Where to begin? Top Gear, which is famous for sabotaging its Tesla Roadster review so badly it got sent to court, got its hands on a BMW i8 which is barely an electric car to begin with. It has about a 20 mile range on electric alone and electric horsepower similar to a Toyota Prius.

Our hero, the aging Clarkson, pulls up to an Electric charger and then begins fumbling with cables like he’s just come directly from the stone age. He then feigns a frustrated “stupid” scream. When he finally is able to plug in the female to the male charger cable he has difficulty getting the charger to turn on. Then when he gets back to the car, he realizes his battery, like his moral character is empty.

Good thing he has gas. A lot of it.

Some great news seemingly through Panasonic relayed by Nikkei. Tesla’s Gigafactory will open for business in a year and will start making batteries for the Model 3 in 2017. That’s an optimistic timetable for Tesla which is getting a reputation for missing its timetables.

Taken at face value, the Tesla Roadster 340-mile trip from San Jose to Santa Monica in California is a significant milestone. The direct drive in under 6 hours all without refueling will leave most EV owners’ mouths agape. There was even 40 minutes with the heater turned on and that huge climb (and subsequent decent) out of the Grapevine.

As we announced in December, the Roadster 3.0 upgrade will feature enhancements in battery cell technology, aerodynamics, and rolling resistance. These modifications should boost the Roadster’s range by 40 to 50%.

But I think this is bigger. This shows what the technologies Tesla has developed mean for the next generation of EVs. It means the Model X, even with its higher profile and expanded room, will be able to still handily be able to make it between Superchargers in the winter. Even more importantly, it shows that Tesla can make a BMW 3-series sized car go 200 miles with a lot less battery that previously expected.

If the new pack in the Roadster has 70kWh and goes 400 miles, doing a little math and guesswork, you only need about 45kWh to get a slightly bigger car to go 200 miles. (Assuming the car lies between the 35kWh and the 60kWh for the Model S with 200 mile range).

And that’s assuming technology stands still between now and then.

Tesla’s Blog entry on the Trip here and pasted below:
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The future:

(Bloomberg) — There are more electric-car charging points in Japan than there are gas stations.

That surprising discovery comes from Nissan Motor Co., which reported that the number of power points in Japan, including fast-chargers and those in homes, has surged to 40,000, surpassing the nation’s 34,000 gas stations.

The figure shows that in the relatively brief time since electric vehicles were introduced, the infrastructure to support them has become bigger than what the oil industry built over decades in the world’s third-biggest economy — at least by this one measure.

The stark reality however isn’t quite as bright.  Only quick DC chargers, which Japan does have many of (mostly the Chademo variety) really do the equivalent of what gas stations do. All of those level 1 and 2 chargers will put 5-30 miles of range ever HOUR which means they are more for parking all day or over night to get any effective range. Also, with most electric cars like Nissan’s Leaf only holding about 85 miles of charge in total, even those quick chargers have to be visited about once every hour of travel.

The future is clearly in the higher power 100+kW chargers and 200 mile batteries if you want to compare to the convenience of gas. But more charging points = better.

Looks like Tesla is rolling out some new Supercharger handles that don’t require a physical button. This one is at the Atascadero Supercharger in central California.

Would be nice if these made it to home chargers too.

OMG these are lovely. Plus? Supposedly that ‘gold trim’ below is actually just light reflection or maybe this Tron thing. Or, maybe Bieber is trading in his Fiskar?

One more below
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Seeking Alpha provides a transcript of last night’s Earnings Call (embedded below).

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvB01EibT2g&start=900]

The 3 big notables: In the early part of the discussion CEO Elon Musk said:

We are going to spend staggering amounts of money on CapEx. I mean for a good reason and with the great ROI. And it’s important to not look at CapEx and isolation because like that CapEx obviously is being done for reason in order to capture substantial future revenue flow. But I think sort of backing on below it. Just if you see if you write to the assumptions I emphasize these are just certain assumptions. I’m not saying are true or that they will occur, but I just say that they do occur, personally, such as [indiscernible] I fell something, I mean if you take this year’s revenue around $6 billion where there are about – and if we are able to maintain [indiscernible] growth rate for ten years and achieve a 10% profitable number and have 20PE, our market cap would be basically the same as Apple’s today. Now that’s going to require a bit – a order $700 million. Obviously, getting the roll acquire some significant CapEx.

But I’m hopeful that we can do this without any significant dilution to the company. So maybe minor dilution, but nothing serious.

This means that Tesla is going to raise some capital to pay off some of this CapEx. Most importantly, Tesla’s CTO sees such a huge upside to the growth trajectory that he’s wiling to put huge things out there.

Next, JB Straubel talked about releasing a consumer battery project:

Yes, we’re going to do — we’re going to unveil some of the Tesla home battery consumer battery that will be for you using and people’s houses or businesses, fairly soon. We have to design and it should start going into production probably about six months or so. We’ll probably got to wait to have sort of product availing it’s probably in the next month or two. It’s really great. I’m really excited about it.

Solar City already sells Tesla batteries but these aren’t available direct to consumer and are only available as part of a Solar project in California. JB is talking about something much bigger which could be:

• an alternative to emergency generators
• a solar add on for all solar companies and consumers past, present and future
• a product for utilities that could alleviate spikes

Finally, the mystery. Elon Musk, when talking about demand laid this little tidbit out:

I think we’re going to be okay on the demand side for this year, and I mean, maybe something changes next year but I think we’ll be okay and I don’t think we’re going to have to do a bunch of advertising or [indiscernible] with the dealers or anything like that this year and or discount the cars or anything like that. So if I can do an emphasize that whenever you feel like this celebrity or some prominent person driving a car they all paid full retail. There was no discount. We didn’t give them a car they are buying a car and they are driving because they really believe in the car not because someone paid them or they tend to do. So regular credit [indiscernible] car. So yes, I think we do have a secret weapon on the demand side that will probably start to deploy later this year for the demand generation. While I don’t think it isn’t totally necessary, that I think and it could be pretty interesting, it could work against the dealers.

OMG. Rocket man has a secret weapon ready to deploy on car dealers. Can’t wait. 
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Tesla Motor Club Forums members are posting images from a Facebook account which followed a prototype Tesla Model S around the Fremont area. Supposedly the Model X design is done and only needs to be validated so we’re probably looking at near final design albeit camo’d with black to cover up final design aesthetics.

Noteworthy in the pictures is that this one has a trailer hitch which was promised by Tesla last year and a redesigned sportier front as you can see in the comparison picture below.

It will be interesting to see if the Model S also gets a redesigned nose.

One of the nice things about the Model X front end was that the Frunk was huge. With the smaller front end, it appears that it will be more the size of the Frunk in the Model S.

Full letter here. Webcast here.

Initial thoughts: Production was lower than expected which is pushing the stock price down.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_UVU3uvBe4]

Even though the Porsche might beat the P85D to 60 and the quarter mile, it doesn’t even come close off the line or for the first 0-30mph.

Time to fire up the Bugatti Veyron and some superbikes?

Reuters:

Tesla Motors Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk is prepared to fire overseas executives, people with knowledge of the matter said, after weak Chinese sales of the company’s luxury electric cars cast doubt on his ambitious global expansion plans. Tesla sold about 120 cars in China last month, one of the sources told Reuters, well below the company’s aggressive targets. Musk has previously said he expected China sales could rival those in the United States as early as 2015.

I’ve been told that the email in question is old and being inaccurately reported though the sentiment is correct (albeit late and already reported). Tesla’s China Head Veronia Wu was excused in December as were other members of the group. Old news.

As for the 120 Tesla Model S sales in all of January, I’ve been told that Tesla has had a 120 car/WEEK run rate at the beginning of the year which is traditionally slow until the Chinese New Year.  That would put the January total closer to 500 units. That’s still not up to Tesla’s expectations. CEO Elon Musk said China could be Tesla’s biggest market by the end of the year.

Clearly Tesla isn’t there yet but statements last month by Musk seemed to indicate that Tesla knew what it had to do to improve the situation.

This has to be one of the most insanely biased,  anti-Tesla campaign I’ve ever seen.  The Connecticut Car Dealers are loading up the blood-stained non-Telsa logo above and ‘BS not a blog by indies’ blog aimed at convincing consumers and maybe lawmakers  that direct relationships with manufacturers isn’t only scary, it is down right dangerous.

Jalopnik takes issue with use of one of their articles to ‘prove’ the point

And, worst of all, they’re using one of our articles to try and convince people of the horror of buying a car from something other than an independent dealer franchise. The use of our article — and a number of others on the site — suggests that buying from a Tesla-owned car retailer will cause you to smash up your fancy new electro-car. Because without the calming, guiding influence of a car salesman, you’ll go batshit and the death-car will control your mind and make you destroy everything you love.

See more from GigaOm and below:

Nice gallery of the delivery process here from a happy new P85D owner.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1uETD1rGJQ]

It’s hard to get my head around the size of this thing which seems unprecedented. Some comparisons from Reddit:

Via Reddit

On a slightly different subject, it would be cool as heck if someone invented a refrigerated compartment for the frunk for both groceries and tailgating. Yes I know the battery would take a hit but would be so sweeet…..

Ooooh what have we here? It appears Tesla uses the same test track as Mythbusters and what a great place to see the Model X being tested at some pretty high speeds.

I’ve heard the front end got a big redesign as well.

We’ll see if we can dig up some more.

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A post shared by Brandon Kiehne (@brandon_kiehne)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKBW90bMbHQ]

The Osborne effect is described as:

The Osborne effect is a term referring to the unintended consequences of a company pre-announcement made either unaware of the risks involved or when the timing is misjudged, which ends up having a negative impact on the sales of the current product. This is often the case when a product is announced too long before its actual availability. This has the immediate effect of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current product, knowing that it will soon be obsolete, and any unexpected delays often means the new product comes to be perceived as vaporware, damaging the company’s credibility and profitability.

The term was coined after the Osborne Computer Corporation, in which the company took more than a year to make its next product available and eventually ran out of cash and went bankrupt in 1985.

I think this is something that as a company with tech roots, Tesla, understands. They were pumping out Model Ses with driver assist hardware before the announcement was even made (and had a few leaks as a result). The same with the P85D. You could buy one as soon as it was announced and they shipped a few weeks after.

Chevy, on the other hand is advertising a far superior Volt 2016 at least 6 months ahead of when you can actually get one – without even a price. Who is going to buy the current Volt (without a very significant discount) when they know a better one is right around the proverbial corner?

Update: Elon Musk just tweeted that a Firmware update will improve the acceleration by.1 seconds.

[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/560898568748531712]

I’m not usually one to post rumors found in a forum but when I’ve heard similar claims and so have a lot of forum members, we start to see a pattern. Over at the Tesla Motor Club Forum, a number of Tesla Owners are reporting that a firmware update will push the P85D 0-60 time down near or below 2.8 seconds.

I’m happy to bring you a TMC exclusive rumor. According to my sources deep inside Tesla, a firmware update for the P85D will increase its 0-60 performance from 3.2s to 2.8s. I have not personally operated this P85D, but my sources have allegedly seen it in action and historically these sources have been accurate for Tesla rumors. Please take it with a grain of salt because I have not seen or operated this vehicle myself.

In my original pre-D event scoop, I noted that Tesla was testing the D at under 3 seconds.

What’s perhaps not expected is what Tesla has been able to squeeze out of this battery and Dual-motor beast.  My understanding is that the vehicle has been testing (unofficially) under 3 seconds on the 0-60. This is incredibly fast.

That is supercar land my friends and blows away all but the very high end supercars out there like the high end Bugattis, Lamborghinis, Mclarens, Ferraris and Porsches.

That was from a Tesla person and it turned out that Tesla’s marquee feature on the Model P85D was its 0-60 time, though the official time was 3.2 seconds and it has been verified at 3.1 seconds. How does Tesla get down to 2.8 seconds and why didn’t they show it off originally? Some hypotheses:

I heard this rumor on October 10th, when I ordered my P85D. Except the Tesla rep said that he saw long strings of 0-60 runs between 2.7 and 2.75 seconds. Based on the inverter readings from my current P85D, I think this has to be true. My inverter gauge has never made it all the way up to 480kW at full throttle, and the promised 691 hp cannot be achieved until the inverters are providing 515 kW.

There may be a number of reasons Tesla has been holding back the power, including collecting data for risk management purposes. I think it’s time to see what this beast can really do. Release the hounds!

And another:

Yes the 0-60 time can be decreased by optimizing the torque on the two axis. Actually I read on TMC that such a decrease was possible from the very beginning of the P85D life but that Tesla designers decided to get 3.2 secs because they didn’t manage to have a continuos acceleration by lowering such a number to 2.8 secs. In fact they had issue to harmonize the acceleration of the two motors.

Maybe that now in Tesla they managed to work out the issues between the two motors and get 2.8 secs.

But IMO the driver should enter a password to get 2.8 secs just to let him think twice before of using such an acceleration.

A firmware update knocks .4 secs off an already low 3.2 second 0-60 time? I can’t wait to see the reaction.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1jwWwJ-Mxc&feature=youtu.be]

Good ad spot to hit the masses with on Superbowl Sunday. I agree with the thesis that the idea electric cars is in its infancy but the future is so certainly bright. 
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534&v=RBkND76J91k]

This is my exact reason for starting this site.

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Redditor AFDIT gives a good overview overview of the talk above:

EVs:

1. Disruption = a new market / complete take over of an old one.
2. You can’t compete with the performance.
3. Costs for batteries / EVs keep coming down. Gigafactory etc will bring EV prices to mid-range car levels by 2017, to low cost car prices by 2020. By 2030 there will be no non-EVs being manufactured. Petrol will no longer be produced by 2030.
4. Self-driving cars around the corner. Also has ever-reducing prices as with EVs. Market is ready for them (poll in the ground). Will use “unused road space on the highways”.
5. As-A-Service cars will be driving themselves 99% of the time. Projection is that manufacturers will reduce sales by 80% as there will be fewer cars necessary. Car parking will no longer be needed. This will lead to city re-designs.

Solar:

1. Cost has dropped from $100W to $65W. This helped cause installation growth at 100x between 2000 & 2013 (43% per year). Projection at this rate shows all global energy produced by Solar by 2030.
2. Relative to Oil Solar has “increased it’s position” 5300x
3. “Grid cost convergence” will beat all other fuel costs by ~2017.

Tony Seba, author of “Clean Disruption” gives the keynote address at the AltCars Expo and Conference,Sept 19, 2014.The keynote is titled “Clean Disruption: 100% electric transportation and 100% solar power by 2030″.

The book ‘Clean Disruption’ and this keynote assert that by 2030:
• All new mass-market vehicles will be electric.
• All of these vehicles will be autonomous (self-driving).
• Up to 80 per cent of parking spaces and highways will be redundant.
• Taxis as we know them will be obsolete.
• The concept of car ownership will be obsolete.
• Oil will be obsolete
• All new energy will be provided by solar (and wind)

BMW of North America, Volkswagen of America and ChargePoint Inc. will construct up to 100 charging stations in “express charging corridors” from San Diego to Portland, Ore., on the West Coast and Boston to Washington on the East Coast.

Construction has already started on the Western corridor, where a string of new charging stations will allow vehicles to travel the length of California and into Oregon. As many as 100 stations will be up and running by the end of 2015, said Pasquale Romano, ChargePoint’s president and chief executive.

Each station will include one or two 50-kilowatt DC Fast chargers or 24-kilowatt DC Combo Fast chargers, developed by BMW in partnership with Bosch. Those chargers — typically used for BMW and VW vehicles, as well as the Chevy Spark EV — can bring a vehicle up to 80% power in less than 30 minutes.

A lot of important considerations here (original Press release). These may or may not be compatible with Chademo cars (Nissan Leafs in particular) and Tesla will need an adapter if these will work at all with their vehicles. (All Electric Vehicles can take advantage of the Level 2 AC chargers but those only provide 20 or so miles per hour of charge).

The bigger consideration for the broad idea of these chargers is that for sub-100 mile vehicles, it doesn’t represent a complete long distance solution. The BMW i3, Chevy Spark, Volkswagon eGulf and all of the other cars that get <100 miles/charge and indeed what Chargepoint is calculating in the Press release and the graphic – this only represents a stop gap.

You travel for an hour (maybe 90 minutes tops) then you charge for a half hour (20 minutes gets you to 80% in a perfect situation).

That’s not going to be a great trip, though it may make a trip from Boston to New York or other 150-200 mile trips bearable.

Tesla is still king of the EV road trip wit its 200-300 mile batteries and Supercharger network which allows fast charging up to 130kW. That means Tesla drivers can easily travel 3 hours between charging and get back on the road in about a half hour – which is similar to gas road trips.

GM and others are planning 200+ Mile EVs for 2017 and beyond however these charging stations are going to max out at 50kW meaning that to fill a 200Mile range battery will take an hour plus – still not a great situation for road trips. SAE Level 2 DC charging spec maxes out at 90A, already far below Tesla’s 130KW Superchargers.

SAE DC level 3 charging however might be a solution with its insane 240kW max. That would theoretically take a 300 mile battery pack to 80% charge in 10 minutes…the future.

Press release follows:

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVD8fmMwWPA]

I just got the update this morning and am starting to play with the new stuff. Above is a great video overview of the changes.

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