During Tesla’s 3rd quarter conference call last night, Elon Musk got a very important question regarding the widespread skepticism that Tesla will be able to roll out “feature complete full self driving” by the end of this year (only 69 days from now). This questioner asked him to define what “feature complete” means and give a list of features that establish a baseline. He answered it this way:
Tesla’s continued positive cash flow and $5.3 billion in cash, even while quickly expanding both its product line and its manufacturing capabilities, and growing its leasing business, puts to rest any short-term worries on whether Tesla [TSLA] can sustain its aggressive growth.
This week I read a series of tweets that inspired me to write this article on declining transportation costs and how they could fundamentally change the markets for personal transportation.
Here at CleanTechnica, we have been following Norway closely, since this is the first country to hit the tipping point where EVs and PHEVs have become the default purchase for regular people instead of the exception, due to a generous combination of incentives and long history of awareness raising. My last article on Norway highlighted the Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus coming to the country, which hasn’t taken off as I thought it might — most are still willing to pay a bit more for the Model 3 Long Range. This article from May highlighted a local story about a large Mercedes dealer in Oslo reporting plummeting sales, resulting in layoffs. Today, a local outlet speculates the end for some car brands that are behind in electrifying their lineup.
I was browsing Facebook a few days ago and I saw a member of the Southwest Florida EV group posted that Chevy Bolt prices were really low. The Bolt got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago as many made a big deal that it beat the Model 3 to market. Though, now that Model 3 production is ramped up and meeting US demand (although foreign demand is still unsatisfied in many places), we don’t hear much about the Bolt.
We attended yet another National Drive Electric Week event this past weekend, this one (CleanTechnica’s 4th? 5th?) was in Oldsmar, Florida, and went quite beyond electric vehicles.
A few days ago, we wrote about Tesla earning the Top safety score (TOP SAFETY PICK+) from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). I had publicly asked them last month why they hadn’t yet tested the car and was happy to get a reply that they were working on it. I’m not surprised how things turned out.
Yesterday, I attended the Drive Electric Week event in New Port Richey. Next week, if all goes as planned, I’ll attend another one in Florida. I’ve been attending these sorts of events for a few years. Although I enjoy them, I don’t think they are very effective at their stated purpose. Every time I attend a Drive Electric event, it seems that it is preaching to the choir. I was happy to see a few non-EV owners at the event, but the majority of the people there owned an EV.
I’m a big fan of the Tesla Model Y. I’ve written about the Model Y’s 3rd row being the key to it becoming the best selling vehicle in the world, the Model Y beating the Lamborghini Urus (which is over 3 times the price), styling tricks that Tesla used to make an SUV looks like a performance sedan, and most recently Tesla cutting Model Y prices.
Yesterday, Elon announced California customers can now order commercial sizes of solar power in 5 minutes at Tesla.com/bigsolar. Instead of starting the process with a site survey or a roof inspection, Tesla just publishes this sizing guide and assumes the commercial customer knows the size of his or her roof. It isn’t about maximizing solar production, it is about simplifying the buying process. It’s easy to see the price per watt going down from $2.22 ($1.55 after the 30% federal tax credit) to $1.44 ($1.01 after tax credit).
