Two Teslas Drove Across The Country, And It Was A Total Success
Elon Musk appeared on "CBS This Morning" to discuss his company's cross-country road trip that saw two Teslas go from Los Angeles to New York in 76 hours without needing so much as a drop of gasoline.
By stopping every few hundred miles to charge up at Tesla supercharger stations (which are fed by solar panels - free electricity!), the cars are able to travel all the way across the country at virtually no cost.
"[The cars] did very well, actually," he said. "They completed the journey despite multiple road closures, blizzards, in some cases traversing 12 inches of snow. No problems at all. We did have one problem with the gasoline support van that broke down but otherwise, it was great."
Musk also took the opportunity to address the overhyped fires that a few Tesla customers have reported:
With respect to the fires, it's worth noting that all cars have some propensity to catch on fire. But our car is eight times less likely [to do so] than a gasoline car. So it's important to appreciate that no car is completely fireproof. Also when our fires have occurred, they have only occurred after high-speed impact and there have never been any injuries. In fact, our car is, I believe, or at least Tesla is certainly unique in that no one has had a serious injury in our cars ever under any circumstances.
But rather than defend his company and product (cars driven by humans will never be totally safe), Musk is clearly far more interested in what Tesla can do to make transportation easier and more affordable in the future:
"Our goal is to provide free long-distance travel throughout the country, forever, and we're putting solar panels over the supercharger stations. So the basic idea is to travel for free forever on pure sunlight."