Clean Technica Online News – Page 227 – I wish I had more to offer

Tesla Getting Into The Mining Business Makes Sense

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Published on December 9th, 2019 |

by Johnna Crider

Tesla Getting Into The Mining Business Makes Sense

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December 9th, 2019 by Johnna Crider

Sean Mitchell has published his thoughts on YouTube as to why Tesla getting into the mining business makes sense. When Elon Musk first talked about Tesla going into the mining business, I got really excited, but my mind went off in another direction. I immediately envisioned a Tesla booth at a gem show with minerals in every color shaped like little Teslas. I am sure that’s not what Elon had in mind.

For Tesla as a company to make money, it needs to make sure it’s not spending too much, and one way of doing this is scaling up battery production and managing parts of the supply chain that need its leadership.

How are batteries made? What minerals are needed to make Tesla batteries, and would taking some of the elements of the batteries’ creation into Tesla’s own hands be cost-effective? This could make a lot of sense. Sean explains what Tesla already has down in this regard.

Sean believes that Tesla acquired Maxwell and Hibar so that it could control two-thirds of the production process. The last part it doesn’t have control over is the sourcing of raw materials such as copper, lithium, etc. Sean tells us that in his opinion, this is fundamental to Tesla reducing its cost in creating the battery packs. I agree.

In 2017, Kurt Kelty, former Tesla Senior Director of Battery Tech, gave a presentation in which he talked about how important it was to reduce the cost of making the batteries. How far into the battery supplies Tesla goes to make that happen is the question. Another thing we learn from Sean’s video is that nickel, not lithium, is the largest single raw material cost in high-energy-density Li-ion batteries. Nickel, cobalt, and lithium are all minerals that the cathode materials are made with.

His thought is that if Tesla is going to move toward becoming its own mining company, it will most likely do so around nickel, not cobalt or lithium. Also, when it comes to sourcing these minerals, Tesla is sourcing them ethically. It’s committed to sourcing responsibly produced materials, and it makes sure its suppliers provide a certification of origin as well as a description of risk mitigation practices. Tesla also performs onsite visits to try to ensure that no illegally mined or artisanal material enters Tesla’s supply chain. For more on the concerns in that regard, see this article.

My Thoughts On Sean’s Video
I fully agree with Sean and I wanted to provide some insight as well. I am a gem and mineral collector — I have a small collection (I even have a rare opal with trace amounts of uranium in it!) and got into this from my wire art. In fact, I tweeted some random minerals to Elon Musk before I seriously got back into writing. It was fun. He even told me once that his favorite mineral is iron pyrite, which is fool’s gold and oddly an actual ore of gold.

From my perspective, I can see other ways Tesla could bring in profits from the mines. It depends on what the mines actually produce, but there are cases where mines produce more than one mineral. This isn’t an idea just for Tesla, but also The Boring Company, which could make bricks of all the dirt from the tunnels to help with housing. Our planet is rich with minerals, and minerals are all popular collectors’ items.

People buy crystals, minerals, and gems for various reasons. If Tesla gets into the mining industry and ends up with minerals besides what it needs, it could sell them to wholesalers across the world that specialize in the sale of minerals or need them for other purposes.

When I had my store in 2016, I met a representative of a mine in Nigeria who brought me a variety of emeralds and tourmalines. He explained to me that many mines produce many minerals and that even though the owner of that mine solely wanted to focus on emeralds, he realized that the profits from other minerals were vast and started selling those as well.

All in all, if Tesla gets into the mining industry, it could not only save the company some money, but when you consider that Elon Musk is well known for revolutionizing industries he gets into, it would be interesting to see how Tesla influenced this one.
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Johnna Crider 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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The #1 Thing I Love About Our Tesla Model 3 That No One Talks About

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Published on December 8th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

The #1 Thing I Love About Our Tesla Model 3 That No One Talks About

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December 8th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

We spend a lot of time in our Tesla Model 3. Aside from driving approximately the US average, we generally spend about an hour a day sitting in a student pickup line (45 minutes some days, up to an hour and a half others). And then there are various times when I might be working in the car for a while — for example, while the girls enjoy the beach and I have to get articles published on CleanTechnica. 😛

The point is: we spend a lot of time in the car, and a lot of that time involves actually doing stuff, not just driving. That leads into the thing I love about our Tesla Model 3 that gets very little attention — and when it does get attention, often gets negative attention!

The Model 3 has a supremely minimalist — yet premium-feeling — design. With out white & black interior, it feels like what a car interior designed by Apple would look and feel like. The open, clutter-free space is the perfect balance to a life with two young monsters and hectic traffic. Sitting on the comfy white seat, resting my arm on the smooth, black center armrest, and gazing across the empty dash in front of me feels almost like coming home and plopping myself down on the couch to watch tennis. (If I had free time, I think that’s what I’d enjoy doing.)

Everything I need for the car is on the touchscreen, which I can let slip out of my direct view but then can easily check or use as needed. Aside from my phone sitting under the touchscreen and a bottle of water or coffee, my vicinity is clean, clear, and ideal for a peaceful ride. I couldn’t ask for more.

Some people criticize the interior of the Model 3 as basic, simple, or bare. I honestly can’t imagine wanting it to be different, as anything more would be adding clutter. The vegan leather is so smooth and premium. I recall renting a Mercedes a couple of times that had a somewhat similar center console. It was an enjoyable “little thing” that I appreciated at the time. The Model 3’s smooth black center console fits into its surroundings much better (and it feels slightly better as well). The space in front and to the other sides of me fit the elegant and thick right armrest. I don’t have all the clutter the Mercedes swarmed me with.

The car is even more minimalist when it’s driving itself.

This all may seem like a little aspect of the Model 3, and perhaps I’m overdoing it. To the contrary, though, I think this is one of the biggest daily benefits of a truly magical car. Minimalism is often, ironically, under-appreciated. Minimalism done well is difficult, but then so complete and fulfilling.

The drive quality, the interior feel of the car, and the look of the model from the outside as you walk up to it — these are three aspects of a car that an owner regularly notices. Each of them is critical in its own right to a fully enjoyable ownership experience. Everyone should know by now that Tesla nails #1 and is highly regarded for #3, but the superb implementation of #2 is equally if not more important. It is one reason it’d be so hard to switch to any other vehicle.

I will bring up one issue I have on this topic, though. If I sit in the passenger seat, it’s comfortable to move the seat back a bit and work on my laptop. If I have to sit in the driver’s seat and do this, I have to put the seat much further back due to the steering wheel, and I then lose a comfortable position for my elbows. I don’t have anywhere to rest them and I’m too squeezed in to have them hang in space. Now, I don’t expect Tesla to design a solution for such an edge case! However, this review wouldn’t be complete without noting that that’s the one place in which I could see the interior design being much better for my personal use case.

Oh yeah, there’s also the glossy black console between the armrest and touchscreen. I don’t know if it’s Franz, Elon, or both of them who love that glossy black plastic, but I’m yet to meet an owner who loves it and I’ve met several who hate it. I don’t understand the rationale for putting it in a Tesla. I imagine I’ll get mine turned into a matte trim eventually. (Aftermarket suppliers and detailers must appreciate it, since they must make a lot of money hiding the gloss for Tesla owners.)

Have any other thoughts on the wonderful, smooth, elegant Tesla Model 3 interior? Think I’m fully off my rocker? Your comments are welcome … but I’ll spam them if you don’t agree with me! (jk, ofc)

If you’d like to buy a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X and get some free Supercharging miles, feel free to use my special, magical, unicorn-blessed referral code: https://ts.la/zachary63404. You can also get a $100 discount on Tesla solar with that code. There is currently no use for a referral code when putting down a reservation for a Cybertruck or Model Y.
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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 and chief editor. He's also the CEO of Important Media. 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 offers no investment advice and does not recommend investing in Tesla or any other company.

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EV Boom — Roger & Zach Chat Lithium, EV Forecasts, Ford Mustang Mach-E

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Published on December 9th, 2019 |

by Winter Wilson

EV Boom — Roger & Zach Chat Lithium, EV Forecasts, Ford Mustang Mach-E

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December 9th, 2019 by Winter Wilson

In our first ever episode of a new “EV Boom” podcast interview series, Zach Shahan sits down with Roger Atkins, founder of Electric Vehicles Outlook Ltd and self-described “jack of all trades, master of none,” to discuss Roger’s insights into lithium-ion batteries and the electric vehicle industry. You can listen to the full conversation in the embedded player below. Below that embedded SoundCloud player is a brief summary of the topics covered, but tune into the podcast to follow the full discussion.

You can listen to this podcast and other CleanTech Talk podcasts on: Anchor, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket, Podbean, Radio Public, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Stitcher.

As Roger explained early in the podcast, “necessity is the mother of invention.” Have an issue that needs to be resolved? Creative people will come up with a solution. That is why electric vehicles have become a primary focus in the wake of increasing global challenges with city congestion and pollution, Roger said.

But while electric vehicles have proven to be promising solutions to these clear and immediate challenges, Roger worries about the lithium mining supply chain. He believes that due to a limited supply of automotive-grade lithium, the most electric vehicle share possible by 2025 would be only 7% of the global automotive market. This is what Roger picked up recently at a Benchmark Materials conference from a top lithium expert (“Lithium Joe,” who is reportedly the world’s leading authority on lithium supply), and it goes against Roger’s previous viewpoint on the topic. Even though there is currently an overflow in lithium, Roger explains that the future will prove difficult. It is not about whether or not we have lithium, he said — it is about whether that lithium is high enough quality for safe batteries.

Keeping in mind the challenge of lithium-ion batteries, Zach and Roger move on to discuss current industry players who are making big steps into the electric vehicle sector. They talk briefly about Ford’s investment in Rivian and Ford’s efforts to jump into the electric vehicle world through the Ford Electric Mach-E. But the foray into electric vehicles is no easy feat for established automotive companies. There is a huge challenge to profitability, Roger explains, as sunk costs and investment for research and development to transition into electric vehicles can combine to be crippling to a company. He believes, however, that working together with new electric vehicle companies, as Ford has done with Rivian, can give more established industry players a leg up.

Zach and Roger discuss how current politics and social media influence have driven the demand for climate action and, consequently, electric vehicle production. But Roger believes that looking beyond battery supply to other ways to maximize battery capacity is important. One critical piece of this dialogue, he said, is shifting from a linear economy to a circular one. He explains that the narrative should focus on maximizing efficiency and utilization. Roger proposes an increased use of carsharing, multimodal transportation development, and improvement of public transportation. Zach and Roger also briefly touch on automatic wireless charging in place of cable charging.

Roger expresses his desire to see strong leaders leverage the momentum behind the transition into electric vehicles to push exponential development of more efficient and sustainable transportation. His advice? “You better get on with it, because before too long you’ll be left with the people you won’t really want to dance with!”

To hear more on these topics, as well as hear Roger’s advice for how to be an innovative leader, listen to the show!
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Winter Wilson Winter Wilson is a Cutler Scholar and undergraduate student double majoring in Environmental Studies and Journalism at Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College, with a minor in French. Her academic interests include environmental communication, technology and social innovation, especially as they relate to international climate change mitigation and adaptation. Though Winter attends school in her hometown of Athens, Ohio, she takes advantage of her breaks to explore the world beyond. She spent her most recent break undertaking self-driven research on climate change and environmental justice in Southeast Asia. This year, she will be completing her dual thesis and supplementary documentary series on climate change communication. Winter is excited to contribute to and work with the team at CleanTechnica as a Summer Editorial Intern.

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23 Awards Tesla Cybertruck Is Sure To Win

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Published on November 29th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

23 Awards Tesla Cybertruck Is Sure To Win

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November 29th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

I’m not sure all of these awards actually exist. It’s possible some of them (ahem, #9) should have never been imagined. Nonetheless, this is what some Thanksgiving-night brain juice has dreamt up after reading about the Tesla Model 3 winning Car of the Year in Denmark.

1. Car of the Year (from almost every major auto media outlet or jury that considers the Cybertruck a “car,” including CleanTechnica for our “Car of the Year” award)

2. Truck of the Year (from every major truck media outlet)

3. SUV of the Year

4. Machine of the Year

5. Robot of the Year

6. Police Vehicle of the Year

7. Camping Vehicle of the Year

8. Robocop Vehicle of the Year

9. Barbie & Ken Shagging Location of the Year

10. Star Wars Vehicle of the Year

11. Ugly Duckling of the Year

12. Video Game Vehicle that Comes to Life Vehicle of the Year

13. Hypercaffeinated CEO Vehicle of the Year

14. Pro Sports Star Vehicle of the Year

15. Tech Innovation of the Year

16. Ruff Ryders Vehicle of the Year

17. Mafia Vehicle of the Year

18. Hold My Beer, Bruh Vehicle of the Year

19. High Times Product of the Year

20. Engineering Product of the Year

21. Elon Musk is Crazy Product of the Year

22. MacArthur Genius Grant (first time going to a non-human)

23. Smackdown of the Year
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Tesla’s New Universal Electric Family — Video Critique

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Published on November 29th, 2019 |

by Carolyn Fortuna

Tesla’s New Universal Electric Family — Video Critique

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November 29th, 2019 by Carolyn Fortuna

At a time in which Tesla’s newest offering, the Cybertruck, is all over the news, it’s important to remember that Tesla has evolved in many other ways, too, in just a short period of time. When I first started writing about electric transportation, Tesla’s primary audience for its premium all-electric sporty car was white males with an average age of 53. But things have evolved quickly in a few years at Tesla, and now the its audience is becoming more far-reaching, egalitarian, and multidimensional — a kind of universal electric family.

A Tesla YouTube video makes the reach of the company’s new audience clear.

The video begins with an aerial shot over a heavily populated residential area sprinkled with trees in Pasadena, California. As the camera zooms in and down, a voiceover says, “We had no idea how Tesla would change our lives.” The scene shifts to a tan single-story home with an adjacent 3-section carport. For Tesla-in-the-know viewers, the 2 vehicles peeking out of the carport are a Tesla Model X and a Tesla Model S.

The introduction to this Tesla YouTube video, titled “The Electric Family,” resonates alongside the quintessential American Dream. We are invited into a neighborhood that is depicted like many other neighborhoods in the US — tree-lined, detached homes, stable ownership, safe. We are made to feel comfortable and welcomed. The people who live here will be people like us — hardworking, meritorious, determined to move ahead in life.

The camera switches to the interior of the home, and we see a maple wall in the foreground, and, to the back and side, high ceilings, light-filled beige walls, and a sprinkling of furniture with ultra-clean lines and a contemporary geometric aesthetic. In a bright alcove, a blonde female types on a laptop from her perch at a tall table. She says, “I wear a lot of hats. I am a producer for commercials.” Following are a series of quick scene changes: A hand-drawn ruler that notes children’s growth. Family gathered around a long dining room table. The bustle of everyone readying for their day of work or school.

The home is put-together but not ostentatious, clean but not anal, spacious but not sterile. Working in the midst of the family activity, the protagonist of this Tesla video is controlled and confident, moving along with the family’s flow, multitasking easily and successfully.

A closeup of Paige Hutton is next. “I am a mom,” she says, continuing her introduction. She’s a 40-something year old person with a neutral gray sweater, light floral top, and several delicate but haphazardly worn thin necklaces. As she continues to talk, our vantage point moves to within the Tesla Model X, and we watch children playing basketball on a court outside the SUV. We also glimpse the Tesla’s streamlined dash and vertical touchscreen, dark against darker hue. We slide to a new, slightly out-of-focus view of the passenger side exterior and the “signature Tesla” insignia.

The scene of happy family, home life with a caring mom, and upscale Teslas creates a positive association. The smooth environment and the relationships that emerge when life is streamlined and gentile are evident. Patterns of stability and motivation seem to influence and shape these consumer/Tesla brand interactions.

Image screenshot from Tesla video

Todd Hutton speaks next. “In the beginning, we just had one car, and we would fight over who would get to drive it.” He sports a circle beard, collared pale long-sleeved shirt, and crimson tie.

A different early morning kitchen scene appears, with Paige in oversized blue sweatshirt guiding and supervising her elementary-aged son as he assembles his backpack. “So the rule was,” she explains, “whoever was driving the farthest got the Tesla.” An older sibling grabs a Golden Delicious apple, and the 5 family members exit together. It’s a little past 9:00 am. “And now we’ve added a Model X to our family.” The words “Electric family” are centered on the screen against a black background.

With increased prosperity, Paige and Todd have been able to add a second Tesla to their car ownership. In a kind of consumer ethnocentrism, the Tesla brand has become an icon of cultural familiarity to this couple. We now live in an era in which brands need to look actively and purposefully at our multifaceted popular culture to best inform how they should position and integrate themselves into the daily lives of their target audiences. The Tesla brand, in essence, has become a part of that culture for Paige and Todd, deepening its relevance and connection with them as customers — and, by extension, us.

Image screenshot from Tesla video

Upbeat and contemporary instrumental music punctuates the scene. Slowly, a black Tesla Model X glides out from the carport. It’s been summoned to meet the family in the driveway. The boy zips ahead with exuberance and uses the momentum of his run to lunge into the door handle. He smiles with accomplishment as the door swings open.

“We’re a very busy family,” Paige allows, “so we have to travel a lot everyday.”

The next frame shows Paige driving the Model X behind Todd in the Model S. As they turn toward different directions with blinkers flashing, they each wave then merge separately into morning commuter traffic. We follow Paige down a tree-lined residential street with an arid hillside in the distance. The video camera lens pulls out to an overhead of a 10-lane highway with the text “Paige drives over 150 miles per day” superimposed on the screen.

“Paige drives a lot everyday,” Peter’s voice interjects, although he is not in the scene. “We never know where she’s going to be going.” We follow along with her as she drives the Model X, variously chatting with her happy children and coming to full stops at stop signs. They reach their destination, the falcon-wing doors pop open, and the smiling lad runs toward his school and friends.

Traditionally, the dominating social role of the woman was as housewife and that of the man was focused on work and family maintenance. Today, social role activation of women as professionals has shifted consumer trends. Gendered social change is reflected in the media and in consumer culture — as this Tesla video attests. Yet, it is Peter who explains the family’s compromise options as joint dyadic decisions. He reinforces their collective decision to accept higher initial Tesla costs in order to realize long-term financial gains.

Image screenshot from Tesla video

“I use my Model X,” Paige offers as overhead shots of the highway bustle now emerge, “like my office. I do a lot of conference calls.” She slows at a gate where a swing-arm security center allows her to enter. After she stops, she opens the rear hatch and pulls out a laptop, then two males listen to her presentation. “Autopilot lets me do that. When it’s bumper to bumper, I can put it on Autopilot and know we can be safe.” She is back on the highway, hands on the lower section of the steering wheel as she moves through traffic.

In a switch to another day and place, Paige pulls over to the curb, and her young son draws “Tesla” and an original illustration on the touchscreen.

“Charging has never been a problem,” Peter interjects off-screen.

Paige takes over. “Todd likens it to charging your cell phone.”

We next see her back at the dining room table, dictating a message into her cellphone. Behind her on the wall is a large retrospective image of a red 1956 (?) Thunderbird, which is smothered with shaving cream and surrounded by close-cropped males in black-and-white tuxedos.

Consumers are influenced by their environments in psychological ways that include how motivation and decision strategies differ among products, depending on the level of importance or interest they entail for consumers. Since all media messages are consciously designed, the inclusion of the historical family photo — which focuses around a different auto at a pivotal moment — serves as counterpoint to the “Electric Family” video and the allure of a Tesla lifestyle. Family is one of the most influential groups for consumers, and it includes the buyer’s parents, who make up the family of orientation toward religion, politics, and economics. Parents also provide a sense of personal ambition, self-worth, and love that informs our identities and contributes to our consumer beliefs. Our inference here is that the family has a rich legacy of car as a valued asset, and the acquisition of two Teslas continues that respect for a well-made and memorable family car.

Image screenshot from Tesla video

The boy, meanwhile, bounces a basketball in the garage between the two Teslas. He casually unplugs the charger from the Model X, pops open the port on the Model X, and plugs it in. In a subsequent scene, we move with a group of elementary children up an exterior cement stairway and toward the Model X as the falcon wings open. They hop in, and the car drives along the city street. “I don’t think there’s another car out there,” Paige interjects, “that gets better the longer you own it.”

We see the children inside now, all buckled up in their similar white or navy short-sleeved polo shirts — two male and two female children, likely of three different ethnicities. They’re smiling and having fun as the Model X zips along the California highway, with bridges and low mountain ranges in the background.

There are three main elements that directly affect family consumption habits. They are family life cycle, the structure of the family, and family decisions making process. Clearly, the Tesla in this video is at the core of positive family interpersonal and community-based interactions. There is much evide..

Tesla’s “Premium Connectivity” Will Now Set Owners Back $10/Month

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Published on December 8th, 2019 |

by Kyle Field

Tesla’s “Premium Connectivity” Will Now Set Owners Back $10/Month

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December 8th, 2019 by Kyle Field

We all knew this day would come, and for better or worse, that day is here. For Tesla owners who purchased their vehicles on or after July 1, 2018, Tesla is now starting to charge $9.99 per month for data connectivity for a select set of features bundled into what it calls Premium Connectivity at the end of this year.

Owners who purchased their eligible Tesla vehicles before July 1, 2018, are now officially grandfathered into free Premium Connectivity for the life of the vehicle.

For those who do not subscribe to Premium Connectivity, the core Connectivity Packages that depend on the premium data connection will be lost. This includes features like Caraoke, video streaming (available only when parked), music streaming, and internet, among others.

Importantly, the core navigation functionality remains even without the Premium Connectivity subscription.

Owners affected by the change were notified by email today as the start of an ongoing wave of notifications that will go out to people as their free Premium Connectivity trial period ends. Owners purchasing the Model S and X and the Model 3 with the “premium interior” get a one-year trial of Premium Connectivity after purchasing the car. Owners purchasing a Model 3 with “standard” or “partial premium interior” get a 30-day trial with the purchase of the vehicle.

To subscribe to Premium Connectivity, owners simply need to log into their Tesla account at tesla.com/teslaaccount. Clicking on the Manage button for the vehicle in question reveals a list of options, including the Premium Connectivity option.

It can also be added from the Manage screen by clicking on the View Details button to pull up all of the features of the specific car. Tesla has added a new section here for Premium Connectivity with a convenient little Subscribe button.

Is it worth $9.99 per month for the extra connectivity and features that require it? Are you going to subscribe? Let us know in the comments.

All images captured from Tesla.com

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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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Tesla Model 3 Is #3 Best Selling Vehicle In California Through September

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Published on November 30th, 2019 |

by Loren McDonald

Tesla Model 3 Is #3 Best Selling Vehicle In California Through September

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November 30th, 2019 by Loren McDonald

While it seems like everyone is focused on the number of $100 deposits that the Tesla Cybertruck has garnered, for me, what is more impressive is that an electric vehicle — the Tesla Model 3 — was the #3 best selling vehicle in California through September.

The California New Car Dealers Association recently released its California Auto Outlook report (data from IHS Market), which shows some positive and also surprising findings. Perhaps at the top of the list is the exciting news for EV advocates that the Tesla Model 3 was only about 300 units short of being the second best selling vehicle in California for the period of January to September 2019.

California has long marched to a different beat, with pickups like the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado selling well but not close to the top of the charts like they are in many other US states. Despite 70% of vehicle sales in the US being pickups, SUVs, crossovers, and vans, sedans took the top 5 spots in sales year to date (YTD) in California.

There are many anecdotes (including from personal friends in the market for a new Tesla) that a lot of Tesla inventory is headed overseas. So, Q4 remains a mystery for Model 3 sales in California, but the hot-selling sedan could end up as high as the #2 top selling vehicle in 2019, or could possibly drop down to #6. Regardless, even though we are talking about EV-crazed California, it is clear such a high sales ranking is still quite impressive and exciting news in the realm of EV adoption.

Nearly as impressive as the Model 3’s number 3 sales ranking is that Tesla overall ranked 6th for vehicle sales in California with a 4.1% market share. Tesla’s market share in California is nearly 3.5 times its 1.2% share across the entire US. While a lot can happen in the next two years, it is highly possible that, with the expected launch of the Tesla Model Y in Q4 of 2020, Tesla could surpass both Nissan and Chevrolet for the #4 spot in vehicle sales in California by the end of 2021.

While the strong California sales showing for Tesla is great news for electric vehicle advocates, the overall “electrification” sales trends are a bit mixed. Through September, the combined BEV and PHEV sales share is 7.9%, or basically flat over the 7.8% share for all of 2018. I and many others had forecast that California would be at or well exceed 10% sales share in 2019.

And while many observers have proclaimed that regular hybrids are dying, they are in fact seeing a resurgence as automakers bring more hybrids to market. In 2018, sales of BEVs in California had significantly surpassed sales of regular hybrids, but through September of 2019, hybrids have made a comeback and are slightly ahead of BEV sales again.

Overall, new vehicle registrations in California are expected to slip to 1.91 million units in 2019, a decline of 4.5% from 2018 to 2019. This would be the third consecutive annual decline. The California new light vehicle market declined 5.1% during the first nine months of this year, while the U.S. market fell 0.7%.

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Loren McDonald writes about the factors driving adoption of electric vehicles and the opportunities and challenges the transition to EVs presents companies and entrepreneurs in the auto, utility, energy, retail and other industries. His research and content are published on CleanTechnica, his own blog/site, www.EVAdoption.com, and in his upcoming book “Gas Station Zero” about the huge shifts and changes in multiple industries driven by the transition to battery electric, autonomous and shared vehicles.

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Tesla Revenue Growing Rapidly, But Critics Can’t Move On

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Published on December 7th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Tesla Revenue Growing Rapidly, But Critics Can’t Move On

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December 7th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

Several months ago, Hamid Shojaee tweeted out a superb chart highlighting both Tesla’s annual revenue growth and summaries of the consistently wrong claims of Tesla critics and skeptics. It was so brilliant that I wanted to write an article about it, but I never got to that. As it turns out, though, the chart is still relevant today. First of all, here’s the tweet and chart:

Yet again, 2019 revenue is going to show a sizable increase over the year before. In the 3rd quarter, Tesla showed a profit yet again, surprising the market and demonstrating for the third quarter out of five that it is able to push out a profit. As we roll through the 4th quarter of 2019, though, I consistently see critics claiming that the end is near, that Tesla’s not really making money (these quarterly profits have all just been accounting tricks or fraud), and that Tesla’s finances are actually in very bad shape. None of that makes sense to me, based on what I’ve seen, and I think the cause or purpose of those claims centers around a lack of context. People are losing the forest for the trees.

That’s what the chart above does so well. It puts superficial claims of the company’s imminent collapse in the context of 7 years of such claims. Every step of Tesla’s growth, critics and skeptics have said the company was at its peak and despite all the enthusiasm around Tesla’s recent (at the time) growth, it was going to be downhill from there. Of course, it’s been basically all uphill so far.

Will critics (especially ones who have been hovering over the company for a decade) ever give it up and move on? Or will they continue doubting Tesla for many years to come? It’s hard to say, but I think anyone who has been following the company closely for several years expects claims of Tesla’s coming bankruptcy to persist through the 4th quarter as well as into and perhaps all throughout 2020. Even if Tesla shows a profit again in the 4th quarter, they will find some way to spin “the future” in order to forecast armageddon and corporate collapse for Tesla. Perhaps the biggest question is not whether these forecasts will be put out there, but whether the people behind them actually think they’re true or simply have a vested interest in smearing the company.

In any case, thanks to Hamid for the great chart, and stay tuned for 4th quarter stats and predictable Tesla [TSLA] bear claims. If history tells us anything, Elon Musk could show up as the real Iron Man, report record-shattering profits, and still be smeared as a fraud who’s driving his company into the ground.

Full disclosure: I’m long Tesla [TSLA], because I think the company has a massive lead in some of the fastest growing large industries in the world as well as a corporate culture that results in rapid, effective innovation.

I’m also a Tesla Model 3 owner, because I think it’s the best vehicle on the market (or second best behind the Tesla Model X, depending on your needs and desires). If you’d like to buy a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X and get some free Supercharging miles, feel free to use my special, magical, unicorn-blessed referral code: https://ts.la/zachary63404. You can also get a $100 discount on Tesla solar with that code. There is currently no use for a referral code when putting down a reservation for a Cybertruck or Model Y.
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Tesla Holiday Gifts Heavily Discounted With EV Items’ Cyber Monday Sale

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No, Machine Learning Does Not Have A Huge Carbon Debt

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Published on November 30th, 2019 |

by Michael Barnard

No, Machine Learning Does Not Have A Huge Carbon Debt

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November 30th, 2019 by Michael Barnard

As part of the CleanTechnica series on the use of machine learning in advancing our low-carbon future, it would be remiss to not point out the carbon debt. However, it’s not as bad as was reported earlier this year, in my estimation.

Let’s talk about the study itself, and the assumptions it made. The paper that made some headlines was Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP by Strubell, Ganesh, and McCallum of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and it was published in June of 2019. Strubell and McCallum are part of the team that built a state-of-the-art natural language processing model, LISA. That stands for linguistically informed self-attention, and as followers of the series will remember, attention is core to machine learning.

Some of the numbers provided for the CO2e emissions were quite large, with one model, an advanced translation model referred to as the Evolved Transformer for neural architecture search, having a calculated carbon debt of 626,155 lbs of CO2e to train and optimize. 300 tons of CO2e is quite a bit, but some context is required, and then a recalculation with likely better assumptions.

As a reminder, neural nets are trained occasionally and often used many times. Taking the Tesla machine learning model, it has over 500,000 cars on the road with its neural net chips, and Tesla’s Autopilot and Autosteer features are used by vastly more people than any competitor. As a result, when thinking about the carbon debt of training neural nets, we have to compare that to the number of times that they are actually executed and for what purpose. Given that each Tesla displaces an internal combustion vehicle and that when using autonomous features the cars are actually more efficient, this is a highly virtuous use of machine learning.

As a different example, an earlier article in the series looked at the CoastalDem machine learning model. That use of machine learning took North American satellite radar coastal elevation data, trained it with ground truth from Lidar, validated it against Australian Lidar, and then ran it for the entire world. The model was executed a few times, but the end result is a static dataset of adjusted coastal elevations which is being referenced around the world for policy and climate action planning. In this instance, the understanding of actual threat from climate change and the multiple reuse of the outputs outweighs the carbon debt.

Not all examples are so beneficial, of course. Recently, an article in the series assessed the Heliogen improvements of focusing concentrated solar power (CSP), and found that while the machine learning portion was interesting and potentially reusable in other domains, the end results were very unlikely to be of any value. Certainly, the purported use cases for its higher heat CSP didn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Let’s look at the assumptions made by the research next. The key one I tested was the paper’s assumption of 0.954 lbs of CO2e per kWh for model training. That’s the US average, and as I looked at that I had a hypothesis that it was likely overstated given where most deep machine learning efforts were being performed.

To that end, I first pulled together the data on current state-by-state CO2e per kWh.

Chart by author from IEA data

As can be seen, the US average conceals a wide variance of potential CO2e debts for compute power. A model which is trained in Washington State on compute resources that are powered off of straight grid electricity would have a tenth of the carbon debt of one trained in Wyoming.

My hypothesis was that many of the models in the report would be California-based. The 0.47 lbs CO2e per kWh that is from California’s grid is only 50% of the carbon debt of the US average.

However, after determining this I then went deeper. I looked at each of the major models with a calculated carbon debt in the paper to see where they were actually trained, assuming that at least one or two would be trained in Google data centers, with Google’s 100% renewable commitment and offsets. The results were substantially at odds with my expectations.

Table by author

These are the models and associated training CO2e burden per the paper. When I dug into the compute resources used, I found that in all but one case they were Google or Azure compute resources used for learning. The 3rd through 6th columns are the variance calculation between what the paper suggested and what was likely accurate. To be clear, the NAS Evolved Transformer model still sees 10 tons of CO2e, which is considerable, but also a tiny fraction of the study’s assertion.

I had performed a rough assessment based on publicly available data earlier this year, What Is The Carbon Debt Of Cloud Computing? My assessment found that of the biggest Cloud providers, Google and Microsoft Azure had the lowest carbon debt by far, having not only a commitment to 100% carbon-neutral electricity that they were working to achieve, but also purchasing high-quality carbon offsets for their operations. That puts the CO2e per kWh down in the 0.033 lb range given the full lifecycle emissions of wind, solar, and hydro. Amazon’s AWS wasn’t as good, but had still achieved 50% renewables for its data centers in 2018, meaning its operations are far below the US average.

The authors of the paper used a different approach to assessing data center loads. They started with a 2017 Greenpeace report on the subject, so it was relatively solid, however it doesn’t cite CO2e per kWh at all, but stays silent. Instead, it reports different mixes of electrical generation actually purchased and provides percentages of those. Unsurprisingly, all the major Cloud providers are buying a lot more low carbon electricity than the average for the grid, but also unsurprisingly, they still have to purchase MWh that have been generated from coal and gas. I won’t quibble with Greenpeace’s methodology, but I do find a substantial variance between the bulk purchasing of renewable electricity by Google and Microsoft and the claims that their data centers run in large part on gas- and coal-generated electricity. I suspect that Google and Microsoft are buying sufficient electricity from renewables for their operations, but Greenpeace isn’t choosing to credit them with it.

But that’s not the largest issue with the assumption made by the paper. That assumption is that since Amazon’s AWS is the most popular Cloud compute platform and its breakdown per Greenpeace was roughly the same as the US breakdown, that the US average was appropriate to use. As can be seen from the resulting assessment in the table above, not one of the models assessed used Amazon, so that’s a bit of a problem with the reliability of their results.

To be clear, I’ve taken an average CO2e for renewables assuming Google and Microsoft have purchased offsets to get them there where they are not directly purchasing renewables, but they also might be purchasing offsets for the low full lifecycle CO2e.

This isn’t to say we should disregard the study.

Chart courtesy openai.com

Open AI — back to Elon Musk again — published an assessment of compute cycles required to train machine learning over the years. What they found is that major advances in machine learning capabilities showed an exponential growth in CPU cycles required, shown as a straight line on this logarithmic chart.

The increase in CPU cycles to advance machine learning has been accompanied by advances in efficiencies of computer technology and lower carbon electricity, but it’s worth paying attention to. It’s only going to increase.

Note: I’ve reached out to the study lead author for comment. Should they get back to me, the article will be updated.
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About the Author

Michael Barnard is Chief Strategist with TFIE Strategy Inc. He works with startups, existing businesses and investors to identify opportunities for significant bottom line growth and cost takeout in our rapidly transforming world. He is editor of The Future is Electric, a Medium publication. He regularly publishes analyses of low-carbon technology and policy in sites including Newsweek, Slate, Forbes, Huffington Post, Quartz, CleanTechnica and RenewEconomy, and his work is regularly included in textbooks. Third-party articles on his analyses and interviews have been published in dozens of news sites globally and have reached #1 on Reddit Science. Much of his work originates on Quora.com, where Mike has been a Top Writer annually since 2012. He's available for consulting engagements, speaking engagements and Board positions.

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This..