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Tesla: Model 3 production is on track to start in July
Tesla's final earnings report for 2016 is most notable for what it tells us to expect in the upcoming year. In a letter to shareholders (PDF), Elon Musk & Co. report that Model 3 production is on track to start in July, ramping up to full-scale production in September. As our friends at Autoblog note, that means the earliest pre-ordering customers could see their cars by the end of this year.
Tesla explains how much Supercharging will cost new buyers
If you've still yet to buy your dream Model X or S, we're afraid you only have a couple of days to get one with free lifetime access to Tesla's Supercharger stations. That perk ends on January 15th and will be replaced by a more limited offering. After the 15th, you'll get 400 kWh of free supercharging credits every year with a Model X or S instead of unlimited access, though you can top up if you're willing to pay more. Now, the automaker has revealed more details about how much it would cost to charge your car if you use up your credits before they're replenished every year.
Tesla delays UK price hike until mid-January
Tesla has put its UK price increase on hold until January 15th, giving potential customers another couple of weeks to order an EV before the hike goes into effect. The company said late last year the prices of custom orders (read: showroom and pre-owned vehicles excluded) would go up by 5 percent on January 1st. It said this was a reaction to unfavourable "currency fluctuations," likely referring to the recent volatility of the pound following the Brexit vote. That's a significant increase considering the cheapest Tesla Model S currently goes for £58,900. But the EV maker appears to have had a change of heart -- for two weeks at least.
You only have two weeks left to buy a Tesla with free supercharging
A few months ago, Tesla gave its customers the bad news: new buyers will have to pay for their own electricity. It was a small surprise, considering the fact that free use of Tesla's Supercharger network was a big bonus for buying the company's vehicles. The free access was supposed to drop off for any vehicle purchased after the start of the year, but the company seems to be offering a slight reprieve: prospective Tesla buyers now have two weeks to buy a car with unlimited free access to the charging network.
Tesla's next-generation Superchargers should be much faster
Tesla's Superchargers are certainly faster than most public EV stations, but they're still far slower than you might hope for. When it can take about 40 minutes to get an 80 percent charge, you can't exactly grab and go like you would at a gas pump. Relief is in sight, however: Elon Musk has teased third-generation Superchargers that could supply much, much more power than the maximum 150kW per car you see today. Even the 350kW floated as a guess by Electrek's Fred Lambert is like a "children's toy," according to Musk.
Tesla's fix for Supercharger squatters is a $0.40 per minute fee
As the number of Teslas on the road continues to increase, owners are running into a growing problem. While there are Superchargers located nationwide for them to plug in and quickly charge up, they can quickly get clogged up if one jerk leaves their car parked there for a few hours. Since its cars aren't quite ready to drive themselves away once they've filled up, Tesla is placing the responsibility on the owners. Once a car's battery is full, the owner receives a push notification via the Tesla app. If they don't move the car within five minutes, it will start racking up a $0.40 per minute idle fee (in the US and Canada), billed at their next visit to a service center.
Tesla is working on a fix for jerks parking at Superchargers
What's a Tesla owner to do when they roll up to a Supercharger station and every terminal is occupied by a fully-charged car? That's a question CEO Elon Musk needs to find an answer to. He recently acknowledged the issue on Twitter and said that the company "will take action," as spotted by Autoblog. What that will look like isn't clear at the moment.
Tesla asks new car buyers to pay for Supercharger access
It's not just your average Model 3 owner who'll have to pay to use Superchargers. Tesla has announced that anyone ordering one of its cars after January 1st, 2017 will no longer get unlimited free Supercharger top-ups -- yes, even if you buy a top-tier Model S or X. You'll get 400kWh of free credit every year (enough to recharge a P100D four times), but every charge after that will carry an incremental "small fee." The company is quick to note that Superchargers will "never be a profit center," and that whatever you pay (which may depend on local electricity rates) will be less than what it would take to fill a similar gas-powered car.
Six Tesla inventions that aren't electric cars
By Cat DiStasio Tesla is well known for its electric cars, but you might be surprised to learn about all the other stuff the company makes. At some point in time, each of the amazing things Tesla is doing now was simply another one of CEO Elon Musk's crazy ideas. Now the company is working on batteries that can power your home, the world's largest building and a global network of thousands of zero-cost electric car chargers. Read on to learn about six incredible Tesla projects -- aside from electric vehicles, that is.
Free Supercharging won't come standard on the Tesla Model 3
Tesla's early adopters have been enjoying a lifetime of free charging at the company's network of Supercharger stations, but that won't be the case for owners of the forthcoming mass-market Model 3. In today's annual shareholder meeting, CEO Elon Musk explained free charging for life won't be included with the new model, but will be available as an optional package.
A semi-autonomous road trip in the Tesla Model S
Perhaps the worst driving experience of my life happened in 2009 while helping a friend move. She could only afford to rent a rusty van for a single day, so I agreed to make the 14-hour round trip from London to Scotland and back again in one shot. After setting off at 9 AM, we arrived at 7 PM, some four hours behind schedule, thanks to bad traffic. I started the 450-mile home leg at around 9 PM, and the entire journey was a battle to stay awake, alert and within the confines of my lane. Plenty of coffee and roadside breaks later, I arrived home at 6 AM, 21 hours after setting off. It was the most unsafe I've ever felt in a car. When Tesla offered us the opportunity to test out its semi-autonomous Autopilot feature in the Model S, my thoughts immediately went to Scotland and that traumatic journey. While I'm never going to trade my VW Golf for a car that expensive, the new Model 3 will arrive at $35,000 with many of the same capabilities. So I saw the opportunity to take an extremely early Model 3 test drive, of sorts. I wanted to know if it could make a cross-country journey on electric power, and see if the Autopilot would have made that long trip to Scotland a little less arduous.
BMW and Nissan roll out dual-plug EV chargers across the US
In some says, Tesla's Supercharger network is its ace in the hole -- you can buy one of the company's electric cars knowing that you'll have speedy charging when away from home. BMW and Nissan aren't going to let this competitive edge go unanswered, though. They're launching a network of 120 dual-format fast chargers (both CHAdeMO and CCS) across 19 US states, any of which should bring most EVs up to 80 percent in less than 30 minutes. The stations should be available now, and you can find them in the automakers' respective mobile apps.
Tesla settles legal dispute to put its Superchargers on UK motorways
One of the perks of being a Tesla EV owner is having access to the company's Supercharger free refueling stations. Knowing a widespread network of Supercharger sites will be key to getting British bums in leather seats, Tesla said late last year that within six months, you'd be able to drive the length of the UK on complimentary juice. While that may already be theoretically possible if you fancy chancing the journey from Leeds to Edinburgh on a single charge, we haven't heard a peep out of Tesla since January, when it declared 20 Supercharger sites were now live. Expansion is back on the agenda, though, with Tesla announcing fresh plans to build seven Supercharger banks at motorway service stations "to enable routes to the West of Scotland and Eastern England." These will join the 22 currently operating sites, with more additions to the network due to be revealed soon.
Tesla built 35,000 cars last year, preps for Model X launch
While Elon Musk keeps his eye on a SpaceX rocket launch this evening, his car company just released its financial data for the last year. Tesla met its goal of building 35,000 cars in 2014, but says some shipments were held back as a result of launching the shockingly-fast AWD P85D Model S. Beyond the numbers, the company is raising its goal for next year to 55,000 vehicles, including the Model X SUV it says is still on track to arrive in Q3. There are about 30 Model X vehicles in testing now, while Release Candidates are slated for March. The only bad news? Its $1.1 billion in revenue for the quarter was lower than analysts expected, and operating expenses doubled from the same period last year. The company's earnings call is scheduled to take place at 7:30PM ET, and if there's any news from that we will let you know. Update: On the call, Musk mentioned that Tesla's battery for homes and businesses will launch in the next month or two.
Tesla doubles the size of its Supercharger network in the UK
The last time we checked in with Tesla's UK roll-out, the company had opened three new Superchargers in London, bringing its grand total for the British Isles up to nine. It promised that within six months, Model S owners would be able to drive the length of the UK on its ultra-fast chargers alone. A tough promise to keep, but one that it's now starting to deliver on; in just under three months, Tesla has more than doubled the size of its network to 20 Supercharger stations. Sites can now be found near Exmouth and Northampton, as well as Sainsbury's supermarkets in Winchester, Exeter and Bristol. Sure, a Model S still isn't practical for most drivers, but it's slowly becoming more viable -- especially if you live in London, where the bulk of Tesla's Superchargers are set up. If Musk is to persuade Britain to join his EV revolution, it's this sort of infrastructure that'll start winning people over.
Toyota shares its fuel cell patents to help its hydrogen dreams come true
Toyota's apparently hedging it's bet in the hybrid world by also gambling on a hydrogen-powered future. In an apparent attempt to drum up some development support, all 5,680 or so of Toyota's FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) patents developed for and in support of the Mirai are being tossed out to the world for use royalty-free. Included are some 1,970 patents related to fuel cell stacks, 290 to high-pressure hydrogen tanks, 3,350 involving the software to manage the system and a further 70 for production and supply. The fuel cell patents around the actual cars will remain royalty-free until 2020, while the others around production and supply will stay royalty-free for an unlimited time.
Tesla opens new Supercharger sites in London and Birmingham
Tesla's right-hand drive Model S has been available in the UK for a couple of months now, but its complementary Supercharger network has yet to make real impact on Britain's roads. However, the company has always intended to expand its free car-charging stations to cover many of the UK's major motoring hubs, and it's now started to deliver on its word. From today, London will play host to two Supercharger locations, with a new site located at Hyatt Regency London in Central London joining Tesla's first charger at the Royal Victoria Docks.
Tesla will open up its Supercharger patents to boost electric car adoption
Tesla's CEO has been carefully dropping hints that he might "do something controversial" with his company's collection of technology patents, and now we know what he's on about. Speaking at the UK launch of the Tesla Model S yesterday, Elon Musk said that he specifically wants to open up the designs for his Supercharger system in order to create a standard technical specification that other electric car makers can adopt. As part of this, it's possible that Tesla might need to give away some intellectual property about components within the cars themselves, but the general idea ties in with a commitment Musk made a while ago about not wanting Superchargers to become a "walled garden." Besides, it makes a lot of sense -- especially when you imagine what it'd be like today if we had to put up with manufacturer-specific gas stations.
First right-hand drive Tesla Model S and Superchargers coming to the UK in June
It's safe to say electric cars haven't yet captured the attention of UK drivers. Then again, Brits haven't officially been able to get their hands on a right-hand drive Tesla, despite the company opening a London showroom last year. That will all change when Elon Musk and co. bring the first Tesla Model S Performance Plus to the UK on June 7th. The £70,000 luxury car will come with all of the bells and whistles that drivers in North America and China have become accustomed to, including access to Tesla's renowned Supercharger network. It will place free supercharging stations on the UK's busiest routes, stretching from Dover and Bristol up to the M25 and heading north along the length of the M1, providing 130 miles' worth of juice in just 20 minutes. That's likely to appeal to those looking for improved range over the current crop of electric cars, especially if it means they can drive the length of the country with just a single break. With only 1,500 electric cars registered in the first quarter of 2014, the government hopes the luxury sedan will lead an electric car charge -- it appointed Elon Musk as an "electric car tsar" after all.
Tesla opens 100th Supercharger... in a state where sales are banned
You can't buy a Tesla in New Jersey, but now you can Supercharge one up! Tesla's 100th Supercharger just came online in Hamilton, located just a few miles from the NJ state capital of Trenton. The Garden State's very first Supercharger sports six stalls, and, since it's positioned just a few miles from the New Jersey Turnpike, can accommodate Tesla owners traveling down the East Coast, from Connecticut to Florida. Of course, while you can fuel up your Tesla in Jersey, you can't make a purchase -- direct-to-consumer sales are still banned, following a shady (Jersey-esque) backroom deal between politicians and lobbyists just last month.
