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…
Ten years ago Elon Musk posted the first super-secret Tesla Motors master plan on the company blog. It seemed that nobody remembered he’d done so, because the company is routinely attacked over making playthings for rich people when the plan all along has been to build the Model 3 (affordable 200+ mile…
Tesla Motors just released production figures for Q2 2016 — 18,345 vehicles for a 73,380/year annualized rate. This is the Tesla Model S and Model X, both of which target the luxury car market. The company also announced projected production rate increases for 2016, and that they should (knock on…
Today Tesla Motors released its Q1 2016 quarterly financial results. Those results were eclipsed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s statement that Tesla Motors is speeding up the production plans. Their new goal is to hit 500,000 vehicles/year production rate by 2018, a full two years ahead of previously announced plans. The…
Earlier today Tesla Motors released its Q4 2015 financial results. The company claims it has strong sales growth, and now that the Tesla Model X is in production financial results throughout 2016 will improve greatly. Since this continued growth of Tesla as a business depends on growing their car sales,…
Today Tesla Motors released their financial results for Q4 2015, and it’s a mixed bag. The company strongly emphasized strong sales growth for the Tesla Model S, claiming it is outselling the other cars in its class, and that “Cash Flow From Operations” went from hugely negative to hugely positive.…
Along with releasing the Tesla Model S/X version 7.1 update, an online press conference was held this morning in which Elon Musk said some crazy things that might just become true. We have to wonder if some of the things which are possible are in fact desirable. Namely – most…
It’s a bit premature to do this, but can we compare between the Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3? While precise details for these cars haven’t been published, enough is publicly known to draw a few conclusions. And while we’re at it, we can include some hypothetical information on some other 200+…
Tesla Motors announced today they’d (barely) hit their electric car sales target for Q4 2015 and for all of 2015. This was another make-or-break moment for the company. While the Model X launch is not quite as significant as the Model S launch in 2012, launching production of a second…
Tesla Motors electric cars use a proprietary charging plug. Adapters are available from Tesla Motors allowing owners of their cars to use public charging stations built with standard charging plugs (J1772, Mennekes, CHAdeMO). Tesla Motors is also deploying charging stations, both fast charging and destination charging, to locations around the…
Bob Lutz is prognosticating the death of Tesla Motors, saying the company is badly run, its costs are too high, it should be working through dealers, it should add a plug-in hybrid model, and oh-by-the-way he likes Elon Musk. Coincidentally, I see from my calendar that in exactly one…
Tesla Motors is delivering the promised Autopilot mode with an Over-The-Air update scheduled for tomorrow, Oct 15, 2015. Maybe we will look back on October 15 as the first day of the robot dominance of humanity. Maybe this will simply make Tesla’s automobiles that much more attractive, and cement Tesla’s…
