Chinese electric vehicle battery maker CATL said on Monday it has extended a battery supply deal with U.S. EV maker Tesla Inc to 2025.
Ningde-based CATL said in a stock exchange filing that it would supply battery cells to Tesla, which is making Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport-utility vehicles in Shanghai, until December 2025.
Other Tesla battery suppliers include Panasonic Corp and LG Energy Solution.
Elon Musk often does weird things and the latest one is him considering making a Tesla-branded HVAC system leveraging the work Tesla has done to develop one for its cars. He also believes the system is so good that it could act as an advertisement for the system that Tesla has implemented in its cars which breaks his no-ad rule.
Tesla was one of the first car manufacturers to improve the air quality inside the car. It was one of the first to implement a HEPA filter into the HVAC system of its higher-end electric cars. Tesla claims the system can theoretically remove 99.97 percent of the dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and airborne particles which are of the size of 0.3 microns. All these things, the Tesla HVAC systems handle very well.
While talking up the HVAC system on the new Model S and also talking about an update that’s inbound for the HVAC system which makes it more silent Musk also talked about how it could be scaled up for home use.
“Oh man, home HVAC that is super energy efficient, quiet & purifies the air would be great. We developed it for the car, but it can be scaled up for home use,” said the billionaire.
This is not the first time Musk has talked up the HVAC. He once claimed it was 10 times better than one on any other non-Tesla car. “Most people have no idea just how good the Tesla air purification system is. Literally, 10X better than any other car. Maybe we should advertise informationally just so people know stuff like this exists,” he said a while ago.
Tesla said it expects to spend more than $1 billion a year on battery raw materials from Australia given the country’s reliable mining industry and responsible production practices. Robyn Denholm, chair of the U.S. carmaker, said on Wednesday that Australia, which is rich in minerals used for batteries like lithium and nickel, is poised to benefit as developing supply chains for electric vehicle batteries and the green energy age focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG).
“We expect our spend on Australian minerals to increase to more than $1 billion per annum for the next few years,” Denholm, an Australian, told a Minerals Council of Australia event.
Tesla already sources three-quarters of its lithium feedstock from Australia and over a third of its nickel, Denham said, without specifying a dollar figure.
“Australian mining companies do have a good reputation, great expertise, professionalism and are preferred by manufacturers increasingly concerned about meeting both today’s and the future’s ESG requirements,” she said in Canberra.
The comments are in line with a new policy underway by U.S. President Joe Biden’s Administration to rely on allies to supply of the bulk of the metals needed to build electric vehicles.
The U.S. will then focus on processing those metals domestically into battery parts, part of a strategy designed to placate environmentalists, two administration officials with direct knowledge told Reuters last month.
Australia, alongside Canada and Brazil, are among the countries expected to benefit.
Australia’s exports of hard rock lithium known as spodumene are expected to hit A$1 billion ($773 million) this year while its nickel exports are expected to be valued at A$4 billion, government figures show.
Tesla also supplies batteries to Australia to store energy captured from rooftop solar panels which shore up reliability in its energy network. Australia has the world’s highest per-capita density of rooftop solar panels.
Tesla Inc is recalling nearly 6,000 U.S. vehicles because brake caliper bolts could be loose, with the potential to cause a loss of tire pressure, documents made public on Wednesday show.
The recall covers certain 2019-2021 Model 3 vehicles and 2020-2021 Model Y vehicles. Tesla’s filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it had no reports of crashes or injuries related to the issue and that the company will inspect and tighten, or replace, the caliper bolts as necessary.
Tesla said that loose caliper bolts could allow the brake caliper to separate and contact the wheel rim, which could cause a loss of tire pressure in “very rare circumstances.” The company said that in the “unlikely event” there is vehicle damage from a loose or missing fastener, it will arrange for a tow to the nearest service center for repair.
The filing with NHTSA said Tesla was made aware in December of a field incident involving a 2021 Model Y vehicle with a missing fastener on the driver-side rear brake caliper.
The company has since taken measures to prevent the loosening of the bolts in the assembly process
The second-generation Tesla Roadster was revealed about three years ago but the EV maker took quite a while to materialize it. Finally, it is expected to arrive later this year or early in 2022 but one production-ready version is already on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum with some details of its specifications. The most interesting of all is that the readout at the museum claims a 0-100 kmph sprint in an earth-staggering 1.1 seconds when the Roadster is equipped with the SpaceX package.
Now what’s even more interesting is that Elon Musk took to Twitter to confirm the specifications. Replying to one of the tweets he reaffirmed it’s possible with “the SpaceX rocket thruster option package. The Roadster will possibly be equipped with cold air thrusters, supplied by compressed air tanks with the thrusters hidden behind the license plate, that’ll help propel the all-wheel-drive sports to manic speeds. Now without the SpaceX package, the EV maker is claiming 1.9 seconds to triple-digit speeds, which still is fast enough to give something like the mighty Bugatti Chiron with a W16 engine, a sweat.
Now going with what Musk has claimed earlier, the Tesla Roadster is not just about speed. It will deliver quite an impressive electric range of 998 km with a tri-motor configuration. One of them will be positioned in the front and the remaining two at the rear that will power all four wheels. It will get its juices from a 250 kWh battery pack and it will put out an unbelievable 10,000 Nm of peak torque helping it to clock 160 kmph in just 4.2 seconds. Now that’s quicker than what many sportscars take to clock triple-digit speeds.
The family office run by “Big Short” investor Michael Burry has disclosed a short position against Tesla Inc worth more than half a billion. Scion Asset Management said in a regulatory filing on Monday that it had bearish put options on 800,100 shares in Tesla as of the end of the first quarter that was worth $534 million. Put options give investors the right to sell shares at certain price in the future.
One of the investors profiled in the book “The Big Short’ and the film of the same name for betting more than a billion dollars against the U.S. housing bubble, Burry has been skeptical of Tesla’s sky-high valuations.
In February, he tweeted “my last Big Short got bigger and Bigger and BIGGER,” referring to Tesla’s surge in market capitalization. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he said.
Powered by strong sales and its first annual profit, Tesla shares jumped more than eight times last year and hit a record high of $883 per share in January. But they have since fallen as hedge fund managers raise concerns that it is overvalued.
The shares closed at $576 per share on Monday, valuing the electric car maker at around $555 billion.
Burry also said last year that the green regulatory credits which Tesla has relied on to generate profits will dwindle as Fiat Chrysler increases sales.
Stellantis, formed through the merger of Italy’s FCA and France’s PSA, said this month it expects to achieve its European carbon dioxide emissions targets this year without environmental credits bought from Tesla.
Scion, which does not hold external capital, also lifted its exposure to energy last quarter, adding 530,000 shares in Golden Ocean Group, 323,823 shares in SunCoke Energy and 225,000 shares in Occidental Petroleum.
A Tesla car driver killed in a recent accident in California praised the automaker’s “full self-driving” features, and posted videos on his apparent Tiktok account, in which he appeared to drive with his hands off the wheel. On May 5, a Tesla Model 3 crashed into an overturned truck on a highway in Fontana, killing the Tesla driver and injuring the truck driver and a motorist who had stopped to help him.
The Associated Press news agency cited police as saying a preliminary investigation had determined the Tesla’s driver assistant system Autopilot was engaged prior to the crash.
But in a correction issued late on Friday, police said, “There has not been a final determination made as to what driving mode the Tesla was in.”
Since 2016 at least three Tesla vehicles operating on Autopilot have been in fatal crashes, two involving a Tesla car driving beneath a semi-truck in Florida.
Two videos of a man driving with his hands off the wheel were posted on the alleged Tiktok account of the victim, 35-year-old Steven Hendrickson of Running Springs in California.
“What would do I do without my full self-driving Tesla after a long day at work,” said a message on one. “Coming home from LA after work, thank god, self-drive,” said a comment on another video, adding, “Best car ever!”
Tesla dubbed its driver assistant features “Autopilot” or “Full Self-driving,” which experts say could mislead consumers into believing the car can drive by itself.
On its website, Tesla said its Autopilot feature does not make the vehicle autonomous, however.
On his Facebook account, Hendrickson was shooting a video while driving on autopilot, saying, “Don’t worry. I am on autopilot.”
Family members were not available for comment and Tesla, which has disbanded its public relations teams, was not immediately available for comment.
Tesla Club-SoCal, a group of Tesla owners in Southern California, said on social media that he was an active member who “loved his Tesla.” He is survived by his wife and two children, it added.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating more than two dozen crashes of Tesla vehicles, including the Fontana crash and a high-profile one in Texas last month that killed two men.
Since 2016 at least three Tesla vehicles operating on Autopilot have been in fatal crashes, two involving a Tesla car driving beneath a semi-truck in Florida.
The U.S. transport safety board said Tesla’s autopilot system failed to properly detect a truck as it crossed the car’s path, contributing to the accidents also caused
Elon Musk’s tweets can be devastating. They have the ability to reshape markets, because of his staunch following. Now, the Tesla supremo has tweeted that Tesla will stop accepting Bitcoin payments because of its environmental impact. This also comes at a time when Musk himself is promoting cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin and has even set out a Twitter poll asking users if they are open to Tesla accepting the currency.
The controversial move comes as Musk has been promoting Dogecoin, acting as a catalyst behind its rise, and also has announced a rideshare mission to the Moon via SpaceX funded by Dogecoin.
There is further criticism of the move because most EVs are still sourcing their electricity from fossil fuels as most homes are powered by the grid. Tesla however has said that its supercharger network will go fully renewable in 2021.
Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are very power-intensive as crypto mining involves having racks and racks of GPUs and big data computing capabilities stacked together which consume a lot of power, which is more often than not sourced via a fossil-fuel-powered grid. Almost, the same logic applies to electric cars, critics claim, which makes this move even more controversial.
The value of Dogecoin has skyrocketed since January 2021 ever since Musk started promoting the currency. Around about this time Musk became a proponent of Cryptocurrencies and opened up to the idea of Tesla accepting Bitcoin. Musk even had Tesla buy a tranche of Bitcoin and then sold it back, improving Tesla’s financial cash flow, showcasing a new form of liquidity.
U.S. electric car maker Tesla Inc has halted plans to buy land to expand its Shanghai plant and make it a global export hub, people familiar with the matter said, due to uncertainty created by U.S.-China tensions. With 25% tariffs on imported Chinese electric vehicles imposed on top of existing levies under former U.S. President Donald Trump still in place, Tesla now intends to limit the proportion of China output in its global production, two of the four people said.
Tesla had earlier considered expanding exports of its China-made entry-level Model 3 to more markets, including the United States, sources told Reuters, a plan that had not previously been reported.
Tesla currently ships China-made Model 3s to Europe, where it is building a factory in Germany.
Shares of Tesla fell as much as 5.3% early on Thursday.
Tesla sold 25,845 China-made vehicles in China and overseas in April, down from 35,478 in March, according to data from China Passenger Car Association.
Tesla’s Shanghai factory is designed to make up to 500,000 cars per year and has the capacity to produce Model 3 and Model Y vehicles at a rate of 450,000 total units per year.
In March, Tesla refrained from bidding on a plot of land across the road from the plant as it no longer aimed to boost China production capacity significantly, at least for now, three of the people said, declining to be named as the discussions were private.
In a statement to Reuters, Tesla said it’s Shanghai factory was “developing as planned.”
The Shanghai city government, a key supporter in Tesla’s establishment of a wholly-owned factory in China – the first and only foreign passenger car plant not required to form a joint venture – did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla had never declared an intention to acquire the land, which is about half the size of the 200-acre (80 hectares) plot housing Tesla’s current facility and would enable the company to lift capacity by another 200,000 to 300,000 cars, said two of the people.
Tesla’s China sales are surging despite mounting regulatory pressure in the country after consumer disputes over product safety and scrutiny over how it handles data.
It generated $3 billion in revenue in China in the first three months of this year, more than tripling year-earlier sales and accounting for 30% of total revenue.
Elon Musk is well known for his hyperbole, especially when it comes down to Tesla and its AutoPilot technology. For the last couple of months, Tesla has been beta testing a fully self-driving feature that is available to just a few 1,000 customers as a part of its early access program. Now, the world’s second-richest man says, an incoming update to the full self-driving beta will “blow your mind”. Musk in his typical style dropped nuggets of information while replying to tweets. He said the update will come in two weeks and he said the safety would also be higher with pure vision.
“Gating factor in achieving & proving higher safety with pure vision than with vision+radar. We are almost there. FSD Beta V9.0 will blow your mind,” Musk tweeted to a Twitter handle called @teslaownersSV.
To another user, he even said that the feature was also coming to the Canadian market in a couple of months. He cited the delay due to the differences in driving conditions between the US and Canada.
The incoming update called version 9 will remove reliance on radars and instead will be fully dependent on cameras that are installed in the cars. Musk for the longest time has been against radars and LiDARs stating that they are too expensive and not required.
Tesla has been often criticised for its AutoPilot technology as experts believe that it is not fully self-driving tech. For this Tesla has also developed its chipset based on the ARM architecture and trained algorithms on the DOJO supercomputer. Musk is optimistic that he has the holy grail of self-driving, but he often overestimates things especially when commenting on Twitter.
Recently, Tesla has also been in the news for all the wrong reasons as a Model S crashed with two fatalities while it was on AutoPilot.
U.S. electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla Inc plans to add facilities at its Shanghai factory to repair and reproduce key components such as electric motors and battery cells, a document submitted by Tesla to Shanghai authorities shows.
China, the world’s biggest car market, sold over 1.3 million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles last year. China’s regulators are adding rules on the recycling of key EV components to save materials and protect the environment.
The document also said Tesla will add manufacturing capacities for car structures and electric motor controllers. It did not put detailed figures of its manufacturing capacities.
Tesla, which is making electric Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, is expanding the manufacturing capacity of EV components to localize the supply chain. It also added a factory to make EV chargers in Shanghai last year.
Tesla, which said on its website that materials in a Tesla car’s battery are recoverable and recyclable, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla sold more than 35,000 locally-made vehicles last month in China and is exporting China-made cars to Europe.
In China, many Tesla owners have reported that they are being stopped on the highway by the police over safety concerns. This is particularly true in the Guangzhou district of China. This comes in the wake of numerous safety concerns around Tesla cars especially after the recent fatal accident of the Tesla Model S in the US state of Texas. This is also happening in the wake of a protest by a Tesla owner at the Tesla showcase during the Shanghai Motor Show which was concluded last week.
“The traffic accident occurred in the north of Dongjiang Avenue, Zengcheng District, Guangzhou on April 13, according to a statement released by Zengcheng public security bureau on Wednesday. A car caught fire after colliding with the cement barrier on the right side of the road and another car, leading to one passenger dead, said the statement,” said reports on Chinese news portals like the Global Times.
“This afternoon, we have proactively contacted the Zhengzhou Municipal Market Supervision Administration and reported the relevant situation. In order to protect the rights and interests of consumers, we are willing to cooperate fully and provide the raw data of the vehicle half an hour before the incident to the third-party appraisal agency or the technology designated by the government. The regulatory authority or the consumer himself,” said one Weibo user.
There were many such instances of posts by Tesla users on Chinese social networks. However, the police have come out and said that it was just doing a general exercise around traffic. It has denied isolating just Tesla owners, however, the owners are staying that they felt targeted exclusively.
Tesla is all set to roll out its first electric car in India this year and the American EV manufacturing company has started establishing its base in our market. It had registered itself in Bengaluru earlier this year and according to it is now setting up its office in Lower Parel-Worli area in Mumbai. The company will be establishing its production base in Karnataka and is evaluating a few ready commercial projects in Lower-Parel for a 40,000 sq ft office.
Tesla has started hiring for top positions from IIM Bengaluru alumni. Manuj Khurana has been appointed as Head – Policy and Business Development for India operations. The company has also hired Nishant Prasad as Charging Manager who will head Tesla’s supercharging, destination charging, and home charging business. He was earlier head of Charging Infrastructure and Energy Storage at Ather Energy. And finally, Tesla India has Chithra Thomas as its country HR Leader, who was earlier working at Walmart and Reliance Retail. “Tesla India is moving full speed ahead with building a local team. We are excited to see the progress. Hoping to see you (Musk) in India when Tesla delivers the first cars,” Tesla Club India said in a tweet on Wednesday.
Last week, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari invited Tesla to start manufacturing EVs in India. During his address at The Raisina Dialogue 2021, he said that it is a golden opportunity for the company to start manufacturing in India. Gadkari also added that Indian EV makers are also improving the quality of their models and local manufacturing means they are able to price their products at a competitive price. Similarly, Tesla will also benefit if it engages in local manufacturing.
Tesla Inc apologised to Chinese consumers for not addressing a customer’s complaints in a timely way, and said it would launch a review of its service operations in the world’s biggest auto market. The unusual public apology from Tesla followed criticism in state media, and an incident at the Shanghai auto show that got wide attention in China’s social media. An unhappy customer by clambered atop a Tesla at the auto show to protest the company’s handling of her complaints about malfunctioning brakes. Videos that went viral on Monday showed a woman wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “The brakes don’t work” and shouting similar accusations while staff and security struggled to restore calm.
The trouble for Tesla in China overlapped with new questions in the United States about the safety of the company’s Autopilot partially-automated driving systems. Police in Texas are investigating a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model S that hit a tree and burst into flames. Rescuers found victims in the passenger and rear seat, not the driver’s seat. Federal regulators are investigating the crash, and have a total of 24 probes underway of accidents involving Teslas operating on Autopilot.
Tesla sells roughly 30% of its cars in China, made at its Shanghai factory. But it has faced occasional criticism over issues such as complaints of battery fires. Monday’s incident led state broadcaster CCTV to call for an investigation of reported brake problems on Tesla cars, while China’s anti-graft watchdog weighed in with a commentary saying such disputes should be resolved within the rule of law. “Individuals should not take extreme measures, and enterprises should not be arrogant and unreasonable,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said late on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, a representative at Tesla’s store in Zhengzhou, where the protesting customer came from, told local state media the automaker will share data related to the brake incident with local market regulators for investigation.
Tesla said on Monday that the woman was a vehicle owner who had been involved in a collision earlier this year. It cited “speeding violations” for the crash, adding in a social media statement that it had been negotiating with her about returning the car, but the talks had stalled over a third-party inspection.
Last month, Tesla came under scrutiny in China when the military banned its cars from entering its complexes, citing security concerns over cameras in its vehicles, sources said.
That prompted founder Elon Musk to say that if Tesla used cameras to spy in China or anywhere, it would be shut down. Earlier this month, Tesla said cameras in its cars are not activated outside of North America.
The woman whose protest started it all will be detained for five days, Shanghai police said on Tuesday.
Police said the woman and a female accomplice – identified only by their surnames, Zhang and Li – “caused chaos” at the trade fair on Monday when they arrived at the Tesla display “to express their dissatisfaction due to a consumer dispute.”
Zhang was ordered detained for “disrupting public order,” while Li received a warning, police said. Zhang and Li could not be contacted for comment.
U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc will launch self-inspection and address customer service issues in China, it said on Weibo late on Tuesday.
The statement comes after an unhappy customer clambered onto a Tesla car at the Shanghai Auto Show on Monday over a dispute with the company, creating a social media stir and criticism of Tesla from state media.