Paly freshmen twins publish Tesla book, four years in the making

The California wildfires of 2018 left the Miao twins with more than just soot in their lungs. It filled them with a desire to do something for the environment. Then, when their parents bought a Tesla Model 3 for the family around the same time, their desire started to morph into an idea. While lounging in their room one day after school, they hatched a plan to express their love for the planet through a picture book about the science behind Tesla’s electric vehicles.

Titled “Everything Tesla: From How They Work to How Fast They Go and All the Fun In-between!” the book simplifies the technology that powers Tesla’s cars. It is around 200 pages long.

“The project started as a really small idea,” Eliana said.

They thought it would take about four months to complete; it ended up taking four years. When they began, they were in the 5th grade. They’re freshmen at Palo Alto High School today.

Staying inspired for that long isn’t easy, especially for kids. Given their academic commitments at school, they ended up working on the book mostly on weekends, managing to also make time to play basketball and hang out with their friends.

While the process was fun for the most part, both Eliana and Aiden admit there were hard days. “The scale of the book became so big that there were parts of the book that were really fun … but for many pages we also had to do the same thing over and over,” Aiden said about the layout process. “It became monotonous.”

Another part of the process they found frustrating was that they kept outgrowing their own ideas. “Since we grew older over that time period, there would be things that we wrote when we were younger but that we didn’t like anymore and that we wanted to change,” said Eliana. “Even our writing style shifted. So we’d constantly go through these loops of re-editing stuff.”

Tweaking the book to keep up with the innovation at Tesla — the launch of its humanoid robot “Optimus,” for instance — also made the finish line a moving target.

Finding adults to partner with wasn’t easy, either. About halfway into the project, when they began reaching out to designers for the book, they discovered that most of them didn’t really believe in their idea. “Some said the project’s too big or that we hadn’t thought it through clearly or that it might not be possible,” said Aiden. “They didn’t believe we had the perseverance or ability to make a project this big.”

Recalling a phase where they sent out numerous rough drafts on Google Slides, Eliana said adults “didn’t understand our vision and that we could pull it off.”

The rejection was hard to deal with, but they’re glad they didn’t give up. “After getting those emails there was definitely that sinking feeling in the stomach; it definitely doesn’t feel good. It hurt us and put us down but it was also like a blessing in disguise,” Eliana said.

In hindsight, the process led them to the right partners — designer Sadie Thomas of LS Design, and editor Alexander Cox, among others.

“We were able to do things with the book that we might not have been able to do if we worked with other people who had more of a strict idea of what a book should be like,” she said.

The siblings were particularly grateful to be able to control the reins of the project, execute things their way and experiment when they felt like it.

“After facing rejection, to find people willing to work on this project, and who kind of shared the same vision for the book, was really encouraging,” Aiden said.

Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk’s journey with the company is somewhat analogous to their own. “We do appreciate all the work he’s put into Tesla to make it a company that’s been really successful even when people doubted it,” he said.

With all these ups and downs behind them, the twins are now looking forward to promoting the book, which was launched on Wednesday and is available for sale on Amazon and locally at Books Inc., where they’ve planned a launch event on March 23 at 2 p.m.

On March 27, they will visit El Carmelo, the elementary school they went to as kids, to talk about the book.

“I don’t think either of us would have done it by ourself; it would’ve been too overwhelming,” Eliana said.

Of the two, she was more playful with the writing and more visually abstract, the pair said. Aiden was more logical, fact-driven and technical.

“What really helped get through it was having each other to bounce ideas off of or brainstorm with or just like check or re-write — just having another person that we trust to work with and be motivated by,” Aiden said.

They hope the book will encourage more people to think harder about sustainable energy. “That’s the message we want to get out to other kids — you can have a voice and help with things you’re passionate about,” Eliana said.

“Everything Tesla” is priced at $24.99 (hardcover) and $9.99 (Kindle).