About Zachary Shahan
Zachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the CEO of Important Media. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.
Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA] — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in this company and feels like it is a good cleantech company to invest in. But he offers no investment advice and does not recommend investing in Tesla or any other company.
October 12th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Polestar's entry into the electric vehicle world took the top spot this past week on CleanTechnica, being the number one article viewed on CleanTechnica thanks to the hundreds of thousands of views it pulled in. The focus of the article was its pricing, which is surprisingly high. Yet again, it seems that a new "Tesla killer" just doesn't compete with Tesla vehicles, even though it is a nice addition to the EV market and deserves solid sales
October 12th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Global warming and climate change get a lot of attention -- well, not in the mainstream media, but among niche media outlets like CleanTechnica. However, whether in the mainstream media or in niche publications, some of the big challenges of a quickly changing climate are not often highlighted, and I'm quite confident that most people haven't considered them at all
October 11th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Since I got the Tesla Model 3 a month and a half ago, I've been trying to figure out a one- or two-sentence summary of the car. It's been tough. I'm plagued by a few issues. For one, I'm used to communicating with people who know a ton about Tesla (you), whereas people in the "real world" are often not such people
October 10th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
It's a shame — you've got a poor economy almost completely dependent on one industry (the oil industry) that is controlled by corrupt oligarchs, and that country's totally corrupt president is apparently running foreign policy for what is supposed to be the most powerful nation on earth. It's like a privileged, educated 20-year-old with kind and thoughtful parents who has fallen under the spell (or control) of a nasty, corrupt, immoral, drug-addicted street thug
October 8th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
The most popular CleanTechnica article of September did not have "Tesla" in the title, but if you read the piece, you can see the story is closely tied to the Tesla Model 3. The shock I just couldn't stop shaking was about how many people continue to buy new Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords. Compared to the Model 3, I get it — even if they have the same 5 year cost of ownership (possible), they have a lower upfront price. That said, if $100–200 a month is a dealbreaker for someone looking at these options, my opinion is that they definitely shouldn't be buying a new car at all. But hey, that's just my opinion
October 7th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Manufacturing jobs have been lost in key states that swung right to elect Trump. Coal is still a dead industry walking (because it's not competitive). Funding for military families has been taken from them and redirected to funding for what will be a useless portion of an ineffective, incomplete wall — a wall Mexico is very clearly not paying for. The middle class hasn't benefited from any Trump-generated manufacturing revival or economic boom. Instead of protecting US national security and improving our global economic position with international partnerships, Trump is trading friendly US policies for personal political help from foreign countries
October 7th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
The Tesla Model 3 has taken the US luxury car market by storm. When sales soared through the roof in the second half of 2018, making the Model 3 far and away the best selling luxury car in the country and the best selling car car of any type in terms of revenue, fans were excited for the launch of a new era. Critics, on the other hand, saw it as a temporary boom from early reservation holders that would soon be over, resulting in a crash in Tesla sales, Tesla financials, and the company as a whole
October 6th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
The most popular stories on CleanTechnica this past week were led by a McDonald's story for the first time (or perhaps second — I remember a very popular McDonald's story here in 2010). The second and third most popular stories were both about total cost of ownership comparisons — between the Tesla Model 3 and Toyota Camry and then the Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3 and Toyota Camry. Next in line were videos of Tesla Smart Summon (which went a bit viral on what the kids call "the Internet") and a couple of pieces on how early concerns about the Model 3 and Gigafactory 3 became irrelevant
October 6th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
We talked at length about it years ago at a CleanTechnica conference in Berlin. The night the Tesla Model 3 was first shown to the public, Kyle Field and I were on the test track — only sharing the road and driveway with a few Tesla employees, a black matte Tesla Model 3 prototype, a silver Tesla Model 3 prototype, and a couple of other Teslas. In the 20 minute (but not the 10 minute abridged) video I shared of that extremely lucky test track experience, I didn't interrupt the fun sounds of the test track fog shooters and the smoothly rolling Teslas very much, but while talking with a Tesla employee near the beginning I laughed a bit out of my awe for the beautiful, super fresh Model 3 and what it would mean for the auto industry. I was picturing elite auto giants in the board room of BMW and Audi sobbing
October 6th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
The Tesla Model 3's #6 position in 3rd quarter US car sales* seems both shockingly high and surprisingly low at the same time. No, this is not a trick — I'm serious
October 6th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Those of us very tied into Tesla news sometimes forget that 9 out of 10 people on the street know [&hellip
October 4th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
If you were around in 2016, 2017, and 2018 (which is quite likely since you can already read), you probably remember reading or hearing about a bunch of inherent "problems" with the Tesla Model 3. Let's revisit some of those
October 4th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
To kick off this article, I'll make an important note: this is not about Tesla stock. Because of how much Tesla short sellers insert themselves into press discussions of Tesla [TSLA], and how long and deep the battles of logic & math are between those short sellers and Tesla shareholders (of which I am one), some people assume that every discussion of Tesla sales or production is about the stock. Perhaps many people assume that. But, no, young Jedi, not everything is about the stock. Now let's get on to the story
October 3rd, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
We reported yesterday that Tesla was ending Model 3 Standard Range shipments from the US to China because it was starting to produce the base Model 3 trim in its new (and still under construction) Shanghai gigafactory, "Gigafactory 3." It may surprise even Tesla optimists that the company was able to go from no construction at all to Model 3 production in such a rapid time, but it surely surprises Tesla skeptics the most
October 2nd, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
One year ago, when Tesla's 3rd quarter 2018 production and delivery data came out, many Tesla critics were stunned — absolutely stunned. They had been saying for months that Tesla absolutely could not produce the number of cars Tesla ended up producing. They also said with great conviction that Tesla absolutely could not show a profit in the 3rd quarter, or any quarter. Tesla blew the criticisms out of the water with production, deliveries, and a solid profit
October 2nd, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Overall, non-Tesla US passenger vehicle sales were up by 14,910 units in the 3rd quarter of 2019 compared to the 3rd quarter of 2018, and 14 brands saw their sales increase while 13 saw their sales decrease
October 2nd, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Tesla's 3rd quarter production and delivery numbers — early estimates from the company, at least — are out. We'll have more to report shortly on the news, but for now, here are three CleanTechnica charts (two static and one interactive multi-chart visualization) of Tesla's quarterly deliveries since late 2012 and a portion of Tesla's press release about the news
September 30th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Friend & longtime Tesla employee* David Havasi and I play with Smart Summon in a difficult situation. More dramatically, I've got a collection of fun and dramatic Smart Summon videos from Twitter to show you
September 30th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
I published an analysis the other day showing the Tesla Model 3 undercutting the Toyota Camry on a 5 year cost of ownership forecast. The plan for a while has been to update these cost of ownership comparisons since prices, tax credits, and other matters have changed in the past several months. I honestly did not expect the Model 3 to come out on top after all of the changes, but it clearly did so in the comparison with the Camry. With that comparison in mind, it's pretty certain where a similar 5 year cost of ownership comparison with the Honda Accord is going to go
September 29th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
It's time for another roundup of the 20 most popular stories of the week. As proof of the fact that you don't even need "Tesla" in the headline to have a Tesla story go viral, the top story of the week was about the Honda Accord & Toyota Camry while silently being about the Tesla Model 3. The second most popular story compared the Model 3 to two top sellers on the other end of its gradient of competitors, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi
