electric vehicle

A new report from Autocar states that sources confirmed Jaguar is planning to launch its first electric vehicle in 2017 and it should be a SUV with “around 300 miles of range”. The concept is expected to debut at the “Mondiale de l’Automobile” in Paris, which will start on October 1st, 2016.
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There’s been some concerns over the way Tesla is reporting the power output of its Model S, especially the Dual Motor version. Until recently, the company advertised the combined power output of both motors without accurately accounting for the limitations of the battery pack.

This resulted in the Model S rarely, if ever achieving the advertised horsepower. After several complaints from owners, CTO JB Straubel wrote a blog post explaining the logic behind Tesla’s calculations, but some owners in Norway still moved forward with formal complaints to the local consumer protection agency.
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Tesla rarely, if ever offer discounts at the purchase of its products, but with its ambitious goal to deliver between 17,000 and 19,000 vehicles globally in the last 3 months of the year, it seems the company resorted to offering a significant discount to new Chinese customers.

The company announced through a blog post on its Chinese website that from November 15 to December 31, it will offer up to 80,000 Yuan ($12,500 US) in discount at the purchase of a Model S under its “fuel vehicle replacement” program.
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Earlier this week, we reported on the Danish government suspecting Tesla of having registered 2,500 cars to profit from the tax breaks for electric vehicles, which will start phasing out next year. A Tesla representative quickly denied the claim saying that only 114 Model S’s were registered in October in Denmark, but now both parties clarified the situation and Tesla confirmed having ordered 2,500 license plates.
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Yesterday, BMW celebrated the two-year anniversary of the launch of the BMW i3 by releasing a few tidbits of information about the vehicle program. The company says its Leipzig plant is assembling 100 units per day and that the i3 is now the third best-selling electric vehicle in the world, but in my opinion the most interesting information BMW released is that over 80 percent of BMW i3 buyers are new customers to the BMW Group.
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This week BMW’s Motorrad division unveiled an all-electric concept version of its RR motorcycle called “eRR”. The company didn’t reveal any specific information about the new concept, which it described as an “experimental vehicle” – meaning it isn’t likely to hit the market anytime soon.

But the group released the following pictures:
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Today Tesla is expected to open its first store in Boston in the Shops at the Prudential Center according to the Boston Business Journal. The opening is part of Tesla’s plan to significantly expand its retail presence in the US with 12 more stores opening during the fourth quarter.
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Autoblog’s latest Translogic episode featured a pretty cool electric vehicle I’d never heard of before: the Defiant EV3, a retro-looking three-wheeled electric roadster. The vehicle is still in its prototype phase and its maker, Shockwave Motors, is looking for investors to bring it to production.

You can watch the episode below the fold:
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Switzerland continues to be an impressive market for Tesla. Based on registration data, Tesla delivered 120 Model S’s in the country last month, which brings the year-to-date total to 1,269 cars versus 357 during the same period in 2014.
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Fisker Automotive, which recently rebranded as Karma Automotive, announced today the signing of a supply agreement with BMW for electric and hybrid powertrains.

Earlier this summer, the company moved to Riverside, California to set up a manufacturing facility and is now aiming to re-launch its plug-in hybrid vehicle in 2016.
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Based on registration data, Tesla delivered 121 Model S’s in Germany last month, which brings the year-to-date total to 1,212 cars versus 593 during the same period in 2014. 
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The Danish government recently announced the phasing out of tax breaks for electric vehicles starting next year. The new provision would increase the price of all-electric cars significantly, but even more so for luxury vehicles like the Tesla Model S, which could see its price increase by as much as 180%.

As I speculated in a recent piece: “Denmark’s tax increase on electric cars could be a blessing in disguise for Tesla“, potential buyers could rush to secure the purchase of electric vehicles before the end of the tax break, which would create a surge in EV registrations during the last quarter of the year.

Earlier today, tax minister Karsten Lauritzen confirmed that such a surge happened, but he claimed that it could be due to an “illegal bulk purchase” of 2,500 cars from Tesla.
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Last month, Consumer Reports stopped recommending the Tesla Model S because the vehicle scored below average on its reliability survey. Following the announcement, Tesla’s stock price went down by 10%.

The pulling of its recommendation was a surprise to many since just a few weeks before, the magazine grabbed headlines by announcing that the Model S “broke” its rating system by scoring 103 out of 100.
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After just over a year at Apple, former Mercedes R&D chief Johann Jungwirth left the company earlier this month to join Volkswagen AG as the new ‘Head of Digital Transformation’. Even though his official title at Apple was “Director of Mac Systems Engineering”, the executive was rumored to be working on the company’s electric car codenamed “Project Titan” due to his extensive automotive background and the timing of the hire, which was followed by several other engineering hires with experience in the auto industry.
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Tesla released on its Youtube channel a series of short promotional videos featuring the different functions of the Autopilot: Autopark, Auto Lane Change and Autosteer.

You can watch the videos below the fold:
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Over a year after Elon Musk first announced in his now famous “All Our Patent Are Belong To You” blog post that Tesla will be open-sourcing all its patents. We now have the first confirmation that some automakers have actually taken Tesla on the offer.

During an interview with Ron Baron last Friday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk very briefly mentioned for the first time that he believes companies are now using Tesla’s patents:

“I think actually there are a number of companies using our patents.”

Musk’s comment was in response to Baron asking why companies are not taking advantage of Tesla’s technology considering it is “free” and that the company is achieving higher safety and emission standard than the competition.
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Although Apple has yet to confirm the existence of “Project Titan,” it seems like every week brings a new clue that the company is indeed working on an electric car. We learned that Sixty Eight Research, a sketchy firm widely believe to be a front for Apple’s effort in the automotive business, recently attended the 17th Global Car Body Benchmarking Conference in Germany.
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It looks like Tesla is set to update its key fob with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) according to FCC documents first reported by The Verge. Tesla’s current key runs at 315 MHz like most other electronic key fob, but the new version was tested for Bluetooth Low Energy, which is most popular for its capacity to become a short-range finder beacon.
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