Cars

There’s been some confusion about the imminent upgrade to Volkswagen’s all-electric e-Golf versus its next generation expected to be available by the end of the decade. Dr. Volkmar Tanneberger, Head of Electric Vehicle Development at VW, cleared up some of the confusion this weekend during a press meeting for the Formula E race in Berlin.

The executive confirmed that the 2017 e-Golf will receive a battery upgrade by the end of the year and that it will allow for an NEDC rated range of 300 km (186 miles) on a single charge.
Expand
Expanding
Close

People affiliated with Tesla have often been outspoken about how hydrogen fuel cells are simply a bad solution to the sustainable transport issue. Just last week we reported on Tesla co-founder and CTO, JB Straubel, going on a quick rant about hydrogen and saying that fuel cells will soon be “irrelevant” in the transportation industry.

Now another Tesla co-founder, Marc Tarpenning, went a little further than Straubel and called hydrogen fuel cells a “scam”. He also said out loud what many in the industry are thinking – that energy companies are supporting the technology for its inefficiency.
Expand
Expanding
Close

During a convention held in Dallas last week, Texas state GOP delegates endorsed new Tesla-backed language in the party platform to allow direct sales of vehicles in the state. About 90 percent of the more than 8,000 delegates supported the new proposal.

This new support is likely to be a big help for Tesla’s next effort to push new legislation in order to sell its cars through company-owned stores in Texas – something the company has been trying to do since 2013.

Tesla had a booth at the convention and discussed its situation in the state with thousands of delegates.

Under the current state’s laws governing car sales, as an automaker, Tesla cannot sell its vehicles to consumers and is required to go through third-party dealerships – something the company refused to do as per its business model.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Tesla’s factory in Fremont is the only U.S. car assembly plant owned by an American automaker that is not represented by a union, but that’s just one of many things Tesla does unlike any other American (or otherwise) automaker.

Following the announcement of Tesla’s updated plans to increase its annual vehicle production at the factory to 500,000 cars by 2018  – 2 years earlier than previously planned, the United Auto Workers (UAW) expressed interest in unionizing Tesla’s workforce at the factory. One could look at the move as being opportunistic by the UAW to significantly increase its numbers or as a move to help protect workers it perceives being exploited by Tesla’s ever-expanding needs.

UAW President Dennis Williams said that up until now, the union was respecting Tesla’s startup status, but the new production rate would quickly make the electric automaker one of the largest car manufacturer in the nation and bigger than more established luxury automakers like BMW and Mercedes.

Williams is right that Tesla plans to quickly become as big as other automakers, but does higher volume alone justify the implementation of a union?
Expand
Expanding
Close

After launching a pilot program to test Luxe’s on-demand valet parking and charging services with its vehicles earlier this year, Tesla now officially announced the partnership to its owners in the first few cities where it’s available: New York and San Francisco.

The new program addresses two different problems: electric vehicle charging in cities, which is obviously specific to electric vehicle owners, and parking in cities, which on the other hand is a problem for a lot of car owners – electric or not.
Expand
Expanding
Close

A Raleigh-based startup and maker of scientific instruments, Practichem, announced that it will start offering brand new Tesla Model 3’s to employees. Prior to the Model 3 unveiling, another company, San Antonio-based Architecture firm Lake Flato, announced that it will also include the Model 3 in its employees perks by offering to its staff the opportunity split the $1,000 cost of the reservation deposit for the Tesla Model 3.

But Lake Flato’s offer is now outshined by Practichem’s initiative.
Expand
Expanding
Close

During the recent conference call with analysts for Tesla’s first quarter 2016, co-founder and CTO JB Straubel said that we shouldn’t focus too much on Tesla’s previously stated goal of 35 GWh of battery cell production at the Gigafactory, and 50 GWh of battery pack output.

Straubel said that Tesla was prepared to adjust the battery factory output according to the higher than anticipated demand for the Model 3 after the company received over 373,000 pre-orders. Tesla’s battery output at the factory depends significantly on Panasonic and now the Japanese battery maker says that it would move up its investment schedule if asked by Tesla.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Reuters is out with a new report claiming that suppliers are “questioning” Tesla’s goal to significantly increase its production output for the Model 3. Reuters didn’t disclose the suppliers in question but some of the reporting came from the publication’s Seoul division in South Korea.

Since the unveiling of the Model 3, several reports from suppliers came out of South Korea, including a Reuters report about LG Display being selected to be “a sole supplier for the 15-plus inch center display of Model 3.”
Expand
Expanding
Close

Geely, an important Chinese automotive company behind London’s iconic black cabs, announced having raised $400 million through a green bond sale with the goal to electrify its taxi fleets (via Bloomberg). The money will go toward the development of the plug-in hybrid version of the classic 1958 FX4 black cab, now renamed TX5.
Expand
Expanding
Close

In June, Pikes Peak will hold the 100th edition of its world-famous hill climb competition. Its centenary will not be the only thing that will make the race special, but also a modified Tesla Model S that will take on the hill climb with its driver, Blake Fuller, having the record in mind.

Based on his LinkedIn profile, Blake is the founder and former CEO of Braille Battery, a manufacturer and seller of ultra-lightweight high performance AGM and lithium-ion batteries. Braille is the official battery supplier of several, if not most, racing series around the world, including Indycars and NASCAR. Fuller is also the founder of wearable battery startup Go Puck.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Tesla CTO and co-founder, JB Straubel, was at the International Transport Forum (ITF) for an interesting panel on innovations in transportation this week in Leipzig, Germany. The automotive executive was facing panelists that were promoting pedestrian options, bicycles and even fuel cell-hydrogen as means to innovate in transport, which led to some interesting conversations.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Today, Nissan announced a deal to provide 110 Nissan LEAFs with the new 30 kWh battery pack to La Ciudad del Taxi, a Madrid-based taxi company. The automaker is calling the transaction “the world’s largest 100 percent electric taxi fleet deal”.

The new 30 kWh battery pack option for the 2016 models gets 107 EPA-rated miles on a single charge.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Uber couldn’t let its competitor Lyft have the spotlight for one more second. In what appears to be a direct response to yesterday’s story that GM and Lyft started testing self-driving Bolt EV prototypes in San Francisco, Uber sent out a press release today to confirm starting self-driving car tests on the streets of Pittsburgh.
Expand
Expanding
Close

In the above image in 1900, we see that there is a single car out of many horse drawn carriages in New York City. Within thirteen years it transformed into one of many cars and one horse. Technology disruptions made this happen – and the evidence from the past several decades seems to show that battery pricing, electric car design, autonomous technologies and solar power are all about to hit their thirteen year strides.

Expand
Expanding
Close

A Tesla Model S owner in the UK, inspired by recent reported instances of service people and valets going on joyrides with vehicles in their care, decided to create an alert to try to deter any potential misuses of the vehicle.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Through its SEC filling for its recently announced capital raise to finance the Model 3 production program, Tesla confirmed that the company holds 373,000 Model 3 reservations as of May 15, after 8,000 reservations were cancelled and 4,000 were removed by Tesla under suspicions that they were duplicates. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

After market close today, Tesla announced a new public offering of about $2 billion of common stock to finance its ambitious Model 3 production program and for its CEO, Elon Musk, to exercise some of his stock options. We knew it was coming, but the size and most the details of the offering weren’t clear until now – though we still don’t know the price per share of the new offer.

The transaction is particularly interesting because of Elon Musk’s, Tesla’s CEO, involvement in the capital raise. Musk has always been cautious in maintaining his ownership level in Tesla and never selling any share, but now he is exercising an astonishing 5.5 million shares worth over $1.1 billion at today’s closing price.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Swedish automaker Volvo unveiled today two new concepts based on its Compact Modular Architecture (CMA). The new platform was developed to support all-electric and hybrid powertrains. The battery-powered version of the concepts are expected to achieve around 215 miles on a single charge.

The designs of the two new concepts are stunning and refreshing after what we have been seeing with EV concepts lately.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Earlier this month, it was revealed that GM and Lyft are partnering to test a fleet of self-driving electric taxis sometime within the next year in an undisclosed city. Now we learn that the city in question is San Francisco as the first few vehicles, Chevy Bolt EVs with a sensor suite on top, have been spotted in the city.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Nowadays, it seems that Bob Lutz, former GM Chairman and now involved in a few low volume car projects, can’t give an interview without taking swipes at Tesla and Elon Musk. To be fair, he is often asked about it and led to comment on the subject, but it gets old really quick.

We can’t expect to change everyone’s mind and have them get on board with electric vehicles easily (well BEVs since Lutz is on board with PHEVs), but in this case, Lutz is spreading false and misleading information about Tesla in order to make his point.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Goldman Sachs’ analyst Patrick Archambault issued a new note to clients today about Tesla (TSLA) and sees 22 percent upside for the company’s stock, which has been down following its financial results earlier this month and the announcement that Tesla aims to increase its annual vehicle production to 500,000 cars in 2018 – two years earlier than previously planned. 
Expand
Expanding
Close