A few days ago I wrote about a pair of crashes, one involving an autonomous Uber vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian, and another involving a Tesla Model X that apparently swerved into a lane divider killing the driver. Yesterday an SF Bay Area TV station, ABC 7 news,…
Clearly folks are eager to have self-driving cars TODAY if not sooner. I’m seeing a constant chatter online of folks excited about the prospect of letting their car take over the driving chores. A few weeks ago, a new Tesla Model 3 owner giving a presentation about his newly-purchased car…
Should Tesla Motors be the leading or primary car manufacturer? Or should other car manufacturers step up to take a significant role in electric vehicle development, as Tesla is doing? Or should even other start-up car manufacturers participate in the undoing of the incumbent car industry? That’s a set of…
On the heels of Tesla’s quarterly financial results released earlier this week, the company notified us reservation holders of an update in our Tesla Model 3 reservation. Eagerly hoping the date had been moved up because they’re promising a 5,000/week production rate, I logged into my Tesla account and was…
A whole subsection of the International media exists to tear at Tesla Motors. That’s part of the court of public opinion, the variety of “facts” tossed around that are really interpretations of the information we all receive. This afternoon Tesla released their quarterly financial results, and we don’t have to…
Tesla Motors today announced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had agreed to remain as CEO for at least 10 years. What was announced is the new compensation package and performance awards for Elon Musk. In industry parlance we call this kind of package “Golden Handcuffs” because the payoff is tied…
This evening we didn’t have the second coming of Christ, but we did see a couple nigh-on-impossible vehicles announced. A semi-truck that does 0-60 miles/hr in 5 seconds? (unloaded) And a 4-seater sports car that does 0-60 miles/hr in 1.9 seconds? And, the truck will be available in 2019, and…
The long-awaited Tesla big rig is due to be shown tomorrow, after being delayed a few times supposedly because of focus on ramping up Tesla Model 3 production. Of source the Model 3 is the make-or-break product of the moment and therefore Elon Musk and others at Tesla Motors must…
The SeekingAlpha website isn’t exactly known for highly accurate investing prognostication. We should therefore take the suggestion that Tesla Motors is doomed because of the Gigafactory with a suitably large chunk of salt. According to conventional thinking, the Gigafactory (Gigafactories, actually) is what will propel Tesla Motors into a huge…
The expectations on Tesla about the Model 3 are so high that Elon Musk has had to downplay the company to keep the stock from getting over-hyped. Well, I assume that’s what he’s doing when he says Tesla is probably overvalued. There’s the possibility of irrational exuberance carrying people away…
Over the weekend, at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association fair in Custer Wisconsin, one JB Straubel, the CTO of Tesla Motors, gave a talk. According to a report by Electrek, Straubel said that Tesla Motors is “talking with” other automakers about the Supercharger network. Clearly the current situation with three…
The news about Tesla Motors regularly repeats a complaint about the cash burn rate, the fact that Tesla routinely runs at a loss, is propped up by investors, and eventually the house of cards will come crashing down. There’s some truth to this – the company showed a profit in…
A single solitary sentence in Tesla’s announcement about doubling the Supercharger network could have a significant impact for urban-dwelling prospective electric car owners. Those who live in “multi-unit-dwellings”, like apartment or condominium complexes, usually have a hard time finding charging. Typically the landlord or home owners association puts up barriers…
The Tesla Model 3 is due for its production launch in a few months. While some of us are pondering our personal budget, Tesla Motors has a bigger issue on its mind. The key advantage they have over other automakers is the extensive reach of the Supercharger fast charging network.…
There have been several one or two fatalities this year of Tesla Model S drivers who were perhaps overly trusting the autopilot mode. In January 2016, well before the well-known crash in Florida, a fatality occurred when a Tesla Model S drove into the back of a street sweeper truck. Going by…
