Electric Vehicles

Nissan had its press briefing today for the opening of the Tokyo Motor Show 2015 and the Japan-based company reaffirmed its commitment to electric vehicles with 3 new EVs on stage.

Watch Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn’s presentation below the break:
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NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced that he took delivery of a rare Tesla Model X P90D, presumably a ‘Founder Series’ since Signature Model X reservation holders have yet to be assigned a delivery date.
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Tesla builds its own battery packs, but imports the several thousands battery cells needed per pack from suppliers, mainly Panasonic. The automaker is heavily investing to change that by building the Gigafactory, in partnership with Panasonic, to manufacture both the cells and battery packs in the Nevada desert east of Reno.

But the planned output of the factory is 35 GWh in battery cells and 50 GWh in battery packs, meaning the Gigafactory will need to import 15 GWh of battery cells. Tesla already confirmed its intention to source the cells from more than one suppliers “potentially including Panasonic”, and today we learn through a new report from Asia Nikkei that the company is reportedly in the final stages of negotiations with LG Chem.
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DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Tesla Model S owner, had a car accident in Beverly Hills on Oct. 19. Little is known about the actual accident, but it was severe enough to break Katzenberg’s wrist, which required a surgery followed by a stay at the hospital.

Apparently the accident could have been much worse because Katzenberg felt the need to thank Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, for his car might have “saved his life.
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Tesla Motors sent an email Monday morning to all Roadster owners to confirm the expansion of its battery upgrade program to now include early models, which were excluded until recently. Earlier this summer, Tesla released the details of its long-awaited battery upgrade for its first vehicle, but a lot of owners were disappointed to learn that it was only available to later versions of the all-electric sport car.

Now every owner with $29,000 to spare gets access to the upgrade which increases the range of the vehicle by about 35%.
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The so-called “poaching war” for top automotive engineering talent between Tesla and Apple gathered quite a few headlines in the past months, especially after Tesla CEO Elon Musk called the Cupertino company the “Tesla Graveyard” for hiring people he claimed were “fired” by the company. But after looking closer into the recent hires between the two companies, it looks like Tesla has little to fear from Apple’s recruiting effort, at least if we compare it to Faraday Future’s.

Faraday Future took a small step out of ‘stealth mode’ earlier this summer to announce that it is looking for a location for a manufacturing facility to build an electric vehicle. In the months since, the 1-year old startup ramped up its hiring effort and now has over 400 employees with an impressive percentage coming from Tesla.
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Earlier this summer we wrote about Taxelco, a Montreal-based startup which bought the second largest taxi company in Montreal (500 cars and 1,000 drivers) with the intention to transition the whole fleet to electric. The company is getting ready to launch its pilot program in November with 50 new electric cars, including a dozen Tesla Model S’s recently acquired.
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On Thursday, California’s Air Resources Board had a meeting and status update on the state’s ‘Zero Emission Vehicle’ (ZEV) program where industry actors expressed their views on the clean vehicle market and the ZEV credit mandate. During a presentation to the board, Tesla’s Vice President of Business Development Diarmuid O’Connell argued that lobbying efforts from automakers effectively delayed fuel economy in the U.S. by about 20 years.

He added that the automotive industry used similar lobbying tactics to delay the commercialization of Zero Emission Vehicles. He said the effort delayed the state of California’s initial 1998 goal of 2% market penetration by 16 years – Zero Emission vehicles only reached 2% of the market in 2014.
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As expected, Tesla started releasing its Autopilot software update to European and Asian markets on Friday, except Japan which is still under review, after gaining regulatory approval. While announcing the worldwide rollout on Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk already announced ‘Autopilot 1.01’ to improve the system’s autonomous features.
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Formula E, which starts its second season on Saturday, announced that Leonardo DiCaprio will promote electric vehicles for the organisation and become Chairman of the championship’s newly created ‘Sustainability Committee’.

The committee will focus on promoting the mass adoption of electric vehicles and the “long term imprint” of the Formula E in the cities where it races.
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Three months ago Tesla announced a referral program for Model S owners. By referring someone who ends up buying a Tesla Model S, the owner gets $1,000 credit from Tesla to put toward accessories, service or a car, and the new buyer gets $1,000 off his new Model S. The program is only in a “trial phase” until October 31, but the deadline is also a competition for top referrers.

Today, less than two weeks before the end of the trial, the automaker upped the ante by announcing that those who make 5 referrals will receive a Tesla Powerwall for free…
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Starting on January 1st, Ontario will become the first province in Canada to open its roads to testing of automated vehicles, according to a recent report (via CBC). The province will allow testing of self-driving cars (Google has been a pioneer in the space with both its Lexus models and its smaller, prototype EVs), as well as “related technologies,” starting on January 1st 2016…
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Jim Chanos is a famed billionaire hedge fund manager known for short selling companies. He is also a regular market commentator for CNBC and Bloomberg. Chanos recently disclosed having a short position on solar installer SolarCity (SCTY) and although he refused to disclose his position on Tesla Motors (TSLA), he doesn’t have good things to say about the company.

During an interview with Bloomberg on Monday morning, Chanos explained why he thinks both companies are overvalued, but the “facts” he used to support his opinion are misleading.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter Saturday night that his company will release its software v7.0 with Autopilot for the Model S on Thursday (October 15th). In mid-August Tesla sent out the first release of the beta update to about 600-700 early access testers all around the U.S. and parts of Europe. This particular update is an extremely anticipated one. It includes an important UI design overhaul, but also and more importantly several new ‘Autopilot’ features, which some Model S owners have been waiting for over a year now.
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Last week Denmark’s new government announced that they plan on phasing out tax breaks for electric vehicles in the 2016 budget.  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 would see its price increase by ~180%.

It’s obviously bad news for electric cars in the mid- to long-term, but it could actually be a blessing in disguise for Tesla which needs to significantly increase sales in the short-term to achieve its 2015 delivery guidance.
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The Netherlands is an excellent market for electric cars, it’s not quite Norway, but when adding plug-in hybrids it’s getting close. As for all-electric vehicles, Tesla’s Model S is by far the best-selling in the country based on registration data.

Tesla confirmed last week that it delivered 11,580 vehicles worldwide from July through September and based on registration data, the Netherlands contributed to ~3.5% of the total with 409 Model S’s during the third quarter.
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SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive and Chairman Elon Musk are officially announcing a new high-efficiency solar panel today at the Inside Energy conference. During an interview at the conference, Elon Musk was talking about his other venture, Tesla Motors, and he revealed that the recent launch of the Model X caused a big uptick in orders for Tesla’s other vehicle, the Model S.
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