Tesla – Page 2410 – I wish I had more to offer

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

Tesla News
EV News
Solar News
Electric Car Benefits
Electric Car Sales
Privacy Policy
Invest
Advertise
RSS

Batteries

Published on June 19th, 2020 |

by Guest Contributor

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

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

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. 😀

Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.

Power CleanTechnica: $3/Month

Elon Musk delays Tesla ‘Battery Day’ again

Elon Musk announced that Tesla’s ‘Battery Day’ is being delayed again to after July 4th and it might be combined with Tesla’s annual investor meeting. Tesla Battery Day Last year, Musk said that Cybertruck is Tesla’s last product unveil for “a while,” but he teased some upcoming tech announcements. Those announcements were expected to happen at… Continue reading Elon Musk delays Tesla ‘Battery Day’ again

Google Trends Points To Quick Recovery Of Electric Car Sales In UK

Road To Recovery Tool Suggests Electric Vehicle Car Sales Will Bounce Back Rapidly Google Trends data show that, since the PM’s launch of the COVID-19 recovery strategy (11 May), there has been a significant boom in demand across the automotive industry – so much so that the demand is now parallel with the numbers pre-lockdown,… Continue reading Google Trends Points To Quick Recovery Of Electric Car Sales In UK

Tesla starts to enable cars to automatically drive through green lights

Tesla has started pushing a new software update to enable cars to automatically drive through a green light under the new “Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control” feature. Earlier this year, Tesla has started to push an Autopilot update with the ability to detect and stop at traffic lights and stop signs. The new feature… Continue reading Tesla starts to enable cars to automatically drive through green lights

Volkswagen seeks open-source approach to refine car operating system

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) wants to use an open-source approach to refine elements of a software-based car operating system being developed by the carmaker, Christian Senger, its board member responsible for digital services and software, said. A new logo of German carmaker Volkswagen is unveiled at the VW headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany September 9,… Continue reading Volkswagen seeks open-source approach to refine car operating system

Volkswagen open to talks with rivals on making operating system for car of the future

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) is open to talks with rival carmakers about sharing a software-based car operating system being developed by the German automaking giant for the car of the future, Christian Senger, its board member responsible for digital services and software, said. A new logo of German carmaker Volkswagen is unveiled at the… Continue reading Volkswagen open to talks with rivals on making operating system for car of the future

Volkswagen in talks with rivals on making operating system for car of the future

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) is in talks with rival carmakers about developing an operating system for the car of the future, Christian Senger, its board member responsible for digital services and software, said. A new logo of German carmaker Volkswagen is unveiled at the VW headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany September 9, 2019. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer… Continue reading Volkswagen in talks with rivals on making operating system for car of the future

Car maker: VW software unit to launch in July – operating system until 2024

Production of the ID.3 in Zwickau The expansion of software development is one of the strategic focuses of CEO Herbert Diess. (Photo: dpa) Wolfsburg, Ingolstadt The software unit of Volkswagen is ready to start after months of preparation: The development of its own digital platform for all brands in the Group is scheduled to begin… Continue reading Car maker: VW software unit to launch in July – operating system until 2024

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

Invest
Electric Cars
Electric Car Benefits
Electric Car Sales
Solar Energy Rocks
RSS
Advertise
Privacy Policy

Cars

Published on June 18th, 2020 |

by Zachary Shahan

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

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

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.

In Defense of Science

Advertisement magically provided by Google:
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.

Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.

Power CleanTechnica: $3/Month

Tesla Model 3 gets a solar roof thanks to Lightyear

A Tesla Model 3 has been modified with a solar roof as part of Lightyear’s solar car development program. We have been reporting on Lightyear for a few years now. The startup first caught our attention because it spun out of Solar Team Eindhoven, a group of engineering students from the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands)… Continue reading Tesla Model 3 gets a solar roof thanks to Lightyear