Tesla Cybercab Deep Dive: Inside the Engineering with Lars Moravy and Team

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Hi everyone. Welcome to Monro Live.

We've got an exciting uh series or episode that we're going to stitch together here. I'm with uh Lars, Eric,

together here. I'm with uh Lars, Eric, and Hector. Um all from the Tesla team.

and Hector. Um all from the Tesla team.

I'm sure you know these guys behind us.

Obviously, we've got the the Cyber Cab.

So, we're going to dive into the unboxing. We're going to walk a bit of

unboxing. We're going to walk a bit of the line. We're going to look at

the line. We're going to look at batteries, but it's going to be exciting. I don't know if it's going to

exciting. I don't know if it's going to be more exciting than the Roadster video from Wrong hat. I wore the wrong hat.

Wrong hat. I wore the wrong hat.

Everyone's got a cyber hat.

We got to swap hats. But uh so I mean let's let's dive into what we're seeing on the floor here. Like what was what was the design intent like the the whole unboxing discussion came out a while ago?

It did. I think we first kind of it's it was probably like five or six years ago.

Yeah, we were working on like automating our lines more and more and more and we kind of hit a wall where like the problem wasn't the automation, the

problem was the design. And you know, my team is responsible for not just the design of the vehicle, not just the test of the vehicle, but also the manufacturing and even the automation

groups that we have within our our team.

They're all in one engineering org. So,

we got a few of us together and we're like, how are we going to break this?

And like that was the answer. we had to break it apart and um you know Eric at that time was in charge of our integration team and that was a big task

of like a hundred years of building cars one way uh how do you break it apart and so we kind of looked at a car and realized it was a box you know there's like a bottom a top a left a right a

front and a back and then we came up with the idea to unbox it and really that did two things for us uh fundamentally one it gave us smaller pieces to work with So we could get

robots in tighter and we'll walk through each bit um a little bit. And then two, it also allowed us to break the line apart and go to more like a tributary and main flow. And so you know the

manufacturing guys like like Hector works with they're able to make final line. How many stations is like 25

line. How many stations is like 25 stations?

25 stations fully automated.

Like final GA when the whole thing comes together is 25.

Wow. And like a normal Model Y was probably like 5 10x that. Yeah.

Depending on which factory and how much you're running. So

you're running. So those are the two big things. But why

don't we start like piece by piece. Eric

and I can give you a quick review and then Hector will just tell you how we put it all together.

Yeah. Yeah. Great.

Why don't we start up front, Eric?

So the front Yeah. The front is one of the more uh obviously dense and integrated modules that we have.

This is the business unit.

This Yeah, exactly. This is basically where you know 50% of the parts and the content really is at. And we did that on purpose. We wanted to have everything

purpose. We wanted to have everything isolated to one area for efficiency of low voltage distribution. We put all of the end points, all the electronics where the control systems are. And so

that's kind of what we've done here. And

we've also revolutionized, which we'll talk about a little bit later, how we do thermal system management. Moving, you

know, another step uh from our super manifold of previous products. We've got

a 48volt low voltage battery. Uh and

then on top of that, we've got the drive unit which is basically right in here in the center. And one thing that we heard

the center. And one thing that we heard a lot from our service teams really early on in this project is we wanted to make the drive inverter serviceable without having to basically tear the car from the underside out.

Yeah.

And so what we've been able to do is allow this assembly to be very simple to remove. Obviously the washer valve is

remove. Obviously the washer valve is very simple to remove. It allows you access to the inverter. So we don't even need to raise the car, tear the suspension, tear the drive unit out to service the inverter. And so the

fundamental aspect of integration here is is is principally insane.

Yeah.

Like it it really is.

And you can't like do that without thinking at the beginning cuz Eric just very casually said, "Oh, we just take out the thermal system."

But it's a refrigerant system, right?

You can't break refrigerant lines, right?

So we actually flipped it. It's a

coolant based system for heat exchange.

and the refrigerant systems completely closed.

It's a closed loop system within the which you couldn't worry about after the fact to your point, right? You had to do it at the beginning

right? You had to do it at the beginning and so like it went all the way back to it beginning of design and then you know to to drain and purge a coolant system is actually pretty easy.

Yeah.

And we even on that we actually made a through loop so you can push and pull and do it faster.

Oh, that's brilliant. Suck it out.

The the things that really stand out to me, I mean we've obviously torn down a bunch of the other Teslas. It's it's the packaging and how tight the the drive unit is in Z. Like it's way higher in Z

relative to the super beam. And

actually, you know, is so what is mounted here? Is this the EAC

mounted here? Is this the EAC compressor?

This is the AC compressor and basically the the coolant manifold and the coolant controller all one assembly.

It's all integrated together.

And that's goes back to the principle of integration and test. We talked about that tributary flow. Everything is self tested before it goes in. So when Hector is building it, he knows he has a good part, right? And so we have a, you know,

part, right? And so we have a, you know, a module line that builds the integrated thermal or the indirect thermal system and that's then self- tested on the line. So we know we have a good part

line. So we know we have a good part coming in and you'll kind of see this like every part comes together. Same

with the drive unit. And then by the time we get here, you have the full front end that Eric was describing with all of this. We actually know the car is ready to drive and go and all the all of the computers are hooked up when the

front end uh comes to line. So it's

pretty cool. But we really took a lot of the principle of moving moving complexity out and building modules that bring assembly upstream so we can self

test more in larger modules as well as uh in in in sub subasssemblies in a much higher percentage than anything we've ever done before. The other thing I I

guess I'll say on the integration side which I know you're you're keen on is like this has been the core you're keen on it too.

I am keen on it [laughter] as well. the

I this is a core of Tesla, right? Is an

organizational structure of engineering that works really well together. There

is no there's no like veil. There's no

wall between teams. And that's kind of what you see here.

No ego either.

There's no ego either.

Well, I think Lars and I were actually, you know, talking on the ride over here.

We were talking about the patents, the designs, you know, what what is the secret sauce to Tesla? And I think you said something like, well, it's actually not that secret. A lot of it's pretty public. And I'm like, I think the

public. And I'm like, I think the secret's the culture. I think it's what you just touched on. I think it's this mindset that, yeah, it's not super hierarchical.

It's our problem.

It's it's it's our problem. It's not

your problem because you're the thermal guy or you're the chassis guy or whatever. And and this is the net

whatever. And and this is the net result. And by the way, I think this is

result. And by the way, I think this is the first example that I've seen from Tesla where the EAC compressor is PIA or part of the assemble.

No separate bracket. You know,

sometimes un unintended consequences.

Yeah. Yeah,

like we actually, you know, we put all together, we're like, "Oh man, this this is way like heavier than we anticipated." And we had to like

anticipated." And we had to like refigure out how to isolate it because it actually added to the, you know, the the modal mapping in the front where normally when it's sort of just a tiny little compressor, it's not that big of a deal.

But now it's this big.

Well, there there's there's some like really cool stuff here, right? Like we

are no longer running high voltage distribution from the battery pack to the system. We basically do a junction

the system. We basically do a junction off of the drive inverter to power.

That's right.

Ah, there's another Conway law break, right? Like

right? Like so now the inverter team is working to make the cost of the high voltage system and the uh the thermal system less means

less parts, less complexity. Uh you can ask questions that then I'll go to the next one.

So So the inverter kind of became like this little substation like a power distribution a PDC to go and power everything else. So you're not running

everything else. So you're not running dedicated circuits all the way from the battery pack.

And that is that is like 100% the core of this car is like do not waste a gram.

Do not waste anything.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's

amazing. Okay,

come around here. Like let's look at the suspension real quick cuz we got a lot to talk about.

So it's a it's a strut suspension, which you wouldn't think with the low hood.

So, we had to offset the, you know, the the kingpin to be in front of the um, you know, the the center of the wheel there. And, uh, we'll talk about this a

there. And, uh, we'll talk about this a little bit more later, too, but it's also our first uh, break by wire system.

And again, that was done because it was almost a necessity for breaking it apart. It's you can't have a closed

apart. It's you can't have a closed hydraulic system for braking if you're going to split the car into pieces. And so, we can self test the

pieces. And so, we can self test the front brakes and the rear brakes separately.

Well, this is beautiful, right? because

we no longer need hydraulics running from the back to the front from from a booster or from some kind of junction.

It's basically everything is isolated to the module that it's in. And it just again allows for us to to take cost out of the distribution of whether it's conductor material or fluids or whatever

it is and allows us to simplify manufacturing substantially. So, so it's

manufacturing substantially. So, so it's allowing you, if I heard what you said correctly, you're doing testing like on the thermal management system by itself and then you're able to plug all these

components, brakes, drive unit, all that into the the module, this unboxed chunk, and then you can test it in this state to ensure before it gets bolted to the rest of the modules that this is ready to go.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Got it. You're buying down risk at multiple ways every line. What's our full percentage? 8590

line. What's our full percentage? 8590

the the full line all all of it it's about 78% automation we're working on the path to to said 80 I'm just kidding round up just a little bit that's okay yeah okay

but to do that like you have to have super high OE which means all the parts going in have to be perfect and so we tested here but even like I'll let Hector point this out even like the thought process of how we were going to

put it on the pallet you want to point out some of the features underneath and how we how we put the the subframe in exactly There were also creative ways to assemble this. As you know, the car is

assemble this. As you know, the car is pretty pretty low uh to the floor. So,

the the springs are actually angled. So,

we we were uh trying to find a way to uh install it in in a like a sandwich mode.

The the geo pallet uh actually sets the subframe in position and all the all the uh components in previously. Um, and on

the other side we get the casting uh with with the dash and the instrument panel preassembled and we sandwich it in. The the creative thing here is that

in. The the creative thing here is that we were uh automating how to um basically align the the springs to the

to the casting um with a full full automation. Well, and and what's fairly

automation. Well, and and what's fairly unique here at a very high level, most every unibody application out there, they're decking the the drive unit and or cradle subframe

to the body.

This is inverted, meaning the body comes over this. And so that you're saying

over this. And so that you're saying that was part of the enablement. It's

actually pretty amazing because you basically most of this system of thermal drive unit suspension.

It sits on a pallet and we literally drop the body on top of it. It's one of the coolest stations we have.

Again, you kind of have to bend your mind when you're doing it. And it's very early on when you're in the design that the like the guys that are building the equipment, Hector's team, they have to come in and say, "No, no, no, no, no.

We're not going to go this way. We're

going to come top down."

And that means like you got to change bolt directions. You got to change

bolt directions. You got to change sequences. And like that's way at the

sequences. And like that's way at the beginning of design. They're not they don't get an over-the-wall design to manufacture. And in fact, in this

manufacture. And in fact, in this program, I say you guys were telling the design engineers more of of what they needed to change.

Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of conversations, daily conversations, uh just to go back and forth how how it's the best way to actually manufacture the the vehicle. One one of the coolest

the vehicle. One one of the coolest things is I remember three years ago we we basically rented out a space and every engineer associated with this project went and stayed there for 3

weeks and whiteboarded all this out.

It's manufacturing, it's software, it's every vehicle system, everything. Just

like literally in a room, you can't leave. You're going to figure this out.

leave. You're going to figure this out.

You're going to basically break the constraints that have ever existed.

And that's kind of what came out of it.

It's only paradigm shifts. Exactly.

Put everyone together. Let's keep going on the rest of it cuz we got a lot to get through.

This So every every module in my mind has like some kind of super function.

Um these are the side modules left and right. They're almost a mirror but not

right. They're almost a mirror but not quite because of some distribution. But

this is like for me this is the safety module, right? Um obviously frontal

module, right? Um obviously frontal crash is important but in an autonomous world hopefully that never happens uh because we'll stop before you run anything. But side crash is something

anything. But side crash is something that's very very difficult to get out of the way. Y.

the way. Y.

And so this is actually a sandwiched uh set of boron steel door rings. It's a

single piece inner and a single piece outer. And it's its main function is

outer. And it's its main function is just to stop things from hitting it.

Both the battery down here and then, you know, obviously the occupant space here integrated with the door. Um this is also put together, you

door. Um this is also put together, you know, automatedly. But it it's a great

know, automatedly. But it it's a great thing uh we can do is like, you know, when you normally have to put all this stuff together, it's kind of always up and left. But like because it was its

and left. But like because it was its own piece, you can build it flat.

Yeah. A lot of other assembly lines have these chairs that people sit in because it's ergonomically insane to get into a car and assemble all this.

Well, and I think the same is true with your That's exactly what we were looking at, right? When we looked at the header

at, right? When we looked at the header coming in and you look at the overhead console all being part of that module, I'm like, how much better is it to work on it when it's on a bench at this height versus trying to reach into the

center line?

It does. It does two things. It improves

like operator efficiency when we're using them, but also reduces mistakes.

Sure. That's absolutely

And it's great for humans and it's great for automation.

Turns out whatever is good for a human is actually makes it easier to automate.

So [laughter] exactly right.

We there there's this thing at Monroe.

It's called Bob the one- arm builder.

He's like blindfolded, one arm, whatever. And we're like irrespective of

whatever. And we're like irrespective of what your process is, if it's good for Bob, it's good for everything. And that

cascades down.

It speaks. Yeah.

So, so I'm curious from as we're going through the rest of this unboxing, one of the nagging questions I've got, there's statements out there. It's like,

hey, 60% part count reduction and clearly there's a throughput benefit, there's an OEE benefit, there's all these things, but is it actually a net reduction of overall floor space? Have

you found that?

For sure.

It's about 50% uh compared to compared like per unit out.

Wow. The reason Yeah. Yeah. The way to think of this is like a car that is full size. Just think of the space that

size. Just think of the space that requires per station for a fulls size car.

The pitch length.

Yeah.

What's the pitch length on on the front module line?

On the front module is about 2 mters. So

we we basically use every space uh around the the the front module to work uh on it. So that's what what this enables automation fully.

Automation can reach from different sides of the of the of the assembly. So that's that's what really unlocked and this and this floor space reduction is something that like from day one the

whiteboard session you're like this is going to enable this.

Well, it was actually it was a one of the main targets. We need like we're not going to like we want to build thousands and thousands and thousands of these a week.

That's right.

We can't build a giant building at the scale that you know like we need to to get the output. And so like we're like this is a space we have it's where you need to get at least a 50% improvement in. Got it. Got it.

in. Got it. Got it.

So seats on pack, you can see it here, but like we'll talk about the pack later. We actually did this already. We

later. We actually did this already. We

did it with YSB. We do it with Cybertruck. And that's why I think when

Cybertruck. And that's why I think when people are like, "Oh, it's so revolutionary." I'm like, "Actually, you

revolutionary." I'm like, "Actually, you guys haven't been paying attention.

We've been doing it all along incrementally." Yes.

incrementally." Yes.

Um it's hard to change something overnight. But that, you know, the seats

overnight. But that, you know, the seats go on there, the carpet goes on there, it all comes up together. And um you know, we kind of This is our third iteration, so it's probably the most complete.

At this point, it's a relatively simple assembly. like we've gotten it to that

assembly. like we've gotten it to that point at this at this stage, but it's still like a lot of part deletion. It's

a very it's very simple, but there's not that many parts on it because we've we've generally deleted everything we can.

Most of the work, this is another thing.

It's like most of the work was on the battery pack line and then we had the seats line and then I remember just deciding, okay, who's going to do the center module because it's like which which line will we extend?

Will the battery come to the seat line or will the seat come to the battery line? Um

line? Um yeah. Yeah.

yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, and then the rear end, it's pretty simple. Actually, one of the

pretty simple. Actually, one of the things I want to point out that like I don't think a lot of people noticed is we were actually not coating the front and rear uh modules, only the sides coated.

Yeah. So, I was going to ask exactly that when we were up front because if you look at the Model Y or the Cybertruck, they're all e-coded, right?

So, what is it? Because it's a robo taxi or is it just like, hey, we actually don't need to do it.

We don't need to do it. And like it was also a point at the beginning, one of the most expensive parts of a factory is a paint line. Of course,

you know, few hundred million, million man hours to build one.

Yeah.

Horrible doc's.

So, like rule number one of Tesla question the requirements. Why do you need paint?

And when we went, why do you need ecoat?

And it turns out aluminum and the our materials team did a great job with this, but like you know, the the alloys we use in the castings like they don't oxidize like and and uh reduce strength

over time as quickly as other aluminum.

you know, most 356 materials like on the chassis parts actually after you age them to T6, they continue to gain strength. Yeah.

strength. Yeah.

Um and then we had to pick, you know, carefully our sheet our sheet aluminum and the joining methods, but you know that part of that reduction in for space was like we got to delete the paint shop.

Well, in fact, it may actually help with some of the bonding if it's not coated, right? You don't have to worry about

right? You don't have to worry about that. Now, is this something that you

that. Now, is this something that you view as backwards compatible with a Model Y or a Cybert truck?

Yeah, I mean, again, I think it had to come up front. Um, but like certainly like as we move forward, we're going to try and put that in because it's part of the mission is like a sustainable future. And so like the less, you know,

future. And so like the less, you know, we can put into the product that is bad, the better we'll be on the back end. And

this is all with doubling the useful life at a minimum of the car, like the car is going to run half a million miles at least.

Yeah. I mean, you think about a robo taxi, it's going to go more utilization every day. So

every day. So totally uptime.

Um, all right.

Are you running, Hector? Can we go up and take a look?

We're we're running framing line. Um, so

I can explain you a little bit of what we do here.

Sure.

So, while we're walking here, I just want to get this on the record. We're

actually, we don't run every day because the line can run so fast. It's currently

outpacing our our deployments. So, it's

a bit of a race right now. Who's going

to [laughter] go faster? Um, right now the, you know, the manufacturing lines ahead. So, um, that's why you don't see

ahead. So, um, that's why you don't see everyone all busy here. But,

well, there's a lot of lines that wish they could say that, [laughter] right?

Yeah. There are a lot of people that wish that was the problem.

Totally. Yeah. So, uh, as we just saw, the product is already pretty cool and obviously the line has to be as cool or, uh, or even better. Uh, so we were looking on creative ways to build the

car. Obviously, as as as Lars mentioned,

car. Obviously, as as as Lars mentioned, we're doing a box architecture. So, that

definitely enabled a lot of the automation that we have. This line,

which is the framing line, is fully automated, 100% automated. Even part

feeding uh, to the line is fully automated uh, with AMRs. And uh basically what we is a automated mobile robot. Um it's

it's a trolley that goes underneath all of our our uh material storage um pallets and can move them around um on its own.

The viewers are really going to appreciate that you just explained that.

No, for sure.

I hate acronyms. Can I like [laughter] even more so for you know not us.

Yeah. Yeah.

Basically what we do here is uh what other or like what regular vehicle manufacturing does is framing the car, putting the car together. Uh this is

where where actually the car looks more like a car. Um but uh in this case we have all the all the components, trims, uh harnesses, hoses, uh everything on

which uh obviously makes makes the the things a lot easier later for for uh for our final assembly. Uh so we basically building from inside out uh and and enabling obviously as we said multiple

times.

So when we look at all these modules and all these subasssemblies this unbox process from a GD&T locating schema gap and flush is it a net improvement what were the challenges?

I think at the beginning we all were like super afraid super worried like super worried.

GD&T is geometric dimensioning intolerancing.

There you go. Good job. um because like it hadn't been done before, but when you back it up to like what's the first principles actually it is a benefit because we're we're building to net

nominal, right? Like so by the time we

nominal, right? Like so by the time we get here, whatever variation's gone into the side module and the the great front and rear modules, it's like when you frame it, you put it to like the perfect position and then your gap and flush is

actually better because like you don't get the sag that might occur in a in a oven when you eco it and then you don't have to worry about adding parts on and then like having each of those fall out of tolerance. It's like you build the

of tolerance. It's like you build the module right when you put it together, you frame it right, and then the last 25 stations are dealing with a much much more accurate assembly than you would

have if you kept adding it together. One

of the like primary examples I can give of this is like Boeing, you know, they do a a stack tolerance where they build the fuchs or I shouldn't call out Boeing, most aerospace, I don't want to like badmouth

Boeing, but each section has a tolerance. And so the actual like

tolerance. And so the actual like variance of a plane is upwards of feet by the time they get to the end when you're just talking about like maybe plus or minus a quarter inch. But if you

have, you know, 20 or 30 of those, it adds up over time.

Yeah, totally. That makes sense. You're

just you're essentially you're localizing all the GD&T on a module where it's in a better ergonomic position. You can fixure it better.

position. You can fixure it better.

Everything is superior. But then the interface points on the final line are a fractional of what they would be typical.

Exactly. the meaning. Yeah.

And and we I mean we validated this. We

didn't just throw it on the line like we we actually this is crazy. No one knows this but we actually tried this we actually started working on this on Cybertruck.

Yeah.

Long many years ago. We started actually validating this on Cybertruck. Now it

didn't make it to production because it was a it was kind of after the fact. We

used Cybertruck as a platform to really learn many many years ago how to get this right because the architecture of Cybertruck is actually very similar on a body structures perspective. So we we actually like and this is the power of

Tesla, our automation groups um started working with you guys before the design was done like we built framers, we built these machines to like put it together.

We built we used Cybertruck, we used model Y's, we used early designs of of the Cyber Cab to like figure out what the G the tolerancing needed to be to make it all go together. Yeah. Yeah.

If you come over here, it's actually kind of elegant cuz this part um you can see some of the skying, but like the seal flange here is like it's not perfectly flat, but it's planer. So,

when we put it up to the casting, we have a nice solid seal. And the same is true on the bottom to the battery pack, but it goes this way. Y

and then in the back to the rear module goes that way. And that's like again, you you have to do that at the beginning. Um otherwise, you're never

beginning. Um otherwise, you're never going to get that single axis ceiling or as much as possible anyway, right? And then from a locating

right? And then from a locating perspective, you're just bringing this in with the header. You've really just got two main interface points and that's going to set up very and then you know, you always worry about Boeing and like it's just like put

it here, bolt it down.

And that's actually what we learned from the Cybert truck is where we had to clamp the the assembly to get you really think of like framer today in a body is doing the same thing that this is doing, right? You're just moving framer into

right? You're just moving framer into this area of GA with general assembly with all these parts on it. So what we had to learn was where to where to clamp, where to grip, where to hold the

assembly, where to datim the assembly in that process to make sure it all is automated.

Even this whole like clamp design and how it's pushing from the inside out was it was thought out from the beginning.

Yeah. I mean, one thing that was very apparent when we got the Model Y and of course then the Cybert truck when we're looking at the castings is most body and whites have slip cross car, right? Cuz

it's a section over a section and it allows you to adjust, but it's locking everything net in the Y ais. We believe

in precision first.

Yeah, makes sense.

Why don't we go talk to some of the guys about the components that put it together?

All right, everyone. Now, we're going to get to the battery pack of the Cyber Cab. So, it's going to be super

Cab. So, it's going to be super interesting. I'm with Robbie. He's the

interesting. I'm with Robbie. He's the

director of all things battery here at Tesla. So, Robbie, thanks for being

Tesla. So, Robbie, thanks for being here. What What is new andor carryover

here. What What is new andor carryover about the Cyber Cabin? Like, let's talk about from a its use case, right? It's

not a it's not a consumer vehicle. So,

what did that influence in terms of the design? What are we looking at?

design? What are we looking at?

Yeah. So Lars probably already told you about our focus on scale. First thing

I'll say is the 100% automation in 10-second cycle time target drove a really intense focus on simplification which I'm going to talk you through some of these things. We

deleted a lot of parts and we integrated a lot of the remaining things. You get

two for one.

Yeah.

And that also helps us with reliability huge goal and ultimately like total cost of ownership. So battery cell and

of ownership. So battery cell and non-ell is often quarter to a third of the cost of of the entire vehicle. Y

then you add reliability like service cost replace the pack super expensive plus the labor to do it plus the down time in this application plus the down time and then you know cost of mass this thing is super heavy

that impacts TCO you have fast charging the faster you charge it the more uptime you get the fewer posts you need to put out in the field for infrastructure y and ultimately that all just leads to

lowest cost of ownership that we've had an intense focus on with this um so probably one of the first things you notice with the architecture is we went we took the ancillers and put them in

line. Right? So you have a flat vehicle

line. Right? So you have a flat vehicle pack. You can see over here.

pack. You can see over here.

Yeah.

We kept the pack top cover as the body floor.

So we can do seats on pack here. Seat

crossmembers directly welded to the top cover.

Yeah.

And then you put this in line so that you don't have this bulge up here on the pack which kind of gets in the way of the seats as they recline.

As we're thinking about future vehicles in a common architecture, you can have sort of the length of the pack vary and have it not impact your feet positions if there's a second or third row.

This is something we've kind of like started to push back in like the model the model Y has a flatter pack for the so you know there's a little more space for the third row feet there.

But one of the things that like you may not see at first but notice is like typically we've sort of looked at the pack as like a top down assembly. And in

this scenario when we put the top cover on this is part the the ancillaries are sealed at the top and actually service from the bottom. And that was because when we looked at all our service data

the pack itself the back the modules and and the cells they're actually much more reliable than the electronics behind it.

Yeah. So if there's anything that we need to service just like we talked about with the thermal management you purposefully change that orientation.

You just think of it as a platter.

Literally there's a mounting structure on the bottom. You pull it down. kind of

pulls all the ancillaries down and you have a certain I'll let you get up up close with the ancillaries in a second. One of the nice things about this too is top cover the ancillaries. It's part of the same stamping here.

So you in in 3 Y there's a wall and a top cover. Those are both gone

top cover. Those are both gone and a seal and a bunch of uh you know bolts to put it together. Yeah.

I'm also not seeing unless I'm missing it. You know on the Model Y there was a

it. You know on the Model Y there was a bunch of tailor welded blanks like laser seams on that top panel. I don't see those here. Yeah, that was those were

those here. Yeah, that was those were the so it was up here. That was the wall for the top cover to create this volume there. So that's that's gone. Now

there. So that's that's gone. Now

you'll notice too it's steel top cover.

We always do it. It's a steel enclosure base.

That's something that is a first on this program. And

program. And there's a couple advantages to it. One

is just cost, right? Steel $1.90 per kilogram versus 5 to $8 a kilogram.

There's a cost of mass too where you lose on steel, but it still nets out.

And then um one of the things that you'll notice, it may not be super obvious though, there's actually more parts on the enclosure. It's one of the to to drive this thickness down to 1.2 mm.

You need to localize some thickness.

You need to add a bunch of local features and strengthening around it.

Yeah. Yeah.

We're still learning whether we think this in the end was the right call, but it has its advantages of being lower cost and mass. How much from a cross-section perspective on the pack?

Like the Model Y, at least in three dimensions, was structural to the the surface of the pack, but on the bottom it was open, the four after it was that structural foam didn't actually go to

the outer bounds. So from a structures perspective, how much structural work is the pack doing on this versus like a Model Y?

Yeah. So in that particular see that better over here, but yeah, you have durability, front crash, side pole. Those are your three big ones,

pole. Those are your three big ones, right? You were talking about side pole.

right? You were talking about side pole.

Side pole. So what the pack does, you don't want the cells to absorb energy.

You want them to be stiff backup structure to help the main absorption structure stay put. Right.

Sure.

So inside pole and a structural pack, that top cover that the crossmember is mounted to. Y

mounted to. Y that giant surface area of adhesive really helps stabilize it. Here, that

top cover actually fastens into the main enclosure through these longitudinal.

You can see the through holes here. And

so you're not sending load directly into this adhesive cell plane. And I can energy skipping over to the beam and then going to the next one over.

But something cool we were able to do with this is when that longitudinal comes through here, the second module on the struck side can actually resist the

motion of that longitudinal contributing to the backup structure and stiffening that.

And so we basically have shear planes between each of the the center channels using the module. And it doesn't crush the cells because it's so distributed.

And so the module is like a stiff, you know, element there that's adding strength. And we call it So it's kind of

strength. And we call it So it's kind of semi-structural in that regard.

Semi-structural. Yeah. Yeah. And when

you're dispersing it over such a big area, it can actually do a lot, I would imagine.

And then I'll do frontal crash. Um but

you know, so how do we carry the loads through there? The casting comes through

through there? The casting comes through here. It has a triangular piece that

here. It has a triangular piece that bolts up to the front here. And then you see these three big loops here. um those

are like our main sort of uh load paths as they come through. So the casting will distribute it and kind of put it into five longitudinals. The two side cells, one, two, three in the middle. So

you get five overall and we kind of net it out and carry it the same way through the pack to the back without damaging the cells. Now is this is this from a

the cells. Now is this is this from a from an impact perspective like the furthest outbound outboard either for side to side that we could get them?

Meaning we needed this for free crush space.

Uh no, we uh we were way more efficient than uh we thought we need as many batteries as we thought we did. [laughter]

did. [laughter] That's right. That's right. So So this

That's right. That's right. So So this Yeah, if we want to get into that, this is an 88S 6P battery pack. We have room to add few more cells as you can see there. And the other thing you can't

there. And the other thing you can't really see is there's space. There's

more space than we need below these modules. So, we protected this pack to

modules. So, we protected this pack to go to an even lower energy dense chemistry as we scale and need to bring LFP into the platform. And

and they still vent down and out.

Yeah. The cells vent down and out. Yep.

So, so I got to ask the the foam and the potting question cuz we tore apart the Model Y and we had to use a dry ice blaster and we we ripped like, you know,

ratchet straps off holding tables trying to peel that steel back. The steel was ripping. This is a pretty big change

ripping. This is a pretty big change where you're just potting locally in the modules.

This is water soluble. Just

I'm kidding. [laughter]

No, it's it's Yeah, it's the same potting, but we we're doing modules instead of packs.

Okay.

You probably want to know why.

I do want to know why for sure. All

right. So, it's it's good to be self-critical. It's one of our

self-critical. It's one of our one of they cultural attributes here.

It's okay to look at yourself and I I didn't do a good job.

I'm going to give our Model Y structural battery a grade D. Okay. to the customer it was an awesome product but internally just sort of the like how hard it was to build and how much it costs.

Yeah.

Cybertruck structural attack we we made some big changes. I'd call it a maybe a B minus.

I was going to give you a C+ but okay it like it was definitely passing. It was for sure passing grade. You've seen the pack. You've seen the line. Like I'm

pack. You've seen the line. Like I'm

proud of that.

What we started to realize is like in the limit the grade A structural pack.

Yeah. And the grade A, we'll call this non-structural semi structural pack.

Everything we could tell is like pretty equivalent cost for you're going to get maybe 10% more volume for cells in a structural pack when you delete the structure, but you're going to save a little cost

as a result, but the the issue is the service cost, right? And like

right? And like you have to get just infinitely low cell reliability to win on structural packs because we get to salvage three of these

modules. Like if this

modules. Like if this worth, you know, 1,500 bucks a piece if if one goes down on a Model Y, you're replacing the entire thing.

So like as a thought experiment, a mega pack at three and a half to 5 megawatt, you're never going to pot that whole thing. If one cell goes down, you

whole thing. If one cell goes down, you don't want to lose that asset.

An Optimus battery, it's it's one module. It's two and a half kilowatt hours. Three, you know, it's that's kind of okay. It turns out in that in that product, it's actually not the largest cost at all.

And that too. Yeah, exactly. So we found that it was going to be too much engineering drag to maintain two architectures in parallel. Let's just

like go all in on making this the best it can be.

Yeah. So whether it's on the engineering design and development side or andor I would say the economics of service and getting to it and is are we are we scrapping a whole pack or just a module?

So that's really what drove us here.

Exactly. So what so what grade is this one if this I got to know the grade of this one?

I'm feeling pretty good about this one.

I would I actually think this is uh Robbie and the whole battery scene like most elegantly best design pack most integrated in the vehicle.

I can't ever say you like perfect, but I'd give it an A minus.

Okay.

Always a little room to improve. I'll

take it.

Yeah, I mean that's that's a that's a good grade from where I sit. So,

it's also worth noting when you think of TCO as we've talked about, replacing an entire pack before half a million miles is a killer on cost. So we have to think of reman, we have to think of like pack

serviceability, we have to think of all those things that actually get us to our cost target for the product.

Even maybe the insurance side of it, I would imagine, right? If you're if you're going to insure a product like this and Tesla selfinsures and does all sorts of things, that's got to be a benefit.

Anything else you want to see on this?

No, this is great. Thank you for taking us through.

Can I show you just a couple more things?

Yes, we can. Anything you want.

Do it.

Okay. There's some stuff in here I'm really excited about that I think you'll like. So, one thing you'll notice is

like. So, one thing you'll notice is there's no harness.

Y from the BMBBS.

Yep. It's all

BMBB is battery management board to the to the penthouse that what we call the uh inline ancillaries.

This is We weren't the first to play around with wireless, but we implemented wireless communications in here.

Okay.

And it's just it's been huge. It allowed

us to delete harnesses which are super messy to automate and money intraac intraac wireless communications.

Yeah. So, normally this is a dumb circuit board that sends data to the HBC through some communication wires through a harness BMS battery management system.

You have to package pay for it, it fails.

So now we have an RF chip on here. It

drives the cost up a little of this circuit board.

But now we get, you know, to delete that harness and and now we have edge compute here. So we can do local things like

here. So we can do local things like runaway detection. redundancy um within

runaway detection. redundancy um within the like cuz each each board is you know not now singularly powered but also like when you when you think about cost as I said is the whole vehicle even if your

board cost went up 20 or 30 cents for the communication chip we deleted a harness that might have been a dollar you deleted the assembly of the harness might have been 50 cents and on the system level it's cheaper

it's huge my my overarching takeaway when I look at this pack you know when I actually stare at it for a second my question when we were walking up to it that I didn't ask I'm Like are all the

pieces in here or not? [laughter]

Right. And that's a good grade, right?

That's why we get a good grade cuz it looks it looks like it's missing something.

We're missing potting over here.

Yeah.

So you can see our our 4680s. And then

let's take a look at the ancillary back here.

We got another one.

So I'll try and get you some more room, Jeff, but the brakes.

When you open up a three Cybert truck ancillary is pretty good. When you look at a 3y ancillaries, it's kind of a rat's nest. I'm being

self-critical. I worked on that. This is

super clean. So, we took the approach of a single casting where we can get all the mounting features and build where you got that idea.

Hey, I know. Yeah. A casting

over the guys next door.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, first things I I want to point out that are pretty cool here. The um the shrouds for the connectors, you just integrate them into the casting here, right here. Like this is our front drive

right here. Like this is our front drive unit.

This allows the connectors to go down in cost, I would imagine.

Exactly. So the the part basically what we do here are we call it um instead of doing panel mount and jumper we're doing direct pass through on all of these

things right so these three components plus this coolant connection those are actually like this part this part this part and then that that's the inside of the cold plate so rather than have panel

mount and a jumper we just pass through right here all the intermediates go away and you're putting a fork through a gridactly Exactly. Yeah. Okay.

gridactly Exactly. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Exactly. Um and then we did some cool things you can't really see here, but the You want me to hold it up? You got it.

You can't see it because this, we call this the BCU is is already installed, but the uh battery control unit.

Yeah. So, we deleted a lot of harnesses by directly mounting the conttors to the board. You know, you got sense, signal,

board. You know, you got sense, signal, and power. All those connectors are

and power. All those connectors are gone. The the BMS just mounts directly

gone. The the BMS just mounts directly to those devices. and the interrupting contacts. We had to check this is out in

contacts. We had to check this is out in the world. We filed the patent

the world. We filed the patent application for it. You can say it the um we were able to delete the pyro the active fuse really because these interrupting contacttors

now have the speed to to latency with reduction of all the connection relays fast enough.

Interesting.

And not only that, they can open under load a few times and keep working.

So often times you'll get more redundancy.

Yeah. Huge fraction of pyro fires are from like low speed crashes where the HV system is actually healthy.

And you don't need to you don't want to have to service the pack.

Sure.

And so we can just So with a with a one pyro you have to.

Exactly.

Yeah. Game over. So is from a cooling plate perspective. Is it the same

plate perspective. Is it the same circuit as the battery? Is it a dedicated circuit?

They're not in series but they come off the same vehicle.

So it's in parallel. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

And then the last couple things on this set of bolts to the module terminals. We

have these HV power blind mates.

So when you install this into this structure here, that's the first thing to engage after the alignment pins.

Two pins on the alignment here and here.

And then when you take it out, everything deenergizes. So we've gotten

everything deenergizes. So we've gotten rid of a lot of these like touch safety insulators as well.

Yeah. So all your interlocks, which again decreases our service time because now they don't have to like worry about the the high safety interlocks and loops and all that stuff. And are the so are these barbs?

stuff. And are the so are these barbs?

So they're like connector positive assurance all CPAs effectively.

It's it's a little harder to see these things. There's like no snap fit or

things. There's like no snap fit or something. So you know you can monitor

something. So you know you can monitor the sort of force installation distance curve and know that you've made a good connection. Kind of like torque run down

connection. Kind of like torque run down on a bolt.

That's what I was going to ask. Right.

If there's no visual way to do it, you're measuring the insertion force.

This has been some new territory to like figure out how to do reliably. Yeah.

This goes back to the integration with the manufacturing teams. It's like when Robbie has that idea, we have know we have to control it. And so he's got to work with Frank and the our battery team that's putting this together to like be

like, "Okay, I'm going to need to control force and distance. Let's make

sure that's in the equipment." Yeah.

Because that's the only way we know we see it. And it's totally fine cuz like

see it. And it's totally fine cuz like you said, it's just like a bolt. We do

torque and angle window.

It's a sensitive electrical connection, but that's actually the best feedback.

Yeah. I'd imagine the difficulty is making sure that through the design and the GD&T which we already talked about earlier. It it's making sure that

earlier. It it's making sure that there's no other interferences so you're not getting a false positive that something else is driving resistance in the insertion.

That's right. And and then by the time the seal starts to engage and load up the insulation picture, you've already mated the contacts.

Right. Okay. And then we couldn't get rid of every harness with a direct like board to board. said

that there was like there's a little bit there was like a little bit of failure in your voice like oh so we learned how to make rigid jumpers so our manufacturing partners can automate pick and place these things

that's brilliant love it so my favorite like I just I like to point this out my well I can do it on camera too but my favorite Nick story we were down in Hawthorne um we both came from Honda from different parts of Honda

and there was this intern and he was talking to us in the break room about all this motor design he had done and how great it was and We were just kind of over in the corner and he like goes

to introduce himself to Nick and Nick goes, "Hi, I'm Nick. I used to design Motors, too, for F1 and then just walked away." [laughter]

away." [laughter] Anyway, we had good snacks.

Well, we did. We had great snacks.

Anyway, I mean, I'll do this. This is

Nick Verzeni. He's our head of drive unit. And this is Brian Dorlag. He's at

unit. And this is Brian Dorlag. He's at

a chassis suspension thermal uh and a bunch of other uh of our uh Europe and China teams. So I wanted them to come here and just talk about or uh indirect

thermal system is pretty cool and our drive unit was also pretty cool. These

are two main components in CyberCab that make it the most efficient um uh uh EV that we've ever built.

Yeah. I mean before we get going like for for the audience as well the these two sets of systems and everything this this is arguably you guys can correct me

if I'm wrong this is some of the most engineering intense elements of Tesla period right there there's a lot obviously in giga castings and body structures but the number of components the complexity and then the impact to

the efficiency of the vehicle is enormous here yeah there's definitely a good reason we insource all of it yeah yeah yeah the I think the the top The top contributors to electric vehicle

consumption are the tire is usually number one. Uh aerodynamic drag is

number one. Uh aerodynamic drag is usually number two. Although those can flip depending on your speed. Uh and

then the thermal system uh and the HVAC loading and and the rest of the thermal loads on the vehicle are number three.

So Brian's responsible for all of that. So

it's all [laughter] his fault.

Nick's made the drive unit too efficient. So he's off the hook.

efficient. So he's off the hook.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's never too efficient.

So So as we look at this, this is the first we were talking about it when we were in vehicle. Not only have we changed from refrigerant to an ethylene glycol base so that can be serviceable.

We we can we can flush it, we can prime it, we can seal it, but now we integrated the EAC unit. Like

what what are the what are the pros and cons that you guys observed by making those two changes, ethylane and then the PIA um EAC compressor.

Yeah. So so the I'll cover the the ethylene glycol one first. Uh so we we did a deep dive on our system. Um this

is our third gen heat pump. Um so we have we have 9 million vehicles and like a 100 billion miles of heat pump experience. So we we did a deep dive um

experience. So we we did a deep dive um you know and and tried to learn as much as we could from that and that we found that so much of the the difficulty and efficiency and the reliability

challenges was on the refrigerant side of the system. Uh and the the coolant ethylene glycol system uh generally was a lot less a lot less finicky. there was

a lot less at stake. You know, the the multiple factors on the efficiencies of every every little win and loss were much lower. So, the team the team had

much lower. So, the team the team had the great idea uh to move as much of the complexity to the coolant side of the system and move a lot of the complexity out of the refrigerant side of the

system, which then allowed us to um hyper optimize the refrigerant side of the system. um where we were able to

the system. um where we were able to really really expand how much uh heat we're a able to absorb um you know when you're when you're trying to cool things down, how much heat you're able to dump when you're trying to warm things up. Uh

we were able to to reduce a lot of the uh inefficient heat leaks uh where you have hot parts of the system and cold parts of the system and any heat that leaks between those really bad, right?

Uh so by simplifying the system, we were able to optimize that. We were able to get the compressor to be in a much happier operation state in terms of the pressures and temperatures it was seeing.

And when you put it right next to like the refrigerant system, get rid of all the hoses. You get rid of all those

the hoses. You get rid of all those losses.

No, no, no refrigerant uh hoses on this system. So, we have a pentaport on our

system. So, we have a pentaport on our on our other vehicles. That's a that's a great system. Very well engineered. Um

great system. Very well engineered. Um

but even better if we can just directly mount the compressor to the refrigerant manifold and skip skip the whole mess.

It it reduces the, you know, it it makes it makes everything better from pressure drop to component and bomb count to our ability to automate the manufacturability of it. Uh to, you

know, really really everything that we care about and and we're showing it on a manufacturing build pallet here. Uh not

just because it makes a good prop uh to to hold it up, uh but because this system was designed from the start to be very highly automatable in its assembly.

Um, so right now it's a pretty manual process to connect most of the major modules of the heat pump system. Whereas

this is more or less a self-contained unit. We're able to build it

unit. We're able to build it robotically, fill the refrigerant side of it, run a run a full system test, check it for leaks, check it for major performance parameters, all before it goes into the

vehicle, and then you just plug in the coolant the coolant hoses, which are also uh batched to reduce the manufacturing count. So, we have

manufacturing count. So, we have multiconnector here, multiconnector here. Um, and you're basically done

here. Um, and you're basically done assembling the system into the vehicle.

And it's all like perfectly inaccess.

You've got locate and retention here.

And it's we try as much as possible like you were talking about earlier, if it's good for Bob, it's good for for automation.

But, you know, 2D automation is uh simpler, but it's also faster.

Yeah.

You know, when you don't have to like position things in 3D. So we do a lot of planer installations where it makes sense so that you can see all the pumps and the PT sensors and everything are in this single plane and then you know

we'll put it together maybe one time with the complexity of 3D so that we don't have to to come back to it.

Um Nick you got a lot of inverters over here. You want to go over here and talk

here. You want to go over here and talk about these?

Yeah. So we have our 5DU that's revenue that's in this car right here. I dropped

by some of the old generation as well.

This is a 40i inverter that's shipping right now in 3 and wanted to highlight how you can kind of visually see um how much we simplified um wherever we had

redundancies that weren't really earning their complexity. We removed a whole

their complexity. We removed a whole bunch of parts um a huge percentage decrease in parts if you look at all the different components on the PCBA. Um one of the great thing of the 5DI that doesn't get

enough glory is the supply chain stability. every single one of these

stability. every single one of these components is built is ready to be dual sourced as the volumes we're going to have to be able to stay flexible.

Um and wherever it looks like we haven't populated parts is because we want to be ready to go with supplier A or supplier B um and really be able to go the world's getting a little bit more complicated

with AI um having a super high demand for chips um and we're totally ready the electrical engineers have done the work so that we can be multissourced on every one of these components. It's one of those things doesn't look that great

from the outside. It's but it's it's so much work and it's so impactful, but it speaks to the culture you're talking about. We talked about the

talking about. We talked about the integration of manufacturing and design and test, but like our supply chain teams, you know, Roshan and Kins teams, they're like in it with us, too, because like you can't build it if you can't buy it. And if you can't buy it or we can't

it. And if you can't buy it or we can't make it, then we're you got to be able to buy the other one and be Yeah. It actually negates it negates the

Yeah. It actually negates it negates the engineering if you can't if you can't get the parts.

So, we try as much as possible to dual source, sometimes triple source. So, so

are there I got to ask, are there Easter eggs on here? Are we going to find Monroe printed on the board anywhere?

Uh, [laughter] I I have an internal debate with Easter eggs. Um, while I love the like cordial

eggs. Um, while I love the like cordial nature of it, I have this vision of this like die builder who's like grinding a little thing that he doesn't have to do to make

a little logo.

Is uh very thorough with cost and if it adds a penny, it's too much. You know,

it's too much. If you were building a die and you see some little logo in it.

Oh yeah. You want to do that extra work.

So one of the things uh Jordan noticed when we were in there, Nick, you probably talk about here is like the vertical nature of the drive unit. You

want to walk through like where the motor is, gear reduction, and how do we get to the ground?

Um so we chose to go frontwheel drive.

Yeah.

Um we package the drive unit in the front. It's very upright because we have

front. It's very upright because we have a lot of neighbors we want to stay away from.

Um front the car is this way. Uh this

particular inverter orientation gives us great radiated noise performance as we big flat surfaces are pretty efficient to transform vibration into noise and we're pointing that away from the driver

for the best possible experience.

This contributes to that service thing Eric was talking about earlier.

Yeah. No, totally. So

and uh you can see we stayed quite common on the chassis. This is our first inverter that's actually the PCBA is 12 and 48 volt compatible. It doesn't care.

we can do either or um and we were able to really be very capex efficient going from 40i and 5i run on the exact same line upstairs over here.

And like we were talking about at the front of the vehicle, this is the component that is servicing this from a voltage perspective.

Yes, we we added um we added a small little junction box. We

have an extra connector and fuse that will power the one we already have a box with HV in it. Why go make a different box with HV connections somewhere else in the car when we Yeah. Yeah. That's

Yeah. Yeah. That's

um It's amazing.

So, it's a bit of extra work and we managed to do that without breaking the production line that was making the 40i as well. So, we can be super flexible.

as well. So, we can be super flexible.

Use the same line to make either version. Now, from a from a actual

version. Now, from a from a actual traction motor and gearbox perspective with a cyber cab application, you don't need to do 140 mph. You're going to

limit the vehicle speed. as a result.

I'm just like quick visual. I'm trying

to crunch the the gear math. Yeah. Yeah.

How many did you count? I can check you.

How how much of a change on the gear ratio was there?

Uh and how did you dial?

We went to 11.

You went to 11. [laughter]

That's actually Yeah. So, um most of our cars are a gear ratio of nine.

Nine.

Um we didn't need that top speed.

We went to 11 for the gear ratio. the

motor would actually be a little happier on efficiency a little bit further but as gear ratio is not free on efficiency so we picked the best optimum if we could make a 14 to1 be as efficient as

11 to1 we would probably want to go a little bit higher and it's something that we'll be working on so so you're saying like theoretically if you went a slightly higher gear ratio without adding losses without adding losses you may actually

be able to get more mileage yes a little bit so we're getting more mileage a multitude of ways As we design our own lubricants, we're going to add

we're dropping gear mesh losses by 7% later this year, which is a lubricant change that's very smooth for not to mention the bar windings. You get

a little bit there, too.

Yeah.

So, we have our um latest generation in-house design production line bar w 15 turns, five bars in slot, copper conductors. Um on the stator, you'll

conductors. Um on the stator, you'll notice a little bit of a difference like the outside structure is quite different than what we typically have. Yeah.

Um, we went away from having the cooling channels in the electrical steel, which is a fairly expensive material to having cooling channels built in within the much cheaper material of the diecast aluminum.

So, so you can see you can see the package the passages here. Still oil cooled.

Um, but instead of having to do a bunch of, if you've seen a Tesla motor, you're familiar with all the holes on the on the periphery.

Um, with the lower thermal, we don't have to get as hot. Um, and we just hold it. We still can hold it with the shrink

it. We still can hold it with the shrink fit and no ethyling glycol.

You see you see all the extra structure on the outside to hold to hold it in place.

To hold it in place and no ethylene glycol don't going down like center of the rotor or anything like that. It's all

like that. It's all we haven't done that since model since model S.

I mean the only thing cooled and even model S we don't do anything you have the inverter that's cooled with the glycol system.

The inverter is on the glycol circuit.

Yeah.

And we have a heat exchanger as well on this side. So when we did some fluid to fluid like and and you'll notice that we keep very common

uh throughout.

Yeah. Why why redo it when you can just carry it over? Now are we still doing the same thing from a thermal management perspective where we're we're stalling the heat up and then plumb that to

battery in cold conditions?

One, yes, always. Like whenever we have heat, why put it out the radiator if the battery needs it?

Yeah, we're we're very greedy with all heat. uh almost almost all the time is

heat. uh almost almost all the time is usable. So

usable. So I like to think of heat as like a like a lot of people think of it being like hotter or colder than the air temperature, but it's like there's absolute zero and every degree above that can be used somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to look at it.

Um for simplification and because we didn't need it, we have a mechanical oil pump where we typically have electric oil pump in all our other cars. So we're

a little bit more dependent on rotation to turn the pump. Um, but we crunched all the math and was still the it was the ideal thing to do. It removes a whole bunch of electrical circuit pump

firmware. Uh, and the mechanical pump is

firmware. Uh, and the mechanical pump is just such a cheap small like very costefficient object compared to the electric pump.

So, I've got to I've got to ask when we did some back of the napkin math when we looked at the CD mass of the vehicle and then we looked at the kilowatt hours in the range. If we dropped a Chevy Bolt

the range. If we dropped a Chevy Bolt powertrain, I'm not picking on Chevy, but if we grabbed that motor and then that gear ratio and we plugged it into the vehicle, we'd get 30 or four 40

miles less range than this. This is

pretty significant. So, for this powertrain, because of it being that efficient, is there any intent to go and say, "Hey, you know what? The front

motor on the Model Y, we're going to plug this in eventually."

Yeah, we always I mean, I'll take the high level answer on this. We always

think about everything we're doing about like is it making not just the product better but the portfolio better. Yeah.

And like you know our drive units like many of them are are quite modular in their application and we share rotors and stators across different platforms but for sure when the team did like the

the 5DU here it was a thought of like okay for autonomous vehicles let's make the best thing we can and then as we move more and more towards autonomy that'll probably evolve into other vehicles.

Got it. the electrical improvements at the inverter level.

As you can see, we kept it common.

Another reason is that we can this this PCA and power stage will ship in 3 and this year.

Yeah. So, you're saying the overall footprint, the geometry, even if it's different population, you can still maintain that housing. And it's the power stage, the PCBA and everything.

You could you could just swap this into a a model Y drive unit.

Oh, the entire thing.

Yep. Yeah. We kept we kept the entire interface. I mean, it works. It's

interface. I mean, it works. It's

robust. to perform really well in the field. So are we going to

field. So are we going to I plead the fifth.

Okay. [laughter]

We always we're always opportunistic with how we how we take an advancement from one project and try to expand it to others or build upon it for the next project. Like for instance, this this is

project. Like for instance, this this is the same unit that goes in the semi, believe it or not. So our smallest vehicle and our largest vehicle are using not only the same technology, but in a lot of cases exactly the same

assemblies.

Wow. Anyway, uh we wanted to stop here um and check out our plastic shop. Um we

have Jutna over here. She's our uh uh head of plastics, small subasssemblies, windshield seats, and a whole bunch of other manufacturing components. She's

been here a long time.

Yeah.

But we're going to talk plastics.

We talked earlier about how we got rid of the paint shop. Yeah.

Um this is our paint shop.

Wow. So, so when first of all, it's nice to meet you. I'm

very excited to talk to you. So when we look at the injection molded panels like talk us through like when that conversation started why it's there cuz there's other vehicles like you look at

the BMW X5 injection molded front fender Saturn way back in the day right they had plastic panels what was the rationale behind this obviously paint booth is a big thing but yes so the deletion of the paint was the

first motivator but then you've already discussed the unboxed architecture so when we were firstly talking unboxed and how do we get the panels to GA the biggest challenge if we had a paint shop

was we had to box it back in together to ensure it goes through paint and comes out. So then we said what else could we

out. So then we said what else could we do to eliminate those processes and make the panel in one shot and then we started discussing multiple options of how can we get color on the panel and that's how

yeah we actually this isn't the only idea we had we you know we talked a lot about a lot of the work we were doing we had like uh in mold lamination which we actually use on semi now

um where we put like a film like vinyl film with PUR on it and then put it inside the mold and mold into the film like IML IMGL Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And then we had uh we also had film over panel where we actually put the paint onto a stamped panel and stamped it. So

like a film on like adhesive with you know just just pressure and then when we stamped it and then we would hem it over the edge. And so we actually got pretty

the edge. And so we actually got pretty far on all of those.

One of those technologies. Yes.

And I it's never a competition.

No. I don't think and I think we I can we can proudly say we've done both the technologies now. We have IML and semi

technologies now. We have IML and semi and but then when it came to cyber cab and the need to do it fast but at the same time cost effective

this was what was the best way to approach for all the multiple panels different geometries because um that because it is just we still had to injection mold and this is just adding

another layer within the machine so we get no orange peel you know we don't get like the defects inside of it I mean we still have issues with dirt and dust, but that means it's a cleaner panel to begin with. And if you do

scratch it, you can repair it just like you would normal paint shop. And then

the plastic underneath is similar to any facial you've ever used.

It's like a tpo. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

They're different by panel just from like the upper ones. The roof has slightly different requirements, but Yeah.

So, so you're taking So, you're taking a sheet like a P sheet.

It's injected. So, it's not a sheet at all.

It's not a sheet at all. It's isopoly

and color as separate pieces that are mixed at the mixing head at the machine.

So they're coming in the hopper getting heated mix and injected at the machine.

It's mixed at that when we are injecting is when we mix it. That's why it's the reaction injection molding because the reaction happens just before the injection.

That's what rim means. Reaction. Way to

way to not use an acronym.

Yeah. The first one. [laughter]

So, from a from a post-processing perspective, like how how much Oh, it's right here. Okay.

right here. Okay.

So, all of this is trimmed out. Wait.

Yeah, you can watch.

But it's all robotically done.

Yes.

What Why were we not able to do it without the trimming? Why did we have to get to a So, you needed an because all our panels are a class a surface. If I did a direct

drop of injection or this that would the sink through sink marks read through flow lines all of that.

So we needed to keep the a surface clean and the only way to do it is by creating the additional flow and even for us when we right right

and those are the overflows that we have to send the PUR out and all the air pushes out for us to get this clean surface. So it's read through and

surface. So it's read through and specifically because it's a surface that that really drove the need to route out because you're bringing all those drops outboard. Yes.

outboard. Yes.

Yeah. Got it.

All right. So we're here on the final assembly line. So this is where all

assembly line. So this is where all those unboxed modules come together. And

Lars, you were saying just before we jumped on camera, these things are actually moving backwards.

Yeah. So upstairs they go backwards this way. We drop them over here and then we

way. We drop them over here and then we pull the line moving forward this way.

You know, Hector upstairs, he said there's only about 25 stations. We

literally can see them all in our view here. Um, and really it is just like

here. Um, and really it is just like kind of the final closing up and and and buttoning up of the vehicle.

So when we when this is like a unique view, right? So you can start seeing all

view, right? So you can start seeing all these modules pulled together. When we

were in a different area, we talked about the fact that actually from a architecture and a buildup perspective, it shares a lot with the Cybert truck. I

think these these stampings supporting the fender, the hood, um all those touchdowns interfacing with the castings are an example of that. Um it's good for repairability, right? It's it's a good

repairability, right? It's it's a good way to interface with the castings. But

then we started talking about the door and I asked, well, why did we go with the G wings? Cuz they can be expensive to service. It's got it, you know,

to service. It's got it, you know, drives this big casting for the pivot point. And you guys provided what I

point. And you guys provided what I thought was the best answer, which was there was no technical reason. It was

just because it's cool. Yeah.

Which if we can't do that in our jobs, then our jobs get a little dull. So, um

that's a great answer. I I appreciate that.

And I and I will say as well the like the door opening is ergonomically better. Like you can get in somebody

better. Like you can get in somebody who's in a wheelchair and they can get into the car because the seat is the same height as a standard wheelchair.

The even somebody getting out, the fact that the door pulls the underside out further first means you have a lot more room to sweep your feet out of the car if you're in a tight space. the the step in ingress egress and slower

and there's a little bit of rain protection. So, there's like some

protection. So, there's like some benefits and maybe we talked ourselves into those, but the fundamental reason was cuz it's cold.

Well, sometimes you got to take the whim. That's okay. All right.

whim. That's okay. All right.

So, we'll walk down here and then I want to show you just a couple of like the last the first time the car gets put on its wheels.

All right.

So Jordan, in a normal assembly line, um the wheels are put on somewhere in the middle of the process and then you roll it out on the final line. Um this

is our final station here. Um we call that robot Hulk Hogan. Uh it got installed when the you know the legend passed away. So we wrapped it in gold

passed away. So we wrapped it in gold and red, gave it a little Hulkmania look. But we installed the wheels on the

look. But we installed the wheels on the second to last station in the vehicle.

So, the first time a cyber cab is ever put down on its wheels is when it rolls off the line.

We just wrapped up an incredible tour of the facility, taking a look at all the not just the I would say the engineering side of it, but the manufacturing engineering side of it and how those two are really well blended together. When

when I think about the Cyber Cab, now I'm obviously going to think about it a bit differently, which is exciting. But

when we look at the economics of of the Cyber Cab, it's obviously the first vehicle coming out of Tesla that is not a consumer vehicle that's going to sit in their garage. Totally different

application. How do you see the the landscape of the sort of cyber cab ride hail environment going? Because we're

obviously capacitized, you know, you're capable of making way more than we are. Where do you see those volumes going?

I mean, maybe I'll start, you finish. Um

I think when we thought about like where we are in the journey of transportation for the last like oh since human existence right

there's been a few major shifts over time you know Elon will often call out like horse and buggy to car and how that overlap happened you know in the early

1900s and like you know some people still have horses but not very many.

Yeah. And I think we're in a maybe kind of a similar time shift where we're going to go from, you know, drivered vehicles to driverless vehicles. And

that shift will really like change a lot of things. It will change how people buy

of things. It will change how people buy cars, how people get from point A to point B. Um what even car culture is,

point B. Um what even car culture is, you know, and I I grew up with that.

Like I'm a big car culture guy. Like I

love cars. I collect cars. Um, I work on cars like as a hobby. Yeah.

You know, and maybe maybe that's how it ends up for the most part, much like, you know, people who ride horses as a hobby.

But I think the first step is getting people comfortable with it. And that's

why we rolled out FSD in all of our purchase vehicles. Like if you have it

purchase vehicles. Like if you have it in a car that you own and like, you know, my kids as an example, like I make it like a personal goal that they never drive a car because I remember how bad of a driver I was when I was 16.

Sure. you know, and I think that the [clears throat] safety aspect that provides is what will influence the transition, you know, from what we have now to where we go. And I mean, I think you can you talk about it a lot. Um,

what how we're going to get there, the stages of of adoption that that we're kind of looking at.

Yeah. First and foremost, people don't really want to drive anymore. It's very

clear. You go down the road, everyone's not looking forward. Um, and that's a safarily scarily. Uh, that is a huge

safarily scarily. Uh, that is a huge safety risk, and you can see it in the stats. Um, people want to relax. They

stats. Um, people want to relax. They

want to be in something that's taking them, not necessarily driving them. Um,

and so we know that if you can put a compelling, beautiful vehicle out there that serves this amazing purpose and also brings safety, people will want to

get into it. Um, and so when we talk about adoption, of course, right now it's going to be heavily around, you know, ride hailing, ride services, and things of that nature. But the the reality is this car is designed for

everyone to really just feel like they're moving from their favorite couch or seat into this vehicle and it's no difference. They have entertainment,

difference. They have entertainment, they have productivity, they have comfort, uh they have convenience. And

so for us to be able to kind of create that haven for a person like that's I think where we start to see you know commuters start to come into play and

adopt. we start to see uh the the family

adopt. we start to see uh the the family trips especially when we start talking about Model Y's with autonomy. Um and

then with cab you talk about deliveries and autonomy within the delivery space.

It's a perfect car given how dense it'll be to support like incredibly fast delivery capability at an incredibly low cost. And so you as we move forward the

cost. And so you as we move forward the the core part of it is you know safety experience and uh really it's low cost and convenience like those are the core principles we we live on and that's kind

of hopefully what you've seen today is it's been hardcore put throughout the the product and it's something we focus on every day not just on the car but everything that's happening out there and so this is the cool part of Tesla

right we've always had this vertical integration of the car and the firmware and in the charge and we now have this crazy cool opportunity to integrate the entire

business from what the customer sees on a day-to-day basis all the way into design and it's really closed loop fast iteration to make the product awesome.

Yeah. Like to double down on that. I

mean when you get into like I think the people take ride share a lot now right the tubers and whatever but you don't always know what you're getting.

Sure. you know, maybe you can select what kind of car like a, you know, if you want an XL or, you know, black or whatever, but when you get into a cyber cab, when you get into a Tesla, you

know, robo taxi, it is your car. Yeah.

And it moves to what you want. You know,

we set the cabin temp, we pull up your playlists, your podcasts, we move the seat to where you want it.

We did Netflix earlier.

Yeah, we did Netflix earlier, right?

Like I mean so it it but it it you know much like your TV has all of your you know your streaming services have all of things you're watching it's there for you and whichever car you get into it's the same.

Yeah.

And I think when you can bring that level of personalization to a shared you know uh like capex unit you know like a car um it's going to provide an

experience that I don't think people quite fully comprehend. You know you guys took some rides here in Austin um where we have it you know deployed now.

And I think you're starting to see it in when I walk around town and I hear people talking about it. But there is going to be a cultural shift when you know maybe people stop buying their second car. Maybe eventually they don't

second car. Maybe eventually they don't buy any cars.

Yeah.

And we start to see that in major cities today. People just don't buy cars.

today. People just don't buy cars.

New York and stuff then people don't have and we see we talked a little bit off off camera. It's like people are

off camera. It's like people are deciding not to get their driver's license like younger individuals or delaying the the the concept of getting their license. And so this idea that a

their license. And so this idea that a driver's license is freedom, it's not really becoming this this standard like it's been for last century.

Sure.

Right. And so the more it becomes, you know, autonomy is freedom, which is really the core, right? It's freedom for everybody, not just those who have a driver's license or could get it, but it's the accessible community that don't

have freedom of transportation today.

They now have it. It's it's it's everybody. And that's the cool part

everybody. And that's the cool part about it.

Yeah. it. I'll add like one last thought and I'll let you question like a lot of people will ask me like you know why do you love working at Tesla or like you know what's the best part and we talked a lot about the culture and integration

but I I think you know when Eric says like we're going to provide freedom of transportation to people who don't have it it's like here at Tesla we've always tried to do the right thing to make society a little bit better and that's

kind of our driving force in like every step of the missions we've gone along the way and this just feels like the next big opportunity. Yeah, it seems that way, you know, from the outside looking in and, you know, now spending some time with the team here, there's

always like this this broader purpose behind the what, you know, and and I think that's pretty clear for most of the product lines. Even every time Elon says something like, "Yeah, we're going to go to Mars," he's got this sort of

there's conviction.

There's conviction behind it, right? And

and that conviction means leadership.

The leadership means culture and and the way that the culture is, it's enabling a product like we see behind us, you know?

I I'm curious when the the original Teslas came out, the the Model S came out, even the Roadster a little bit before that, but then it like broke the rating system in Consumer Reports because it was so good. And like all

these things happened very quickly. All

the OEMs when Bevs be came around, you know, as a benchmarking services company, they're like, "What's Tesla doing? What's it was like on every slide

doing? What's it was like on every slide we needed to have like a Tesla answer box, you know, so that we [laughter] could try to explain what what Tesla did." Um, I think this could be the same

did." Um, I think this could be the same way, you know, for the the ride hail space, for the AV space because I I'm I struggle with the like the unit economics of, you know, and

Whimo's going to go public and they're huge company. I think that's a big

huge company. I think that's a big enough machine. It's going to keep

enough machine. It's going to keep moving, you know, but folks like Zuks or Lucid and the the neuro relationship. I

struggle to see how those economics are going to compete with something like this when it's so efficient. You

mentioned some quick stats. I think

50%ish reduction in the floor space.

You're you're not even having to run every day because the line's so efficient. 35 main stations, 60% part

efficient. 35 main stations, 60% part count reduction. Like these are

count reduction. Like these are formidable statistics.

Yeah. It's a it's not a it's not a like incremental change.

No, no, no. It's a step level change.

And obviously the Cyber Truck was sort of a step level change in the off factor like oh my god, it's all stainless steel. This is a step level change. And

steel. This is a step level change. And

I would argue the efficiency, the cost efficiency, the throughput efficiency side of it. I think that there's going to be a lot of attention on this from other OEMs andor Whimos of the world.

Yeah. I mean, I think I think when I think have those thoughts going through my head, what I'll say is, you know, Eric pointed out like we own literally in some cases the raw material like we

have, you know, our lithium refineries and like the cathode manufacturing all and the we talked about the recycled aluminum and plastic. So we go we start there and then we own it all the way to the consumer experience on the phone and

the infrastructure all the way in between. When I think about why we're

between. When I think about why we're the only one that is really going to be able to do this is, you know, we build the car, service the car, we have the charging, we have the infrastructure

that like no one else has. And so it's going to be really hard to to compete with that. And ultimately for the

with that. And ultimately for the consumer, it's just going to come down to cost per mile.

Yeah. And like if you can give give them a better service like at a lower cost per mile, it's it's really going to be difficult to beat us. And I think we've

been do like we've been, you know, playing this game for a long time.

We've been getting ready for a long time. It's not like we just showed up

time. It's not like we just showed up today and said, "Okay, here's a here's a I have an idea."

Right? Um we've been building we have the largest charging network in the world. we have, you know, service

world. we have, you know, service centers and collision centers all over the place ready to, you know, change over. And I think it's going to be a

over. And I think it's going to be a real hard point for the rest of the automotive industry and and for anyone else trying to compete. But, you know, I do like we've always wanted everyone to succeed in the EV space. We all, you

know, we want people to succeed in the AV space because it's a safer world. Um,

you know, with more AVs out there. And

so I I mean I wish them all the well well to get there but uh it's going to be a tough battle.

It's going to be very tough. I I feel certain about that.

Yeah. I I think just a couple things to add. The the culture of Tesla is one in

add. The the culture of Tesla is one in which we can move so fast and that means when we look at the product itself, we are improving things week over week. Not

just on the software side which is uh you know that's possible changing code week over week but like we're also doing things on the hardware side that manufacturing side

and the manufacturing side uh and and generally on the orchestration the customer side like making the product better the vertical integration gives us so much capability and as LE said we basically been preparing for this moment

for the last two decades right the charging infrastructure the service infrastructure the engineering design uh all of that got us to this point the supply chain

the supply chain uh and so that that foundation a lot of people just think we just got into this game of autonomous vehicles it's like no we started this many many years ago and it's all

contributing to that uh and so we're just excited because the response we've got in Austin is insane like if you go walk around downtown you literally will see four cabs in a matter of 30 seconds

no matter what direction you look and we expect that to be you know just the start it'll get far more dense than that from a charging persp perspective. The

infrastructure is clear and Tesla started with that and has been the leader in the charging infrastructure since its origin. What do you what do you view as the opportunity or the

hurdle from a charging perspective? Like

did you consider inductive charging to pull over and you know I mean there's a huge inefficiency from a physics perspective there but there could be a benefit in terms of the utility for sure. I I think you know we're

for sure. I I think you know we're always looking at ways to improve but one of the things you mentioned is like we have this infrastructure. Yeah,

we have to utilize it. It's hard to change over like to a new um automated way, but like we have a charge port because we know we're going to need to use the the infrastructure we have.

Hopefully, Optimus will help us with that shortly. Um but then, you know, we

that shortly. Um but then, you know, we are looking at more automated ways with our expansion of infrastructure that the car the cab is like pre-built and ready for. Um

for. Um and I think that that that will you know be the step change to not requiring uh you know a human or or or optimist to to plug it in.

So so do you feel that humanoids um as one of their many possible use cases Optimus as an example will be an enabler for this fleet? It'll be like hand you'll be plugging these in. Optimus is

going to go and service the car.

Yeah. you know, might service the car, might add in the delivery space, you know, like we we well, I mean, the whole physical AI world is going to come upon us very very quick.

And you know, you think of Cyber Cab, Optimus, and Robo Van, like that trifecta will be incredible.

Well, then you add semi to it for like for long.

What is Tesla becoming? Maybe we're a transportation company. Maybe, you know,

transportation company. Maybe, you know, it's it's a in redefining how that everyone thinks of that. Do everyone

everyone likes to talk about AI.

Physical AI is now becoming, you know, I think the new buzz term.

It's right there. It's here. [laughter]

What do you think, you know, there there's all these unintended consequences, good or bad, some of which are sitting behind us um on the good side for sure. What do what do you think

is going to like be the plateau point for this physical AI thing? Like what if you were to fast forward 10 years? I

mean, is it a Tesla semi-truck autonomously driven dropping these off in a city them autonomously getting out with a bunch of Optimus in them and then they all deliver your food from a automated restaurant? I

mean, I mean like Yeah. Yeah. I think I think the limitation to to that kind of effort is scale.

Yeah.

You know, I think one of the you know, we talked about some of the other people in the space in the autonomous vehicle space like we have a scale they can't even possibly imagine yet. And it took

us, you know, 20 years to to get here.

And we've probably grown in scale faster than most companies in in the history. Like I think I saw a plot one time ago um when you look at

like the our production of EVs over time, like the only thing that went faster was the iPhone, you know, like just and it's like, well, oh jeez, that's, you know, only this big. Um, and

so I think I think the the limiting factor will be at some level the least lucky part of the entire chain. And like I mean part could be a physical component. We showed

you all our vertical integration. We try

to cut that off wherever we can, but like everyone's going to run into either a part or infrastructure limit or a uh, you know, parking spot limit. And so I

think whoever has the advantage of scale will will be the leader in that space and then you know it's I think the limiter

will be different city by city and location by location because they all have their own you know infrastructure type limits.

I also think just to add one real quick thing I think energy is at some point energy will be eliminated.

Energy is energy is I think a very important aspect of the future in this physical AI world. even data center energy, right? Like

energy, right? Like yeah, even you look at what data centers are doing today and you think of the scale of of of really the the physical AI being run from data centers and then

being charged and recharged every day to be productive, [snorts] maximize productivity. I mean we as a country

productivity. I mean we as a country need to really think about energy like solar is huge. Why are we investing so much in solar? because same reason it's energy like energy is the key to that physical

AI future that creates this mass increase in overall productivity um and the more efficient you are like this vehicle or even like even the compute on this vehicle is more efficient than you

know other AVs out there like what they're doing in the back of the which at scale relate to how much it needs to consume from the grid its own range yeah it own range right other feature I

mean it the ripple effect as As we say in like the the if you're a brake guy and you make rotors and calipers, weight begets weight. You

know, he have your vehicle means to have your caliper.

I mean, this is one of the things that like I love weight. I love talking about mass, but [laughter] like it takes a intense conviction on mass.

Yeah.

To not end up with a vehicle that weighs too much. You have to have everyone

too much. You have to have everyone believe that the vehicle is going to weigh 1,600 kilos, you know, and say it's 1,600. and the crash team doesn't

it's 1,600. and the crash team doesn't add their 20% margin and the brakes team doesn't add their 20% margin. It's like

no it's 1,600. Like I actually remember when we did this, you probably do too. I

was like, if it doesn't break between 95 and 100% of the spec, you failed.

Yeah.

Because it's easy to get from 95 to 103.

Right.

The envelope will never be pushed if no one says it's okay to push.

Yeah.

Right. It's it's got to be encouraged.

You know, I we've been more than I've ever seen before at Monroe asked, "Hey, intense cost pressure. or China this uh supply chain etc etc and I don't think

we're going to compete with the Chinese on cost if we don't have mass innovation you know I I people I think think of Monroe and they're like you're a tear down company you're cost company I I

would argue and submit that we're an innovation company as much as the next because innovation that that's innovation that's how you get there like we we've been able to compete on cost globally because we've done all of these things because you've innovated

and and like you know we we still have a massive market share in China with all those people that you know you're you're mentioning the car companies and it's like how do you do that? Well, you make the product as efficient as it can be

from manufacturing process all the way the to the the end consumer and like then it's just like okay labor rates are different in different countries but like there you know we we are heavily

automated even in China right you know it's not like we're we're playing the manh hours game there and um I think that that you know for the rest of not just automotive but other

industries to keep going and growing they have to keep chipping away at the innovative ideas that reduce the bomb cost and increase efficiency.

Like our prices have gone down every year, right? And

right? And despite all the things you mentioned, right, which I think your OEM friends in the world are like really upset about that. [laughter]

that. [laughter] So I've got three three last questions.

So one is um if you're talking to a startup out there and obviously Tesla was at one point a startup and it's very difficult. You said 20 years is a scale

difficult. You said 20 years is a scale roadmap and now I mean look at the facility we're in. It's obvious. What

what are the recommendations that you would give someone if they were a startup in today's environment and they wanted to go and build their version of a bev vehicle because we've supported a hundred since 2020.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's a difficult space.

It's a very difficult space. I think you know with any startup there has to be some my opinion is like you have to have like certain level of conviction in what you're going to do and it has to permeate through everyone you hire and

like you have to be at that scale at that early stage everyone's got to be 195% bought in you know like and if they're not they're out and like it was early days of Tesla it

was like it was I don't want to call it a blood bath but it was like if you're not in you're out and there's no like in between. There's no middle gray. And so,

between. There's no middle gray. And so,

like, I think if I was advising a startup, it's like be ruthless about the idea you have, the concept, and the vision you're going for, and the people you're employing to try and make it real.

Yeah.

And about all of it. Be ruth ruthless about cost. And like, you have to kind

about cost. And like, you have to kind of be all in on that respect. And, you

know, whether it's a bee or or or, you know, an AV or or a humanoid robot or whatever, that that ruthless mentality has to be there. And I don't mean be mean. You don't have to be mean about

mean. You don't have to be mean about it, but like you have to be kind of cutthroat.

And the other thing is like there's always an element of luck. You know, we came in, you know, right at the time that the automotive industry was kind of on a downturn. You know, there was a

downturn. You know, there was a availability of talent, you know, that might not have been there. Equipment we

got, you know, new me from Toyota pretty cheap, you know, and so sometimes you need some luck.

Yeah. you know, and like you can't create luck, but um you know, luck is opportunity and preparation um meeting together. And so if you're prepared and

together. And so if you're prepared and you're ruthless and the opportunity arises, you'll make your own luck.

Yeah. And I like to say focus as well.

Sure.

I I think you add those things and then you tell because I've we've worked with startups and companies trying to do stuff and if they're not focused, they can be ruthless, but if they're trying to do 10 things at once, Yeah. you got to do one thing good.

Yeah. you got to do one thing good.

You got to do one thing well. Yeah.

That's great. So last two questions.

feel like I know the answer I'm gonna get. But when can we get a cyber cab and

get. But when can we get a cyber cab and when can we get an Optimus to go and tear down? [laughter]

tear down? [laughter] Uh not yet.

Um yeah, I mean the cyber cab, we're going to keep that one close. We Yeah,

we hope the you guys coming out here, you saw some of this some of the stuff we're doing inside and uh yeah, and uh Optimus is uh even tighter than that. So

that. So it's worth noting on cab and Optimus will be the same way. can tell already with the V3 kind of concept is like this car is going to be progressively improved at a rapid rate and we're

taking customer feedback every day.

We're working that back into like what do we want to do to to make it make it that car that will satisfy 80% of miles driven every year.

Yeah.

And so to do that we have to be very critical of ourselves and make sure both on the software firmware and on the hardware side.

Yes. Yes. And on the hardware side, like we're listening to people every day that are coming because like we beg for feedback from people like tell us what you want us to do.

I met so many people the other last night and they were like I cyber cabin was awesome. I was like what was wrong?

was awesome. I was like what was wrong?

[laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Tell tell me all the things

Yeah. Yeah. Tell tell me all the things that are wrong. Yeah. No, I I got it.

Well, there's a lot of boring things like flying cars going on at Tesla. So,

it's uh it's been a joy to walk through the uh the plant. Thank you for spending the time and wish you nothing but the luck. Thanks.

luck. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it,

guys. Thanks for being here. Take care.

See you everybody.