This week, Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager, stole the show at the United Nations General Assembly. Thanks to her, climate change is on the minds of the world. I was invited to discuss climate change action on the BBC World Service this month and we explored the role of activists like Thunberg, indigenous people, and technology pioneers like Elon Musk.
With visible rage, Thunberg described the urgency of action in stark terms on Monday.
”People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.”
Then Thunberg made a passionate plea to each one of us, especially political leaders, to examine our consciences.
“How dare you continue to look away? The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.”
Greta Thunberg’s fury was evident to everyone who watched her, but she ended on a positive note:
“Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”
BBC host, Jamie Robertson led a lively discussion exploring the urgency of climate change action and we were joined by ABC Australia’s Clare Negus. I took the opportunity to praise Thunberg’s tenacity.
The program started with a soulful report by the BBC’s Frey Lindsay. He reported on a gathering of indigenous community leaders from around the world who met at University College London to listen, exchange ideas and build solidarity in the fight against environmental degradation and climate change.
Listen to the podcast at the BBC World Service (environmental discussion starts at 10:40)
Here’s a transcript of conversation highlights (edited for length and clarity):
Jamie Robertson: In California, you’re very much on the front line, we think of the wildfires…do indigenous people have a role to play here?
Alison van Diggelen: It’s important for us in California, and around the world, to listen to the indigenous people. What we do over the next ten to twenty years is going to determine the fate of humanity. We need to remember environmentalist, John Muir, who said:
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
Technology plays a role in this by increasing transparency. Almost everyone has a mobile phone (and can take photos of environmental abuses), so multinationals can’t get away with what they used to.
Jamie Robertson: How high up the news agenda are questions about environmental problems and climate change?
Alison van Diggelen: Greta Thunberg, bless her heart, is keeping it on our agenda, but I wish it were higher. Looking at the Democratic Party Presidential debates, climate change was there, but I wish we could raise the issue more. People are concerned about what’s impacting them on a daily basis. There’s not enough of a long term view. We need more people like David Attenborough (and Greta Thunberg and Bill McKibben) speaking up for the environment.
Jamie Robertson: Clare ?
Clare Negas: It’s a major criticism of ABC Australia that we do too much on climate change and not enough on cost of living stories!
Jamie Robertson: I want to take the conversation on to the Frankfurt Motor Show and the extraordinary confrontation between the “Lords” of the auto industry and ordinary citizens worried about climate change, worried about cars and what they’re doing to the environment.
Alison, you’re in California at the forefront in the development of electric vehicles and things which could actually make a difference. Is there a sense of optimism that these things will work?
Alison van Diggelen: Absolutely. California is where Elon Musk jumpstarted this electric vehicle revolution. Tesla is doing phenomenally well. They’re due to sell about half a million electric cars this year. California is a state that is doing all it can to boost the sales of electric vehicles (EVs). It accounts for half of all U.S. sales of EVs thanks to rebates and state government policies. It has a goal of getting 5 million EVs on the road by 2030 and it does things like fast tracking permissions for charging infrastructure; that’s a key part of making EVs the number one form of transport.
Elon Musk has predicted that within 10 years, the majority of cars produced will be electric. Others like Morgan Stanley say it’s more like 20 years. It may be somewhere in the middle.
Jamie Robertson: Clare, do you have such faith?
Clare Negas: I do! I think globally electric cars will be the future. In Australia it’ll be a bigger battle because there is such a cultural identity around petrol and diesel fueled engines. We’re a strong car culture and that will continue. A few years ago, we drove a Tesla hundreds of kms to prove it wouldn’t run out of energy. There were no problems. Check out Clare’s fascinating report here.
End of Transcript
Extra: The program included a discussion about the college admissions scandal and I made a shout out to the hard working team and students at Breakthrough Silicon Valley who arguably have the most to lose. Their leader John Hiester recently wrote a moving oped about his outrage at cheaters like Felicity Huffman.
Find out more about clean tech and technology’s role in climate action at Fresh Dialogues.
Elon Musk continues to make ambitious plans for Tesla Motors, some even call them “ludicrous.” Not content to make a niche product for electric vehicle enthusiasts, he now wants to conquerthe mass market, competing in the major leagues against GM, BMW, Ford et al. Musk is promising an annual production of 1 million cars by 2020, a staggering increase from last year’s paltry: 76,000. Is he insane?
On a conference call with Musk and media colleagues this week, Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogueslearned that Musk is still calm and laser-focused on executing his “Tesla Master plan.” This year is crunch time for Tesla. The future of the company rests on the timely and efficient production of the Model 3, Tesla’s smaller, mass market car. Will demand stay strong, despite intense competition and reservation holders threatening to cancel due to his position on Trump’s economic advisory team? Musk seemed to flounder a bit on this question and refused to disclose the latest reservation numbers, for fear of analysts “reading too much into them.”
During the discussion of Tesla’s 2016 financial results, some anomalies arose. Despite continuing to make massive losses (due to capital investment in the Tesla Factory and the Gigafactories), its share price is still in the stratosphere. Tesla might produce a small fraction of GM and Ford’s output, but the company is valued on par with them. What gives?
“The recent run-up in Tesla stock has less to do, in our view, with anything around the near-term financials, and more to do with the nearly superhero status of Elon Musk,”Barclays analyst, Brian Johnson.
Superhero status? More ludicrousness…The superheroes Tesla is focused on are the mighty robots on the factory floor. Musk has named them after X-men superheroes, like Cyclops and Thunderbird (see photo above); and they’re the ones that’ll have to earn their superhero status as manufacturing goes into top gear in the next few month.
“Tesla is going to be hell-bent on becoming the best manufacturer on earth.” Elon Musk
The BBC’s Fergus Nicoll invited me on Business Matters to help explain more.
Here’s a transcript of our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
BBC Host, Fergus Nicoll: Tesla stock has hit record highs, soaring 50% since December. With investor confidence growing that Tesla will deliver its Model 3 on time. Let’s explore this with Alison in Silicon Valley. Before we get into the nitty gritty of Model 3, and the other numbers, I know you watched Elon Musk do the webcast that go with the Q4 figures. What kind of presentation did he come up with?
Alison van Diggelen: I listened to the (live conference call) podcast. Elon Musk was on the podcast with his (retiring) CFO, answering questions from the media. They were generally upbeat. Elon Musk always over-promises how soon his vehicles will be delivered, but he is confident that they’re going to start deliveries of their Model 3 in July of this year, for employees first…beta testing for employees. He’s hoping for the mass rollout starting in September of this year. They’re pretty bullish about that.
Fergus Nicoll: Here’s the thing: Tesla has a valuation pretty close to Ford. But compared to Ford it makes about five cars! So what are we seeing? A massive future priced into that?
Alison van Diggelen: That’s right. Last year, Tesla delivered 76,000 vehicles (compared to Ford’s 2.5 million), but Elon Musk is very bullish. He’s aiming for the factory to produce 500,000 cars by the end of 2018, and one million a year by 2020. He’s ludicrously ambitious. Brian Johnson, who’s an analyst with Barclays, called this run up in the Tesla stock more “Elon Musk superhero status” than short term financials. What Elon Musk says, he often delivers….eventually.
Tesla merged with SolarCity, the rooftop solar provider, so that is also giving an upside. They’ll be able to cut costs: Tesla showrooms will also become showrooms for the SolarCity solar panels. They’re also doing the other side of the equation: energy storage….
Fergus Nicoll: The household and business batteries.
Alison van Diggelen: Exactly.
Fergus Nicoll: The thing is, Americans drive insane distances. Electric cars have to go a long way….the infrastructure has to catch up with the company?
Since Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined the Trump business advisory team in December he’s been under intense pressure to step down. That pressure intensified this month after Donald Trump signed an executive order banning immigrants from seven countries with Muslim majorities. On February 2nd, Musk’s colleague, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick pulled out of the Trump team after a widespread #DeleteUber campaign went viral and his employees urged him to withdraw.
“Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that,” wrote Kalanick to his staff.
Musk faced a barrage of similar criticism, with some saying he’s a crony capitalist and others claiming to have cancelled their orders for Tesla Model 3.
Last week, I joined the BBC’s Fergus Nicholl on the BBC World Service program, Business Matters. We discussed Silicon Valley tech’s furious reaction to the Trump travel ban and Elon Musk’s high pressure predicament.
Listen to the podcast excerpt below (it includes commentary from the always provocative Lucy Kellaway):
Here’s a transcript of our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
Fergus Nicoll: Elon Musk has run into Twitter trouble…when he spoke to Mr. Trump in person and when he was seen having a drink with Steve Bannon in the White House, a lot of people said: “What on earth are you thinking?” And he came up with a fairly strong defense…
Alison van Diggelen: His key message is: “Activists should be pushing for more moderates like him, to advise the president not fewer.” And he asks, “How could having only extremists advise him possibly be good?”
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Alison van Diggelen: He’s faced a lot of criticism, people even saying they’re cancelling their orders for the next generation of cars, the Tesla Model 3. He is under this pressure, but he is a powerful influencer, a poster child for Donald Trump’s manufacturing jobs being in the U.S. Musk is an idealist, he wants to save the planet. He’s bringing his message of climate change and green jobs, almost as a Trojan horse, into Trump’s meeting rooms. I think a lot of people who think about this deeply deeply, are not having this knee jerk reaction and saying don’t associate with Trump. Instead they’re saying this might be a good conduit for Trump hearing this green point of view.
Here is some of the pushback Elon Musk received on Twitter and his responses:
Last night, Elon Musk’s SpaceX achieved a spectacular milestone in the history of space travel: its Falcon 9 rocket launched 11 satellites into orbit, performed a spin and landed back on earth, six miles from where it launched. Why is this ultimate recycling feat so consequential?
Quite simply, this could revolutionize space travel as we know it today.
During our in-depth 2013 interview, an emotional Elon Musk told me of his disappointment at the progress of space exploration and his ultimate goal: to make human life multi-planetary. He explained that if he could “show the way” by making rockets as reusable as airplanes, this would:
1. dramatically reduce the cost of space travel
2. re-energize support for NASA’s mission
3. increase NASA’s budget
and “then we could resume the journey”…to Mars and beyond. Watch the interview, starting at 35:00
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The back story of SpaceX
“I always thought that we’d make much more progress in space…and it just didn’t happen…it was really disappointing, so I was really quite bothered by it. So when we went to the moon, we were supposed to have a base on the moon, we were supposed to send people to Mars and that stuff just didn’t happen. We went backwards. I thought, well maybe it’s a question of there not being enough intention or ‘will’ to do this. This was a wrong assumption. That’s the reason for the greenhouse idea…if there could be a small philanthropic mission to Mars…a small greenhouse with seeds and dehydrated nutrients, you’d have this great shot of a little greenhouse with little green plants on a red background. I thought that would get people excited…you have to imagine the money shot. I thought this would result in a bigger budget for NASA and then we could resume the journey…”
On negotiations with the Russian military to buy two ICBMs
“They just thought I was crazy…I had three quite interesting trips to Russia to try to negotiate purchase of two Russian ICBMs…minus the nukes…I slightly got the feeling that was on the table, which was very alarming. Those were very weird meetings with the Russian military…’remarkably capitalist’ was my impression (of the Russians).”
Why he chose to create his own rocket company, SpaceX
“I came to the conclusion that my initial premise was wrong that in fact that there’s a great deal of will, there’s not such a shortage. But people don’t think there’s a way. And if people thought there was a way or something that wouldn’t break the federal budget, then people would support it. The United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration. People came here from other places…people need to believe that it’s possible, so I thought it’s a question of showing people that there’s a way…There wasn’t really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive. If one could make them reusable, like airplanes then the cost of rocketry (and space travel) would drop dramatically.”
Last night, the long awaited Tesla Model X was launched and Elon Musk took great pleasure in underlining its clean air qualities. Musk reiterated the mission of Tesla: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport and show that any car can go electric. But he couldn’t contain a smile, as he talked about air quality and referred to “recent events” i.e. the VW DieselGate scandal.
Musk showed off the SUV’s giant air filter (10 times the size of a typical one) and said:
“Recent events have illustrated the importance of air safety…(in the Model X) you can have air quality levels comparable to a hospital operating room.”
Musk then got somber, put on his superhero hat and showed the massive crowd estimates of how air quality can reduce life expectancy in some of the world’s most polluted cities: Beijing, 22 months; Los Angeles, 8 months and Paris, 7 months.
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According to Musk, using the high quality “X-size” air filter plus a smaller one (still larger than an average car’s air filter) gives the Model X a 700 fold improvement in city smog filtering. The company claims it’s also 300 times better at filtering bacteria, 500 times better at filtering allergens, and 800 times better at filtering viruses.
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But the biggest cheer of all came when Musk made this surprise announcement:
“If there’s ever an apocalyptic scenario, you just press the bio-weapon defence button – this is a real button.”
I asked George Blankenship, former VP at Tesla, about Tesla’s clean air focus.
“Who else is going to think in that magnitude with something as normal as an air filter? These are the kinds of things that Elon pushes to the limit and delivers products that no one else can deliver. The reason he’s doing it is to save the planet. It’s all about the survival of this planet and the atmosphere.” George Blankenship
We discussed how VW’s emissions cheating scandal might impact electric car makers like Tesla.
“It’s unfortunate that others feel they have to do things like that in order to compete. It’s the absolute opposite of what Tesla does…they find a solution. It reinforces that innovative companies that come up with a solution that others don’t…there’s a reward for it: 5 star crash ratings, cleaner air than a surgical room. That’s what innovative companies do as opposed to companies that try to figure out how to bend the rules to get an advantage.” George Blankenship
After a thorough tour of the Model X features, including the elegant falcon wings, Elon delivered keys to some of the first Model X buyers. This time round, Elon beat his friend, and first Model S owner, Steve Jurvetson and got the number one Tesla Model X. There’s definitely admiration, perhaps a little envy, captured in my photo below.
Update: Jurvetson told me this morning that Elon had a check made out in advance at an early Tesla Board meeting, to make sure he secured the first Model X.
Read more about Tesla and Elon Musk at Fresh Dialogues
