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Tesla Referral Program Revived — Chances To Win Founder’s Series Tesla Model Y & New Roadster

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Published on March 21st, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Tesla Referral Program Revived — Chances To Win Founder’s Series Tesla Model Y & New Roadster

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March 21st, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

Tesla has revived its referral program. The new program, as stated on Tesla’s website support page, is as follows:

You and whoever you refer each get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging when they purchase a new Tesla. Each referral also gives you a chance to win a Founders Series Model Y monthly and Founders Series Roadster supercar quarterly, both signed by Elon & Franz. Tesla owners who already have free Supercharging get two chances per referral.

Tesla makes the safest cars in the world, according to US government testing, so every referral also helps reduce the probability of injury or death.

Thank you for helping to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Below is also a Tesla blog post about the new version of the program. We’ll be writing about the program more in a few hours, but while the news is fresh, here’s Tesla’s take on it.

Tesla’s New Customer Referral Program
Customer referrals have been a key part of our growth ever since we began selling Roadster in 2008. Since then, our customers’ enthusiasm for their vehicles has propelled Model 3 to become the best-selling luxury car in the U.S. and the best-selling electric vehicle in the world last year. We’ve heard from our customers that the Referral Program was one of their favorite reasons to tell their friends about Tesla, so today, we’re introducing an all-new Referral Program to give customers another way to share what they love about their cars.

While our previous Referral Program was very successful, it came with significant costs, and ending the program last year allowed us to pass those savings along to customers. We’ve since restructured the program to save the company money while also offering rewards that are super exclusive:

Now, each time a friend purchases a new Tesla using your referral code, you’ll both get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging. Each referral also gives you a chance to win a Founder’s Series Model Y monthly and a Founder’s series Roadster supercar quarterly, both signed by Elon Musk and Franz von Holzhausen. Tesla owners who already have unlimited Supercharging get two chances to win with each referral.

The continued growth and excitement we’ve generated have been driven largely by the passion of our current and future customers. Our goal is simply to build the best and safest cars according to U.S. government testing, so that owners will share their experiences with others and help accelerate our mission towards a sustainable future.

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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Why Tesla Model Y 3rd Row Is Key To It Becoming The Best Selling Vehicle In The World

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Published on March 15th, 2019 |

by Paul Fosse

Why Tesla Model Y 3rd Row Is Key To It Becoming The Best Selling Vehicle In The World

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March 15th, 2019 by Paul Fosse

At the Tesla Model Y reveal event, I was focused on 2 things. First that it not be hard to manufacture. Second that it have 3 rows of seating.

Easy To Manufacture
To be easy to manufacture, Tesla needed to not introduce any hard-to-manufacture features, like the falcon-wing doors of the Model X. Not a lot has to be said about that. It is obvious from looking at the car and riding in the car that it is very, very similar to the Model 3 (which I own). The battery and motors are likely to be the same, the steering wheel and 15 inch screen and software appear to be the same (with minor modifications). The radio and climate controls appear to be the same. The Autopilot hardware appears to be the same.

I was told on the test rides that the front 5 seats were the same as the Model 3, with different mounting hardware to raise them. Even parts that are clearly different, like the front fenders and doors (because the dimensions are different), look the same to the casual observer.

It was stated on a previous call that the Model Y and Model 3 share ~76% of their parts. It appears the 24% of the parts that are unique to the Model Y are not very different. For example, the doors are clearly different in size, but they aren’t different in style. This greatly reduces the chance of the Model Y sending the company into manufacturing hell. It also means it is very likely that Tesla can manufacture the 2 cars on the same manufacturing line if they choose to do that. That would allow them to easily react to changes in relative demand between the Model 3 and Model Y. They may have separate lines in the US, just because there is probably no room to manufacture more cars in the Tesla Fremont factory, but in China and in future gigafactories, Tesla may choose to share portions of the manufacturing line or maybe the whole manufacturing line.

Why Tesla Had To Include 3 Rows Of Seating

Image from Wikipedia

Why do I think having 3 rows of seating is so important to the Model Y? Look at all of the other vehicle manufacturers that Tesla competes with. Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and Volkswagen. How many different vehicle models do each of them manufacture, if you include their US operations, European factories, and Asian and Latin American operations? I would guess that the larger companies (such as the 5 listed above) make close to a 100 different vehicle models, and the smaller brands luxury brands like Lexus and BMW make at least 20 or 30 different cars and SUVs.

Tesla only makes 4 vehicle models now (and of course it doesn’t even make the Model Y yet), and will be adding the pickup and Roadster in a couple years following the Model Y’s commercial release. The company will also be adding a smaller, cheaper car or crossover a couple of years after that if all goes as planned. So, for the next 3 or 4 years, Tesla will have about 7 models.

Elon stated on a recent podcast with ARK Invest that he guesses they will make about a million cars in 2021 (the S, 3, X, Y, and Roadster should be in full production) and about 3 million vehicles a year in 2023 (the pickup and perhaps a cheaper car should be in production). Tesla wants to become one of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world, yet it is obvious that it isn’t going to design another 95 vehicles in the next year or two. So, each vehicle that Tesla creates needs to serve a wide market. It appears Tesla has settled on 4 main versions of the Model 3 and Model Y.

Value model with competitive range
Long Range model with industry-leading range and better performance
All Wheel Drive model with even better performance
Performance model with mind-blowing performance at a reasonable price

Comparing The Tesla Model Y To Toyota & Lexus SUVs

Screen capture from Toyota.com

The Model Y value model will be competitive with the C-HR and RAV4. The Long Range and AWD models will be competitive with the Highlander and the 4Runner. It is just too small to compete with the Sequoia or Land Cruiser. Toyota doesn’t have an SUV that is competitive with the Model Y Performance, so with the versions of the Model Y announced, Tesla competes very with all the versions of the four Toyota vehicles.

Screen capture from Lexus.com

Comparing the Model Y to the Lexus lineup, the value model will line up against the UX and the NX. The Long Range and AWD models will compete with the RX and the GX. Once again, Lexus doesn’t have anything remotely competitive with the Model Y Performance.

So, this example shows how with 3 versions of a single car (based on an existing model), Tesla covered 4 different Toyota SUVs and 4 different Lexus SUVs and also produced a performance model that is about twice the acceleration of any of the Toyota and Lexus SUVs, so it will cut strongly into the many performance cars the two brands make.

You can see how Tesla saves a huge amount of money designing so many different cars — it designs one car to be incredibly good and then uses it to compete with hundreds of other cars.

Why Consumers Want 3 Rows Of Seating
I have 3 kids (my youngest is 19) and know many other parents with 2 or 3 kids. Why do you need seating for 7 when a 5 seater can cover the whole family? Two answers are obvious to me.

First of all, to keep my kids from killing each other. When I transported my 3 kids on a longer trip, they would get grumpy, so I put one in the front seat, one in the 2nd row and one is the 3rd row. With each kid in a different row, they fought a lot less.

The second reason is to transport a lot of kids to school or sports or whatever in a carpool. Most families have two working parents and if one parent can take 6 kids to school in their car, that is a really good thing. I helped organize many carpools and we loved parents who had cars that could hold more kids. I did some carpooling in my Nissan Leaf, but sometimes we had to send two cars to pick up all the kids we had to get back home. When we used our Honda Odyssey with seating for 8, we could always get all the kids in the car without sending two cars.

Model Y 3rd Row

Screen capture from Tesla reveal video from Tesla.com

Photo from my Model Y test ride

Photo from my Model Y test ride. You can see that the way the 2nd row seats are set, there are only about 2 inches of space between the 2nd row and 3rd row seats. The driver said the adjustment mechanism for the 2nd row seats had been disabled.

They didn’t let us ride in the 3rd row at the unveiling event, but I did get a quick look at it and it is rather small. I would say it should be competitive with other midsized SUVs like the Toyota Highlander, but not even close to as comfortable as large SUVs like the Sequoia or a minivan’s 3rd row.

I got a chance to talk to Franz von Holzhausen about the 3rd row. I told him that I felt it was an important feature that was crucial to the success of the Model Y. I asked him two specific questions about the seating. I asked if the second row was adjustable so the people in the 3rd row could have more room (I wanted to confirm what I had heard from the Model Y driver). I also asked if he had designed them so they would be able to hold child safety seats. The answer was yes to both questions. Although I would have liked more details, Franz was very busy and I am thankful that he had time for those two questions. He probably had to be careful about what he said as well.

Conclusion
I’m happy that my two biggest concerns were resolved in the unveil. Had the Model Y been a radical departure from the Model 3, it would have been another “bet the company” project. I am confident that it is simple enough that Elon can delegate a little more responsibility and not feel the need to get involved in a lot of the rollout of the car. Although I think Elon’s input is valuable, it is taking a heavy toll on his life and he can’t work 120 hours a week for long without many bad things happening.

The Model Y could be a huge success without the 3rd row seating, but it would have left a huge gap of people who needed more seating but could never afford the Model X. Tesla would be leaving millions of potential sales on the table for many years until they could design a vehicle between the Model Y and the Model X. The room you can create in such a small crossover is a testament to the wisdom of designing an electric car to be electric from day one and not trying to shoehorn an electric powertrain into a vehicle designed for a gas or diesel powertrain.

A couple days ago I looked up the best selling vehicles in the world and it looks like it goes back and forth between the Toyota Corolla and the Ford F-150 at about a million vehicles a year. With the Tesla’s ability to be competitive with hundreds of other crossovers in all the world’s markets and Tesla’s plans to expand the Gigafactory 1 and 3 to produce about a million cars a year, it looks like Tesla has a chance to make the Model Y the best selling car in the world, at least until their cheaper “Model 2” addressing an even larger target market overtakes it.

About the Author

Paul Fosse I've been a software engineer for over 30 years, first working on EDI software and more recently developing data warehouse systems in the telecommunications and healthcare industry. Along the way, I've also had the chance to help start a software consulting firm and do portfolio management for several investment trusts. In 2010, I took an interest in electric cars because gas was getting expensive. In 2015, I started reading CleanTechnica and took an interest in solar, mainly because it was a threat to my oil and gas investments in my investment trusts. Tesla investor. Tesla..

Tesla Brings “S3XY” To Life With Model Y Launch

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Published on March 16th, 2019 |

by Matt Pressman

Tesla Brings “S3XY” To Life With Model Y Launch

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March 16th, 2019 by Matt Pressman

Originally posted on EVANNEX.
After so much anticipation, Elon Musk walked on stage at the LA Design Studio in Hawthorne, California, and introduced Tesla’s newest addition to its lineup, the Model Y. Fortunately, Model Y looks to share much commonality with Model 3, which could translate to a production ramp that moves more rapidly than prior new cars introduced by Tesla.

Musk, Model Y, and hmmm … could Elon be teasing a custom “Tesla x Nike” sneaker collaboration coming soon? (Twitter: LikeTesla)

So, what did we learn last night? According to The Verge, “The cheaper, standard range version with a range of 230 miles won’t be available until 2021, Musk said, and will sell for $39,000 … [whereas] the long-range version will travel 300 miles on single charge, and will sell for $47,000, while the $60,000 performance version will be capable of sprinting from 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds.” Higher spec versions of the Model Y are slated for deliveries in the fall of 2020.

A 3-minute recap of the Model Y launch event (Source: The Verge)

“It has the functionality of an SUV, but it will ride like a sports car,” Musk said. “So this thing will be really tight on corners.” And Musk added, “This will be the safest mid-sized SUV by far.”

Model Y’s stunning all-glass roof (Twitter: Tesla)

The Verge reports, “The Model Y will have a panoramic sunroof and 66 cubic feet of cargo space. … Roomier than a Model 3 but not as imposing as a Model X, the Model Y can seat seven, as demonstrated during the event Thursday evening at Tesla’s design studio outside Los Angeles.”

Under the skin of Model Y (Source: Tesla)

Musk also said progress was being made on the company’s Autopilot functionality. In reference to Model Y’s ability to execute self-driving functionality, Musk notes, “The cool thing is, it’s ‘feature complete’ … it will be able to do basically anything just with software upgrades.”

A side view of the Tesla Model Y (Image: Tesla)

Can Tesla attract a new market segment with Model Y? Jessica Caldwell at Edmunds says, “Tesla has the right foundation for the Model Y to be a turning point: Tesla has the youngest buyer base of any luxury brand, and the Model X has more female buyers than any other vehicle in the brand’s lineup. If the Model Y is priced right, offers a roomy interior, and delivers flawless safety and quality, it has the potential to be the ‘it’ vehicle for young families.”

First Ride: Model Y

Note: CleanTechnica has much exclusive content from the Model Y reveal coming soon.

Related: Tesla Model Y Will Be World’s Safest Crossover & Quickest Affordable Crossover Or SUV

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 Model 3 Pricing Guide Before Monday’s Price Increase

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Published on March 16th, 2019 |

by Guest Contributor

Tesla Model 3 Pricing Guide Before Monday’s Price Increase

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March 16th, 2019 by Guest Contributor

Originally posted on EVANNEX.
By Blane Erwin of Current Automotive
Note: The prices shown here are valid until March 18th. Tesla has announced plans “to raise vehicle prices by about 3% on average worldwide. … [However,] there will be no price increase to the $35,000 Model 3. The price increases will only apply to the more expensive variants.” So if you’re in the market for a Model 3, this handy guide can help — but you’ve only got a day or so left to take advantage of these lower prices.

Source: Current Automotive

Tesla’s announcement of the long-awaited Standard Range and surprising Standard Range Plus Model 3 also came with the introduction of two new interior trim levels. Previously, all Model 3s came with the premium interior, featuring Tesla’s soft synthetic seat material, heated seats for all five occupants, and a 14-speaker premium sound system, plus other features. Without needing to choose an interior trim level, building your Model 3 was pretty easy: pick a battery size, pick the colors, decide if you want Enhanced Autopilot.

With the addition of the Standard Range Model 3, there are now three interior trim levels, six battery and performance levels, five exterior colors, two interior colors, and two wheel styles to choose from. Popular features aren’t available on all interior trims, and it’s easy to increase the price of a Standard Range Model 3 to well over $40,000.

To make it easier, we’ll break down what features come with each interior trim, then show what interior is available with each performance level of the car.

Source: Current Automotive

The standard interior Model 3 comes with Tesla’s minimalistic interior style, but not much else. We have yet to see and feel the cloth seats of the standard trim, so we can’t comment on the quality of the materials used.

For just $2,000 more, the partial premium interior will probably entice a lot of buyers. Tesla adds its soft synthetic leather material and front heated seats, which are 12-way power adjustable, to that option.

Meanwhile, the premium interior has an exclusive hold on Tesla’s satellite maps and a navigation system that uses live traffic data, along with its 14-speaker audio system, in-car Internet media streaming, heated rear seats, and several other features.

Model 3 buyers don’t get to mix & match interiors with battery sizes though – each battery size is matched with a specific interior trim. If you want the premium interior, you have no choice but to drop at least an extra $5,000 for the Mid Range battery.

Take a look at the table below that shows what interior trim is available with each battery size, and the performance available at each level. [Reminder: prices shown below, excluding the base model, are scheduled to rise approximately 3% on Monday.]

Source: Current Automotive

Finally, there are five different options to choose from. Those include paint colors, wheel styles, interior colors, Autopilot, and Full Self Driving. The latter two can be added to any of the vehicles.

Here, it’s possible to add up to $13,000 in options to a Model 3. When you factor in Tesla’s $1,200 destination fee, it’s possible to turn the $37,000 Model 3 Standard Plus into a vehicle that costs $51,200 before taxes.

With the price cut for new Model 3s, it will be tempting for many to cross-shop used with new cars. When looking at the value of a used Model 3, one must keep options like interior trim and Autopilot in mind – Tesla’s changes to the Autopilot features means older vehicles may offer a better value depending on the exact features that are important to you.

Source: Current Automotive; Editor’s Note: Current Automotive is the first-ever U.S. car retailer focused exclusively on used electric cars launched by two former Tesla employees.

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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Audi Sales, Mercedes Sales, Toyota Sales, Infiniti Sales, Acura Car Sales, BMW Car Sales, Honda Car Sales, & Lexus Car Sales Down In February In USA

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Published on March 19th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Audi Sales, Mercedes Sales, Toyota Sales, Infiniti Sales, Acura Car Sales, BMW Car Sales, Honda Car Sales, & Lexus Car Sales Down In February In USA

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March 19th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

Here on CleanTechnica, we keep a close eye on electric vehicle news and sales. However, it’s important to watch competing areas of the market to get a sense of the full dynamic. As part of that, I track the monthly US sales of all the automakers that publish monthly figures. The story lately has been a downtrend in sales at major automakers other than Tesla, and especially those automakers’ car sales.

In the month of February, the following luxury auto companies and car divisions had the following sales drops:

Acura Cars: −12%
Audi: −12%
Audi Cars: −12%
BMW Cars: −12%
Infiniti: −17%
Infiniti Cars: −46%
Lexus Cars: −2%
Mercedes-Benz: −13%
Mercedes-Benz Cars: −4%
Volvo Cars: −77%

On the flip side, these luxury auto companies had the following sales increases:

Acura: 11%
Jaguar Land Rover: 29%
Lexus: 4%
Volvo: 6%

Overall, luxury auto sales from all of those companies were down 2,099 in February and car sales from those companies were down 10,775. No car division saw increased sales.

A few luxury brands are missing here — Buick, Cadillac, Lincoln, and Tesla — because they only report sales on a quarterly basis, and Jaguar doesn’t break out sales by model or class, so its car sales are estimated.

Regarding Tesla, our estimate is that Tesla Model 3 sales were somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 in the United States in February, which would close the gap in 2019 versus 2018 premium-class auto sales, but wouldn’t quite close the gap in premium-class car sales. As has been written many times across the auto world, consumers have been moving from cars to SUVs & crossovers, so that is surely part of the story here as well.

However, as we’ve noted many times in many ways, the Tesla Model 3 actually competes with mass-market cars like the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in terms of 5 or 6 year total cost of ownership, while being a much better forming, better driving, safer, higher tech car. So, I’ve also been curiously looking at mass-market brands. The following are the mass-market auto companies and car divisions that saw their sales drop in February 2019 versus February 2018 (and by how much):

Honda: −1.6%
Honda Cars: −5.5%
Toyota: −6.3%
Toyota Cars: −10.6%
Nissan: −11.4%
Nissan Cars: −9.4%
Kia Cars: −2.6%
Hyundai Cars: −22.3%

Hmm, among the Big 3*, sales are crap.

(*Let’s be honest — Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are the Big 3 in the US if you’re not talking pickup trucks.)

On the flip side, other than Tesla, the following two major automakers saw their February 2019 sales rise compared to February 2018 (despite their car sales dropping):

Kia: 6.4%
Hyundai: 2%

Those two sister companies had ~3,600 more sales, combined, compared to February 2018. Nissan sales were down more than 13,000, Honda sales were down almost 2,000, and Toyota sales were down more than 9,000.

So, what does all this mean in relation to electric vehicle sales, and more specifically Tesla sales?

Who really knows? But if Tesla’s going to deliver another 40,000 or so cars in the United States this quarter, there’s a solid chance Tesla is continuing to take sales away from these other automakers. Furthermore, based on owner satisfaction surveys from Consumer Reports and others, it’s unlikely those Tesla buyers are going to go back to those older brands. And with the Tesla Model Y coming to market in a couple of years, Model 3 owners may well abandon those other automakers completely as they convert their gasoline crossovers and SUVs to Teslas.

There’s a lot of hype among certain people who want to see Tesla fail that Tesla’s days are numbered, that it’s all a house of cards that’s about to fall down. I don’t buy that narrative, but I wonder sometimes how much the other automakers are under that exact threat.

Remember that it wasn’t a 100% collapse in auto sales that caused GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt approximately a decade ago. Overall, US auto sales dropped 11.7% from 2007 to 2008.

Scroll up again and look at those drops in US sales for numerous automakers.

Stepping back another month, in January, the following automakers saw sales down as follows:

Nissan: −20%
Toyota: −7%
Mercedes-Benz: −14%
Honda: −1.5%
BMW: −5%
Lexus: −3%
Infiniti: −3%
Audi: −2%

Nissan is already doing worse than the US auto industry as a whole in 2007–2008. Mercedes-Benz is also down worse than the auto industry as a whole in 2007–2008. Toyota is more than halfway there. Honda and BMW are holding on much better but are also down. Audi and Infiniti are down dramatically. Where will all of this lead?

Of course, I’m not implying that these companies will go bankrupt just based on huge drops in US auto sales. These automakers all have strong sales in other markets — China, Europe, and Japan, for example. Nonetheless, executives at the North America divisions must be sweating bullets. The problem is — how do you compete with Tesla?

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Tesla Model Y Size Compared To Tesla Model 3

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Published on March 18th, 2019 |

by Dr. Maximilian Holland

Tesla Model Y Size Compared To Tesla Model 3

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March 18th, 2019 by Dr. Maximilian Holland

Photo by CleanTechnica

Let’s take a quick look at the comparative size of the new Tesla Model Y when overlayed on top of the Tesla Model 3.

No great surprises here, Elon Musk has already said the Model Y is around 10% larger (in volume?). Let’s make some guesses about the exterior dimensions of the newcomer?

Author’s own work, based on Tesla design studio profile images

Notice that I’ve tried to very accurately line up the wheels (and thus the wheelbases) to get a decent starting point for the comparison. Both are images of the respective performance model (from the design studio) with what should be the same 20’’ performance wheels.

We know that the dimensions of the model 3 are: 4,694 mm L x 1,849 mm W x 1,443 mm H. If any of you have the patience and imaging skills to do some direct measurements of the proportions (based on cursor placing and pixel counts, and then calculating the scaling), please be my guest. I’m just going to make some visual estimates here.

I’d roughly guess that the Model Y is a couple of inches (~50 mm) longer at the rear, and 3 to 4 inches (~75–100 mm) longer at the front. The front hood starts a fraction higher and the height climbs to perhaps 8 inches (~200 mm) taller in some areas, especially the roof-line over the passenger compartment (and at the rear).

One point of interest is that — judging by the starting point of the front windshield — the Model Y’s passenger compartment appears to begin around 4 inches (100 mm) further forward than the Model 3. That obviously further helps the interior space. The length extension at the rear of the passenger compartment appears to be more modest.

Screen grab from Tesla Model Y promo video

We can’t get much clue about differences in width from any existing images that I’ve seen so far (chime in if you’ve got info or sources on this). On the basis of this image, I’d estimate that the length of the Model Y should be around 125–150 mm greater than the 3 (let’s call it ~4,830 mm in total). From this perspective, the height should be around 200 mm more (~1,643 mm in total).

What do you think? Jump into the comments with your own estimates, especially if you have other sources!

Tesla Model Y

About the Author

Dr. Maximilian Holland Max is an anthropologist, social theorist and international political economist, trying to ask questions and encourage critical thinking about social and environmental justice, sustainability and the human condition. He has lived and worked in Europe and Asia, and is currently based in Barcelona.

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A Strong Tesla Future Will Include More Female Engineers

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Published on March 17th, 2019 |

by Carolyn Fortuna

A Strong Tesla Future Will Include More Female Engineers

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March 17th, 2019 by Carolyn Fortuna

Women have increased their numbers in professions previously dominated by men, including law, business, medicine, and many STEM fields. However, the number of women in engineering in the US has not risen since the early 2000s. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates a large need for engineers and computer-related employees over the next 10 years due to job growth and replacement of those leaving the workforce. To meet this demand for new engineers and computer/information scientists, it is necessary for our nation to promote these professions among underrepresented groups, especially women.

An initiative at Tesla hopes to help.

Photo of part of an internal Tesla newsletter.

Recently, Tesla hosted about 200 middle school students at 8 of its facilities around the US for an event called “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.” 80 or so Tesla employees volunteered to lead the events, which were held in California and Nevada.

The students engaged in hands-on activities that illustrated the various fields of engineering: civil, electrical, and mechanical. When her team built a suspension bridge out of paper, Jacqueline Cerillo, 6th grade, seemed to already possess a facility for the scientific method. “You have to see your failures,” she said. “On the first project, our bridge fell, but on the second, we got better.”

The likely future female engineers fashioned simple motors from batteries and wire and built a tiny balloon-propelled car, offering glimpses into real-life applications of science and math principles.

This was only one part of Tesla’s commitment of $37 million in education in Nevada. “With females making up only a fraction of the engineering workforce in the US, Tesla is committed to increasing female students’ exposure to manufacturing and engineering,” a Tesla spokesperson said.

At Tesla Gigafactory 1, the nonprofit group Envirolution co-sponsored the event with Tesla, recruiting and coordinating young female students for a battery manufacturing operations tour.

The Fremont factory and locations in Livermore, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas also hosted aspiring female engineering students. Such instruction comes at a crucial time in young women’s lives, as one visiting student noted. “From a young age, you start planning your life. You start planning out what you’re going to do,” 7th grader Haley Felton explained. “So, if you’ve never done anything like this before, you’re not going to know about this kind of stuff.”

Without intervention strategies like this Tesla introductory engineering day, the current demand for technical talent combined with the projected increase in the need for engineers will result in a significant shortage of skilled US labor. Increasing the confidence and persistence of women in engineering at all stages of their careers is imperative to solving this talent shortage.

Industry growth presents the major challenge of educating future renewable energy and technology professionals. There is an essential need to build a conduit from the classroom to worksite. Even college students have a limited understanding of how to translate engineering theory into actual field practice.

While a variety of solutions are necessary to address the growing labor needs in the engineering industry and to attract and retain women in the profession, professional role models like these Tesla engineers who offer their personal insights and industry experience narratives can offset those gaps and create a robust and diverse engineering workforce.

Why Aren’t There More Female Engineers — at Tesla and Elsewhere?
Today, the digital transformation provides new avenues for the economic empowerment of women and can contribute to greater gender equality. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that inventions arising out of mixed teams are more economically valuable and have higher impact than those in which only men are involved.

According to the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth in the engineering industry will yield over 500,000 unfilled positions by 2024. Yet the current pipeline of engineering talent does not include the majority of college graduates: women represent over 57% of college graduates but only 22% of the engineers entering the workforce. Within the workforce, only 14% of engineers are women.

Coordinated policy action can raise awareness. It can tackle gender stereotypes and enable enhanced, safer, and more affordable access to digital tools for novice engineers. It can provide stronger cooperation across stakeholders to remove barriers to girls’ and women’s full participation in the STEM world.

Digital technologies provide new opportunities to make progress, but technological fixes cannot address the underlying structural problems that drive the digital gender divide. “It’s a systemic problem. Girls from a young age experience microaggressions. For example, asking a boy in the class to try the fix the VCR or fathers doing some things with their sons but not with their daughters. Little things like that discourage a good amount of the population [from pursuing engineering],” said Kristen Barclay, a Tesla engineer, in a 2018 interview.

Unconscious bias creates barriers and is one reason why fewer female engineers are hired in tech fields. “Here, I’ve started interviewing for technicians for my department,” said Barclay. “I’ve only ever interviewed two female candidates, and I hired them both because they were both awesome. Super relevant experience, super personable, seemed like they would fit in well. And the men who run the interview panel were like ‘Oh, I didn’t really get that vibe.” Slowly, they were like, ‘I liked her, too.’”

“Start early, because the world will slowly crush you out of it if you don’t find that interest in yourself early,” Barclay advised future female engineers.

Infographic courtesy of Society of Women Engineers

“It wasn’t so bad at the engineering faculty, where we were about 25%,” Alejandra Estanislao said, who holds a degree in mathematics and finance and is a software engineer at Google in Paris. “It was later, at work. When you find yourself one woman in a room of 30 people, that is when you feel lonely.”

Fewer females than males that earn an engineering degree end up working in the engineering profession, and more females than males leave the profession over time. Véna Arielle Ahouansou, whose Kea Medical company employs 15 people, said men still fail to see the strength of women in technology. “They need to change their mind-set that science is just for them,” she said.

“This is one of the most important issues of our time, and it is urgent,” said Lindsey Nefesh-Clarke, founder of W4, an organization that promotes girls and women in technology. “It has nothing to do with cognitive abilities, that has been proven. It is about consistent, deeply entrenched stereotypes.”

Final Thoughts
“I want to be an artist when I grow up,” 6th grader Cerillo added during her day at Tesla. “Engineering adds something to art. It’s creating our world.”

Research shows there are about 2.5 million women in the US with STEM degrees. Of this number, roughly 800,000 women (32%) have engineering and computer science degrees and 216,000 (27%) have left their technical fields. Approximately 54,000 (25%) of the women who left their technical careers did so to care for their families. It is estimated that the pool of technical women who are on career breaks at any given time is between 54,000 and 216,000.

A cultural shift is slowly underway in the STEM world in which women and other underrepresented groups are beginning to find voice. Programs like the “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” at Tesla highlight one of many mechanisms to strengthen overarching talent pathways.

Infographic courtesy of Society of Women Engineers

Unless otherwise noted, images via YouTube

About the Author

Carolyn Fortuna Carolyn Fortuna, Ph.D. is a writer, researcher, and educator with a lifelong dedication to ecojustice. She's won awards from the Anti-Defamation League, The International Literacy Association, and The Leavy Foundation. She’s molds scholarship into digital media literacy and learning to spread the word about sustainability issues. Please follow me on Twitter and Facebook and Google+

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Tesla Model Y Reveal: And The Biggest Surprise Was…

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Published on March 15th, 2019 |

by Frugal Moogal

Tesla Model Y Reveal: And The Biggest Surprise Was…

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March 15th, 2019 by Frugal Moogal

Tonight, Tesla revealed the Model Y, and thanks to the reveal of the Tesla Roadster as part of the Tesla Semi announcement, we were expecting some surprises.

The night started with Elon Musk walking us through the history of the vehicles that Tesla has delivered (first generation Roadster, Model S, Model X, and Model 3), the vehicles that Tesla intends to bring to market soon (the new Roadster and Tesla Semi), and how Tesla built the Gigafactories for those cars.

The next thing that Musk covered was the Solar Roof and Power Wall, and he mentioned that this would be the year of these products. Those who follow Tesla may have been mildly surprised by this, as the solar roof in particular got a lot of attention a few years ago, but has been almost completely overlooked lately.

A Supercharger update followed this, noting the great expansion that has already occurred, the expansion they expect to continue in the future, and a bit about the faster V3 Superchargers.

Musk then covered Tesla’s mission and how critical it is to what the company does. For anyone who questioned why the Model Y was unveiled now, this is your answer. Musk made a point to show how in the past ten years, the industry has changed from one opposed to the idea of electric cars, to many manufacturers doubling down on the transition year after year, and the role Tesla has played in that is massive. The point of the reveal tonight is to get those companies to challenge Tesla to create better electric SUVs faster than Tesla can, while signaling to people who may be thinking of purchasing an SUV in the near future that they may want to wait and get a Model Y instead of something else.

We finally got to the unveiling of the Model Y, and its look was not a surprise. In fact, it looked exactly like I expected it to — it’s a larger version of the Model 3 with an EPA range estimated to be 300 miles for the RWD variant. And just like Musk alluded to before the reveal, it is about 10% more expensive and 10% less efficient.

Production begins “late next year.”

The unveiling of Model Y went pretty quickly, and was light on details. And that brings us to…

The Biggest Surprise
To me, the biggest surprise of the night was that there was no giant surprise. The Model Y wasn’t hiding a truck, the Model S and X aren’t refreshed, and at the end of the event, it was just the Model Y.

This surprise, or lack thereof, may have been disappointing to a lot of people who expected something big and flashy. As I’ve reflected on it writing this article, however, I’m not disappointed at all about it.

Tonight we saw a confident Elon Musk announce production of a vehicle that Tesla knows it can deliver to market. The Model Y is expected to be the most popular vehicle that Tesla has produced yet, and one of the most popular in the world. Why overshadow that achievement with something else?

Unlike past announcements, there was no mention of “production hell” or what a challenge bringing the Model Y to production would be. The history of Tesla and its various problems led us to this point, where Musk expects that Tesla can confidently deliver on its production goals exactly as expected.

And that’s the surprise. Tesla acted like — and for perhaps the first time is — a major automaker announcing a new vehicle.

Stay tuned for much more exclusive content from the Model Y event. CleanTechnica had three reporters on hand.

About the Author

Frugal Moogal A businessman first, the Frugal Moogal looks at EVs from the perspective of a business. Having worked in multiple industries and in roles that managed significant money, he believes that the way to convince people that the EV revolution is here is by looking at the vehicles like a business would.

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Tesla Model Y Versus The Bottom Line: What We Learned

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Published on March 15th, 2019 |

by Frugal Moogal

Tesla Model Y Versus The Bottom Line: What We Learned

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March 15th, 2019 by Frugal Moogal

I sat down to watch the Model Y unveiling tonight with a list of questions that I was hoping to get answers to from a business perspective. Namely, where the Model Y was going to be produced, what quantities the company was looking at, and whether there were any hints about current demand to help explain if the plan to shut down many Tesla stores had to do with there being so much demand that it made no sense to keep them open, or if there was a so-called demand pocket for the vehicles at the moment.

And, we learned … none of that.

As I pointed out in my first article about the surprises, the reveal of the Model Y was the first time that I feel like Tesla acted fully like a major automaker for an announcement. A large segment of Tesla fans and market pundits are obsessed with hearing about every detail of how Tesla is doing what it is doing (and thanks for reading this article and visiting CleanTechnica!), but instead of feeding into that and potentially making statements that are difficult to follow through on, the Model Y announcement was a simple presentation walking people through the history of the company and explaining the next step.

Having said that, I started playing in the configurator for the Model Y and the interior is so similar to the Model 3 that I had to double check that I was still looking at a Model Y.

This is a guess, but I’m curious to hear what you think — we heard before from Elon Musk that the Tesla Model Y would use more than 75% of the same parts as the Model 3 (or ~76%). The interior is so similar, at least in the front, that I don’t see any parts beyond the rear-view mirror being redesigned to come down a bit further.

There had been statements put out by third parties that Tesla hadn’t contacted them to start ordering parts for the Model Y yet, which was held up by some as proof that Tesla was rushing this announcement. I’m now of the belief that the majority of the parts that Tesla doesn’t make itself will be identical to what is used in the Model 3.

To me, this is actually a hugely important bottom line — the amount of shared parts will enable Tesla to tightly control the costs on the Model Y, and I expect that combined with the experience the Silicon Valley company has from the Model 3 will allow Tesla to make a significant margin on every Model Y sold.

The parts that are different may mostly be in-house parts, like the doors, hood, and windshield.

Stay tuned for much more exclusive content from the Model Y event. CleanTechnica had three reporters on hand.

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Tesla Upgrading Its Supercharging Network To V3 For Next-Generation Speeds

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Published on March 4th, 2019 |

by Kyle Field

Tesla Upgrading Its Supercharging Network To V3 For Next-Generation Speeds

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March 4th, 2019 by Kyle Field

The rollout of Tesla’s next-generation Supercharging network is starting on Wednesday, according to a tweet by CEO Elon Musk late Sunday. The first public Supercharging point running at the company’s new version 3.0 spec will go live at 8pm on Wednesday, March 6th, 2019.

The Supercharging V3 spec is expected to level up Tesla’s charging network to compete with the cutting edge speeds of other next-generation public chargers, which are operating at speeds of 150–350kW. Tesla has not disclosed the specs for its Supercharger V3 stations. Though, CEO Elon Musk teased the twittersphere back in 2016 when asked if they would operate at 350kW. He playfully mocked the speed, leading to rampant speculation that Tesla’s next-generation chargers would raise the bar even further, and that was back in 2016!

Increasing the speed of its charging network was one of the critical pushes the company was working on to improve the availability of its Supercharging network in its home market of California and beyond. Increasing the speed of its Superchargers not only gets owners back on the road faster, it frees up the stations being utilized much faster, improving the overall power a station can provide to even more drivers per day.

On the financial side of things, investing more capital into the chargers themselves makes better use of the existing real estate agreements Tesla has in place. The move leverages Tesla’s increased access to capital, thereby improving the usefulness of its existing real estate agreements.

The offset is that the higher power chargers will pull down power from the utility even faster, incurring more demand charges with the utility. Demand charges are the fees ratepayers incur based on how fast they pull down power. The fatter the pipe and the more power they pull at one time, the higher the charges. To offset this, Tesla will install its Powerwall stationary energy storage units to serve as a buffer between their charging stations and the utility.

Take these for a grain of salt, but a redditor who claimed to have inside information from a Tesla employee said that the new standard included:

200kW actual charging speed
Cabinets can support 250kW max speed each
All Model 3 battery configurations can charge at these speeds
Supercharger V3 is a full redesign from previous generation
V3 chargers use the industrial inverters from Tesla’s Powerpacks
All V3 will eventually have much thinner liquid cables than current ones
Coolant pump will be located in the base of the Supercharger and can be installed into existing Supercharger V2 stations
Solar panels and Powerpack integration is a part of the design spec
Up to 7 V3 cabinets per bus (or block) can be linked, with an optional connection to one Power Pack
Supercharger V3 will have 40% better throughput performance thanks to a 96% efficiency inverter versus the 92% efficiency inverter in the Supercharger V2 units.

The new design also brings reduced harmonics and no over-voltage sensitivity
The new efficient design brings an impressive savings in purchased electricity

Combined AC input is 438kVA, 526A
Cabinets are on a shared DC radial configured bus of 880-1000
Any extra power can be shared across cabinets
Site master controller is 4G LTE for communication for remote diagnostics and billing

The new charging spec is simply the next step in Tesla’s full court press on the automotive industry. No other automaker has yet to truly push into solving public charging infrastructure needs for its vehicles. Even Volkswagen and its mandated Electrify America program is not adding enough public charging infrastructure to enable worry-free long-distance travel.

This is not brand favoritism — it is the simple reality of public EV charging networks in 2019. Compare a Hyundai Kona EV and a Tesla Model 3. They are both great cars, but the ability to simply head out on a 5 hour road trip without thinking about it (like you would in a gas or diesel vehicle) only exists in one of the two.

Other companies have public chargers that compete at the speeds being thrown around about Tesla’s Supercharger V3 network, but they are only pilot installations. More cohesive efforts to stitch together networks of next generation 150kW+ DC fast chargers are starting to be rolled out in Europe, but Tesla is leaps and bounds beyond anyone else when it comes to having a consistent product with easy access and more than 12,000 charging points in operation.

The big question with the rollout of the first Supercharging V3 station is about the capability of Tesla’s vehicles. Some of the older battery packs already can’t charge at the full power of today’s 125kW stations. The Model 3 has Tesla’s latest EV charging hardware in it, but nobody knows how fast it can actually take a charge.

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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