It’s difficult to get accurate delivery numbers for Tesla in the US since the company doesn’t disclose sales by market, but in California, which is Tesla’s biggest market in the US by far, we can follow state rebates for clean vehicles in order to get a good idea of Tesla’s growth in the state.
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Sen. Bob Wieckowski, whose district is home to Tesla’s Fremont factory, is sponsoring a bill which include a provision to eliminate the sales tax on new cars manufactured in California for out-of-state buyers. The new provision would allow Tesla to spur what the senator refers to as “industrial tourism” and maybe even create a program similar to BMW’s popular “European delivery” option.
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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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The so-called “poaching war” for top automotive engineering talent between Tesla and Apple gathered quite a few headlines in the past months, especially after Tesla CEO Elon Musk called the Cupertino company the “Tesla Graveyard” for hiring people he claimed were “fired” by the company. But after looking closer into the recent hires between the two companies, it looks like Tesla has little to fear from Apple’s recruiting effort, at least if we compare it to Faraday Future’s.
Faraday Future took a small step out of ‘stealth mode’ earlier this summer to announce that it is looking for a location for a manufacturing facility to build an electric vehicle. In the months since, the 1-year old startup ramped up its hiring effort and now has over 400 employees with an impressive percentage coming from Tesla.
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These are obviously going to become more common in the coming weeks and months but as it stands now, this is quite a sight. All of the early Founder/Signature models are P90D with Ludicrous on board.
On Thursday, California’s Air Resources Board had a meeting and status update on the state’s ‘Zero Emission Vehicle’ (ZEV) program where industry actors expressed their views on the clean vehicle market and the ZEV credit mandate. During a presentation to the board, Tesla’s Vice President of Business Development Diarmuid O’Connell argued that lobbying efforts from automakers effectively delayed fuel economy in the U.S. by about 20 years.
He added that the automotive industry used similar lobbying tactics to delay the commercialization of Zero Emission Vehicles. He said the effort delayed the state of California’s initial 1998 goal of 2% market penetration by 16 years – Zero Emission vehicles only reached 2% of the market in 2014.
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Earlier this year, Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) and Tesla Motors, under its ‘Tesla Energy division’, inked a massive 500 MWh supply deal for battery packs to power AMS’ “hybrid-electric buildings” concept. Today AMS announced a new project under the agreement with Tesla to install a first phase of Powerpacks at up to 24 office buildings owned by The Irvine Company, a real estate company with properties throughout coastal California.
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Fred did some excellent work sorting out the Model X pricing but I was surprised to hear that I’d be able to buy a Model X for $75K before incentives and $65K with…next year. But how does Tesla get to the $75K price point without going against CEO Elon Musk’s “Model S +$5000” pricing scheme? After all a Model S 70D is currently listed at $75,000.
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Tesla Motors released its delivery results today for July through September 2015 and confirmed that the company delivered 11,580 cars during the quarter. For the first time, the number includes two different models in the same quarter: Model S and Model X.
Presumably, only the 6 Model X’s delivered during the launch earlier this week are accounted for in the third quarter results, meaning Tesla delivered ~11,574 Model S’s beating its previous record of 11,532 units achieved during Q2 2015.
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SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive and Chairman Elon Musk are officially announcing a new high-efficiency solar panel today at the Inside Energy conference. During an interview at the conference, Elon Musk was talking about his other venture, Tesla Motors, and he revealed that the recent launch of the Model X caused a big uptick in orders for Tesla’s other vehicle, the Model S.
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SolarCity announced today that it has built the most efficient rooftop solar module with 22% efficiency according to a third party tester: Renewable Energy Test Center. Until now, SunPower’s X-Series panel was considered the most efficient rooftop panel with 21.5% efficiency.
SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive says that the new modules will produce between 350 to 360-watt compared to the company’s current 260-watt panels.
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Fisker Automotive announced today a name change to Karma Automotive, as well as a new logo (see above). The company was named after its co-founder and famed car designer, Henrik Fisker. Fisker resigned from the company during financial difficulties in 2013. The company filed for bankruptcy soon after. Then the Wanxiang Group, a Chinese auto parts conglomerate, bought the company’s assets out of bankruptcy for $149 million. They also picked up A123, a battery maker who at the time was supplying Fisker with battery packs before both companies went under.
Wanxiang has since been trying to relaunch the company and especially its flagship electric sedan, the Karma, hence the new name of the organisation.
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One thing a lot of us were wondering as Tesla delivered the first few Model X’s yesterday is what software version would the Model X be using considering Tesla is still beta testing the upcoming v7.0 with new Autopilot features.
It turns out the Model X is running a unique update of v7.0 without the new Autopilot features: Autosteer and lane changing.
DragTimes published a quick video of the UI at the Model X launch event. You can watch the video below the break:
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Tesla launched the Model X last night in Fremont. You can read our quick overview of Elon Musk’s walk-through of the vehicle here, but here’s the video of the event and a roundup of the videos shot during the press day leading up to the event.
Some reservation holders have been waiting for over 3 years for the Model X, and now it’s finally here. Tonight Tesla launched its all-electric SUV in Fremont, California in front of a crowd of reservation holders, employees and journalists. We already knew a lot about the Model X prior to the launch – 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 secs, AWD, up to 257 miles range – but Tesla CEO Elon Musk still had a few surprises…
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Tesla Motors is holding a launch event tonight for the Model X at the former Solyndra building near Tesla’s Fremont factory. The company will open the doors at 7PM local time (10PM ET) and the event will start at 8PM (11PM ET). Tesla will livestream the event on their website and we will be live-blogging it here:
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As images of the Tesla Model X are rolling off the assembly line, we are seeing a number of improvements to the car over prototypes that have been publicly shown. One such improvement was revealed in a video showing the front trunk or ‘Frunk’ of the Model X. Compare the size of the Frunk in the shipping model above to a Prototype shown off by CEO Elon Musk last year.
Another image of the Model X Frunk, straight on the assembly line, is below.
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Although India probably isn’t a large market for Tesla’s luxury Model S/X and even the $35,000 Model 3 will be a tough sale for normal Indians, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the company’s Fremont car plant does have some immediate ramifications. According to the Indian Foreign ministry, Musk gave the PM a tour of the plant and paid particular attention to the Tesla Powerwall which the CEO noted could, when used in conjunction with Solar, help India’s rural communities bypass the electric grid.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B89IrRil0Bk]
‘Wild’ may be an exaggeration but at the Tesla plant in Fremont, a spy caught a prototype Model X opening and closing (video below) its Falcon Wing doors . The spies seemed to be concerned about the door closing mechanism, and many of the mules we’ve seen have had partially opened doors, but it is unlikely that this is the final design/spec.
In any case, we’ll be live on the Model X launch on the 29th, come back and join us!
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Tesla is still tuning the Model X’s options ahead of its launch scheduled for September 29th at the Fremont factory. Earlier this month, the company added an option for hitch accessories directly at the purchase of the vehicle in order to get around the limitations of the ‘Falcon Wing’ doors. Later, it updated the EPA-rated range to 250 miles for the P90D version of the all-electric SUV. Today we learn Tesla now added an option for a 6-seat configuration to the vehicle.
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SolarCity, the biggest solar installer in the US, announced a new program to install solar for affordable housing communities. Under the new program, SolarCity will finance and install solar arrays for affordable housing developers, and then the company will distribute the energy produced by the solar panels to individual housing units.
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It has been a while since we’ve heard of Renovo Motors, the all-electric supercar maker backed by the deep-pocket VC firm True Ventures, but we hear that Renovo was recently testing its coupe at the famous Mazda Raceway Monterey, California.
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On Monday morning Tesla sent out invitations to attend the launch of the Model X scheduled for September 29 at 7 p.m. PT in Fremont, California. Only Signature Model X reservation holders and a few select media are invited to the event, but Tesla confirmed that there will be a livestream available on its website.
The California-based automaker has been inconsistent about providing a livestream for its events. In October 2014, Tesla didn’t livestream the launch of the Dual Motor version of the Model S and the announcement of the ‘Autopilot’, but in April 2015, it did present a livestream of the launch of ‘Tesla Energy’ and the stationary energy storage product line.
But today we can confirm that Tesla will livestream the launch of the Model X on its website.
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On Monday morning Tesla Motors sent out invites for the Model X launch event, which will take place at the Tesla Fremont Factory on September 29th (7PM PT ). The picture on the invite gives us a first look at Tesla’s new headlights which have been camouflaged on prototypes until now.
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