Author: Green Car Online News

Everybody move up: Tesla shuffles executive ranks

2017 Tesla Model 3, in photo tweeted by Elon Musk on July 9, 2017
Late Friday evening, Tesla announced an executive reshuffling after a month or more of chaos within the company.

The blog posted to the company's website from CEO Elon Musk on Friday announced that the automaker appointed Jerome Guillen president of automotive operations. Guillen, whom Musk says was a key player in the construction of an additional Model 3 assembly line in a tent adjacent to the factory, will report directly to Musk and oversee all automotive and supply chain operations. His responsibilities could include the types of things analysts have said Musk needs a COO to do in running the day-to-day operations of the company.

Kevin Kassekert, who led the construction of the Gigafactory, has been promoted to “VP of People and Places”, which includes HR and facilities. Chris Lister will take his place as VP of Gigafactory Operations.

Felicia Mayo, an HR director, has been promoted to VP, along with Laurie Shelby, in charge of environmental health and safety and Cindy Nicola, in charge of recruiting.

Dave Arnold, who has worked in Tesla communications for several months, has been promoted to senior director of the department.

The move came a day after Musk appeared in a live webcast with entertainment host Joe Rogan in an interview that some deemed self-destructive and out of control. It was also a month after the CEO announced on Twitter that he had “funding secured” for a plan to take Tesla private, then rescinded the plan two weeks later.

Analysts have since called for Musk to take a leave of absence or step down.

DON'T MISS: Tesla's CEO Elon Musk announces company will stay public, abandons private push

It's not clear whether the reshuffling of executives goes quite that far, but it does address a vacuum that had been developing at the top of the company as several top executives have recently left.

On Tuesday, Chief Accounting Officer Dave Morton quit less than a month after taking the job; he started the day before Musk's privatization tweet.

“Since I joined Tesla on August 6th, the level of public attention placed on the company, as well as the pace within the company, have exceeded my expectations,” Morton said in his resignation letter. “This caused me to reconsider my future. I want to be clear that I believe strongly in Tesla, its mission, and its future prospects, and I have no disagreements with Tesla’s leadership or its financial reporting.”

The SEC reportedly launched an investigation into Musk's tweet, and investors have launched at least two lawsuits, including one on Thursday, according to The Associated Press.

READ THIS: Report: SEC investigating Musk tweet about taking Tesla private

On Friday, the head of Tesla's Human Resources department, Gabrielle Toledano, announced she would not return from a leave scheduled in June. The company has been embroiled in at least two whistleblower cases at its Gigafactory that former employees allege it mishandled materials, didn't investigate theft, and allowed a drug dealer to operate. Employees at both its Fremont, California, car factory and Reno, Nevada, battery Gigafactory, have been in “production hell,” according to Musk, working to ramp up production of the company's critical Model 3 sedan.

Tesla Model 3 all-wheel drive Performance rolls off a new assembly line in a temporary structure

Two weeks ago VP of Communications Sarah O'Brien also announced her resignation.

All three positions play critical roles in advising the CEO on interactions with employees, the public, and regulators, three areas where Musk's behavior has been publicly called into question in the past two months.

Mercedes EQC, Ford electric SUV, more Chevy Bolt EVs, make your voice heard: The Week in Reverse

2020 Ford electric SUV teaser
Which upcoming SUV looks like a sports car?

What's happening to hybrid sales as electrics take off?

This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending Sept. 7, 2018.
2016 Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt EV at Drive Electric Week event, Los Angeles [photo: Zan Dubin Scott]

Friday, we noted the kickoff of National Drive Electric Week, the eighth year that electric car owners and enthusiasts have gathered to promote an electric car movement.

We also learned of a new battery construction technology that can triple the energy density of the battery pack in a BMW i3.

Volvo 360C concept

Thursday, Ford revealed the key sketch of its upcoming new 300-mile SUV, designed to look like a Mustang but perform like a Ford F-150 Raptor.

Volvo also showed its 360c concept for a self-driving car. The company says it can compete with short-haul airline routes with a reconfigurable living room setup inside.

2020 Mercedes-Benz EQC

Wednesday, we looked at a study by California car dealers that showed that electric car sales are cannibalizing those of hybrids. As more small electric cars have landed on the market, conventional gas-car buyers haven't turned to new hybrid SUV and pickup models in the same numbers.

No sooner had Mercedes-Benz introduced its new EQC electric SUV, than it had to correct a glaring oversight in the specs it published. With only a 200-mile electric range, the car wouldn't be competitive with other electric SUVs already on the market. The company says its target range rating in the U.S.is 279-miles.

2018 Chevrolet Bolt EV

Tuesday, we covered GM's efforts to develop a faster-charging battery for future electric cars that can charge at up to 180 miles in 10 minutes of charging.

We also directed readers where they can make their voices heard about the EPA's proposal to gut fuel-economy increases.

Monday was a holiday.

On Sunday we brought news of a new off-road electric-car racing series that the founders of Formula-E are developing.

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Supplier tests compact 100-kwh battery pack in BMW i3

BMW i Vision Dynamics concept, 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show
Using new battery-pack architecture, BMW battery supplier Lion Smart has crammed triple the battery capacity into a BMW i3s.

Lion Smart's 100-kilowatt-hour battery gives the little city car a range of 435 miles on a charge, in the same footprint as the original battery pack.

Lion Smart has developed a modular battery-pack design that makes cooling more efficient and eliminates wiring inside the pack to reduce weight, size, and cost.

2018 BMW i3s

Within the same dimensions, a modular pack can be designed to produce 101 kwh at 400 volts, 98 kwh at 600 volts, or 106 kwh at 800 volts, depending on the sizes of the modules and how they're connected.

Lion Smart calls its modules supercells, which house cylindrical battery cells in a hexagonal arrangement. The company says the supercells can be adapted to any cylindrical cell format, including 18650s (used in Tesla Model Ses and Xes), or the latest 21700 design used in the Tesla Model 3. (Tesla refers to it as the 2170, or 21-70.)

Each cell has its own voltage and temperature sensor connected to and powered by that cell's poles.

A new cooling system uses a phase-changing coolant that converts from a liquid to gas if a cell overheats. That way it focuses cooling power on the individual problematic cell. Individual vents at each cell can bleed off the vapor.

Each cell also has its own fuse so that damaged or overheated cells can be clicked off-line individually without removing a whole module or dramatically reducing the capacity of the whole pack.

READ MORE: BMW reveals its self-driving, electric iNext vision for the future

Don't expect to see a 100-kwh battery pack in an i3 at a BMW dealership near you any time in the foreseeable future.

Lion Smart, though, says it has a contract with a customer to develop one of its modular packs for an upcoming product. The 435-mile range rating of the BMW i3 with the demo pack matches exactly the range BMW has quoted for its upcoming iNext electric sedan (based on its i Vision Dynamics concept car from 2017.) Coincidence? You decide.

GM to expand Chevy Bolt EV sales, bring battery production to US

2018 Chevrolet Bolt EV
As part of a sweeping update on General Motors' electric-car plans, CEO Mary Barra announced the company will expand production and sales of the Chevy Bolt EV.

At the same time, GM is expanding battery production for the Bolt EV from South Korea to a new factory in Michigan.

In a blog post on LinkedIn on Wednesday, Barra laid out the company's progress on its promise to transform itself into an electric carmaker.

READ THIS: GM increases Chevy Bolt EV production to ease supply constraints

The Chevrolet Bolt EV may be more popular with buyers than GM expected. Supplies are concentrated in California, and the car is in short supply in other parts of the U.S. Until recently, Canadians had to wait a year to buy a Bolt EV.

The company announced last spring that it will expand production of the car by 20 percent. Expanding battery production near the Bolt's final assembly plant in Orion Township, Michigan is a significant step in that effort.

At the same time, GM's vice president of global electric vehicle programs, Pam Fletcher, announced that the company will expand Bolt EV sales overseas. Speaking at Citi's Global Technology Conference in New York, Fletcher didn't reveal which new countries the Bolt EV will roll into, but said to expect such an announcement “in the not-so-distant future,” according to Automotive News (subscription required.)

2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV

GM currently sells the Bolt EV in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. GM seems no longer to count sales of the Bolt's twin, the Opel/Vauxhaul Ampera-E, since it sold its European divisions to the French PSA group last year.

In addition to expanding battery production at a new factory in Hazel Park, Michigan, owned by battery supplier LG, Barra announced a $28 million expansion of the battery lab at its Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, that will bring all the company's battery testing under one roof.

Barra also laid out plans to develop an “ultra-fast” charging system for future electric cars.

“Creating a world of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion won’t happen overnight, of course. But our journey to this future is underway,” Barra said.

Should classic cars be converted to electric power? Twitter poll results

Jaguar E-Type Zero
Green Car Reports readers sometimes leave themselves open to having extreme viewpoints.

Such were the results of last week's Twitter poll, when we asked: “Should classic cars be converted to electric power?”

We asked the question following what seemed like a rash of announcements of people doing exactly that, from established automakers to startups to garage hobbyists.

DON'T MISS: Royal couple's electric Jaguar E-type Zero coupe will go into production

Most recently and notably, Jaguar launched a program to rebuild classic Jaguar E-types into electric cars just like the one that Prince Harry and bride Meghan Markle drove to their reception after the latest royal wedding, called the E-type Zero.

Other efforts include Electra Meccanica, which plans to begin converting replica Porsche 356 Speedsters to electric power, as well as numerous—and increasingly famous—home-built electric car conversions.

Jaguar says its conversion is completely reversible.

Still, the trend led us to wonder where our readers stood on the question of altering polluting, yet historical, artifacts to clean, modern electric power.

Perhaps somewhat predictably, most of our Twitter respondents immediately went for clean, modern updates. Damn the torpedoes, 57 percent of our respondents chose “all cars should be clean,” including, apparently or maybe especially, sexy classic cars that were never designed to be clean in the first place.

Electra Meccanica eRoadster, an electric Intermeccanica Speedster replica

Only 15 percent of our respondents went along with Jaguar's notion that installing electric powertrains would be OK, as long as the modifications are fully reversible, to put the car back in original condition if a future owner should ever want to put it in a museum, for example. Jaguar went to great lengths to make sure its new 40-kwh battery and electric motor fit into the same dimensions and weigh about the same as the car's original, classic inline-6 and 4-speed automatic.

CHECK OUT: Electra Meccanica teases new-old e-Roadster

Fewer than a tenth of our respondents, 9 percent, made allowances for less valuable cars, as many individual car collectors do. Often conversions are done on original VW Beetles, which the company made by the millions. Many are rusted out or have been repaired and might not have been that valuable even in original condition.

At the other extreme, 19 percent of our respondents said classic cars should be left alone, “they're artifacts.”

As always, our Twitter polls are unscientific, because of low sample size (268 responses, this time), and because our respondents are self selected.

Still, we thought this poll was particularly interesting. Thanks for participating!

VW diesel settlement, California clean air, and fuel economy demands: Today’s Car News

Byton M-Byte electric SUV prototype
California clean air regulators held a reportedly contentious meeting with Trump administration officials over the proposal to roll back fuel economy standards. A wide survey of Americans told researchers that they're dissatisfied with the fuel economy their cars get now, implying they might want cars to improve. A new report links California's economic growth to its efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, owners of 2.0-liter 4-cylinder Volkswagen diesels have just two days to file for legal settlements against the automaker. All this and more on Green Car Reports.

After the Trump administration proposed to freeze increases in federal fuel economy standards and California sued and said it wouldn't follow the proposal, federal and state regulators met to discuss their differences. All they've agreed on so far is to keep meeting.

Americans told surveyors in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index that the least satisfying aspect of their new cars is their fuel economy. Perhaps higher standards or more electric cars would make a difference.

A new report done in preparation for the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco next month links the state's booming economy to its efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Owners of 4-cylinder diesels implicated in Volkswagen's's emissions cheating scandal have just two days to file claims against the company. So far, almost 10 percent of owners haven't.

Chinese electric carmaker Byton has begun testing its electric SUV on public roads in China. The car is scheduled to go on sale next year.

Finally, a new IIHS study shows that when a city lowers speed limits, drivers don't necessarily follow them—but they do slow down.

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Byton begins road testing its electric car in China

Byton M-Byte electric SUV prototype Chinese electric-car startup automaker Byton has begun testing its upcoming M-Byte electric car in China, the company said Tuesday. The company introduced the car at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, and gave reporters rides to demonstrate its self-driving and electronics capabilities. Byton said Tuesday that it… Continue reading Byton begins road testing its electric car in China

Tesla Model S and X reportedly to get minimalist Model 3 interior

Apparently the problem with the Tesla Model S and Model X was that they’re too normal. They have a separate instrument cluster—a digital one—behind the steering wheel and a few solid controls. Tesla must think that’s too much. The company is designing a new interior for them that looks a lot like the one in… Continue reading Tesla Model S and X reportedly to get minimalist Model 3 interior