Tesla-nyheder (Youtube og websites)

Zac and Jesse Cataldo are a father and son team who preside over an empire of YouTube channels focused on sustainable energy and transportation. Every week, they turn out a tremendous amount of content about Tesla, EVs, renewable energy and related topics. “We cover all the car manufacturers. We go into wind energy, solar energy, anything sustainable,” Zac told me during a recent chat. “Just like Elon, we’re trying to move the needle on sustainable energy and transportation.”  Above: Jesse and Zac Cataldo with their Tesla Model 3 (Source: Now You Know) Zac and Jesse’s flagship show is called Tesla Time News. The name refers to the phenomenon of Tesla owners who meet at Superchargers and hang out discussing the latest EV news while waiting for their cars to charge—among those in the know, this is called Tesla time. Tesla Time News, which comes out every Monday, has been on the air for five years, and has released over 227 consecutive episodes. A second show called In Depth, which comes out every Friday, has also logged over 200 consecutive episodes. And that’s far from all. “We’ve got a channel called Now Let’s Review where we review all kinds of e-mobility devices. We’ve got a disruptive investing channel, where we talk about all sorts of stock-related stuff. We’ve also got a clips channel where we put out little bite-sized clips of our stories, so that people can share them. We have over 1,000 videos on our main channel, everything from how to use your Model 3 to [the question of] whether Model 3 is cheaper than driving an ICE car.” At the time of our interview, TSLA stock had just had another massive growth spurt, soaring into the high 800s, so I asked Zac what he thought was fueling the rapid rise, and if there was a bubble in the making. His answer led beyond the stock market to the larger question of why the battle between Tesla and legacy auto is an unequal contest. “Right now, a lot of people are getting into the stock, let’s be honest, because of FOMO, fear of missing out. And the fact that’s it gotten into the S&P 500 has made it so that a lot of fund managers, who never would have touched it before, now have to get into it, so there’s a kind of pent-up demand. But I think that [most] people don’t understand that Tesla is not just a car company. If you look at it just as a car company, you might say, ‘Wow, looks like it’s overvalued,’ because [Tesla’s market cap is] more than Toyota, Ford, GM and BMW all combined, and it only makes 500,000 cars a year.” Tesla’s mounting market cap makes more sense when you realize that the company is much more than an automaker. “It’s getting into things that I don’t think [most] people understand—they don’t understand what a virtual power plant is, or the fact that [Tesla is] vertically integrated, making all the batteries for their cars. I think people are just thinking in term of typical ICE cars today. They think, ‘Aren’t they just selling a lot of cars? And aren’t other car manufacturers able to make more of those?’” What superficial observers fail to grasp is that the auto industry is in the middle of a disruption that none of the legacy automakers are yet fully participating in. It isn’t about how many cars a company makes—it’s about whether, a couple of years from now, anyone is going to want the cars they’re making. Zac believes we’re on the cusp of a transition to a new type of product, analogous to the situation with smartphones a decade ago. Once cell phones took off, providers of traditional phones and landline service were no longer offering what people were buying. Zac addressed the Myth of the Tesla Killers, which we’ve discussed so many times in this space. “There’s been so much talk over the years: ‘As soon as the Tesla killer cars come out, Tesla’s in trouble. Once Ford and GM and all those companies make [viable EVs], then watch out, Tesla!’ And we’ve known for years that that’s just not true. Those companies are not innovative, so they’re not able to actually make a car that’s anything more than a compliance car. The only real competitors are going to come from outside. They’re going to come from companies—perhaps Lucid, or perhaps Rivian—that are looking at the problem from a different angle.” “Our analogy is that you’re trapped in the woods, and you’ve got a bear trap on your leg. That’s legacy auto. If you want to get out of the woods, you’ve got to chew your leg off. What they would have to do is stop making ICE cars, right now. If we saw that happen, I think that they would have a chance. Because they’ve got the means, they’ve got the money to do it. It’s just that they don’t want to stop the cash flow of those engines that they’re selling, so they’re not going to do it. They’re going to keep making them.” Some observers see this as a textbook example of the Innovator’s Dilemma—auto execs understand the situation as well as we do, but they don’t have any viable way out of it. Zac disagrees—he believes that many of those at the top still don’t understand what’s going on. “When you see interviews with [former Ford CEO Jim Hackett and GM CEO Mary Barra, for example], you would think they have the information I have. But most of them have never really driven an EV. I’ve talked to so many people in the industry, even in the charging industry, who have not really driven EVs for more than a fun little afternoon. Until you experience an EV, you don’t really understand the whole ecosystem of it. A lot of these leaders of companies just don’t buy into EVs yet. Now maybe this year, it’s finally been beaten over their heads enough times that they do. But up until now, and I think even today, most of them really don’t get it.” What will it take for a legacy automaker to make the transition? “Look at what Herbert Diess is doing at the Volkswagen Group. He’s saying, ‘Look, we’ve got to pivot right now.’ And you’ve seen the pushback he’s getting from people who are [saying] ‘No, we don’t want to pivot. We want to keep making engines. We’re making money on these engines.’ It looks like maybe he’s won that battle with VW, but we’ll see. And some of these other companies—look at Honda. The CEO’s come out and blatantly said [electrification] is not the way they’re going to go.” Facing the future will mean “having to admit that what you worked on for decades is no longer the way you should go. And I think that’s really, really hard in these cultures. You set up a company with a culture around it, and now you have to throw all that out? That’s really hard, to move that ship in a new direction.” Above: A look at some of the Tesla topics and clean energy content covered by Zac and Jesse Cataldo on their YouTube channel (YouTube: Now You Know) If and when any legacy automaker decided it wanted to go all in and try to challenge Tesla, there’s another problem: Tesla’s technological head start, which most observers estimate at five years or more. “Not only does Tesla have a head start, but here’s another part where I think these companies don’t get it. Elon’s innovating so fast, that you can’t just say, ‘Oh well, we’re three years behind but we’re going to catch up.’ He’s changing the rate of change so quickly that by the time you’ve caught up to him, he’s on to the next thing. He’s already on to the machine that makes the machine, whereas I’ve not yet heard any of the big auto manufacturers even talking about that. I don’t think they’ve wrapped their head around it. So, when they finally do catch up to the 4680 battery, Tesla will be, again, three, four, seven years ahead or whatever.” “Most carmakers, all they want to do is not upset the applecart. They want to come out with a new model that just has enough bells and whistles that you want to buy it as a consumer, but that it doesn’t force them to go into the Osborne effect, which would mean that they [announce] a model for next year and no one’s going to buy this year’s model, they’re going to wait for the new one.” In Zac’s view, Tesla has disrupted the traditional auto industry product cycle, and changed the way it works. “I bought a Model 3 two years ago, and I got the latest update, so it’s almost like I have the latest model. I know there are a couple of little physical things, like the speaker—I don’t have Boombox Mode, but it’s not the end of the world for me. And [Tesla has] leapfrogged other auto manufacturers by such a wide margin. I was reading this week that one auto manufacturer’s going to put a giant screen in their car. Yeah, but it has to work the same way that Tesla screens work, and I’ve been in all the other latest and greatest cars, and their touchscreens suck. It’s not about the size of the screen, it’s about how it works.” “Existing Big Auto, all they are, really, is a supplier manager. They take hundreds of suppliers, and put their pieces together into a car. I’m not saying that’s easy to do—it’s hard to do. But Tesla is vertically integrated, Tesla makes pretty much everything they put into the car. I’m not saying they don’t sub out certain things. But every now and then, when Elon gets frustrated with a supplier, he just takes it in-house. Whereas Ford and GM and Toyota, they’re all looking to basically sub stuff out as much as possible. Which means that you can’t even do over-the-air updates to that stuff, because it doesn’t speak to one architecture.” This echoes something that Tesla co-founder Ian Wright told me six or seven years ago—in a Tesla vehicle, one computer system controls everything, whereas a typical legacy car has a dozen or so different computers that don’t work together very well. “Yeah, that’s kind of crazy to think that people realized that back then, and it still hasn’t made it to [mainstream vehicles]. And I think that that kind of speaks to the auto manufacturers not having a freakin’ clue. Because they’ve had a decade now. It doesn’t require a complete redesign of the car from the standpoint of the drivetrain, so it seems like that should be [fairly] easy, but it’s not how their companies are set up.” “There’s such a pent-up demand for EVs, even if people don’t know it. Once you get butts in seats, once you experience the car, something clicks in your brain, and you now understand that you’re in the future of transportation. And I think what’s been going on is, as each new Model 3 or Model Y gets into someone’s hands, and they show it off to a family member or a friend, [those people] get to bypass all of the FUD that’s been written about electric cars—are they going to catch fire? Are electric cars just too weird?” “When you get to experience the actual technology, it’s a lot like when people first started experiencing smartphones. I remember when smartphones came out, a lot of people would just look at them and dismiss them: ‘I’ll never need that.’ But once you see, up close, someone using a smartphone and what it can be used for, your brain clicks and you begin to realize, ‘Oh, I can do that with this? I can order food, I can order an Uber, I can do my email on it.’ Same thing with an electric car. Once you get in it you realize: How often do I have to get maintenance? Oh, I don’t. How often do I have to go to the gas station? Oh, I don’t—I can just plug it in at home. All the things that you and I know about are things that, to most people, are still outside their understanding, and they need to talk to someone and to experience the car. Not to mention what it feels like to drive an electric car. It’s just this exhilarating experience.” The demand is out there, says Zac, even if most people don’t realize it yet. High prices, and a limited selection of available EV models, are still holding back sales, but oddly, these factors may also be hurting sales of legacy vehicles. “Once you think you want an electric car, you’re going to hold off your purchase of any car until you can get an electric car that you want. And to be honest, we still aren’t at the place we’d all like to be, where there’s super-cheap electric cars. The Model 3 is about the cheapest car that’ll do everything you want it to do, in terms of range, but that’s still not cheap—$35,000 for the very cheapest model—so a lot of people out there, who probably want a $25,000 car, are just waiting. They’re making their ICE car work until that day. And that’s why you’re seeing ICE car sales plummet. Because you can make your car last. You’ll hold on for a year or two, put a little more maintenance into it, while you wait for that EV of your dreams.” “We’re in a really unique position, Jesse and I. Because our YouTube channel’s been growing so fast and we get to talk to so many people around the world, we’re kind of in touch, on a grassroots level, with what is going on. People write to us, daily, and say, ‘I’ve got an old Honda, and I’m going to hold onto it until I can afford a Model 3.’ And so, just hearing, anecdotally, all these stories kind of clues us into what’s really going on. We’ll also hear from people saying things like, ‘I want to try and convince my parents to buy a Model Y for the family.’ And then they go to the showroom, and they convince their father or their mother to get in the car. And then it’s like, ‘We have one on order now.’” === Written by: Charles Morris

Pity the poor, unloved auto dealerships. If they disappeared, who would mourn their passing? Car buyers certainly wouldn’t miss the pushy salespeople, byzantine pricing or overpriced repairs. Automakers would surely cry some crocodile tears, but they would probably be glad to adopt Tesla’s direct sales model, which gives the California carmaker complete control over how its products are presented (as well as a larger slice of the profit). As Jalopnik‘s Erik Shilling facetiously writes in a recent article, some of the dealers themselves might prefer to call it a day, to judge by the amount of kvetching they do about how tough their business is.   Above: A Tesla Model 3 and Jaguar I-PACE parked outside of a traditional Jaguar dealership (Source: Tesla & Chill) In today’s e-commerce-enabled world, auto dealers seem like a vestige of an earlier era, but their existence, as Tesla knows very well, is enshrined in state franchise laws, and their political influence in most state capitals is formidable. Kvetch though they may, they don’t intend to go away. However, as the auto industry goes electric, it’s getting harder to see a future for traditional auto dealerships, and substantial cracks are already beginning to appear in the century-old edifice. During the pandemic-triggered lockdown, a number of auto dealers started taking some pages from the Tesla playbook. In Europe, where automakers have more flexibility vis a vis their retail operations, they’ve been delving deeper into the brave new world of direct sales. A recent decision by GM to buy out dealers who don’t want to get on board the electrification express may have provided a preview of the upheavals to come.  The automaker plans to make Cadillac an electric-only brand, and this will require dealerships to make some substantial investments. Cadillac spokesman Mike Albano told the Detroit Free Press that this will amount to “about a $200,000 investment” for sales training, charging stations, forklifts (for handling heavy EV batteries) and other equipment, and that the upgrades will have to be completed before Cadillac’s electric Lyriq SUV comes to market in 2022. Rather than force its dealers to go along with the new order, GM gave them the option to drop the Cadillac brand and accept a cash buyout. According to the Free Press, the sums on offer ranged from $300,000 to $700,000 per dealer, and around 170-180 dealers, or about 20% of Cadillac’s national dealer network, have taken the buyouts. The result seems like a win-win—those dealers who are skeptical about electrification are out of the game, and those who anted up to stay at the table have a strong incentive to get serious about selling EVs. Several Michigan dealers told the Freep that they expect EV demand to pick up, and are excited about the new opportunity. Be that as it may, dealers have legitimate reasons to fear the electric future. Electric vehicles require less maintenance, and repairs make up a large chunk of the profit at many dealerships. EVs are also expected to last longer, so customers may not be replacing their vehicles as often (especially if they can be upgraded via over-the-air updates, a la Tesla). “There’s significantly less opportunity for revenue after the sale,” Jeff Laethem, owner of Ray Laethem Buick GMC in Detroit, told the Detroit News. “That is going to be probably the biggest disruption.” Above: A look at some of the many challenges that lay ahead for franchise car dealerships (YouTube: CNBC) Whatever happens, dealers are going to have to change their business models in significant ways. “The biggest value add that we can be as a dealer is to be the experts in knowing all of the functionality and how it interacts with the consumer,” said Laethem. “More than ever, we’re going to have to be the subject matter experts, because so much of this from a technology side is going to be pretty new to our customers.” The transition to e-mobility isn’t the only trend that’s motivating dealers to rethink their strategies. As Joann Muller writes in Axios, the global pandemic has forced car dealers to embrace the trend towards online sales that they’ve been resisting for decades. Many have revamped their web sites to make it easier for customers browse inventory and apply for credit, and some are offering virtual test drives and “touchless” vehicle deliveries. “Consumers really like it,” Michelle Krebs, an Executive Analyst at Cox Automotive, told Axios. “Surveys show they want more of it, and dealers are getting on board that this is how it’s going to be.” Of course, some forward-looking dealerships have been selling online for years. But it’s a conservative industry, and many dealers feel that the old tried-and-true in-person sales experience is critical to their profit. Skillful salespeople know how to maximize the revenue from each individual customer, by tempting them with various options and add-ons (and through other, less reputable sales techniques). Analyst Krebs believes that this is a myth, and that selling online can deliver more profit, not less. “The deal happens faster because the consumer knows exactly what they want, and there’s not a lot of haggling on the price,” she said. Dealers who do a good job of delivering the online experience can sell more cars in the same amount of time. It’s early days in the EV revolution—way too early to tell if auto dealers will go the way of horse and buggy peddlers. However, one thing is certain—thriving in the new world will require investments of time and money, to say nothing of some vision and imagination. Those dealers who are still standing a decade from now will not be doing business the same way they’ve been doing it for the last century. === Written by: Charles Morris

For two decades now, the mainstream press has been feeding peoples’ natural skepticism about new technology, dismissing electric vehicles as a quaint fad that will never “catch on.” Now that EV sales are soaring in Europe, Volkswagen and GM are getting serious about electrification, and a new US president has put protecting the environment on the priority list, national newspapers and TV networks are finally starting to acknowledge some of the things that we EVangelists have been writing about for years. Above: Tesla’s Model 3 (Source: EVANNEX; Photo by Casey Murphy) A feature in the New York Times, citing a recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, definitively stated: “Electric vehicles are better for the climate than gas-powered cars…[and] despite the higher sticker price, electric cars may actually save drivers money in the long run.” The MIT team calculated both the emissions and the full lifetime cost, including purchase price, maintenance and fuel, for almost every new car model on the market. The conclusions (old news to you, dear readers, but surely a revelation to many Times readers): electric cars are “easily more climate-friendly than gas-burning ones,” and over their lifetime, they often end up being cheaper. The Times put to rest the tired Long Tailpipe argument (which has been so thoroughly debunked that we needn’t revisit it here), and also the concerns about emissions generated during battery production. Professor Jessika Trancik, who led the research, said that an EV’s production emissions are typically offset in the first 6 to 18 months of ownership, depending on the makeup of the local energy grid. Trancik’s report also explains how the lower maintenance costs of an electric vehicle, combined with the lower cost of electricity relative to gas, offsets the EV’s higher upfront price. “Those upfront costs are spread over the lifetime of the car,” she writes. Dr. Trancik’s team released the data in an interactive online tool that illustrates the differing carbon footprints and lifetime costs of various different models (spoiler alert: EVs are cleaner and cheaper). Again, none of this will be news to EV drivers or fellow travelers. However, some of the comparisons of individual cars may be surprising. In many cases, buying a greener car doesn’t mean paying more, it means paying less. For example, the gas-powered Toyota RAV4 XLE starts at $27,450, whereas the LE Hybrid version, which costs only a grand more to buy ($28,500), will quickly pay back its higher purchase price in gas and maintenance savings, while saving a substantial quantity of emissions. Another fun fact: over its lifetime, a Tesla Model 3 will end up costing around the same as a Nissan Altima, despite the former’s far higher up-front cost. We’re used to seeing Teslas compared to BMWs, Mercedes and other luxury brands, but a lot of people will be shocked to learn that they could buy a stylish, sporty and feature-packed Model 3 for the same lifetime cost as a model that’s billed as a sensible, low-priced transportation option. And the emissions savings are pure gravy. These comparisons assume nationwide average gasoline and electricity prices. EVs’ cost advantages are greater in pricey-gas regions such as California, smaller in areas where gas is cheaper or electrons pricier. However, a 2017 analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists found that charging was cheaper than pumping gas in 50 major American cities. “We saw potential savings everywhere,” said UCS Senior Engineer David Reichmuth. As the NYT reports, there’s even better news in store. Chris Gearhart of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory explained to the Times that, over the next few years, EVs will steadily become cheaper as battery prices drop. Meanwhile, new technologies to reduce exhaust emissions are making legacy vehicles more expensive. “With that trajectory, you can imagine that even immediately at the purchase price level, certain smaller sedans could reach purchase price parity in the next couple of years,” Dr. Gearhart said. === Written by: Charles Morris; Source: New York Times

2020 was a significant year for Tesla. The Silicon Valley automaker absolutely rocked Wall Street in 2020 — winning Stock of the Year and minting ‘Teslanaires’ young and old. Through Elon Musk’s unique knack (or lack) of Public Relations, just about everyone learned about electric cars via some connection to Tesla last year. So what’s ahead for the EV leader in 2021? Above: Cybertruck, ATV, Roadster, and Tesla Semi (Twitter: Elon Musk) Well, this year is already off to a blistering pace. And there’s a lot to look forward to in Tesla Land this coming year. Here’s our preview of what to expect in the coming year. It doesn’t cover all the bases but it should provide a helpful overview for those (attention: short sellers) who believe Tesla is just standing still.  Cybertruck Okay, this is probably the most revolutionary (albeit controversial) vehicle coming through the Tesla pipeline in 2021. And there’ll be plenty of EV truck competition. That said, “We love this beast enough to have placed a pre-order.” Can’t wait. But, we’ll have to… hopefully 2021 will be The Year of the Truck for Tesla. Oh, and don’t forget — this year marks the arrival of Cybertruck’s ultimate companion, the Tesla ATV. Tesla Semi Speaking of trucks, there hasn’t been much news from Tesla on the Semi since it was first unveiled back in 2017. Musk has stated his desire to bring the Semi into volume production, and earnings reports state that 2021 is the new timeframe for that to happen.  Despite delays, Tesla has continued to capture some large orders from a wide variety of companies for the Semi. Two of the more recent buys came from Walmart Canada for 130 trucks and Pride Group Enterprises for 150 trucks (with an option to increase to 500). Will Tesla Semi launch in 2021? We’re excited to find out. Tesla Roadster Since Jay Leno got a well-publicized test drive, Tesla has also been somewhat secretive about its all-new Roadster. Heck, we didn’t even get to see those thrusters yet. Unsurprisingly, with the pandemic, the Roadster was also pushed back. During one of the earnings calls this year, Musk stated that they’re hoping to start production of the Roadster sometime in mid to late-2021 with a possibility of being pushed back to 2022. Additionally, some people who earned a discount on a Roadster through the Tesla Referral Program received an email from Tesla asking them to confirm whether they want to claim their discount or not. Perhaps the timing of these emails means it’s coming sooner than expected? Plaid Model S Rewind to 2019 — we witnessed a battle between the Tesla Model S and Porsche Taycan around the Nurburgring. In 2020, we did get some news regarding the ultra high-performance Plaid Model S during battery day. The specs speak for themselves: $139,990 base price, 520+ mile range, 200 mph top speed, and under 2.0 second 0-60 mph time. We do know that the tri-motor prototype Model S had an extra aerodynamic body kit on it during its Nurburgring runs, but we do not know precisely if the Plaid will bring any specific design changes to the interior (or exterior) of the car. Regardless, the Plaid Model S is to be expected sometime later this year. Giga Shanghai In 2020, the Model 3 ramp at the factory has been impressive. Tesla states that the plant can now produce ~250,000 Model 3s moving forward. The Model Y portion of the factory is said to be able to produce ~250,000 Model Ys as well, bringing the total capacity of the Gigafactory 3 to (at least) half a million cars. Reports have also surfaced recently claiming Tesla should produce around 523,000 cars in 2021 at Giga Shanghai. Could we see this kind of massive output in 2021? After all, that’s more vehicles out of one factory than Tesla produced worldwide in 2020. Only time will tell. But already we’re seeing Model Y deliveries in China this month. Giga Berlin With a proper foothold in China to address the Asian market, Tesla should be turning their attention to bringing vehicle production to the European continent. Giga Berlin is said to begin production later this year. The factory will be producing both the Model Y and Model 3 with a start date of sometime in mid to late 2021 as long as construction doesn’t see any major roadblocks.  Interestingly enough, the Berlin Gigafactory could produce a Model Y that differs from ones made in Fremont and Shanghai. It looks like Berlin will be where Tesla tests some of its newer technologies like their new 4680 cells and/or upgraded paint system. The Berlin Gigafactory could turn out to be the ultimate Tesla Gigafactory testbed site — where the company rolls out its newest features and tech. We’ll find out (hopefully) in 2021. Giga Austin Despite continuing work on both Giga Shanghai and Giga Berlin, Tesla’s new American Gigafactory resides in Austin, Texas. It should be up-and-running in 2021 in order to launch the company’s much-anticipated Cybertruck. Alongside the Cybertruck, Giga Austin will also produce the Model Y, because it seems like Americans can’t get enough of the Model Y. Giga Austin should evolve into an exciting story in 2021. Better Batteries  A better battery may be arriving in 2021. Tesla unveiled plans to vertically integrate battery production with their new 4680 battery cell. This new battery will allow Tesla to deliver more range and improved power for upcoming models. Not only that, but the design allows for a price reduction as well. While we have confirmation that these cells will be in the European Model Y, you can expect the 4680 cells to (ultimately) be available in the Semi, Roadster, and Cybertruck too. Tesla’s pilot plant is expected to be completed sometime in 2021 to kick off the next chapter for Tesla’s batteries. We recently got a preview of what the production line might look like as it rolls out soon. And More… What about a completely redesigned version of the Model S and Model X. Will there be more updates to Tesla’s solar business and solar roof options? Will more utilities take advantage of Tesla’s energy storage and Autobidder capabilities? What about improvements to Autopilot? And what can we expect from future software updates? There’s lot more to expect from Tesla in 2021. For a deeper dive into the topic of Tesla’s 2021 forecast (especially as it relates to the stock), check out the video below. In addition, we’re sure, there are things yet-to-be-mentioned that will come across Elon Musk’s Twitter feed. We’ll be watching. Video Above: Rob Maurer and Sean Mitchell look ahead at what investors should be thinking about as it relates to Tesla in 2021 (YouTube: Sean Mitchell)== An earlier version of this article appeared on EVBite. EVBite is an electric vehicle specific news site dedicated to keeping consumers up-to-date on any developments in the ever-expanding EV landscape. 

President Joe Biden’s emphasis on the environment is a welcome change, but the shift to a more sustainable economy won’t happen overnight. The greening of America will require a great deal of innovation, smart investment and plain old hard work. Bullet trains, wind turbines and electric cars that can go 0-60 in two seconds may generate the headlines that politicians love, but making the transition to a new clean energy ecosystem will also depend on some far less glamorous technologies, and batteries are arguably the most important of these. Above: President Biden has big ambitions for clean energy (Source: Biden Campaign) Media coverage of battery tech tends to focus on the need for better and cheaper batteries, which will enable automakers to further improve charging times and bring down the prices of EVs. However, quantity, rather than quality, may be the really critical issue. As EVs scale up to mass production, far greater supplies of EV batteries will be required. Meanwhile, a different kind of battery tech will be needed to build the massive utility-scale storage capacity that will enable the large-scale integration of wind and solar energy sources into the electrical grid. Elon Musk has often highlighted the pressing need to scale up battery production. “Battery cell production is the fundamental rate-limiter slowing down a sustainable energy future. Very important problem,” he recently tweeted. Fortunately, President Biden and his team are well aware of the battery issue. As the Washington Post reports, the administration’s plan includes incentives to encourage domestic battery production, as well as increased funding for research into new chemistries and large-scale energy storage technologies. Despite the previous administration’s lack of interest in clean tech, battery research has been proceeding with the support of various federal programs, thanks to bipartisan support in Congress. The DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, announced in January 2020, has set a goal of meeting the country’s energy storage needs with domestically manufactured technologies by 2030. Bringing that battery manufacturing to the US will require a major shift. Today, most of the world’s batteries are made in Asia, especially in China. According to BloombergNEF, China currently produces 79% of the global supply. The country’s dominant position is a result of government policies that doled out generous subsidies to domestic battery-makers. The US currently accounts for only 7% of global battery production. However, plans for a number of new US battery plants are on the drawing boards. GM and LG Chem are building a battery cell manufacturing facility in Lordstown, Ohio, and VW is working on a battery pack assembly plant and a battery engineering lab in Tennessee. Further upstream, securing domestic supplies of raw materials also looms as a challenge. There are plenty of lithium deposits here in the US (forget the scare stories about an impending lithium shortage—the light metal is one of the most abundant elements on Earth), but exploiting them at the necessary scale, with minimal environmental impact, will be a long-term project. Tesla is believed to import much of its current lithium supply from Australia and South America, but it’s working to develop sources closer to home—one promising trove lies just a couple hundred miles north of Gigafactory 1, near the Oregon/Nevada border. Meanwhile, in Southern California, several companies are working to extract lithium from underground brine, or to isolate it as a by-product from geothermal energy plants near the Salton Sea. Whatever mix of incentives, regulations and tax breaks the Biden administration implements to help scale up domestic battery production, private industry will have to take the lead, and therein lies opportunity. Apparently, there are valleys of opportunity all around the country—Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, the home of Lordstown Motors and the GM/LG battery plant, is now known as “Voltage Valley,” and local boosters have already dubbed both the Nevada and California lithium mining regions “Lithium Valley.” === Written by: Charles Morris

One of the reasons legacy automakers are resisting electrification is that they fear, with good reason, that the transition will take a big bite out of their profits. Massive investment in battery and powertrain technology will be required in the short and medium term, and it seems doubtful that EVs will ever deliver the spectacular profit margins that carmakers enjoy on today’s gas-powered trucks and SUVs.   Above: Nissan LEAF and Tesla Model S charging (Source: Chargepoint) There’s also a big, bad bogeyman lurking on the cost side of the ledger—the billions automakers have invested in ICE engine development and production. Many segments of the auto production process—body stamping, paint shops, wheels and tires—will still be relevant in the EV era, but the production lines that build gas and diesel engines, and the suppliers and R&D facilities that support them, will soon become what economists call stranded assets. In simple terms, a stranded asset is something that you paid a lot of money for, but which is no longer worth anything. As the world shifts to electromobility and clean energy, there will be a lot of these. For automakers, as Jasper Jolly writes in The Guardian, this will mean “a race to shut, switch or sell factories producing vehicles with internal combustion engines.” Philippe Houchois, an analyst at the investment bank Jefferies, told The Guardian that how well carmakers succeed in mitigating their losses on fossil fuel-related assets will have a large effect on their share prices. “If you want to be a better valued carmaker you need to find a way to shrink your assets faster than a gradual transition to electric vehicles would suggest.” Professor David Bailey of the University of Birmingham told The Guardian that German carmakers are particularly at risk of being caught with their assets bare, thanks to their decades-long detour down the diesel dead end. “You’re going to see the massive investment by the German makers in EVs, but they’ve got a huge sunk asset in diesels,” he said. “They’re trying to eke out some sort of profit from their existing lineup while investing in new technologies.” Last July, when the heads of Audi and VW said that ICE vehicles would “be alive for a very long time,” and that their brands would “continue to invest massively in the development of combustion engines,” they were trying to reassure investors and employees that the transition to EVs would be slow and orderly, without massive write-offs and job losses. However, their words were empty, and top management at the Volkswagen Group knows it. In fact, the Volkswagen Group is by far the most forward-looking of the legacy automakers, and, while it won’t emerge from the transition unscathed, it’s likely to experience less economic pain than will other companies that are still dithering. The Group began the process of retooling its production lines a couple of years ago. In 2018, it began the conversion of its historic plant in Zwickau, Germany to 100% EV production, and announced plans to do the same at its factories in Emden and Hanover by 2022. “We are moving at full speed into the production of EVs. Emden and Hanover are to be further model plants in Germany. Together with Zwickau, they will form the largest network for the production of EVs in Europe,” Board Member Gunnar Kilian said. Across the pond, the company is building a second assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee to build EVs for VW, and possibly other Volkswagen Group brands. In any case, giant OEMs such as VW (or even laggard Toyota) have the scale and the financial resources to absorb the substantial losses from writing off ICE (or hydrogen) assets. As Professor Bailey notes, the future looks more ominous for smaller companies in the supply chain that make parts for combustion engines. Some of the large Tier 1 suppliers, including Bosch and Rheinmetall, have been proactively preparing for the new, electrified order. The latter, traditionally a supplier of pistons, blocks and cylinder heads, reported back in 2017 that EV-related parts already made up 40% of its sales. Smaller or less nimble firms may not be so fortunate. It’s not only corporate profits that are at stake. Auto execs and policymakers need to set realistic, forward-looking policies to ensure that auto industry workers don’t become stranded assets. === Written by: Charles Morris

Several countries around the world have set expiration dates for the Oil Age, mandating that automakers eventually stop selling ICE vehicles in their jurisdictions. In September, California became the first US state to propose a similar step. New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection has also set a goal of eliminating ICE vehicles by 2035, although it is not binding.   Above: Tesla’s Model 3 (Source: EVANNEX; Photo by Casey Murphy) Massachusetts has become the latest state to join what will hopefully become a trend, issuing a mandate that all new cars sold in the state be electric by 2035. The ICE phase-out is part of the state’s 2050 Decarbonization Road Map, which also calls for retrofitting 1 million homes with electric heating, cutting commuters’ driving miles by 15 percent, and dramatically increasing offshore wind power generation. Massachusetts has a legally binding commitment to reduce its carbon emissions to 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, a milestone that will put the state on track to reach its goal of net zero fossil-fuel emissions by 2050. Like California’s proposed ban, the Massachusetts policy applies only to new vehicles—sales of used ICE vehicles will still be allowed. The state also plans to expand its public charging infrastructure to accommodate drivers without dedicated parking spaces. “We know that achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050 will require hard work and collaboration across all sectors of the economy,” said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides. The new plan “establishes a blueprint that will help us achieve our climate goals in a way that is cost-effective and delivers significant benefits to residents across the Commonwealth, especially those in our most vulnerable communities.” The recent announcements by Massachusetts and California will likely inspire other states to follow suit, said Ken Kimmell, President of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “When you get fossil fuels out of transportation and heating, you clean up the air, that particularly benefits the most vulnerable populations. It can be done and a decade is enough time to hit the targets, but it’s going to require a high level of governmental policy and investment and partnership with the private sector to achieve it.” ===  A version of this article originally appeared in Charged. Author: Charles Morris. Sources: Boston Globe, Car and Driver

Recently, the uber-rich Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, got bumped from his #1 spot. As Akshay Sawai writes in Money Control, “The man who wants to put people on Mars has become the richest man on Earth.” Elon Musk’s reaction to becoming the world’s wealthiest man, with a net worth of $195 billion, was typical of him. “How strange,” he tweeted. This was followed by “Well, back to work.” Above: Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Flickr: Steve Jurvetson) He’s come a long way from humble beginnings. Musk once confessed, “When my brother and I started our first company, we didn’t rent an apartment. We rented a small office and slept on the couch. We showered at the YMCA. We were so hard up we had only one computer. The website was up during the day, and I was coding at night, seven days a week.” This trend would continue. Tesla’s CEO is still a notorious workaholic. In 2018, during Model 3 production hell, he often worked 120-hour weeks while sleeping at the Tesla factory. “There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days — days when I didn’t go outside,” the father of five said. “This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids.”  However, Musk’s advice for a younger generation is more than simply working hard. He’s a believer in taking risks. After all, Elon betting big on an electric car company was pretty bold back in 2004. “People tend to overrate risk,” he said of entrepreneurship. “It’s one thing if you have mortgage to pay and kids to support… But if you are young and just coming out of college, what do you risk?” Above: A look at the path Elon Musk travelled to overtake Jeff Bezos for the top spot (YouTube: Forbes) Perhaps it’s a good thing to have the world’s richest person championing a global transition to clean energy? According to Ashutosh Pandey at Deutsche Welle, Elon Musk is “essentially being rewarded for trailblazing a path toward a sustainable future — a journey that traditional automakers have also embarked upon, albeit reluctantly, after having postponed the inevitable for years.” Sure, it’s easy to take cheap shots at the billionaires of the world. But, as Tesla (and Elon’s) fortune grows, there’s at least “one reason [that] must offer a lot of hope to climate activists. It’s that investors are increasingly realizing that a company selling cars that don’t run on polluting fossil fuels is a key piece of the puzzle in combating climate change.” === Source: Money Control, Deutsche Welle

Obviously, the world’s largest auto market is a critical part of Tesla’s global sales strategy, and the recent launch of Model Y on the Chinese market is a major milestone. However, the California carmaker may find the competitive landscape in the Middle Kingdom more challenging than in other markets. Above: A look at the Tesla Model 3 and NIO ES8 (Source: Wall Street Journal / YouTube) Chinese car buyers love SUVs, especially models from global prestige brands such as Mercedes, BMW and Audi—these vehicles have all done very well in the Chinese market, and their makers are casting a wary eye on Tesla now that it has an electric crossover on offer at a tempting price (the Long Range Dual Motor version of Model Y now starts at 339,900 yuan, the equivalent of about $52,000). Tesla and its fossilized rivals both face a daunting challenge in the form of what Chinese media are calling a “new force”—domestic EV startups including NIO, XPeng and Li Auto, all of which have small electric SUVs for sale. “Competition in the premium electric vehicle segment is set to escalate now that Model Y is showing signs of grabbing a big market share,” manufacturing analyst Gao Shen told the South China Morning Post. “Tesla’s rivals have to take action to fight back to maintain their share.” NIO (NYSE:NIO) is definitely an EV startup worth watching. Founded in 2014, the Shanghai-based automaker has seen its stock price surge over 1,500% since its 2018 debut on the US market (and we thought TSLA’s 700% rise was impressive). NIO has embraced battery-swapping, a technology that Tesla tested, then abandoned, in 2013/2014. The company offers the option of buying a car without a battery, then paying a monthly fee for a sort of battery subscription service. According to a recent video from the Wall Street Journal, NIO has over 160 battery-swap stations in service across China (as of last August, Tesla had over 2,500 Superchargers and 2,400 destination chargers in the country). Above: The showdown between Tesla and NIO (YouTube: Wall Street Journal) The company recently hosted a consumer event called NIO Day 2021, at which it launched a new luxury sedan and announced various battery and software improvements. Chinese stock analysts were impressed, and some raised their price targets for NIO stock. In the first half of 2020, Tesla enjoyed a comfortable sales lead over the “new force” automakers. According to Statista, the top-selling electric brand in China was the giant BYD, which sold 60,253 EVs. Tesla came in second, with 49,714 units, and NIO took the #9 spot with 14,169 sales. Since then, however, NIO has powered ahead. In the fourth quarter of 2020, NIO delivered over 17,000 units, a year-on-year increase of some 111 percent. The recent start of Model Y deliveries in China raised the stakes once again—it will be interesting to see what the sales figures look like at the end of the current quarter. NIO co-founder and President Qin Lihong denied any fear of Model Y—as China’s Global Times reports, he said his company’s orders are steady and increasing, even following the launch of the newest Tesla. Some predict that the real battle will not be Tesla vs the “new force,” but rather all EV makers vs legacy auto. Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the China Passenger Car Association, said Tesla and its challengers all have their unique features, and their own loyal buyers. “The changes will take place in the traditional auto market where the internal combustion engine is dominant. Luxury SUV manufacturers will face mounting pressure in this regard.” === Written by: Charles Morris

Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that EV stocks have been on a serious roll. Industry trendsetter Tesla has seen its stock price balloon by well over 700% in the last 12 months, and was recently trading at a head-shaking 1,000 times trailing earnings.  Above: Tesla Model S (Flickr: Studio Sarah Lou) Many other companies have been powering ahead in Tesla’s slipstream, and talk of a bubble is rampant. One comical sign of the out-of-control frenzy: shares of a company called Signal Advance soared by 11,000% after Elon Musk tweeted “use Signal” to his 42 million followers. News flash, folks: Elon was talking about a completely unrelated company—a messaging platform called Signal. “The bubble in renewables is probably the stupidest that I have seen in my career,” Charles Gave of money management firm Gavekal, wrote last month (and the green tech sector has climbed far higher since his comment). However, as Greg Ip writes in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, stupid doesn’t always mean useless. We may think of stock market bubbles as destructive forces (and many are, like the 2008 housing crisis). Paradoxically, however, a bubble can also have a socially beneficial silver lining. As Mr. Ip sees it, even if investors regret paying so much for TSLA someday, they’ve done the planet a favor. “Their enthusiasm enabled the company to raise enough money to stay afloat until it could profitably mass-produce electric cars, while accelerating other manufacturers’ rollouts.” As regular readers of this column are well aware, Tesla has achieved many amazing things over the last year—perhaps the most amazing of all is that it has finally succeeded in motivating the legacy automakers to get serious about their own EV programs. All of this was enabled by the California carmaker’s soaring stock price, and even if TSLA crashed tomorrow, that wouldn’t undo the positive changes the company has set in motion. Above: Why investors are pushing more money into green energy than ever before (Source: Wall Street Journal) But how can a bubble be a good thing? Wouldn’t it be better if markets were truly efficient, allocating just as much capital to each company as its earnings and realistic growth prospects justify? Not necessarily. As Mr. Ip explains, “Private markets generally provide too little incentive for risky innovation…a bubble can overcome that market failure as investors shower capital on countless new ventures they hope will be the next Microsoft or Amgen [or Tesla]. Even as most of those ventures fail, they extend the technological frontier.” During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, speculators (let’s not call them investors) were seemingly throwing money at any company with a web site. Many of these startups were losing money, and some were never able to explain exactly what their products or services did, but nobody cared until the music stopped. Yes, some of that money was squandered on elaborate press events and decadent launch parties (I know, because I enjoyed attending quite a few of those myself). However, it also financed more productive endeavors, as Ip points out. For example, “the mania financed a glut of fiber-optic [cable] that drove the price of bandwidth down enough to bankrupt many telecom companies while allowing countless new businesses to emerge.” Among the recipients of the cash that was sloshing around was a young company called PayPal, and $180 million of that loose change found its way into the pockets of a young entrepreneur named Elon Musk, who used it to finance SpaceX and Tesla. Like internet platforms, EVs and other green technologies are subject to network effects, tipping points, and learning curves such as the famous Moore’s Law. The upshot of this is, as Ip explains, that some technologies and companies that aren’t commercially viable now may be in the future if they can obtain the necessary financing to scale up. Government funding for basic research helps to develop nascent technologies, and venture capitalists provide funding for innovative startups to get off the ground, but sometimes a medium-size company that has progressed beyond the startup phase needs an extra boost to make the transition to a mass-market manufacturer. When Tesla was a money-losing enterprise, it was vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the stock market (and to a constant stream of FUD generated by short sellers, flat-earthers and clickbait peddlers). Becoming profitable freed it to focus more strongly on its long-term goals, and more recently, the huge amounts of money that have poured into its stock have enabled it to launch hugely ambitious projects. Most of these projects (the Gigafactories, the new 4680 battery cells, the huge casting machines that will form the underbodies of future vehicles) are designed to cut costs and improve quality, so they’ll be delivering financial benefits to Tesla and its customers for years to come, whatever happens in the stock market. === Written by: Charles Morris; Source: Wall Street Journal

As long as there have been EVs, there have been anti-EV hit pieces in the media. No, they aren’t all financed by fossil fuel interests (ironically, the trade magazine OilPrice.com often publishes objective news about Tesla and the threat that EVs pose to the oil industry). Some are penned by old-school auto industry types, some by stock market short-sellers, and some by individuals who simply dislike EVs for whatever reasons. A lot of them are simply the products of writers (I won’t call them journalists) who know that contrarian, turd-in-the-punchbowl stories generate clicks. Source: Theo Jones / Tesla Now that the Year of the EV is finally upon us, and the end of the Oil Age is at hand, we’re seeing some desperate, last-ditch attempts to tarnish (with oily black soot) the public image of EVs. Some of these are truly comical, and others are just pathetic. By far the most popular myth with the electrophobic crowd is called the “long tailpipe” argument—the idea that EVs pollute more than gas vehicles if they are powered by coal. This bugaboo (which, to be fair, may sound logical to the vast majority whose understanding of thermodynamics is limited) has popped up again and again over the last two decades, usually in articles with the words “dirty little secret” in the headline. It’s been debunked by dozens of studies. Another tired argument is the idea that producing EV batteries generates so much pollution that it cancels out the emissions savings over the lifetime of an EV. This one contains a grain of truth—battery production does have substantial environmental impacts, but these are offset by an EV’s emissions savings after a year or two of driving. A tried-and-untrue trope that’s been getting traction lately is the fantasy that EV batteries are difficult (or expensive, or something) to recycle. Again, this one has a tiny grain of truth—it will take some time and investment to build a global battery recycling infrastructure at the needed scale. However, any worries over this issue vanish when you learn that around 99% of today’s lead-acid batteries are recycled, and that the materials in lithium-ion batteries are much more valuable than lead. A number of companies, including Redwood Materials, Li-Cycle, and several automaker-sponsored ventures, are gearing up to take advantage of the opportunity battery recycling presents. Above: Tesla’s mission, according to Elon Musk, has been to expedite EVs in the face of opposition (YouTube: Stanford Graduate School of Business) James Morris, in a recent Forbes article, described a few of the more comical EV-hatin’ stories that have been making the rounds. A recent hit piece that recycled the “battery production produces emissions” story was traced to a fictitious PR firm with ties to Aston Martin, one of the few automakers that has yet to develop an EV. In November, researcher Auke Hoekstra, a tireless debunker of anti-EV propaganda, found evidence that Aston Martin employees had created the so-called “study,” which was riddled with falsehoods and misinformation (as reported by CleanTechnica). As is unfortunately so often the case, the planted “study” was picked up by several mainstream newspapers, which took it at face value. Another eye-roller comes courtesy of TorqueNews, which seems to specialize in glowing reviews of Toyota vehicles. (TorqueNews, incidentally, plagiarized an article that I wrote about Tesla batteries last July, running it word-for-word under someone else’s name, with no attribution.) The premise of the latest TorqueNews exposé is that people are trading in their Teslas in order to buy Toyota RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrids—quite a revelation, considering that Tesla claimed in 2018 that the Prius was the top model buyers were trading in for a Model 3, and the admissions by Toyota execs that they have been losing sales to Tesla. It turns out that this TorqueNews tour de force is just one in a series of articles about the wonders of Toyota’s hybrids, which we’re told are winning drivers away from EVs in droves. To be fair, the RAV4 hybrid is a popular vehicle (and I found it to be a nice ride too)—the standard hybrid version sold 116,000 units in the US in 2020, and the plug-in Prime version sold 3,200—but it isn’t exactly burying Tesla, which sold 499,550 vehicles worldwide in 2020. The argument that drivers are trading in Teslas for hybrids is a contrarian one, to say the least. The TorqueNews piece quoted a total of a dozen or so drivers, a couple of whom said they love their Teslas, but like having a RAV4 too. On the other hand, a 2020 survey of UK EV owners by Zap-Map found that 91% said they would never go back to a gas-burner; a 2020 AAA survey of EV owners found that 96% would buy or lease another EV the next time they were in the market; and a 2020 survey by fleetcarma found that 89% of respondents said the range of their EV was sufficient for their daily needs (for owners of long-range EVs such as Teslas, the figure was 98%). Of course, the media is not the only source of fossil-fuel-fortifying fallacies. The automakers themselves (and don’t even get me started on auto dealers) have always been a reliable source of anti-EV misinformation and self-defeating can’t-do statements. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda’s recently unleashed an anti-EV tirade that included a rehashing of the long tailpipe fallacy and a prophecy of doom for “the current business model of the car industry” (he may have been correct about the last bit). Lexus has often drawn ridicule from the EV industry for running highly misleading ads touting the superiority of its hybrids over pure EVs. Its latest flight of fantasy involves what it refers to as a “self-charging hybrid”—essentially, a perpetual motion machine. Last January, Norway’s Consumer Authority banned ads for the fictional conveyance (as reported by EV Norway, via Tesmanian), after consumers pointed out its physical impossibility. Unfortunately, as James Morris described in detail in another Forbes article, the basic laws of physics may not seem so basic to the average person, and some drivers are falling for the con. Mr. Morris reports that Kia has also attempted to hoodwink consumers with a “self-charging” Niro hybrid. How’s this for irony: we’ve all heard conspiracy-minded folks insisting that there are cars that run on water, which the auto industry has been suppressing. Now the auto industry itself is trying to get people to believe in equally nonsensical modes of propulsion. Of course, more enlightened souls such as you, dear readers, will see the latest crop of anti-EV hit pieces for what they are: the last kicks of a dying mule, which we’re told can be quite forceful. The flood of FUD will probably never end, even after the last ICE vehicle is towed away. (“In my grand-dad’s day, they had cars that ran on this stuff called gasoline, and golly, they were so much better.”) Fortunately, performance and coolness will always be the factors that sell cars, and once a prospective buyer experiences the Tesla Smile, they’ll forget the nattering of the naysayers. === Written by: Charles Morris

Tesla firmware hacker and researcher who goes by the name of ‘green’ recently revealed that Tesla is migrating towards neural nets (NNs) for Full Self-Driving (FSD) decision making. Currently, Tesla vehicles are making decisions such as ‘right of way’ with programming logic built in C++.  Above: Tesla’s Autopilot is constantly improving (Image: Tesla) Green tweeted, “Looked into 2020.48 NNs (yay for holiday break free time!) Interesting to see they are migrating right of way guessing from C++ as seen in the early FSD betas in October to NNs now. The quantum leap is being implement bit by bit I guess.” Green thinks that the Silicon Valley based automaker is implementing this migration bit-by-bit, probably starting with the ‘right of way guessing’ function to other more complex decisions that the car needs to make while driving. Above: Tesla FSD Beta driving visualizations (Source: What’s Inside Family / YouTube) At this stage, Tesla is iterating and improving on its FSD Beta decision-making with each firmware update that it’s pushing to a select few cars in the United States. With NNs in the loop, the cars will be able to instantly get feedback from the Tesla Mothership which has a plethora of machine learning data to help make a better decision. To simplify this, Tesla Autopilot engineer Kate Park explains how computer vision works in a recent video produced for kids. Check out the graphic from the video below that explains how decision making or object detection is limited to the use of traditional programming. With the use of Machine Learning + AI + Neural Nets, the whole process provides limitless possibilities. Above: Tesla Autopilot engineer explains how computers recognize objects via Traditional Programming vs. Machine Learning + AI (Source: Code.org / YouTube)  For example, traditional programming cannot recognize “X” if it is not exactly drawn with the defined parameters (see image above). But the combination of machine learning, AI, and Neural Networks enable the computer to learn multiple patterns and possibilities an “X” can appear in front. To make computer vision work perfectly, it requires thousands (sometimes millions) of images to correctly define an object. In Tesla’s case, virtually every car in the fleet sends back video data from all 8 cameras to train the company’s neural net. Tesla has billions of miles of real-world driving data gathered from its worldwide fleet. This gives Tesla a substantial advantage over other companies working on self-driving cars. Above: How Tesla Neural Net vision works, explained by Tesla AI director, Andrej Karpathy on Tesla Autonomy Day 2019 (Source: Tesla) Earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company’s powerful next-gen neural net (coined Dojo) is being built and its version 1.0 should be up and running next year. Autopilot driving decisions migrating towards NNs represents a substantial leap forward for Tesla’s FSD efforts. In turn, 2020 could yield some notable advances. Video Video: How computer vision works by Tesla Autopilot engineer Kate Park (Source: Code.org / YouTube) === Written by: Iqtidar Ali. An earlier version of this article was originally published on Tesla Oracle.

Year-end awards might be kinda cliché by now but with so much of the EV community up in arms over the questionable winners of the 2020 Transportation Awards, we thought it best for an EV site to talk EV awards. I’m sorry Forbes, the Lucid Air is a great car and all but you can’t give a ‘best product’ award to a not yet existing product. Left: A look at an older cover of Forbes featuring Elon Musk (Source: Forbes); A look at the Tesla Model Y (Source: Tesla) Here’s who we think should’ve gotten these coveted Forbes 2020 Transportation Awards (if we were judging). We haven’t included all categories but here’s a few stand-outs worth mentioning. Best Product: Tesla Model Y With Model 3 production hell long behind them, Tesla was able to learn from their mistakes and master the art of mass production for their far more important follow-up, the Model Y. At over 40% of U.S. market share, crossovers are the largest vehicle segment. It would only make sense in an EV world that electric crossovers sit on top. Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, even went so far as to speculate that the Model Y would outsell all other Teslas combined. At 326 miles of range, 135 mph top speed, a 0-60 of 4.8 seconds, and a (recently reduced) base price of $41,990, the Model Y had no close competition in 2020. Look, we’re enthusiastic about Forbes’ pick for the category, the Lucid Air. It’ll give the Model S some potential competition in the future. And Lucid has an excellent store strategy too. But, it’s got no place on this Forbes list… yet. Outstanding Firm: Tesla Forbes, you can’t award Hyundai this one. EVs are the future! C’mon… a fossil fuel powered internal combustion engine automaker? And, no. Hyundai is not officially confirmed to partner with Apple on an EV. After all, you can argue all day about Tesla, but no other automaker in 2020 has done more for advancing our vehicle landscape than Tesla has.  Tesla absolutely rocked Wall Street in 2020 — winning Stock of the Year and minting ‘Teslanaires’ young and old. Through innovation and Elon Musk’s unique knack (or lack) of Public Relations, just about everyone has learned about electric cars via some connection to Tesla. Person of the Year in Transportation: Elon Musk Okay Forbes, you got this one right. As you guys put it, “Love him or hate him, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk dominated transportation in 2020.” True. There’s no doubt, Elon Musk deserves to take home this award. Forbes, you’re not alone here either. Elon was honored as an Automotive News All Star as the 2020 Industry Newsmaker of the Year. A German publisher honored him with the 2020 Axel Springer Award. And Fortune named him Businessperson of the Year. Annus Horriblus: Trevor Milton Okay, we agree with you, Forbes, on this one too. Trevor Milton was definitely on the wrong side of the industry with his epic fail (and fall) from Nikola. After hustling investors (and GM), Mr. Milton has ghosted the world. Journalists: Trevor Milton was not the next Elon Musk. What a surprise! And, ahem, Nikola is definitely not the next Tesla. One last thing: The “Forecast” One last thing. Forbes: your forecast is that it’s high time that the “hydrogen age begins” — even though it’s been “long derided by Elon Musk as an inefficient clean-energy choice.” Guys, the forecast is clear. It’s not just Tesla. Investors are pouring money into the electric vehicle market. So, step aside hydrogen, the electric age begins… starting now. == An earlier version of this article appeared on EVBite. EVBite is an electric vehicle specific news site dedicated to keeping consumers up-to-date on any developments in the ever-expanding EV landscape. You can also listen to EVBIte’s thoughts on the awards on their DriEV Podcast.

Tesla recently provided a sneak preview of its 4680 cell production planned for Gigafactory Berlin in the company’s latest recruitment video on LinkedIn. It reveals several small details of the 4680 production process that might be of interest to competing automakers in addition to potential employees.  Above: Tesla 4680 cell production line concept preview to be implemented at Gigafactory Berlin (Source: Tesla) Tesla unveiled the 4680 form factor cell at the company’s Battery Day last fall. It turns out the company is already producing these cells at their pilot production plant (Magic Cube) near its Fremont factory. According to Elon Musk’s presentation during Battery Day, Tesla is ramping up its 4680 pilot production to 10 GWh annually. “Actual production plants will be more in the order of 200 GWh/year, maybe more,” he said. Meanwhile, the rate of construction and development at Giga Berlin suggests that this could be the first location for full-scale 4680 cell production. This could serve as incentive for top-notch German engineers to join the team at Giga Berlin in order to experience the most advanced cell manufacturing on the planet — now. Tesla wrote in the job description on LinkedIn, “At Tesla, we build cars and factories from the ground up. Now we do the same for batteries.” Earlier this year, Tesla also acquired a battery assembly company in Germany and it looks like the workforce from that factory won’t be big enough to fill all the jobs at Giga Berlin’s cell plant. One intriguing idea behind the 4680 cell is its 80mm height which enables continuous motion cell manufacturing — similar to bottle production at beverage companies. This speeds up cell production compared to current procedures practiced at Giga Nevada’s cell manufacturing facility. A Reddit user who is himself a cell chemistry engineer remarked on what he saw in the video in his comment: While you’re waiting, the opening shots appear to be showing the production of one of the electrodes on a roll-to-roll coating process (0:02). This electrode is then sandwiched (positive electrode, separator, negative electrode) and the sand, which is then spun into a cylindrical cell (0:05). These cells are then loaded into canisters which you can see later in the video. They don’t show (or it isn’t clear to me) the injection of the electrolyte which (I think) normally happens after the cylinder is put into the canister. It’s possible they are injecting it in one of the shots and I can’t tell, they could be injecting it off-screen, or they could be using a newer solid-state or quasi-solid state electrolyte. I’m more familiar with the fundamentals of individual cell chemistry, less with the manufacturing of commercial cells, so I may be off! In any event, we can see a lot of robots working on Tesla’s cell manufacturing lines in the video below. But Tesla still needs to staff up quickly. So if you’re interested, you can apply for Tesla’s cell manufacturing and innovation-related jobs here. Video  Video: Sneak peak at the 4680 cell production planned for Gigafactory Berlin (Source: Tesla via LinkedIn) ===  Written by: Iqtidar Ali. An earlier version of this article was originally published on Tesla Oracle.

Anyone who has followed the career of Elon Musk knows that he formulated a set of goals many years ago, and has worked tirelessly and methodically to reach those goals, a process that he knew would take years or decades. Even casual observers are familiar with Tesla’s Master Plan, a three-part strategy to bring a mid-priced EV to the mass market.  Above: Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Flickr: Heisenberg Media) Elon has facetiously called this strategy a “secret plan,” but in fact it’s never been a secret—Musk and others have described it in detail many times over the years. It could, however, be called one of the “secrets” to Tesla’s success. The company is now well into phase three, and it’s plain that the Master Plan is the foundation that the world’s most valuable automaker was built on. Considering how well this vision has served Tesla (and Elon himself), it may seem surprising to note how rare this kind of long-term thinking really is in the auto industry (among others). To a large extent, the existing order encourages corporate leaders to plan in terms of quarters, not years, much less decades. As Michael J. Coren writes in a recent article in Quartz, Tesla’s Master Plan was in some ways similar to President John F. Kennedy’s historic lunar quest. At the time Kennedy announced the stunningly ambitious goal of sending humans to the Moon, neither he nor anyone else knew exactly how it would be achieved—the technological and organizational know-how required would be developed along the way. “Far from command-and-control, the effort was inventive and improvisational,” Coren writes. “Engineers and managers had to scramble over unmapped terrain and solve unprecedented problems.” This is strikingly similar to some of the things former Tesla exec David Havasi told me about his early days at the California carmaker. “The idea was, you do something, and if it’s a disaster, you learn from it, you pull out what works and discard what doesn’t work,” Havasi told me. “If something did not exist, you had to build it. There was no department, no subcontractor that was going to do it.” Above: Billionaire tech investor, Chamath Palihapitiya, comments on Elon Musk and his long-term outlook for Tesla (YouTube: CNBC Television) Like the Apollo program, Tesla’s Master Plan was very specific about the ultimate goal, but didn’t specify the details of how to reach it. As Nicolaj Siggelkow, an economist and professor at The Wharton School, explained to Mr. Coren, this kind of long-term planning allows teams to change their tactics as required, without losing sight of the goal, and this may be the best way to get things done during periods of uncertainty and change. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is sadly lacking in today’s auto industry, just when it is needed to navigate a period of revolutionary change. Rather than concentrate their resources on the electric future that every auto executive knows is coming, companies are trying to hedge their bets by dabbling in electrification while continuing to push their high-margin gas guzzlers. One example of this dubious cover-all-the-bases strategy: a couple of automakers, notably BMW, offer different powertrain options (gas, battery-electric, fuel cell) for the same cars, sometimes even building EVs and ICE vehicles on the same production lines. Most automakers talk a good game about “missions” and “visions,” but when it comes to real-world actions and investments, “short-termism” tends to win the day, Siggelkow says. However, this attitude may be changing, at least in some boardrooms. GM CEO Mary Barra, for one, seems to have a long-term electrification plan in mind. “We stepped backed [in 2015] and looked at the major trends that were going to impact this industry, not only in the next one or two years, but over a longer period of time,” she said during a press call last January. “We realized that General Motors, over its history, had in essence tried to be everywhere for everybody with everything, and that was not a winning recipe.” At the moment, GM is probably the second-most charged of the legacy automakers (after Volkswagen). In November, the company dropped its self-defeating support for watering down federal emissions standards, and announced plans to develop 30 new electrified models, and to invest $27 billion in EVs and autonomous technology, by 2025. === Written by: Charles Morris; Source: Quartz

Tesla-baiting has long been a popular sport among auto industry spokespersons. We’re likely to see a lot more of it in the coming months, as the legacy brands prepare to release a new wave of EVs that many expect to present the first credible competition for the California carmaker. Source: Ford / Tesla The latest snide remark came from one of Ford’s top EV execs. In a recent interview with Autoblog, Darren Palmer, Global Product Development Director for Ford and Lincoln Battery Electric Vehicles, talked about his company’s upcoming Mustang Mach-E, which he hopes will bring a lot of new buyers into the electric camp. However, he couldn’t resist getting in a back-handed dig at Tesla, saying, “The [Mach-E’s] doors fit properly, the plastics and other materials color-match, the bumpers don’t fall off, the roof doesn’t come off when you wash it, the door handles don’t get stuck in cold weather.” Although Palmer didn’t mention Tesla by name, it’s not hard to guess what competing brand he was alluding to. Of course, as Electrek’s Fred Lambert noted, one could respond to the implied criticism by noting Tesla vehicles’ greater range, faster charging and better efficiency, but an objective observer must admit that Mr. Palmer has a point. Tesla has had some fit-and-finish issues, and the fact that we all knew exactly what automaker he was talking about shows that this continues to be an image problem for the California carmaker. How serious is the problem, and does it amount to a competitive disadvantage compared to other, more experienced automakers, as Palmer implied? Well, there are two things we need to keep in mind. First, by all accounts Tesla has made a lot of progress towards solving its quality-control issues. In May, Henry Payne, writing in the Detroit News, noted that the automaker was getting “new respect from some of its loudest quality-control critics.” Auto manufacturing expert Sandy Munro has documented Tesla’s progress in a series of teardowns. In 2018, after taking apart a Model 3, Munro described “flaws we would see on a Kia in the ‘90s.” This spring, he tore down a Model Y and found a host of improvements. “It’s a well-designed car,” said Munro. “It’s so much better than the Model 3—no comparison in fit and finish. They are miles apart.” He reiterated this assessment in an interview with Charged, saying, “The body build [of Model Y] is 1,000% better. There are still issues, but they’re minor in comparison to what I have seen in the past.” Former GM CEO Bob Lutz, who evolved from an early champion of Tesla into a harsh critic, also praised the company’s progress in an article in Road and Track. He spied a Model 3 in an Ann Arbor parking lot, and “was eager to see the oft-reported sloppy assembly work, the poor-fitting doors, blotchy paint, and other manifestations of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s ‘production hell’ with my own eyes. But, when next to the car, I was stunned. Not only was the paint without any discernible flaw, but the various panels formed a body of precision that was beyond reproach. Gaps from hood to fenders, doors to frame, and all the others appeared to be perfectly even, equal side-to-side, and completely parallel. Gaps of 3.5 to 4.5 mm are considered word-class. It was impossible to find fault with the visual quality of that Model 3.” Another aspect of Tesla’s fit-and-finish issues: some believe that the problems result from a deliberate strategy of prioritizing fast innovation over quality control. Philippe Chain, Tesla’s former VP of Quality, recently told Electrek that the company subjects its cars to much shorter testing programs compared to legacy automakers, which fits in with an overall mentality of making decisions quickly and reacting to problems as they come up. Chain describes a conversation with Elon Musk about the pre-production testing for Model S: “I told him our engineers’ calculations led to at least a million equivalent miles of driving before launching the car—a six-month phase required to discover potential weaknesses and fix them. Elon, in his customary laconic way, answered: ‘OK, do it. But we are not delaying the launch date for it.’” Musk understood that there might be some awkward issues with early production models (and there were), but opted to deal with these later through OTA upgrades, or recalls if necessary. Apparently, at Tesla, maintaining the rapid pace of innovation is a top priority, even if it means dealing with some quality-control issues. For consumers, this means that trying to get hold of a new Tesla model as soon as it comes out may not be the wisest policy (as most of us have learned, this tends to be the case for any tech product). On the other hand, EVannex’s Roger Pressman, as knowledgeable a Tesla owner as you’ll find, was one of the first to take delivery of a Model Y, and he reported no major problems. On the contrary, he told Charged, “the key word for the whole car is refined.” === Written by: Charles Morris

Lucid Motors is definitely one of the electric car companies worth keeping an eye on in 2021. The upcoming Lucid Air is looking to go toe-to-toe with the Tesla Model S. And while deliveries are still months away, Lucid has already begun opening studios throughout the country.  Image: EVBite Lucid hopes to have 20 open by the end of next year. Recently, the company opened one of these studios in Miami. While in the area, we were invited to stop by and see what it was all about. The concept of small, intimate showrooms over big, bustling dealerships is still relatively new. Tesla, to some degree, pioneered this approach. That said, legacy automakers haven’t joined them (yet). Keep in mind: some archaic laws are preventing them. In any event, Tesla revolutionized the way we first make contact with cars. In turn, EV industry newcomers will likely put their own spin on what the future car buying experience should look like. Peter Rawlinson, CEO of Lucid Motors explained, “we designed Lucid Studios to be engaging, to start conversations and to help educate people about the performance and efficiency benchmarks possible in an electric vehicle. A Lucid Studio is a place for people to learn about our unique brand while supporting every facet of the customer journey.” The Lucid Studio we visited was in Brickell City Centre, a semi-outdoor high-end shopping center near downtown Miami. The retail space occupies a first-floor corner spot which is easily viewed from the street. The location has high foot traffic and an Apple store directly above it. Large windows showcase both the Lucid Air vehicle and a separate, completely-exposed platform.  Of course, it would be difficult to give my impressions of the Studio without drawing comparisons to a standard Tesla store. From a strictly visual standpoint, the two are pretty different. Tesla has adopted a minimalist design for their cars and this design philosophy extends to its stores.  In contrast, Lucid’s approach is something I would call a high-end coffee shop vibe (minus the coffee). Lucid is positioning itself as a luxury brand and the Studio’s interior design seems to fit the bill. A couple of comfy couches, attractive wood paneling, and soft lighting is a stark departure from the modern, techy Tesla store or sprawling, franchise car dealership. Image: EVBite Of course the luxury experience can still be had at traditional dealerships too. You’re allotted plenty more attention at a Porsche dealer than you are at a Kia dealership.  The Lucid Studio we visited is loosely divided into three sections. The first section has the Lucid Air. The second section displayed Lucid’s different interiors and paint options complete with a virtual reality set-up. And, a third section showcased Lucid’s platform (completely exposed) along with their battery technology on full display. This third section caught my attention and it seems to check two major boxes. The first is to attract attention. I mean, come on, how often do you see a car without its body? [Granted, Tesla did this early on in their stores.] The second purpose, however, might prove more valuable for Lucid. It likely has to do with consumer education — something our guide emphasized. As we continue to see with study after study, traditional dealerships often lack EV knowledge and dealerships tend to steer their customers to gas vehicles instead. With Lucid, as far as we’ve been told, a primary focus is placed on keeping in-store reps up to date on EV education. Image: EVBite The exposed platform along with standalone batteries and motors allow potential customers to gain a better grasp of how an electric car works and opens the door for further discussion. It also makes for an attractive centerpiece inside the Studio. Our guide talked about how the platform provided a helpful visual aid for those that wanted to learn more about how an electric car works. During our experience, we learned much about how Lucid handles the training for sales associates in order for them to provide both a luxurious experience and an educational one. Potential associates go through multiple rounds of interviews along with a few weeks of training to be able to convey answers to customer questions. According to our guide, during Lucid’s staff training process, associates are instructed to go into Tesla stores to see how their sales staff handle customers. They’re also instructed to visit high-end retail stores such as Burberry or Gucci to have a better idea of what luxury customer service should look like. On the day we visited, we were unable to “test” the staff ourselves. That said, from our own limited interactions and witnessing nearby customer conversations, we remain confident that Lucid will be able to handle even the most jaded anti-EV customer. Our visit was capped off with a tour of the various interior and exterior options laid out next to the Studio’s VR set-up. The set-up features a cut-out of the front seats and dashboard along with two HTC VIVEs. Since Lucid doesn’t have the ability to keep a 30-car inventory in the middle of downtown Miami, this was the next best thing in order to present different car options to potential customers. Strap on the VR headset and a sales associate will go through different color combinations with you in different light settings so that you can see how the paint reacts in different environments. You’re also free to sit in the virtual car to better decide what interior color you want. Top: EVBite; Bottom: @jgrano305 Obviously, nothing beats having the real car in front of you, but this is probably the next best compromise at this point. If nothing else, this novel approach will probably aid in spreading the Lucid brand via word of mouth as the Studio visitors would (likely) later describe themselves configuring a VR car to their friends. Buying a car may be one of the most unpleasant experiences imaginable. Fast-talking salespeople, price discrepancies, and hours of paperwork can drive basically anyone bonkers. But the tide appears to be shifting with these newer EV companies. Forgoing the traditional dealership route and embracing small storefronts as Tesla and Lucid have done appears to be the preferred path for a direct sales model. While this likely saves on overhead, it also accomplishes a more personal and relaxed experience for the modern car buyer. The Lucid experience is similar to Tesla with a luxury twist. These showrooms are meant to act as an initial point of contact (or visual aid) and not much more. Locations will offer test drives but the entire ordering process will be done online. With these smaller locations, vehicle deliveries to customers would be a logistical nightmare. Instead, Lucid Motors will have other locations dedicated to deliveries and service as well. Image: @jgrano305 Lucid seems impressive thus far and their sales experience doesn’t look like it will disappoint. All that’s left, at this point, is to provide a product that will make good on all their promises. === Author’s Note: You can listen to more insight on the EVBite podcast here. We should emphasize that our experience was somewhat “unnatural” — this shouldn’t be seen as an assessment of Lucid’s car buying process or the staff’s EV knowledgebase. Previously we’ve put dealerships to the test but were unable to do so this time around. Our arrival was expected (and prepared for) by the team at Lucid. So, this article simply represents our overall impression of the Studio. Hopefully, someday we’ll be able to go back in (with some fake mustaches of course) and put the staff through a real test. An earlier version of this article appeared on EVBite. EVBite is an electric vehicle specific news site dedicated to keeping consumers up-to-date on any developments in the ever-expanding EV landscape.

One of the most eagerly anticipated developments in the EV world this year will be the advent of electric pickup trucks. As a recent NPR article notes, the market at stake is enormous—currently, the three best-selling vehicles in the US are pickups. However, truck buyers are, in the popular imagination at least, just about the polar opposite of the stereotypical early EV adopter. Will the ball-cap brigade even consider a newfangled innovation that generates no noise and no smoke?  Above: A look at the all-electric Tesla Cybertruck (Wikipedia: u/Kruzat) Automakers tend to know their customers pretty well, and nobody expects truck buyers to be motivated by a desire to own the latest technology, much less by concerns about the environment. That’s why (as Tesla has pretty much always done), the would-be e-truck sellers are emphasizing performance, promising that their trucks will be not just as good as the trusty old gas-burners, but much better. Both the auto industry’s Old Guard (Ford, GM) and its Young Turks (Tesla, Rivian, Lordstown, Bollinger) have been releasing promotional videos showing their electric pickups performing deeds of physical prowess. Ford’s upcoming electric F-150 may be able to tow a freight train, but the Tesla Cybertruck can beat a gas-powered F-150 in a tug-of-war—uphill, no less. As NPR points out, some of these feats aren’t as impressive from a physics standpoint as they may appear on screen—freight trains are designed to have minimal rolling resistance, and an EV is always going to beat a gas vehicle in a tug-of-war, because of its greater weight (as a Ford exec apparently realized when he thought better of calling for a rematch). The question remains: can pickup fans be convinced to go electric? According to Strategic Vision’s latest New Vehicle Experience Study, the answer is that they just might. The market research firm asked new truck buyers about their level of interest in electric vehicles. Eight percent said they “plan to research it for my next purchase/lease,” and 27 percent said they were “open to learning more about it.” “A third of all pickup truck owners are open to the idea of electrification,” says Strategic Vision President Alexander Edwards. “It doesn’t mean that they’re going to shop for it, doesn’t mean they’re going to go buy it, but they’re least willing to listen to what you have to say.” Above: A look at a few of the electric pickup trucks coming to market in the coming months (YouTube: Bloomberg QuickTake) Edwards told NPR that this translates to around two million US car buyers per year who might consider buying an electric pickup. He agrees with the conventional wisdom that performance is the key to winning over pickup buyers—they’re looking for “rugged, powerful, capable vehicles.” Fortunately, EVs can provide just the kind of beef that cowboys need. Edwards says pickup experts often prefer engines that deliver a lot of low-end torque, which happens to be an electric motor specialty. EVs also boast unique steering advantages—Rivian’s “tank turn” and the Hummer EV’s “crab walk” are tricks that no ICE vehicle will ever be able to duplicate. Furthermore, the massive weight of an EV’s battery pack delivers superior tractive power. That’s why an EV-vs-ICE tug-of-war is an unfair contest, and it could come in mighty handy for pulling a boat out of the water, just to give one practical example. Electric pickups could just turn out to be a surprise blockbuster. Tesla’s experience with Cybertruck certainly points in that direction—many observers have related how they were turned off at first by its unorthodox appearance, but changed their tunes when they started studying the specs and features. A similar process of reassessment may occur with electric pickups in general—for many alpha males, their natural resistance to an e-pickup may last only until they take their first ride in one. ===  Written by: Charles Morris; Source: NPR / Video: Bloomberg QuickTake

Will Tesla release it’s new, updated ‘Plaid’ Model S soon? YouTube personality Galileo Russell asked Elon Musk on Twitter if the company decided to “sandbag” the vehicle’s timeline to launch. Musk replied with a winking emoji. Hmmm. Above: Artist’s rendering of a Tesla Model S design refresh. Click/Tap to open HD version in new tab (Source: Unknown via @Supermantibody / Twitter) Regardless, for those ordering the Tri-Motor ‘Plaid’ Model S, Tesla’s online configurator is still announcing ‘late 2021’ as the estimated delivery timeframe. Tesla first started taking pre-orders for the ‘Plaid’ Model S back in October, but the automaker hasn’t (yet) disclosed what design changes will accompany Model S 2.0. However, some clues surfaced last week when, according to Inverse, “YouTube channel The Kilowatts shared footage of a tweaked version of Tesla’s car, as spotted on the roads of Palo Alto.” So what’s new? It’s reported that “footage shows a number of tweaks versus the current Model S. Gone is the chrome finish in many areas, known as ‘chrome delete,’ and in are a set of new headlights. The body, on the whole, is slightly wider. The car also sports a new rear diffuser.” Above: A look at some spy shots of what could potentially be the ‘Plaid’ Model S (YouTube: The Kilowatts) Nevertheless, keep in mind: “In July 2019, Musk wrote that there is no ‘refreshed’ Model X or Model S coming, only a series of minor ongoing changes.” Either way, there’ll more to the ‘Plaid’ Model S than just aesthetic changes. “At the company’s September 2020 Battery Day, Tesla detailed the ‘Plaid’ Model S. It’s set to feature over 520 miles of battery range, a top speed of 200 mph, and 0 to 60 mph acceleration times of under two seconds. Tesla claims that the $138,490 car, set for launch in late 2021, has the “quickest 0 to 60 mph and quarter-mile acceleration of any production car ever,” reports Inverse. Whatever performance and design changes occur with the ‘Plaid’ Model S, I’m sure the top execs at Porsche aren’t looking forward to racing it anytime soon. ===  Written by: Iqtidar Ali. An earlier version of this article was originally published on Tesla Oracle.

It’s cold! Winter is here. So it’s a good time to review some of the things you should be aware of when it comes to driving your Tesla in colder weather. Whether you’ve just recently moved to a colder climate, or just want some winter driving advice, here’s a few Tesla tips as the temperature continues to drop.  Above: Tesla Model S driving in the snow (Source: Tesla) Optimizing Winter Range Whether you’re driving an electric car or a gas-powered one, cold weather will lower the efficiency of your vehicle. With a Tesla, you’ll quickly notice a drop-off in range. Electric cars like to keep their batteries in an optimum operating temperature range. Your Tesla will use a lot of energy to warm up the battery every time you get in your car. It’s worth taking a few measures to combat this issue. Here are nine quick tips to maximize your range in freezing temperatures: Setup Scheduled Departure Remain plugged in Defrost through the Tesla App Chill Mode Limit acceleration Use winter tires Use navigation (for automatic preconditioning) Don’t check app too often Use seat heaters instead of A/C Preconditioning On the topic of charging at home, you should make complete use of the scheduled departure feature that was added via their Tesla software updates. Scheduled Departure: Tap ‘Charging’ > ‘Scheduled Departure’ > ‘Schedule’ > ‘Depart At.’ Precondition: Open the Tesla app and tap ‘Climate’ > ‘Turn On.’ Defrost: Open the Tesla app and select ‘Climate’ > defrost icon. Not only will this allow your Tesla to charge during off-peak hours which could lower your electricity bill, but it will also warm up both your battery and cabin by the time you plan to depart. This saves your car from having to use its own energy to warm the battery. Additionally, if you plan on Supercharging, make sure to set the Supercharger as your navigation destination. When a Tesla is directed to navigate towards a Supercharger, it automatically begins pre-heating the battery to allow for faster charging when you finally get there. Plug In Regardless of whether or not you need extra range, during the winter time you should leave your car plugged in whenever possible. This will allow the car to use energy from outside the battery to stay warm. Remember: a healthy battery is a happy battery. Not only will you minimize range loss and maximize performance, you’ll also keep your battery from unnecessary degradation. Wipers As a general practice, if you’re expecting an extremely cold night, then it’s a good idea to move your wipers from their default resting position entirely away from the windshield, or at least in a position where heat from the cabin could melt ice that might have caused your wipers to freeze to the windshield. To be able to raise your wipers, Tesla has an option to put your wipers in ‘service mode’ which will bring them to move to the middle of the windshield. You can find the button in: ‘Controls’ > ‘Service’ > ‘Wiper Service Mode’ > ‘On’ Keep in mind that this will not allow you to lift the wipers to stop contact with your windshield. However, owners have suggested placing small objects at the base of the wipers to wedge them and have the wipers lift off the surface just slightly. Regardless, in this position, any heat from your cabin should make contact with the windshield and melt any ice that binds your wipers. Mirrors If you are someone who likes to have their mirrors auto-fold, it may be in your best interest to turn off the auto-fold feature during cold weather. In freezing temperatures, it’s possible for your mirrors to be frozen in their closed position. When they’re trying their best to break free (unsuccessfully), it’s possible to burn out the motors. To find the option to turn off auto-folding mirrors you can go to: Model S/X: ‘Controls’ > ‘Vehicle’ > ‘Mirror Auto-Fold’ Model 3/Y: ‘Controls’ > ‘Quick Controls’ > ‘Mirrors’ > ‘Mirror Auto Fold’ If your mirrors happen to freeze shut, Tesla recommends manually opening and closing them to break the ice. Defrost To warm the car up, Tesla has implemented a defrost feature to their app. With it you can begin to defrost your windows prior to stepping outside. The defrost feature is also recommended by Tesla to use prior to charging. With extreme conditions, the charge port can freeze over leading to a slower charge rate. The car will indicate a frozen charge port with a blinking amber light.  Braking If you are someone who has fully embraced one-pedal driving, then you might have to adapt during wintertime. You might want to consider setting your regenerative brake strength to the lowest setting available. This is done simply for safety reasons. Strong regenerative braking could potentially be too aggressive in icy conditions and might cause your Tesla to potentially lose traction and slide. It obviously will come down to individual weather conditions, but it should be something you’re aware of — especially when the streets get icy. Regardless, the cold weather might force you to use your brake pedal whether you like it or not. If you’re driving around with a cold battery in cold weather then it won’t accept energy from the regen system and as such, you will have to brake on your own. Thankfully your Tesla should inform you whether or not your braking has been reduced, allowing you to prepare. A blue snowflake icon next to your range will display when both your regenerative braking and power is decreased. Once the battery gets back up to a reasonable temperature, regen braking (and power) should return. Chill Mode While on the topic of safety, it’s probably best to disable performance mode. Tesla performance in cold weather is already impacted negatively and there’s no reason to go drag racing against snowmobiles. You’re not going to be speeding through icy streets, at least not safely. Therefore, it’s recommended that you switch your power to “chill mode” to limit the amount of torque that’s delivered to the wheels — this lowers the risk of your tires losing traction. The switch to a lower power level should also help you with countering range loss in cold weather too. More Tips Want more tips for Tesla winter driving? For more advice, be sure to check out what Trevor Page at Tesla Owners Online had to say about improving your Tesla during the coldest months. And that’s not all. Tesla influencer and EV expert, Aniseh Sharifi, has some excellent tips to help “winterize” your Tesla. At the end of the day, follow just a few of these simple steps and you can really level up your experience driving electric this winter. === An earlier version of this article appeared on EVBite. EVBite is an electric vehicle specific news site dedicated to keeping consumers up-to-date on any developments in the ever-expanding EV landscape. 

A recent report from a group of analysts at the Swiss investment bank UBS contains two interesting insights about the current state of the EV market. The first has to do with automakers’ battery development efforts. Above: UBS (Flickr: Martin Abegglen) Comparing the batteries used in different EV models may sound like a task for electrical engineers, or chemists. Nowadays, however, stock analysts are finding that they need to learn the basics of anodes, cathodes, electrolytes and separators. The reason comes down to a simple equation: batteries are the main cost component of tomorrow’s automobiles, so the relative competitive positions of the world’s automakers will increasingly depend on their battery costs. As Business Insider reports, the UBS analysts compared battery cells from several global automakers, including Tesla, GM, VW, Toyota and BMW. The results were no surprise—as earlier teardowns and comparisons by scientists and battery experts have found, Tesla’s technology is superior according to most of the relevant criteria. There’s a catch, however: to achieve the volume it needs, Tesla is increasingly relying on suppliers such as CATL, LG Chem and Panasonic, and these same companies also supply cells to the other automakers. “While Tesla continues to lead with the best overall powertrain technology,” the analysts wrote, “the cost lead in battery cells is minor by now and will depend on its new proprietary cell design in the future.” Tesla’s new 4680 cells feature a number of major improvements—they pack more power and more energy, are cheaper to produce, and require no controversial cobalt. Tesla plans to produce the 4680s in-house, but recently revealed that its partner Panasonic will also be producing the new cells. Of course, none of this means that other automakers are going to gain access to Tesla’s proprietary battery tech—the California carmaker guards its crown jewels just as zealously as any tech firm does, headline-grabbing maneuvers such as “all our patents are belong to you” notwithstanding. But there’s no question that other EV-makers are pursuing next-gen battery tech—Toyota and VW-backed QuantumScape are both working on solid-state cells, to give two examples. There’s another, even more eye-opening finding in the UBS report: the strategy that most legacy automakers are following, which consists of cautiously rolling out enough EVs to comply with local regulations, while continuing to push high-margin gas-guzzlers, is bound to fail. Thanks to declining battery costs, EVs will be cheaper than ICE vehicles within the next few years, right around the time that several nations will need to begin preparing for upcoming bans on fossil vehicles. Automakers that don’t have competitive EVs ready to sell, or that haven’t secured sufficient supplies of battery cells, are going to be [insert your favorite colorful metaphor here: up the creek; standing with finger in corporate ear; deeply embedded in some unpleasant substance; etc]. As the UBS analysts see it, the only way for the legacy automakers to catch up will be to commit fully to electrification, and the only company that’s doing anything like this is Volkswagen. “A steep cost reduction curve in combination with an ever-improving regulatory environment in favor of EVs makes it a necessity for auto companies to pursue an ‘all-in’ EV strategy, meaning that purely CO2-compliance strategies are likely to fail,” the analysts wrote. “Tesla will likely remain the cost and technology benchmark for several more years, and Volkswagen is the fastest follower on a global scale. Its €33 billion [in] committed EV investments over a 5-year period are still unmatched.” === Written by: Charles Morris

Elon Musk overhauls industries ripe for disruption. Automotive and aerospace sectors were, pre-Musk, getting somewhat stagnant. So after the sale of PayPal, Musk came along with Tesla and SpaceX and changed everything with his penchant for innovation.  Above: Elon Musk (Flickr: Ennoti) So what’s next? Neuralink, Hyperloop, and The Boring Company are sure to be game changers. But there’s something else, under the radar, that deserves a mention. At the heart of a fractured media landscape lies yet another broken industry: Public Relations. Now it appears Elon Musk wants to tackle Tesla PR on his own. And he’s going to do it in his own disruptive way. Matt McFarland at CNN Business spoke with PR expert, Andy Cunningham, who once worked with Steve Jobs. McFarland asked Cunningham if Elon Musk really needs a PR department or a publicist to reign him in? “Musk, she felt, just wants to be himself, and not be managed. The approach seems to be working… But she doesn’t believe any other CEO could pull it off. Musk, she said, has the rarefied status of a visionary who is seen as making the world a better place. His work is so inspirational to [so] many,” writes McFarland. In turn, “Tesla has all but stopped engaging publicly with the traditional news media in the US, instead relying on Musk’s Twitter account, the company’s YouTube channel, social media influencers, and direct emails to inform the public,” notes McFarland. In lieu of traditional PR, Elon Musk (and Tesla) have decided to go directly to the end-consumer.  “Tesla has 1.6 million subscribers on its YouTube channel, and at least 21 of its videos have been viewed more than a million times. Musk has 40.6 million followers on his Twitter account. Musk’s personal audience may be larger than the combined circulation of the 10 biggest US newspapers of a decade ago,” according to NYU’s PR guru Jeffrey Sharlach. The PR Industry, not surprisingly, is pretty upset. “In a world fraught with instability, disengagement is not a path to success and can result in dramatic reputational ramifications with long-term consequences,” the Public Relations Society of America said of Musk’s move to abandon PR. So how’s it going? So far, so good. “Musk hasn’t been proven wrong to date, and Tesla appears stronger than ever. Its stock is up more than 500% this [past] year, adding an estimated $100 billion to Musk’s wealth. Tesla reported its largest quarterly profit ever… and it [joined] the S&P 500,” notes McFarland. Ryan Brinkman, a J.P. Morgan automotive analyst who follows Tesla, told CNN Business that the automaker has such a mystique around it that it can largely create its own news and steer the narrative. Unlike most corporations, Tesla doesn’t need to rely on traditional news media. “Excitement for Tesla is so high, they don’t need anyone else’s assistance,” Brinkman said. === Source: CNN Business

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda’s recent anti-EV tirade was puzzling on several levels. At the automaker’s recent annual meeting, he denounced the Japanese government’s recent proposal to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles starting in the mid-2030s.  Above: The original prototype for the Tesla-powered Toyota RAV4 EV (Wikipedia Commons: Mariordo – Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) Toyoda revisited the debunked “long tailpipe” bugaboo—the idea that battery-electric vehicles produce more emissions than ICE vehicles if they’re powered by fossil-generated electricity—which has been proven false by a slew of studies (here’s an article containing links to a couple dozen of them). He argued that EVs are too expensive, and that “the current business model of the car industry is going to collapse” if ICE vehicles are phased out. It’s puzzling. Has Mr. Toyoda forgotten his own history? In 2010, as Toyota signed a (short-lived) deal to procure battery packs from Tesla, he was apparently impressed by his test drive of a Roadster, saying “I felt the wind, the wind of the future.”  Soon afterwards, he decided to bestow a princely gift on the California startup, selling the former NUMMI facility in Fremont, California to Tesla for $42 million (one source had valued the plant at $1 billion).    Above: A look back at when Elon Musk and Akio Toyoda stood together on stage in 2010 celebrating the future of EVs (YouTube: The Auto Channel) It’s odd. Is Mr. Toyoda unaware of what’s going on at his own company? Toyota has two separate joint ventures with BYD and Panasonic that are working on battery technology, and is building a new $1.2-billion EV plant in the Chinese city of Tianjin. In April, Toyota launched 3 new BEVs for the Chinese market. Just a couple of weeks ago, Toyota announced plans to be the first company to sell an EV equipped with a solid-state battery, and said it would unveil a prototype next year. It’s bizarre. Has Mr. Toyoda not heard that, in November, plug-in vehicles accounted for 16% of the overall auto market in the UK, over 20% in Germany, and an electrifying 80% in Norway? Did he not read about Tesla’s Battery Day, or does he think Elon Musk and company are dreaming? Is he unaware that battery pack costs dropped by 87 percent from 2010 to 2019? Did he miss the news that an EV-maker recently reported a pack-level battery cost below the long-awaited $100/kWh price point? No, dear readers, I don’t think the CEO of Toyota is uninformed on these matters. He’s looking at the same information that the rest of us are, and apparently reaching the opposite conclusion. (Even oil industry trade mags such as OilPrice.com are reporting on the dismal future prospects of the fossil fuel industry.) EV-industry journalists reacted with head-shaking incomprehension to Toyoda’s remarks. Electrek’s Fred Lambert called the venerable industry leader “small-minded” and “short-sighted,” and ominously predicted that “if Toyota’s leadership doesn’t show a massive shift in attitude toward electric vehicles in the next year, they are going to be done.” However, the apparent disconnect with reality may seem less perplexing if we consider how common it actually is. Let’s revisit a few of the anti-EV statements we’ve heard from auto execs just in the last two years. In June 2019, BMW Director of Development Klaus Frölich said, “There are no customer requests for BEVs—none.” The only unusual thing about this statement was that he said it at an event where his company announced plans to build 25 new plug-in models by 2025. In January, Nissan Global Product Strategist Ivan Espinosa announced plans for a new line of gas-burning vehicles that would duplicate the superior driving experience of EVs. Somehow, these next-gen dinosaurs are supposed to “allow the customer to experience the complete EV-drive feel without being in an EV.” He also implied that “the hassle of charging” an EV was too difficult for women: “We have a lot of female Leaf drivers, and in some cases, the technologies that we use today are not so friendly for them.” In July, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann said that ICE vehicles “will be alive for a very long time,” and that his company would “continue to invest massively in the development of combustion engines.” Ralf Brandstätter, the head of the VW brand, made similar comments. Apparently contradicting a VW spokesman’s earlier statement that the company would roll out its last generation of gas burners beginning in 2026, Brandstätter said that VW would be offering ICE models for a long time yet. “We have always said that we would have different propulsion types on an equal footing in the long term.” As misguided as such statements are, at least these execs can say that they were expressing their personal opinions publicly, as they have every right to do. Aston Martin seems to have indulged in much worse behavior, in an effort to turn public opinion against EVs. In November, researcher Auke Hoekstra, a tireless debunker of anti-EV propaganda, found evidence that Aston Martin employees had created a fictitious PR firm, which issued a so-called “study” that was riddled with falsehoods and misinformation (as reported by CleanTechnica). As is unfortunately often the case with these “EVs’ dirty little secret” articles, the planted “study” was picked up by several mainstream newspapers, which took it at face value. It’s puzzling to see industry leaders indulging in such self-defeating behavior, but unfortunately it isn’t surprising. The fact is that auto execs have always made different speeches for different audiences. When they speak to us Young Turks of the EV-industry media, they talk up their plans to make EVs an ever-larger share of their total sales, and remind us of how concerned they are about leaving a better world for our grandchildren. When speaking to representatives of the Old Guard, many of whom fear (with some justification) that electrification is going to cut into automakers’ profits, they may feel compelled to assure investors that their companies are going to proceed very slowly and cautiously when it comes to EVs, or even to feed the fantasy that these unwelcome electron-powered disruptors may soon disappear altogether. === Written by: Charles Morris

Elon Musk is a gamer from way back—his early love of computer games led him to programming, which led to Zip2, PayPal and Tesla. So it wasn’t too surprising to see the introduction of the Tesla Arcade, which allows Tesla owners to play a variety of vidgames on the cars’ screens, even using the steering wheel as a controller. Above: Tesla owners can park their car and play video games like Cuphead on their center console display (Image: Tesla) Tesla may have been the first automaker to introduce an in-car gaming platform, but it won’t be the last. Mercedes-Benz recently unveiled a gaming system for its CLA Coupé, and other manufacturers seem likely to follow. Tesla is rumored to be developing new games that will be exclusive to its platform. If anything, it’s a little surprising that in-car gaming hasn’t already become a big thing. VentureBeat’s Idan Nadav reminds us that the automobile is evolving from a mere means of transportation into another digitally-connected living space, in which we expect to be entertained at all times. As drivers, we spend a lot of “downtime” in our cars, whether waiting in a parking lot to pick someone up, or sitting in a traffic jam. Of course, for passengers, it’s all downtime, and once full autonomy comes into widespread use, we’ll all be passengers. Automakers are betting that, like those bored kids in the backseat, we’ll be clamoring for a more immersive experience than a hand-held Gameboy can offer. Above: Games like Beach Buggy Racing 2 even incorporate the steering wheel inside a Tesla (YouTube: Tesla) There’s room for in-car gaming systems to become a lot more sophisticated. Some of the user interface technologies that are starting to appear in new cars, such as head-up displays, seem tailor-made for in-car gaming. And, while it’s not (yet) considered okay to play Asteroids or Mario Kart while driving, it’s not hard to imagine a game that incorporates the actual driving experience. Some EVs already have a sort of built-in game that rewards you for driving more efficiently (in the Nissan Leaf, you can earn little trees by maximizing your range). What about a GPS-enabled scavenger hunt that projects little virtual creatures onto your head-up display, along the lines of Pokémon Go? (For Hummer drivers, these could be terrorists, or liberals, that splatter when you run them over.) Forward-looking automakers are trying to dream up ways to generate recurring income streams (Tesla is already doing so with optional over-the-air upgrades), and gaming could be one of several avenues to do that. Once cars learn how to drive themselves, relieving us of the need to pay attention to the road, the sky’s the limit for the kinds of interactive experiences we could have (and pay for) in our cars. Many of us already spend most of each day staring at a screen, and our migration online has been accelerated by the pandemic. More and more, our physical spaces are expected to include interfaces to the virtual world—why should our vehicles be an exception? ===  Written by: Charles Morris

The global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy isn’t going to happen because it’s the best choice for human health and the environment. Observing the way humans have responded to the current pandemic should put to rest any delusions about our propensity to “do the right thing.” No, companies and investors will abandon polluting energy sources when they become convinced that it’s the profitable thing to do. Fortunately, we’re seeing strong signs that this is beginning to happen.  Above: Investors are moving into stocks like Tesla in order to take part in the world’s energy transition (Image: EVANNEX; Photo by Casey Murphy) Alex Kimani, writing in the oil industry trade magazine OilPrice.com, explains how an increasing number of large institutional investors are shifting their assets from the oil patch to what are called “ESG” (Environmental, Social and Governance) investments—a category that includes renewable energy and e-mobility. Blackrock is the world’s largest asset manager, with almost $8 trillion in funds under management. It has been bulking up on ESG-oriented investments over the past year, and perhaps more importantly, it recently signaled that it will be lending a more sympathetic ear to activist shareholder groups that are challenging boards of directors at companies in polluting industries. An increasingly large number of such groups have been pressuring oil firms and others to do more to prepare for the coming transition to clean energy—not because it’s the right thing to do (although, to be fair, that is certainly a part of their arguments), but because the boards’ business-as-usual attitudes threaten the companies’ bottom lines. ExxonMobil, among other oil giants, is facing increasing pressure from major investors to clean up its act. An activist investor group called Engine No. 1, which includes the founders of hedge funds including Partner Fund Management and JANA Partners, plans to seek four board seats at the fossil fuel behemoth, with the aim of radically changing the way Exxon does business. California pension giant CalSTRS, which invests on behalf of the state’s teachers, is a backer of Engine No. 1. “With Exxon it has been very unsuccessful, sadly, trying to get their attention, change their behavior,” CalSTRS Chief Investment Officer Chris Ailman told CNBC. “This company is just throwing money after projects that are not going to be successful. Exxon…has been focused on drilling every last molecule of carbon. They need to wake up and realize the future is different.” ExxonMobil recently announced a half-hearted plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions—a move that activists and analysts scorned as totally inadequate. “A 15%-20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity over nine years is not an ambitious target—it’s essentially business as usual,” said Raymond James Energy Analyst Pavel Molchanov. Above: A look at why investors are investing in clean energy companies like Tesla instead of traditional fossil fuel plays (YouTube: TheStreet) “Nothing in ExxonMobil’s stated plans better positions it for long-term success in a world seeking to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions,” said an Engine No. 1 spokesperson. While some mega-investors are trying to modify the oil giants’ behavior, others are simply heading toward the exits. New York State’s $226-billion pension fund recently announced plans to divest from oil and gas stocks entirely over the next few years. Big Oil’s loss is clean tech’s gain—investments in ESG-oriented companies have steadily grown over the past couple of years, and this year’s pandemic has kicked the trend into overdrive. Investors’ appetite for e-mobility stocks has become nothing short of ravenous—in a stroke of poetic justice, Tesla has displaced Occidental Petroleum as a member of the S&P 100 index, and EV-related firms are going public at a frenzied pace. According to OilPrice.com, sustainable investing assets now total $17.1 trillion—up 42% from 2018—and three quarters of institutional investors plan to stop investing in companies that aren’t considered sustainable. Ironically, oil company stocks, once seen as safe bets for little old ladies’ nest eggs, are increasingly considered risky investments, while clean tech, once seen as a volatile emerging sector, is now seen as a safe harbor amid the coming storm. “This isn’t about morals or ethics,” writes OilPrice’s Alex Kimani. “It’s about the free market. Sustainable stocks are outperforming everything else because they are the new safe haven—one that makes money while de-risking from the looming climate threat.” === Source: OilPrice.com