Electric car

In a new note issued today, Jefferies analyst Dan Dolev increased his price target on Tesla Motors to $365 following a new analysis on the company’s battery business. When Tesla first announced its “Gigafactory“, it forecasted a ~30% reduction in battery cost through economy of scale and improved chemistry, but since then Tesla executives revealed that 30% might have been conservative and Jefferies seems to agree.
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Chinese startup NextEV raised about half of the $1 billion it seeks ahead of launching its electric vehicle lineup according to Bloomberg. Last month we wrote about NextEV coming out of stealth to reveal its plan to “disrupt” the electric vehicle market with yet another electric supercar and today we learn that the company is extremely well-funded by big-name VC firms: Sequoia Capital and Joy Capital.
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Thunder Power unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show today two new electric vehicles equipped with a massive 125 kWh battery pack.

Thunder Power is a Taiwan-based power-tool maker established in 1987, which recently changed its focus to electric vehicles. Its first entries are a 4-door sedan (picture above), the Thunder Power Sedan, and a sport car, the Thunder Power Race (picture below).
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Last month we showed you drawings of Audi’s new all-electric SUV concept and yesterday we published more advanced renderings, but today the company finally unveiled the vehicle at the Frankfurt Motor Show and we get some pictures.

Gallery of new pictures below the break:

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Ahead of the Frankfurt Motor Show starting this week, Porsche introduced a new all-electric concept: the Mission E. The four-seat sport car is a first for the luxury car brand. The company is aiming for high performance with 440 kW output, 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and over 310 miles of range (500 km).

See gallery of pictures below.
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Los Angeles kicked off the National Drive Electric Week with a big surprise for everyone: a Chevy Bolt prototype and a Nissan LEAF 2016 in display. Green Car Reports managed to get a few pictures of the event.
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Jaguar Land Rover is showcasing 3 new vehicle platforms for the Concept_e research at the CENEX Low Carbon Vehicle event which runs this week in the UK. The Concept_e platforms are coming out of a $25 million advanced powertrain research program partly backed by the UK government.

The concept platforms are intended for future generations vehicles and the company currently doesn’t have any plan to implement them in its lineup.
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In an effort to stimulate the electric vehicle market in Russia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree requiring the owners of gas stations to install charging equipment for electric cars at their gas stations by Nov. 1, 2016 according to the Moscow Times. The requirement could very well be the most drastic government action to encourage electric vehicle infrastructure in any country.
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In an interview with German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, Daimler’s chief of research and development Thomas Weber confirmed the company is currently working on a next generation electric vehicle with a range of “400 to 500 km” (250 to 310 miles).

Daimler already sells a few electric vehicles, like EV versions of the Smart or the Mercedes B class, but the automaker as yet to build a fully electric vehicle from the ground up. It’s not entirely clear from Weber’s comments if the concept will be a completely new electric platform, but it sounds more likely than not…
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The long-awaited Tesla Model X, which will launch on September 29th, could become a very popular vehicle with American business owners, not just because of its signature ‘Falcon Wing’ doors or the ‘sculptural beauty‘ of its second row seats, but because it could actually be a great bargain despite of its $80,000 starting price.

Beyond the $7,500 federal tax credit offer at the purchase of electric vehicles and other tax incentives at the state level, the Model X’s weight and capacity could make it eligible to the $25,000 tax deduction for heavy vehicles under Section 179, also known as the ‘Hummer Tax Loophole’…
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France-based automaker Peugeot announced a new electric vehicle concept: the Fractal. The vehicle is only an early concept and the specifications should be taken with a grain of salt. Early renderings show an interesting design for the small 2-door coupé which the company aims at making very light, weighting in at only 1,000 kg (2,205 lbs).
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Electric vehicles are here to stay, there’s very little doubt about that at this point, but which automakers are making sure that EVs are not a fad, but a trend? A new report from EV-Sales, a website tracking electric vehicle sales through car registration data, compiled the top automotive groups selling EVs in volume.
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Today Indianapolis is officially launching BlueIndy, its all-electric car sharing program. The program has been in the work for quite sometime now, but today 25 stations hosting up to 5 cars each are up-and-running.

BlueIndy is modeled after the car sharing programs, like Autolib in Paris, operated by the Bolloré Group in Europe and it uses the same car, the Bluecar, manufactured in partnership between the France-based Bolloré Group and the Italian automotive company Cecomp.
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Last month Tesla announced a new referral program for Model S owners that will run as an experiment through October. If you refer the Model S to a friend, your friend will get $1,000 off the price of his new car and Tesla will credit you $1,000 for your referral, which you can apply to any purchase with the company, like a new car, service center visit or accessories.

Now dealership are pushing back against Tesla’s program. California’s main dealership lobbying group sent a letter to the director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Jean Shiomoto, to ask his agency to crackdown on the referral program.
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