I became more aware of electric cars around 2013, but it was a few years later when conversations popped up with more people who were interested in electric cars, and in particular Tesla (and Elon Musk). Then, from diverse directions, old and young mentioned Tesla. I began sensing the rise of a new kind of techno folk hero.
Tesla’s new Cybertruck is unlike anything the world has seen, and I was one of the first non-employees to get a ride in it at the grand unveiling last night at Tesla’s Design Studio in Hawthorne, California. I’ll share what I thought of it from the inside and up close.
Why is the Tesla Model S Motor Trend’s Ultimate Car of the Year? Elon Musk explains.
There’s a lot of excitement in the electric vehicle world these days. Tesla has come along and shown that you can produce a mass-market electric car that ranks #1 in its class (by far) and even ranks in the top 5 of all car models. This has created excitement about new frontiers — electric crossovers, electric pickup trucks, electric semi trucks, etc.
All innovative companies attract negative press coverage, but the tide of anti-Tesla scare stories and misinformation has reached such preposterous proportions that it has become a story in itself (remember, colleagues, we’re supposed to report the news, not make it). It’s widely believed that much of the mud, especially the articles that focus on financial and stock-market topics, originates with short sellers, who have collectively bet some $12 billion against the California carmaker.
I just published 11 highlights from yesterday’s 2018 Tesla shareholder meeting. I cut off right around the start of the Q&A session — tweets plus live Q&A. This article continues that initial list to include 17 more highlights. In this case, we have no charts from Tesla, but the highlights may be even more interesting. As usual, Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared more details than we could have hoped for, supplemented here and there by CTO JB Straubel, CFO Deepak Ahuja, and Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen.
Automobile magazine recently awarded the Tesla Model 3 “2018 Design of the Year,” calling the car “simple and straightforward, perfectly proportioned with minimal extraneous detailing.” The magazine goes on, “It has all been done with unmistakably good taste. … We have the impression that the studied simplicity of both interior and exterior will let this car age extremely well, that in 10 years it will still look contemporary and beautifully understated.”
