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Big Auto’s Decision To “Wait & See” Gives Tesla A Growing Lead

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Published on June 19th, 2020 |

by Guest Contributor

Big Auto’s Decision To “Wait & See” Gives Tesla A Growing Lead

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June 19th, 2020 by Guest Contributor

Originally published on the EV Annex blog.
By Charles Morris

By most accounts, Tesla’s EV technology is about 5 years ahead of anything any other automaker can muster. For a decade or so now, we’ve been hearing that the legacy brands are preparing a wave of “Tesla killers” that will bury the pesky disruptor, but there’s still no sign of that.

The majors’ EV strategies are best described as “wait and see.” They’ll continue developing their electric tech, but will produce just enough vehicles to satisfy government regulations, as they patiently watch what Tesla does. The problem with this approach, of course, is that Tesla won’t be standing still — it will be expanding its lead in Gigafactories, battery tech, software, charging, and manufacturing efficiency.

On Wall Street this week, Jefferies analyst Phillippe Houchois boosted his Tesla price target to $1,200 from $650. With Tesla, Houchois says “the gap with peers is widening” as the company “continues to challenge legacy original-equipment manufacturers.”

This is not to say incumbent automakers are idle. Some are producing good-quality EVs, and a couple have ambitious plans for an electric future. However, in terms of volume, it’s plain that none have any real plans to challenge Tesla’s dominance in the EV market.

GM recently teased a new generation of EVs, and its publicity machine has been hyping the company’s “electric future” for some time. However, in a recent appearance on Bloomberg Television’s Leadership Live program (via CNET’s Road Show), CEO Mary Barra reiterated that she sees the electric transition playing out over decades. Asked how long it would be until all vehicles on the road are electric, Barra said it would be over 20 years.

Over at Ford, the vaunted electric F-150, which could be a game-changer not only for Ford, but for the entire auto industry, won’t be on the road for at least another two years. Ford COO Jim Farley told CNBC that electric versions of the F-150 and Ford Transit van will make it to market by mid-2022. Meanwhile, the company is putting most of its marketing muscle behind a new version of the fossil-fueled F-150, which is to be unveiled July 25. “The [legacy gas-powered] F-150, that is our key launch this year,” said Farley.

As Farley is certainly aware, several electric pickups, including Tesla’s Cybertruck, Rivian’s electric pickup and Lordstown’s Momentum pickup, aimed at fleet buyers, are all supposed to make the scene in 2021 (to say nothing of GM’s halo-model Hummer).

Tesla’s stock price ascension recently led it to become the world’s most valuable automaker. (Source: Visual Capitalist, using YCharts data.)

Is this starting to sound like the beginning of a slow death spiral for the old-line auto brands? Wait, it gets worse. Tesla has several intangible assets that other carmakers are unlikely ever to match. One of these, as Professor Bradford Cornell points out in a recent article in ValueWalk, is its association with the inspirational SpaceX. The recent successful launch of two astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft generated a huge amount of goodwill. Some of this stardust rubbed off on Tesla, and that’s surely one of the reasons for TSLA’s current lofty stock price.

Space travel may have little to do with cars, but SpaceX is a much-needed source of pride in America, proof that we can still do great things. I need hardly point out that no other automaker has anything remotely like this going for it. “Somehow the competitors have to convince both investors and future car buyers that they have the talent and creativity to compete with Musk, even if they are not putting astronauts into orbit,” writes Professor Cornell. “To date, they have been markedly deficient in that respect.”

As I’ve pointed out so many times, auto industry execs are far from naïve about what’s going on. Volkswagen’s Herbert Diess recently invoked the historic Crew Dragon launch to rally his executives. As Bloomberg reports, Diess told a gathering of the company’s top management that they should take inspiration from SpaceX’s momentous achievement.

The troops at VW could surely use a morale-booster right about now. CNBC reports that Diess was just replaced as CEO of its core VW car brand due to pernicious “software glitches” as the company preps its ID.3 electric car. In the management reshuffle, Diess will still retain his title as head of Volkswagen Group. [Editor’s note: Alex Voigt provides much more details on these matters, probably the most in English media, in “Volkswagen, Where Are You Going?” and “There Will Be Blood — Peter Mertens, Former Head of Audi R&D: ‘We All Did Sleep’.”]

In addition, it appears the coronavirus-related slowdown could have a negative impact on VW’s electrification plans. “We must significantly cut R&D expenditure, investments and fixed costs compared with the previous planning,” Diess recently told the German trade publication Automobilwoche.

Of all the legacy automakers, VW is the one that seems the most serious about electrification at the moment, and it would be a shame to see it back off its plans. Likewise, it’s a shame to see Ford and GM stand on the sidelines as other, newer companies try to get the market for electric pickup trucks rolling. There’s no schadenfreude here — we’d be delighted to see one or more of the legacy brands mount a credible challenge to Tesla, and so would Elon Musk, as he’s said many times. Unfortunately, trapped by the Innovator’s Dilemma, the men and one woman in the corner offices are apparently compelled to wait and see.

Video above: Tesla’s position relative to legacy OEM’s “wait-and-see” EV strategy (Source: CNBC)

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 To Drop Autopilot’s Green Light Confirmation In Coming Software Update — Confirmed

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Published on June 18th, 2020 |

by Zachary Shahan

Tesla To Drop Autopilot’s Green Light Confirmation In Coming Software Update — Confirmed

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June 18th, 2020 by Zachary Shahan

First of all, a note on how Tesla rolls out software updates for its cars: The updates roll out in waves, but before any “normal owners” get the updates, some people in the “Early Access” program get to test the updated software for a while. The Early Access people who get the updates ahead of others (the process is sort of complicated, don’t ask) may have the updated software for days, weeks, or even months before others get it. The idea is for Tesla to check for bugs and refine it before putting the software in cars where the owners didn’t agree to essentially be a software feature tester.

Now, a brief note on Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” suite: Tesla’s vehicles cannot drive you from your front door to Target on their own. However, they can come pretty close to that. They don’t yet leave a parking space on their own after you put a destination in. You can “summon” them out of a parking space with your phone app in a couple of ways, but you have to engage with the car via the phone to do so. Also, the car won’t make turns on its own. If you put on “Navigate on Autopilot,” the car will drive you from onramp to offramp of a major highway (i.e., Interstate) on its own, but it won’t yet drive itself around traffic on roads with lights and proper turns.

The latest update of the Full Self Driving suite added the ability for the car to recognize stop signs and lights and automatically stop for you (if you have Autopilot on). However, probably the biggest disappointment for owners when getting this exciting new feature was that the car would stop for all lights, including green ones, not just red and yellow lights. It’s not exactly relaxing to have to tell the car at every green light to go through it, even if it is still a bit exciting due to the clear option that’s around the corner.

Rumor is, Tesla is going to remove the requirement to tell the car to go through a green light in the next software update. Or, more precisely, the rumor is that it’s going to soon update the software for some Early Access drivers to do this. (Update: This is not really a rumor at this point, as it has been confirmed with photos of the software update description.)

Simply put, Tesla vehicles will be able to drive through green lights on their own in coming months or weeks.

The next steps after that to get to full Full Self Driving (if that makes sense) are:

The car takes turns on its own.
The car drives from a road through a parking lot to a parking space on its own (and vice versa).
The car does #2 and then parks on its own.

There are surely other necessary updates — like going through roundabouts, which is reportedly coming very soon as well — but the above three updates would be the big three to finish out the Full Self Driving software suite as many of us imagine it.

I could put my destination, whether it be the beach or Disney World, into the navigation system. The car would show the route it’s going to take. Upon confirmation that I’m ready to go, the car would drive me out of my parking space, through the parking lot, to a local road, and then make all turns and decisions to drive through lights or not on its own.

It feels like we’re almost there. However, there are still many edge cases and I can’t say I’m super duper confident that Tesla vehicles will soon-ish be granted the ability to make turns on its own, let alone drive through parking lots without my finger pressing down on the app. I may be wrong, but it’s just hard to imagine updates 1–3 being implemented anytime in the coming year.

As soon as we get genuine confirmation that Tesla vehicles (Early Access ones at least) get the ability to drive through green lights 100% on their own, we’ll be sure to let you know. It will be an exciting day! It is sure to also make many people nervous, and I can picture the headlines across major media sites now. The tech will have to be flawless, which would be significantly better than humans. Keep in mind that many an accident happens in an intersection.

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About the Author

Zachary Shahan is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. 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, Canada, and Curaçao.

Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA] — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in this company and feels like it is a good cleantech company to invest in. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort on Tesla or any other company.

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Audi Shines In Transition Month In Germany — Charts

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Published on June 18th, 2020 |

by Jose Pontes

Audi Shines In Transition Month In Germany — Charts

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June 18th, 2020 by Jose Pontes

With the German auto market slowly recovering from the pandemic-related lockdown, dropping just 50% year over year (YoY) in May, the local plugin market stepped up the growth pace last month, having registered 12,333 units, up 56% YoY. The growth was mostly thanks to PHEVs, which jumped an amazing 107%(!). Last month’s plugin share reached 7.3% (3.3% full electric vehicles/BEVs), keeping the yearly tally at 7.6% (3.7% BEV).

With the recent incentive changes, it is expected that the German plugin market will return to warp speed soon. Although, much is expected to be due to increased sales of plugin hybrids that are already the majority of plugin vehicle (PEV) sales this year (48% BEV vs 52% PHEV). They should increase their lead throughout the summer, at least until a certain Volkswagen ID.3 lands in September … but more on that later.

PHEVs or not, the truth is that thanks to the incentives boost, we could reach the 10% milestone already this year, something that would make 2021 a very interesting year to follow. … (wink, wink, disruption, wink, wink)

Regarding last month’s best sellers, in May the Volkswagen e-Golf got the top spot again, with the German brand milking its hatchback to the last drop, thanks to generous discounts. It seems the veteran model is set to end its career on a high note.

Another veteran, the Audi A3 PHEV, is also benefitting from a second spring, managing to win its first podium position in years thanks to a surprising record of 732 registrations, an amazing feat for a model that is supposed to be in its last months. Talk about leaving with a bang!

In fact, Audi can celebrate its May performance overall, as it placed 3 models in the top 6 spots! The A3 PHEV was in 3rd, the e-tron BEV in 4th, and the Q5 PHEV in 5th, tied with the Mercedes E300e/de. Not bad, Audi, not bad at all.

Regarding the 2020 table, the podium positions remained the same, with each model consolidating its position, and they should stay the same until September, when a certain VW ID.3 delivers some 8,000 units (wild guess) at once, landing immediately on (or close to) the podium. It should kick its predecessor off the throne during the following months. Also in September, the Tesla Model 3 should benefit from its usual end-of-quarter peak to try to displace the Renault Zoe from the podium, stealing at the same time the Best Selling Foreigner title from the French hatchback.

The PHEV race will also be interesting. We’ll see if last year’s leader, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, is the winner again. The Japanese SUV has been losing gas charge and now has the #5 VW Passat GTE just 14 units behind, but the Volkswagen midsizer might not enjoy the plugin hybrid throne for long, as the rising Audi A3 PHEV that was up 3 spots last month, to #7, is currently outpacing the competition. Although, one wonders for how long, as the Audi hatchback is on the last legs of its 6-year career.

With all of this, even the #8 Mercedes E300e/de family might have a shot at winning the PHEV category, especially now that, thanks to the new incentives, the PHEV versions will become even more price-competitive compared to their fossil fuel siblings. Mercedes better find an extra supply of batteries for the E300, because they will surely be in demand.

Speaking of the big Mercedes, in the luxury category, the Audi e-tron surpassed it, reaching the 6th position and becoming the new top dog in this high-end race. And the good news for Audi doesn’t stop there, as its Q5 PHEV SUV was up also, in this case one position, to #12.

But it wasn’t only Audi models that shined, because the 371 registrations of the #14 Hyundai Kona EV, a new year best, also deserve a mention, while the Smart Fortwo EV and the Volvo S/V60 PHEV twins each climbed a spot in the table, with the tiny two-seater now at #15 while the Swedes are at #16.

We have two new entries at the bottom of the table, both from BMW, which added its X3 PHEV (385 units in May, a new record) at #19 and the bigger X5 PHEV (280 units) at #20, putting four BMWs in the top 20.

Outside the top 20, a reference is due to the Ford Kuga PHEV, which had a record 422 registrations last month, a new record. That should help it reach a top 20 position soon, which would be a first for the Dearborn automaker, and a good omen for the future Mustang Mach-E.

In the brand ranking, Volkswagen (16%) leads the way, while Audi (11%, up 2 points) profited from its good performance in May to return to the runner-up spot, displacing BMW (10%), now in the last place of the podium.

Off the podium, the #4 Mercedes (8%) and #5 Renault (7%, down 1 point) are running behind.

Here are the same charts as above but with “Others” added:

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About the Author

Jose Pontes Always interested in the auto industry, particularly in electric cars, Jose has been overviewing the sales evolution of plug-ins through the EV Sales blog since 2012, allowing him to gain an expert view on where EVs are right now and where they are headed in the future. The EV Sales blog has become a go-to source for people interested in electric car sales around the world. Extending that work and expertise, Jose is now a partner in EV-Volumes and works with the European Alternative Fuels Observatory on EV sales matters.

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Testing A Tesla Model 3’s Battery Degradation After 14 Months & 60,000 Kilometers

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Published on June 17th, 2020 |

by Johnna Crider

Testing A Tesla Model 3’s Battery Degradation After 14 Months & 60,000 Kilometers

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June 17th, 2020 by Johnna Crider

Bjørn Nyland has shared a video on YouTube about his Tesla Model 3 Performance degradation testing. He’s had his Model 3 for 14 months. This test involves a long drive on a single charge. Just as he gets started on his drive, the navigation shows that if he is to stay below 85 km per hour, he can reach his destination, a Supercharger.

After a quick restroom break at a random gas station, the battery’s charge was down to 80%. At three hours in, the battery is down to 49.8%. Nyland explained in the video that he was halfway toward his destination and that the vehicle spent 34kWh. He was also driving at 80 km/h.

One thing he didn’t plan for was the accident that slowed down traffic during his journey. He had to take a detour and the car was at 10% charge. The detour made the trip a little bit longer — so he was really pushing it. He made it to his Supercharger and the final results were 132 kWh spent, with his battery level at 3.2%.

How Much Degradation Was There?
According to the battery management system he is using, the Model 3 was supposed to get 69.3 kWh, but Nyland’s numbers show that he only got 68.8 kWh —0.7 kWh missing. Nyland explained that the missing kWh was heat loss and that the BMS doesn’t account for it.

Nyland says that the battery’s degradation was 6% from the time he got it. The battery on April 27, 2019, was 73 kWh — 68.8kWh/73 kWh equaled to 0.942, which translated to a 6% degradation. “In the end, what matters is how many kilowatt-hours you can get out of the battery,” Nyland said in the video.

The video also includes some beautiful scenes of Norway from Nyland’s point of view.

Images: Screenshots of Bjørn Nyland’s video.

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Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge artist, gem and mineral collector, and Tesla shareholder who believes in Elon Musk and Tesla. Elon Musk advised her in 2018 to “Believe in Good.”

Tesla is one of many good things to believe in. You can find Johnna on Twitter

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Tesla Now Focused On Volume Production Of Tesla Semi — Leaked Email From Elon Musk Confirmed

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Published on June 10th, 2020 |

by Johnna Crider

Tesla Now Focused On Volume Production Of Tesla Semi — Leaked Email From Elon Musk Confirmed

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June 10th, 2020 by Johnna Crider

Donny Dolittle shared a screenshot of a leaked June 9 email from Elon Musk regarding the Tesla Semi, indicating that it is finally going into production. Elon has now confirmed on Twitter that he did indeed send the email.

The email goes as follows: “It’s time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production. It’s been in limited production so far, which has allowed us to improve many aspects of the design. Production of the battery and powertrain would take place at Giga Nevada, with most of the other work probably occurring in other states. Jerome and I are very excited to work with you to bring this amazing product to market!”

For more on Tesla President Jerome Guillen and the start of the Tesla Semi program, seee:

Jerome — The Man, The Myth, The Tesla Super-Engineer — #CleanTechnica Interview
Our Interview With Tesla President Jerome Guillen, Part Deux

One key from this short, yet exciting email:

The production of the battery for the Tesla Semi will take place at the Sparks, NV, Gigafactory. So will the powertrain. Elon Musk once noted that the main reason that Tesla hasn’t ramped up the Semi’s production was lack of battery cells. Apparently, battery production has really ramped up, especially considering that Model Y production just began last quarter.

Whenever Battery Day does arrive, we will have a lot to look forward to. I’ve never been excited about batteries before — not until Tesla.

In Tesla’s Q1 2020 earnings report, Elon Musk said that Tesla will delay production and deliveries of the Semi until 2021. It’s been an intense three years since the unveiling of the Tesla Semi and Tesla is now doing pretty well in meeting its goals, but this volume production launch is surprising. Perhaps Tesla has made a battery production breakthrough.

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About the Author

Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge artist, gem and mineral collector, and Tesla shareholder who believes in Elon Musk and Tesla. Elon Musk advised her in 2018 to “Believe in Good.”

Tesla is one of many good things to believe in. You can find Johnna on Twitter

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VAYA Africa Launches VAYA Electric, Positions Itself For Growth Across Africa

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Published on May 29th, 2020 |

by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai

VAYA Africa Launches VAYA Electric, Positions Itself For Growth Across Africa

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May 29th, 2020 by Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai

We recently looked at how evCrowdRoute and GridCars are rolling out EV charging networks in South Africa. Now VAYA Africa, a Mauritius-registered Transportation as a Service (TaaS) company, has launched an electric vehicle service in South Africa’s northern neighbor, Zimbabwe.

This is part of the company’s rollout strategy across Africa. Starting with Zimbabwe makes a lot of sense. Zimbabwe has been experiencing petrol and diesel shortages for the past 3 years. Filling up an ICE vehicle’s tank can be quite a challenge in Zimbabwe, and it could involve waiting in a queue at a petrol station all day! This is downtime TaaS providers cannot afford. Drivers of ICE vehicles are more likely to suffer from range anxiety in Zimbabwe than owners of EVs who can charge at home or at the office from the grid when its available or from solar.

One of VAYA’s Nissan Leafs at the Launch of VAYA ELECTRIC. Image courtesy of VAYA

“We are excited to launch the ‘VAYA Electric’ vehicle today as we start our journey of deploying innovative ways of harnessing clean, renewable energy to provide safe and convenient transportation services to the public on the African continent,” said Mrs Dorothy Zimuto, the CEO of Vaya Mobility in Harare.

Dorothy Zimuto, CEO VAYA Mobility. Image courtesy of VAYA.

She said VAYA Africa planned to roll out the VAYA Electric vehicles in West and East Africa soon, saying the vehicles would include a range of multi-purpose vehicles. “Our e-vehicle fleet will include passenger vehicles, motorbikes, vans, buses and dump trucks, all utilizing our VAYA hail riding platform. We believe this dovetails well with our vision of driving inclusive technology growth across Africa,” Mrs Zimuto said.

The transition to electromobility is gaining momentum with over 7 million electric passenger vehicles now on the road worldwide, according to the Electric Vehicle Outlook 2020 from BloombergNEF. There are also now over 500,000 e-buses, almost 400,000 electric delivery vans/trucks, 184 million electric mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles on the road globally. It’s good to start seeing more developments in Africa in the EV space. In this transition, there are many infrastructural aspects that need to be assessed and addressed along with several milestones that would need to be met along the way. These issues span across several fields including the local grid networks, power uptime, operations, and maintenance, as well as having a human resource pool of technical experts. These would be critical in rolling out a large EV charging and EV service ecosystem across Africa.

This is where Vaya, and Ugesi Energy, also a subsidiary of Econet Global, can leverage on the experience of the Econet Group. The Group has rolled out large infrastructure networks and projects across Africa. For example, Liquid Telecom has built Africa’s largest independent fiber network, spanning over 70,000 km, and operates state-of-the-art data centers in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Nairobi, with a combined potential 19,000 square meters of rack space and 78 MW of power.

One of VAYA’s driver partners plugging in a Nissan Leaf. Image courtesy of VAYA

Running a telecommunications network involves operating and maintaining a lot of power assets with thousands of sites. These can range from small 5 kW microgrids on Telco Towers to megawatt data and switching centers. The Econet Group already has a template and processes that it can roll out for its EV charging infrastructure, from site acquisition and leases with landlords and permitting from local councils and other related bodies. They already have teams of power engineers and technicians. The same technician that is probably on his way to a Telco Base station on one of the regular preventative or corrective maintenance runs can go and attend to an EV charger on their way. All these put them in a good position on the previously mentioned infrastructure milestones.

VAYA Electric will be part of VAYA Africa’s VAYA Premium service, a passenger service available on the VAYA Africa application that offers a wide variety of VAYA services – including logistics services.

Describing the customer fulfillment process, Mrs Zimuto said in order to enjoy a ride, one simply downloads the VAYA Africa App and looks for the Mobility Option. “They select the Electric Vehicle and this prompts them to choose the pickup and destination addresses, before requesting a ride,” she said.

She added that the App provided for convenient payment options, including mobile money payment, payment by VISA, MasterCard, or any other international debit or credit cards options.

“Electric vehicles have zero emissions and our aim is to ensure that all vehicles we have on the VAYA platform in the next ten years are electric vehicles,” said Mrs Zimuto, whose VAYA Africa service currently operates the largest hail riding service in Zimbabwe.

Part of the 100 kW Solar Carport at Econet Park, Msasa, Harare, Zimbawe. Image Courtesy of Econet.

It’s good to see VAYA move to reduce emissions of vehicles on its platform. Econet Wireless has also moved to reduce emissions by installing solar PV at all its facilities and Telco Towers. Vaya has already installed charging stations at Econet Park in Harare, where the Nissan Leafs will also charge from solar. Econet Park has a 100 kW carport PV system installed on its campus. The move by VAYA Africa and Econet demonstrates the beauty of combining solar and EVs. The image below shows the generation and consumption profile on a typical weekend before installation of EV chargers.

The Solar Generation and Consumption profile on a typical weekend at Econet Park before installation of EV chargers. Image extracted from the SolarEdge Monitoring Platform.

From the profile, we can see that the building’s consumption is reduced on weekends as the load drops from a peak of over 100 kW on weekdays to about 40 kW on weekends. About 223 kWh can then be available for several VAYA EVs to soak up all that clean electricity in between their trips. 223 kWh is good enough for almost 9 full charges for 24 kWh Nissan Leafs and almost 7 full charges for the 30 kWh Nissan Leafs. Econet has also rolled out a first-of-its-kind and also the largest deployment of AC-coupled Li-ion batteries in the telecoms sector, deploying Tesla’s Powerwall 2s on its network, which we covered here .

Mrs Zimuto says electric vehicles will provide cost savings of up to 40% on the major running costs of fuel and regular maintenance, in comparison to vehicles that run on fossil fuels. They stand to save even more from increased PV contribution on weekends in places where excess solar generation is available.

“The benefits of the use of e-vehicles will be less frequent services and fewer scheduled vehicle maintenance check-ins than ordinary combustion engines. They will require minimal scheduled maintenance for their electrical systems, such as the battery and electrical motors. Other parts such as brakes also last longer because of their regenerative braking systems, where the battery is charged when braking,” Mrs Zimuto said.

Mrs Zimuto said e-vehicles would be charged on solar or on grid-tied electric charging stations across the country.

“Our electric vehicles will be charged on charging stations deployed across the country, built by Ugesi Energy, a subsidiary of Econet Global, to offer e-vehicle owners charging options just about anywhere around the country,” Mrs Zimuto said.

She added that VAYA Africa had provided for financing for the purchase of the VAYA Electric, which is great as it will lower the barriers for adoption and more driver partners on its platform can switch to electric.

“VAYA Africa has positioned itself as an enabler in the hail riding value chain. So, we will import the electric vehicles of various brands and at the same time facilitate loans to qualifying clients and VAYA partners through Steward Bank specifically for the purchase of the e-vehicles,” Mrs Zimuto said.

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Did Audi Copy Tesla’s Website For Its FAQs Page? 👀

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Published on April 23rd, 2020 |

by Johnna Crider

Did Audi Copy Tesla’s Website For Its FAQs Page? 👀

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April 23rd, 2020 by Johnna Crider

Did Audi copy Tesla’s website to create its EV FAQs page? It sure looks that way. Twitter user CillDar shared that Andrew O’Connor saw something very familiar on Audi’s Ireland EV website. It seems that Audi was using text for its FAQs from Tesla’s Ireland website. He provided screenshots of both websites in the tweet below and highlighted the quote “Every New Model 3, Model S, and Model X is compatible with CCS charging.”

The side-by-side screenshots share a compelling story and I wanted to see if it were true so I clicked on Audi’s website from the tweet. However, when I got to the site, I didn’t see anything about Tesla. One would normally give up, but then I remembered the Wayback Machine. I learned of this little tool thanks to Wade Anderson, who helped me recover my open letter to Elon Musk that I wrote back in 2018. You see, my ex hacked my website and took it down. I had to start all over and I thought all my work was gone forever. Thank you, Wade, for not only saving the open letter that Elon shared, but all of my work. This tool is like a time machine for websites even if the domain no longer exists.

I wanted to see if what I suspected had happened. I suspected that whoever was working on Audi’s website was copying and pasting from Tesla’s website. If this were true, the archival site would show it. And it did, as you can see in the screenshot below.

It’s hard to tell in the image, but the link goes to Audi’s Ireland website. The archival site also noted that there have been two recent updates to this particular webpage. The archival site shows that the page was saved at 17:07:25 and at 17:07:48, which must be in the timezone wherever the site is hosted (probably Ireland).

It’s clear to see that whoever was designing the site was using Tesla’s as an example and wanted the Audi site to look as similar to Tesla’s as possible while being branded with the Audi logo and name.

I can understand Audi wanting to copy Tesla’s website. After all, Tesla is the leader in the EV industry, and the company knows its stuff. Nonetheless, seeing a well-known luxury car company use the example of a so-called newcomer to the industry that is “destined to fail and go bankrupt because of fraud” is really a compliment to Tesla. Notice I put that false description of Tesla in quotes due to it being a senseless mantra chanted by critics because it’s all they have left of an old pipe dream of failure.

This is not the most monumental, important story of the decade, but it is odd and interesting.

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Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge artist, gem and mineral collector, and Tesla shareholder who believes in Elon Musk and Tesla. Elon Musk advised her in 2018 to “Believe in Good.”

Tesla is one of many good things to believe in. You can find Johnna on Twitter

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Full Self Driving (FSD) “Pay As You Go” Feature Included In Tesla Source Code

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Published on April 29th, 2020 |

by Steve Hanley

Full Self Driving (FSD) “Pay As You Go” Feature Included In Tesla Source Code

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April 29th, 2020 by Steve Hanley

FSD, or Full Self Driving, is a feature available on all new Teslas for $7,000 — if purchased up front. It costs more if is added later. Elon Musk says the price will rise substantially in the future. That’s because as each new ability is added, Tesla cars become more valuable compared to the auto industry pack, and when the system is fully activated, owners will be able to send their cars out as driverless taxis as part of the Tesla Network and generate scads of income from doing so.

[Personally, I would rather drink iodine than loan my brand new Tesla out to the great unwashed for them to use and abuse as they see fit, but lots of people think this is the greatest idea since sliced bread. There’s a good chance I am just stuck in the past and wouldn’t recognize a good idea if it bit me. Now back to your usual programming, already in progress.]

According to Tesla aficionado “green”/@greentheonly, Tesla also now has a plan to allow owners to access FSD on a “pay as you go” basis. How does he know? Tesla has already baked it into the latest source code updates.

There’s more we don’t know about this plan than we do know. One could think of it as a variation of the “lease or buy?” conundrum. Some people dislike leasing. They prefer to decide when to trade their car and they believe their precious vehicle will somehow be worth a ton at trade-in time, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary. Others like the idea of getting a new car every 2 or 3 years. They know leasing costs more than buying but the advantages offset the difference. It’s one of those “you pays your money and you takes your choice” sort of things. It’s why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

There is speculation that people could sign up for FSD when they need it — like before taking that family vacation to the coast — then deactivate it when they get home. No one knows if that is what Elon has in mind, though. All we can say at the moment is that, based on green’s tweet, the pay-as-you-go option is now included in Tesla software. Details on how the program works will have to come from Tesla when the company feels the time is right.

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Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platforms run by evil overlords like Facebook.

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The Redesign Of The Tesla Model Y Body Was Inspired By A Toy Car

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Published on April 14th, 2020 |

by Kyle Field

The Redesign Of The Tesla Model Y Body Was Inspired By A Toy Car

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April 14th, 2020 by Kyle Field

Tesla Overhauls The Body Shop For Model Y In Push For Full Body Casting
In their latest podcast, the Third Row Tesla crew talked with Elon Musk and Sandy Munro about some of the innovations Tesla brought to bear in optimizing the design of the Tesla Model 3. The new episode was released to Third Row Tesla’s Patreon supporters this morning and will be released on all your favorite media channels shortly: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Stitcher | Spotify.

The Tesla Model 3’s body was criticized by Sandy Munro in his early teardowns for an excessive amount of glued parts, unnecessary complexity, and potential failure points. “As Sandy accurately pointed out, the rear of the Model 3 looks like a patchwork quilt,” Musk said. “It’s not great.” Tesla improved upon this in the Model Y and has plans to do far more than it is already doing with a new unibody casting that came into existence as a result of looking at Hot Wheels versions of the Tesla Model S. When looking at the small toy cars, Musk wondered if the same single casting concept could be applied to their full-scale vehicles.

The Body Shop at Tesla’s Fremont Factory. “It’s sort of cool in a steampunk way, but not something you want to repeat,” Musk said. Image credit: Kyle Field, CleanTechnica

Today, the Tesla Model Y utilizes castings to bring together many of the small stampings, extrusions, and whatnot that comprised the rear of the vehicle into a handful of larger cast parts. “The current version of the Model Y has basically two big high-pressure die-cast aluminum castings that are joined.” That is a clear improvement over the Tesla Model 3, but Tesla wants to do more. “Later this year, we will transition a single piece casting that also integrates the two rear crash rails,” Musk said. Upon hearing this, Sandy Munro simply said, “Whoa!”

Consolidating the design of the body of the vehicle from a ton of parts built with dozens of disparate processes cuts down the amount of inventory, spare parts, raw materials, assembly processes, potential failure points, and more. Said another way, it’s cheaper, faster, and more efficient. “The current castings, because you have to interface with so many things, you have to CNC machine the interfaces and join all these things,” Musk said. “It’s quite difficult.”

Consolidating all the various welding, gluing, bolting, and riveting tasks from the Tesla Model 3 body shop into a single casting also translates to a smaller manufacturing footprint. “The manufacturing cost is much less and we see a 30% reduction in the size of the body shop, which is huge,” Musk said. That’s massive. Having walked through the Tesla body shop for the Model 3 last year, I can say that while it was extremely impressive to see so much automation being leveraged to build the body of the vehicles, the prospect of eliminating all those individual processes for a single casting that requires minimal processing after the fact is exciting.

The new rear assembly in the Model Y represents a drastic improvement over the Model 3, and Tesla is already hard at work on the next generation. “The single piece casting has no CNC machining,” Musk said on the Third Row Podcast. “It doesn’t even have datums. That’s profound, really. It took us a lot of iterations to get there. It sounds obvious.”

To bring the vision of massive cast body components to reality, Tesla bought not one, but two of the world’s largest casting machines. “It’s the size of a small house,” Musk said. “We should be starting to set up the one from Italy next month.”

Musk said that it was likely the tech would make its way into the Model 3 as well. “It’s probably something we would do, but maybe in like 2 years.” He commented that the design of the Model 3 body was a pain in the ass, but it worked. “We have to deal with the pain in the asses that don’t work. Those are the higher priorities,” he said.

Tesla continues to hire and inspire some of the best engineering minds of our day, but capacity continues to be a limiting factor for them. “There’s a lot of fish to fry here,” Musk said. From the outside looking in, the culture of continuous innovation and improvement is inspiring, but the frayed edges are maddening just the same. It’s a delicate dance that’s churning out some of the most exciting innovations in software, hardware, electronics, computing, chemistry, and mechanical engineering the world has ever seen. What an exciting time to be alive! The future is now, peeps.

For more direct insights from Sandy Munro and his team at Munro & Associates, head over to https://munrolive.com/ to see their teardown of an early build of the Tesla Model Y.

If CleanTechnica has helped you learn about Tesla or Tesla’s Energy products, feel free to use my Tesla referral code — https://ts.la/kyle623 — to get 1,000 free Supercharging miles with the purchase of a new Tesla vehicle or a $250 award after activating a new Tesla solar system. If you’re anything like me, the award serves as a nice bonus after doing something great and feels a lot like finding a toy in a box of cereal, back when that was still a thing.

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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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Automotive Expert Sandy Munro On The Tesla Model Y “Lots of Room in There”

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Published on April 1st, 2020 |

by Kurt Lowder

Automotive Expert Sandy Munro On The Tesla Model Y: “Lots Of Room In There”

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April 1st, 2020 by Kurt Lowder

We have covered expert Sandy Munro and his company Munro & Associates multiple times on CleanTechnica over the years. When the Tesla Model 3 first came out, Munro led the charge to call Tesla out for out of spec panel gaps. For a short period, the corporate media preceded to interview and quote him often. Then, for the last two years, Munro changed his tone as Tesla improved its quality systems and has consistently praised Tesla. Accordingly, the mainstream media has hardly mentioned Munro.

CleanTechnica and a few others have been doing the reporting other outlets should have done. Mr. Munro should have weekly appearances on CNBC, Fox, CNN, and others. However, because he gushes about Tesla, the media now largely ignores him. Of course, it’s in the media’s massive financial interest to not praise Tesla too much. Tesla does not advertise, while GM spends billions a year on advertisements with mainstream media networks.

In an earlier piece, we discussed why Munro stated Tesla had a 10-year lead over its competitors. The truth is, from the talks that Munro has given, there are hundreds of articles even CleanTechnica hasn’t been able to cover. I have been meaning to cover his comments on the Cybertruck. In a recent interview, Munro marveled at how inexpensive the capital costs of the Tesla Cybertruck factory would be, primarily because no paint shop is required, but also because cutting and bending the cold-rolled steel is simple and inexpensive.

Munro is making decent money off of his Tesla reports. He is particularly in demand in China, as everyone is rushing to learn from Tesla’s innovation. However, the money seems to be only a little part of his motivation. Munro has no shortage of other clients. He even has clients in the defense industry. You have to understand that Munro is a workaholic engineer who absolutely loves what he does. He is the type that will never retire. From his videos, interviews, and even his reports, it’s clear that he lives and breathes engineering, manufacturing, and business. He has traveled the world to give detailed talks and presentations exclusively on Tesla. Many employees of Munro and Associates have enthusiastically bought Tesla vehicles as a result of their research.

After much anticipation, Munro recently took possession of a red Tesla Model Y. The video below is just his initial reaction and is only a few minutes long.

Munro and Associates will do a complete teardown of this Model Y, and the details will undoubtedly be doled out over the coming months. So, stay tuned. In the meantime, here are a few key quotes from what they have shared so far:

“This is like a Bentley trunk.”

“Lots of room in there.”

“Everything appears to be really, really nice.”

Munro did notice a few small gaps in this early edition Model Y, but having experienced Tesla’s rapid learning curve with the Model 3, he fully anticipates they will be corrected over time. He noted he correctly predicted this with the Model 3, which has seen dramatic improvement over the last two years to its near-perfect quality today.

Let’s focus on the quote, “there is lots of room in here.” In a previous article on the Tesla Model Y, we compared the cargo capacity of the Model Y to other vehicles. The Model Y, at more than 66 cubic feet of cargo space, dominated other EV crossovers in this key metric. Even compared to the gasoline-powered Toyota RAV4, the Tesla Model Y competed well, with only a few less cubic feet of cargo space. To get precise numbers, check out that earlier coverage of the Model Y.

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Kurt Lowder I am a jock turned wannabe geek. I fell in love with science later in life thanks to the History Channel show the “Universe.” Having taught middle school science, I strongly feel Astronomy should be taught every year because nothing excites students more than learning about the cosmos. I became an avid cleantech fan because it gives me hope about the future. My wife, my dogs, and I live simply because we love to travel the world backpacker style.

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