I'vehad the car for so long.

planning to keep it until my kidsdon't fit in the jump seats, right?

Because my car still has those.

That's a big reason I'm keeping it.

To be honest, though, the plaid Andthe new long range after the facelift,they feel a little bit too soft to me.

again, I'm not the average buyer, right.

But I like that.

Mine's a little more raw.

It's got the big wheels.

It's got a differentsuspension.

I miss that feeling.

You know, I felt too disconnectedfrom the road in direct comparison.

Obviously they're awesome cars, right?

So that's only my criticismbecause I'm used to my currentvehicle.

the difference is, if I'm beingdriven, I probably would like it to be alittle bit softer.

if I'm the one driving, I want tofeel more connected to the road.

, these days, , I have an elderly fatherand especially around the holidays,I'm driving him around and every time Ihit a bump, it's like, Ooh, Ooh, he's,feeling it in his old, 90 plus bones.

Yep.

Yeah.

so yeah, in those instances,I like to be softer and especiallysince I'm using Or FSD more.

it would be nice to be a littlesofter, but yeah, when I'mdriving, I want to feel it.

So I guess it's, , something for havingadjustable suspension or whatever.

But, yeah, I like, you know, a tight car.

Again, I was driving little, roadstersfor20 years.

Go cart.

Yeah.

yeah,basically gokartsYeah.

Well, it's nice to havethe option to buy the car.

Leasing to me has always been moreabout the business value, right?

If you have your ownbusiness, you can leaseit, write itright.

off.

And then if you wanted to, you couldpurchase the vehicle at the end of thelease, which I, I think it'snice to have the option.

some of the numbers I saw werelike Model Ys in particular, they weregoing for 70, 000 when they leased them.

The car is only worth about26 right now, maybe 28.

And there's still a 40,000 payout, for the car.

If you want to buy it makeszeroYeah,that car back.

Very true.

Depends on the vehicle for sure.

, but with the announcement to now beable to buy the leases, the otherannouncement, I just saw a commentin the chat was that, there's goingto be some changes about the EV taxincentive.

yes.

We talked about this before, right?

I think the comment was by electrifiedlight, something, Um, , why is Elonokay with that tax credit going away?

I'm not sure he is okay with it.

Other than the fact that he knowsit would hurt his competition.

Yeah.

A couple of reasons.

, Tesla does better at sellingEVs than any other company,currently selling in the U sThey got the , highestmargin of anybody.

right.

Certainly they do optimize for that.

Rebate when it's available.

, but if it wasn't available, yeah, probablyTesla would sell fewer cars, but havesome space to reduce the price So ithurts them less here's a bigger question.

, and I guess this is a California thing.

If the zero emission, , credits wentaway, cause that's another spot whereTesla makes quite a bit to be ableto sell those to other companies.

but yeah, so the federal rebategoing away, it probably hurtsothers more than it hurts Tesla.

Then again, if the incoming administrationis likely to get rid of the credits,they're probably also likely toget rid of the mandates as well.

though California has their own levelof control because , they tendto drive the market.

yeah, think California is theunderlying story of, that tax credit withthe fifth largest economy of the world.

they can dig deep and giventhe fact there's no level lossbetween our governor and Elon.

You know, between Tesla moving theirheadquarters to Texas and some ofthe other threats that Elon's made,I think the governor just kind of,, said, yeah, we're done with this.

what you're referring tois that California is proposingto whatexpand their rebate.

They'll offer a credit.

to replace the federal credit if it'sremoved for everybody except Tesla.

I don't know if there's any legallimitations to how they can do that.

, But, if the attitude is that wedon't need it and then, , then it'smoney that, California spending,then why, , why give it to tesla?

But, , , you know, I'm with 2 mindsof it, terms of fairness and I stillthink tesla is the best car and Iwant, people to be able to buy it.

I mean, I know plenty of peoplethat are just sort of on the edge ofbeing able to afford these thingsBut I think, this tiesback to something we've talkedabout , in a past podcast where Elon.

Tesla are so tied to one another now thatwhen people get irritated with Elon, theyautomatically get irritated with Tesla.

We're seeing more and more pushbackabout people not buying Teslasbecause of Elon Not 'cause there'sanything wrong with the car.

just don't wanna be associated with Elon.

People do say that.

Yeah, I always do wonder how muchthat actually impacts the salesnumbers,becauseclearlysomething's still working forit's enough for people to notice.

But I have friends who have saidthatto me,anecdotally, I've.

, heard of people , selling the car, notwanting to give, , him any more money.

And this goes back a ways.

I mean, back again withthe original roadster.

Tesla raised the price andthen Elon strangely triedto blame a customer for it.

It was just that the customer,, relayed that information in a waythat all of us could understand asopposed to the way, Tesla wanted to.

sort of a sly thing to do what they didwas they raised the price by making thingsthat were standard with the car and theyturned them into extra cost options.

So it effectively raised thecost of the car by, say 6, 000,somewhere in that ballpark.

, and then, , some people felt really burnedby that , and back then, back in 2009 orso when this happened, , they were like,I'm never buying another Tesla vehicle Idon't know if they've changed their mindssince,Yeah.

Well,Tesla still, I think is thecoolest stuff out there, in my opinion,depending what you want, you know, Imean, there are competitors, I thinkRivian's doing some nice things if youwant a truck but, um, If Californiaonly gave rebates to non Teslavehicles, probably Tesla would still besellingpretty well.

I wouldn't think it wouldhurt them that badly.

And if it's a more efficient wayof using California funds, maybethat's the way should be.

yeah, think it's morePR than anything right now.

, although it was interesting when Iwent test drove the Rivian 3 weeks ago.

, I was talking to the salesmanabout it and he said they'dactually brought in extra staff.

The handle, the uptick in test drives,and it was almost all Tesla peopleshowing up either wanted to get ridof the current Tesla or were trying tofigure out whether they were going tobuy the Tesla or buy something else.

Hmm.

That's interesting.

it wasvery few people that were new to the EV.

Mm hmmWell, it definitelyfeels personal in some way.

Elon has insulted, , the Californiagovernor plenty of times.

it's one thing, to just talk about facts, but also, with Elon's platform, he doesspread sadly, , misinformation and,rumors and stuff and, , Gavin Newsomhas been, has been the target of that.

, so, that's the way you're goingto treat it, stuff like that'sprobably going to happen,but also to say thattesla has left california.

that's not the reality.

I mean, , they stillhave the tesla factory.

They still have a technologyheadquarters there and there'sstill plenty of people at, deercreek,that's where the factory is.

But in palo alto on deer creek road, before they moved the headquartersto Austin, that was the headquarter.

And there's still plenty ofpeople there doing stuff.

So it's, not like Tesla's really gone.

If anything, it's just theysort of expanded, , elsewhere.

But there's still,a plenty of a Californiapresence,so.

me, I try to look past all that stuff.

Uh, you know, , I'm still, , a fan of alot of what Tesla does and I love my car.

Yeah.

Mhm.

I'm hoping that someof this personality stuffis, maybe just temporary or,just sort of changes with the windwhen the wind blows another way,it just will go some other way.

We'llsee.

Yeah, I'm with you.

And I would argue, you can already seesomething happening, which is that there'snow EVs, and then there's Teslas, right?

Like, Tesla has retainedits sort of brand value.

Mhm.

Even now that there's options, like somepeople just want a Tesla, you know, Iwould always laugh when I was a teenager.

Cause I had a friend whose dadwould keep buying iMacs andthen install windows on them.

And I'm like, okay, so I guessyou just like the way these iMacslook, but you want to use windows.

I think there's just some people thatwant to continue owning a Tesla, evenwhen there's other options out there.

but you know, I guess one more commentI saw in the chat was from a dime bags.

He was saying that they're still tooexpensive, which is a fair point.

My opinion is, I think we'rejust going to see Tesla keepingthe prices where they are.

And the average price of a new vehicleis just going to keep increasingand close the gap eventually.

I think that's, what's going tohappen over the next five, 15 years.

I don't see the prices comingdown all that much more.

I think they're going to stay stable.

Everything else is going toget more expensive,but that's,I mean, I'm not an economist.

think you're right, butI think it's less than fivethat was sort of anotherthing that we were able to inferfrom the, we robot cyber cab event.

, because a lot of people were thinking,we're going to see that, 25, 000vehicle and maybe the cyber cab with asteering wheel would be that vehicle.

And it seems to me that, Elon orTesla has pretty much rejected that.

, except that, Oh, you can buyit yourself for 30 K maybe.

But I, you know, who would, if youhave 30 K you're probably buyinga, , Toyota Corolla maybe or something.

Ouch.

What's that joke you'vebeen making for years now?

The 25, 000 Teslais?

is the, oh, did I say that?

No, it was, I didn't go that far.

I think it was the 40 K Teslais the 80 K Tesla you boughttwo years ago or something likethat.

Yeah,SomethinglikeThat's some truth tothatreally hurt for, Lewis who gota model S plaid.

Poor Lewis.

Yeah, that price droppedfrom what, like 130 Thathurt.

yeah,sure.

kind ofAbsolutely.

Well, Tesla moved operations to Texas.

There's another company thatElon runs that happens tobe, , headquartered out of Texas.

And I think you did a little road triprecently, Doug, to see arocket launch.

Yeah.

So I, drove to the, , integratedflight test six, , for starship.

And I drove from Maryland,and I stopped in Atlanta.

It basically was a three day trip.

, like if you just looked itup on Google, I think withoutcharging, it was a 22 hour drive.

but you know, withcharging and stuff, I did.

Like 10 hours of drivingand then stayed someplace.

I stayed with some friendsand the Atlanta area.

And then I think I stopped at Beaumont,Texas, and then, got to Brownville Sundaynight so yeah, it was quite, the trip.

For one thing, the launch was amazing.

It was extremely popular, too, since,, they were doing the catch at thefirst stage and that was successfulin the first try on, test five.

And then here's, Six, about a month later.

There were so manypeople trying to see it.

you know, , driving on my way, I'venever seen so many cyber trucks.

And it was the first time in along time that I've had to wait ata supercharger because there's aline especially between Houstonand Brownsville, there were a lotof people, on the same, route.

trajectory.

it was, something.

Speaking of Cybertrucks, I dosee them around a lot more too now.

And we should mention for people whodon't know that Tesla now does offerdemos, test drives for the Cybertruck.

I did one about a month ago.

, definitely interesting and fun.

Yeah, , I stopped and chattedwith several people with Cybertrucks, the test drives are available.

I'll have to go get one.

It's not the kind of vehicle that I need.

so I won't be buying one anytime soon,but, , I definitely want to try itout and I want its technology to startfiltering through, , especially thesteer by wire stuff, the 48 volt , Ithink it's cool, but it's a littlemore esoteric like the user doesn'tnecessarily need to know about that.

, but the steer by wire , people woulddefinitely be aware of and also therear wheel steering for a tighter, turn.

That was little interesting,by the way, when I did the testdrive, , cause I guess anybody canjust go and drive these things, right?

And not everyone knows it'sgot , the rear, what do youcall it?

The rear steer.

rear wheel steering.

so when I pulled it out of thespot, somebody else had parked it before,but the thing was like totally crooked.

it's almost like you're, driving.

Forward into a parking spot, right?

Cause you got to look in your mirrors.

And as you turn the wheel, you can see thetiresturning.

Mm hmm.

it's an interestingexperience driving it for sure.

You gotta, experiencethat for yourself.

From what I've heard,people need to get used to it.

If the rear wheels are turning,then the rear can swing out.

So you have to think about that as you'remaneuvering anyplace, tight.

Yes.

do they just let youtake it and just drive off?

Or did you have to havesomeone in the car?

How did it work?

they give you the,typical tutorial, right?

They ask you if you'veever driven a Tesla.

And since I own one, she justgave me the card and she's like,here,you go have fun,Have a nice day.

bring it back in 20 minutes.

I went to drive it with my son whojust cracked up because of the sizeThe wiper.

of the wiper.

it's just hilarious.

And by the way, I'm just tellingthe story while you pull up thevideos of the launch, if you have anywell, let me just say,so, um, couple things.

One is just the road trip.

a long drive, but, , forthe most part, a pleasure.

, my car is on, hardware 3 and Ihad just gotten an update to 12.

5. 4. so some of my complaints that

I've talked about before were gone,but there are some new issues.

for example, again, like we'd hadthese roads that would be 70 milesan hour, but there would be a minimumof 40 miles an hour and the previoustime I made a trip like this.

the car would drop thespeed to 40 miles an hour.

I, honestly did not havethat problem this time.

those signs that said minimum 40,somehow either it defaulted towhatever, , GPS data it had, or whenit saw it, it maybe could resolvethe word minimum or something.

So that was, a whole lot better.

The other thing about the trip is, , whenI was on my way down there, there was, some weather that was somewhat rainy , themaximum speed for FSD would decrease,but sometimes just to be safe with allthe people around me, I would need itto go faster than it was wanting to go.

So I kind of had to stepon the accelerator a bit.

, but for the most part, it was prettygood, except, I have an issue, and Ithink other people have talked aboutthis, , there's still some differencesbetween highway , , and I guess what theyhad called city streets at some point.

And the main difference , is the speed.

now there's an option, and it kept askingme to turn it on, of it sort of autodeciding what the speed offset should be.

and, it was so bad at that, , eitherit'd be too slow or sometimes it'd betoo fast or the speed limit would dropand then, but it would stay going fast.

It was really kind of scary and annoying,so I switched that feature off, , andit would show , , what set point Iwould have, but it seemed to ignore it.

So I think even though I had thatfeature off, it was still activated.

So that was probably my biggest gripe.

Separately, I came up with a hack and I'veseen people on TMC talk about, and alsomeeting some of these cyber truck drivers.

A lot of these people were,relatively new, , Tesla owners.

, FSD turned on for them, , relativelyrecently, but they don't have theexperience we have of the incrementalchanges over the years and one thingthat cyber guy was talking aboutwas that, , at night I get this,warning driver attention detection.

is unavailable.

Because it's,Toodark in the cabin.

it can't see you.

Yeah.

And I've, said before, like, gee,if they just put a little infraredilluminator in there, that would help.

, so thinking about this ahead of time,I got a cheap thing from, , Amazon.

It's just a little, , infrared.

, light, it's got an array of, LEDs.

I assume it's gallium arsenide,so it's probably about 940nanometers, I would say.

And, , this is designed to go , on likecamera, , say if you're taking photosat night, you can get some infraredillumination now I can't really see it.

I see Very faint red, but the humancan see to say 700 nanometers and thisis probably around 900 nanometers,but even though the sensitivityis low can still kind of see it.

And so what I see is like a small red dotyou probably don't want this too brighton your face, but I found that when FSDwas forcing me to touch the steering wheelevery few minutes because it couldn't seeme I was able turn this on and it reallydoes illuminate me in the darkness andthe car is able to detect my attentionor whatever so it's a little hack I meanI think I got this for 12 bucks maybeNice hack.

Have your own little,infrared illumination.

You don't want it too bright in your eyes.

Idon't know,might be someMm hmm.

But, it seemed to bea nice , little hack, so.

Well, they initially claimed thecamera inside the vehicle was meantto keep an eye on passengers, right?

for the RoboTaxi future, soyou could seewhat's happening in your car.

, I guess maybe that's why they didn't adda,, IR floodlight, because they didn'texpect it would be used to, monitor driverattentiveness?

Mmoriginally, they didn't haveit in the Model S or X. So when they

first delivered the Model 3s, We justnoticed that it was there, but theydidn't really say anything about it.

It's only been relatively recently,you know, in the past coupleof years that it was, actuallydoing anything useful for us.

Again, on my car, it seemslike such an afterthought.

It's mostly occluded by the mirror.

It's not in a very good position.

It's much better in today'scars and the hardware 4 cars.

, but yeah, they should have like alittle infrared, light in there.

I don't know why theydon't already have it.

.

Seb: Yeah, makes sense.

anyway, yeah, I went downand yeah, the launch was amazing.

And I would say if you can godown to Boca Chica, Texas, do it.

do it now, do it soon.

do it like the next time they have afull stack there because, that levelof access that you're able to getthere is, it's like being able to walkaround the Saturn V during Apollo.

Mmyou can, get on the road,you're pretty close to it.

, I was there, about a year ago, I thinkbefore IFT2 probably and they had a fullstack and I didn't realize that actuallyfrom the beach, you can kind of walkaround and get on these sand dunes andget pretty, fricking close to the thing.

pretty much right up on it.

Let me just try to shareit a little bit here.

Wow.

you took thatpicture.

Yeah.

I took this photograph.

That'sThat'sinsane.

yeah, it's something else.

That's amazing.

yeah,that can't last, especiallysince they plan to increasethe cadence, , of launches.

And when I came a year ago, you were ableto go to the rocket garden near star base.

So just up the road, a fewminutes, , towards Brownsville fromthis location is the factory wherethey're building these things.

And then they bring them downto put them on the launch mount.

, , I think there used tobe somebody's house there.

So , there's a road theycouldn't close down.

, and you could get right up, , at therocket garden and get even closer to,like, a booster and a couple shipsbut now you can't get so closeto it because I guess thathouse sold or something, sothat road there would close off.

Now, , Boca Chica Beach is a publicbeach, so the road to it is a publicroad, but I wouldn't be surprised ifin the near future somehow SpaceX isable to take over that road, becausein some ways it's asafety, national security.

I mean, seriously,Oh yeah.

youknow,ship, and of course it wasn'tfueled yet, but, nothing wasreally keeping me from the thing,,so, especially if they starta day, which is like the goal Ican't see how you can do thatand have that beach access open.

, but certainly it's going to be at oddswith the public , it's like the people'sbeach, , not too far as, South PadreIsland, which is where I watched from.

And that's more like a resorttown, whereas here you have a,beach that people just drive up onand just sort of enjoy the Gulf.

, but yeah, I can't see that kindof access happening forever.

So, you get a, chance togo down there, I would go.

How far backwere you for thefor the launch?

I was about five miles away.

havE you seen a spaceshuttle launch back in the day?

I totally wanted to go.

That's the, spacecraft of my generation.

but I never got a chance.

I kicked myself.

I didn't make it down in2011, to see the final launch.

It was kind of hard.

Though, there were so many delaysand it was hard to know whenit was going to get scrubbed.

And I was pretty busy at the time tocome from California to go to Florida.

these days, if it was something as bigas that, I probably would just go downthere and then work from down there.

I did travel out there for SLS, thatmight be the only time SLS launches.

So, um, but maybe I'll get another chance.

If Artemis two happens, I'lldefinitely try to go see it.

But, when you go to watch something downthere, I mean, you can watch it fromCocoa Beach, , to see a Cape Canaverallaunch, but you can't get that close.

You can go to Kennedy Space Center.

But again, you don'treally get that close.

This is just Five miles away.

, and let's see if we canget some audio here.

Oh yeah.

it was prettyamazing.

butI would, of course IWow.

embarrassingstatements.

Can you hear it?

Oh my gosh.

Oh.

Yeah.

we got audio.

Should be about 25 seconds.

making a calculationbased on the speed ofsound and theFive miles away.

I mean, there areHere we go.

Oh mygosh.

but I want you to appreciatethe sound and finally makes it to usbecause, you could feel it.

Oh.

It's like someonethumping on your chest.

I got to see the space shuttle launch.

I was going toask you howitYeah, that's notyours.

Holyshit.

Holy crap.

Okay.

it's pretty loud and all thatkind of like Cackling sound, I, usedto think that was just the, microphoneclipping, but it's, it's real,It's the air, right?

waves from the exhaustAnd actually, if you watch slowmotion video of the launch, youcan sort of see these pressurewaves move through the, exhaust.

it's amazing.

well, I'll just cut it offthere, but anyway, yeah, it waspretty amazing to see in person.

So cool.

they have a ways to go, , in termsof being ready for Artemis, , have thecontract for the human landing system.

And so we'll see, I'm sure everything'sgoing to be pushed back, but, now withthe new administration, I wouldn'tbe surprised if SLS got canceled,it's so ridiculously expensive.

I mean, that program.

It was supposed to save money,, it's simpler than the shuttle.

We mentioned the shuttleMaybe summarize realquickwhat itis.

If not, everybodyknows.

Well, SLS stands for the,space launch system, as far as I cantell, it is a jobs program for allthe, , shuttle contractors, you know,the shuttle was retired in 2011.

and there were follow up programs.

, constellation is one that comes to mind.

, but this one, got funding long enoughwith a lot of lobbying from, southernsenators that are in, states that hadsomething to do with the space shuttle,namely, making the solid rocketboosters, making the external fuel tank.

SLS The sell was that it would bereusing, shuttle hardware, so it shouldbe cheaper, it turns out the cost ofrefurbishing the engines, , from theshuttle, the main shuttle engines,which it uses, it uses four of those.

It's more than they cost new.

It's ridiculous.

It kind, it reminds me alittle bit of Tesla using theLotus for the original roadwas supposed to save money too.

No,that's an ongoing argument,but I would say that it probablysaved them some development time.

Yeah, if you can do everythingyourself, that's better, but you'retrying to get something out the door,there are pluses and minuses there.

But, , with the whole cost plus structurewith SLS and how expensive it's been,and it's much simpler than the shuttle.

It's basically taking the solidrocket boosters and make them a littlebigger, take the external fuel tankand just stick it in the middle andthen put a capsule on top, insteadof side mounted orbiter and theshuttle was a move towards reusability.

I mean, those shuttle enginescame back with the shuttle.

after the external fuel tank went.

Those engines didn't do anything.

They didn't do anything whilethe shuttle was on orbit.

It was just that they stayedwith the orbiter so they could beusedagain.

it came home.

even the SRBs, they werefishedout of the ocean andsort of refurbished.

reusable.

the, cadence of the shuttlewas much lower than they wanted.

it would have been cheaper probably, ormaybe it was a wash to just make new ones.

And in fact, SLS isn't eventrying to recover the boosters,but what, at a launch rate of likeone every few years, how would itmake sense to reuse them anyway?

, so yeah, I don't know ifSLS is going to survive.

, right now there's a pretty complicatedplan of, SLS has this Orion capsule.

The astronauts would go up inthat and Artemis two is supposedto happen, I think, in 2026,which is basically just a flyby.

It's kind of like theequivalent of Apollo 10.

the capsule is going to go withfour astronauts around the moon.

but the actual landingplan, requires starship.

SpaceX to get up there, there's goingto need to be refueling and then theastronauts are transfer from the Orioninto , the starship and that would land.

On the moon and then also takeoff on the moon later and thenre rendezvous with Orion and thenOrion has a heat shield that has hadsome issues, but, would land them.

but the thing is so expensive.

Each launch S. L. S. Is

somewhere around 4 billion.

4 billion.

Which is nuts.

It is so expensive.

In fact, there've been plans like, gee,what could we do if SLS got canceled?

you could launch Orion on aFalcon heavy Falcon heavy.

Isn't human rated, butit could be human rated.

And you could have a Vulcan Centaur.

, rocket, the second stage of the Vulcanthat could go up there the Centaur could,dock with the, , Orion and then take theOrion to the moon from there you do therest of plan, which is, rendezvous with,Starship for the human landing system.

, you know, Starship isn't somethingyou would necessarily, uh, Ican't imagine bringing peopleback on that thing anytime soon.

Cause it's pretty crazyabout its, , reentry.

, maybe you could launch peoplefrom it, but I wouldn't wantto risk people returning onthat.

SoYou're not volunteering.

Optimusstick Optimusin there as a test.

Dummy.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah.

Robot rated.

That's good.

Mm-hmmYeah.

Well, I mean, we should besending robots to the moon.

That'sa no brainer,Yeah.

We'll see, I don't know, like,Elon's talking a big game about,increasing government efficiencyor cutting fundings, , for certainthings.

Yeah, so, , I'll try to be optimistic.

to me, there's too much of a conflictof interest, , that Elon would be ableto, affect the funding of things that hehas apersonal stake in.

Idon't know thatthis administration would careabout that kind of stuff anyway, so.

don't know.

We'll find out.

, well, awesome that you shared your story.

Definitely amazing.

If, anybody listening has achance to go see a launch live,definitely,a memorable experience.

yeah, if you can do it and it'sso nice down there because like say aKSC, Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

If you want to go there, you have tobuy tickets and they sell out you haveto deal with all that sort of stuff.

Whereas Brownsville, BocaChica, you can just get there.

it's a little bit Like theairports are kind of small andcar rental is a little difficult.

, like the main car rental placesaren't even at the airport, you know?

So, , that was partof the reason I drove.

And also, with any rocketlaunch, there can be delays.

This particular one was delayed by aday and, you know, it was no problem forme since I had my own vehicle, I wasn'tpaying for a rental and I wasable to extend the Airbnb I had.

, so,but yeah, if youcan do it, I would definitely say do it.

And it was great from South Padre though.

Getting off South Padre Islandafter that launch was tough.

Basically the traffic was, Not movingfor, like three hours after the launch.

but I anticipated that and Ijust didn't even try, to leave.

It'slike leavingburning, man.

Well, that was, , the thing.

I got my car charged up and Igot there early in the morning.

The launch wasn't until 4PM, but I got there at eightand I had the car charged up.

I could go enjoy the beach.

There's a bathroom nearby.

I was close to where I wanted to watchthe, , launch from, I got to sit in mycar, watch some Netflix, take a nap,have plenty of air conditioning, whenthe launch was done, I was, watchingcoverage from my car because it tookabout an hour for the ship to godown in the Indian Ocean, and thatwas actually the more interestingpart of this particular flight test.

how Starship fared on re entry.

and then later I, , talked to peopleand walked for dinner, whatever.

and I should mention, on my way back,I made a detour to Huntsville to go tothe, , Marshall, Space Flight Centerthere, and NASA, and I did a tour there,and that's actually a very nice facility.

But, I kind of was feelingfor them, like, gee, if SLS.

goes away, are these peoplegoing to be out of a job?

Cause they do a lot, with respect to SLS.

Don't they have a Saturn V there too?

Yeah, Yeah,they have all three, launch stages.

They don't have what was above that.

Like, the LEM They dohave a command capsuleKennedy has all that.

Yeah.

Well, wenttoJohnson, and Johnson has a V on itsside too, but I'm I'm not sure how much,, more complete it is compared to whatthey have.

the last time I was at Kennedy,it had a Saturn on its five plusall the extra bits and pieces.

I saw it there too.

And did think it was funny thatthey translated all the units intoCorvettes, basically, to make it moreaccessible to the common man who'swalking through the museum, right?

So all the thrust was expressedinthe amount ofCorvettes.

Well, all thoseastronauts of that eraweredrivingThat's right.

were driving Corvettes.

yeah, for sure.

Well, you got to give it up for Elon.

I mean, it's pretty amazing that you gotto see the launch sitting in the TeslaWell, I got out the launch butyeah, butyou know what I mean, right?

Yeah,but you drove there theYou're driving it there.

I mean, it'spretty cool.

I'm, I'm in the Elon ecosystem.

That's true.

IWell everybody Iwould say that's a wrap.

, thanks to Danny a producer and thanks toeverybody for joining always fun to seeyour comments in the chat If you wantto follow us on social media You can doso on Twitter and YouTube and you canof course join us on the TMC website.

We'll see you next time

Tesla Cybercab

Tesla Model Y

Tesla Cybertruck

Nissan Leaf

Tesla Model S

Tesla Model 3

Ford Edge

Tesla Roadster

Toyota Corolla

Ford Orion

Buick Rendezvous

Chevrolet Corvette

About this episode

Original notes