Musk Tells Podcast That Attitudes Toward EVs Have Changed: 'We Were Just Relentlessly Denigrated'

Tesla Inc TSLA’s share price dropped to its lowest level since 2016 Monday following a weekend interview by Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the “Ride The Lightning” podcast. Among the topics Musk discussed: the Tesla Model S and Model Y crossover.

Changing Perceptions

Musk said he knew the Model S was special from the time Tesla first unveiled the vehicle.

“I didn’t know it world work. I just designed what I thought would be the perfect car for me, actually. I think that’s a very good approach. If you’re going to design a product, it’s very difficult to infer what others would love, but you know what you love. If you make something that you love, and hopefully you’re not unique in the world, then others will like it too,” he said.

Musk said Tesla went through the same process in designing the Model X and the Model 3.

The inspiration behind “Ludicrous Mode” was demonstrating to the world that car buyers don’t have to sacrifice performance to go electric, the CEO said. 

“We definitely wanted to show that an electric car can be the best kind of car, that it could outperform a gasoline car. And I think these days, people don’t remember just how foolish it seemed to make an electric car, and we were just relentlessly denigrated and [people] said we’re obviously going to fail and the fact that we’re doing an electric car was just stupidity squared." 

The attitude toward electric vehicles has shifted dramatically in the past decade, Musk said. 

See Also: Musk Compares Tesla Pickup Truck To The F-150, Says It Will Cost Less Than $50,000

Model Y Design

Looking ahead to the Model Y — which is expected to start shipping in late 2020 — Musk said customers will be surprised at how roomy the crossover is on the inside.

“A lot of people think it looks not much bigger than a Model 3. It’s intended to not look big. But I think the mark of a good design for a vehicle is that it feels much bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside,” he said.

Some Tesla critics have ripped the Model Y as being derivative of the Model 3’s design, but Musk said Tesla intentionally designed the Model 3 to be easy to produce.

“With Model Y, we wanted to avoid the technology bandwagon that we had with the X where is should have been easy going from S to X, and instead it was hell because there were so many new technologies. We didn’t want that to be the case. It would be too risky for the company to do that with the Y," he said.

Tesla aimed to make the Y as similar to the 3 as it could outside of the changes necessary to achieve SUV functionality, Musk said. 

Demand In Focus

While investors await the rollout of the Model Y, the Tesla Pickup and the next model Tesla Roadster, investors are hoping Tesla can demonstrate there is enough demand for its current models to support the company’s financials.

Tesla shares are down 49 percent in the past six months, and the company raised another $2.7 billion in capital last month.

The stock was trading down by 3.12 percent at $179.39 at the time of publication Monday.

Related Link: Barclays Cuts Tesla Price Target To $150 

Photo courtesy of Tesla.