A lengthy profile of Elon Musk by Rolling Stone offers new, but vague, details of the Tesla semi truck and says Musk was “morbid” on the day of the Model 3 launch.
The article explains that Tesla’s goal “isn’t to reinvent the truck, but to create the best one, whether or not it’s similar to past trucks.” The reporter joined Tesla VP of Engineering Doug Field, CTO JB Straubel, design chief Franz von Holzhausen, and VP of Trucks Jerome Guillen as Musk examined a new configuration of the truck’s cab for the first time.
Guillen explains the idea behind the truck: “We just thought, ‘What do people want? They want reliability. They want the lowest cost. And they want driver comfort.’ So we reimagined the truck.”
Tesla was particularly sensitive that the article not go into detail about a “driver-comfort feature” of the truck.
“Probably no one will buy it because of this,” Musk tells his team. “But if you’re going to make a product, make it beautiful. Even if it doesn’t affect sales, I want it to be beautiful.”
“I’ve been in severe emotional pain for the last few weeks,” Musk elaborates. “Severe. It took every ounce of will to be able to do the Model 3 event and not look like the most depressed guy around. For most of that day, I was morbid. And then I had to psych myself up: drink a couple of Red Bulls, hang out with positive people and then, like, tell myself: ‘I have all these people depending on me. All right, do it!'”
Musk is known for aggressive deadlines that are difficult live up to. Every Tesla vehicle has been delayed, the most recent being the Model 3, which has a backlog of nearly half-a-million reservations. He offered a defense in the article:
“Better to do something good and be late than bad and be early,” he said.