He Bought The First Tesla Roadster 2 In 2013 - EP 42 Konstantin Othmer

Are you actively considering making an electric flying car? Is this way to work?

Well, we have to see in the, in the demo.

So when you do this, like, are you going to have a retractable wing?

We should, we should do this live, right?

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

It's just too— here, I'll, I'll do a little intro and then we'll do it and I'll edit it all, edit it down to nothing.

Yeah.

All right, this is an emergency podcast. I ran into an old friend, acquaintance, Constantine Othmer.

Othmer.

Yeah, Othmer. Um, Constantine, thank you for, for being in the hallways.

Thank you for recognizing me. I think it's been 12 years.

It has.

So you— 12 years since I saw you.

Yeah, so I interviewed you when I was doing my biography on Elon.

Wait, and did you do the Wired Magazine?

No, no.

Article about driving the Model S as a—

No.

As sidecar?

No, no, that was not me. That was not me.

But we met somewhere before that.

Yeah, well, and I covered your la— one of your startups as well when you guys were doing the car, Cloud Car, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you were a huge help. I remember I was doing the book and so this is terrible 'cause I wrote an entire book about this. So I wanna get the history right, but I, it was you, Bruce Leak and Peter Barrett. I think you guys were all together when you hired— well, but before that, for the book, didn't all— didn't Elon work as an intern for all three?

You're going way back.

Yeah, yeah. So that—

there's actually some pretty crazy stories about some of this. So yes, uh, Bruce Leak and Peter were at a company called Rocket Science Games, which had an incredible roster of people. Yeah, it was the rock— Fidel, I think, uh, Tony's not involved.

Okay, right, right.

It was like the rock stars of Silicon Valley. Yeah, that started this a, you know, on, it was a Sega gaming on CD-ROM and they were making, um, basically cinema quality, uh, like video movies as a game on Sega, which seemed like almost impossible, right? And they got the best guys. Bruce, as, as you know, uh, created QuickTime at Apple. Uh, Peter created the first codec for, uh, the, the first, you know, video compressor for, uh, QuickTime at Apple. And they started this company, Rocket Science Games, that was making these like video game kind of things. If you remember, gosh, it goes back, it shows how old I am, Dragon's Lair. Yeah, yeah. You remember that game?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it wasn't really a video game, but it was, it looked great, but it was kind of, so they were coming out with that for Sega and the company had just rocks. I mean, it's a good Silicon Valley lesson here, like rock stars on every aspect of it. But when the games came out, it was like—

It was tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They weren't fun to play.

Yeah.

But those guys were phenomenal.

And you guys were friends or you were an investor?

Uh, I knew, I knew Bruce from, uh, Apple.

Okay.

From, from well before that. And, uh, Peter Barrett was at SuperMac.

Okay.

Which was producing stuff for Apple. I was in charge of the graphic system at Apple. I took it over from Bruce, QuickDraw, uh, when Bruce went on to do QuickTime.

Okay. Okay. But the, as I remember, so I got to know all three of you as a result of, well, so Elon was an intern at Rocky.

Okay, so this was a long time ago. That's 1990, like '93, '94.

Yeah, so they were kind of his first boss, really. Um, and then so when I was doing the book, I got to know all three of you because you guys are friends and you were helping me with, with stories from back in the day when Elon was a pup and, and, and all that. And then as— this is why this is an emergency podcast— is as I was getting into the— so my book came out in 2015. I was probably talking to you in like '13, '14.

2013 is when we when we had that conversation.

Okay.

So when you came by Cloud Car, right?

And then, and so Elon, so in the book I write that you had the first order on the Tesla Roadster Model 2. So this is how far back this goes. So Tesla was already, tell me the story. Okay. This is, this is one.

How far back do you wanna go? Well, I mean, I got a little bit of a long—

you, you were an early, early Tesla Roadster buyer to begin with and investor and investor.

Okay.

So yeah. Okay. I'm gonna set everybody up for one second. So what we're gonna get into now is the very first order of the Roadster 2 and the origins behind that. And this story, as we've laid out, goes back more than a decade. So yeah, set me up. Set me up. When did you first start hearing about Tesla and put yourself even in a position to—

I could tie together a couple of wacky things. In fact, last night we had dinner with Will Harvey.

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Will Harvey ended up taking over Rocket Science Games. Okay. I was flying little electric airplanes with Will Harvey, and they flew like 25 minutes. And I'm like, this is unbelievable on a tiny little battery, this plane flying for 25 minutes. And I asked Will, I said, scary though. Someone's got to put this thing into cars. Like, and I didn't really know anything about cars, right? But I kind of go from hobby to hobby. And Will said, oh, a matter of fact, a good friend of mine's neighbor is doing that. He's putting them in this Lotus. I'm like, you gotta introduce me. You gotta introduce me. Okay, introduce me to this guy. I gotta get one of these cars.

This is ever harder to have it.

Yeah, it was Martin. It was a neighbor of a friend of Will's. But I'm asking everybody about this. And so I asked Bruce and like, hey, you know, do you know this guy? Do you know this guy? I asked Andy Rubin, who was doing Android at Google at the time. And Andy said, oh, you don't want that thing. You know, and he had some reason for why he didn't think it was gonna be very good. So I dropped it like, okay, whatever. And then Bruce and I were working together actually on another company. This was in 2005 or so.

Okay.

I was doing a company called Core Mobility doing mobile phone stuff. And Bruce calls me up and says, hey, that car you've been talking about, it's on the COVID of The Wall Street Journal. Like, okay, yeah. So he goes, let's go check it out. Like, what? What do you mean, let's go check it out? Let's just go over there, like, like for lunch or what? He goes, yeah, let's go there for lunch.

So he's probably saying Carlos, that's what they're like, uh, on Bing Street. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there, this is like their first.

Yeah, so we look it up. Yeah, yeah, that warehouse, right? Just look it up, get the address. We don't call anything, and we, we find the place, you know, it says Tesla. It's not like a big deal. Um, knock on the door, it's locked. First of all, it's locked. You can see there's a desk there, but there's no one at the desk. Yeah. We knock on the door. Eventually someone comes out and they're like, "Who are you guys?" And we're like, "We want to see the car." And they're like, "Yeah, well, who are you?" And I didn't know this at the time, but Elon had worked for Bruce. So there must have been something in that Wall Street Journal that said something about Elon investing or whatever. And Bruce is like, "Yeah, you know, Elon, I know Elon." And the guy's like, "Okay." He went back in. Some other guy comes out, same story, repeat the same story, right? And then Elon and Martin come out. And Elon and Bruce are like, "Oh, hey, how's it going?" Amazing, man.

They're actually there.

Okay.

A board meeting.

Yeah, okay.

They were super cool. I mean, these two random guys, completely random, I was completely random, uh, show up at their door and, uh, they're like, hey, we'll finish a board meeting and we'll show you the stuff. And so we spent the afternoon with them, you know, driving the, you know, what are those, uh, development prototype, uh, the Elise or—

yeah, yeah, yeah, the Mule, the Mule.

Yeah, the Mules. Yeah, we were not allowed to drive them, but, you know, Martin was driving us around. Um, super cool, right? And at the time, I know this is probably in the book too, um, well, you would know, but you— they were not allowed to sell cars.

Right. Well, and those, those ones you're driving are probably like close to catching on fire at all.

At all.

I've got another story if you want another story. I got another story about that one. Um, so they said, uh, um, you know, we both said we'll take one. Like, really? You know, yeah, we'll both take one. Okay. And so you join a club, and one of the privileges of joining the club is you get a free car. So we both joined the club.

So you joined the Tesla Club?

We joined the Tesla. That's how you bought the car, right? Because they were not allowed to, you know, you had to have some license.

Oh, I see what you mean.

Something to sell them. So we joined the Tesla club. We both got a car. Yeah, here's another stupid thing. I wanted one that ended in zero. And I figured, you know, Bruce knew Elon, so he was gonna get like, you know, if we got one and two, he would get the first one. I said, well, if it ends in zero, I really want zero. So I said, okay, this gives me a chance at getting the one ahead of Bruce. Like, how can I? I just want the one in zero. Well, he got 41.

Okay.

I think it's a 41 or 42. I would've had, what's the meaning of the universe in Hitchhiker's Guide?

Is it 42 or 47?

It's 42 or 43. It's 42.

Okay. It's 40.

Yeah. Yeah, it's 42. I would've had that one.

Okay.

Instead I got 50.

Okay. Because I wanted all with zero.

All right.

So you're, so you, you join the club and as part of being in this club, you get to, you put a down payment on to, to get in line.

Yeah. $100,000 to join the club. Okay. And then you get the Roadster.

And then you, so, and then, and you've now, you've kind of got this relationship going and—

Well, I asked him, I said, hey, are you guys raising money or what's the deal with the company? And they said, yeah, we're raising money and I'll let you know. Right. And then, I don't know, 2, 3 weeks later, Martin calls me and says, you serious about investing? I said, well, yeah, what's the minimum? You know, I'm, I'm not like, I'm just a, you know, Silicon Valley entrepreneur trying to make it running another company, you know. And yeah, he let me invest in that next round.

Okay.

And yeah, that actually, that probably worked out. It worked out okay.

You know, I think kind of anything that's ups and downs along the way, but, but, but not, not Pretty good. And then, okay, so you, you've got this relationship going. When do you actually end up getting your Roadster 1?

I think that came 2008. I think 3 years later or so. That was probably 2005.

And you end up with number 50.

Number 50.

Okay. And, and do you still have it?

I do. Okay. A mouse kind of got in there and did a little number on it, but it's beautiful. It's in great shape.

What color?

Signature. Okay. Signature Green.

Okay.

I think there's 30 of those.

Yeah. Bruce has one that he still drives.

But he got, I was really surprised he got the British Racing Green. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. But that's Bruce, you know, I'm like, It's limited edition or signature green.

I gotta have that.

And does it— Bruce drives well? You have mouse issues, but it drives okay?

He doesn't have mouse issues. Okay. Yeah. Mine was driving great. Okay. Oh, the battery's fine. Everything's great on that thing. Okay. Love that car.

All right, so you're in it. I remember back then in those days, I think Tesla was really struggling to get that first Roadster out. Obviously, Martin doesn't end up lasting. And then—

Martin has actually helped me with that mouse issue.

He was great.

He came up and we're going through the car. That guy is just amazing.

He and Elon get along great. Yeah. And then, and then I remember back then people like Larry, like Tesla was struggling to make ends meet sometimes. And I remember like Larry and Sergey put in orders early and they invested.

I went into a board meeting. Actually, this was a company, another company that Bruce was involved with called CarrierIQ. And I go into a board meeting and one of the board members says, hey, Khan, I hear you bought one of those Tesla Roadsters. And I'm like, uh, yeah. And he says, um, you know, they are now spending customer deposits to keep the company alive. You should ask for your money back.

Yeah.

And I said, oh, there's no way I would do that. And, uh, in fact, I invested in the company as well. Yeah. And this guy was like, you gotta be kidding me, are you just setting money on fire? You know, and I didn't have a lot of money, but, you know, you had a— and you know, the other thing is I'd never bought a new car. I was always like first-generation immigrant, just buy the old you know, used car, whatever, driving.

That's your first new car? That's my first. That's unbelievable, man. Um, okay, so time's going on, and then do you get— do you put an order on a Model S?

It's funny you should ask. Okay, so I, you know, I don't do a good job paying attention to email or any of that kind of stuff. Then Bruce— we tend to be a little bit competitive with each other— he says, hey, so have you bought a Model S? I'm like, no, like, what's that? What are you talking about? He goes, Oh well, you got to get your deposit in, you know. So he put one of the very first deposits in. He goes, yeah, I've got number 3.

Okay.

I'm like, oh God, okay. So I call up Tesla, I go, hey, I'll buy a Model S, but I need number 0. Like, what do you mean?

That's taken, sir.

Well, they said, they said the VINs start at 1.

Yeah.

I said, no, they don't. It should just start at 0. Like, that's a number. Isn't it like 000? I want 000. And they're like, um, Well, that doesn't work that way. You know, you can get in line. I said, I told you I will buy it if you give me number zero, otherwise I'm not buying it.

Yeah.

And Tesla was a small company, so, you know, they want to sell cars. Yeah. They said, well, sorry. I said, okay, fine, I'm not going to buy it. They call me like 2 weeks later. I don't know, maybe it wasn't that long. And they said, we have a solution for you. I'm like, what's that? We're going to do even better. We're going to give you a Founder's Edition.

Okay. Yeah. Because they had the Founders.

The Founders.

Yeah.

And you had to be an investor to get a Founder's Edition.

Right, right.

I don't know when they added that. So I ended up with founders 10. Okay. And I don't know if you remember when they did the unveil.

I was there at the factory. Yeah.

Yeah.

You mean that day?

Yeah. Yeah.

They were rolling off the line. Yeah.

Yeah. So I got number 10 and, you know, there's all these kind of big investors and whatever. And then the 10th one goes to, you know, this, this guy.

Yeah. Yeah. So you were, if I remember, you know, it's got, I'm getting old, but I remember being at the factory. You guys all got to get up right there on the lane. Yeah. Those people.

They handed the key and then we drove it out of the factory.

Bill Lee must have been, I think he was maybe 8. So he was somewhere around there. I remember him being on stage and then Jervetson had a real early number. Yeah. Great.

So that afterwards Tim and I were just racing it around the parking lot. Okay. That's really, really cool.

So you always wanted a zero though. You couldn't have zero, so you took 10.

Right.

50 and then 10.

But here's another little piece of trivia. So when they put the license plates on, so they're dealer plates, they're the original plates from the factory. I don't know exactly how it works, but apparently they stacked them upside down. So 10 got 000.

Oh.

And, you know, 9 got one if you didn't have a custom plate, which I didn't. So my, my license plate is 000. Okay.

And do you still have that one?

It's actually parked out in the parking lot.

Parked out.

Okay.

All right.

And it runs great.

So you're still going. All right. And then so around this time, I mean, Elon announces that there's going to be a Roadster 2. I mean, we— I don't think we knew anything about— I remember when I was doing the book, I mean, he was, he was flirting with the idea. Obviously, he was always flirting with the idea of this, this $30,000-ish car that was on the roadmap. I don't think the Y was like, you know, I'm sure it was in somebody's head, but I don't think that really was on the, being talked about. But the Roadster 2 was being talked about way, way, way back then.

Well, so an argument, I don't know if it was an argument, a discussion, and I should find these emails. I had with Martin quite a bit, was why is the car not faster? So, you know, everyone was saying how fast it was, 0 to 60 in 3, whatever it was, 7 or something. Yeah. But you know, there's a friction of the tires on the road and motorcycles can go much faster. And you think you could propel that thing optimally to go a lot faster than 0 to 60 in 3 point whatever it was. And so we were having this discussion about it. Martin said, well, we would drive the back wheels 2 miles an hour faster than the front wheels. And that was optimal. Like none of that made sense to me. And so I'm like, wait a second, why, why, why? So when the Model S unveiling happened, when we picked it up at the factory, I asked one of the engineers like, Why is this thing not going way faster? And he said, oh man, yeah, we've got sleds now that just fly. Yeah, they're super fast. And then the other kind of problem I would say with the Model S is it's just so big. You know, I usually drive two-seaters. Now the Roadster is kind of small because it just replaced the engine with a battery, so you're still very cramped. Yeah, but the Model S is massive. There's a frunk and a trunk and a— still seats tons of people. I mean, it's ridiculous how big that thing is. And the difference is you don't have an engine taking up a bunch of space.

Sure.

Right. So you put the batteries underneath. And so I thought, wow, the ultimate electric car will be the next Roadster because it's going to be small by definition because it's a sports car. I want to get that. And then the engineers say, yeah, we've got this, like the sled, I think he called it. We've got that thing going 0 to 60 in, you know, whatever, 2 point something seconds.

So this is while you're at the S unveiling?

Yeah.

Yeah.

At the pickup.

Okay. Yeah.

We're just chatting with various people. You know, they took us in the back and, you know, They did a lot of really smart things. Yeah. One of the things they said is, look, we're a small company. This is a, you know, the car has issues. You can choose to go to the press. We can't stop you. But please, you know, contact us first if there's something.

Yeah.

Which is really, I mean, really nice way to handle that.

Yeah.

But yeah, it was, it was, you know, and in the, I mean, those early days of the Roadster in particular, it was, it was like the true believers is that people who were very willing to give this company a chance and and just to see what happened. You know, it was like, let's try to see if this electric car thing could happen. So, you know what I mean?

When I tell people I bought an electric car, they say, oh, that's really slow. They were thinking golf cart, right? Yeah. I said, no, it's supposed to be really, really fast.

Yeah.

Like, no, come on.

Like, I think most of those first customers knew they were buying sort of like a prototype, right, in action. And then the Model S, I think, is still a bit of that. But obviously Tesla's maturing and is at the big plant and —trying to take the step forward. Okay. So, and then, okay, so you're having these chats, they're taunting you with, with speed that's coming. And then so when, when does somebody first mention that the Roadster 2 is even available?

You know, I just, it was like in the conversation. Yeah. That there was going to be another Roadster. Like it was just kind of, I don't know, among investors or whatever. Somehow it was known, you know, they're going to do a cost-reduced there were a couple of things on the roadmap that were clear, right? A cost-reduced car and another Roadster.

Yeah, this is what I was trying to get out and I did a poor job of it. But like back then, as I remember things, it was like, okay, we've got the S, we've got our sedan, it's our luxury sedan. We're clearly heading toward the mass-produced, cheaper vehicle. And then the Roadster 2 was clearly like— it felt like the next thing because it was, it was like this Roadster has been this big hit. High-end. Yeah. And then we'll just keep it going. And now we've, you know, when they made the first Roadster, they didn't know what they were doing. It was, you know, and now And now it's like, oh, now we have this big giant factory. And so the next one will be awesome. And this will be, we'll have this whole line from cheap to expensive. And it was all very clean. And I remember like the idea that we're in 2025 and there's no Roadster 2, I never, I would've thought that was next in line kind of after the cheap car.

Yeah. There's another crazy story. And this just, I mean, Elon is an amazing guy. He at one point brought all the investors together And I mean, I'm just this little individual investor, right? And it's all these people. I don't know who they are, but I know they've put, you know, quite a bit of money in. And he was trying to decide whether to make the S, I think it was the S at the time, a hybrid car or an electric car. And like, he's like, you know, here are the trade-offs and we're really considering this. We want to get everybody's input, you know, and stupid me, I'm glad I didn't say anything, but I'm thinking, of course you go hybrid. I mean, no range anxiety, just put gas in. It solves every question. Right? I didn't say anything, thankfully. I've been quite stupid revealing my ignorance now. Um, but anyway, it was this discussion and there was no real conclusion. And then, as I remembered— I should find this email— Elon sends an email and says, hey, I don't know if it's the right thing or not, but we are going to be the best electric car company. I don't want to be a frog, you know, it's not good on land, it's not good on sea. We're going to be the best electric car company there is. And there was another argument which is very interesting, which is a battery Um, has basically two core characteristics, how much power it holds and how much energy it can output. And it turns out those are inverse. So the more power it has, the less energy it can output. Uh, and so to get a lot of energy out of the battery, you have to make it very, very large. So if you go with a small battery and have a hybrid motor in there, you're not gonna get very many miles.

Small, these trade-offs. Yeah.

Yeah. And so if you remember, like the other car companies, many, many years later, I think there was a BMW that had like 30 miles of battery range because it was a hybrid. Well, the Roadster had almost 300, I think 250 or something when it came out. And so Elon made this physics argument as part of why it's important to be a pure electric car, that the physics are actually really argued for that because then you can put a huge battery in there, which then can generate enough energy to make the car fast.

No, and super smart just for being clear on the product and the message and going all in. Super smart. Okay.

Okay. Wait. So it kind of tells you though, like these little decisions along the way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Okay. So you're having these chats and then because like what I'm getting to here a little bit for our listeners is that there's going to be some debate, I think, as the Roadster 2 heads toward market as to who has the first order in. This car has been around for so long. I'm sure. I'm sure. Some of this is not even like intentional. I'm sure people have just like through the passage of time lost track of the paperwork on some of these things. But I mean, what we're going to— you're going to— you feel like you put the first order in for the first—

you know, I'm not— I don't want to create a con— you're starting the controversy. Maybe, maybe that's what sells your podcast.

No, no, no. But I guess I know what will happen because people take these things so seriously, you know, and it's like, it's—

well, if you remember, The way Tesla allocates cars is the first person to put their money down gets the first car. Yeah. And the way that typically happens is they will announce it at the board meeting and Jørgensen says, yeah, I'll take it. Or Elon already says, okay, and I got it and you can have whichever one you want. So I sent Elon an email and I said, hey, that's unfair. He goes, what's unfair about it? You know, it's like the first guy that gets it. I said, well, you know, I don't hear about it until later, but I want the first one of Roadster 2. And he says, well, you know, we haven't announced it yet. You know, what do you mean? And I find this Wired magazine article that just, just says, you know, we're doing Model S, we're doing this, we're doing that. I just, you know, copy and pasted that little thing. I go, what do you mean you haven't announced it? It's right here. And he says, okay, fair enough. And this is just Elon, you know, it's not like, I don't think he wanted to sell it to anybody. He goes, okay, give me $200,000 and you can have it.

So you put down $200,000 in, in 20—

February of 2013.

February of 2013. And not— I don't want to like interrogate you. Do we, do we have this email from, um, I've— we've got some evidence.

Yeah. Well, if you remember that they also, um, when we got the Model S, yeah, uh, Bruce and I made a, uh, kind of experience with the Model S video where we were just driving around. Yeah, there were only 10 of them on the road. Yeah. So people were like, oh, there's the Model S, right? And we made a video, we posted it. Then Tesla came to me, hey, uh, can we use your video for our orientation. And I'm like, well, yeah, sure. And they go, well, we need a little edit. And I guess at one point we accelerated pretty fast. Bruce ended up in the backseat in the video. And, you know, there was some foul language. I go, hey, can you beep that out? So there's two versions of that posted, one with and without the foul language. Okay. And then people knew who I was all of a sudden. Tesla employees knew who I was. Oh, because in orientation they show our video. Random people were coming up to me going, hey, you're Constantine. I'm like, okay.

Okay. And then, okay, so there's an email, and then there's a, there's a check.

Yeah, so, um, you know, uh, well, let's look this up real quick too.

So $200,000— oh, Ashlee, come on— $200,000 in 20— sorry, we said 24—

it was 2013, February of 2013. $200,000.

Well, okay, in, in, in—

okay, I think this Tesla stock was like 35 or 37 at the time, but it's split. Is it then like a— it did a large split at one point. Yes, that's right.

Uh, I mean, we're gonna use ChatGPT math, so like, it may or may not be right.

Uh, I have not looked this up. You're, you're an evil man. I have a rough number in mind, but, uh, what do you—

what is your—

my rough number is 50. 50 million.

50 million. And we'll see, but see what I have not— you're right. Okay, according to ChatGPT, I don't remember all this, but there was a 5-for-1 split in August of 2020 and a 3-for-1 split in August of 2022. Uh, okay, well, I, I can't tell if this is good news or bad news. And, and this is terrible because ChatGPT is giving us a pretty broad estimate, but it is really ChatGPT thinks in the ball— okay, so if you had— if you just left that money in Tesla stock instead of buying a Roadster, which you still don't have, um, it's saying $20 to $40 million depending on the exact date and purchase price. All right, all right, you can live with that.

Hey, when FTX went down, that was not good. That was not good. He's going to make you whole.

Yeah. You know, it's easy come, easy go. So, you know, okay, so you, you put that down, you could have tens of millions of dollars today. I mean, I see people— well, so just we're recording this days after Sam Altman and Elon were getting in a fight over Sam's deposit on a Roadster 2, which he made far after you because I think you only had to put down like $5,000. You paid the whole— oh, it's worse than that, right?

Yeah. Okay. And I don't even know exactly how they did it, um, and I kind of forget about it here and there. I mean, I didn't forget, but you know, like, when's this thing coming out? And the thing that re-triggered it is, uh, Elon was just on Rogan, right?

This is right around when Sam's tweet— yeah, this has been the Roadster to, uh, Newsweek. Yeah.

And he talks You know, my friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don't have flying cars.

So you're going to be able to fly?

Well, I mean, I think if Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one.

Bro, you're going to fly. So are you actively considering making an electric flying car?

That's right, we had no idea.

Well, we have to see in the demo.

So when you do this, like, are you going to have a retractable wing? Like, what is the idea behind this? Don't be sly. Come on. Stop asking questions, John.

I can't do the unveil before the unveil.

But tell me off air then.

Look, I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. It has a shot.

This is coming from Elon. Yeah.

I mean, so you're saying you're saying credibility there?

Yeah. Oh, okay.

Like, this is some crazy, crazy technology we got in this car. Crazy technology.

This is the guy who made Starship.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, you're probably getting like some kind of rocket engine. Hasn't he talked about there being like a rocket engine? Yeah, on this.

Yeah, yeah, some kind of, uh, turbo, uh, yeah, rocket engine lifter thing that I think also helps you on your 0 to 60, which was the original objective anyway. So you're saying you—

well, like you, I mean, I, I believe Elon when he's talking about products. Obviously on timelines, sometimes things go askew, but, uh So when he says there's gonna be some flying element to this, what, what are you picturing in your head? Um, okay. Since day one, the Core Memory Podcast has been supported by the fine people at E1 Ventures. They are a young and ambitious VC firm in Silicon Valley investing in young and ambitious companies and people. Thank you so much to E1 Ventures for all your support.

I mean, come on, fly, fly, you need a different license. You get into all kinds of stuff very, very quickly.

Sure, it's not a flying car, but so he must mean, he must mean—

I, I'd heard hovering. Oh, but what's the purpose? Yeah, like maybe parking, it hovers into parking spots.

I don't know, dude, are you kidding me? God.

Okay, so that would make— I mean, it's got to be— I mean, if it's air power, you know, if it's compressed air power, how much compressed air can you have in there? So what I heard, a rumor a long time ago, some kind of compressed air tank that either you get that in the backseat or not. Okay. And that's like the SpaceX package. And I heard it could like hover for a couple of seconds or you can change the booster so that you can, you know, really get to wherever you're going very quickly. Okay. This is all just, you know.

So Sam, you put down $200,000 in 2014. I don't know.

2013.

2013. And then Sam— Sam was tweeting in July of 2018, he put out a reservation of $45,000. Is that kind of— I don't know what people have been putting down. Okay, so, but you paid, you paid what you thought. Why, why did you do $200,000? Elon said it was going to cost $200,000. I didn't really have a lot of choice. That's what he told you?

Yeah. Yeah. So he just said, if you want it, you buy it, you put $200,000 down now. Oh, oh, and then later It's now $250,000. And they said, hey, if you want it, you got to give us another $50,000. Okay. And I'm like, come on, come on, guys. Like, you've had my money for, I don't know, however many years that is. 12 years. Can you waive the $50,000? Yeah. No. Okay.

Was there a video tied to the—

well, so I went to give the check to Deepak. He said— who was the CFO at the time, right? So Elon's like, hey, you know, you got to pay if you want this thing. And I'm kind of like, uh, yeah, that's, that's a lot of money. Yeah, for me. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's a lot of money for me. And I'd never bought a new car other than the other Roadster before, and then the Model S. All my other cars are like, you know, I drove a 2001 Subaru Forester. Okay. I just gave that away. I donated that less than a year.

Oh man, that was my car, you know.

And it was, it's seen some use, especially when I moved out of Cali, I moved to Vegas. I took the Subaru. The, my, the Roadster is still in my house over here.

Um, so you go see Deepak and you have to bring a check.

So yeah, I got to bring a check to Deepak. And, um, I, I made videos of that. So yeah, Bruce says, dude, you know, other people are going to say that they've got the first one. Like, yeah, like I've lost the paperwork.

In fairness, I'm not trying to like stir up a controversy. I just know there's going to—

it's just Bruce ribbing me. All right, all right. And I was at a party and I ran into another guy who was an early Tesla investor. I'm like, oh cool, cool. And he goes, yeah, and you know about the Roadster too? And I'm kind of like, yeah, I know something about that. He goes, well, I bought the first two. I'm like, uh, I don't think so. And what it is, we kind of, you know, what am I going to say? I said, well, no, I've got paperwork that says I— so was this recently? Uh, that's probably 7 years ago.

7 years ago. Okay, because my book came out 10. You got— you have, uh, it's in the book. I think it's in the book. It's in the book. Well, and you've got— you've got— well, so Okay.

I mean, if we can settle the controversy.

But so did the guy back down or you just didn't— you didn't press it?

Yeah, we didn't. I mean, you know, we were drinking and whatever. Oh, all right. What is this? This is— this is Deepak. Oh, yeah. Tesla headquarters back in—

Deepak's at Zipline these days. Yeah. Route via Verily.

And it's right at the beginning. I was filming a bunch of— he was having me turn on and off the camera because he would talk about the features of the Roadster 2, which were like— he did not want us to, but there was no flying or anything. It was like, like really basic stuff at the time. I mean, kind of like all the stuff the automotive industry was talking about but hadn't done.

Well, cars couldn't fly then, but yeah, they didn't really fly.

They didn't self-drive. So this is amazing.

Okay, I'm so excited. For the next-gen Roadster goes to Konstantin Ottmar. Bro, that's pretty definitive.

Did you see— you saw the email chain? With, uh, Elon.

Yeah, first he tells me there is no, there is no Roadster, and then I saw it in a Wired magazine.

Yeah, where he talks about the next-gen Roadster.

Look at you, you haven't aged today.

What are you talking about? And I almost had a feeling he suggested that price thinking you may say no, but you stuck to your guns and you're saying you want to go for it.

Yeah, you know, I just—

but you guys are just doing fabulous stuff, so there you go. Okay.

Where's my car? At the baseball games when someone catches a home run and it's, you know, somebody else grabs the ball and it's like, who has it? I feel like your case is pretty, pretty strong here, man. That's amazing. Where was that? Was that at Numi? Where was— oh no, was that in Palo Alto?

That was Palo Alto. Yeah, he gave me that contract. I don't know where it is. Okay. I've got an idea where it might be, but Have you ever sold a car? Emailed Elon about this? Um, not recently. Okay. Uh, it was a little different talking to Elon back then to talking to him now, but I haven't— no, I haven't.

Yeah, well, so I, I mean, I'm convinced. Um, how are you actually gonna get the first, first one now? Yeah, this— you just got a lot, you know.

My contacts at Tesla have kind of faded over the years. Yeah. Um, yeah, there's one guy I still know Um, that's, that's, that's it. And he's at the top.

He's the big dog.

So I need to, I need to write to them and say, hey, uh, you know, where's the unveiling? Let's, let's go. I don't know, let's see. They've always just— I mean, Tesla's just been amazing.

Oh, 2 months. That's what he said on Rogan, did he?

2 months to unveil it.

Yeah. And then, so that could slip. Yeah.

And it's kind of weird, like, is it going to be New Year's or like, that's what you Always puts his events when, you know, he's like on Christmas Day and, uh, okay, well, that gets a little more complicated.

I don't know, but hopefully not. I suspect this will push into the new year, but I, but I know nothing. Um, so, and then has he said what he thinks it will cost? Like, if you go on the website now, does it tell you?

Yeah, can you keep raising the price?

Maybe you need to find that contract and figure out what's, uh, this is what I'm wondering, what you're actually gonna have to pay. Yeah, this is a deposit was this, right?

I thought I was buying the car. Yeah, yeah, I might have just been buying the front wheels or something.

Uh, so how are people— oh, you can't reserve.

Is it in your app if you reserve a car? Does it tell you that? Because I saw, I saw somewhere—

was it saying Roadster reservations require $5,000 credit card payment plus $45,000 wire transfer? But I'm not seeing where it tells you like what the price— no, I don't think we know the price. So what happens then?

Again, does the app show you— like, somewhere I saw that I have the reservation. Maybe it's on the website. Oh, no way. The app? Oh yeah, but I don't think it has a number. Oh, right. They always say whatever reservation number. Okay, but they, they know because they asked for another 50.

Oh right, and that was how long ago? Oh, they know. But yeah, that's— so it's in—

but they asked for 50 like probably 3 years ago when they announced for real and start taking deposits. Yeah. And I think you could do two different levels of deposit, like you said, the $5,000 one, and that just reserves one. But then if you want to be in a queue and get a number or something, I think you had to put up $250.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So what's going to happen, man? So this other investor and then Elon might want, you know, yeah. Are you getting zero or are you getting one?

You know, I think it says I want zero if there's such a thing. So he could, he could out-zero me, but I have it on good authority. Actually, it's interesting you bring that up, that there is no zero with the Model S, but I guess they could change the rules. They could create a series before this series. But I had founders that, you know, there's a lot of games that could be played.

All right. And for all you guys, I feel like there's, there's a group of about, I don't know, 5 to 10 of you who are, who have been here through these different generations and have been early. I mean, obviously everyone wants, you know, it's a collector's kind of thing, like, why does it, why does it matter to you?

You know, it was pretty funny when he, um, Yeah, when Elon said $200, that was a lot of money for me. I mean, that was a lot of money. And I went to Bruce and I'm like, this guy wants $200, you know? And Bruce, of course you're going to do that. What are you kidding? You got to do that. And, you know, it's kind of a 2013 is like the year of YOLO or whatever. And I'm like, you know, all right, let's do it. Why did I buy it? Yeah, I don't know. It seemed funny actually to me on the Model S. In fact, I wrote this to Elon. And, you know, they had the news there and there's all this press. Well, you were at this. I mean, it was like a huge event. And, you know, and you get up on stage and he hands you the key. I was kind of embarrassed. Like, what did I do here? I bought a car. Like, I'm on stage because I bought a car. I mean, for me, it was another tech gadget. Like, I have so many different— it's like another cool gadget. It's the best one or whatever. And so I wrote him. I said, man, you know, this— it felt a little disingenuous to be on stage with, you know, just for me buying a car, like whatever.. But I should have got on my hands and knees and just like, dude, you are so— what the car is so great. What you've done here is just remarkable.

Yeah. I mean, not to— I don't want to go— I don't— this is— I don't want to go too nationalist or anything on this, but I remember that event a little differently. I didn't have a stake in the game. I wasn't getting a car, but I was covering it for my book and for Businessweek at the time. And I just distinctly remember it being, you know, it's this old NUMMI factory that had been left for dead. Along with like the American car industry. And obviously in hindsight, such a funny thing, but Tesla was still very much in like life and death mode. And the Roadster, for as cool as it was, was not like a, it wouldn't be considered like a success, like enough to sustain a company as a product. And so, so much was riding on the Model S. And I, I just remember, you know, all the workers being there, this factory coming back to life, the Model S actually being, even back then, I think the orders were so much higher than even Elon and Tesla would've expected. Like you had this palpable feeling that, my God, this car company might actually make it and we might, you know, it was a very refreshing story. It was in California. And so I remember being filled with like all this excitement. And then hindsight is funny, man, because, you know, 20 years later, I wrote about this a month or so ago. It's like, you know, I think the, This is not meant to be some like Elon, you know, fanboy thing. I think this is a fact. The two biggest manufacturing success stories of the last 20 years have to be Tesla and SpaceX. And, um, it's like, is off the top of my head, it's very hard to find something that's even close. I mean, maybe if you wanna, I'm talking in the US, I mean, maybe like TSMC or something, but you know, Anyway, I think for the US it's just so clear. And that really to me marked that kind of marked the moment is I think that was 2012 and SpaceX had just gotten to the ISS with Dragon and then you had this car factory coming to life and like, you know, that to me that all represented the beginning of what has transpired since. So that was—

sorry to ramble. No, it's, it's funny because Silicon Valley wisdom is don't do hardware. Yeah. I mean, it's like, and, but some of our biggest companies, you know, Apple, at one point I was, I, I invest in hardware as you know, I've invested in Tesla, but you know, I'm just a cowboy kind of frontier investor. I was gonna do this, you know, the, the ABCs of investing in hardware. Like A is Apple, you know, T is Tesla. Yeah. Like there's a lot of very big hardware companies. Yeah. But when you get into it, you also realize how difficult it is because there's returns, there's warranties, you know, 10 years later the thing fails and, people are complaining, where do the— where are the parts? Um, yeah, by the way, I do need a part for my Roadster if anyone's got a switch pack.

I think we can take care of a lot of stuff on this podcast. We're gonna— we'll certify— you got the first one out, man. The, the mice got in the Roadster, so we gotta fix—

we can find a switch pack. Yeah, when you put it in reverse, um, it— the, the gear doesn't work, and that, that switch is tied into what's called a switch pack that that all the switches go into. Yeah. And not the right things are getting set coming out of that. So we've taken it apart. That part was actually built by some small company in South Africa that no longer makes it. So if there's a crashed Roadster or something somewhere, we think that's the problem. Okay. But it's quite a— it's quite an electrical engineering challenge to go back through. And I got to catch up with Martin. He may have a better idea.

If you keep talking about Martin, Elon's not going to let you have this card.

Those guys— I wish those guys got along, but you know, I was not— I don't know what happened there. They're both— I mean, they're both amazing.

They're just both amazing. Uh, but gosh, well, I feel like Deepak has to be pretty happy because you have a video. He doesn't have to like physically get in the middle of this. He doesn't have to be like— you're creating the controversy.

It's clear. Come on. No, no, no. You wrote about it. You're the first to write about it. I did.

No, I think it is clear. I think this is— I'm happy you have all this stuff because I remember writing about it in the book. It's been so funny to me because I'll hear people talk about the Roadster 2 come up and I always think of you. And then I was just— we're in Playground Global's offices. You were here having lunch and I saw you. And then like you said, the Rogan thing and the Altman thing had just come up. I was like, dude, we got to do this. This is a great story. And I remember it fondly. No, I don't think there's a controversy. I, I, I know enough about all the, the kind of maneuvering that happens as the, the car gets close. And so, so I'm happy.

But Elon has always been amazing, amazing to me. Yeah, there's some other things that, uh, yeah, I mean, it's just been incredible. Yeah, the company is amazing.

Um, well, Konstantin, thank you so much for doing this. Um, I cannot— well, okay, do I get to like— I'm gonna start a new controversy. No, it's the first attempt. Yes, yes, I have a better idea. Like, if you I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm going to do it. I like it. Can we bring our cameras and come take the first ride? Oh yeah, let's do that for sure. Let's do that.

And take the first ride. Yeah, okay, let's do that. Can we do it? First ride.

Yeah, and then we'll ask— I have a problem.

A lot of people have asked for that first ride. Yeah. Nothing's been signed.

Okay. So— Ah, here we go. We've done it. We've done it. We've done it. I'll bring very good cameras. We'll drone it. We'll do it right, man. We'll catch this moment. In history, we may fly. There we go. I don't know if we hover.

Well, didn't the first Roadster of the first Roadster end up in space? It was one of the first.

Oh yeah, was it? Oh God, you're challenging all my knowledge now. Yeah, because did Elon end up with, with the— it was either the first or one of the first.

Yeah, yeah, it was his personal first one, right? He didn't just take some mule. No, 100. Yes.

Yes, correct. Yeah. So, you know, this thing's got rocket boosters.

Who knows what its, uh, and like destiny is.

Elon, I don't know if that counts as a product launch. I think that was the most memorable product launch in history, I think, because I remember just, it was a bit after my book had come out, but I, I like, yeah, my book had done really well, and then all of a sudden it was just enormous. I mean, the whole world, you know, where is that thing now?

It's that road. I think it's not orbiting, right?

There's There's a website where you could go.

Is it orbiting or is it—

is it like— isn't it orbiting Mars? Or am I making this up? No, no, I think it's supposed to be in an orbit around Mars, or it's like disintegrated.

I, I, uh, okay, it's not chasing that thing we put up there in '72. No.

Oh, you can look here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna look for one second. Um, the— but so he would have to kind of top that. Um, I guess, I don't know.

I—

Elon's got a high bar for product launches, you know. Where is Starman?

Starman, that's right.

Where is Starman? Oh, I'm getting a lot of ads. It looks like it's in some kind of orbit. There's the Roadster. Which color is the Roadster? Green? Yeah, it's green. So it's, it's, it's in—

Oh, Earth is blue.

Oh, it's going around Venus. Yeah. Weird orbit. It is. Wow.

A little bit of an elliptical orbit there.

So you can go to where's Starman. Where's Starman? I think it's where's Starman, whereisroadster.com. And that will, if accurate, show you where it is. It is 179 million miles. From Earth, moving at a speed of 9,350— is this miles per hour? I think it is miles per hour.

Um, well, that's all relative to what?

I mean, oh, that gets pretty tricky. So it's 137 million miles from Mars, moving toward the planet at 29,000 miles per hour. So I think, I think it is— isn't this— wasn't supposed Like crash into Mars? No, he wouldn't do that. I don't know if he can do that.

Oh, I mean, he's gonna recapture that thing, land it on Mars, get up there and drive it. As long as, you know, it's a safe storage up there. There's no rats. Yeah. So he's not gonna have that problem. That's right. You know, I could use the switchback out of that thing.

This is your, I think you're mushrooming. You're gonna get, you're on a mission now. Yes. I like that idea.

Well, this thing's gonna, rocket boosters live up to the promise. I'll go get it.

It's like 15 years from now, you're gonna be digging it out in a spacesuit. I'm very excited about this. If I do actually get the first ride, we will film it. I won't fully hold you if you've promised someone special, but if we could get one of the first rides, that would be incredible. And thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

I know we're done on a whim here. This is hilarious. This is awesome. Super fun.

It's so nice to just run into you constantly. Thank you. The Core Memory Podcast is hosted by me, Ashlee Vance. It is produced by David Nicholson and me. Our theme song is by James Mercer and John Sortland, and the show is edited by the John Sortland. Thanks as always As always, to Brex and A1 Ventures for making this possible. Please visit our Substack, YouTube, and podcast channels to get more of what Core Memory makes. Thanks, y'all.