Cars

We haven’t seen a Tesla Model 3 prototype since the Motor Trend photoshoot at the Gigafactory and that was over a month ago. Also, sightings in the wild (if you consider the public roads of the Bay Area “the wild”) have been pretty rare.
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There’s no doubt that Tesla likes big factories. Its Fremont Factory is one of the biggest buildings on earth with 5.3 million square feet of manufacturing and office space – pictured above. The Gigafactory is set to be the biggest building on earth by footprint with 13 million square feet of space. The automaker also operates several other smaller but still fairly big facilities, like its final assembly line in Tilburg, Netherlands, which covers 840,000 square feet.

Now the company is about to invest in a factory in China. While the plans have yet to be unveiled, earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the automaker plans on securing a location and a local partner for a manufacturing facility in China by the middle of the 2016, and it looks like it will be huge.

We learn that Shanghai could now be the front-runner as Tesla reportedly signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” to invest in a $9 billion electric vehicle factory in the region.
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When Toyota introduced the 2010 Prius years ago, the automaker offered an optional solar panel on the roof of the car. The idea to power your electric vehicle from direct sunlight is understandably appealing, but the system was actually only able to power the climate control inside the system and not the battery pack to power the vehicle.

While solar is great as a source of energy and something we follow diligently here, it requires a great deal of space to make it worthwhile for transportation applications.  Toyota has said that it didn’t connect the previous $2000 Prius Solar Panel option directly to the engine because it caused radio interference with the car’s stereo. In reality, not much power would have been gained. The previous panels were 50watts or about a 6th of a solid 3’x5′ solar panel.

Now the Japanese automaker is bringing back the feature in the new 2017 Prius Plug-In, now renamed the ‘Prius Prime’, and it will reportedly be able to charge your battery pack to contribute to the vehicle’s electric range. Looking at the size, I’d guess it is at least 3-5 times bigger/more powerful than the previous Kyocera solar panel but even then, will it have a meaningful impact on driving/range? 
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Tesla’s stock price (TSLA) is up over 3% following a new note by RBC analyst Joseph Spak to clients this morning. The analyst recently visited Tesla’s Fremont Factory and met with the management. He came out of the meeting with the impression that Tesla is confident that it can ramp up Model 3 production quickly, which is essential to the company short- to mid-term goals.
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Last month, we reported on Tesla being reportedly in talks with TK, South Korea’s second-biggest telecom company, to provide Tesla’s future fleet in the country with telematic services. When Tesla is looking for broadband for its vehicles in a new market, it’s a good indicator that it is about to enter said market.

Now we learn that Tesla is indeed setting up to debut in South Korea after Bloomberg reported that the automaker started its search for employees and offices in Seoul.
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Today, Tesla launches new ‘zero down payment’ and ‘zero interest rate’ financing programs in China as the company is trying to expand in this increasingly important market. Earlier this year, we reported on Tesla testing a similar program for a limited time with the China Merchants Bank, but now the new programs have been tweaked and will run for the rest of the year in partnership with Fosun, a Chinese financial service company.
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The 80edays 2016, also known as the ELDURO, is an endurance race around the world with only all-electric vehicles – mainly Tesla Roadsters and Model S sedans. 14 international teams will rally across 25,000 km, 20 countries, and 3 continents to finish in Barcelona in 80 days or less.

Along the way, the teams will attend “over 40 events are organized to raise awareness about EV technology.”
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We published an article on a video of a Tesla Model S going through a flooded tunnel over the weekend and Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, shared the article on his popular Twitter account. He then followed up with an interesting Tweet:

If curious abt TSWLM car, am still planning to do a sports sub car that can drive on roads. Just a side project. Limited market potential 🙂

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 19, 2016

TSWLM is the acronym of the title for the 1977 James Bond movie ‘The Spy Who Loved Me‘. In the movie, Bond was driving a modified Lotus Esprit that could change into a submarine. The vehicle they used in the movie was lost for years, but it was eventually found in a storage locker bought for $100 and three years ago, Elon Musk secretly bought it for ~$900,000 in a bidding war with another car collector.
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In the days following the unveiling of the Tesla Model 3 and the subsequent flood of pre-orders for the vehicle, CEO Elon Musk said that the automaker will be sending out a “token of appreciation” to those who stood in line at the store to reserve the Model 3 before it was even unveiled.

Token of appreciation for those who lined up coming via mail. Thought maybe 20-30 people per store would line up, not 800. Gifts on order.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2016

Indeed, some places had lines of over a thousand people waiting to order the vehicle sight unseen. Now the first reservation holders are reporting starting to receive the ‘thank you’ gift.
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With the advent of electric transport, some people are worried about what happens when an electric vehicle is submerged under water following a storm or during a flood. There’s a misconception that somehow battery-powered cars are more subject to damages than a gasoline-powered car in this situation. It didn’t help when Fisker famously lost $30 Million worth of cars in Hurricane Sandy, but to be fair, while advertised as an electric car, the Fisker Karma was more of a gas-powered car than an electric car anyway.

A recent video of a Tesla Model S driving (or swimming) passed cars with internal-combustion engines in a flooded tunnel in Russia Kazakhstan will maybe help correct those misconceptions.
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While Tesla has been manufacturing battery packs at the Gigafactory for its energy storage division since last year, new battery cell production is expected to be the real hallmark of the giant battery factory and it has yet to happen.

Panasonic, Tesla’s strategic partner at the plant, is in charge of the cell production inside the facility and it is expected to begin the process by the end of the year. Now we learn that Panasonic is “gearing up for significant growth” at the Gigafactory and it will host a special invitation-only hiring event on location next week to for “positions in advanced manufacturing”.
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Reports are coming out that Tesla is starting Model X deliveries in China ahead of schedule. The first shipment of Model X’s reportedly cleared customs and delivery centers now have the electric SUV. They can start delivering to early reservation holders who have been waiting for years in some cases.
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Last year, Audi announced it’s first all-electric vehicle, the e-tron quatro, a luxury SUV expected to fit between the Q5 and Q7, and therefore, it will likely change its name to Q6 once it will enter production at the company’s plant in Brussels starting in 2018.

Now we learn that the automaker is also planning an electric version of the Q5, which should go into production at the company’s new factory in Mexico.
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Cup holders and USB everywhere! This is Tesla’s new ‘Model S Integrated Center Console’ with optional ‘Quick Connection Phone Dock’ – now available has an aftermarket option. Earlier this year, we reported on Tesla introducing the center console as a default option in the Model S, like it already was in the Model X, for new orders.

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You remember BMW’s crazy-looking electric and self-driving concept with flexible fenders unveiled earlier this year? Well apparently the automaker didn’t learn its lesson and expanded the platform to its Rolls-Royce brand to unveil a new concept: Rolls-Royce Vision NEXT100.

It looks almost as stupid and ostentatious as BMW’s version, but with a touch of RR.
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Local Motors, a Maryland-based electric car startup behind the world’s first 3D-printed cars, today introduced its latest vehicle, Olli, an all-electric self-driving shuttle with the special integration of advanced cognitive computing capabilities powered by IBM’s Watson.

You can simply get into the vehicle and say “Olli, can you take me downtown?” and the system will respond to the voice command and autonomously take you downtown or wherever you request.
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A few weeks ago, Tesla closed an important $1.7 billion stock offering to finance its new build plan for the Model 3. The capital raise was needed for Tesla to accelerate its production and achieve a rate of 500,000 cars in 2018 – two years earlier than previously planned.

The new plan is in response to the higher than expected demand for the Model 3. Tesla’s management was expecting 100,000 to 200,000 reservations at best, but the automaker already received over 373,000 reservations.

While Tesla already confirmed that some of the capital would be used for its operations, the company made it clear that most of the money would be put toward an expansion of the Fremont factory to increase production. Now we get a specific number for the expansion as Tesla is applying for a $106 million tax break with the state to help the project.
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Earlier this year – not long after the Dieselgate scandal – the Volkswagen Group announced a new direction for its lineup of vehicles with a plan to introduce 20 new electric vehicles through the group’s brands by the end of the decade.

Today, the automaker extended the timeline to 2025 and said that it will introduce “more than 30 new electric vehicles during the next 10 years”. Earlier this year, CEO Matthias Müller was talking about both all-electric and plug-in hybrids, but now he is making a statement to go all-electric and confirmed that the “more than 30 new models” will all be “purely battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs)”.
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Tesla is now selling its new Model X hitch bike rack on its online store for $539 – not including the accessory hitch which costs $200 factory installed when ordering the Model X. The automaker says that the rack was “designed exclusively” for the company.

It is built by Yakima since it features its AutoPin™, SpeedKnob™ and ZipStrips™ locking mechanisms. It is rebranded with Tesla’s logo and attached to a $40 premium on the Yakima branded original rack.
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The introduction of Tesla’s new Model S 60 coincided with the company achieving its production rate of 2,000 vehicles per week. It looks like the automaker has mostly worked through its production problems with the Model X, which means that for probably the first time, Tesla is not production constrained anymore and this is evidenced by the fact that the automaker is now trying to convince Model 3 reservation holders to buy the new lower price Model S instead.
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Last month, we reported on how Tesla announced its first location for a Supercharger in Mexico in the most subtle, weird, but awesome way. We now learn that the automaker brought the Supercharging station online, making it its first DC fast-charging station south of the US border, and just in time for the introduction of the Model X in Mexico.
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