The National Governors Association (NGA) is an organization made up of the governors of the United States whose role is to coordinate national policy and interstate initiatives.

Invited to the NGA Summer Meeting, Elon Musk was keen to give his vision of the future in particular regarding the safety of his car fleet, Tesla, as well as the possibility for the United States to be totally fueled by renewable energy.

Autonomous cars

The CEO of Tesla is convinced that in 20 years, owning a car that is not self-sufficient will be like owning a horse today. He believes that it would be quite unusual to use a non-autonomous car as a means of transportation. He also thinks that the steering wheel of cars will gradually disappear.

Concerning safety, he thinks that the biggest risk would be a massive piracy of the fleet of cars. “If someone was able to hijack all the autonomous Tesla, he could send cars to Rhode Island across the United States, people would be unhappy,” he jokes. Then he wants to be reassuring: “If someone is in the car, he can press a button that no software can override and make sure you take control of the vehicle, and cut the link to the servers”.

Renewable energy

On renewable energy, Elon Musk said that “to power the entire United States with solar panels would require a small corner of Nevada, Texas or Utah ; about 100 miles on 100 miles of solar panels and 1 mile on 1 mile to accommodate batteries to store energy. It’s a small square on the map of the United States.”

See more information on the blog ModernSurvivalBlog.

Is it really achievable or is it a utopia? What would happen if a natural disaster occurred in a place where solar panels are concentrated? What about the cost of such an operation compared to the lifetime of infrastructures? Photovoltaic panels have an average life span of 30 years and can be composed of copper, indium, selenium, gallium … How have we planned to recycle them? This is an essential point for sustainable development.

Anyway, it’s appreciable to see that climate is very important to powerful and promising men, to the point of leaving the US president’s advisory council.

See below the Elon’s presentation in video: