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New Tesla Home Charging Station Offers Faster Charging, Plus You Can Take It With You

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Cars Published on January 16th, 2019 | by Steve Hanley
New Tesla Home Charging Station Offers Faster Charging, Plus You Can Take It With YouTwitterLinkedInFacebookJanuary 16th, 2019 by Steve Hanley
Until now, Tesla offered its customers two home charging options — the Gen 2 Mobile Connector that comes standard with all new Teslas or a hard-wired wall-mounted charger. Now it is offering Tesla owners a third option — a new Wall Connector that can be plugged into a standard NEMA 14–50 receptacle commonly used for electric stoves. Why is that news?

The Gen 2 Mobile Connector also plugs into a NEMA 14-50 receptacle, but it has a maximum power of 32 amps. The Wall Connector has a maximum power of 40 amps, which means it can charge a car 25% faster — about 25 miles of range for every hour of charging. It comes with a 24 foot long cord, and when you leave home, you can unplug it and take it with you. Both units are available from Tesla at a cost of $500. The hard-wired wall charger is capable of higher power charging, but can’t be disconnected and taken along when you leave your garage for distant destinations.
If you have a NEMA 14-50 receptacle in your garage already, all you need to do is plug in the new Wall Connector and start charging. If not, you will need to hire an electrician to install one for you. (High-amperage electrical wiring is not something for amateurs to experiment with.)
Faster charging than the Gen 2 Mobile Connector but less money than a hard-wired connection, the Wall Connector will be the right charging solution for many Tesla owners. Portability is just icing on the cake. It is available from Tesla now in any color, as long as that color is silver and black.

Like all Tesla products, the new Wall Connector is the beneficiary of sleek, contemporary styling. It looks at first glance like a miniature version of the original Powerwall residential storage battery. Not all charging equipment is as stylish. Once again, Tesla is out ahead and leading the way in the electric car revolution.

About the AuthorSteve 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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Breaking News: General Motors May Build Electric Trucks One Day In The Far Distant Future

News flash! GM might consider making an electric pickup truck some day in the far distant future if people are willing to pay enough to make it worth the company's while. OK. We can all go back to sleep now.

Elon Musk & Tesla Slice Through China–US Trade Challenges With Focus On Helping Humanity

Editor's note: Aside from the useful article below, we have breaking news out of China that Shanghai Gigafactory construction is speeding up. We'll start with that news

Tesla Model 3 Wins (Another) Resale Value Competition — But Kelley Blue Book Awards Sort Of F***ed Up

Less than 3 weeks ago, Michael Barnard conducted an analysis for CleanTechnica examining the resale value of the Tesla Model 3 compared to competitors. The conclusion was that the Model 3 was dramatically better at holding its value than other cars in its class

Afraid Of Driverless Technology? PAVE Hopes To Persuade You Of AV Safety

A new coalition of diverse organizations wants to educate the US public and policymakers about autonomous vehicles

Does Hype Around Big Auto’s EVs Help Or Hurt Tesla?

While it's been slow to cut the umbilical cord from gas (and diesel) powered cars, Big Auto is starting to open up to vehicle electrification. This has sparked speculation, especially from financial pundits, that Tesla's days are numbered. Would Big Auto's newfound interest in clean cars squash the Silicon Valley upstart? Or, would their impact draw more attention to the electric car innovator

Solar Roofing Is The Focus Of Standard Industries’ New GAF Energy Unit

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Clean Power Published on January 19th, 2019 | by Charles W. Thurston
Solar Roofing Is The Focus Of Standard Industries’ New GAF Energy UnitTwitterLinkedInFacebookJanuary 19th, 2019 by Charles W. Thurston
Boosting solar roofing growth with the DecoTech is the mandate of GAF Energy, a new company formed under the Standard Industries wing. The new entity will assist customers with planning, financing, permitting with utilities, and installation in a streamlined approach, the company says.

“As the largest global player in roofing and waterproofing, we will reshape the way clean solar energy becomes a reality for everyone,” said David Millstone, co-CEO of Standard Industries. The new unit will help focus on the DecoTech product, which GAF began developing in 2008 and first installed in 2017.
The DecoTech is a product midway between a very low-profile Tesla solar shingle and a mounting-bracket supported add-on system. The DecoTech is installed at the same time as a home is partially re-roofed, so that the new roofing helps hide the solar panel. The patented installation process renders the roof watertight.
Unlike Tesla or RGS shingles that are integrated components, the DecoTech system relies on off-the-shelf 60-cell solar panels, to avoid the cost of proprietary manufacturing, the company says. The DecoTech carries a 25-year warranty. An additional lifetime guarantee also is available, which offers extended coverage for labor.
“Our unique design does allow for module level power electronics and we have installs already with MIs and DC optimizers. We will standardize on a power electronics solution but all options are available to us based on our superior engineering,” says Martin DeBono, president of GAF Energy. .
The cost of the DecoTech roof is expected to be on par with standalone solar. “Our unique technology that allows solar to be sold and installed by roofers enables cost savings in sales and install that offsets the increased costs of a solar roof,” says DeBono. That cost is expected to decline with volume to parity, the company suggests.
The cost may also be defrayed with additional offerings from the company, such as monitoring, EV connections, and energy management. “Distributed generation of the future will require seamless integration across storage and EVs and we will have an offering to satisfy that requirement,” says DeBono.
The system will be sold through networks of certified roofers. “We are best positioned to accelerate the growth of residential solar with over a century of waterproofing experience and the largest network of roofing distributors and contractors in the world,” said David Winter, co-CEO of Standard Industries in a January 10 statement.
Using roofers to offer solar will tap the large annual US market for new roofs, a potential pool of 5 million roofs, according to one industry estimate. Of this number only about 300,000 customers opt for solar as well, according to Energy Sage. The US demand for roofing was projected to amount to 268 million squares (a 10 foot by 10 foot area) in 2017, valued at $27.2 billion,” said the Freedonia Group in a 2017 study.
Sageworks, a financial information company, was cited by Forbes recently as saying sales among privately held roofing contractors have increased, on average, 14% in the 12 months ended May 1, 2018.
“The scale of the roofing industry is an order of magnitude greater than the solar industry,” says DeBono. “GAF Energy can now give those customers a simple option: a roof or a solar roof.” While the dollar amount of the roofing market is greater than solar, it also is growing faster; the growth of solar was flat during 2018, although recovery is widely anticipated.
“GAF Energy capitalizes on the historic challenges facing the rooftop solar industry – acquisition and installation costs – and turns them into demonstrable strengths – making it easy for customers to say ‘yes’ to solar rooftops,” said DeBono, in the statement.
The DecoTech system should help retrofit part of the US historic stock of homes roofed with sub-standard roofing material. “The US experienced a number of severe weather events in 2016 that caused extensive roof damage in many parts of the country, necessitating the repair and replacement of thousands of roofs. This surge in re-roofing jobs was in large part due to the fact that many structures are outfitted with roofing materials that do not meet modern building codes for storm resistance,” says a July market analysis of US residential roofing by Research and Markets.
“Going forward, home and business owners will undertake roof renovation projects to replace these older products with more durable materials – such as laminated asphalt shingles, metal roofing, and polymer-modified bituminous membranes – that can better withstand high winds and heavy precipitation,” the study says.
GAF began operations in 1886 and has a network of 5,000 certified contractors. The company manufactures well over 1 million roofs annually in North America. GAF Energy works in partnership with North America’s largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer, GAF, offering affordable, integrated and aesthetic rooftop solar options to residential and commercial customers.

About the AuthorCharles W. Thurston Charles specializes in renewable energy, from finance to technological processes. Among key areas of focus are bifacial panels and solar tracking. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years, living and working in locations ranging from Brazil to Papua New Guinea.

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As GM Plant Closure Looms In Ohio, Interest In Tesla Grows

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Autonomous Vehicles Published on January 23rd, 2019 | by Guest Contributor
As GM Plant Closure Looms In Ohio, Interest In Tesla GrowsTwitterLinkedInFacebookJanuary 23rd, 2019 by Guest Contributor
Originally published on EVANNEX
By Charles Morris
In November, GM announced plans to stop producing most of its sedans and close down five North American factories, including a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that produces the doomed Chevrolet Cruze. Some have speculated that Tesla might be interested in buying some of the soon-to-be-shuttered plants, perhaps repeating the coup the company scored when it purchased its Fremont factory from Toyota for a song in 2010. Elon Musk and Ohio Governor John Kasich batted the possibility around on Twitter, but GM CEO Mary Barra recently threw cold water on the idea, saying that Tesla wouldn’t want to buy a unionized factory.
Tesla Model S (Image: EVANNEX)It remains to be seen whether a Tesla takeover of GM’s Lordstown Complex is a realistic possibility or not. However, it’s safe to assume that folks who live in the area of the plant, which employs some 4,500 people (nearly 1,000 more than live in the village of Lordstown) are deeply concerned about its future, and many are interested in learning more about Tesla.
“After GM builds its last Cruze in Lordstown, no one knows what will come next,” says news anchor Dave Sess of Youngstown TV station WKBN in in a recent segment. “The automaker does plan a shift into electric cars, though. I found a local Tesla driver and wondered what an all-electric car was like on the road, so I went for a ride with him to find out.”

New Castle resident Russ Carley talks about his Tesla (Youtube: WKBN27)
New Castle resident Russ Carley is a high-mileage driver — he put 100,000 miles on two Toyota Prii before ordering his Model S in July 2017. He says he had to wait 14 months for delivery, but so far he’s a happy customer — he loves “the smoothness, the modern technology and all the whizzes and bangs and bells,” and finds that “for all the miles I drive, [it is] really cost-effective.”
Regular readers of this column may smile at the gee-whiz tone of WKBN’s report, but keep in mind that it’s aimed at viewers who may be entirely unfamiliar with Tesla, and may not even be aware that an electric car is a viable option. “There’s plenty of mystique when you see a Tesla on the road,” says WKBN’s Sess. “It’s so quiet you only hear the tires on the road.”
Image: Chevy Bolt by Tina Casey
Carley bought his Tesla for its cutting-edge technology, and he loves it when people recognize the car. He believes electric cars are the wave of the future, and that building them could be a long-term answer for the workers of Lordstown.

About the AuthorGuest 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’s Latest Letter Sends Shock Waves Through Wall Street

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Published on January 20th, 2019 |

by Steve Hanley

Elon’s Latest Letter Sends Shock Waves Through Wall Street

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January 20th, 2019 by Steve Hanley

As Tesla was going through “production hell” with the Model 3 last year, Elon Musk tweeted that he had underestimated the value of human workers. The Model 3 assembly line was the most highly automated in the world, but many of the machines were not calibrated properly or broke down, leading to slowdowns. Tesla responded by hiring more workers, expanding its workforce by about 30%.

On January 18, the company announced it is laying off about 7% of its full-time workers and warned that profits in the fourth quarter would be lower than in the previous quarter. Q3 saw a modest profit for the company of just under 4%. For Q4, Elon says the company once again will be profitable but that profit will be lower than in Q3. And for Q1 2019, Tesla might see a “tiny” profit. The actual Q4 numbers won’t be released officially until the next shareholder and analyst conference call in early February. (In the meantime, if you’re interested, Vijay has published his estimates.)

Musk justified the decision to lay off about 3,000 workers by saying the company needs to find ways to reduce the cost of its cars. “Looking ahead at our mission of accelerating the advent of sustainable transport and energy, which is important for all life on Earth, we face an extremely difficult challenge: making our cars, batteries and solar products cost-competitive with fossil fuels.

“While we have made great progress, our products are still too expensive for most people. Tesla has only been producing cars for about a decade and we’re up against massive, entrenched competitors. The net effect is that Tesla must work much harder than other manufacturers to survive while building affordable, sustainable products.

“[T]he road ahead is very difficult. This is not new for us — we have always faced significant challenges — but it is the reality we face. There are many companies that can offer a better work-life balance, because they are larger and more mature or in industries that are not so voraciously competitive. Attempting to build affordable clean energy products at scale necessarily requires extreme effort and relentless creativity, but succeeding in our mission is essential to ensure that the future is good, so we must do everything we can to advance the cause.

“Higher volume and manufacturing design improvements are crucial for Tesla to achieve the economies of scale required to manufacture the standard range (220 mile), standard interior Model 3 at $35k and still be a viable company. There isn’t any other way.”

The news sent Tesla stock into free fall, shedding 13% during the trading day on Friday and knocking Tesla down a few notches on the list of most valuable automakers — from #4 to #7.

And, of course, it brought the usual assortment of “I told you years ago Tesla would never amount to anything” naysayers on Wall Street. One of them is Forbes contributor Jim Collins, who wrote that going backwards on quarterly profits is exactly the opposite of what investors want to hear.

“That margin decrement would indicate that the benefits of scale are not occurring at all at Tesla, and that is a virtual death blow to the bullish arguments for the stock. Auto companies are generally perceived to have some monstrously large mass of fixed costs that can be amortized over production, and thus more output should equal both higher dollar profits and higher profit margins.” (Collins ignored what anyone following Tesla very closely knew — Tesla sold a large number of very high-cost, high-margin versions of the Model 3 in the 3rd quarter, and then many of the more affordable Model 3 Mid Range in the 4th quarter.)

Bret Kenwell, writing for The Street, worried that the decline in share price would make it difficult for Tesla to pay off the $920 million in convertible bonds coming due on March 1. “In the third quarter, Tesla was cash-flow positive and profitable, and so long as that’s the case in the fourth quarter, Tesla should be able to make the payment in March, even if it is all cash. However, it will come at an unfortunate time for Tesla, as it tries to get its Shanghai factory open before the end of the year, continues to expand its Supercharger Network and has a number of new models in the pipeline.”

Tesla has been doing a high-wire act for the past 15 years. Many analysts and journalists were claiming Tesla’s imminent death 10 years ago. Its stock is one of the most volatile and always has been. Chances are, it will continue to be. The conversion price for those convertible bonds is $359.88. “[I]t’s always possible that Tesla stock will be able to rally above that conversion price in time to pay part of the debt with stock. After all, it’s more than a month away and we’ve seen crazier things than a 20% rally in Tesla’s share price in a short time period,” Kenwell writes.

What it all comes down to is, do you trust Elon Musk or not? Some very large investors — like Tencent, Baillie Gifford, Ron Baron, and Larry Ellison — have placed bets on Elon and Tesla. Perhaps jittery stockholders should pay more attention to what the company’s major investors are saying rather than the words of a few so-called analysts who get paid to stir the pot.

As Elon says, the road ahead will be difficult. The 3,000 people getting laid off can’t be very happy about being out of work. Despite the pressure and difficult working conditions, Tesla is still viewed as one of the best places to work in the industry. The bottom line is that Musk knows his overall plan relies on making electric cars that more people can afford. That’s good news for the electric car revolution going forward but the path will not always be smooth.

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 Raises Supercharger Prices Worldwide, Flirts With Chinese Battery Manufacturers

Tesla is busy searching out ways to improve profitability whether by laying off workers, ending its referral program, or doing business with battery companies other than Panasonic. That's good news for long term investors as the company reaches maturity.