Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster At TiECon 2008
By Kamla Bhatt • May 19th, 2008Category: Events, Ideas, Planes and Automobiles, Start-ups, Technology, Video, YouTube Videos
All I heard on the first day of TiECon was about Elon Musk and his Tesla roadster.
Musk was the keynote speaker on the second day and the highlight was that he was going to drive his Tesla (he owns the first Tesla that rolled out of their production line) into the auditorium just before his keynote talk with Mike Malone, a veteran Silicon Valley journalist. I certainly did not want to miss this and was there at the Santa Clara convention bright and early and took my place in the first row with my Nikon, my video camera, recorder etc. It was a bit of an anti-climax when Musk drove his Tesla roadster. There was pin drop silence as the metal door rolled up and Musk silently drove his roadster into the auditorium.
As you can see from the video clip there was that deafening silence followed by some clapping and then silence again. And then the scene unfolded like some old bioscope movie where people made a mad dash to take those first pictures of the Tesla, while Musk made a quick escape out of the car to the stage. He took a quick glance to make sure that the security guard took the necessary precautions to protect the roadster.
After Musk finished his talk, there was a mad dash by many members of the audience to take pictures of the car. It got to a point where folks were not interested in listening to the next speaker but continue taking pictures of the low slung, sexy looking roadster. The crowd was chastised by a TiECon official for their errant behavior and asked to take their seats. It was quite an amusing scene.
Tesla Motors is located in Silicon Valley and backed by Musk. A couple of months ago it started the production of its electric car and people are lining up to buy this electric vehicle that costs $100,000.
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