Retrieved from: http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2015/oct/1001-gbc.html MILFORD, Mich. – General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) CEO Mary Barra and her leadership team today outlined the company’s plans to capitalize on the future of personal mobility by owning the customer relationship beyond the vehicle, building upon nearly two decades of connectivity leadership. GM also said it…
Now that we’ve spent a week learning about emissions test cheating at Volkswagen, this new information shouldn’t be surprising: Volkswagen was warned at least twice against cheating. Both Volkswagen’s own staff and one of its suppliers, Bosch, warned against efforts to detect and thwart emissions tests, according to reports in the…
A week ago the automotive world was put into turmoil over news that Volkswagen had, allegedly, committed widespread fraud with their emissions test results. Specific Volkswagen and Audi vehicles were emitting lots more pollution than allowed, while their EPA emissions ratings garnered praise and government subsidies by supposedly being the cleanest Diesel vehicles…
I’m learning about Bitcoin and now know that it’s not a piece of techno-fluff that won’t amount to anything. It has serious technical depth, and the capability of transforming the monetary system. Maybe. One possibility is to solve for the supposed necessity of charging station networks. If applied correctly, Bitcoin based charging…
Daimler just announced they’re looking to end the powertrain supply deal with Tesla Motors where the Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric has Tesla drivetrain goodness under the hood. The purpose is to bring battery pack development in-house, and to prepare for selling a B-Class Electric with a 500 kilometer range (300 miles).…
Since the Tesla Motors conference call for Q2 2015 quarterly results, the TSLA stock price has fallen from $270/share to $242/share. While we’re talking about a highly volatile startup company, the news in those quarterly results was not so good. A deep quarterly loss thanks to steep capital expenses related to rolling…
It’s time to retell the “no, the automaker isn’t losing $n,000 per car, they’re investing in the future” story. Following last week’s quarterly financial results report from Tesla Motors a long string of news articles have proclaimed something like “Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold”.…
Retrieved from: http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/releases/speeches-from-the-116th-annual-general-shareholders-meeting-from-cco-hiroto-saikawa-and-ceo-carlos-ghosn Of importance is a section towards the end in which Carlos Ghosn discusses the two Leaf’s on the stage. One demonstrates the self-driving features which Nissan is developing. The other Ghosn describes as having range similar to gasoline powered vehicles. That implies 300+ miles. A video was shown…
A couple weeks ago Tesla Motors held their yearly shareholders meeting. As always it was chock full of good information, and in general a big love-fest between shareholders and Tesla Motors. Aside from the people requesting that Tesla Motors offer an interior which doesn’t involve the deaths of animals…
Does Tesla Motors owe its existence to government subsidies? More than once the company was on the edge of bankruptcy, and kept afloat by infusions of capital, and of course their products (Model S) are sold in part because of government subsidies for electric cars. Recently a big news outlet…
Today Tesla Motors released preliminary quarterly financial results figures through a shareholder letter (as is Tesla’s customary practice, a 10Q giving official figures will be published in a couple weeks). The good news is the manufacturing rate was 11,160 vehicles (10% better than guidance), averaging more than 1000 cars built per week,…
In May 2013 at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green Conference, then-GM-CEO Dan Akerson promised that the Next Generation Chevy Volt would be $10,000 cheaper, and profitable. Today, GM announced the Next Generation Chevy Volt MSRP, starting at $33,170 (excl $825 deliver charges), and while that’s a lot cheaper than the 2011 Volt’s…
A neat trick that could give us the power needed to charge any number of electric cars is simple – switch all streetlights from sodium vapor lamps to LED streetlights. LED streetlights are far more power efficient than other lamps, plus reduce light pollution giving us the possibility to see…
Long-term trends are that electric vehicles will take over, and fossil fuel will be rendered obsolete. That’s according to a Bloomberg News report last week with good news for anyone rooting for the demise of the fossil fuel industry. It’s not government mandate, but technology improvements that will create this…
