Letterman Worried That Electric Car Would "Magnetize My Nuts" (VIDEO)

The chairman of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, went on the Late Show with David Letterman last night to promote the Tesla Model S, another in his company's line very cool-looking, very electric, very expensive cars. The Model S is slated to be sold in two years for around $49,900.

From Tesla's site:

With a range up to 300 miles and 45-minute QuickCharge, the Model S can carry five adults and two children in quiet comfort - and you can charge it from any outlet, without ever stopping for gas.

Dave, an automotive buff, asks great questions even about environmental issues -- like is an electric car really any better if coal is being used to generate some of the electricity?

Here, Dave interviews Elon Musk, chairman of Tesla Motors. Be sure to catch the moment around 8:15 when Dave says that the first time he drove a Tesla car, he was "worried that it would magnetize my nuts," to which Musk nervously replies, "well, that's true:"

Here, the car rolls out onto the set and Dave does a really weird thing:

And here are some Tesla Model S photos:

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Comments

[carwoman7]

letterman and electric cars.....o­h my.

[SailorBill]

When GM killed the electric car, they were about 18 months ahead of Toyota in battery pack design. GM could have owned the hybrid market.

[crater123]

Could you stop with the chics on display with the cars already? Can't we get passed that too?

[crayola 08]

yup, i totally agree. gimme some sweet sweet male models now! :)

[repugnicansfearme]

Grape Nuts are fine, Davey. No worries.

[Vance1]

Yea been see'ing alot of Toyota Prius fires lately
They must be great cars!!!!!

[lizr]

fires? what fires?

[uncomplicatedlife]

I sure miss the days when talk show hosts didn't talk about their "nuts".

[JZ735]

Yes, Dave is nuts about his nuts...TMI­....! really don't WANT to have that image in my head!

[crayola 08]

or on it.

:P

[DSchoen]

"$50k for a car at least brings it into the realm of the upper-middle class (or maybe lower-upper class?), the sorts of professionals who now might drive a BMW or Lexus. That is not true of the Tesla Roadster."

I understand and agree with Tesla Motors goal and their rational.

This is the USA, were a NACAR nation, no “Green Econobox” is ever going to sell.

The Tesla cars are hot and will sell if ya can get the price down.
As far as Technology advancements go, there’s only a few ways of quickly going about it.

Find a military application.

Make it a toy (I’m not kidding, seriously do you think home computers would have taken off, if all you could do with them was create and maintain a data base?).

Make it into some cool shinny krap, which may belong into the above categories.

[lizr]

seems like the price is somewhat offset by the fact that you never have to use GAS.

[sculptor]

I think the actual costs of ownership (look at my other posting in the archive if you doubt this) makes it comparable with a $35,000 internal combustion engine vehicle.

[MrMostly]

Boone Pickens was right about the impact of electric cars. His line of reasoning was basically that there are something like 200 million cars in America. Even a crash program of replacement of gas cars with electric would not do better than say 2 million per year for 10 years. Thus in 2020 we would still have 190 internal combustion cars burning fossil fuel.

Electric cars are just as much of a false start as gas-alcohol and fuel cells....s­orry to say.

(Boone Pickens funded the Swift Boat sabotage of John Kerry which doomed us to another 4 years of Bush....fo­r that he deserves eternal damnation)

[FearlessFreep]

So what's your solution?

[ipv4]

If all cars that are produced are electric over the next 10 years then you sound pretty stupid.

Why would anyone consider buying a gas operated car if their was an alternative that was cheaper.

I have solar panels and live off the grid. The day that I will be able to buy an electric car will be a grand day indeed. It will cost me nothing to drive.

[lizr]

Boone Pickens did that? We have him to blame for Bush's second term?

Thanks for this info.

He is off my list forever.

[BlackbirdHighway]

He was the chief Swiftboater, put up $2 million to fund those guys. Sunk Kerry and gave another four years of Bush.

Anything Pickens supports, I am against.

[AustinCynic]

$50k for a car at least brings it into the realm of the upper-middle class (or maybe lower-upper class?), the sorts of professionals who now might drive a BMW or Lexus. That is not true of the Tesla Roadster.

In my dreams, I'd love to see a merger between Tesla and a spun-off Saturn. A trimmed-down Saturn line could be sold as entry-level electrics or plug-in hybrids; Tesla could be the pure electric luxury/performance marque.

[kevenseven]

Where in your dreams does the capital come from?

[AustinCynic]

Well, the government's pumping cash into banks, GM and Chrysler with far less potential return. Maybe it's not politically feasible, but I wouldn't object to government loan guarantees for a Tesla-Saturn Motor Company.

I'll grant you things are different now, but Kaiser-Frazer got into the auto game after WWII when the government had excess factory capacity; the new auto company was given a mandate to produce a low-priced economy car. The result was the Henry J., which wasn't a humongous success but allowed Kaiser to buy out Willys-Overland and manufacture a car called the Jeep for nearly a quarter-century.

It would be a gamble, to do this with Musk. He could easily be the next Preston Tucker, with a grand vision that never quite works. But he could also be the Iaccoca of a reborn, green, U.S. auto industry.

[jeliz]

If the oil companies didn't run America, we would have more affordable electric cars by now. Maybe we should stop driving so much, carpool, use trains, bicycle; we could change the game.

[Renato Piscioneri]

dave was right on
the japanese will screw us again by being way ahead of us
while we sleep they design build and perfect the next models
gm and ford are controlled by the oil companies because it would be a disaster if we switch away from gasoline---no industry uses as much oil as the car industry so consider the loss for the oil producers if we go to an electric car;

[lizr]

oh and wouldnt that be a sad thing.

[prosha]

Elon Musk must be a joke name.

[mtracy9]

The reason GM killed the electric car was because GM and its buddies in the oil industry didn't want it. Both the auto companies and the oil companies were worried that the electric car would interfere with their business plans and profits. However, both GM and the oil companies found out that they could not stop this new technology. Japanese and Chinese auto companies were there to develop it, if American car companies weren't. Now American auto companies are forced to play catch up, once again.

[MikeDu]

Sorry, I don't 'get' electric cars. On the eastern seaboard every summer we experience 'brown-outs' whe people all arrive home from work at the same time and all turn on their air conditioning and plazma TVs together. And you expect to also plug a few MILLION cars into the electric grid at 6pm every day too? Where's that power going to come from? They'd have to double the coal shipments to keep the power plants running full-speed!

[SteveDenver]

There's a great documentary called WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR about the GM cars that were leased (not sold) in California, which they recalled and destroyed, the same year they introduced the Hummer.

There were parking structures where the roof of the carport was covered with solar cells. Solar chargers are being developed for the roof and decks of cars.

Don't give up on electric cars based on the state of things today, look forward and see how they can work really well.

[Hardy Haberman 1]

Sorry to disagree, but there is a reason nightime hours are called "off-peak hours" by power companies. Power use drops even in summer after work hours, factories shut, big buildings use les power and overall the demand drops. Check your bill, in many places "off-peak" use is cheaper as well.

[DocTwain]

Um ... build a lot of wind power and solar?

I mean seriously, let's cover Death Valley with solar panels, and Nebraska with windmills.
That would power the whole country.
What else are they good for?

[lizr]

I heard windmills in the Mojave could power Los Angeles...

[vfx]

Sounds like a regional problem. Most of the country has Excess power at night. Put up some windmills (that run at night) out in the ocean and you are set.

[BlackbirdHighway]

The cars have timers to start the charging late at night, so the extra load kicks in about midnite instead of 6 pm. Lots of utilities are giving price breaks on power late at night when demand is low.

When there are significant numbers of electric cars, we will have V2G technology. Not only will the cars draw power from the grid when charging, but they will also be able to give back a small amount to the grid during peak demand.

Imagine a million electric cars, all pumping a few kilowatts each into the grid about 6 pm, preventing brownouts without the need to build extra power plants. Then later that night, when the grid has excess capacity, the cars charge up and they are ready for the morning commute.

[diasehmai]

Even Dave eventually had to resort to a genitalia joke. We live in a great country.