The news on the street is that some new Model S's are being shipped with lane departure and speed assist sensors (see article links below). Also, Tesla's Fremont factory is busy pumping out new cars as they work Saturdays to boost production.
Firmware 6.0 is being rolled out to the Model S owner fleet. While the visual improvement are minor, I view this as a major step toward the Model S becoming more personal. It appears Tesla wants to continually adapt the Model S to meet the owner's needs more over time (as evidenced by Elon's Tweet about 6.0). Basically, it'll be a car that learns the owner's needs and adapts to them over time.
Tesla Energy
Interview with Diarmuid O'Connell
Diarmuid O'Connell, Tesla's VP of Business Development, is one of the key members of Tesla's executive team leading the development of the Gigafactory. In this interview he shares some interesting insights into how Tesla operates.
Regarding the Gigafactory: "This project is immense. You have to go up to the site to really appreciate how big a building this will be. It's a mile long and 70 feet high. It's incredible. It will In essence be a machine itself -- that's how we're thinking of this. A machine that takes raw materials in one side and produces batteries."
Regarding Tesla's view of success: "Ultimately, we measure our success by how much competition we actually inspire."
California doesn't give up
A few California congressmen drafted a letter to Elon Musk asking him to consider California for their next Gigafactory.
Model S
Some cars already shipping with lane departure warning and speed assist
In a strange turn of events this week, some Model S owners have reported that their new cars have shipped with new lane departure and speed assist sensors. See TeslaMotors.com forum post and teslamotorsclub.com forum post for more details.
Update: Tesla has issued the following statement, "Starting recently, some Model S being delivered in North America come equipped with two new features. The features are lane drift detection, which will deliver a warning via vibration in the steering wheel if the driver starts to drift from the lane without signaling, and speed limit display, which will inform the driver of the speed limit and alert them when it is exceeded. These features are necessary to meet the latest standards in the European market, but we have decided to integrate them into Model S delivered worldwide." Also, regarding retrofit possibilities, "due to the extensive changes involved in this instance, however, a retrofit is not feasible."
Iowa opposes Tesla
Iowa's Department of Transportation told Tesla to cut short a test drive campaign they were doing in West Des Moines. Supposedly Iowa law prohibits carmakers from selling directly to consumers. Tesla's reply: "A spokesman for Tesla said the company does not believe the statutes apply because the company was not selling cars, only providing test drives."
Tesla Model S Concept Coupe
I think it's definitely a possibility Tesla could release a Model S Coupe in the next 1-2 years. Koncepts Cars has released some concept mockups of what a Tesla Model S Coupe could look like.
Tesla's Supercharger expansion
Check out this article that highlights Tesla's 2015 Supercharger expansion plans. Tesla is aggressively plastering N America, Europe and China/Japan with Superchargers.
TSLA
JPMorgan has doubts
This past week JP Morgan analyst Ryan Brinkman published a rather bearish Dec 2015 price target of $190 for TSLA. Brinkman doesn't believe Tesla can sell 500k cars/year by 2020 as his forecast is for Telsa to sell 300k cars in 2020.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s 'other' Gigafactory breaks ground in Buffalo
SolarCity (where Elon Musk is chairman) has broken ground on a 1 million sq ft factory to produce solar panels. It's another display of Elon's strategy of using mass economies of scale to drive down costs to make new technologies affordable.