As we discussed before, electric car fires are fairly rare and nothing points to them being more frequent than in gas-powered vehicles, but this instance is particularly unusual because it actually occurred in a BMW i3 owned and operated by the Italian state police in Rome.
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Production companies Mindconsole and ProVideo released a video this week showcasing their new projection mapping technique using the Tesla Model S as a model. The result is pretty cool.
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Update: a GM representative contacted to us to clarify that Lyft will actually get the vehicle later this year and not at the launch of the Express Drive program like the press release seen below led us to believe.
GM has long stated that it plans to start deliveries of the Chevy Bolt EV by the end of 2016. It was since revealed in March that the all-electric vehicle entered pre-production on the Orion Assembly line. We later learned that GM is planning for the start of regular volume production of the 2017 Bolt in October 2016.
Now it looks like the vehicle will be on the road sooner than anticipated and not necessarily in the hands of customers, but through GM’s partnership with Lyft, a popular ride-sharing company.
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If there’s a list Tesla is probably OK with not being at the top of, it’s ‘Best Car Salesmen’. The company boasts about its distribution and servicing model being unlike any other in the industry and the latest mystery shoppers study by Pied Piper, a real consultant and market research firm (not based on the HBO series Silicon Valley), kind of proved that it is the case by placing Tesla dead last.
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Over the weekend, Tesla CEO Elon Musk clarified the automaker’s use of the word ‘Beta’ in reference to the Autopilot system after Germany’s Federal Office for Motor Vehicles (KBA) said that it wouldn’t approve a feature on German roads if it is described as ‘Beta’. The agency said that the ‘beta-phase’ could mean ‘an incomplete status of the software’.
Elon Musk claimed that the word “beta” is not used in the “standard sense” of the word, but to make sure drivers “don’t get comfortable” with the system.
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Ever since the very publicized fatal Florida accident in a Model S while the Autopilot was activated, Tesla’s semi-autonomous driver assist system has been getting its reputation tarnished in the media. Autopilot took blame for a few subsequent incidents, despite nothing currently pointing to the system being the cause of any of the accidents – though NHTSA is now probing the Autopilot over two of them.
Now we learn of yet another crash where the Autopilot was reportedly at play. A Tesla Model X crashed in Montana Saturday night resulting in the SUV driving through a guardrail and going off the road. The driver blames the Autopilot but Tesla has yet to chime in…
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Tesla Model 3 reservation holders will be happy to know that Tesla apparently already fixed that small trunk opening issue seen on the Model 3 prototypes, which has been a big concern for several early adopters.
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Almost a decade ago to the day (August 2, 2006), Elon Musk laid out Tesla’s mission in an awesome blog post titled ‘The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)‘. Now he is apparently almost ready to release a second part to this Master Plan.
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Last month, we reported on Tesla introducing the Model X in Mexico and opening the first Supercharger in the country, which it announced in the most subtle, weird, but awesome way. The automaker had already opened a “popup store” in Mexico, but now we learn that Tesla is opening its first non-mobile store in the country.
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As far as we can tell based on the unveiling event and other sightings, only a few Model 3 prototypes have been made so far and the same vehicles keep being spotted while Tesla finalizes the design with the pencil down being only weeks or even days away.
Now pictures emerged of the Black Matte prototype, which has been spotted a few times before outside of the unveiling event, displayed at Tesla’s headquarters in Palo Alto last month.
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The Tesla Model S P90D on Ludicrous mode can actually pull just over 1 G of force – or more than the Earth’s gravity at the surface. We’ve seen plenty of Tesla owners put this to the test, mainly for reaction videos or drag races, but I think just to eat a snack is a first.
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It appears that after almost 4 years of sales, Tesla is finally beginning to be able to meet demand for its high-end luxury cars. Battery production is ramping up at the Gigafactory and elsewhere, the Fremont car factory is firing on all cylinders (so to speak!) and Tesla’s sales, service and Supercharger networks are all growing at scale across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
At this point, it would make a lot of sense for Tesla to create a car rental agency subsidiary. Here’s why:
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Just over 1 year ago, Tesla’s entire fleet of vehicles accumulated its first billion electric miles. Only 3 months ago, Tesla hit the 2 billion mark and now the automaker just surpassed 2.5 billion miles. To get to the next billion a little quicker, Tesla is embarking on a 3-month road trip around the world to showcase the “uncompromised capabilities of Model S and Model X to new communities of enthusiasts.”
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The Tesla Model 3’s $35,000 price tag will be enabled in part due to a significant reduction in battery cost through the automaker’s partnership with Panasonic on the Gigafactory in Nevada. While Tesla owns and operates the giant battery factory, Panasonic is still in charge of battery cell production at the plant, which Tesla then uses to make battery packs for its vehicles.
With the strong demand for Tesla’s vehicles, Panasonic now says that it expects its battery sales to double within the next 3 years – or after the first full planned year of Model 3 production.
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You didn’t forget about the Tesla Roadster 3.0 did you? They are still over 2,000 Roadsters on the road today accumulating millions of electric miles and some are starting do so in longer stretches with the upgraded 3.0 battery pack.
At the 2016 Tesla Shareholders Meeting last month, a Roadster owner (#33 delivered in 2008) and Tesla shareholder asked when he can expect his upgrade, which was first announced in late 2014 and he already had placed his order. CTO JB Straubel responded that the new packs are coming, but with limited production.
Now we learn that the retrofitted packs, which are rated at about 340 miles of range, are now trickling down to select Tesla service centers and a few owners are reporting having received the retrofit.
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The timing of the release of these tests with the recent publicized fatal accident on Tesla Autopilot is only coincidental, says Motor Trend. The popular car publications released an interesting report with in-depth comparisons between driver assist and semi-autonomous systems available in vehicles from Tesla, Mercedes, Hyundai and Cadillac.
While Motor Trends doesn’t out right declare a winner, the results of the most important tests clearly points toward Tesla’s Autopilot has the most convenient system, but the publication appears to have edited the piece in reaction to the recent fatal accident in a Model S on Autopilot.
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There’s a new small detail but important development in the investigation of the fatal Tesla Model S crash while the Autopilot system was activated. We now learn that the Florida Highway Patrol confirmed that both a laptop and DVD player were found in the car, but that neither were running when found at the scene.
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Last week, we reported on pictures of the aftermath of what must have been a spectacular accident involving a Tesla Model S and a truck on the A2 highway in the Netherlands between Eindhoven and Den Bosch. The Model S was hit by a truck and was seen rolling over at least one time before resting in the middle of the roadway.
Little was known at the time about the driver or any other occupants, other than that the driver was taken to the hospital. We now learn that the Tesla driver was traveling with his 8-year-old son and they both survived the crash with only minor bruises and cuts. The Model S owner took to the forums to explain the moments leading to the accident and to praise the vehicle’s safety features.
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It’s well-known at this point that Tesla doesn’t pay for advertising, the company prefers spending its money in R&D and service (though it has a significant marketing budget), but that doesn’t stop fans from creating unofficial TV spots for the automaker’s flagship sedan.
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California’s Air Resources Board is starting to realize that it might have made a mistake by projecting a 15.4 percent market share for zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2025. The state, which pioneered incentivizing automakers to sell electric vehicles, is being outpaced by countries, like Norway and the Netherlands, exploring the idea of ZEVs having a 100 percent market share within the same timeframe.
Furthermore, because of Tesla, which only sells ZEVs, and the popularity of a few plug-in hybrid models, like the Volt, ZEV credits have flooded the market and now automakers would only need to achieve a 6 percent ZEV market share in the state and compensate with credits bought from other automakers in order to comply with CARB’s mandate without being fined.
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A Tesla Model S with a LIDAR sensor mounted on the roof has been spotted around the automaker’s headquarters in Palo Alto last week. Tesla is set to soon release its next generation sensor suite for the Autopilot program, but so far, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made it clear that a lidar sensor is not in the company’s plans.
Maybe things have changed, but it’s unlikely.
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a statement confirming that it will investigate the recent Tesla Model X rollover accident in PA “to determine whether automated functions were in use at the time of the crash.”
Tesla also updated an earlier statement to clarify its review of the accident citing very little information about the event due to a lack of contact with the driver.
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Yesterday, we reported on a strange article in which Fortune Magazine tried to make the case that Tesla should have disclosed the fatal Model S accident on Autopilot before raising capital through a secondary offering a few weeks after the fact. The publication claims that the accident was material to Tesla’s stock and therefore, it should have been announced when the company learned of the event and not when NHTSA decided it would launch a preliminary evaluation on June 30.
Elon Musk argued against it being material to Tesla’s valuation in an email to Fortune, but now the publication is somehow trying to use a boilerplate statement from Tesla to prove that Musk and the company previously considered the accident a material event, which is not necessarily the case.
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Yesterday we reported on an accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike where a Tesla Model X hit a guard rail, the concrete median and then rollover. The two occupants came out alive and after the fact, the police said that the driver claimed that the Autopilot was activated when the vehicle crashed.
Tesla has now reviewed the logs and says that there’s “no data to suggest that Autopilot was engaged at the time of the incident.”
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