National Electricity Day

Open Letter Elon Musk, Tesla Motor Co

Dear Elon,

Thank you for naming your car company after me. Doing so has renewed interest in who I was and what I contributed to society. Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi have had better name recognition until now.

As a token of my appreciation: you can make EVs more efficient and cost less by use aluminum instead of copper.

1)       One pound of AL provides the conductance of two pounds of CU.

2)       Today AL costs $1/lb., CU $4/lb.

3)       $1 worth of AL replaces $8 of CU.

4)       Other benefits: weight reduction enabling greater range; material price stability and elimination of CU theft.

Unfortunately, I died in 1943 and never got to see the “Age of Aluminum” in which you now live. However, Tesla Motors can still benefit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by using what I predicted would happen in 1900*.

Nikola Tesla

Written for NT by Peter Pollak, P. E. (ppollak@verizon.net)

*See attached article:
More Than a Century Ago Nikola Tesla Envisioned the Age of Aluminum, Replacing Copper in Electrical Wiring
LIGHT METAL AGE, DECEMBER 2024
Pages 40-41