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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California Governor Jerry Brown sent a letter to Republican Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson last week over comments Carson made about climate change while recently visiting California.
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and climate science denier, complained that environmentalists don’t present “overwhelming science” when talking about climate change being man-made. Brown’s letter suggests that Carson should review the Synthesis Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which he attached to the letter in a flash drive.
You can access the report and support materials here.
Here’s Gov. Brown’s letter in full:
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In a letter sent to the California Attorney General and US Attorneys, Consumer Watchdog, a consumer and taxpayer protection organization, is asking for an investigation in the oil industry’s mail scheme campaign against the fuel reduction provision in California’s Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act.
Last week we reported on California state Democrats dropping the fuel reduction part of the bill, which would have call for a 50% reduction in fuel consumption in the state by 2030 through increase fuel efficiency and more electric vehicles, for which Senate Democratic Leader Kevin De Leon directly blamed the lobbying effort. But Consumer Watchdog is going further by saying that the oil industry’s campaign used “mail fraud”.
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When Google originally showcased the newer low-speed “cute-mobile” self-driving car, it mentioned a goal of having about 100 of them on the road for testing within a couple years. Now, as the company is bringing its low-speed electric prototypes to Austin a year later, Sarah Hunter, head of policy for Google [X], has revealed that the company is expanding production of the cars (via The Guardian). Hunter says that Google is now producing at least a “few hundred” and hints at a potential future of mass-production…
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During a press conference late Wednesday night, Governor Jerry Brown announced that California Democratic lawmakers abandoned the drastic fuel economy provision from the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act, which is currently being discussed in the State Assembly.
The provision in question was a requirement for a reduction of 50 percent of fuel used in cars and trucks in the state by 2030, which would have forced automakers to improve fuel efficiency and offer more electric vehicles in the state of California.
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Over the weekend we reported that GM pushed the nationwide release of the 2016 Volt to next year and would only sell the car in CARB states in the meantime. Yesterday the company confirmed to Auto News that they simply don’t plan on releasing the 2016 model outside of their top EV markets, which coincidentally are mainly CARB states. Instead the company will release the 2017 version early for a nationwide launch.
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This is a great listen if you want to know the history behind the NUMMI plant in Fremont California where Tesla currently builds its cars. But this is about its past life, the only mention of Tesla is literally the last word.
Tesla is going to make a home battery announcement on April 30th. It will be a big deal. But it isn’t hard to find some of the details on the batteries Tesla is going to offer. Analysts, like above^ are claiming to have “secret info” on the announcement: Tesla secretly tested its battery solution with 300 customers.
But that info and much more is available on Solar City’s website. In fact, Tesla’s Home Batteries including pictures and lots of details are all hidden in plain sight:
Tesla will announce a consumer battery pack for running a house in the coming months
— Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) February 12, 2015
Tesla also gave plenty of details on their earnings call in February where Musk 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.
If you’ve talked to Solar City, they may have provided you with the specs of Tesla’s prototype battery:
Tesla will certainly announce some new innovations that perhaps differentiate them from other batteries. Being able to Supercharge your Model S at home would be nice. Perhaps a Webb/App controller with some novel uses would be good.
I’d like to see it compared against home generators which cost a lot more, even before considering the savings against time of use metering in power. We’ll be on hand on the 30th to see what is on offer.