Elon Musk saying he would reverse a Twitter ban on Donald Trump provided the main headline from his FT interview at our Future of the Car conference on Tuesday, but Tesla’s incredible progress was the big subject of discussion.

I remember getting a test drive in a rattling converted Lotus Elise along Highway 101 15 years ago, in the company’s early days. Musk said Tesla was getting everything wrong at that stage in what was an “insane nightmare”.

Stringing together small lithium-ion batteries, which were in their early development stages for cars back then and had safety issues, was a big challenge. The company first turned to a barbecue maker in Thailand to make the battery pack, as part of its “dumpster fire of stupidity”, before deciding to do it in-house.