My name is Azizi Tucker.

And welcome to TEDxTaipei 2013, “Living Together”.

I am not such a good environmentalist.

I don't always recycle

when I at home.

I never unplug my electronic devices like I should.

I race cars through the Mexican desert for fun.

And I used to build spaceships which punch

holes in the ozone layer with every launch.

I have a few redeeming environmental qualities.

I don't own a car,

but that makes me just like

most people here in Taipei City.

Sometimes, when I go to MOS Burger,

I can figure out where the paper,

plastic waste goes.

My carbon footprint is approximately

3 times the average American

at 80 tons of CO2 per year.

Much higher than the average Taiwanese also.

In short, I am not an environmentalist.

I am actually very far from it.

However, I do care about the environment

and want things to be better.

I think in many ways

I'm like many of you here,

where I want things to be better,

but my actions don't neccessarily

live up to my words.

Why am I here?

I was born in Oakland, California.

And grew up as the mountain bike was

just being developed in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I began mountain biking when

I was just 8 years old,

and before the term was even common place.

In my teens,

I began to race mountain bikes down hill

and did very well in the high speed races.

While growing up and riding bicycles

I've always had a love of cars

and dreamed of racing cars in the future.

My love of cars led me away from the

San Francisco Bay area

once I finished high school and to Detroit, Michigan,

the motor city.

I studied engineering at University of Michigan,

and hoped to work in the car industry.

I was lucky enough to get a job

at a large automotive supplier,

in the automotive industry.

My company manufactured complete engines

and engine parts for Ford, GM, and Chrysler.

At the time,

we produced over a thousand gas guzzling

V8 engines every day.

These engines were made for the very large SUVs

that were popular in 1990s and early 2000s.

While working in Detroit,

I began to race cars.

I was finally fulfilling one of my dreams.

I raced almost every weekend,

and me and my friends would drive all

over the US to attend races.

While working in the automotive industry,

I worked on many innovative projects

that made it through testing,

a little bit development,

but were cancelled before production started.

There were several high efficiency diesel engines

that were perfect for the large SUVs of the time

that were cancelled due to lack of customer demand.

The project that intrigued me the most

was the Chrysler Patriot.

It was a natural gas, electric hybrid race car

which was designed and partially tested

before it was cancelled in the 1990s.

At the time I was very suprised

and very interested.

I had no idea something powered

by electricity, an electric car

could reach speeds of 300 kilometers per hour.

The project was eventually cancelled by

Chrysler management in 1996.

One year later, 1997,

Toyota unveiled the first production hybrid car:

the Toyota Prius.

I saw the approach of the decline of the

American automotive industry and

became frustrated with the lack of innovation.

I moved from the automotive industry

to the aerospace industry

to get a chance to work with the very

best and learn from the very best.

Working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,

I was exposed to some of the very best

cutting edge technology.

However, the pace of the development was

just far too slow for my taste.

I was bored.

I moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area

after 3 years at NASA Goddard.

My love of cars lead me to become one of

the early employees at Tesla Motors.

When I moved back to the San Francisco bay area,

there are only two choices to work

in automotive industries.

I could work for Tesla Motors,

a small start-up with fewer than 100 employees,

or I can go work for NUMMI.

It was a huge GM and Toyota joint venture

with more than 6000 employees.

The cars from Tesla Motors were fast;

the cars from GM and Toyota were slow and boring.

My decision was made.

My parents were a bit worried,

but the job at Telsa turned out to be

a wonderful accident.

The work that I'd loved all my life

have finally begun to help,

instead of hurt the environment.

A flip had happened for myself.

I was able to do more racing and also

some long distance racing in the desert.

Early in my racing career,

I began to produce my own parts.

This allowed me to keep up with

the more wealthy competitors.

That more wealthy competitors...

Through racing, I've honed my

engineering skills with real life successes

and many many failures.

TED, stands for Technology,

Entertainment, and Design.

Technologists build the building blocks

for the things in our world.

Entertainers bring ideas and products

to the masses.

Designers make the products that

we love and not always

because of how they function.

My answer here is,

don't be an environmentalist because

it's good for the planet.

Be an environmentalist because

it can make you rich.

Be an environmentalist because

it's more fun.

Be an environmentalist because

it's convenient.

Be a environmentalist because

it simply looks good.

And finally,

Be an environmentalist just because

it's what everyone else is doing.

Accidental Environmentalism

Money, you can make money

from selling green products.

When I started at Tesla Motors

in 2006, there were less than 100 employees.

There had not been a successful US car company

in the previous 81 years.

That company by the way was

Chrysler, which has been bailed out by

US government twice

and has once declared bankruptcy.

There were 780 failed car companies in

the United States.

The odds were certainly against us and our team at Tesla.

During the time I was with the company,

we grew to over 3000 employees.

We designed and built and tested our first car,

the Tesla Roadster in just 3 years

and sold out production run of 2500 cars.

The cost of each car was more than

100 thousand US dollars.

The Tesla Roadster was the fastest,

longest range electric vehicle ever made.

Top speed was 210 kilometers per hour

with the range of 350 kilometers.

We followed this up with the Model S sedan, which launched

a little over year ago,

was awarded several "Car of the Year" awards

at its launch.

The factory currently is running

full production and has produced

more than 15 thousand cars.

Company stock was initially 17 US dollars,

and it's now trading around

180 US dollar per share.

Simply, you can make money

building green products.

In addition,

that's what I did in the past.

The question is,

what will I do next?

For me, the thing that excites me

about products is products that are fun.

As a long-time bike rider and racer,

I consider building my own electric bike

when I worked at Tesla Motors.

Me and my colleagues would have casual

lunch time conversation about taking

the Tesla technology and combining it with

an electric bicycle to make

a really nice high speed electric bicycle.

Like so many lunch time conversations,

that was just idle chatter and nothing came from there.

6 months after I left Tesla to

start my engineering consulting company

here in Taipei,

my friends here in Taiwan encouraged me

to build my own electric bicycle.

My electric bicycles have a top speed of

70 kilometers per hour,

and a range of 100 kilometers on one battery.

They are good for the environment,

and offer reduced pollution transportation.

Well, these bicycles are friendly for the environment

but it's not my focus at all.

It is all about fun and fast fun.

My initial goal was to build the kind

of bicycle or motorcycle that I wanted

power by the electricity.

I quickly realized, however, that I have a product

that will appeal to the gasoline motorcycle

owners here in Taiwan and around the world.

Several big bike, motorcycle riders have

test ridden my bike and

they all immediately love it and

plan to buy them soon.

Not once have any of them said,

"I like this product.

This is good for the environment

so I will buy one."

For them,

like you and like me,

we buy products based on the way

they look, feel, or cost.

My newest project is LMD Racing.

You can see some of our cars over here

to the right of the stage.

I met my partners at LMD Racing,

Daniel and Tsung-Hsien, about 2 years ago,

while shopping for a racing car to

drive here in Taiwan.

As we got to know each other,

Daniel mentioned to me

that he had a dream of building his own

series of racing cars here in Taiwan.

I've done several car designs but

had never developed or brought any of them

to production.

As we researched and interviewed drivers about

what kind of race cars would sell well

in the Asian market,

We refined the concept

and we quickly settled on the

gasoline V8 engine as an ideal engine

for our race car.

Big power, low cost, reliable.

During my time at Tesla,

me and my colleagues have pushed for the idea

of building an electric race car.

But there simply was not the time,

budget, or manpower to devote

to a project like that.

With the design of the LMD race car

well underway,

I mentioned casually to our team

that I'd design the car for both

gasoline and battery electric power.

For normal people there would

have been many questions.