Ella Mae

I was on @wholemars space this afternoon while my Model 3 drove me for a couple of hours to drop off my taxes. And found myself quite emotional listening to others' stories about theirs. I'll never sell it. It is the best thing I've ever spent money on beyond marriage and bringing children into the world. During the show it passed 159,000 miles. It is the 7,409th one Tesla made. Stood in line overnight 10 years ago to put down $1,000 before it was even announced. (I have a video over on Facebook of the first 100 people in line that I treasure today. Behind us were more than 1,000 in the Danville store). I really feel sorry for anyone who buys something else. I've driven many others since and they simply aren't even close to as good. Even the Chinese ones. They don't automatically drive nearly as well. My eight year old car is still way better than any other that's out today. Except a new Tesla. I studied automotive innovation most of my career because of my perch in Silicon Valley. When I was a kid the auto industry had its R&D centers somewhere else. Detroit. Stuttgart. Tokyo. Today they all have their R&D centers here in Silicon Valley because this is where the talent is that can build the future. Had the first ride in the Fiat 500. First ride in the BMW i3. First ride in the first Mercedes AI car. First ride in the first Tesla. Because two of my high school friends were killed in wrecks. My last book written with @IrenaCronin has a whole chapter about Robotaxis (written seven years ago). Uber was invented right in front of me in a Paris snowstorm. Did one of the first interviews with Lyft's founder. A week ago had a ride in the NVIDIA Mercedes at GTC. I have the first video of a Waymo EVER driving around a Silicon Valley freeway (it's up on YouTube). I had a front row seat on how Tesla outclassed the whole industry and brought software driven automobiles to the market. No one had done so before. Today my eight year old car is WAY better than when I bought it (I picked it up April 4, 2018). If I'm alive in 10 years we'll see maybe 100 million Optimus robots walking around everywhere and many vehicles that Franz @woodhaus2 and team haven't even dreamed up yet. All driving autonomously. And finally the death rate will start going down because of plans made more than a decade ago. There is a reason why I'm an Elon fan and it goes way beyond him giving me a ride in the first one before he gave his best friend a ride. It builds products the others can't match. Even a decade later. Even after Elon showed them. Even after they tore apart his cars to analyze how they were built. Even after I drove mine to Detroit to give people in traditional auto industry their first look back in 2018. And next comes Optimus, a new Roadster, a new semi, a new car without a steering wheel, a new transportation system, new tunnels to go faster across cities like Las Vegas, and more that I can't even dream up yet and I've been a futurist for a long time. It is so awesome finally seeing many "normal" people get what I've been saying for years and seeing the numbers of Tesla's on Silicon Valley's streets go up and up. So many over the years have given me shit about owning a Tesla. Or supporting Elon. Or being one of the first to take my hands off of the steering wheel and sharing that here on X. They all were wrong. Tesla is the world leader in all of transportation, even if you include all the Chinese new brands, which are making cars with more screens and better seats. Soon everyone will understand that transportation isn't about having a leather dashboard or seats, but about having better AI. And Tesla's is the best. And I'm talking about the AI running in my eight year old car. The AI that runs in today's Teslas is even better than that. And, yes, I know that lots of engineers claim theirs is better. But they won't give me one of theirs to drive around for a few weeks. There is a reason for that. Theirs isn't as safe. Isn't as smooth. Isn't as capable. And by the end of the year everyone will recognize that.