Why and how to joyfully move our butts around town, without mucking the place up.

Tag Index

Pages with tag Tesla Motors

  • Elon Musk announcing deal with Nevada on massive Tesla Motors Gigafactory, vastly increasing battery production, preparing way for Model 3: The Tesla Model 3, at a 200,000+ car per year sales rate, will require more battery packs than were manufactured in all of 2013.
  • Elon Musk overworked, ill-considered tweets about going private making Tesla Board look for a #2:

    A few days ago Elon Musk idly tweeted that he's considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share, and that funding is lined up. At least this wasn't posted on April 20. After initial excitement some realists started studying this, asked where the funding was, the SEC started mulling a stock manipulation investigation, and so on. And now the NY Times has an article following an hour-long interview with Musk, describing him as overworked, and the Board is worried and is looking for someone to take over some of Musk's responsibilities.

  • First In-Depth look at the Tesla Model 3 | Model 3 Owners Club:

    We're intensely interested in the Tesla Model 3 and whether it will live up to the hype. The guys running The Model 3 Owners Club got this chance to make an in-depth evaluation of the Model 3, giving an hour of video going over all kinds of details.

  • Fremont City Council approves Tesla Motors factory expansion plans: Tesla Motors is preparing their factory for the jump to 500,000 cars per year in order to satisfy Tesla Model 3 sales demand.
  • How well does a Tesla Model S stand up after 212,000+ miles?: This 2014 Tesla Model S has been driven a LOT, with lots of cross-country trips, lots of supercharging, kids and animals and everything else. Other than several swapped drive units, the car is in excellent condition and is running very well. For example in the last 2 years the car has not seen the inside of a Service Center, for a 5 year old car with over 200,000 miles.
  • KmanAuto's spy shots of the Tesla Semi drive train:

    Last week Tesla Motors unveiled the Tesla Semi, and in a "one-more-thing" moment, they also unveiled the Tesla Roadster2. The Semi is perhaps the more important vehicle, and in any case the guy behind the KmanAuto YouTube channel was at the unveiling, and managed to sneak underneath the truck to take this video. The drive train - motors, gearboxes, wiring, etc - was all exposed underneath the truck, and Kman was able to post this 5-minute video tour of the parts. In a second video he demonstrated that the charging port is NOT the same as a Supercharger port, meaning it's gonna be a different charging cable and connector for the MegaCharger.

  • Marc Tarpenning - Tesla's High Speed Innovation at 2017 Product Leader Summit :

    If you pay closely to your electric vehicle history, you may be aware that Elon Musk is nothing more than a co-founder of Tesla Motors. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning started Tesla Motors, with Elon Musk joining shortly afterward as the Angel Investor. This talk is by Marc Tarpenning talking at Stanford University to a group of entrepenuerial people.

    Martin and Marc had built and sold a previous company, and were looking for a new challenge. They decided to look at the Oil industry, that is to disrupt the Oil Industry out of existence. The primary place Oil plays is transportation, specifically for cars and light trucks. It's unrealistic to use biofuels -- for example corn-based-ethanol would require more arable land than exists in the USA to fuel the vehicles used in the USA. On the other hand, electric cars can be powered by the solar panels on the roof of the house. See (greentransportation.info) Solar/Electric Vehicle Nirvana

    They chose to build a sports car first because it's an area where they could more easily compete than other market segments. The electric drive was able to outpace gasoline powered cars because of "100% torque at 0 RPM". The Roadster doesn't do so well at a race track because they knew high speed wasn't so important for daily driving, and instead the 0-60 miles/hr time was most important.

    The real plan was to make an extremely compelling attractive car at the high end, and then move towards the Sedan market.

  • Tesla Gigafactory Announcement, near Reno Nevada: After months of speculation over the location, Tesla Motors announces plans to build its Gigafactory near Reno Nevada. When finished the Gigafactory will single-handedly double lithium-ion battery production in the world. The completed factory will be one of the largest buildings in the world, yet will be net energy neutral thanks to an extensive solar panel array and wind power on-site. The goal is to drastically reduce the cost of battery packs to enable an explosion of both electric vehicle and energy storage adoption.
  • Tesla Model X accident avoidance mode - accelerating to avoid rear-ender: We know that Tesla Motors is a leader in developing autonomous driving technology. This video shows an example of automatically avoiding an accident. Watch the white Model X in the lane to the right. An SUV rear-ends a car, that then rear-ends another car, but the Model X automatically moves itself to avoid being rear-ended.
  • Tesla Motors reconfigures its factory, vastly increasing production, preparing way for Model X: Cool video showing installation of the new factory lines which will help Tesla fulfill the Model X promises.
  • Tesla Motors wins right to sell electric cars in New Jersey - All In with Chris Hayes: MSNBC's Chris Hayes covers the fight by Tesla Motors to use its prefered direct sales model in New Jersey. After facing a significant loss in NJ a year ago, that state has now passed a law allowing direct sales.
  • Tesla Motors' electric car and battery megafactories changes the cleantech game on a huge scale: To electrify all the worlds cars requires a huge electric car production, and the large factories to match.
  • Tesla Motors' solution for Range Anxiety - navigation aids: Elon Musk announces Tesla Motors' solution for Range Anxiety, namely new navigation aids delivered to all Model S's via an over-the-air update
  • Tesla Prep For Model 3, Lucid Air PR, Self-Driving Bolt EV -- Transport Evolved Feb 10, 2017: To prepare for start of Model 3 production, Tesla Motors will do a short factory shutdown in order to install the necessary equipment (tooling, etc). Audi has been trash-talking Tesla Motors, claiming Audi will supply the first properly Premium Electric Car. Honda put out a strange fuel cell advertising campaign. Hyundai Ioniq beginning deliveries in USA, but with only 120 miles range probably cannot compete against Chevy Bolt. Because of Dieselgate, Volkswagen is launching its Electrify America plan with a website and a request for ideas. Nissan is in trouble for emissions of its Diesel powered vehicle. Lucid Air giving test drives to select people. The Tesla Model X can be easily accessed with just a screwdriver. Both Tesla and SpaceX joined a large group of Hi-Tech companies complaining about the Trump Administration Muslim travel ban. GM released a new video on progress towards a self-driving car. Electric car sales in the UK totaled 4.2% in January 2017.
  • Tesla Prep For Model 3, Lucid Air PR, Self-Driving Bolt EV -- Transport Evolved Feb 18, 2017: GM expands Maven car sharing to Los Angeles. Latest Tesla update provides real-time Supercharger status, preparing for an influx of more EV drivers. Adds data about congestion at upcoming supercharger stations so you can make additional plans. Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Sedan recalled for software glitch that's expected to be rare but wasn't found in testing. EV Sales in Norway, where electric car sales are extremely popular, top 37 percent of new car sales last month (January 2017). That's just 13% from bypassing the 50% sales level. Hyundai announces $29,500 entry-level price (MSRP) for 2017 IONIQ EV, and combined with tax incentives it is extremely affordable. Jason Hughes, a famous Tesla Hacker, hacks his Model S to make it 30% more powerful. Electric bus maker, Proterra CEO predicts one-third of all new busses will be electric in just four year’s time (by 2021), and by 2030 all such busses will be electric. Daimler announces their Smart brand will become an all-electric brand in the U.S., completely eschewing gasoline. Was Waymo’s Brain Drain caused by overpaying its staff? It seems Waymo's parent company (Google/Alphabet) paid those employees enough to make them independently wealthy, allowing them to leave to start their own self-driving-vehicle startups. Kia exec says NIRO EV will hit market in 2018. Mercedes-Benz starts small series production for Daimler Urban eTruck. A patient Bolt EV owner has driven their car 300 miles on a charge, or 70 miles more than the EPA rating.
  • Tesla denying Takata airbag recall for salvage/rebuild cars:

    Takata airbags can decompose and once in that state, if triggered the airbag will spew shrapnel on the passenger causing physical harm and possibly death. This is a big big safety deal, so why is Tesla refusing to replace these airbags for folks who've repaired and rebuilt a Tesla car? For that matter, why is Tesla going out of its way to throw roadblocks in the way of folks who've done so? Repairing and rebuilding cars is a widespread hobby/practice, and other car manufacturers support the rebuilders with parts and diagnostics tools. Not so with Tesla.