Tesla – Page 2789 – I wish I had more to offer

Despite Higher Upfront Costs, Electric Cars Can Save Money Over Time

DRIVING AN EV CAN PUT CASH BACK INTO AN OWNER’S WALLET IN THE LONG RUN. Despite having higher sticker prices than comparable conventionally-powered models, owning an electric vehicle can still save an owner money over time. For starters, the cost to run an electric vehicle can be considerably less than fueling a gas-powered ride. On… Continue reading Despite Higher Upfront Costs, Electric Cars Can Save Money Over Time

Elon Musk mocks SEC as ‘Shortseller Enrichment Commission’ days after settling fraud charges

Musk trolls the SEC
2 Hours Ago | 05:31

Tesla CEO Elon Musk mocked the Securities and Exchange Commission in a tweet Thursday, calling the agency the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission,” days after settling fraud charges brought against him by the agency.

The tweet, which is missing a word and appears to take a sarcastic tone, says “the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work” and commends the SEC on a name change that did not occur.

Musk doubled down on the remark when another Twitter user said Musk needs a “a social team that can get attention without typos and without enraging the Shortseller Enrichment Committee.”

The Tesla CEO asked, “Why would they be upset about their mission? It's what they do.”

Shares of the automaker fell more than 2 percent after hours following the tweet. The stock was already down 4.4 percent during regular hours.

Late last week, Musk reached an agreement with the SEC to settle fraud charges in connection with an Aug. 7 tweet about taking the company private. Musk claimed at the time the necessary funding had been secured — a claim the SEC alleged was “false and misleading.”

Three experts on the future of Tesla after Elon Musk settled with SEC
5:55 PM ET Mon, 1 Oct 2018 | 01:35

That settlement hit a snag earlier Thursday when a federal judge ordered the agency and the billionaire CEO to justify the agreement as “fair and reasonable.”

Musk has often been outspoken about short sellers, investors who are betting against Tesla, accusing them of spreading “negative propaganda.” Last year he called them “jerks who want us to die.”

Later on Thursday, Musk responded to someone else's tweet suggesting that short selling should be illegal by agreeing and describing short sellers as “value destroyers.”

The SEC's complaint, filed last week, suggests Musk tweeted the take-private proposal, in part, to lift the company's stock and punish short sellers. Investors betting against Tesla lost about $1.3 billion immediately following that tweet.

The proposed settlement, should it be approved, would require Tesla to “establish a new committee of independent directors and put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk's communications.” That oversight would only take effect 90 days after the settlement takes effect.

Elon Musk is bringing Trump-style tweeting to the corner office
4:11 PM ET Fri, 10 Aug 2018 | 04:39

$3.6 million Aspark Owl electric supercar preorders begin

Japan’s Aspark is taking preorders for its battery-electric Owl at the Paris Motor Show, promising deliveries starting in mid-2020 for the supercar, first revealed a year ago in Frankfurt, that promises a sprint time of less than 2 seconds. Bloomberg reports the Japanese engineering firm is taking nonrefundable deposits of 1 million euros — about… Continue reading $3.6 million Aspark Owl electric supercar preorders begin

Cadillac beats Tesla as best partially self-driving system, Consumer Reports says

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Secretive robot-car maker Zoox opens up

As the self-driving car navigated the narrow, winding streets leading to San Francisco’s Coit Tower, Jesse Levinson narrated from the back seat like a proud parent. “Isn’t that cool, how we slowed down for that person and then nudged around him?” said the chief technology officer of self-driving startup Zoox. “See how steep this street… Continue reading Secretive robot-car maker Zoox opens up

GM’s Cruise scores $750 million investment from Honda, teases new autonomous vehicle

As we have been discussing for a while, we are seeing more consolidation within the auto industry when it comes to autonomous driving technology as automakers are trying to bet on the right horse. In the latest example of that consolidation, Honda is betting on GM’s cruise to build autonomous vehicles. GM’s subsidiary, Cruise automation, scored… Continue reading GM’s Cruise scores $750 million investment from Honda, teases new autonomous vehicle

Chevy Bolt EV sales are slumping in the US, GM says production going to Canada and South Korea

GM is scheduled to increase production of the Chevy Bolt EV by the end of the year, but sales are slumping in the US in the meantime. The automaker says that it is because they are focusing production for other markets. Like Tesla, GM decided to stop giving monthly sale numbers and only release quarterly… Continue reading Chevy Bolt EV sales are slumping in the US, GM says production going to Canada and South Korea

Chinese automaker Borgward built gasoline vehicles in order to sell EVs in America

2019 Borgward BX6
Borgward is unorthodox even among the rapidly evolving cast of 21st-century automakers. It’s a Chinese company, with German heritage, that now wants to bring electric cars to the U.S.

Already in the gas-powered SUV market in China, it has sold more than 100,000 units over the past two years, Now Borgward is eyeing a 2020 or 2021 debut in the U.S. with its next-generation EVs.

Last month, Borgward announced at an artificial intelligence conference in San Francisco that it would open its U.S. headquarters and R&D center in Sunnyvale, California; it also outlined some of its AI safety tech for autonomous vehicles.

DON'T MISS: Borgward SUVs' Geneva debut: new plug-in hybrids, old German name, Chinese owners

President and CEO Jason Yang, speaking to Green Car Reports there, said that his company's strategy of selling gas vehicles before introducing EVs is different than what other new Chinese automakers like Byton and Nio are doing, because it has to be.

“We think EV business is not a profitable business in the short run, and every company needs to survive,” Yang said. “We can't just be burning cash.”

2016 Borgward BX7

Focusing only on electric vehicles would result in just that sort of financial waste, Yang said, but by building gas SUVs first, Borgward can make money as well as share parts and manufacturing facilities between the gasoline and electric models. As proof that his way of thinking is right, he pointed to Tesla.

READ THIS: Tesla founder, Chinese company launch SF Motors electric cars

“I think Elon Musk is a superhero,” he said, calling Musk “a lucky man” for his ability to be so personally tied-in with Tesla’s finances. “Not everyone can be so lucky, so we have to be realistic.”

Part of that realism will show in Borgward's AI platform, which Zhou Xing, Borgward's director of artificial intelligence for autonomous driving, said will be tested with supervised AI learning and repeating virtual tests tens of billions of times.

Yang said that Borgward's in-house AI strategy is better than what major automakers are coming up with. “All of our intelligent technology was designed by ourselves, not a Tier 1 supplier,” Yang said. “So we have our own IP, and we can modify and improve the intelligence system faster than the big automakers.”

CHECK OUT: Why China will beat U.S. in electric-car battle: urgency, regulations

Today, depending on how you look at it, Borgward embodies either much of what its original namesake stood for or very little of it. Originally started by Carl Borgward in Germany in 1919, the company’s products offered a successful combination of style and affordability. The fun ended in 1961, when the company went bankrupt and remained a quiet bit of automotive history—until Carl's grandson Christian set out to revive the brand in 2005.

1957 Borgward Isabella Coupe

In 2008, Chinese investors became involved, and the brand was officially relaunched in 2015, with its first vehicle—the BX7 gas-powered SUV—coming to market in 2016.

Since then, Borgward has sold over 100,000 SUVs, including both gasoline models and the all-electric BXi7. In 2019 in China, Borgward will launch the BXi5 and the BXi6, two new all-electric SUVs that are smaller than the BXi7. Plans for the next few years call for a BX7 plug-in hybrid and a long-wheelbase EV called the BXi3L, alongside BXi3 and BX5 plug-in-hybrid concepts still on the drawing board for 2020.

Tesla Is 2 Years Ahead Of Schedule On Gigafactory 1

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Published on October 1st, 2018 |

by Dr. Maximilian Holland

Tesla Is 2 Years Ahead Of Schedule On Gigafactory 1

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October 1st, 2018 by Dr. Maximilian Holland

Tesla’s 2014 vision for the Gigafactory

Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 in Nevada is solidly on track to achieve a battery production volume of 35 GWh per year (annualized run rate) by the end of 2018. This is two years ahead of the original 2020 target date for achieving these volumes.

Whilst Tesla is often criticized for slipping on its targets, let’s take a moment to recognize the remarkable Gigafactory volume achievement.

Tesla Gigafactory 2018

Where’s My Model 3?
With the obvious advantages of EVs being increasingly recognized by consumers, many folks are getting impatient for affordable EVs to arrive in volume. On the other side of the fence, commentators and incumbents across the automotive and fossil fuel industries, along with their lapdogs in the media, are dishing out daily disdain and skepticism upon the disruptive notions of electrifying transport and accelerating the move towards sustainable energy.

From both sides, Tesla, the world’s leading producer of EVs, is subject to heavy scrutiny of all of its plans and timelines. Even whilst folks queue around the block to get in line for an unseen car, they wonder and get impatient when it takes longer to arrive than they’d hoped.

The Model 3 was infamously 6 months delayed in reaching its 5,000 units per week production volume target, and the company came in for much criticism from all quarters. Most of us forgot that achieving even this interim volume target has put Tesla’s Model 3 at well over double the next best selling EV (the Nissan Leaf). In fact, even while the Model 3 is being produced and delivered at a volume that makes it the 5th best selling car in the US in terms of monthly unit sales, much attention is focused on possible remaining Tesla production challenges.

The habitually optimistic projections of Tesla have come to be taken with a pinch of salt by experienced EV watchers, and it is often joked that the company’s stated timelines need conversion from “Elon time” into the time scales that most of us live in.

Bucking the Trend
Tesla’s Gigafactory progress significantly bucks this trend. When the Gigafactory was first announced in early 2014, the plan was to hit 35 GWh of battery production in 2020. We covered the story extensively at that time, and saw Tesla and Panasonic formally sign onto the joint plan in July of 2014.

Related to bringing forward the timeline for the Model 3’s production in response to its massive and unexpected demand, at the start of 2017, Tesla announced an ambitious accelerated Gigafactory timeline. It brought the 35 GWh goal forward to the end of 2018. Given the focus on production delays of the Model 3 itself during the past couple of years, many of us (myself included) assumed that the seemingly over-ambitious Gigafactory production targets were likewise slipping.

But a couple of months ago (July 2018), news emerged that the accelerated Gigafactory production targets were indeed within reach by the Tesla–Panasonic partnership. Then, just last week, Zach covered the latest updates from Yoshio Ito, head of Panasonic’s automotive business. The news was of the further bringing forward the July plan, to even more quickly add 3 new production lines that were previously slated for “the the end of the year [2018].” This further advance means that the lines will be installed and operating well before the end of the year, thus giving real credence to the 35 GWh run rate being achievable by the end of 2018.

It’s worth pausing to celebrate this rare but strong example of Tesla being two full years ahead of schedule on the timeline it originally set out for the Gigafactory back in 2014. From an initial 2020 target, we now find the 35 GWh annualized production volume goal looks set to be achieved by the end of 2018. That’s 4 years to reach a goal that was initially planned to require 6 years.

Tesla and Elon Musk have come in for a lot of flack recently, but the progress on the ground at the Gigafactory should serve to remind us that — away from the negative press and frequent skepticism about the revolutionary company’s broader mission — Tesla is achieving remarkable goals to accelerate the move towards sustainable transportation and energy.

Tesla 3Q production numbers up as Musk rallies workers

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