Tesla Energy
Inside the Gigafactory That Will Decide Tesla’s Fate
The place remains a very active construction site, filled with contractors, cranes, and pickup trucks. The factory is being built in sections and is now only 14 percent complete. Ninety percent of the interior space is under construction. A lot will change in the coming months. Interior rooms are being prepared to handle raw materials. Tesla Energy products are produced on what’s called the “pod line.” It has the startup vibe: rows of desks, plenty of whiteboards. The completed structure will have a footprint of 5.8 million square feet, roughly the size of 100 football fields. Inside, however, will be at least twice as much floor space because some sections will stand four stories tall. Tesla has also purchased land around the site for potential expansion. Eventually the entire roof will be filled with fixed-tilt solar panels.
Model S
Spectacular Tesla Model S crash after flying 82+ft in the air shows importance of a large crumple zone
Pictures of the accident show that the front-end of the Model S is completely destroyed while the cabin itself remains whole. This highlights the importance of a large crumple zone, like the Tesla Model S’ front trunk (frunk), something easier to design with electric vehicles due to the lack of engines and the use of smaller motors.
Model 3
Motor Trend Exclusive: Tesla Model S, 3 and X at Gigafactory 1
Go behind-the-scenes with Motor Trend at the world’s first photo shoot of the full line of Tesla vehicles. We have Tesla’s entire range of S3Xy electric vehicles, from the refreshed Model S, to the all-new $35,000 Model 3, to the first-ever Model X SUV - all at Tesla’s ginormous Gigafactory battery production center in Sparks, Nevada.
Tesla is building a new Growth Team ‘from scratch’ ahead of the Model 3 launch, hires from Facebook and Uber
Now that Tesla plans to expand significantly in the next few years through the introduction of the Model 3 and Tesla Energy products, Electrek has learned that the automaker has started building a growth team “from scratch”. It started by hiring from Facebook and Uber; two of the best examples of optimizing growth through growth teams. We learned that earlier this year Tesla hired former Facebook’s Growth Product Manager, Praveen Arichandran, as its new Director of Growth Programs. Arichandran holds degrees in economics and computer engineering from the University of Waterloo.
How the Tesla Model 3 Blows the Original Ford Mustang Away - The Big Picture
Primed by a superbly executed publicity campaign that included ads in 2,600 papers, the simultaneous placement of cover stories in Time and Newsweek magazines, the first ever roadblock TV ad buy on CBS, NBC, and ABC, and star billing at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, 22,000 frenzied consumers placed orders for the Mustang the day it went on sale. One guy who beat out 14 others for a car slept in it overnight at the dealership until his check cleared. Well, the Model 3 just blew the Mustang away.
Poll: Employees At Korean Automakers Prefer Tesla
Korea Herald recently reported on some poll results that include Tesla and employees in the automotive industry in Korea. But it’s this poll result that show how much influence/impact Tesla has. When asked which company they’d most likely consider if they were to buy an electric car, 51.2% said Tesla, which puts the Californian automaker in the #1 spot ahead of all of the Korean brands.
TSLA
Tesla's Capital Needs to Meet Musk's Timeline
When Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk pulled ahead the electric-car company’s target to increase vehicle assembly to 500,000 a year to 2018 from 2020, he added that capital spending will increase by about 50 percent -- $750 million -- from the original budget for this year, which would probably require some fundraising. The smallest and youngest publicly held U.S. automaker -- which sells models with a $10,000 optional Ludicrous Speed Upgrade -- faces huge capital expenditures as it ramps up its massive battery factory toward full production, adds tooling for a third model, expands sales and service operations globally, installs more superchargers, seeks to hire additional manufacturing experts and contemplates adding more vehicle-assembly capacity.
LA Times continues attack on Tesla using boilerplate risk disclosure as ‘admitting huge risk’ for the Model 3
Now the LA Times fights back this week with a new hit piece on Tesla called “Tesla throws cold water on its own hype by admitting huge risks in building the Model 3“. The article used boilerplate risk disclosure statements from Tesla’s latest SEC filing to assert that the company is “admitting huge risk” for the Model 3 production ramp up. Risk disclosure is something you’ll find in almost every quarterly or annual report of any publicly traded company like Tesla. It simply outlines to investors what the company sees as potential risks that could prevent them from executing their business plan.
Other News
Apple invests $1 bln in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing
The investment gives Apple, which has hired dozens of automotive experts over the past year, a sizeable stake in Uber Technologies Inc's chief rival in China. Cook said in an interview that he sees opportunities for Apple and Didi Chuxing to collaborate in the future. "We are making the investment for a number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market," he said. "Of course, we believe it will deliver a strong return for our invested capital over time as well."
The Age of the Hyperloop Has Arrived. Well, for the Most Part
Of course, before Hyperloop One, or anyone else, can consider any of this, someone will have to figure out how to make the technology actually work. Lloyd and BamBrogan have poached about 150 people from Tesla Motors, Boeing, Lufthansa, and SpaceX. “We hire people that have built things,” he says. They fill the company’s HQ, a former ice factory in downtown Los Angeles.
Promotion
Ride the Lightning: Tesla Motors Unofficial Podcast
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