Clean Technica Online News – Page 191 – I wish I had more to offer

Tesla Granted New Patents For Curved & Textured Solar Roof Tile Manufacturing

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Published on August 9th, 2019 |

by Kyle Field

Tesla Granted New Patents For Curved & Textured Solar Roof Tile Manufacturing

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August 9th, 2019 by Kyle Field

Tesla was just granted a new series of patents that shed some light on the techniques it will use on its upcoming curved and flat solar roof tiles. These design techniques will presumably be employed as Tesla moves towards the first commercial version of Tuscan-style solar roof tiles, which are expected to move into mass production a bit later than the Tesla solar roof tiles that have just been installed on my roof.

Curved Solar Roof Tile Design
The first of the three new patents, US 2019 245 478 A1, details a few of Tesla’s strategies for implanting flat solar cells into the curved solar roof tiles that look like more traditional Spanish roof tiles. From the filing, we can see that Tesla is planning to actually embed the flat solar cells into the curved bell shape of the tiles. To do this, Tesla has developed a tile that is rounded on the exposed surface, but flat on the inside to accommodate flat strips of solar cells.

According to the filing, the tiles will be comprised of, “a transparent front cover having a first surface and a second surface, wherein the first surface comprises at least one portion that is convexly curved, wherein the second surface comprises a plurality of flat facets, and wherein the flat facets are arranged to follow the contour of the at least one convexly curved portion of the first surface.”

Taking this approach could allow Tesla to build solar cells into more surface area than would be possible on a flat roof made of solar roof tiles, but with the tradeoff that only a portion of the cells would be directly facing the sun at any point in time.

The filing discusses a curved solar roof tile design that supports both pre-wired solar modules as well as solar roof tiles that make the electrical connection to the home electrical circuit through a special connector with the adjoining panels (806 and 808 in the graphic below). Devising a system where solar roof tiles could effectively be installed as easily, quickly, and reliably as traditional roofing tiles could drastically lower the incremental cost to install a solar roof system.

The reliability of the methodology has to be a key concern for a solar roofing system that isn’t just bolted into an existing roof, but that must function as both a roof and an electrically connected solar system simultaneously for the life of the home.

Tesla Solar Roof Tile Manufacturing
Tesla’s ambitious move into building-integrated photovoltaics challenged the existing mindset that solar was something to be bolted onto the outside of homes, to live outside the envelope of the home. Instead, Tesla sought to recreate the aesthetic of traditional roofing tiles with four primary form factors: textured, smooth, Tuscan, and slate.

A new patent filing (US 2019 241 455 A1) from Tesla gives us some insights into how Tesla plans to produce some of these tiles, including a few options for different manufacturing techniques. The first technique details a stamping approach, where flat solar roof tiles are stamped between a flat bottom mold and a textured surface mold.

The technique could conceivably be used for rounded Tuscan tiles, and might even be the best approach for such a tile, given the round surface on top and the complex angled flat interior surfaces. It is easy to imagine this technique being used to produce one of Tesla’s slate solar roof tiles.

The second method shows a method where glass is pressed between two rolling surfaces, each with its own texture.

The patent filings come as Tesla puts the finishing touches on version 3 of its solar roof tiles. To date, only textured solar roof tiles have been installed on any customer homes. Tesla’s sales team told CleanTechnica reader jjn1056 that the Tuscan tiles might be available in December or January, but as with many things Tesla, that has to be taken for a grain of salt until they’re actually bolted down and on the roof.

All images from the patent filings as listed on PatentSwarm.

About the Author

Kyle Field I'm a tech geek passionately in search of actionable ways to reduce the negative impact my life has on the planet, save money and reduce stress. Live intentionally, make conscious decisions, love more, act responsibly, play. The more you know, the less you need. TSLA investor.

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Tesla Software V10: Everything We Know

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Published on August 7th, 2019 |

by Guest Contributor

Tesla Software V10: Everything We Know

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August 7th, 2019 by Guest Contributor

Originally published on EVANNEX.
By Denis Gurskiy, EV Bite

Tesla’s V10 software update was teased recently thanks to a flood of information flowing from Elon Musk’s Twitter feed. According to Musk, the timeframe for V10 “depends on how release to owners with early access goes, but hopefully wide release by end of August.” Early access members have been given an early August release date.

Cuphead is soon coming to Tesla via software update V10 (Source: Tesla)

In a separate response, Musk stated that Tesla’s V10 software update would come “maybe August, not more than a few months.”

Obviously, we have to remember that “Tesla Time” is a thing and just because Elon says he anticipates an update coming in a month or so, it does not necessarily mean that it will arrive anywhere near the allotted timeframe. Let’s not forget that Advanced Summon was supposed to be ready in “~6 weeks” almost 10 months ago. Regardless, it’s something that most Tesla owners have grown accustomed to, so I’m sure many are prepared to wait.

Tesla’s last major update, software update 9.0, introduced a lot of cool new features, including Navigate on Autopilot. That said, what might V10 bring to the table? Summarizing in a single tweet, V10 should include “several games & infotainment features, improved highway Autopilot, better traffic light & stop sign recognition & Smart Summon.”

If you want a closer look at everything mentioned so far, keep reading.

Netflix & YouTube Streaming
According to Musk, V10 will include an “ability to stream YouTube & Netflix when car is stopped coming to your Tesla soon! Has an amazingly immersive, cinematic feel due to the comfy seats & surround sound audio.”

Netflix could be coming to your Tesla (Source: Tesla, edited by Chanan Bos | CleanTechnica)

This should prove to be a useful feature when parked at a Supercharger and you’re looking to binge watch your favorite shows/videos. While the vertical orientation of the display in the Model S/X does not make it the most ideal for media consumption, it sure beats your phone. Musk would later go on to say that once Tesla gets regulatory approval for full self driving, they’ll enable video streaming to work even while the car is in motion.

In a followup tweet, Musk stated that “some” of the streaming services will require that the owner has a premium connectivity package. Tesla premium connectivity is included in all Model S and X vehicles. Model 3 owners with the premium interior could receive one year free while the partial premium interior does not. The package is expected to cost about $100 per year.

Improved Stop Sign & Traffic Light Recognition
Needless to say, the recognition of stop signs and traffic lights is an extremely important task necessary on the path to “full self-driving” (FSD). With the upcoming V10 software update, Tesla is introducing an improvement in Autopilot’s ability to recognize stop signs and traffic lights. As discussed in its most recent earnings letter, Tesla has been running this feature in “shadow mode” — carefully analyzing driving situations and comparing what the system would do to what the driver does in the real world.

In response to a question about whether Tesla’s FSD will require the recognition of traffic signs and stop signs, Musk stated that it “will recognize & read all signs for FSD. Focused on traffic lights & stop signs right now. Most are very easy. Difficulty is millions of corner cases.”

Smart Summon
Smart Summon will be great to showcase Tesla’s progress towards FSD, as the vehicle will actually be driving itself with no driver inside. For those who aren’t aware, Smart Summon allows you to summon your Tesla to your location within around 150 feet of where you parked. For instance, say you go to the supermarket and park your car. If want your Tesla to meet you at the curb on your way out, you simply go into the Tesla app and summon the car. In turn, your Tesla should successfully make its way to you. Here’s recent video footage of Smart Summon in action.

Examples of Smart Summon in action (YouTube: ALL Electric)

“Yeah, we’ve been working on curbs a *lot*. Concrete seams too. So glamorous,” Musk explained over Twitter. Once internal testing and validation demonstrates it’s ready, Tesla could make the Smart Summon feature available (via V10) for all Tesla owners. And it could easily turn out to be the most talked-about V10 feature even though it’s been readily available to early access members for a few months now.

Text Messages Read Aloud
As an added safety feature, Musk confirmed that Tesla’s upcoming V10 software update will add the option to have your text messages read aloud so that you don’t have to look at your phone while driving.

“Joe Mode”
Those who travel with children might appreciate another new feature planned for V10. Musk confirmed a feature known as “Joe Mode,” which will decrease the sound your Tesla makes when it executes an auto lane correction. This should help Tesla owners who don’t want warning sounds to wake up their sleeping kids. Keep in mind that Musk is “hoping” this makes it into V10 but it is not confirmed.

Cuphead & Other Unity-Based Games
Cuphead and other Unity-based games will finally make their way onto the Tesla display with the upcoming v10 software update. For those who don’t know, Cuphead is a fairly challenging platformer with a style of art that recalls a vintage cartoon look from the 1930s. Musk stated that Cuphead will be able to run at 60 frames per second to ensure as smooth a gaming experience as possible.

Cuphead is coming to your Tesla (YouTube:IGN)

While most were aware of Cuphead (along with the announcement of Fallout Shelter), a followup tweet piqued even more interest. First, for clarification, Cuphead was built with a game engine known as Unity. Unity is a very popular choice of engine for game developers and there happens to be a sizable number of games using it. In response to a question regarding the porting of more Unity-based games, Musk stated that the “Unity port is done, so [we’re] finessing the controls now. Mostly limited by local storage. Will allow additional game storage via USB. Whatever’s most fun!”

Emoji Support (maybe)
For those who want emojis in their Tesla, Musk stated that, while it’s currently not in this upcoming V10 software update, he’ll “try” to make it happen.

Minecraft & Roblox (whenever)
Ever the meme-master, Elon Musk knows what people want: Minecraft and Roblox. In a response to the Cuphead announcement asking for “minecraft rn elon,” Musk appealed to the masses by stating that, yes, they are working on Minecraft. And not only that, Roblox is being given priority as well.

Pretty soon there won’t be a reason to leave your Tesla at all.

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. 😀

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Tesla Ramping Up Production Of V3 Solar Roof Tiles To 1,000 Systems/Week By End Of 2019

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Published on July 30th, 2019 |

by Kyle Field

Tesla Ramping Up Production Of V3 Solar Roof Tiles To 1,000 Systems/Week By End Of 2019

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July 30th, 2019 by Kyle Field

Image credit: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed on Twitter that the company is working to ramp up the production of its solar roof tiles to a rate of 1000 per week by the end of the year. Rollout of the solar roof tiles has been slower than the company expected back when they were first revealed in a 2016 event at the Universal Studios backlot in Southern California.

We still don’t know much about version 3 of Tesla’s solar roof tiles, but there are a number of areas the company could improve them to drive higher adoption, lower cost, or better payouts. The early builds of the solar roof tiles had relatively low efficiencies at ~18%. Improving this to a higher percentage using better solar cells could see this number climbing as high as 23%, which would generate more power and result in faster payouts for homeowners if all other factors remained the same (like purchase price).

Musk originally showed off four versions of the solar roof tiles, but to date, only the textured solar roof tiles have been installed on the homes of customers. Building out the three remaining configurations of the product in the smooth, slate, and tuscan finishes would open up the product to new customers living in homes that are better suited to one of the other finishes.

Since that time, Tesla moved production out of the initial development space and into its Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, and started down what turned out to be a long road of product development. The ultimate goal was to reimagine both the roofing business and the solar business and nail the sweet spot between the two with a solar roof tile that installed faster than a traditional roof, was far more durable than your average roof, and churned out solar.

The early images and videos of the roof tiles showed them looking more like LEGO blocks, with the solar roof tiles delivered and installed in pre-wired blocks of three. LEGOs are quick and easy to put together and Musk and his team at Tesla aspired to do the same with an easy-to-install, long-lasting, solar-generating Tesla-branded glass roof.

Image credit: Tesla

Later in the process, we learned that Tesla had been refining the design of its solar roof tiles, with a new version 3 of the roof tiles that could be the mass-market build. This new announcement comes just weeks after the announcement of version 3 of the solar roof tiles and shows a renewed focus from the company on the non-battery side of Tesla Energy.

Installations of the earlier versions of the solar roof have trickled out of the company, but have failed to truly deliver on the promise of Tesla’s early solar roof tile vision of a solar roof tile for the masses. On the cost front, views into early installations of the solar roof show a favorable payout compared to the cost to install a traditional roof and solar panel-based system. (That’s a link to a full, real-world analysis conducted for a new home.)

Tesla Solar Roof Tile production at the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo. Image credit: Tesla

Prospects for Tesla’s solar roof continue to look favorable, as the cost of the roof tiles themselves will continue to fall as Tesla ramps up production. Looking beyond the current low production volumes to a future where Tesla is producing 1,000 systems per week, an inevitable installation and permitting hell awaits. There is truly no rest for the team at Tesla as it continues to push to create new markets, new vehicles, and new products in its quest to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

If you’re in the market for a Tesla, feel free to use my Tesla Referral code for your purchase: http://ts.la/kyle623. Doing so gives the buyer (that would be you) and me 1,000 miles of free Supercharging credit and allows us to cover Tesla even better in the future.

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Captain Sully Tweet Presents Opportunity For Tesla

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Published on July 27th, 2019 |

by Jennifer Sensiba

Captain Sully Tweet Presents Opportunity For Tesla

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July 27th, 2019 by Jennifer Sensiba

Screenshot of Sully’s Tesla tweet

Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, commonly known as “Captain Sully,” famous for safely landing a crippled airliner in the Hudson River, recently tweeted about Tesla’s Autopilot. While this looks bad, it does present a good opportunity for Tesla — if Tesla responds intelligently.

“Tesla announced the launch of so-called ‘full self-driving’ features that are largely unregulated as soon as this year,” Sullenberger wrote in his tweet. “This should concern everyone who will share the same streets as a driver or pedestrian.”

At first glance, this definitely looks bad for Tesla. It questions the whole concept of FSD and implies that it’s unsafe, or could be unsafe. And it does it in two sentences.

I want to briefly cover why Sullenberger’s tweet matters for Tesla’s image and explore a way that Tesla could turn this into an opportunity to not only look good to the public, but make real improvements to safety.

Why Sullenberg’s Tweet Matters
“Captain Sully” is a household name. People know who he is. People trust him. The public at large thinks what he has to say about safety matters, and, most importantly, they’re right!

Safely landing the Flight 1549 was just the icing on the cake of an extremely successful career. It should be noted that Captain Sullenberger wasn’t just any pilot who happened to get lucky and land the plane in the Hudson. After years of success as a decorated USAF pilot, he spent 30 years as a commercial pilot. During all of this, he became a well-known instructor and expert in the aviation safety community. He was involved in numerous accident investigations, served on advisory boards and committees, co-authored papers with NASA scientists, and did many other things to push the state of the art forward in air transportation safety.

Regarding Flight 1549, Sullenberger said, “One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.” While he admits to being terrified by the experience of landing that plane, and suffering emotionally afterward like any human being would after such an experience, listening to the radio traffic of that day shows just how right he was about the importance of education and training. He remained calm as long as he needed to and took care of business.

Where the rest of us would be screaming, praying, or otherwise losing our damned minds, Sullenberger was calmly saying things like, “we can’t do it” and “we’re gonna be in the Hudson” in the same way one of us would tell our spouse, “Honey, I’ll be home in 5 minutes.”

Just to drive this home a little further — when they made a movie about Flight 1549, Sullenberger was portrayed by Tom Hanks. In a 2013 poll, Reader’s Digest found Hanks to be the most trusted person in America. When Hollywood is looking for somebody to play the good guy, especially when the movie is based on a true story, they go for Tom Hanks. He’s even going to portray Mr. Rogers from “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” in an upcoming film.

You know if they make a movie about you and Tom Hanks plays you, you’ve arrived at public trust level 99. Sullenberger is just that trusted. What he says matters to people, as it should.

How Tesla Can Turn This Into An Opportunity
The next time Elon Musk (or e^eyepie, Elon Tusk, or whatever he’s jokingly calling himself today) gets on Twitter, he needs to invite Captain Sully to come visit Tesla.

Actually, it needs to be more than just a visit. They need to pay for his consulting services today and worry about the price later.

Sullenberger is a safety expert, especially when it comes to transportation. Hiring him to step in as a consultant won’t be cheap, and it will be even less easy. He’s not the kind of person who would take the money and put his stamp of approval on something without demanding it actually be safe. He’s probably going to demand that other experts take a look. Most importantly, that’s a good thing. Having somebody take a hard look at Autopilot, demand positive changes, and make the product safer is a win for Tesla, a win for the public, and a win for the future of humanity.

If Tesla can get the “Captain Sully Stamp of Approval,” whatever that looks like, it would be a big win not just for the company’s image, but for the safety of the product itself.

Elon, if you’re reading this, you know what to do.

About the Author

Jennifer Sensiba Jennifer Sensiba is a long time efficient vehicle enthusiast, writer, and photographer. She grew up around a transmission shop, and has been experimenting with vehicle efficiency since she was 16 and drove a Pontiac Fiero. She likes to explore the Southwest US with her partner, kids, and animals.

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Tesla Gigafactory 1 Production Increase Translates To 81% More Powerwall Deployments

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Published on July 26th, 2019 |

by Kyle Field

Tesla Gigafactory 1 Production Increase Translates To 81% More Powerwall Deployments

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July 26th, 2019 by Kyle Field

Image courtesy Tesla

Tesla’s energy business (Tesla Energy) often ends up playing second fiddle to the admittedly more exciting automotive business, but that doesn’t mean it’s not growing. In Q2, Tesla increased deployments of its 13.5 kWh Powerwall 81%, according to the Q2 2019 investor letter, to a record 415MWh.

Tesla said in the letter that the sharp increase in Powerwall deployments means they have now been installed at more than 50,000 sites around the world. A Tesla spokesperson confirmed that Powerpack installations also increased in Q2 in parallel to the increase in Powerwall deployments.

The update is some of the first tangible evidence we have that the company is getting better at balancing battery cell production at its Sparks, Nevada Gigafactory 1 with downstream demand in both its automotive and energy businesses. The automotive side of the business continues to grow like gangbusters, nearly doubling the existing deployed fleet every year, and now Tesla Energy is getting in on a bigger piece of the Gigafactory 1 pie.

It is this exponential growth that makes the cell production and downstream demand such a challenge. The company has increased its battery cell production capacity at Gigafactory 1 to around 28 gigawatt-hours, according to CEO Elon Musk on the Q2 2019 earnings call. That figure has the factory bumping up against its original target production capacity of 35GWh a year. (The target has risen much higher since then.)

Tesla Grohmann Automation equipment. Image courtesy Tesla

GF1 production expansion came not only from Panasonic’s side of the business in cell production, but also at the module level, where a new module line designed by Tesla Grohmann Automation “enabled a step change in energy storage production.”

The solar side of Tesla’s Energy business continues to dwindle, with solar retrofit deployments of traditional solar panel systems declining to 29MW in Q2. Tesla made some headway in streamlining the sales process for its energy products in parallel to automotive sales, but the company has yet to deliver on the promise of scaled production and adoption of solar.

The Solar Roof is perhaps the ultimate golden egg for Tesla. Some of us believe (and some don’t) that the Lego-esque snap-together roof replacement that just happens to generate solar energy is the future of rooftops everywhere. Deployments of the Solar Roof are growing, according to reports from numerous Tesla employees, but we have yet to see concrete financials from the company in support of this progress. Also, there is no apparent solution underway for dropping sales of rooftop solar panel systems. Presumably, Tesla needs to find more ways to capitalize on the synergies between its automotive business and its solar power system business.

Do you have any other thoughts on the Tesla Energy portions of this technology company out of Silicon Valley?

If you’re in the market for a Tesla, feel free to use my Tesla Referral code for your purchase: http://ts.la/kyle623 . Doing so gives the buyer (that would be you) and me 1,000 miles of free Supercharging credit and allows us to cover Tesla even better in the future.

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7 Top Takeaways From Tesla’s Q2 Conference Call

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Published on July 25th, 2019 |

by Matt Pressman

7 Top Takeaways From Tesla’s Q2 Conference Call

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July 25th, 2019 by Matt Pressman

Originally posted on EVANNEX.

To recap the second quarter, Tesla issued its shareholder letter and held its quarterly conference call with Wall Street analysts. The news, as always, is a mixed bag. While improving over its $702M loss in Q1, Tesla still missed Wall Street’s expectations, posting a Q2 loss of $408M. Traders can expect a bumpy ride in the short term. That said, there were some highlights worth considering for those long-term TSLA investors.

1. Biggest Bank Balance Ever
Tesla generated $614 million of free cash flow in Q2. Combine that with the $2.4 billion raised in a public offering of equity and convertible bonds and the company ended the quarter with $5 billion in the bank — the highest level in Tesla’s history. “This level of liquidity puts us in a comfortable position as we prepare to launch Model 3 production in China and Model Y production in the US,” explained Elon Musk.

Photo by Cynthia Shahan | CleanTechnica

2. Record Deliveries of Model 3
Tesla produced 87,000 cars in the quarter and delivered a record 95,200 of them in Q2, generating about $6.3 billion in revenue. “Tesla is expanding at an exponential rate,” Musk said. And demand continues to be strong. The company noted, “Model 3 [was] once again the best-selling premium vehicle in the US, outselling all of its gas-powered equivalents combined.”

Model 3 takes off. Image by Zach Shahan | CleanTechnica

3. Less Emphasis On S & X
As focus moves to Model Y and Tesla’s Pickup, S and X sales have slowed. Musk believes many have been on the sidelines awaiting a refresh. “There may be a false expectation in the market that there’s, like, some big overhaul coming for S and X … like some radical redesign coming, which is why I emphasized publicly that this is not the case,” Musk explained. “The Model S and X today are radically better” than prior versions of the car.

Editor’s note: I have heard frequently for several quarters about expectations for a big Model S & X interior refresh. We never published about this because we never received solid evidence of it. However, it has seemed to me that many Tesla followers have been treating it as a given since at least sometime in 2018. I personally do not think a short tweet shooting down the rumor and a couple of notes on conference calls is enough to extinguish the expectations. I think Tesla needs to more explicitly and “loudly” explain that there is no big refresh coming. I’d package the information in a blog post about how much the S & X have changed over the years and how much better a 2019 Model S is than a 2015 Model S (something I can attest to from personal ownership experience). —Zach Shahan

4. China Gigafactory Progress
According to Tesla, the Gigafactory in Shanghai “continues to take shape,” and remains on track to begin production of a “Model 3 line with capacity of 150,000 units per year.” The company also said, “Given Chinese customers bought well over a half-million mid-sized premium sedans last year, this market poses a strong long-term opportunity for Tesla.”

Inside Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory. Image courtesy Tesla

5. JB Straubel Transitions
CTO JB Straubel will be “transitioning” to an advisory role after more than 15 years at Tesla. “I’m not going anywhere,” Straubel said during the call, adding he’ll work closely with Drew Baglino, vice president of technology, who’s slated to take over the roll. “I want to thank JB for his fundamental role in creating and building Tesla,” Musk said. “If we hadn’t had lunch in 2003, Tesla wouldn’t exist, basically,” Musk added.

6. Service and Supercharger Growth
Tesla stated, “we added 101 vehicles to our Mobile Service fleet and opened 25 new store and service locations… [and] Supercharger capacity has grown to roughly 1,600 charging locations worldwide.” Musk said, “Service scales not just with new production, but as the whole fleet” expands worldwide. And as demand grows, Tesla’s CFO Zach Kirkhorn explained a larger “focus on service and supercharging, as opposed to a retail presence.”

Tesla Model S, Model 3, and Model X charging at Tesla Supercharger in Florida. Photo by Zach Shahan | CleanTechnica

7. Tesla Model Y is on Track
Prep for Model Y production in Fremont is already underway according to Tesla. The company highlighted, “a significant overlap of components between Model 3 and Model Y, [therefore] we are able to leverage existing manufacturing designs in the development of the Model Y production facilities.” The outlook? Tesla stated, “Due to the large market size for SUVs, as well as higher ASPs, we believe Model Y will be a more profitable product than the Model 3.”

About the Author

Matt Pressman is all about Tesla. He’s a TSLA investor, pre-ordered the Model 3, and loves driving the family's Model S and Model X company cars. As co-founder of EVANNEX, a family business specializing in aftermarket Tesla accessories, he’s served as a contributor/editor of Electric Vehicle University (EVU) and the Owning Model S and Getting Ready for Model 3 books. He writes daily about Tesla and you can follow his work on the EVANNEX blog.

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Tesla Files Patent Application For Die-Cast Unibody Machine

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Published on July 23rd, 2019 |

by Steve Hanley

Tesla Files Patent Application For Die-Cast Unibody Machine

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July 23rd, 2019 by Steve Hanley

We don’t know who Matthew Kenneth Kallas is, but he must have spent a lot of time playing with Mattel die-cast model cars in his formative years. Now he works for Tesla and is listed as the inventor of US Patent Application #15874348, described as a “Multi-Directional Unibody Casting Machine For A Vehicle Frame And Associated Methods,” according to PatentScope. Feast your eyes on the illustration below to get a sense of what Kallas has in mind.

Credit: US Patent Office via PatentScope

This one may be a little hard to wrap your head around unless you are a mechanical engineer. Basically, using die casting technology to make the unibody frame of an automobile — a process that has been done using metal stampings for 50 years — could eliminate many of the steps in the traditional assembly process, saving time and cutting costs.

Today, a collection of stampings is welded, riveted, and bonded into a completed unibody structure in a process that can involve dozens if not hundreds of steps. If the number of steps could be reduced, the entire process could become much more efficient. Here’s more from the patent filing:

“[H]igh-pressure die casting is a metal casting process that has been in use for over a hundred years. Die casting typically includes forcing or injecting molten metal under high pressure into a mold cavity. The mold cavity is formed using two die portions which have been machined into a shape of the desired casting. Depending on metal material type being used, a hot or cold chamber die casting machine may be used, as well as squeeze casting methods, in addition to over-molding, where alloy is casted over/around existing substrates in order to achieve higher structural properties of an end product.

“One die portion is called a ‘cover die portion’ and the other die portion an ‘ejector die portion,’ and where they meet ‘the parting line.’ Conventionally, the cover die portion includes a sprue or shot hole configured to allow molten metal to flow into the dies from an injector fluidly coupled to the sprue or shot hole, and is attached to a stationary platen of a casting machine. The ejector die portion typically includes ejector pins and/or a plate to push the casting out of the ejector die portion (e.g., after solidification and the dies open), and is attached to a movable platen of the casting machine.

“Typically, in the context of vehicle frame manufacturing and the die casting process, multiple die casting machines are each used to cast different components of a vehicle frame. For example, a single die casting machine cell in a factory may be dedicated to casting a single frame component. These components from each casting machine are then assembled or secured together (e.g., via welding) by factory workers or robotic systems to form a vehicle frame (e.g., a unibody vehicle frame).

“Because die casting generally involves higher capital costs relative to other casting and manufacturing processes including assembly of many individual components (e.g., due to high costs of casting equipment and metal dies), there remains a need for an improved die casting machine and associated methods thereof, particularly as related to casting a vehicle frame to reduce work required to achieve a final assembled product.

“The present disclosure describes embodiments of die casting machines and methods thereof that may reduce build time, operation costs, costs of manufacturing, factory footprint, factory operating costs, tooling costs, and/or quantity of equipment. Such casting machines may reduce a number of casting machines or actual castings required to cast a complete or substantially complete vehicle frame (e.g., to less than six, less than five, less than four, less than three, less than two, or one casting machine(s)).

“The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and assembling a vehicle frame, and more particularly to a multi-directional die casting machine for casting a vehicle frame and associated methods thereof such multi-directional casting machines may be suitable for casting a unibody vehicle frame, and more specifically for an electrical vehicle unibody frame. In some embodiments, multiple portions of the vehicle frame may be integrally formed or casted without the need for further assembly and attachment (e.g., welding, rivets, etc.).

“This may reduce a number of castings and/or steps for manufacturing or casting a substantially complete vehicle frame. For example, the die casting machine as described herein may reduce a number of casting machines or actual castings required to cast a complete or substantially complete vehicle frame (e.g., to less than six, less than five, less than four, less than three, less than two, or to one casting(s) or casting machine(s)). Accordingly, this may reduce costs associated with manufacturing including, but not limited to, factory operating costs, tooling costs, time, and other equipment and labor costs.”

Among other things, Tesla is interested in disrupting the world of manufacturing by going back to first principles and finding ways to make better products in less time for less money. Elon Musk calls it “building the machine that makes the machine.” The lessons learned from the Fremont factory and Gigafactory 1 in Nevada are already being applied to Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai.

There’s a reason why Tesla will be able to manufacture Model 3s in China less than a year after it broke ground on its new factory, while the Lucid factory in Arizona will need twice as long to begin series production. It’s hard to keep track of how many ways Tesla is ahead of other auto manufacturers.

One has to wonder how making a die cast unibody structure impacts the cost of repairs (or if repairs are even possible). Die cast metal tends to be fairly brittle and not easily reshaped or repaired. No doubt Elon and his minions have already thought of that and have a plan in place, one that will shock and amaze the “business as usual” crowd.

Keep in mind that just because a company files a patent application does not mean the item being patented will ever be used in actual production. Lots of ideas get patented just to establish a timeline of who thought of an idea first and who has exclusive rights to it in the marketplace. Will Teslas ever be manufactured using this die-cast unibody method? Nor necessarily, but they might, and that’s the important part.

About the Author

Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island and anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. His motto is, “Life is not measured by how many breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away!” You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter.

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Tesla Gigafactory Bigger Than You Expect — Truly Gigantic

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Published on July 21st, 2019 |

by Guest Contributor

Tesla Gigafactory Bigger Than You Expect — Truly Gigantic

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July 21st, 2019 by Guest Contributor

Originally published on EVANNEX.
By Charles Morris

“It’s big,” says every journalist who has visited Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory (and more than a few who haven’t). “It’s a big place. Really big.”

“How big is it?” shouts the audience in unison.

Well, it’s currently a 1.9-million-square-foot building with 5.3 million square feet of operating space on three floors. And so far, it’s only 30% complete. When it reaches its full size, it will have the largest footprint of any building in the world. Tech journalist Larry Magid recently visited, and assumed that a promised tour of the outside would be on foot. Hardly. “I was driven around in a van, and even that took a while,” says he.

Mr. Magid did much more than marvel at the Gigafactory’s size. He scored an interview with Tesla VP of Operations Chris Lister, which you can listen to below or on Magid’s Larry’s World blog (Magid also did a write-up in the Mercury News).

Magid’s interview with Tesla’s VP of Operations at the Tesla Gigafactory (Source: CBS News Radio via Larry’s World)

At the Gigafactory, Tesla and its partner Panasonic work together to make battery packs for Model 3, as well as for the Powerwall and Powerpack stationary storage products. Panasonic makes the cells — cylinders about the size of AA batteries, unceremoniously dubbed “2170 cells” because they measure 21 mm in diameter and 70 mm in length. Tesla assembles the cells into long strings it calls bandoliers, assembles these into modules, and assembles the modules into finished packs. Each pack contains 3,500–4,500 cells, depending on the vehicle variant it’s destined for.

Cooling tubes transport coolant throughout the pack to keep the cells within the optimum temperature range. The finished battery packs are transported by trucks (including a few Tesla Semis) to Tesla’s Fremont factory, where each one fulfills its destiny as the heart of a new electric vehicle.

Many consumers are skeptical about the longevity of EV batteries — they know from experience that cell phone batteries tend to wear out after a few years. However, Tesla batteries are built to last. Lister says Tesla has tested battery packs that have gone 100,000 miles with minimal capacity loss.

Screenshot from Tesla video.

Tesla also builds the drive unit for Model 3, which integrates the vehicle’s motor and inverter and is usually described as the size of a large watermelon, here at the Gig.

Tesla has around 7,000 employees (95% of them Nevadans) at the Gigafactory, and Panasonic another 5,000 or so.

Why the massive scale? As Lister reminds Magid, Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to a sustainable energy and transport system. That will require an exponential increase in global battery production, and Tesla is leading the way. The Gigafactory was designed on a gigantic scale in order to accommodate future battery demand (Elon Musk has said that, to support an all-electric transport system, several Gigafactories will be needed around the world). As the volume of battery production rises, economies of scale will allow Tesla to offer ever-more-affordable vehicles.

Sources: Larry’s World, Mercury News, CBS News Radio

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. 😀

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Elon Musk Tells Motor Trend About The Origins Of The Tesla Model S

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Published on July 18th, 2019 |

by Steve Hanley

Elon Musk Tells Motor Trend About The Origins Of The Tesla Model S

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July 18th, 2019 by Steve Hanley

Elon Musk recently told Motor Trend in an interview that the auto industry is slow to evolve. Boy, howdy. Let’s say you’re a car company and raking in record profits year after year by selling cars that are pretty much the same today as they were 5, 10, or even 20 years ago. Oh, maybe you add a crease here or tweak a tail light design there, but underneath the sheet metal, it’s same old, same old. And people are still piling into dealer showrooms begging you to take their money. Where is your incentive to change?

Credit: Tesla

When the Tesla Model S was first introduced, almost everyone in the car business yawned and went back to doing what they had been doing for decades. And yet (or because of that), 7 years later, the Tesla Model S is still the quickest production sedan Motor Trend has ever tested. The magazine asked Musk during an interview at the company’s southern California design studio why that’s the case.

“‘Well I don’t know,’ Musk answered. ‘It’s surprising to us. I thought the industry would have had cars that are competitive to the Model S well before now because as we were talking about—the Model S debuted in 2009, and even if people thought, “Well, that’s an impossible car to build,” which conventional wisdom said that the Model S was an impossible car to build, and there were many articles written to that effect.

“‘But once we started delivering them to customers and they were approved by the regulators and met all of the safety requirements, it’s like, the Model S has got the best safety rating that NHTSA had ever tested of any car. I really expected that there would be within maybe three years or something, we’d have something that was better than the original Model S. But I guess the car industry is just fairly slow to evolve, and it didn’t take electric vehicles really seriously until 2015, maybe 2014 you could say.'”

Motor Trend has just named the Tesla Model S its Ultimate Car Of The Year (COY). Of all the 70 COY awards the magazine has provided, it is the ne plus ultra of the lot. What is it about the Model S — and all Tesla automobiles — that stirs such passion in people?

“‘[T]he overarching goal is, what can we do to make you fall in love with this car? And I think the biggest thing about Tesla and the cars that we make is that this is not designed by a soulless corporation. There’s not like some finance spreadsheet or something like that with some market analysis. There’s none of that.

“‘Obviously we need to bring in more money than we spend, but at the end of the day, we want to make a car that we love, that hits us in the heart, that makes you feel. And how many of these cars, they have no soul. They make all these cars that have no soul or no heart, and they wonder why nobody feels anything for them. Why should they?'”

Looking back at the original Model S design, which was created in a tent inside SpaceX headquarters in 2008 and revealed to the public in 2009, Motor Trend asked Musk what emotional reaction he has to seeing that original car again? “Heartache,” he says. “We gave our heart to this car for sure. Everything, just like, all in.”

Chief designer Franz von Holzhausen took that statement a little further. “It kind of felt like we jumped out of the airplane and then decided we need to figure out how to get a team of people to design the parachute. So we were trying to find the people and design and create the product all kind of mid-flight, which is somewhat perilous. We put everything into it.” Perilous seems a little too mild for what was going on at the time.

What about that enormous touchscreen inside the Model S, an industry first?

“‘The basic principle was, it’s a computer on wheels. So if you had a laptop on wheels you want to have a big screen, you want to have a touch interface, and you want to have over-the-air [updating] capability. Then that gives you a lot of freedom to keep improving the car with software. The over-the-air stuff, we started doing that even on Roadster.

“‘It’s just kind of like being normal in that, what is normal for a consumer trying to buy this would be that you can get an over-the-air update. PCs have been doing over-the-air or connected software updates for 30 years or whatever. So if you are going to make a computer on wheels, then you should obviously be able to connect to the internet, you should be able to update it, it needs to have at least the computer capability of an advanced laptop, and then you’ve got your laptop on wheels. … If you live in Silicon Valley, you definitely want a software-upgradable, always-connected [car]. Seems crazy not to.'”

The conversation then turned to Tesla’s role in the future. Here Musk reiterated the litany of upcoming products — Tesla Semi, Model Y, Tesla Pickup, more factories, and so forth. But what really fires his imagination is autonomy.

“‘I think the autonomy is really going to transform automotive. … I mean since the major innovations in production that Henry Ford and others came up with, the next two massive disruptions for cars are electrification and autonomy, and electrification and autonomy are happening at the same time very basically. So the future will be all electric, all autonomous. I don’t mean some electric, some autonomous, I mean all electric, all autonomous. And in fact, I would really caution someone against buying a gasoline or diesel car or truck because it will have poor resale value in the future.

“‘Let’s say it is 100 years ago, 1919, and a lot of people were still buying horses, and there was like this new radical thing called cars. Essentially you have this Model T or whatever, and people are like, “That’s weird automobile technology that will never catch on,” and they bought a horse, so that was a mistake. So trust me when I say the future is electric autonomy. So you want to buy a car that is electric, and you want to buy a car that is capable of autonomy, which a Tesla is. This will, I think, become very obvious within a few years.

“‘It will change things quite a lot. If things were autonomous and cars are in use a lot, the fundamental utility of a car is right now is maybe 10 or 12 hours a week. Let’s estimate an hour and a half, two hours a day. With a shared autonomous fleet, that goes up to like 50 or 60 hours on average, maybe more. So then the cars will be used a lot more. You’ll want probably dynamic personalization, so it’s like you step into the car, it knows who you are, it knows everything you want, and the car reconfigures itself automatically to all your preferences. So you could step into any car, and that’s how it would be.'”

Von Holzhausen put a punctuation mark on Musk’s prediction. “I also think Model S proved that an electric vehicle can be beautiful and fun to drive and something you desire to own. And I think Tesla will do that with autonomy, as well. So it’s not going to be a scary, ugly, dystopian future. It’s going to be a fun, beautiful experience. And I think all of our products will have that.”

Lots of industry executives saw the original Model S and did not realize what their eyes were telling them. It has taken nearly a decade for car companies to fully embrace electric cars and some — mostly in the US — are still determined to ignore the new reality. The EV revolution is just getting started in earnest and already another transportation revolution — autonomous cars — is gathering momentum.

Traditional car companies are far more willing to embrace self-driving cars because transportation as a service is seen as a major new source of profits. In theory, autonomy could apply to conventional cars with gasoline or diesel engines, but in reality electric and autonomous go together like baseball and hot dogs. It’s possible that autonomy will accelerate the EV revolution in a way that no one could have predicted at decade ago.

A brave new world of transportation is upon us, fostered by the vision of Elon Musk and brought to life by the people of Tesla. When the Model S was revealed in 2009, I think nobody could have predicted how that car would upend the auto industry. Now autonomy is poised to disrupt conventional wisdom even more. Some of those traditional companies are going to fall by the wayside over the next 5 to 10 years largely because one man refused to be dissuaded from following his dream.

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Tesla Opens A Service Center In Poland!

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Published on July 18th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Tesla Opens A Service Center In Poland!

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July 18th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

My Polish friends (and I) have long been waiting for a Tesla service center in Poland. Thankfully, we now have one. Apparently as a birthday gift for my eldest daughter (who does love Tesla), the company announced via email the other day that a service center opened up in Warsaw.

There’s not much more information that this. The email text is as follows:

As our network of Tesla owners in Poland continues to grow, we’re excited to announce the opening of our Service Center in Warsaw.

The new location provides a convenient way for you to access quick and seamless service. Simply log in to your Tesla app, scroll down to ‘Schedule Service’ and select your preferred appointment date.

We look forward to welcoming you.

There are not a lot of Tesla owners in Poland yet, but I expect there soon will be. This is a very tech focused country and I’m sure there’s a large number of Tesla and SpaceX fans. The cost of living here is lower than in countries to the west (Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, etc.), which means salaries are lower, but the Model 3 Standard Range Plus should be well within the budget of many Polish residents.

Incidentally, I spotted a Model 3 in Poland for the first time on Sunday, and I spotted a Model S on the highway on the day the new service center was announced. Sadly, the Model 3 I spotted had already suffered a bit of damage. It may be making one of the first trips to the Warsaw service center.

The first Tesla Model 3 I’ve spotted in Poland.

The friend of mine, a cofounder of Tesla Shuttle (which I am slo cofounder of), added a little more context to the news:

Maybe interesting is that just now Tesla is entering countries behind the Iron Curtain — recently, a service center was opened in Prague (the Czech Republic), now Warsaw, and next Budapest (Hungary) is planned.

However, still no sales center here.

It would definitely be nice to walk into the first Tesla store in Poland, but as people generally just buy a Tesla online, the store is really just to give customers a touch and taste. Poland is a large country with several big cities far apart, and many people never go to Warsaw. I think it could be smarter for Tesla to have a series of its pop-up stores give test drives in a dozen or so Polish locations. Though, I know opinions on this topic vary a great deal.

If you have collected reports of any more Tesla service center openings in recent weeks, we’d love to hear about them. In the meantime, we’ll just hope that our Polish Tesla doesn’t need to take a trip to the new service center!

All photos by Zach Shahan for CleanTechnica & Tesla Shuttle

The first Supercharger station in Poland.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself (and other species). He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the president of Important Media and the director/founder of EV Obsession and Solar Love. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada.

Zach has long-term investments in TSLA, FSLR, SPWR, SEDG, & ABB — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in these particular companies and feels like they are good cleantech companies to invest in. But he offers no professional investment advice and would rather not be responsible for you losing money, so don't jump to conclusions.

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