OSAKA — Panasonic has reached a basic agreement with Tesla Motors to participate in the Gigafactory, the huge battery plant that the American electric vehicle manufacturer plans to build in the U.S. Tesla aims to begin the first phase of construction this fiscal year. The plant would start making lithium-ion cells for Tesla cars in 2017. The automaker is shouldering the cost for the land and buildings. Panasonic likely will invest 20 billion to 30 billion yen ($194-291 million) initially, taking responsibility for equipping the factory with the machinery to make the battery cells. An official announcement on the partnership will come by the end of this month. Capacity at the Gigafactory will be added in stages to match demand, with the goal of producing enough battery cells in 2020 to equip 500,000 electric vehicles a year. The total investment is expected to reach up to $5 billion, and Panasonic’s share could reach $1 billion. The Japanese company owns a stake in Tesla and currently makes the batteries for Tesla cars. In a contract reworked in October 2013, the two agreed that Panasonic would supply Tesla with 2 billion battery cells between 2014 and 2017.
The partnership wasn’t ever a secret or really ever in doubt. Panasonic, I think, spent some extra time negotiating better terms. Both company’s stocks are spiking on the news.
It would appear that Saleen, an third party aftermarket car modifier, has left the drive train alone and focused on modding the body, brakes and wheels. The look and mods definitely aren’t my cup of tea but certainly they will appeal to the Saleen set.
It appears Tesla CEO Elon Musk and family are on their 3200-mile “elec-trek” cross country with his 5 children. Actress/wife Talulah Riley tweeted the above yesterday signaling that the trip has started and included what looks like the California Desert taken from the passenger compartment of a Model S.
Ran into Elon Musk's family road trip at our family spring break at Sorrel Ranch in Moab; 3 Teslas, 5 security guards, 1 chase Suburban.
Musk had previously tweeted some specs for the trip but those tweets have been deleted so they may not be up to date info.
Just finalized the LA to NY family road trip route in Model S. 6 day, 3200 mile journey with only 9 hrs spent charging.—
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 05, 2013
At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee, never just for charging itself—
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 05, 2013
Update 2: It looks like Musk&Fam might have taken an even more posh ride to South Dakota. Musk’s Jet flew from LA to South Dakota yesterday:
Update 3: Tesla did confirm to me that Musk is indeed on his roadtrip. A spokesperson told me:
While we can confirm Elon is on his road trip, I cannot give any details about the journey, his timeline, or location. You may feel free to gather information from his personal twitter feed.
From the Teslamotorsclub.com and Reddit is the above gallery of a Tesla Model S with some weird stuff on it. The consensus seems to be that this is a testing vehicle for the Model X crossover with the roof mount simulating a high center of gravity and additional weight and the tire sensors showing the handling. The Model x is built on the same platform as the Model S so that seems feasible. The picture set was taken near UC Santa Cruz.
There is a lot of interesting info from a talk that Elon Musk gave at the CPUC last week. Of particular note, Musk gave some spec estimates for the mass market “Model E” vehicle expected to be released in 2017 with batteries coming from the Gigafactory. In the video above he says the car will have a 200 mile range and be 20% smaller than the Model S. Therefore the battery will need to have about 80% of the energy of the current Model S (Musk’s words). To be clear, since Tesla uses the constant sized 18650 cells (and looks to continue to do so) physical size and Watt-hours are fairly constant.
So given that a 60kWh Model S has a range of around 200 miles (EPA 208), that means that the Model E would need to have a battery around 80% the size of the Model S or 48kWh.
That’s still about double what leading ‘mass market’ electric cars have today. The Chevy Spark EV, with a range of 82 miles has a 21.3 kWh battery. The Nissan LEAF which has a 75 mile EPA range rating has a 24 kWh battery. The Chevy Volt has a 16kWh battery while the BMW i3 is 18.8.
Tesla cancelled its $49,000 40kWh battery Model S before it got an EPA estimate but most guesses were that it would get around 150 miles. Add another 8kWh to the battery and take off 20% of the overall car size and 200 mile range seems doable.
Musk also mentions that besides the 20% drop in price, he expects economies of scale and other innovations to drop the price another 30% on the battery alone helping to get the Model E to around 50% the cost of the Model S at $35,000.
Tesla just announced details of the Battery Gigafactory to be located in the Southwest US. The location hasn’t yet been selected but will provide 6500 US jobs and, in 2020, enough batteries for 500,000 electric vehicles.
Tesla also announced a $1.6B convertible notes offering to fund the Gigafactory and other ramping.
As we at Tesla reach for our goal of producing a mass market electric car in approximately three years, we have an opportunity to leverage our projected demand for lithium ion batteries to reduce their cost faster than previously thought possible. In cooperation with strategic battery manufacturing partners, we’re planning to build a large scale factory that will allow us to achieve economies of scale and minimize costs through innovative manufacturing, reduction of logistics waste, optimization of co-located processes and reduced overhead.
The Gigafactory is designed to reduce cell costs much faster than the status quo and, by 2020, produce more lithium ion batteries annually than were produced worldwide in 2013. By the end of the first year of volume production of our mass market vehicle, we expect the Gigafactory will have driven down the per kWh cost of our battery pack by more than 30 percent. Here are some details about what the Gigafactory will look like.
Panasonic Corp is inviting a number of Japanese materials suppliers to join it in investing in a U.S. car battery plant that it plans to build with Tesla Motors Inc, with investment expected to reach more than 100 billion yen ($979 million), the Nikkei reported.
The plant, expected to go on-stream in 2017, will bolster Panasonic’s supply of lithium-ion batteries to the U.S. electric-car maker.
Last week, Tesla shed some light on its plans for building a lithium-ion battery plant, or “giga factory,” that will cut battery costs and allow the company to launch a more affordable electric car in 2017. However, it said at the time that further details would be announced this week.
The U.S. plant, which will handle everything from processing raw materials to assembly, will produce small, lightweight batteries for Tesla and may also supply Toyota Motor Corp and other automakers, the Nikkei said.
Battery costs have been a major stumbling block to widespread electric car adoption in the United States, according to analysts. Tesla’s giga factory will lower costs by shifting material, cell, module and pack production to one spot.
In Tesla’s earnings conference call last week, Chief Executive Elon Musk said the electric car maker expects to build the factory with more than one partner, but a “default assumption” was that Panasonic, as a current battery cell partner, “would continue to partner with us in the giga factory.”
“The factory is really there to support the volume of the third generation car,” Musk said on the call. “We want to have the vehicle engineering and tooling come to fruition the same time as the giga factory. It is already part of one strategy, one combined effort.”
The pieces are starting to come together. The biggest question now is how Tesla funds the other $4B in costs. Will it issue more stock? Will it bring in some very rich partners like Apple? On that note we go to last week’s earnings call for more color on that: Expand Expanding Close
No battery ‘gigafactory’ information yet but here’s the PDF. Notable is the $30,000-$35,000 base model price of the Gen 3 vehicle. Tesla’s traditionally only been able to hit the high side but so long as Federal Tax Credits are still around in 3 years, it should be a great deal especially with Tesla type specs. Expand Expanding Close
Tesla had resolved a trademark issue that had long prevented the company from using “Te Si La” – the Chinese name best known among Chinese consumers, which Tesla wanted to use in China. “We went to court and we won,” she said. “The court has given use right to use the name, which is why you see the Chinese name in our store now.” The name had been registered by a local businessman who had refused to give up the trademark. The U.S. company had started offering its popular Model S sedans in China, but with no Chinese language name.
Tesla’s billionaire co-founder and chief executive officer, will travel to China in late March to inaugurate the company’s entry there, he said in a phone interview.
For Tesla, “it could be as big as the U.S. market, maybe bigger. I don’t want to get overexcited about it,” Musk said yesterday. “Even without building there locally, it’s always going to be the second-biggest market after the U.S.”
After a rocky start ramping up Model S assembly in 2012, Palo Alto, California-based Tesla surprised analysts and investors this month when it said fourth-quarter deliveries were 20 percent above its target. Musk, 42, has pinned his goal of selling hundreds of thousands of electric autos annually to a global strategy in which China, Europe, Japan and other markets bolster its U.S. business.
If all goes well, Model S shipments to China can match U.S. sales by 2015, Musk said. “It’s not my firm prediction — it’s more like a low-fidelity guess.”
Tesla updated the Supercharger map again this morning and it now appears that all of the major gaps on the east coast (Savannah,Georgia) and the biggest cross country (Macedonia, OH, Wyoming) have been filled and it is now theoretically possible to drive a Tesla from Vancouver BC to San Diego California to Boston Massachusetts down to Miami Florida. Theoretically…if you are very easy on the accelerator.
Tesla hasn’t officially announced the milestone yet because that 302 mile Wyoming-Colorado jump is probably too big to drive without some range extending mode happening. The imminent Cheyenne, WY station should cut this to 164 miles. Also the altitude climb here is significant.
Musk said they were looking for a US state where the factory was going to be built and would announce plans at next month’s Q4 earnings call. He also said Tesla would be partnering with ‘other companies’ on the plant. Here’s why I think Tesla will partner with Solar City and Panasonic on the plant:
Oh lordy. The press has gotten ahold of a lunker with its latest TESLA RECALL! meme. Unfortunately for the sensational, Tesla has already announced (last week) that it would be replacing the NEMA 14-50 adapters on its built-in charging cables (pictured above, circled). It also issued a software update that would step down charging if it had detected thermal resistance. Here’s the official letter (PDF).
The charger connectors, which tether Tesla-issued cables to wall outlets, will be mailed out in the next two weeks, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said in an interview today.
“These are very rare events, but occasionally the wiring isn’t done right,” Musk said. “We want people to have absolute comfort, so we’re going to be providing them with an upgraded adapter.”
Tesla fell 2.6 percent to $143.72 at 12:20 p.m.
Tesla also upgraded the Model S firmware last month to prevent cars from drawing too much power from inadequate wiring.
At first blush, you might be thinking (as I had) that this is silly. My house is wired properly so I shouldn’t ever have issues like the person in California whose garage caught on fire after a short in the wiring in November.
But what if you go to a vacation rental or visit the family/relatives for a weekend. Can you be sure that the electrician that did their wiring was competent?
Good on Tesla for covering this; ‘Short sighted’ on investors for seeing this as a sign of weakness and not strength.
What you are looking at above is the state of the Tesla Supercharger network on The last day of 2013/first day of 2014. Tesla counts 50 Superchargers in the US (1 per state!) and another 14 in Europe. While Elon Musk originally planned to take his family on a Christmas holiday across the country, there are still some rather big holes to fill.
Those holes all fall in the “coming soon” category and if you take a look at this helpful 3rd party map, you can see a lot of the country is still being built.
According to Polk/IHS, Tesla has passed Nissan to become the best selling Electric car in Canada for the 2013 year. It moved from selling 20% of Canada’s Electric Cars in 2012 to 43% of the cars in 2013.
Consumer research shows that within its release year, the Model S captured a staggering 20% of the electric vehicle market share. Over the course of the next year (2013), it more than doubled to 43%, outselling all other OEMs. It is important to note that with such tremendous gains, Tesla did not necessarily conquest customers from other electric vehicle OEMs, but instead, brought new customers from outside the electric vehicle market to grow the current EV customer base. After all, the current EV competition includes the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi Imiev, Smart Fortwo, Ford focus EV, Toyota Rav4 EV and the Chevrolet Spark.
Another Tech site reviews the Model S. Conclusion?
Should you buy a Model S? Go ahead. It’s not your only car…
If you have the money, go ahead and get a Tesla. If you can spend $75,000 on car, odds are you already have another $75,000 car in your garage already, something like an Audi Q7 diesel. That takes care of range anxiety on really long trips, that or renting a combustion engine car for the weekend. With all respect to Tesla, I think the hassles of finding fast-charging stations are still a lot to deal with. The score currently reads: US gas stations 120,000 and slowly declining, Tesla Supercharging stations 44 and growing. On the New York to Boston and back trip, it was fun, especially chatting up other Tesla owners. Do it regularly and it could be a grind. But as more Supercharging stations become available, the hassle factor falls off, and for daily driving or weekend recreation trips, the 200-plus miles of range is more than enough.
This is a car unlike no other. The same goes for the dealer network. Name one other vehicle that carries four plus cargo, that your neighbor doesn’t own except in Atherton, gets to 60 mph in as little as 4.5 seconds, has an LCD display big enough to be seen from low earth orbit, uses less than $10 worth of energy per fill-up when it’s not free, and — try this in your Porsche Cayenne — lets you slip into the HOV lane as a solo driver. You will be hooked.
I agree and I don’t think the “only car” angle is played up enough. Sure Tesla would like you to think that this can be your only car, and it probably could be if you live on the West Coast. But the reality is that most drivers have another car laying around for those trips into the Flyovers.
Tesla rejiggered its Supercharger map today moving Fall and Winter 2013 into a “Coming Soon” category. Fall is a few weeks from being over and it was clear Tesla wouldn’t be able to make the deadline on many of its stations, especially in the east coast where things have all but stalled in the Supercharger front. Expand Expanding Close
Last night after the market closed Tesla disclosed that the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KRAFTFAHRT-BUNDESAMT) cleared Tesla of manufacturer-related defects in the three fires in recent months. “Therefore, no further measures under the German Product Safety Act [Produktsicherheitsgesetz (ProdSG)] are deemed necessary.”
The assumption on Wall Street is that if the German Motor Transport Authority cleared Tesla, so would the NHTSA. German automotive standards are generally considered more stringent (and efficient) than that of the US.
Analysts jumped on the news and dialed the stock up. The market responded with a 20 point gain after opening up 6 points and steady growth throughout the day.
Kind of a no-brainer IMO. Fortune doesn’t mention it but Musk has taken to social media and direct communication with the public unlike any CEO and certainly any Car/Aerospace CEO of our time. His honest and often overly transparent views have managed to turn media controversy into positives for the company.
Also throw in the fact that he’s CEO of two game-changing companies and the Chairman and largest stakeholder of another: Solar City….and if he wasn’t so busy, he’d be building a ultra high-speed hyperloop train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Also he doesn’t seem to be too terribly pretentious..and there you go.
FORTUNE NAMES ELON MUSK THE 2013 FORTUNE BUSINESSPERSON OF THE YEAR
FORTUNE’s 2013 List of the Top 50 People in Business Includes: The “Activist Investor” at #2; “Pony” Ma Huateng at #3; Angela Ahrendts at #4; Jeff Bewkes and Reed Hastings tie for #5
(New York, November 21, 2013) – Today, FORTUNE reveals its annual choice for Businessperson of the Year and names Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and Chairman of SolarCity, the 2013 FORTUNE Businessperson of the Year. Chris Anderson, TED Curator, writes the cover story on Musk, comparing him to Steve Jobs. FORTUNE also reveals its list of the Top 50 People in Business for 2013, which includes Pony Ma, Angela Ahrendts, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Warren Buffett, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. FORTUNE Editors write: “Fortune’s annual list is filled with executives who defied expectations (buying a newspaper, leaving luxury for Apple), executed big turnarounds, and delivered stellar results for their shareholders.”
It is no Secret that Elon Musk is a triple threat: The co-founder of PayPal has gone on to disrupt aeronautics with Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX; shake up the auto business with Tesla Motors; and retool the energy sector with SolarCity. (He is CEO of the first two companies and chairman and largest shareholder of the third.) But 2013 was an especially notable year for Musk, as investors and consumers wholeheartedly embraced his ideas and vision. After a rocky start a decade ago, Tesla has emerged to become the world’s most prominent maker of all-electric cars. Revenue at Tesla is up more than 12-fold for the first three quarters of the year, and the company is on track to top $2 billion in sales in 2013. The stock is up more than fourfold year to date, and that’s after giving back some gains when recent vehicle sales missed some analysts’ estimates. (A series of troubling car battery fires has not helped.) And just as SpaceX has helped reignite interest in space exploration, Musk’s plans for a “hyperloop” between San Francisco and Los Angeles got Americans buzzing about ultra-high-speed transit when Musk released his design plans in August. Musk’s creations have already made him tremendously wealthy — Bloomberg Wealth says he is worth $7.7 billion — but it is his audacity and tenacity that make him Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year.
Not terribly surprising considering the year and the press. Congrats! Expand Expanding Close
As reported this weekend, Tesla has announced that it has removed the Air Suspension lowering as part of a three step plan to deal with the media attention. The whole Blog post is worth a read but here are the important bits:
First, we have rolled out an over-the-air update to the air suspension that will result in greater ground clearance at highway speeds. To be clear, this is about reducing the chances of underbody impact damage, not improving safety. The theoretical probability of a fire injury is already vanishingly small and the actual number to date is zero. Another software update expected in January will give the driver direct control of the air suspension ride height transitions.
Second, we have requested that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conduct a full investigation as soon as possible into the fire incidents. While we think it is highly unlikely, if something is discovered that would result in a material improvement in occupant fire safety, we will immediately apply that change to new cars and offer it as a free retrofit to all existing cars. Given that the incidence of fires in the Model S is far lower than combustion cars and that there have been no resulting injuries, this did not at first seem like a good use of NHTSA’s time compared to the hundreds of gasoline fire deaths per year that warrant their attention. However, there is a larger issue at stake: if a false perception about the safety of electric cars is allowed to linger, it will delay the advent of sustainable transport and increase the risk of global climate change, with potentially disastrous consequences worldwide. That cannot be allowed to happen.
Third, to reinforce how strongly we feel about the low risk of fire in our cars, we will be amending our warranty policy to cover damage due to a fire, even if due to driver error. Unless a Model S owner actively tries to destroy the car, they are covered. Our goal here is to eliminate any concern about the cost of such an event and ensure that over time the Model S has the lowest insurance cost of any car at our price point. Either our belief in the safety of our car is correct and this is a minor cost or we are wrong, in which case the right thing is for Tesla to bear the cost rather than the car buyer.
