Musk endeavours

[odysseus2000]

Sodium ion battery unveiled by CATL:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... itter-view

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Inspiration 4 splash down:

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/14393 ... 40545?s=20

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Without Tesla legacy was happy to churn out ICE, but Tesla made that impossible...

This is bunkum and you know it. Emissions regs first proposed in 2007, passed in to law in 2009 and which came in to effect in 2020 are what has driven the move towards electrification, not a boutique scale Lotus conversion.

[odysseus2000]

Without Tesla legacy was happy to churn out ICE, but Tesla made that impossible...

This is bunkum and you know it. Emissions regs first proposed in 2007, passed in to law in 2009 and which came in to effect in 2020 are what has driven the move towards electrification, not a boutique scale Lotus conversion.

In 1995 California backed off another mandate for zero tail pipe emission cars after intense lobbying by the auto industry:

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/26/us/c ... c-car.html

GM did develop zero emission vehicles but when their lobbyists got the legislation banned, they had the EV1 cars crushed.

Legacy auto has never wanted anything but ICE and loathes Tesla for forcing them into the BEV era.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Tesla is getting ready to roll out a software upgrade that will allow a select few drivers to use more autonomous driving features in cities. Up to now, the beta versions of driver assistance software made available to thousands of drivers in the US have been designed for the relatively more simple environment of highways. Computer-assisted urban driving would bring Tesla a step closer to CEO Elon Musk’s vision of fully self-driving vehicles. But safety officials think the company is getting ahead of itself, and putting drivers at risk.

“Basic safety issues have to be addressed before they’re then expanding it to other city streets and other areas,” Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, a federal agency that investigates transportation accidents, said in a Sept. 19 interview with The Wall Street Journal. Even the name of Tesla’s software—”Full Self-Driving Capability”—is “misleading and irresponsible,” she said, because it implies that vehicles equipped with it are capable of driving safely with zero human engagement. In fact, the software is merely a driving aid and is meant to be used with a driver’s hands still on the wheel. Tesla didn’t respond to the WSJ’s request for comment.

- https://qz.com/2061283/when-is-tesla-re ... -software/

NTSB to investigate Tesla crash in Florida that left 2 dead

Federal officials say they will investigate a fiery Tesla crash that left two people dead in South Florida

Three investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are traveling next week to Coral Gables, where a Tesla Model 3 left the roadway and collided with a tree Monday, the agency announced on Twitter

- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/tesl ... 22523.html

The solar roof purchasers signed a contract that allows Tesla to raise prices and if so allows the contract to be broken and deposits returned.

It may not be great business, but there is no compulsion to pay the higher prices. Everyone can cancel.

Regards,

a) it's atrocious business
b) such short notice is unreasonable
c) which contract clause are you relying on to allow Tesla to unilaterally hike the price without changes in design or discovery of defects on site?

Guess not...

Tesla agrees to finally honor solar roof prices on signed contracts

In communications shared with the court, Tesla has agreed to finally honor the solar roof prices given to customers who had signed contracts.


Back in March, Tesla added a new “roof complexity” factor to its solar roof prices that resulted in drastically increasing the price of its solar roof.

The price of solar roof projects increased between 30% to 150% for some.

That’s an incredible price increase in itself, but the strangest part of the situation is that Tesla decided to even apply the new price hike to customers who already had a signed contract for their upcoming solar roof project.

In some cases, customers who had signed a contract for Tesla a year ago were asked to fork as much as 100% more for their new roof even though they had a signed contract with Tesla.

Unsurprisingly, this resulted in several legal actions, which were consolidated into a class action.

However, in a new filing, Tesla’s lawyers informed the plaintiffs in the consolidated case that the company started “a program for customers who signed Solar Roof contracts before the April 2021 price changes to return those customers to their original pricing.”

The court communicated Tesla’s statement in the filing:

On September 13, 2021, counsel for Tesla informed counsel for Plaintiffs that Tesla had recently launched a program for customers who signed Solar Roof contracts before the April 2021 price changes to return those customers to their original pricing (if they were subject to a price increase in April 2021). Plaintiffs’ counsel have requested additional details and advised counsel forTesla that they believe settlement discussions should commence immediately in order to consider, clarify, and formalize certain terms of relief.

- https://electrek.co/2021/09/20/tesla-ag ... contracts/

Interesting that the solar roof is now the only product that Tesla still offers a referral bonus for: https://electrek.co/2021/09/17/tesla-en ... olar-roof/

Obviously a sign of great demand, although I don't quite see how.

[Howard]

London’s largest taxi firm to go fully electric by 2023 with 4,000 EVs

Addison Lee, .... the UK’s largest private vehicle hire firm, today announced that its entire fleet will become fully electric by 2023. Its current fleet currently stands at around 4,000 cars.

And the car they have chosen is

The ID4

From November, the taxi firm will put 200 Volkswagen ID.4s on London’s roads on a monthly basis.

https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/londons- ... -4000-evs/

[odysseus2000]

London’s largest taxi firm to go fully electric by 2023 with 4,000 EVs

Addison Lee, .... the UK’s largest private vehicle hire firm, today announced that its entire fleet will become fully electric by 2023. Its current fleet currently stands at around 4,000 cars.

And the car they have chosen is

The ID4

From November, the taxi firm will put 200 Volkswagen ID.4s on London’s roads on a monthly basis.

https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/londons- ... -4000-evs/

Another little hint to folk buying ICE cars that they need to instead think BEV.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

London’s largest taxi firm to go fully electric by 2023 with 4,000 EVs

Addison Lee, .... the UK’s largest private vehicle hire firm, today announced that its entire fleet will become fully electric by 2023. Its current fleet currently stands at around 4,000 cars.

And the car they have chosen is

The ID4

From November, the taxi firm will put 200 Volkswagen ID.4s on London’s roads on a monthly basis.

https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/londons- ... -4000-evs/

Some progress from 2 and a half years ago:

Addison Lee announced an order for 1,200 VW vehicles in January. The first batch are diesels!! Very low emissions apparently. A L would like to convert to Hybrids or full EVs but to quote their spokeswoman: “We are keen to move quickly to an electric fleet for the benefit of London’s environment, but are limited by London’s charging network, which as the report by Dr. Rebecca Driver demonstrated, cannot support a shift to electric by the capital’s private hire and taxi industry.”

ID.4 is the perfect choice, and AL obviously enjoy working with VW. Now just need them to swap their executive service to e-trons...

[odysseus2000]

BobbyD
ID.4 is the perfect choice, and AL obviously enjoy working with VW. Now just need them to swap their executive service to e-trons...

Using the ID4 as a taxi is exactly the use that Munroe suggested the ID4 was suitable for,

Regards,

[Howard]

Howard
Once BEVs have a real range of over 400 miles in winter conditions it's likely that most customers won't bother about remote charging as it will rarely be necessary. A 7kW home charger will put a lot of mileage into a BEV overnight.

Yes, but many folk have on-street parking and with out someone providing on street charging such an owner will have to go a super charger or equivalent.

Regards,

No current BEVs have yet demonstrated a real range of over 400 miles in winter conditions. European consumers who can afford current BEVs with a range close to this level will have to pay £100,000 or more. These consumers are unlikely to lack off-street parking. They are also unlikely to have the time to sit around at superchargers.

Even the majority of drivers who can afford a new £50,000+ Tesla with a 300 mile range will have off-street parking available.

It is unlikely that longer range BEV prices will drop so rapidly that they will be affordable for the majority of drivers who do not have the means to charge at home or at the office.

Hyundai have just released a report that suggests the average UK driver will only need to charge a BEV twenty times a year and almost never use a public charger. Their poll was of a small number of drivers - 2,000. Most of them had off street parking. (This is one of your marketing polls of little value, except that it points to the "bleedin obvious" ).

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/car ... -year.html

regards

Howard

[odysseus2000]

No current BEVs have yet demonstrated a real range of over 400 miles in winter conditions. European consumers who can afford current BEVs with a range close to this level will have to pay £100,000 or more. These consumers are unlikely to lack off-street parking. They are also unlikely to have the time to sit around at superchargers.

Even the majority of drivers who can afford a new £50,000+ Tesla with a 300 mile range will have off-street parking available.

It is unlikely that longer range BEV prices will drop so rapidly that they will be affordable for the majority of drivers who do not have the means to charge at home or at the office.

Hyundai have just released a report that suggests the average UK driver will only need to charge a BEV twenty times a year and almost never use a public charger. Their poll was of a small number of drivers - 2,000. Most of them had off street parking. (This is one of your marketing polls of little value, except that it points to the "bleedin obvious" ).

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/car ... -year.html

regards

Howard

I know a number of quite wealthy folk who live in London and have no off street parking as they have a geographical need to live where they are for employment and none commuting purposes.

Sure as things stand most folk with a BEV will have off street parking, but not all as evidenced by London dwellers and we are close to this demographic expanding as China will soon be exporting much more affordable BEV that may well appeal to many folk with no off-street parking.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

ID.3 fleet sales...



- https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicl ... c_with_vw/

The Belgian police opts for the electric Volkswagen ID.3

...Different police forces would all spend 420,000 euros in different ways. In America they would probably like to buy the Ford F-150, the fastest police car in America. In Dubai they are satisfied with one new Ferrari for the fleet and in the Netherlands they like to get B-classes. The police Limburg Region Capital in Belgium bought nine fully electric Volkswagen ID.3s last week.

- https://www.ruetir.com/2021/07/07/the-b ... agen-id-3/

Police in the state of Lower Saxony will soon be able to sneak up silently on suspected perps, after the German state has purchased 215 Volkswagen ID.3 electric hatchbacks. The ID.3s ordered will be used in civilian spec so they won't receive graphics and light bars, Volkswagen noted, but may carry other equipment such as a radio, siren system, and magnetic LED beacons by Hänsch GmbH and others. These EVs are expected to used by detectives and non-uniformed police staff in Lower Saxony.

- https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-car ... olice-car/

[BobbyD]

Beware: Older Tesla Model S Motor Might Fail If Driven In Rain

And Tesla doesn't seem to want to honor the 8-year motor warranty either.

- https://insideevs.com/news/534878/tesla ... fail-rain/

[odysseus2000]

Grimes and Elon have separated:

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/144 ... 79208?s=20

Regards,

[TUK020]

So what?

[BobbyD]

So what?

TSLA up 2%, surely the conclusion is obvious?

[odysseus2000]

Musk speaks on climate change, just over 10 minutes:

https://youtu.be/_ozlbGB57aE

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Even the faithful are getting restless:

Electrek’s take
It doesn’t feel great to be a Tesla owner today. Particularly one that has a vested interest and investment in moving to self driving vehicles.

I know I’m unlikely to be able to get access to the FSD (beta) that I paid for and was promised years ago. Tesla has used the carrot of grading my driving which it will also use in its insurance product without any guarantee that I will (ever) get access to the FSD I paid for. Keep in mind that I already leased a Model X for 3 years with the promise of FSD that came and went without ever being delivered when I returned it last year.

But it could be worse. On of our readers Bill points out:

Tesla has excluded early FSD purchasers who have MCU1 from the FSD Beta button. Please do what you can to bring attention to this. I and others bought and paid for FSD 4-6 years ago and we’re told our cars had everything needed for FSD. Now we are being left out in the cold while other enjoy. Tesla needs to step up and either make a fork of FSD beta for MCU1 or replace everyone with FSD’s MCU1 with an MCU2 free of charge, and they need to do it quickly.

The last time we brought attention to to Tesla not being fair to early FSD hardware owners, Tesla CEO Elon Musk blocked us on Twitter. So the feedback loop clearly isn’t working.

- https://electrek.co/2021/09/26/slow-tes ... core-beta/

[odysseus2000]

Even the faithful are getting restless:

Electrek’s take
It doesn’t feel great to be a Tesla owner today. Particularly one that has a vested interest and investment in moving to self driving vehicles.

I know I’m unlikely to be able to get access to the FSD (beta) that I paid for and was promised years ago. Tesla has used the carrot of grading my driving which it will also use in its insurance product without any guarantee that I will (ever) get access to the FSD I paid for. Keep in mind that I already leased a Model X for 3 years with the promise of FSD that came and went without ever being delivered when I returned it last year.

But it could be worse. On of our readers Bill points out:

Tesla has excluded early FSD purchasers who have MCU1 from the FSD Beta button. Please do what you can to bring attention to this. I and others bought and paid for FSD 4-6 years ago and we’re told our cars had everything needed for FSD. Now we are being left out in the cold while other enjoy. Tesla needs to step up and either make a fork of FSD beta for MCU1 or replace everyone with FSD’s MCU1 with an MCU2 free of charge, and they need to do it quickly.

The last time we brought attention to to Tesla not being fair to early FSD hardware owners, Tesla CEO Elon Musk blocked us on Twitter. So the feedback loop clearly isn’t working.

- https://electrek.co/2021/09/26/slow-tes ... core-beta/

It is an interesting dynamic for the stock price. Shortly q3 closes and there are lots of reasons to expect this to by far the best quarter Tesla has produced, although as Berlin and Texas being to ramp, one can expect very much better in the future.

Meanwhile there are queues everywhere for petrol and diesel, but no queues for electric charging often in the convenience of ones home.

Set against these are some concerns over the lack FSD, but the button gives all those with suitable hardware the possibility to try it. Additionally the 4680 cells are taking longer than advertised which is another thing to fret over.

From an investment perspective it is quite well balanced between the bulls and the bears. Any progress by Tesla on FSD, 4680, new factories etc would imho tilt the balance strongly to the bulls. By contrast there does not seem to be many things that can suddenly emerge to tilt the balance towards the bears.

Regards,

[murraypaul]

From an investment perspective it is quite well balanced between the bulls and the bears. Any progress by Tesla on FSD, 4680, new factories etc would imho tilt the balance strongly to the bulls. By contrast there does not seem to be many things that can suddenly emerge to tilt the balance towards the bears.

I think the bear case is not that something suddenly emerges, but that things carry on exactly the same as they are now: Tesla fail to deliver new models, fail to deliver increased production capacity and fail to deliver FSD.

The one sudden shock that could happen is a major market banning the use of FSD over safety concerns, but that seems very unlikely.