2015

Tesla has a presence in Sweden since late 2013, but sales in the country have been lagging until mid-2015. Based on registration data, Tesla delivered only 268 Model S’s in Sweden in 2014, but last year the automaker delivered 996 cars, which represents a 271% increase.
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Tesla announced deliveries for the fourth quarter 2015 today and as we predicted earlier this month, the company hits the low-end of its ambitious goal of 17,000 to 19,000 deliveries, with 17,400 total deliveries from October to December.
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As 2015 is coming to a close, we decided to review Tesla’s year in pictures. We gathered some of the best photos of Tesla’s most important events of the year and some less-known interesting moments – all in chronological order…
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As the end of the year, and consequently the end of the fourth quarter, is getting closer, investors and analysts are debating whether or not Tesla can achieve its ambitious delivery goal of 17,000 to 19,000 cars in the last 3 months of the year for a total of 50,000 to 52,000 in 2015.

Achieving the lower-end of the guidance would mean a 46% quarter to quarter increase and a 73% increase over the same period last year. We’ve already reported on registration data for October and November for Tesla’s most important European markets, but now with more data coming from California and Denmark, as well as new information about the Model X and demonstration vehicles, it looks like Tesla is poised to achieve at least the lower-end of its guidance.
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Tesla needs to deliver a record-breaking ~17,000 units in the last quarter of the year to achieve the low-end of its 2015 delivery guidance of  50,000-55,000 vehicles. Since the company now sells more cars in Europe than in North America or Asia, Model S deliveries in European markets are more important than ever.

Here’s our November 2015 look at Model S deliveries based on registration data in Tesla’s most important European markets:
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Based on registration data, Tesla delivered 225 Model S’s in Norway last month – up from 198 units in October and 202 in November 2014. The company recently ran in some troubles in Norway after Model S owners expressed concerns over the way Tesla is reporting the power output of the car, especially the Dual Motor version. Tesla is now in mediation with over 150 Model S owners in the country over these concerns.

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On the margins of the UN conference on climate change in Paris, Elon Musk was at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University yesterday for a talk about what can be done to curb CO2 emissions, which he followed with a Q&A with students.

The main point Musk was trying to make during the talk was that the fundamental problem with carbon emission is that companies are currently incentivized to use fossil fuels rather than sustainable energy. He argued that to end the incentives, you need to attach a price to carbon emissions, and the best way to that is to introduce a carbon tax.
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Tesla recently reported its third quarter financial results and the company disclosed delivery guidance for 2016. Tesla expects to produce and deliver between 1,600 and 1,800 vehicles per week on average next year – meaning a yearly total of 83,200 to 93,600 units. If the company can achieve the higher end of its guidance, it would deliver more cars in a year than it did since the company was founded in 2003.

The automaker delivered 11,603 cars from July through September, which made the last quarter its best to date, but the company is aiming to significantly increase production this quarter in order to deliver between 17,000 to 19,000 units during the last three months of year.
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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