Jameson is based in Southern California and has been driving electric vehicles since 2009 and writing about EVs, sustainability and policy for Electrek since 2016.
You can contact him at jamie@electrek.co, or on his bluesky account that he just set up and maybe will never use at https://blskyl.ink/jamesondow
A new bill, SB 167, has been introduced in Colorado which would allow electric vehicle manufacturers to bypass the state’s direct-sales ban.
The ban was first passed in 2010, which means Tesla’s store in the state is “grandfathered in,” though Tesla is not allowed to open other stores. It still has several locations in the state, but these are technically “galleries”
Tesla started clearing the forest at their new Giga Berlin site just two days ago, and now we have drone footage showing just how extensive the work already is.
UPDATE: Just after this article was posted, we heard that a court has temporarily ordered Tesla to stop clearing the forest, pending review of a complaint by the Grünen Liga Brandenburg (Brandenburg Green League).
Tesla has updated their Model S and X offerings with ever-higher range numbers. The cars now have a listed 390- and 351-mile range, up from the previous 373 and 328 miles.
In addition, the Model S Long Range Plus now comes standard with the new 19-inch tempest wheels. The Model X retains the same 20-inch/22-inch wheel selections as before the update.
Volvo Trucks launched their electric heavy duty truck program in California this week, nicknamed “Volvo LIGHTS.” Its centerpiece is the new Volvo VNR Electric heavy duty truck, which enables local and regional heavy duty cargo hauls. It will be used in a pilot program to haul cargo from the ports of Los Angeles to regional distribution hubs in Southern California’s Inland Empire.
As part of the launch, Volvo invited us out to Fontana speedway for a quick drive of the VNR electric, which handled better than it has any right to given its huge size.
Volvo Trucks has launched a pilot program in California that brings several of their new all-electric VNR class 8 heavy duty trucks to the road.
The company invited us out to Fontana speedway yesterday for some more insight into their program.
Jaguar is shutting down their I-Pace line due to a shortage of batteries from LG Chem, The Times reports.
The shutdown of their production line in Graz, Austria will last a week starting next Monday.
Tesla’s Shanghai gigafactory has been closed since January 29 due to China’s coronavirus outbreak, which has shut down many factories around the country.
We now have news that the factory will reopen on February 10 after the shutdown, and that the Shanghai government has offered “help” to companies to get production back up to speed after the shutdown (via Reuters).
Rivian posted a new video covering some of the company’s history, mission, and background today.
In it, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe and several of the company’s top engineers talk about the challenges that the company has faced and will face in the future.
The Porsche Taycan is out and we’ve already declared it the best Porsche ever, but questions still remain about the Taycan’s low efficiency and how that affects its charging rate. Early owners and reviews have found that the Taycan is more efficient than ratings suggest, so how does that affect its actual charge rate?
Nextmove, a German YouTube channel, put the car to the test against the most efficient EV, the Tesla Model 3, to see which one would win: Tesla’s lower peak kW rate and higher efficiency, or Taycan’s higher rate and lower efficiency.
Arcimoto has finally started deliveries of their three-wheeled “Fun Utility Vehicle,” and we caught Arcimoto CEO Mark Frohnmayer on the tail end of a cross-country tour for a short ride through Los Angeles.
We’ve driven the Arcimoto before, but those were earlier versions and shorter rides. Now that we’ve had a chance to try this fun little thing out on real roads (and in real traffic), here’s how it was.
Shell has announced a plan to increase their EV fast-charging presence in Germany, up to 200 total charging points from their currently announced 100.
The Model Y is shipping just next month, but for many prospective orderers, it’s still been tough to get an idea of exactly how big the car is going to be.
Thanks to some of Tesla’s product photos and Reddit user gundarx, we’re getting a clearer view than ever on just how much bigger the Model Y is than the Model 3.
Tesla has been on a tear lately, and it looks like CEO Elon Musk is trying to think of new ways to spend some money. Tonight he dropped a hint that, in addition to current gigafactory projects in China and Germany, Tesla is considering one in Texas.
One of the largest battery suppliers in the world, CATL, has signed an agreement with Tesla, as reported by Reuters.
The agreement lasts for two years from July 2020 to June 2022 and has no specified capacity restrictions.
Over the last few days, there have been a lot of reports of Tesla owners activating “dyno mode,” a mode that disables safety systems for the purpose of testing the car on a dynamometer.
Some videos and comments have surfaced of owners irresponsibly using this mode on public roads which endangers public safety. Do not do this. This article will be an attempt to explain the relevant safety features of your Tesla, why they’re there, and why you shouldn’t turn them off by activating dyno mode.
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A Ford engineer hosted an “ask me anything” (AMA) thread on Reddit over the weekend. In it, they let us in on a few new bits of information about the car (including battery and charging specs), and talked about his opinion of it, particularly in comparison to the Tesla Model Y, which will target a similar market as the Mach-E.
The thread has since been deleted, but many of the questions and answers were archived by the folks over at Mach E forum.
Tesla has updated their warranty coverage for Model S and X cars, and it’s a mixed bag for owners. The warranty now explicitly covers battery degradation and capacity loss, guaranteeing that the battery will retain 70% capacity through the warranty period. But Tesla also removed their famous “infinite mile warranty” for battery and drive unit and replaced it with a limit of 150,000 miles — still plenty high for most (but not all) scenarios, but not “infinite.”
More controversially, Tesla explicitly stated that “changes to the performance of the battery due to software updates are NOT covered” under warranty, likely due to a situation last year where some owners saw sudden range drops after an update.
In Tesla’s Q4 update on Wednesday, it shared some information on 2020 production plans. One tidbit from these plans is that the company expects to no longer be production-constrained at the end of the year.
If this happens, it could finally mean an end to parts shortages and logistical constraints that have affected Tesla’s service departments for quite some time now. Things have certainly been getting better, but it would be nice to see that stigma of the Tesla experience disappear.
Los Angeles has committed to electrifying their entire garbage truck fleet, and they’re doing it with a pretty aggressive goal.
Los Angeles Board of Sanitation director Enrique Zaldivar made the announcement last week that not only will the city stop buying gas-powered garbage trucks in 2022, but they will have a fully electric fleet by 2035.
Along with Tesla’s Q4 2019 results letter, the company has updated us on their current production capacity and 2020 production plans.
Tesla currently has capacity to build 90k Model S/X and 400k Model 3/Y in Fremont, California, with an additional 150k capacity for Model 3s in Shanghai. By the end of the year, they expect to have 500k capacity for Model 3/Y in Fremont, and are in the process of installing additional capacity in Shanghai for Model 3 and Model Y.
Tesla’s 2020 construction plans also include “limited volumes” of Tesla Semi deliveries.
Extreme E has released an onboard video showing their Odyssey 21 electric rally car racing on an actual Dakar Rally stage.
The new fully electric Mini, the Mini Cooper SE, hits US showrooms in March. BMW flew us down to Miami last week to drive it up and down the Florida coast, and Electrek is here to tell you whether it lives up to expectations.
The Mini Cooper SE is Mini’s first entry into the electric vehicle market…sort of. Mini made a limited-run vehicle in 2009, the Mini E, and I was one of the lucky 450 drivers in the US to have one. I drove it for two years and loved it, and it’s what got me into electric vehicles in the first place. Will the 2020 Mini Cooper SE inspire other drivers the same way the original Mini E inspired me? Let’s find out.
Tesla China is notifying customers that, due to the coronavirus outbreak currently happening in that country, all Tesla vehicles will have free supercharging to facilitate travel until the outbreak is resolved.
The upcoming Rivian R1T pickup and R1S SUV will be cheaper than previously expected. The R1T was originally announced with a $69,000 base price (and the R1S SUV at $72,000).
Rivian now says that $69,000 will be the price for a “well-equipped vehicle,” and that base model pricing will actually be lower than that.