Seth Weintraub

The all-new 2016 Chevrolet Volt electric car with extended range, showcasing a sleeker, sportier design that offers 50 miles of EV range, greater efficiency and stronger acceleration.

The results are in: the new 2016 Chevy Volt will get 53 miles of electric range on a charge of its new 18.4-kWh lithium-ion battery according to EPA numbers. That’s close to 40% more than the previous Volt’s 38 miles and a big psychological jump for buyers.

The typical American commute is around 48 minutes so adding those extra miles gets a lot more people home without using gas. Chevrolet expects many next-generation Volt owners will use power solely from their batteries for more than 90 percent of trips. Today, Volt owners use battery power on 80 percent of their trips.

The biggest turn off for me in the old Volt was the back seat which was split in half by the battery bar. The 2016 lowers the batteries so that a car seat or a passenger can straddle the bar which is worlds better for families.

That, and when you went to gas – like for long trips – you’d only get around 35 miles/gallon with the range extender. The next-generation Volt’s new 1.5L range-extender, designed to use regular unleaded fuel, offers a combined EPA-estimated fuel efficiency of 42 MPG. That’s very respectable but not yet on the same level as a Prius which typically sees 50+ mpg.

I think the new Volt is hitting new spec points that will make sense for a lot more buyers. It doesn’t have any range anxiety problems and it is getting pretty close to the range of the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 (which also has a very small REX engine). Also, the faster acceleration, better back seat and sportier looks will draw new buyers along with the proliferation of EV charging points around the country.

The new EPA sticker is below:
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[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/627040381729906688 align=’center’]

According to a series of tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk at 5am ET this morning, the Model S vehicles released since the D event will soon gain the ability to steer on the highway and parallel auto park.

[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/627040639553830912 align=’center’]

This is a pretty big deal when combined with the current traffic aware cruise control. It means you can essentially put on “autopilot” when you get on the highway and don’t have to turn it off until it is time to recharge or get off the highway.  While I wouldn’t (and Tesla certainly doesn’t) recommend sleeping or getting out of your seat, one could theoretically pick up a newspaper, tablet or smartphone during this time (Oh, that’s against the law in most states currently).

At the very least, it is a great safety feature.

The parallel auto park will also be a very nice selling point for those who fear parallel parking. I’m sadly unfamiliar with this phobia as I can parallel park perfectly into any spot *crash*.

Tesla announced a new program for its owners today. People who refer new buyers will receive $1000 for every sale of a Tesla vehicle they can initiate.

• Owners who make five referral orders will receive an invitation for them and a guest to attend the Gigafactory grand opening party.
• Those who make ten referral orders will get the right to purchase a Founder Series Model X, which is not available at any price, for the cost of a base Model X, an approximately $20,000 difference.
• The first owner in each region, North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, to make ten referral orders will get a fully loaded Model X for free.

We had a hunch Tesla was up to something when Elon Musk said he had a “secret weapon agains the car dealers”. In May we wrote:

“At this point we can only speculate about what could be Tesla’s “secret weapon”, but here’s an idea: a reward program for Model S owners who are generating leads and offering test drives. SolarCity, which could be considered Tesla’s sister company, found success with their “Solar Ambassador Program“. People can sign up to an app and submit leads to SolarCity. If a lead turns into a sale, the “solar ambassador” receives $250. Tesla could implement a similar program with their current Model S owners. Tesla is known to have a very enthusiast and knowledgeable customer base. Owners in regions where Tesla is not allowed to sell directly could offer test drives to potential customers, talk about their experience with the car and then maybe submit a lead to Tesla in a similar manner as SolarCity does with their program.”

Some more details:

Anyone who orders a new Model S before September 30 using the referral link of a current owner will get $1,000 off the purchase price. In return, the current owner will get a $1,000 discount that can be applied to a new car, service center visit or accessories.

Referral discounts are limited to ten and are awarded on a first to purchase basis. New orders must be placed prior to September 30, 2015.

This really should spur both sales and salesmanship amongst current owners. It will also spur debate on whether Tesla owners really love their cars or they just want to make a quick $1000 (both!).

Update: USE MY LINK! http://ts.la/seth8185

Full text of offer follows:
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZwguLJVxsM]

We’re mostly going to stay away from politics but this ad is very specifically on solar and renewables and it will hopefully kick off a debate on the energy sector that we’ll see in the run up to the 2015 elections.  The 10 year goal of moving US residences to renewables is a worthy 1st step. More from her campaign page

A report today from Green Car Reports states that the new 2016-ish Prius Plug In Hybrid will go 30-35 miles on a charge. That’s about 3x the current Prius Plug in for which I am a dissatisfied owner. It is also about 50% more than previous estimates on the range extension.

The current version of the Prius Plug-in contains a 4.4kWh battery and is said to go 11 miles on a charge. The charge is provided by a typical wall outlet in about 3 hours or a Level 2 charger in about an hour and a half.  Using our friend math and assuming no radical changes in efficiency (design prototypes above), we can estimate that the new battery will be somewhere between 12 and 15kWh and should be able to charge is around 3-5 hours from a level 2 charger.

The reality, however, is that you can’t go very far on electricity alone in  aPrius Plug-in. We bought ours for around the town driving which would theoretically let our family drive almost exclusively on electricity if we kept to the 11 miles per charge.

The reality is quite different. If you need to go up a steep hill, the ICE will turn on and will stay on for an indeterminate amount of time. If you go over 65 MPH on the highway, the same thing happens. Air conditioning or heat? ICE.

That actually would be fine (as long as the ICE turned off after – which it almost never does) but the ICE turns on at times for no particular reason. I can be driving down a hill regen-ing with no climate control or even windshield wipers going and bam! On comes the ICE.

Overall this has brought the mileage down to near our old, non-plug-in Prius.

And, the 11 miles range is more like 8 miles if you drive really softly. So figure the new Prius will reliably hit 25 miles if it says it can hit 30-35.

I’ve considered doing things like letting the gas run out so the motor could start. Or I’ve hear that the European Firmware for the Prius allows better control of the ICE.

As it stands now, this car shouldn’t be allowed to be called anything more than a normal hybrid. If Toyota doesn’t fix this problem in the 2016-7 model, it doesn’t matter how bit the battery is.

11:38 There is of course one speed faster than ludicrous, but that is reserved for the next generation Roadster in 4 years: Maximum Plaid! See you later!

(Full Audio below)

11:36 Weight improvements? .20 engineering changes happen per week. Always happening.

11:34 “No one asked for ludicrous mode…it’s too ludicrous” It was Tesla Engineers who wanted it because it is fun and exciting.

11:33: Body redesign for Model S? No comment. Focus is on X. 30% of the car is the same between the cars.
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Update: It would appear that this would be for the Model S and not the X according to Musk who just tweeted this out.

Model S product call at 11 today. Rocket discussion at noon on Monday.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2015

Tesla sent press invites out last night to select media for a small quick event today at 11am local Pacific time. We won’t be on hand but have heard from a variety of sources on the matter. Only one knows what it is and could only say that it is a “new option”. I’ve been discussing the likelihood that Tesla will announce a 100+kWh pack with Frederic who noted that CEO Elon Musk said in January:

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If you are a family who lives in snowy weather, you don’t have many EV options. You want an SUV with 4-wheel drive. You want the ability to carry more than 5 people at a time. Maybe you just want to carry more than 5 people or some cargo?

Sure, I know that almost all 7-seat, $70,000+  Tesla Model S’s are now AWD and the Model X “Crossover” is about to debut but what about a family that wants to spend a lot less on a vehicle that can be used day to day and doesn’t require over 100 miles of range.
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cri9WuhBIps]

As announced last month during the shareholder meeting, Tesla is upgrading its Superchrger Cables from a thick copper cable (and it is very thick – more than even a gas station fuel hose) to a thinner mystery cable that is liquid cooled.

I can’t speculate what is going on inside the cable – whether it is a superconductor or just a low resistance conductor that is prevented from overheating – but it is said to allow more capacity. Today’s Tesla Superchargers top out charge at 135kW. However, we know Tesla is trying to speed up Superchargers even further. In an interview with MIT Technology Review, Straubel said that Tesla aimed to get Supercharging times down to 5-10 minutes:
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A great ground look at what’s happening in Hawaii, the state where energy costs the most and where there is plenty of solar energy.  Over 12% of Hawaiians have solar power which is 20x the US national average.  If you count all the rooftops on Oahu together, Solar is a 300MW plant that is more than double the size of the next biggest plant on the island.

The problem is: That power plant dies when the sun goes down and the other plants have to crank way back up.
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Electric cars continue to sell well in spite of lower gas prices. Why? Because it is still an order of magnitude less expensive to fill up an electric vehicle. And that’s if you pay for your electricity rather than get it from solar panels or free EV chargers. I expect Tesla’s Model X launch, the rise of solar panels and continuing education of car buyers to accelerate this trend for the second half of 2015. Five more graphs below:
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Tesla was among many Tech companies participating in last weekend’s Pride festivities in San Francisco and one Reddit user took the opportunity to catch the pace car for the Tesla group which I find way better than the 2014 edition below.

Some comments from the thread:

Video of the 2 Pride 2015 cars and another still below:
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Listed among the Defcon 23 speakers is Marc Rogers Principle Security Researcher for CloudFlare and Kevin Mahaffey CTO of Lookout Inc who will give a presentation called ‘How to Hack a Tesla Model S’.

There have been various attempts to get into the Model S including the finding that there is an Ethernet IP network running through the car.  However the possibility of “Bricking a car that starts at $70,000 has kept the cost of entry high.

Tesla obviously will keep a close eye on this one.  Here’s the description:

The Tesla Model S is the most connected car in the world. It might surprise you to hear that it is also one of the most secure. In this talk we will walk you through the architecture of a Tesla Model S noting things that Tesla got right as well as identifying those that they got wrong. From this talk you will get an intimate understanding of how the many interconnected systems in a Tesla model S work and most importantly how they can be hacked. You will also get a good understanding of the data that this connected car collects and what Tesla does with this telemetry. We will also be releasing a tool that will enable Tesla Model S owners to view and analyse that telemetry in real time. Finally we will also be releasing several 0day vulnerabilities that will allow you to hack a Tesla Model S yourself – both locally and remotely. Note – only one of the 6 vulnerabilities we will discuss and release has been fixed. Disclaimer: With great access comes great responsibility – In other words we are not responsible for any Tesla Model S bricked by over enthusiastic attendees of this talk 🙂

DEF CON 23 takes place August 6-9 at Paris & Bally’s in Las Vegas, NV.

Image via Steve Martz

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p64V9kawqw&start=23]

We’ve seen a few flyovers of the Gigafactory but this one clearly is the best even though it was shot in April.

There has been a lot of uninformed banker-speak in the media about Tesla’s battery including by Bloomberg here. The problem is these folks don’t understand the new market that Tesla is opening up.

But I’m also turning to Bloomberg for the first smart analysis and that’s not surprisingly from Solar City’s Lyndon Rive (who happens to be Elon Musk’s Cousin – perhaps you noticed the accent?).

The complaints have been that the battery wall doesn’t make economic sense – that for the average household to go off the grid with these combined with solar (or wind), it would be incredibly expensive.

That’s correct…
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Funny story.

Miliseconds later, it was toast, but the Tesla P85D did at least get off the line quicker than the insanely fast Porsche 918 Spyder which boasts a 2.3 second 0-60 time and sub-10 second quarter mile. Sure, that’s fast but can it seat 7 and have room for groceries too? No, it cannot.

Electric has that instant torque at 0RPMs which doesn’t seem to have a peer in the internal combustion world. The Spyder with its smaller body has a 600hp ICE and a 300HP electric engine driving its wheels.

The screenshot is above and the video follows of AUTO BILD TV’s race on Porsche’s home field. Feels like we’re seeing the last stand of internal combustion in supercars.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKoNNY3BL4o]

Fun starts at 2:15. Cruise control only goes up to 176 km/hr. Consumption was 520 Wh/km (840 Wh/mi) which is about 2.5 times the ~300Wh/mile  65 mph consumption. Newer D Teslas will top out around 155. Not bad for a car without gears.

Another Bjorn video ‘Tesla Model S normal vs low suspension at 160 kph/100 mph’ follows:

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKORsrlN-2k]

Until Tesla updates their Youtube channel, here’s the short video if you weren’t able to stay up that late last night. My big takeaway was the price. I had expected to see something in the $$5-$10,000 range though for bigger homes that have electric cars, you will need 2 or more of these so the price starts creeping up.

https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/593995583733379074

Also, from the way Musk talks, he believes that they are going to make a ton of these. It will be interesting to see how battery stocks react today…and home generator companies.

[tweet https://twitter.com/llsethj/status/593991515602583553]
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11:24 PM
power wall is “beautiful, fits on the wall, garage wall or outside wall of your house. 6 inches thick. 3 feet across and tall. Really easy to fit in garage or your house.”

[11:25 PM] Mark Gurman: Connected to Internet.
Smart micro grids
Ten year guarantee
[11:25 PM] Mark Gurman: “Nothing remotely in these price points”
“Our goal here is to fundamentally change how the world uses energy”
[11:26 PM] Seth Weintraub: Tesla’s selling price to installers is $3500 for 10kWh and $3000 for 7kWh. (Price excludes inverter and installation.) Deliveries begin in late Summer.

[11:27 PM] Mark Gurman: Musk says great for cold climates when there are power outages and ice storms
Good thermal management system for very cold environments

[11:29 PM] Jon Jivan: Wayyy below suggested price of $13k by some outlets. Nice to see it come in so cheap.
[11:29 PM] Mark Gurman: “Going to be huge in Germany”

[11:31 PM] Mark Gurman: Doesn’t require heavy foundations
“the integration at the system level is the big differentiator”
Ready to scale to a very large scale today

[11:32 PM] Mark Gurman: they’ve been using it for a year in house

[11:33 PM] Mark Gurman: Tesla will continue to open source the patents on all these
[11:34 PM] Mark Gurman: Giga factory designed in the same as a giant car
Fundamentally different way than approaching manufacturing and engineering

[11:39 PM] Mark Gurman: Installable by two people in half hour to an hour
Installation prices up to distributors

[11:42 PM] Mark Gurman: “This would be bigger in terms of pack utilization than the car industry, actually comparable size”
[11:43 PM] Mark Gurman: international, still need to figure out certified installers however

[11:43 PM] Mark Gurman: it’ll scale as fast as we can scale it.

[11:44 PM] Mark Gurman: international next year
Germany and Australia late this year

[11:44 PM] Mark Gurman: China early next year

Musk said “we own tesla energy.com” when asked if they’d change from tesla motors as name

Update: Here’s our first look. Looks familiar

https://twitter.com/TomerDavid_/status/593964617161805824

https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/593967615887872000

Update: Tesla Energy!

Tesla Energy Press Kit

We’ll be covering the Tesla Battery announcement later tonight but Tesla just unleashed the livestream page. Check back soon. We’ll run down the highlights here. We’re expecting Tesla to announce home and industrial battery products that allow users to store solar and lower cost, high availability electricity for use at night or during higher cost/watt time periods.  The battery will be a down payment and rental fee which should more than pay for itself in electric bill savings.

There has been further speculation that, with this announcement, Tesla Motors will change its name to Tesla, Inc or Telsa Energy to note that it is an energy storage company, not just a car company.  We’ll find out more soon, stay tuned.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78-L_-fgNog]

They might have missed a few things but good primer for the illiterate.

Nice Profile of Dante Richardson, a physician who lives in Washington DC, who has driven his Model S 120,000 miles.

Software updates are just one of many reasons Richardson’s affection for his Model S has grown over the two years he has owned it. “I don’t know if it’s the software updates or some of the other changes that have occurred with the car, but I find myself increasingly enamored and happy with the car as time has passed,” says Richardson. And he has plenty of data to draw on: he has driven the Model S more than 120,000 miles, further than any other individual Tesla owner on the planet.

With new technology like lithium batteries and AC engines used for cars, it is important to see that they are making people happy after many many miles.

It is hard to imagine a better endorsement of the Model S.