Elon Musk on the first thing to do when starting a company

The goal with Tesla was really to try to show what electric cars can do because people had the wrong impression. We had to change people's perception of an electric vehicle because they used to think of it as something that was slow and ugly and had low range, kind of like a golf cart. So that's why we created the Tesla Roadster, to show that you can be fast, attractive and long range. And it's amazing how even though you can show that something works on paper and the calculations are very clear until you actually have the physical object and they can drive it, it doesn't really sink in for people. So that, I think, is something worth noting. If you're going to create a company, the first thing you should try to do is create a working prototype. Everything looks great on PowerPoint. You can make anything work on PowerPoint. But if you have an actual demonstration article, even if it's in primitive form, that's much, much more effective for convincing people. So we made the Tesla Roadster and now we're coming out soon with the Model S, which is a four door sedan. Because after we made the Tesla Roadster, people said, oh, sure, sure. We always knew you could make a car like that. It's an expensive car and it's low volume and it's small and all that, but you couldn't make a real car like, okay, fine, I got to make that too. So that's coming out soon.