Seb: 0:00

Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Tesla Motors Club podcast. My name is Seb.

Doug: 0:05

I'm Doug.

Mike: 0:05

And I'm Mike,

Seb: 0:07

On today's episode, we'll talk about the October Cybercab event, because we haven't done this in a while. We'll give you a quick redux. We'll also do some updates on everything that happened since we last did a show. And then Doug took a pretty cool road trip to see Starship launch out of Texas. Episode 70 starts now. Gentlemen, I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

Doug: 0:31

I'm still full of turkey or whatever. Actually, I had minimal amount of turkey this year, but I'm kind of stuffed with ham these days. So how are you guys doing?

Seb: 0:41

Good

Mike: 0:42

well. Went roast beef this year instead of turkey or ham. Ha ha

Doug: 0:45

That makes so much sense., forget the turkey. It's,

Mike: 0:47

ha.

Doug: 0:47

not, it's just not, that good.

Seb: 0:49

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

Doug: 0:52

It's traditional.. I don't think it's overrated. I think most people don't really like it.

Seb: 0:56

It tends to be dry, you know, if it's not made well,

Mike: 0:59

You're just not doing it right, that's all.

Seb: 1:01

Maybe, maybe. Well guys, I mentioned it in the intro, it's been a while since we've done the

Mike: 1:07

It has been.

Seb: 1:08

and I feel like we've learned a couple of details, new things since the CyberCab reveal in October. One of them, an update to FSD. So Doug, bring us up to speed, like what happened since, like how do we look at the event now?

Doug: 1:23

the event was kind of interesting when we watched it., we did a live stream that was pretty well attended., but, there were very little actual details. Elon had delayed the thing by 2 months., , that gave us the sense that, oh, he's really trying to have something to show., they did it at, Warner Brothers, but there were no real details. when is this thing actually going to be available?, there's price suggestions, but no actual pricing., he said very little, but the things he did say were kind of strange., he rolled up in the cyber cab, which was, , kind of a gold hue sort of thing., it seemed to take some , design cues from the cyber truck, but not much, , it still had curved. lines. It had a, light bar in the front, and that single color metallic, feel but he didn't say much about it. He basically said you could sit in it and, spend more time playing with your phone.

Seb: 2:18

that's my, goal in life.

Mike: 2:20

with your phone more.

Seb: 2:20

It's just more. time on my phone.

Doug: 2:22

yeah, time like this where I feel like, , Elon is a little bit divorced from reality. He called it, mass individual transport, something like that, which is such an oxymoron. It's like saying full self driving supervised, you know? Um, I mean, mass transport is mass transport, which is like, you know, guess what? It's a bus. buses exist already. Electric buses exist already., now having nice at your beck and call point to point transport, it's equivalent to like,, an uber today without having to tip your driver. But there are very little details. And one thing that also struck me as odd was that he presented the thing as something that would be sold to individuals. we've talked before that, , it seems like they would be shifting more to selling the service as a selling a car. But, , that's not the car I would buy for myself. If I was going to get a two seater, I'd get., a fun roadster with a wheel I can turn, you know, , I don't see how, that sort of vehicle can be sold to individuals without any form of actually driving it. I mean, at some point you want it to like, park a little better or I'm trying to get into , my garage. I want it to shift a little bit to the left. I mean, I, I can't see for awhile, being able to tell the car re-park, , 10 centimeters to the left., which some people need to do., and the only thing I can think about it though, is suggesting that individuals would buy this thing to then make money for them as an automated taxi.

Seb: 3:52

It's a business. Yeah.

Doug: 3:53

It's a business. I don't really see individuals doing that., and then what about liability?, if I own it and it does something bad causes an accident or, even worse, kill somebody, , I think I'm the one liable, the passenger in the car with no controls at all? Can't be the one held liable. It has to be the owner. And I've always thought the only way any of these things could actually work is if whoever's supplying the software , and, or the hardware, meaning Tesla in this case is the one to take, , liability. I mean, certainly Waymo Google or alphabet is taking. liability if a Waymo does something wrong.

Mike: 4:30

Mercedes has taken liability for their self driving,

Doug: 4:33

but that was a very limited thing, right? It was like 30 miles an hour on a

Mike: 4:38

but nevertheless, they, sold it, So they're taking liability. They're very clear about it.

Doug: 4:42

that's the way it has to be, right? of course Elon said nothing about it,

Mike: 4:46

interesting because. At the LA car show this year, I was there the day it opened on a Friday and Tesla had a floor show for the first time in, I don't know, 12 years or so that they actually showed up

Doug: 4:58

Yeah, often they don't go to those things.

Mike: 5:00

and they had the model three and model Y, the cyber truck, but they actually had the robo taxi there. And it was interesting just kind of standing back and listening to the people as they circled around it and commented. nobody was terribly impressed with it and everybody commented only sat two people.

Doug: 5:17

Were there any Tesla representatives there

Mike: 5:20

not at the robo taxi. They were all around the cyber truck and the Y.

Doug: 5:25

It's just that I can't nail down what the thing is actually called as far as what Tesla wants to call it. even now, is it a cyber cab? is it,

Mike: 5:33

don't think they know yet.

Doug: 5:34

robo taxi, is , a more generic term, but yeah, it's two seater, which seemed odd to me.

Mike: 5:40

Well, a two seater with no room for luggage.

Seb: 5:43

I thought it had space for luggage in the trunk.

Mike: 5:45

Very small.

Doug: 5:52

to either be people or luggage. if you're, out, drinking with friends or whatever, , you're not likely to have a whole lot of stuff with you, maybe, your wallet, you know, you don't really need much else, , depending on the weather., but if you're coming from an airport, you might be more on your own and would have a suitcase to put in the back. So just seems like low hanging fruit I mean, why limit it like that? And certainly, if you're going to own it, you would want a vehicle with the versatility of either caring for people or having stuff. So

Mike: 6:18

Absolutely.

Doug: 6:19

they just decide, oh, we only need two seats. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what Tesla ends up making and selling, even though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because. Tesla tends not to change things too much , once they've decided this is what it is, , and that's probably, , Elon's leadership style.

Seb: 6:34

Well, we've, talked about it on the show before, right? I think Louis made a very passionate plea that Tesla would have to come forward and just take accountability or change definition of who's liable in the case of an accident. So we'll see if that ever happens. But , the business model is questionable from my perspective. I just don't see the appeal in buying just the cyber cab to have that drive me around. If I could get the same experience from a 3, or a Y, or an S, or a Cybertruck, right? If it's all the same,

Doug: 7:05

Probably a three is nicer than that cyber cab. and if the robo taxi, software,, actually gets there, what, version 20, you know, whichever, if we're on 13 now, think you still want to be able to control your car. Even if we look at I robot, right? The event was called we robot. And even the producer for the movie complained that, it looked like Elon had basically just copied everything from the movie to the robo van or robo van to the robots. and the car of course looked like this Audi they had. And even that, Audi had an option. you know, Will Smith is like, I'm going manual. And It

Mike: 7:46

out the wheel.

Doug: 7:46

had a steering wheel. that flicked up , that you could drive. and yeah, if I were owning it, I would want that., and I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla did something like that, given that, they've shown a trend towards steer by wire. Again, Will Smith. It could even be like, in some Men in Black movie, they had a car and it was driven with a, PS2 controller

Seb: 8:07

Oh, that's right. That's right. Well, to your point, that might actually make the case for the yoke, because with that form factor, you could hide it in the dash. A full wheel would be hard to conceal. A yoke, you could probably,

Doug: 8:19

even rotate and just slide into a slot. Right?

Seb: 8:22

I like that. Mm hmm. I like that.

Doug: 8:24

I saw it in some movie. It's not like I'm making it up.

Seb: 8:26

Yeah. Well, not to be too negative about the event either, right? I think that it was an interesting, futuristic vision. We've criticized certain points in the last few episodes, but one of the things that were rumored is that the cars themselves may have been running FSD version 13, which is now out, right? Dirty Tesla, who's been on the show, I think was one of the first ones to publish a video. So did you guys look at those videos yet? Do you have, the version yet?

Mike: 8:54

I do not. I've tried three times to get the car to download something new, and it's refused me every time.

Doug: 9:00

I noticed that it's the YouTubers, Those are the people that got it first.

Seb: 9:04

Hmm.

Mike: 9:05

Yeah. I'm definitely not on that list.

Doug: 9:08

just sort of wondering how well distributed , this is. But Mike, you do have a car with hardware 4,

Mike: 9:13

I do.

Doug: 9:13

I, only have hardware three., Mike: but actually that's it. Good point because the hardware for folks will be getting the new 13. The hardware three folks are kind of left in the cold as it were for some indeterminate amount of time. And that switch happened with 12, didn't it?

Mike: 9:29

kind of.

Doug: 9:30

where the hardware people got version 12 before the hardware 3. I

Mike: 9:34

We got it first. Yeah.

, Doug: 9:36

it used to be that it seemed like everything was written for us hardware 3 folks, but now it's the opposite. Everything is written for the hardware 4 folks, and then they have to, try to squeeze it down into whatever our resources are. So does it speak the end for us? Elon did have , a statement back at the, Q3 earnings call. Yeah. It's been a while since we did a show back in the Q3 earnings call. it did come up as a question and , he said we don't yet. know. So at least he's admitting they promised before that hardware 3 had everything it needed. And so this is the 1st time he admitted that, "Okay, we don't know." And of course, they don't know. They don't know. about hardware 4 either.

Mike: 10:14

was thinking about this a little bit, Doug, and let me bounce this off you., if I waS a hardware 3 car, and I wanted to go up to hardware 4, it's not just the computer, it's also the cameras that have to be upgraded., It's not just one component, it's the whole package.

Doug: 10:31

What he said was that, if it turned out that hardware three did not have what was needed for proper FSD, then that, people like me, and I assume it's just people that paid for FSD, years past, would get a free upgrade. It's not clear to me what that upgrade would mean. He did allude to the cameras. He suggested that the cameras are good enough And I guess by saying that, you would just need a new computer he said it's designed to be modular.

Mike: 10:59

If they're good enough, then why go through all the trouble of upgrading the cameras on hardware four?

Doug: 11:04

well, I wouldn't say that's a whole lot of trouble. I mean, it's that there are better cameras available and it just makes sense, as you're installing new, if only for , the fact that people use , the dash cam feature. I would definitely like to have higher resolution, better cameras because of times at night I've been victim of hit and run

Mike: 11:23

Yep. It couldn't quite make out the license plate.

Doug: 11:26

I don't know if current cameras are good enough yet, but they might be, , I had some sense that version 13 was taking advantage of the better resolution cameras. So.. I wouldn't be surprised,, given the way I think I understand that vector space of where stuff is, , it probably doesn't need better resolution, , better resolution might make it safer for some things, , but I don't think it's necessarily necessary. The question is, if it turns out that hardware three is not able to do robo taxi how do you, , cost efficiently get us to be capable?, certainly you could put another computer in, but I think that computer would have to be specially designed because the connectors are all different now.

Mike: 12:08

They are. Form factor is completely different.

Doug: 12:10

And now are you talking about building an ASIC, application,, specific, , I C, just for hardware three update people. Does that make sense over giving us some huge discount on a new car, for example. Paying the same price and then just being able to transfer FSD wouldn't be enough at that point, right?

Mike: 12:30

here's a question for you from a business point of view, let's say Elon's right. And he's going to offer an upgrade path to the hardware three folks. Who's he going to offer it to? Is it going to be everybody? Or is it just going to be people that bought FSD? That's a much smaller population. And that's going to drive up the per unit cost for the upgrade. At some point, , not worth it.

Doug: 12:53

if they make it, it would certainly only be free for the people that paid for it. If you went through the trouble of making it. They might offer it for people to buy it.

Mike: 13:01

they might, they have in the past.

Doug: 13:03

if they have to do it anyway, they might do that. They'd have to price it just right though, they, constantly are trying to encourage people to buy new, they're pretty good about doing their pricing and stuff. So I'm sure , they'll find that optimal space., and they've done similar things in the past. Paying for making a mistake beforehand., I would say the comparison would be for, the original roadster that first delivered 2008 or so. They made a promise. You could basically buy this, , battery replacement program if you were concerned that your battery was gonna die and not last so long, you could pay. But it was totally a cash grab. It was like, they needed money right then for the company. similar to how they, , cut the price of FSD and I bought it, at a FOMO price, it's basically free money right now for something that you're promising later., and, it was maybe underpriced, but you could pay that money now with the promise. That, some years down the line, there would be a replacement battery available., eventually they did have to develop that replacement battery because they made, that promise and people paid for it., and obviously , there are only so many roadsters, , total made so, I'm not sure what the numbers are, how many, Hardware 3 vehicles are out there, how many of them paid for FSD, but, , it's something to think about. At least it's somewhat reassuring that he's on record during an earnings call saying that he'll make us whole. The question is how they actually do it. Do they do a good job of it or do they just do the bare minimum for legal purposes

Seb: 14:28

According to chat GPT, only 2500 units of the original roadster were sold, which is kind of insane that that's what started it all.

Doug: 14:37

That sounds about right. It really was a niche vehicle. It was very expensive. about 100 K. Literally, , a lot of people got the original Roaster because it was the only EV you could actually buy., and then by 2010 you had , the Chevy Volt and there was the Nissan Leaf. And even though, those are somewhat limited vehicles, particularly in the first, generation, , they were a lot cheaper than, a hundred K two seater,

Seb: 14:59

I did want to mention, by the way, as we're talking about how many roadsters were sold. Recently, was it late October? I think Tesla has surpassed 7 million vehicles produced over the company's lifetime. Isn't that, the milestone?

Mike: 15:13

Yeah. it's impressive.

Doug: 15:14

And the model Y has, for multiple quarters been the best selling vehicle, , in the world, I think. which is pretty impressive.

Seb: 15:21

Mm hmm.

Doug: 15:22

Before we completely go off from that cyber cab event, the other half of it was Optimus, it was called the We Robot event, right? So here's the real robots., at the time when we watched the thing, they had the robots interacting with people there was a robot that was serving drinks. They're walking around and they're doing dances . And, , to me, they were clearly being remotely operated,, particularly when they started talking,?, they're like talking to the And they're, being coy about it.

Seb: 15:50

They're like, no.

Doug: 15:54

and so since then, , my suspicion has been proved out that they definitely were remote operated, though. I did get, , quite a bit of hate , , in comments. I'm like, okay, clear things remotely operate. What do you mean? Clearly? you're expressing an opinion. Like, I'm expressing,

Mike: 16:07

An educated

Doug: 16:08

an educated opinion based on what I see. Um, and there were a few videos the , not unbiased, , let me just say, , Tesla fan boy type folks, which, it's fine to be a fan or whatever, but they were like, wow, this thing is talking to me and so intelligent. I'm like, dude, come on. You realize that's just somebody, talking through the thing. and was eventually, , proven out. But why? still impressive if it's being teleoperated., the wonders of the hardware and the amount of dexterity and whatnot. even if it's remote operated, I'm sure that it had, pre programmed motions that the operator could just, it's like a macro, you know, that you press and then run

Mike: 16:46

was having flashbacks to Word Perfect with macros when you said

Seb: 16:49

And Excel.

Doug: 16:51

every time I did a dance, if it did, some kind of, hula dance that was clearly just press a button and it does it. so, , that's fine. But why not just be honest about it? All I can think is that Actually, the whole event was about selling dream or a vision of the future. So here's the vision and like you go to the movies, you know, you suspend disbelief , and there's a little bit of movie magic that makes things look real , even though they're not real. And maybe that was the idea,, just to give that sense. But,

Mike: 17:21

Well, they were on the movie set.

Doug: 17:23

feel like they should have been a little more straightforward of it. Now there was a video that came out on Thanksgiving, showing Optimus, catching a ball. It said, I got a new hand for Black Friday does look like maybe it's a different hand. It has kind of a glove over it. So you can't really see, the mechanism so much.

Mike: 17:40

It's Velcro.

Seb: 17:41

Yeah.

Doug: 17:44

just to describe the video, someone's toughing like a tennis ball to Optimus and then Optimus is catching it rather adroitly. Um, , then looks to the side and sort of nods some of those motions feel like it's tele operated. but the catching, I would find the catching a little bit more impressive if that is tele operated because that means it has to be relatively low latency. But it seems to me you could just program, okay, catch a ball. To me, that's, , a less impressive thing that robots have been doing for decades.

Mike: 18:11

it's standing upright. That's impressive itself.

Seb: 18:14

because it has to balance, you

Mike: 18:15

Trying to keep balance as you're moving. Yeah.

Doug: 18:18

Yeah. but that's been a somewhat solved problem. Any tele operation has to be a hybrid type thing because it has to be able to sense on its own how do I maintain balance., in fact, at the, We Robot event, every time you saw someone talking with the robot, its feet were just planted and, it would do its little dance. The part of that little dance . , , there's got to be something to maintain balance,

, Seb: 18:41

at the moment, it's, a great demo of the actuators. Like no doubt the technology, the way it's put together, the way it looks, it's impressive.. But I'm not a fan of the whole selling it as if this thing is going to come out next month,

Doug: 18:55

I've seen more impressive robots from other companies that have been doing for longer. I think the main interesting thing about Tesla doing it is that they are more likely than anybody else to actually just sell it to normal people And are plenty of Tesla fans that would buy it as it is right now, you know, not able to do much and then get occasional software updates. Oh, now I can hula dance. Oh, now it can catch a ball. you'll be waiting for the equivalent of FSD on your optimus,

Mike: 19:23

Hula dancing robot.

Doug: 19:25

waiting for it to be more autonomous. You're waiting for it to be able to, walk upstairs on its own or and then we'll all be so impressed like we legitimately are with their own cars. It can actually go in reverse now when it couldn't before, , that would be part of the original promise, but when you get little features dripped out to you and it's getting steadily better. You're probably a bit more,, accepting of that and maybe even more excited,

Seb: 19:47

Mm hmm. Mm

Doug: 19:48

there was a comment. said, see Mark Rober and the basketball hoop.

Seb: 19:51

yeah, that's impressive.

Doug: 19:53

my, point is that it's been done in undergrad robotics classes for decades now is, , you see a couple frames of the ball moving and, you know, the basic parabolic equation and you can predict pretty quickly where it's going to be and then, , move whatever hand to catch it., and yeah, the Mark Rober, basketball hoop, basically the hoop moves where the ball is going to be so that you can't miss the hoop. Right. So this is a similar

Seb: 20:15

hmm.

Doug: 20:16

programming wise. That's not, , impressive, outside of, uh, an undergrad class. So,

Seb: 20:21

I'm going to get on my soap box for just a second. I think that the interesting commonality between Optimus and the Cybercab for me is that it seems like there's solutions in search of a problem to a certain extent. Cause when Tesla started, what got me attracted was the idea of. Accelerating the transition to renewable transportation. I think that was the mission statement, right? And now with CyberCab and Optimus, you know, if there was a real business case for Tesla to start using these kinds of robots in their warehouses, they could buy them technically from Boston Dynamics, right? If there was such a compelling business case. But rather, it seems like they're building these in anticipation of some new technology. Futuristic vision of the future that, you know what I mean? It's like, it's cool, no doubt, but I just, it feels different from how they started as a company. Right. I, bought into the early vision

Doug: 21:18

I have some feelings about some of that. I would say that Tesla succeeded, In terms of, Accelerating the advent of EVs. I don't know when it would be that we'd have, , an EV that normal people could buy. If not for Tesla,

Seb: 21:32

agreed.

Doug: 21:33

because they really, pushed it forward. And, Elon Musk, personally is probably responsible for a lot of that. whereas, okay, , for one thing, these kind of robots on the assembly line make. Next to no sense. What makes sense are those KUKA, robots that do purpose things. Tesla, it's their philosophy to be very vertically integrated. There's also not necessarily a positive thing, but there is a not-invented-here kind of culture. where, they don't want to do things the way other people do things, you can have that, , concept of starting from first principles, but you don't always have to reinvent the wheel. And I've seen them get bit a few times with that attitude. There was a time when, service was a complete mess because nobody knew, , what was going on. And a friend of mine, a Tesla employee explained to me that, , Tesla had been licensing some software that organized service and then somebody. probably Elon decided that we should just have our own software.

Mike: 22:32

We can do it better.

Doug: 22:32

wrote their own software. But, their own software didn't work so well yet, but they had also stopped paying, for the, existing, you know, this is such a solved problem, right? There's so many, , car dealerships out there have, service and they have all their, service stuff dealt with some software and Tesla decided to reinvent the wheel there. Now, , probably by now, . It's pretty good they have a fast feedback cycle so they can , , iterate and make it better for themselves. But, Anyway, that's, part of Tesla's culture. and then the other thing is Elon, I feel like he gets bored and he wants to you know, he wants to do what's fancy, what's interesting. he wants to. Be the center of conversation. that's why he wants, , his own AI company, , his own, , social media company, , and he gets to control it and be the center of attention there.

Seb: 23:18

Well, since you touched on Twitter, why don't we talk about that for a second, but did see a comment in the chat. Somebody was saying that Optimus was built so that we could colonize Mars more easily. That's actually a fair point given how Elon operates, right? That might be a driving factor in, Maybe prioritizing that product over a different one.

, Doug: 23:37

these are things that Elon says about a lot of stuff, , they sort of promoted the Cybertruck as being, something you could drive on Mars. I'm sorry, you can't drive that thing on Mars. All

Seb: 23:46

that's

Doug: 23:47

work in that low , of a pressure though maybe a modified version might,

Seb: 23:51

Also, trying to get it there may be a little bit complicated, no?

Doug: 23:54

Oh, he's working on

Seb: 23:55

Yeah?

Doug: 23:56

I'm pretty sure he could get that., is it 100 tons to orbit or something like that?

Seb: 24:01

Just the, the size of it, right? Like the James Webb telescope, didn't that need to be folded? And maybe they'll make a foldable Cybertruck,

Doug: 24:08

Oh, the size, rocket fairings are,

Seb: 24:10

that big?

Doug: 24:11

there are fairings big? enough to put a school bus in, and bigger. the shuttle could take a, school bus pretty much.

Seb: 24:18

I didn't realize that.

Doug: 24:20

so, yeah, Elon could get a Cybertruck into orbit if he wanted to

Seb: 24:24

Don't tempt him.

Doug: 24:25

think about how much space was left when you saw the Falcon Heavy launch, how much space was in that fairing when that fairing opened up and you saw the roadster.

Seb: 24:33

Right.

Doug: 24:33

especially with the Falcon Heavy, you could have put a Cybertruck in there, I'm pretty sure.

Seb: 24:36

Yeah, good point. Well, going back to software, one comment I did want to make is that however long it did take to build that software that they use, I think it's pretty cool that when I drive up to the service center, the gate rolls up when I approach. They have my car pulled up on the screen. They know my name. I mean, it is kind of cool, you know.

Doug: 24:54

And that's the advantage of doing stuff like that in house. but sometimes they, do that switch a little early, and that, that's Elon too. Right. He's living in the future, even though you're not ready now.

Seb: 25:04

Yeah, a hundred percent. So I know Mike, you actually mentioned that Tesla is now allowing people to buy out the car at the end of the lease.

Mike: 25:13

That's correct. As of the 27th. It was officially announced starting the 27th, that anybody with a Tesla could buy back. Their car off their lease, any Tesla, which on the surface sounds really good, except some people have been doing the math from, , 2021, 2022, , model Ys, for example, which were selling for 70, back in the day., and the residual is such that it's not worth, buying back. I mean, the math doesn't work out, so you gotta be careful., I suspect the buyback is more of attraction for people getting their leases today with the 7, 500 credit and some really cheap financing rates. But, it's also an acknowledgement, I think, from Tesla that turning Model 3s and Model Ys into Robotaxis is not going to happen, despite what we were told way back when.

Seb: 26:07

Right.

Doug: 26:08

yeah. so that was the reason that they didn't do lease buybacks. I mean, they specifically stated that, oh, these will be the robotaxis

Mike: 26:15

Right. This would be the pool we work from.

. Doug: 26:17

So they were, , optimistic that, , by the time. Two years or whatever that lease would be up, tesla would want to keep them and make all the money from using them as,, automated Ubers., so that didn't quite pan out, but, is it a good deal?, in the past, , the Tesla lease was pretty bad. I thought, , back when I was waiting for my Model 3, , I could have leased the model S for a thousand dollars a month, which. didn't make any sense given that only drove 15 miles a week or something The cost per mile would have been ridiculous.

Mike: 26:46

but it's a status symbol, think, of all the attraction of, the opposite sex. You could get

Doug: 26:51

yeah, um, yeah, I could use my money more efficiently if that was the goal. So they're buying the lease back like any normal car company or dealership , would do now. Am I interpreting that

Mike: 27:02

Pretty much. Pretty much. There is a, I think it's a $350 fee. To initiate the buyout. Yeah, it seems to be pretty straightforward. You go to your app, tell Tesla that you want to buy it back. You pay your fee and you're off and running just paperwork and financing at that point.

Doug: 27:17

Is it a good deal? I guess, it's a car that you're familiar with and you want to keep it. But part of the reason to lease at all is to, you, get the next car, right?

Mike: 27:25

Of course. I think people are leasing cause want the new tech,

Doug: 27:29

I would probably still make the argument of that people that are sort of new to EVs might want to lease just because the technology is moving fairly quickly in though I've had my car since 2018 and, pretty happy with it, and I've driven, , older model s's. I just love them. I'm like, this is a great car.

Mike: 27:47

you don't find them a harsh ride.

Seb: 27:48

I like that.

Mike: 27:49

My, father in law's got a 2016 and it's

Seb: 27:52

Yeah.

Mike: 27:53

harsh.

Doug: 27:53

that's what I'm used to. I'm used to feeling the road.

Seb: 27:56

I like it too. look. don't think I'm the average Tesla owner at this point anymore because I've had the car for so long. planning to keep it until my kids don't fit in the jump seats, right? Because my car still has those. That's a big reason I'm keeping it. To be honest, though, the plaid And the new long range after the facelift, they feel a little bit too soft to me. again, I'm not the average buyer, right. But I like that. Mine's a little more raw. It's got the big wheels. It's got a different suspension. I miss that feeling. You know, I felt too disconnected from the road in direct comparison. Obviously they're awesome cars, right? So that's only my criticism because I'm used to my current vehicle.

Doug: 28:36

the difference is, if I'm being driven, I probably would like it to be a little bit softer. if I'm the one driving, I want to feel more connected to the road., these days, , I have an elderly father and especially around the holidays, I'm driving him around and every time I hit a bump, it's like, Ooh, Ooh, he's, feeling it in his old, 90 plus bones.

Mike: 28:58

Yep.

Seb: 28:59

Yeah.

Doug: 28:59

so yeah, in those instances, I like to be softer and especially since I'm using Or FSD more. it would be nice to be a little softer, but yeah, when I'm driving, I want to feel it. So I guess it's, , something for having adjustable suspension or whatever. But, yeah, I like, you know, a tight car. Again, I was driving little, roadsters for 20 years.

Seb: 29:21

Go cart. Yeah.

Doug: 29:22

yeah, basically go karts

Seb: 29:23

Yeah. Well, it's nice to have the option to buy the car. Leasing to me has always been more about the business value, right? If you have your own business, you can lease it, write it

Mike: 29:33

right. off.

Seb: 29:33

And then if you wanted to, you could purchase the vehicle at the end of the lease, which I, I think it's nice to have the option.

Mike: 29:40

some of the numbers I saw were like Model Ys in particular, they were going for 70, 000 when they leased them. The car is only worth about 26 right now, maybe 28. And there's still a 40, 000 payout, for the car. If you want to buy it makes zero

Seb: 29:55

Yeah,

Mike: 29:55

that car back.

Seb: 29:56

Very true. Depends on the vehicle for sure., but with the announcement to now be able to buy the leases, the other announcement, I just saw a comment in the chat was that, there's going to be some changes about the EV tax incentive.

Mike: 30:10

yes.

Seb: 30:12

We talked about this before, right? I think the comment was by electrified light, something, Um, , why is Elon okay with that tax credit going away?

Mike: 30:22

I'm not sure he is okay with it. Other than the fact that he knows it would hurt his competition.

Doug: 30:27

Yeah. A couple of reasons., Tesla does better at selling EVs than any other company, currently selling in the U s

Mike: 30:34

They got the , highest margin of anybody.

Doug: 30:36

right. Certainly they do optimize for that. Rebate when it's available., but if it wasn't available, yeah, probably Tesla would sell fewer cars, but have some space to reduce the price So it hurts them less here's a bigger question., and I guess this is a California thing. If the zero emission, , credits went away, cause that's another spot where Tesla makes quite a bit to be able to sell those to other companies. but yeah, so the federal rebate going away, it probably hurts others more than it hurts Tesla. Then again, if the incoming administration is likely to get rid of the credits, they're probably also likely to get rid of the mandates as well. though California has their own level of control because , they tend to drive the market.

Mike: 31:19

yeah, think California is the underlying story of, that tax credit with the fifth largest economy of the world. they can dig deep and given the fact there's no level loss between our governor and Elon. You know, between Tesla moving their headquarters to Texas and some of the other threats that Elon's made, I think the governor just kind of,, said, yeah, we're done with this.

Doug: 31:42

what you're referring to is that California is proposing to what expand their rebate.

Mike: 31:49

They'll offer a credit. to replace the federal credit if it's removed for everybody except Tesla.

Doug: 31:55

I don't know if there's any legal limitations to how they can do that., But, if the attitude is that we don't need it and then, , then it's money that, California spending, then why, , why give it to tesla? But, , , you know, I'm with 2 minds of it, terms of fairness and I still think tesla is the best car and I want, people to be able to buy it. I mean, I know plenty of people that are just sort of on the edge of being able to afford these things

Mike: 32:19

But I think, this ties back to something we've talked about , in a past podcast where Elon. Tesla are so tied to one another now that when people get irritated with Elon, they automatically get irritated with Tesla. We're seeing more and more pushback about people not buying Teslas because of Elon Not 'cause there's anything wrong with the car. just don't wanna be associated with Elon.

Seb: 32:47

People do say that. Yeah, I always do wonder how much that actually impacts the sales numbers, because clearly something's still working for

Mike: 32:54

it's enough for people to notice.

Seb: 32:56

But I have friends who have said that to me,

Doug: 32:58

anecdotally, I've., heard of people , selling the car, not wanting to give, , him any more money. And this goes back a ways. I mean, back again with the original roadster. Tesla raised the price and then Elon strangely tried to blame a customer for it. It was just that the customer,, relayed that information in a way that all of us could understand as opposed to the way, Tesla wanted to. sort of a sly thing to do what they did was they raised the price by making things that were standard with the car and they turned them into extra cost options. So it effectively raised the cost of the car by, say 6, 000, somewhere in that ballpark., and then, , some people felt really burned by that , and back then, back in 2009 or so when this happened, , they were like, I'm never buying another Tesla vehicle I don't know if they've changed their minds since,

Mike: 33:45

Yeah. Well,

Doug: 33:46

Tesla still, I think is the coolest stuff out there, in my opinion, depending what you want, you know, I mean, there are competitors, I think Rivian's doing some nice things if you want a truck but, um, If California only gave rebates to non Tesla vehicles, probably Tesla would still be selling pretty well. I wouldn't think it would hurt them that badly. And if it's a more efficient way of using California funds, maybe that's the way should be.

Mike: 34:11

yeah, think it's more PR than anything right now., although it was interesting when I went test drove the Rivian 3 weeks ago., I was talking to the salesman about it and he said they'd actually brought in extra staff. The handle, the uptick in test drives, and it was almost all Tesla people showing up either wanted to get rid of the current Tesla or were trying to figure out whether they were going to buy the Tesla or buy something else.

Seb: 34:38

Hmm. That's interesting.

Mike: 34:40

it was very few people that were new to the EV.

Seb: 34:43

Mm hmm

Doug: 34:43

Well, it definitely feels personal in some way. Elon has insulted, , the California governor plenty of times. it's one thing, to just talk about facts, but also, with Elon's platform, he does spread sadly, , misinformation and, rumors and stuff and, , Gavin Newsom has been, has been the target of that., so, that's the way you're going to treat it, stuff like that's probably going to happen, but also to say that tesla has left california. that's not the reality. I mean, , they still have the tesla factory. They still have a technology headquarters there and there's still plenty of people at, deer creek, that's where the factory is. But in palo alto on deer creek road, before they moved the headquarters to Austin, that was the headquarter. And there's still plenty of people there doing stuff. So it's, not like Tesla's really gone. If anything, it's just they sort of expanded, , elsewhere. But there's still, a plenty of a California presence, so. me, I try to look past all that stuff. Uh, you know, , I'm still, , a fan of a lot of what Tesla does and I love my car.

Seb: 35:40

Yeah. Mhm.

Doug: 35:42

I'm hoping that some of this personality stuff is, maybe just temporary or, just sort of changes with the wind when the wind blows another way, it just will go some other way. We'll see.

Seb: 35:52

Yeah, I'm with you. And I would argue, you can already see something happening, which is that there's now EVs, and then there's Teslas, right? Like, Tesla has retained its sort of brand value. Mhm. Even now that there's options, like some people just want a Tesla, you know, I would always laugh when I was a teenager. Cause I had a friend whose dad would keep buying iMacs and then install windows on them. And I'm like, okay, so I guess you just like the way these iMacs look, but you want to use windows. I think there's just some people that want to continue owning a Tesla, even when there's other options out there. but you know, I guess one more comment I saw in the chat was from a dime bags. He was saying that they're still too expensive, which is a fair point. My opinion is, I think we're just going to see Tesla keeping the prices where they are. And the average price of a new vehicle is just going to keep increasing and close the gap eventually. I think that's, what's going to happen over the next five, 15 years. I don't see the prices coming down all that much more. I think they're going to stay stable. Everything else is going to get more expensive, but that's, I mean, I'm not an economist.

Mike: 37:00

think you're right, but I think it's less than five

Doug: 37:02

that was sort of another thing that we were able to infer from the, we robot cyber cab event., because a lot of people were thinking, we're going to see that, 25, 000 vehicle and maybe the cyber cab with a steering wheel would be that vehicle. And it seems to me that, Elon or Tesla has pretty much rejected that., except that, Oh, you can buy it yourself for 30 K maybe. But I, you know, who would, if you have 30 K you're probably buying a, , Toyota Corolla maybe or something.

Mike: 37:30

Ouch.

Seb: 37:31

What's that joke you've been making for years now? The 25, 000 Tesla is?

Doug: 37:36

is the, oh, did I say that? No, it was, I didn't go that far. I think it was the 40 K Tesla is the 80 K Tesla you bought two years ago or something like that.

Seb: 37:46

Yeah, Something like

Mike: 37:48

That's some truth to that

Doug: 37:50

really hurt for, Lewis who got a model S plaid.

Mike: 37:54

Poor Lewis.

Seb: 37:56

Yeah, that price dropped from what, like 130 That hurt.

Doug: 38:00

yeah,

Seb: 38:01

sure.

Doug: 38:02

kind of

Seb: 38:03

Absolutely. Well, Tesla moved operations to Texas. There's another company that Elon runs that happens to be, , headquartered out of Texas. And I think you did a little road trip recently, Doug, to see a rocket launch.

Doug: 38:15

Yeah. So I, drove to the, , integrated flight test six, , for starship. And I drove from Maryland, and I stopped in Atlanta. It basically was a three day trip., like if you just looked it up on Google, I think without charging, it was a 22 hour drive. but you know, with charging and stuff, I did. Like 10 hours of driving and then stayed someplace. I stayed with some friends and the Atlanta area. And then I think I stopped at Beaumont, Texas, and then, got to Brownville Sunday night so yeah, it was quite, the trip. For one thing, the launch was amazing. It was extremely popular, too, since,, they were doing the catch at the first stage and that was successful in the first try on, test five. And then here's, Six, about a month later. There were so many people trying to see it. you know, , driving on my way, I've never seen so many cyber trucks. And it was the first time in a long time that I've had to wait at a supercharger because there's a line especially between Houston and Brownsville, there were a lot of people, on the same, route.

Mike: 39:15

trajectory.

Doug: 39:16

it was, something.

Seb: 39:18

Speaking of Cybertrucks, I do see them around a lot more too now. And we should mention for people who don't know that Tesla now does offer demos, test drives for the Cybertruck. I did one about a month ago., definitely interesting and fun.

Doug: 39:33

Yeah, , I stopped and chatted with several people with Cybertrucks, the test drives are available. I'll have to go get one. It's not the kind of vehicle that I need. so I won't be buying one anytime soon, but, , I definitely want to try it out and I want its technology to start filtering through, , especially the steer by wire stuff, the 48 volt , I think it's cool, but it's a little more esoteric like the user doesn't necessarily need to know about that., but the steer by wire , people would definitely be aware of and also the rear wheel steering for a tighter, turn.

Seb: 40:05

That was little interesting, by the way, when I did the test drive, , cause I guess anybody can just go and drive these things, right? And not everyone knows it's got , the rear, what do you call it? The rear steer.

Doug: 40:16

rear wheel steering.

Seb: 40:17

so when I pulled it out of the spot, somebody else had parked it before, but the thing was like totally crooked. it's almost like you're, driving. Forward into a parking spot, right? Cause you got to look in your mirrors. And as you turn the wheel, you can see the tires turning.

Doug: 40:32

Mm hmm.

Seb: 40:32

it's an interesting experience driving it for sure. You gotta, experience that for yourself.

Doug: 40:36

From what I've heard, people need to get used to it. If the rear wheels are turning, then the rear can swing out. So you have to think about that as you're maneuvering any place, tight.

Seb: 40:47

Yes.

Doug: 40:47

do they just let you take it and just drive off? Or did you have to have someone in the car? How did it work?

Seb: 40:52

they give you the, typical tutorial, right? They ask you if you've ever driven a Tesla. And since I own one, she just gave me the card and she's like, here, you go have fun,

Mike: 41:00

Have a nice day.

Seb: 41:01

bring it back in 20 minutes. I went to drive it with my son who just cracked up because of the size

Mike: 41:07

The wiper.

Seb: 41:08

of the wiper. it's just hilarious. And by the way, I'm just telling the story while you pull up the videos of the launch, if you have any

Doug: 41:15

well, let me just say, so, um, couple things. One is just the road trip. a long drive, but, , for the most part, a pleasure., my car is on, hardware 3 and I had just gotten an update to 12. 5. 4. so some of my complaints that I've talked about before were gone, but there are some new issues. for example, again, like we'd had these roads that would be 70 miles an hour, but there would be a minimum of 40 miles an hour and the previous time I made a trip like this. the car would drop the speed to 40 miles an hour. I, honestly did not have that problem this time. those signs that said minimum 40, somehow either it defaulted to whatever, , GPS data it had, or when it saw it, it maybe could resolve the word minimum or something. So that was, a whole lot better. The other thing about the trip is, , when I was on my way down there, there was, some weather that was somewhat rainy , the maximum speed for FSD would decrease, but sometimes just to be safe with all the people around me, I would need it to go faster than it was wanting to go. So I kind of had to step on the accelerator a bit., but for the most part, it was pretty good, except, I have an issue, and I think other people have talked about this, , there's still some differences between highway , , and I guess what they had called city streets at some point. And the main difference , is the speed. now there's an option, and it kept asking me to turn it on, of it sort of auto deciding what the speed offset should be. and, it was so bad at that, , either it'd be too slow or sometimes it'd be too fast or the speed limit would drop and then, but it would stay going fast. It was really kind of scary and annoying, so I switched that feature off, , and it would show , , what set point I would have, but it seemed to ignore it. So I think even though I had that feature off, it was still activated. So that was probably my biggest gripe. Separately, I came up with a hack and I've seen people on TMC talk about, and also meeting some of these cyber truck drivers. A lot of these people were, relatively new, , Tesla owners., FSD turned on for them, , relatively recently, but they don't have the experience we have of the incremental changes over the years and one thing that cyber guy was talking about was that, , at night I get this, warning driver attention detection. is unavailable. Because it's, Too dark in the cabin.

Mike: 43:37

it can't see you.

Doug: 43:38

Yeah. And I've, said before, like, gee, if they just put a little infrared illuminator in there, that would help., so thinking about this ahead of time, I got a cheap thing from, , Amazon. It's just a little, , infrared., light, it's got an array of, LEDs. I assume it's gallium arsenide, so it's probably about 940 nanometers, I would say. And, , this is designed to go , on like camera, , say if you're taking photos at night, you can get some infrared illumination now I can't really see it. I see Very faint red, but the human can see to say 700 nanometers and this is probably around 900 nanometers, but even though the sensitivity is low can still kind of see it. And so what I see is like a small red dot you probably don't want this too bright on your face, but I found that when FSD was forcing me to touch the steering wheel every few minutes because it couldn't see me I was able turn this on and it really does illuminate me in the darkness and the car is able to detect my attention or whatever so it's a little hack I mean I think I got this for 12 bucks maybe

Seb: 44:40

Nice hack.

Doug: 44:41

Have your own little, infrared illumination. You don't want it too bright in your eyes. I don't know, might be some

Seb: 44:46

Mm hmm.

Doug: 44:47

But, it seemed to be a nice , little hack, so.

Seb: 44:49

Well, they initially claimed the camera inside the vehicle was meant to keep an eye on passengers, right? for the RoboTaxi future, so you could see what's happening in your car., I guess maybe that's why they didn't add a,, IR floodlight, because they didn't expect it would be used to, monitor driver attentiveness? Mm

Doug: 45:07

originally, they didn't have it in the Model S or X. So when they first delivered the Model 3s, We just noticed that it was there, but they didn't really say anything about it. It's only been relatively recently, you know, in the past couple of years that it was, actually doing anything useful for us. Again, on my car, it seems like such an afterthought. It's mostly occluded by the mirror. It's not in a very good position. It's much better in today's cars and the hardware 4 cars., but yeah, they should have like a little infrared, light in there. I don't know why they don't already have it.. Seb: Yeah, makes sense. anyway, yeah, I went down and yeah, the launch was amazing. And I would say if you can go down to Boca Chica, Texas, do it. do it now, do it soon. do it like the next time they have a full stack there because, that level of access that you're able to get there is, it's like being able to walk around the Saturn V during Apollo.

Seb: 45:57

Mm

Doug: 45:58

you can, get on the road, you're pretty close to it., I was there, about a year ago, I think before IFT2 probably and they had a full stack and I didn't realize that actually from the beach, you can kind of walk around and get on these sand dunes and get pretty, fricking close to the thing. pretty much right up on it. Let me just try to share it a little bit here.

Mike: 46:18

Wow.

Seb: 46:19

you took that picture.

Doug: 46:20

Yeah. I took this photograph.

Mike: 46:22

That's

Seb: 46:22

That's insane.

Doug: 46:24

yeah, it's something else.

Seb: 46:25

That's amazing.

Doug: 46:26

yeah, that can't last, especially since they plan to increase the cadence, , of launches. And when I came a year ago, you were able to go to the rocket garden near star base. So just up the road, a few minutes, , towards Brownsville from this location is the factory where they're building these things. And then they bring them down to put them on the launch mount., , I think there used to be somebody's house there. So , there's a road they couldn't close down., and you could get right up, , at the rocket garden and get even closer to, like, a booster and a couple ships but now you can't get so close to it because I guess that house sold or something, so that road there would close off. Now, , Boca Chica Beach is a public beach, so the road to it is a public road, but I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future somehow SpaceX is able to take over that road, because in some ways it's a safety, national security. I mean, seriously,

Mike: 47:18

Oh yeah.

Doug: 47:19

you know, ship, and of course it wasn't fueled yet, but, nothing was really keeping me from the thing,, so, especially if they start a day, which is like the goal I can't see how you can do that and have that beach access open., but certainly it's going to be at odds with the public , it's like the people's beach, , not too far as, South Padre Island, which is where I watched from. And that's more like a resort town, whereas here you have a, beach that people just drive up on and just sort of enjoy the Gulf., but yeah, I can't see that kind of access happening forever. So, you get a, chance to go down there, I would go.

Seb: 47:56

How far back were you for the

Doug: 47:58

for the launch? I was about five miles away.

Seb: 48:00

havE you seen a space shuttle launch back in the day?

Doug: 48:03

I totally wanted to go. That's the, spacecraft of my generation. but I never got a chance. I kicked myself. I didn't make it down in 2011, to see the final launch. It was kind of hard. Though, there were so many delays and it was hard to know when it was going to get scrubbed. And I was pretty busy at the time to come from California to go to Florida. these days, if it was something as big as that, I probably would just go down there and then work from down there. I did travel out there for SLS, that might be the only time SLS launches. So, um, but maybe I'll get another chance. If Artemis two happens, I'll definitely try to go see it. But, when you go to watch something down there, I mean, you can watch it from Cocoa Beach, , to see a Cape Canaveral launch, but you can't get that close. You can go to Kennedy Space Center. But again, you don't really get that close. This is just Five miles away., and let's see if we can get some audio here.

YouTube: 48:59

Oh yeah.

Doug: 49:01

it was pretty amazing. but I would, of course I

YouTube: 49:07

Wow.

Doug: 49:07

embarrassing statements. Can you hear it?

YouTube: 49:08

Oh my gosh. Oh.

Seb: 49:11

Yeah. we got audio.

YouTube: 49:12

Should be about 25 seconds.

Doug: 49:14

making a calculation based on the speed of sound and the

YouTube: 49:16

Five miles away.

Doug: 49:19

I mean, there are

YouTube: 49:19

Here we go. Oh my gosh.

Doug: 49:26

but I want you to appreciate the sound and finally makes it to us because, you could feel it.

Seb: 49:31

Oh. It's like someone thumping on your chest. I got to see the space shuttle launch. I was going to ask you how it

YouTube: 49:37

Yeah, that's not yours. Holy shit. Holy crap. Okay.

Doug: 50:16

it's pretty loud and all that kind of like Cackling sound, I, used to think that was just the, microphone clipping, but it's, it's real,

Seb: 50:24

It's the air, right?

Doug: 50:26

waves from the exhaust And actually, if you watch slow motion video of the launch, you can sort of see these pressure waves move through the, exhaust.

Seb: 50:38

it's amazing.

Doug: 50:40

well, I'll just cut it off there, but anyway, yeah, it was pretty amazing to see in person.

Seb: 50:44

So cool.

Doug: 50:46

they have a ways to go, , in terms of being ready for Artemis, , have the contract for the human landing system. And so we'll see, I'm sure everything's going to be pushed back, but, now with the new administration, I wouldn't be surprised if SLS got canceled, it's so ridiculously expensive. I mean, that program. It was supposed to save money,, it's simpler than the shuttle. We mentioned the shuttle

Seb: 51:08

Maybe summarize real quick what it is. If not, everybody knows.

Doug: 51:12

Well, SLS stands for the, space launch system, as far as I can tell, it is a jobs program for all the, , shuttle contractors, you know, the shuttle was retired in 2011. and there were follow up programs., constellation is one that comes to mind., but this one, got funding long enough with a lot of lobbying from, southern senators that are in, states that had something to do with the space shuttle, namely, making the solid rocket boosters, making the external fuel tank. SLS The sell was that it would be reusing, shuttle hardware, so it should be cheaper, it turns out the cost of refurbishing the engines, , from the shuttle, the main shuttle engines, which it uses, it uses four of those. It's more than they cost new. It's ridiculous.

Seb: 52:01

It kind, it reminds me a little bit of Tesla using the Lotus for the original road was supposed to save money too. No,

Doug: 52:08

that's an ongoing argument, but I would say that it probably saved them some development time. Yeah, if you can do everything yourself, that's better, but you're trying to get something out the door, there are pluses and minuses there. But, , with the whole cost plus structure with SLS and how expensive it's been, and it's much simpler than the shuttle. It's basically taking the solid rocket boosters and make them a little bigger, take the external fuel tank and just stick it in the middle and then put a capsule on top, instead of side mounted orbiter and the shuttle was a move towards reusability. I mean, those shuttle engines came back with the shuttle. after the external fuel tank went. Those engines didn't do anything. They didn't do anything while the shuttle was on orbit. It was just that they stayed with the orbiter so they could be used again.

Mike: 52:53

it came home.

Doug: 52:55

even the SRBs, they were fished out of the ocean and sort of refurbished.

Mike: 53:01

reusable.

Doug: 53:02

the, cadence of the shuttle was much lower than they wanted. it would have been cheaper probably, or maybe it was a wash to just make new ones. And in fact, SLS isn't even trying to recover the boosters, but what, at a launch rate of like one every few years, how would it make sense to reuse them anyway?, so yeah, I don't know if SLS is going to survive., right now there's a pretty complicated plan of, SLS has this Orion capsule. The astronauts would go up in that and Artemis two is supposed to happen, I think, in 2026, which is basically just a flyby. It's kind of like the equivalent of Apollo 10. the capsule is going to go with four astronauts around the moon. but the actual landing plan, requires starship. SpaceX to get up there, there's going to need to be refueling and then the astronauts are transfer from the Orion into , the starship and that would land. On the moon and then also take off on the moon later and then re rendezvous with Orion and then Orion has a heat shield that has had some issues, but, would land them. but the thing is so expensive. Each launch S. L. S. Is somewhere around 4 billion. 4 billion. Which is nuts. It is so expensive. In fact, there've been plans like, gee, what could we do if SLS got canceled? you could launch Orion on a Falcon heavy Falcon heavy. Isn't human rated, but it could be human rated. And you could have a Vulcan Centaur., rocket, the second stage of the Vulcan that could go up there the Centaur could, dock with the, , Orion and then take the Orion to the moon from there you do the rest of plan, which is, rendezvous with, Starship for the human landing system., you know, Starship isn't something you would necessarily, uh, I can't imagine bringing people back on that thing anytime soon. Cause it's pretty crazy about its, , reentry., maybe you could launch people from it, but I wouldn't want to risk people returning on that. So

Mike: 54:52

You're not volunteering.

Seb: 54:53

Optimus

Doug: 54:54

stick Optimus in there as a test. Dummy. Is that what you're saying?

Seb: 54:57

Yeah.

Mike: 54:58

Yeah. Robot rated. That's good.

Seb: 54:59

Mm-hmm

Doug: 55:00

Yeah. Well, I mean, we should be sending robots to the moon. That's a no brainer,

Seb: 55:03

Yeah.

Doug: 55:04

We'll see, I don't know, like, Elon's talking a big game about, increasing government efficiency or cutting fundings, , for certain things. Yeah, so, , I'll try to be optimistic. to me, there's too much of a conflict of interest, , that Elon would be able to, affect the funding of things that he has a personal stake in. I don't know that this administration would care about that kind of stuff anyway, so. don't know.

Seb: 55:29

We'll find out., well, awesome that you shared your story. Definitely amazing. If, anybody listening has a chance to go see a launch live, definitely, a memorable experience.

Doug: 55:40

yeah, if you can do it and it's so nice down there because like say a KSC, Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If you want to go there, you have to buy tickets and they sell out you have to deal with all that sort of stuff. Whereas Brownsville, Boca Chica, you can just get there. it's a little bit Like the airports are kind of small and car rental is a little difficult., like the main car rental places aren't even at the airport, you know? So, , that was part of the reason I drove. And also, with any rocket launch, there can be delays. This particular one was delayed by a day and, you know, it was no problem for me since I had my own vehicle, I wasn't paying for a rental and I was able to extend the Airbnb I had., so, but yeah, if you can do it, I would definitely say do it. And it was great from South Padre though. Getting off South Padre Island after that launch was tough. Basically the traffic was, Not moving for, like three hours after the launch. but I anticipated that and I just didn't even try, to leave.

Seb: 56:33

It's like leaving burning, man.

Doug: 56:34

Well, that was, , the thing. I got my car charged up and I got there early in the morning. The launch wasn't until 4 PM, but I got there at eight and I had the car charged up. I could go enjoy the beach. There's a bathroom nearby. I was close to where I wanted to watch the, , launch from, I got to sit in my car, watch some Netflix, take a nap, have plenty of air conditioning, when the launch was done, I was, watching coverage from my car because it took about an hour for the ship to go down in the Indian Ocean, and that was actually the more interesting part of this particular flight test. how Starship fared on re entry. and then later I, , talked to people and walked for dinner, whatever. and I should mention, on my way back, I made a detour to Huntsville to go to the, , Marshall, Space Flight Center there, and NASA, and I did a tour there, and that's actually a very nice facility. But, I kind of was feeling for them, like, gee, if SLS. goes away, are these people going to be out of a job? Cause they do a lot, with respect to SLS.

Seb: 57:28

Don't they have a Saturn V there too? Yeah, Yeah,

Doug: 57:31

they have all three, launch stages. They don't have what was above that. Like, the LEM They do have a command capsule

Mike: 57:40

Kennedy has all that. Yeah.

Doug: 57:41

Well, went to Johnson, and Johnson has a V on its side too, but I'm I'm not sure how much,, more complete it is compared to what they have.

Mike: 57:48

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

Seb: 57:53

I saw it there too. And did think it was funny that they translated all the units into Corvettes, basically, to make it more accessible to the common man who's walking through the museum, right? So all the thrust was expressed in the amount of Corvettes.

Doug: 58:08

Well, all those astronauts of that era were driving

Mike: 58:11

That's right.

Seb: 58:12

were driving Corvettes. yeah, for sure. Well, you got to give it up for Elon. I mean, it's pretty amazing that you got to see the launch sitting in the Tesla

Doug: 58:20

Well, I got out the launch but

Seb: 58:23

yeah, but you know what I mean, right?

Mike: 58:25

Yeah, but you drove there the

Seb: 58:26

You're driving it there. I mean, it's pretty cool.

Doug: 58:29

I'm, I'm in the Elon ecosystem. That's true. I

Seb: 58:34

Well everybody I would say that's a wrap., thanks to Danny a producer and thanks to everybody for joining always fun to see your comments in the chat If you want to follow us on social media You can do so on Twitter and YouTube and you can of course join us on the TMC website. We'll see you next time