The Danish auto designer Henrik Fisker — the mind behind the original Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid, amongst a great many other cars — recently gave an interesting interview that seems worth sharing bits of here.
During a conference call on Monday with financial analysts to discuss a new bond offering, CEO Elon Musk let slip that his original estimate of annual Tesla Model 3 totals was about 200,000 short — now he’s saying that the all-electric car company will likely produce 700,000 units of the Model 3 annually one day.
Tesla is working with officials in Nevada and California to test autonomous trucks with platooning systems.
“We are announcing an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040,” Nicolas Hulot, France’s new ecology minister, said last month, adding that the move was a “veritable revolution.” It looks like England may follow suit. Jesse Norman, from England’s Department for Transport has announced, “a manifesto commitment for almost all cars and vans on our roads to be zero emission by 2050. We believe this would necessitate all new cars and vans being zero emission vehicles by 2040.” How many countries are actually moving in the direction of eventual gas and diesel car bans?
Coming off a landmark Tesla Model 3 launch event, Elon Musk sounded upbeat, positive and somewhat relieved on Tesla’s recent conference call discussing the company’s second quarter financial results*. He explained that this was: “maybe the best I’ve ever felt about Tesla. Last week stressed the hell out of me but I really think this is probably the best I’ve ever felt about the company.” At one point, Elon said bluntly: “At a systemic level we are substantially more efficient than other carmakers.”
Revolutionary change is coming to the auto industry, and no one can say at this point what the transport system of the future will look like. All kinds of theories are flying around — and most of them seem to include Tesla.
With Tesla [NASDAQ: TSLA] announcing its second quarter financial results this week, Wall Street sent the stock rocketing upwards once again. Short sellers lost almost $800 million in the last two days as a result of Tesla’s explosive rally.
The self-driving vehicle startup Cruise has begun operating a “completely autonomous” on-demand taxi service for its employees in San Francisco, according to recent reports.
An alternative title to the above was: “Slow & Steady Is A Recipe For Disruption.” But the story is still a little more complicated than that.
The possibility of binding quotas for electric car sales should be seriously considered by the government of Germany, the country’s deputy economy minister, Matthias Machnig, was recently quoted as stating.
