Cars

A Times-Picayune, Greater New Orleans author inadvertently created a Model 3 rumor Tuesday, after quoting Elon Musk stating a range of 250 miles for Tesla’s upcoming mass market vehicle. The sudden 50 mile range increase from what Tesla had been promising took many by surprise, especially considering it would place the range of the $35,000 Model 3 in the same category as the currently $75,000 Model S 70D (240 miles).

Today, video footage of the event the alleged quote came from, the Edison Electric Institute annual convention, surfaced online.

Thirty-Four minutes in, we hear this from Elon Musk:

We’re working on our third generation car, which is a smaller car, that’s meant to be an affordable long range electric car, which is the Model 3. And that’s due out in late 2017. And that’s going to be about $35,000 and have at least 200 mile useful range. Hopefully a fair bit more than that.

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Today during their annual convention in New Orleans, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), in collaboration with the Department of Energy (DoE), announced a private-public partnership to accelerate the adoption of electric transportation.

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We recently learned that Tesla Motors has been unofficially selling a new charging station which looks just like a Tesla Supercharger, but with a limited output of 60KW versus the 120KW regular Superchargers are capable of.

Tesla operates two different types of charging networks, the “Superchargers” and “Destination Charging“. Supercharger stations can charge a Model S at a rate of more than 300 miles of range per hour and they are mainly located next to popular routes to facilitate road trips.

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Tesla Model S display showing an LTE connection. Photo Credit: “Korben,” <a href="http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/48305-It-looks-like-I-have-LTE-enabled/page2?p=1030669&viewfull=1#post1030669">Tesla Motors Club Forums</a>

A Tesla customer got a surprise yesterday when his brand new Model S arrived with a working 4G LTE data connection. Up until now, all Model S vehicles have delivered with a 3G internet connection (specifically AT&T HSPA+), despite the prevalence of faster LTE connections in recent years.

The internet connectivity of the Model S is one of its strongest selling points. It was the first production car to ship with a standard web browser, and it features a large 17-inch display, which can tax a sluggish internet connection. Slowly loading map tiles in the car’s navigation software have been a long time complaint against the existing 3G connection.

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The Times published an article over the weekend titled “Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by government subsidies”. The article is well-researched and mostly accurate, but it conveys a clear disdain for the fact that Musk’s companies are taking advantage of the government subsidies available to them.

The publication compiled data from government programs and came to the conclusion that Tesla Motors, SolarCity and SpaceX, three companies Musk is involved in, have benefited from an “estimated $4.9 billion in government support”. I will not dispute the actual amount, but I’d like to bring up a few points which weren’t discussed in the article and that are highly relevant to the subject.

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In a press release today, Ford announced that they are opening to competitors the patents and patent applications they have for electric vehicles. The move is not unlike what Tesla did last year when they opened all their patents in the spirit of accelerating the advent of electric transport. Here is what Kevin Layden, Ford’s director of Electrification Programs, had to say about the announcement:

Innovation is our goal. The way to provide the best technology is through constant development and progress. By sharing our research with other companies, we will accelerate the growth of electrified vehicle technology and deliver even better products to customers.

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There has been a lot of uninformed banker-speak in the media about Tesla’s battery including by Bloomberg here. The problem is these folks don’t understand the new market that Tesla is opening up.

But I’m also turning to Bloomberg for the first smart analysis and that’s not surprisingly from Solar City’s Lyndon Rive (who happens to be Elon Musk’s Cousin – perhaps you noticed the accent?).

The complaints have been that the battery wall doesn’t make economic sense – that for the average household to go off the grid with these combined with solar (or wind), it would be incredibly expensive.

That’s correct…
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This detailed video by YouTuber, ColdfusTion, gives a nice overview of Tesla’s history and recent success.

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Funny story.

Bernard Tse, a former Tesla Motors Vice President and board member, founded Atieva in 2007 after leaving Tesla.  The company was first setup to make software to manage battery packs and package their tech for a cell agnostic battery pack technology, but they evolved while operating in “stealth mode” for the past few years, now we learn they have been working on not only the batteries, but a complete electric vehicle.

The company describes the vehicle as a “breakthrough electric car”. They don’t want to elaborate and It’s hardly a confirmation, but looking at the animation on their website, their vehicle might be a 2-door sport car.

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Google’s fleet of self-driving Lexus cars have notched up a total of 140,000 miles on public roads, and the company is now ready to begin road-testing its first purpose-built autonomous cars.

We first saw the cute-looking cars almost a year ago, when the company explained that they were not intended to ever make it to public sale. Their purpose is to see how people respond to a next-generation driverless car before later seeking partners to actually bring the technology to market.

We learned earlier this week that Google’s existing Lexus fleet has been involved in three low-speed accidents, none of them the fault of the car, but the company still isn’t taking any chances in this latest phase … 
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Tesla has taken its recruiting of Apple employees to the next level: the electric car and energy company has hired away Apple’s Senior Director of Corporate Recruiting, Cindy Nicola, to become its new Vice President of Global Recruiting. Nicola has already noted her now role and start month of May on her LinkedIn profile.

Notably, Apple actually hired away Tesla’s Lead Recruiter in 2014 for its own electric car project, as we noted in our extensive profile of Apple’s automotive related hires. Interestingly, that former Tesla recruiter Lauren Ciminera has already left Apple to work on a new “confidential” project, according to her own LinkedIn page and confirmation from a source…

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Miliseconds later, it was toast, but the Tesla P85D did at least get off the line quicker than the insanely fast Porsche 918 Spyder which boasts a 2.3 second 0-60 time and sub-10 second quarter mile. Sure, that’s fast but can it seat 7 and have room for groceries too? No, it cannot.

Electric has that instant torque at 0RPMs which doesn’t seem to have a peer in the internal combustion world. The Spyder with its smaller body has a 600hp ICE and a 300HP electric engine driving its wheels.

The screenshot is above and the video follows of AUTO BILD TV’s race on Porsche’s home field. Feels like we’re seeing the last stand of internal combustion in supercars.

Elon Musk, although CEO of a company based on Silicon Valley, often finds himself without a place to sleep when he’s away from his $17 million home located in Los Angeles. According to statements from Google CEO Larry Page given to Ashlee Vance for his upcoming book on the Tesla CEO, Musk is “kind of homeless,” and sometimes sleeps over at Page’s house when he’s in town.
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A video uploaded to Youtube during the weekend shows a Model X being tested near the Tesla headquarters in Palo Alto. The video gives us a rare glimpse of the Model X’s interior. On rare occasions, Tesla has been showing a Model X prototype at events. This particular model has been presumably the same for the past 2 years, first showed at Tesla’s store in Palo Alto in late 2013 and more recently at the Panasonic booth at CES 2015.

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A survey of 80 European Model S owners has demonstrated that, on average, most Tesla Model S batteries seem to degrade only 5% after 30,000 miles (50,000 km). After that point, degradation appears to slow down, showing very little further degradation for the next 30,000 miles.

Given the importance of range, battery degradation has been a long standing concern for electric vehicles. Anyone with an old laptop or cell phone can attest to the fact that batteries do not last forever. Fortunately Tesla’s approach of actively cooling and heating the battery in the Model S appears to be paying off for owners. The Model S is on track outperform the Tesla Roadster’s 15% range loss after 100,000 miles.

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During the conference call discussing Tesla’s Q1 2015 financial results, JB Straubel, Tesla’s CTO, revealed that they were operating a fleet of “hundreds” of Model X prototypes.  Generally, these prototypes, when testing on open roads, are covered by wrapping to camouflage the body in order to keep the final design somewhat secret. Today, a picture of a Model X with almost no wrapping emerged.

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According to the Detroit Free Press, Tesla is making its first acquisition in company history, a Michigan-based auto supplier named Riviera Tool. The company, which employs about 100 people, manufactures metal stamping die systems for Tesla and other automakers. Tesla is expected to retain Riviera Tool’s employees and customers. The operation will be renamed Tesla Tool & Die.

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKoNNY3BL4o]

Fun starts at 2:15. Cruise control only goes up to 176 km/hr. Consumption was 520 Wh/km (840 Wh/mi) which is about 2.5 times the ~300Wh/mile  65 mph consumption. Newer D Teslas will top out around 155. Not bad for a car without gears.

Another Bjorn video ‘Tesla Model S normal vs low suspension at 160 kph/100 mph’ follows:

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Redditor silasoverturf spotted an interesting Tesla test vehicle at the Corte Madera store. 
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