Considering the massive media coverage of Tesla over the last decade, it may seem surprising that there aren’t more books about the company. When I first released my history of Tesla in 2014, I expected to have a short window of exclusivity before a “real” book—one with a hard cover and celebrity blurbs on the… Read more »
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JB Straubel talks Tesla, Redwood and the massive challenge of building an EV supply chain in new video
When I was a kid, everyone had a favorite Beatle (mine was George). Now I have a favorite Tesla co-founder: JB Straubel. He’s a visionary who converted a Porsche to electric drive and built a solar-powered racer, long before EVs were cool. He’s the engineering genius who personally went through and redesigned almost every component… Read more »
Tesla co-founder JB Straubel’s company to produce battery materials in US
Redwood Materials, the battery recycling venture founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, came out of stealth mode last year, and announced that it is recycling scrap from Panasonic’s battery cell production at Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada. In July, it raised $700 million in new investment. Now Redwood has dropped a bit of a bombshell: it… Read more »
Tesla buyers offered a choice between LFP or NCA battery packs
For most car buyers, their technical automotive knowledge amounts to this: they know a car has an engine (or motor), and they want the biggest, most powerful one they can afford. Early-adopting EV buyers seem likely to be a little more knowledgeable, and Tesla is taking the unprecedented step of giving buyers a choice between… Read more »
Tesla signs deal with BHP to secure nickel for battery cells
Contrary to popular belief, the most important mineral in EV batteries may not be lithium, but nickel. According to the Nickel Institute, the metal, which gives cells higher energy density and greater storage capacity, is an essential component for Li-ion battery cathodes—in fact, it’s the most important metal by mass in the cathodes used in… Read more »
Tesla grants $3 million to Dalhousie University for advanced battery research
Dalhousie University researcher and lithium-ion battery pioneer Jeff Dahn has been cooperating with Tesla since 2016, and the partnership has already resulted in significant progress that Tesla hopes will lead to the development of its vaunted million-mile battery pack. Now Professor Dahn, along with his Dalhousie colleagues Chongyin Yang and Michael Metzger, have received a… Read more »
Tesla to deliver 15 Semi electric trucks to PepsiCo this year
PepsiCo says it expects to take delivery of 15 Tesla Semi electric trucks by the end of this year. The soda and snack seller placed an order for 100 Tesla Semis shortly after the e-truck’s 2017 launch. Since then, Tesla seems to have put the Semi program on a back burner as it concentrated on… Read more »
Tesla may get $1.2 billion worth of German subsidies
The European Commission recently approved a multinational project to support battery innovation, which will involve 42 companies, including several automakers. One of those automakers is Tesla, which may receive a cool billion euros ($1.2 billion) in public funding from the federal government of Germany and the state of Brandenburg, the site of the company’s Gigafactory… Read more »
Refreshed Tesla Models S and X to ditch lead-acid for Li-ion 12 V battery
Elon Musk and Sandy Munro covered a lot of ground in their recent video chat, discussing a great number of advances and improvements to Tesla’s vehicles and manufacturing processes. Here’s just one tidbit that many may have overlooked: beginning with the upcoming Model S/X refresh, Tesla plans to abandon the century-old lead-acid battery technology in… Read more »
Tesla’s Advanced Battery Research group gets new leadership, Jeff Dahn to become advisor for Novonix
Professor Jeff Dahn is a star researcher in the battery field—he has co-authored 730 papers and holds some 73 patents. Professor Dahn and his research group at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia have had an exclusive research partnership with Tesla since 2016. Now Professor Dahn is stepping down from his leadership role at Tesla’s… Read more »