Last month, we reported on Tesla’s Director of Autopilot Programs, Sterling Anderson, sharing new details about the amount of data the automaker has so far collected through its Autopilot program. He confirmed that the company has collected 780 million miles worth of Autopilot data and that it is adding a million more miles every 10 hours – thanks to a fleet of 70,000+ Teslas equipped with Autopilot hardware.
At the time, we highlighted the importance of data, and potentially sharing data, in achieving a successful fully autonomous system approved by regulator. Now Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the automaker offered to share all its Autopilot data with the US Department of Transport (DoT) and that the company would even consider sharing data with other automakers. Expand Expanding Close
In a not so surprising but disappointing report for EV enthusiasts today, we learn that BMW is putting its electric vehicle programs on the “back burner” in order to focus its ‘i’ brand, under which the German automaker has been releasing its electric vehicles, on self-driving cars instead.
The company reportedly will not release a new all-electric vehicle until 2021. Expand Expanding Close
While Panasonic has been Tesla’s longtime partner for battery cell supply, the automaker confirmed last year that for the first time it approved a cell from another manufacturer, LG Chem, but only for a small contract for its Roadster 3.0 upgrade. Now we learn that Tesla started taking delivery of much larger quantities of battery cells from yet another supplier: Samsung SDI. Expand Expanding Close
As we discussed in the past, the Tesla Model X is expected to be popular in China – in part due to its new air filtration system (though it’s now also available with the Model S). Now Tesla is about to start deliveries in the country and it will establish ‘operational headquarters’ in Beijing to manage its expansion in the country. Expand Expanding Close
Following the Tesla Model 3 unveil in March, CEO Elon Musk said that a “part 2” unveiling event will follow “closer to production”, which is set to start in late 2017. He added that he expects the features that will be revealed at the event will significantly increase the number of reservations Tesla receives for the vehicle – the tally currently stands at close to 400,000 pre-orders.
Fully autonomous driving is expected to be the main new feature to be announced at the event and now Musk did everything but confirm it during a conference yesterday. Expand Expanding Close
The State of New York has approved a continuation of $485M in funding to build out SolarCity’s Gigafactory – capable of producing 10,000 modules a day. A few weeks ago, we saw the cash disbursements stopped for further review of key individuals associated with construction. These funds are needed to pay for and install the hardware inside the building to manufacture the solar modules as the majority of building construction is complete. The controversy is surrounding lobbyists and construction companies figuring out how to get a piece of a The Buffalo Billion – but really, I’m more interested in what might go on inside the largest solar manufacturing plant in North America and one of the biggest in the world.
Overwhelmingly, the 2017 Volt is a fantastic car that will fit into many people’s lives and probably be one of the most functional mass-market electric cars for the next 3 years. The numbers don’t lie – Volt sales are up while some EV competitors are down.
I say 3 years because I believe that is how long, give or take, it will take electric infrastructure in the US to be as convenient as gas – at which point it will become more convenient. Sure, almost every house, building and structure has an electrical outlet which can charge on level 1 or 2 (and the 2017 Volt does both levels of AC charging), meaning you wake up every morning with a full 53 mile “tank” of electricity. But to finally close the convenience gap of gasoline and frankly beyond, pure electric cars need to be outfitted with high power DC chargers and long range batteries — both of which the Volt lacks.
As a pure electric car owner, there are still a bunch of ski resorts in Vermont I can’t go to with my long range ‘200 mile’ electric car. To travel to my parents’ house in Ohio from New York, I need to avoid the straight shot Interstate 80 and dip down almost to Maryland to stay on the Supercharger route. Even going to an EV show in Montreal next month will require me to go 2-3 hours out of my way to stay charged up.
Don’t get me wrong. We’re close, but we’re not there yet with electric infrastructure. The case is being made but there are still many obstacles outside of the $1 Trillion dollar Oil industry. For one, currently three different DC fast charging standards exist (Tesla, SAE and Chademo) so there’s work needed to either consolidate or build (more) adapters. DC charging will also speed up over the next few years. Teslas can currently charge at 135kW while most other EVs top out at 50kW. That means most DC charging “fill ups” will take at least 30 minutes. But Tesla wants to take that down to 5-10 minutes by the time the Model 3 is released and has all but abandoned its under 90 second battery swap plan.
I’m currently willing to make these route/time sacrifices because I love EVs, clean air and my Tesla, but I don’t think mainstream users are OK with going hundreds of miles/several hours out of the way to make a medium-long trip electrically for the next few years.
We were expecting that the new 30 kWh pack, which brings the LEAF’s range to 107 EPA-rated miles, would help erase its poor sales performance in the US in 2015 with 17,269 units versus 30,200 in 2014, but as it turns out, Nissan’s LEAF sales are still in free-fall in the US and the Tesla Model 3 could have something to do with it. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla’s 2016 Shareholders Meeting yesterday was an unusual one. CEO Elon Musk and CTO JB Straubel were on stage for close to 4 hours and went through the bulk of Tesla’s history – recounting stories from the early days with longtime employees of the automaker.
Yesterday Musk put the issue to rest and clearly said that while the Model 3 will be built with Supercharging capability, the access to the Supercharger network will only be available as an optional package. Expand Expanding Close
During the 2016 Shareholders Meeting today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the company could triple the total planned battery output of the Gigafactory to ~105 GWh of cells and ~150 GWh of battery packs – or over 3 times the current total li-ion battery production worldwide.
The new potential total capacity would be based on the current planned factory of 13 million sq-ft – with no expansion needed. Musk revealed a few other tidbits of information about the plant during the meeting. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla upgraded the Model X software through an over-the-air update this week and introduced a few new small but interesting features to its all-electric SUV. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla’s user interface is quite unique in the auto industry. Most of the controls are activated through the 17-in touchscreen, which as often been compared to an iPad, so it wasn’t too surprising when Tesla hired a senior designer from Apple to lead its user interface design.
Brennan Boblett was working on the design team of the iTunes Store when he joined Tesla back in 2010 to “create the most visually stunning and exciting large screen interface the automotive world has ever seen”, as he described at the time.
He worked under Tesla’s Chief Designer, Franz von Holzhausen, but as the company grew, he was quickly promoted and ended up managing both the UI and UX teams in 2012. Boblett stayed with Tesla for over 5 years and led the user experience development of the Model S, Model X and even the early work of the Model 3. Expand Expanding Close
In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Dario Resta’s and the Peugeot L45’s (pictured above) victory at the Indianapolis 500 race, the French automaker unveiled its latest race car concept which it presents as its vision of the future of motor sport – and it’s electric!
The L500 R Hybrid is a plug-in race car with an extremely low-profile of only one meter. Peugeot is claiming a 0 to 62 mph (100 km/h) acceleration in just 2.5 seconds. Expand Expanding Close
The Model Y is the second vehicle Tesla plans to release on its third generation platform – with the Model 3 being the first. There’s no official timeline for when the automaker plans to bring it to market, but it is expected to follow not too far behind the Model 3, which set for a release in late 2017.
Drag Times’ latest video is pretty funny and accurately illustrate the impressive torque of an electric vehicle – more specifically of a Tesla Model S P90D with Ludicrous mode. They created a very simple challenge: try to grab a $100 bill hanging from the windshield while in full acceleration from 0 to 60 mph. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla has been tuning its referral program for close to a year now. The automaker went through 3 rounds with different rules, rewards and discounts. The last round ended in mid-April and the company hasn’t updated the program until now.
This weekend Tesla reactivated the referral links and now a new offer of $1,000 in credit is available through the new referral program with both Model S and X orders. Expand Expanding Close
We’ve seen our fair share of Tesla Model S crashes lately, some more impressive than others, but this one from Florida is particularly strange: a parking lot accident with enough momentum to launch the Model S in the air and land on top of a Toyota Camry. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla (TSLA) 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the “2016 Annual Meeting”) will be held tomorrow on Tuesday, May 31, 2016, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. If you can’t attend, don’t worry because as usual Tesla will be live-streaming the event on its website.
The meeting generally starts with a formal part for shareholders to vote on a few things. Last year it was a little more complicated because of two shareholder proposals about the use of leather in Tesla’s vehicles, but this year it should be fairly straightforward. Shareholders will vote on the reelection of two board directors, the reappointment of Tesla’s public accounting firm and on a stockholder proposal to eliminate limited supermajority voting requirements.
After the formal part, CEO Elon Musk should make a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. The Q&A is most entertaining part of the event and Musk generally releases a few interesting nuggets of information. This time will be a little different though as Tesla will apparently take questions voted by the community ahead of time. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla has recently been reducing the price of its chargers quite significantly. We reported last month on the automaker offering an updated and cheaper ‘Tesla Wall Connector’ after unveiling its refreshed Model S. Now Tesla updated its ‘Mobile Connector’ and like the Wall Connector, its main update is a significantly cheaper price. Expand Expanding Close
There are several different approaches to developing self-driving cars. Some companies are gradually releasing more and more advanced autonomous and semi-autonomous features leading to a fully autonomous system, like Tesla’s Autopilot, and others, like Google, are aiming to only release a system once the technology is ready for a fully (level 4) self-driving car.
Following a few recent accidents in the past weeks, Tesla received some criticisms over its approach on releasing semi-autonomous features. One of the most severe criticism came from renowned scientist Andrew NG who said that it was plainly “irresponsible” for Tesla to ship the Autopilot. Expand Expanding Close
The fine folks at GM have given us a shiny new (OK, 500 miles) electric blue 2017 Chevy Volt to test drive for the next week. I’m keeping a diary of my experiences every day here and will wrap up the week with my conclusions. Catch up on Day 1, Day 2 Expand Expanding Close
Manage push notifications
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
You are subscribed to notifications
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
