For the second month in a row, total plug-in sales fell short of last year’s figures. Overall US sales were 10,365 in June, 10% lower than May, and 16% lower than June 2014. The good news is that worldwide sales have shattered last year’s numbers every month so far this year. After a slow start,… Read more »
Search Results Found For: "Tesla"
Uber CEO: If Tesla’s cars are autonomous by 2020, we’ll buy all 500,000
At the recent Top 10 Tech Trends dinner hosted by the Churchill Club, five of the world’s most famous VCs were asked what they think will be the most significant trends over the next five years. Steve Jurvetson, familiar to Charged readers as an early Tesla investor (and board member), had some interesting things to… Read more »
Tesla Superchargers may be too popular for their own good
Giving away free stuff can be a winning business strategy, but it can backfire if customers start gaming the system. At Tesla’s recent shareholders’ meeting, Elon Musk complained that some Model S owners living near the company’s free Superchargers are using them to charge up for everyday driving, rather than for road trips as Tesla… Read more »
Tesla hires prominent battery researcher Jeff Dahn
Better and cheaper batteries will be one of the key enabling technologies for the clean, distributed energy system of the future. More specifically, they are a critical component of Tesla’s master plan to produce an affordable mass-market EV. The Seers of Silicon Valley added a big name to their stable of battery boffins this week,… Read more »
Tesla resists changes to California ZEV mandate
California’s ZEV mandate, which will require 15 percent of cars sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2025, will soon be expanded to include medium-size OEMs such as Mitsubishi and Volvo, which naturally have some helpful ideas as to how the rules could be watered down. At a May hearing, automakers and… Read more »
Loyal GM customer told CEO Mary Barra he is tempted by Tesla’s “beautiful” user interface
There’s currently a lot of talk about a trend that Tesla co-founder Ian Wright discussed in our pages a year ago: even as software becomes a more and more critical part of the automobile, the user interfaces built by the (non-Tesla) automakers are clunky and old-fashioned, especially when it comes to integrating with our other… Read more »
Tesla’s liquid-cooled Supercharger cable could enable faster charge times
Once again, Tesla has come up with an innovation that could be far more significant than is apparent at first glance. Speaking at the latest shareholders’ meeting, Elon Musk said that Tesla has “just introduced” a liquid-cooled cable to the Supercharger system (around 24 minutes into the video below). Liquid cooling allows the cable to… Read more »
May plug-in sales: Tesla, LEAF and Volt back in the top 3, overall sales mediocre
The traditional running order reasserted itself in May, as the Model S, LEAF and Volt slid back into the top three spots. While plug-in sales were up substantially over April, they failed to best the May 2014 numbers. The Tesla Model S grabbed the lead with 2,400 estimated US sales. Deliveries of the D are… Read more »
Elon Musk vs the LA Times: Yes, Tesla has benefited from government incentives. And?
The LA Times recently ran a “now it can be told” article highlighting the various government subsidies and incentives that benefit Tesla and Elon Musk’s other companies, SolarCity and SpaceX – a total of about $4.9 billion by the Times’ reckoning. Certainly Tesla, like many other energy companies and automakers, has benefited from a wide… Read more »
Daimler joins Tesla in the energy storage market
Another entrant has joined the suddenly trendy market for stationary energy storage. Daimler’s wholly-owned subsidiary Deutsche ACCUmotive has announced plans to sell energy storage systems to both residential and commercial customers. ACCUmotive’s lithium-ion battery modules have an energy capacity of 2.5 kWh for the residential model, and 5.9 kWh for the industrial version. Up to… Read more »