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Tag: Tesla

  • Tesla lobbies for Elon and Kia taps into the GenAI hype | TechCrunch

    Tesla lobbies for Elon and Kia taps into the GenAI hype | TechCrunch

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    Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!

    Is it me, or is the Tesla board being a bit extra these days as it tries to convince shareholders to vote in favor of relocating the company to Texas and to approve CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay deal? Perhaps that’s because the board is worried neither measure will pass. Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm told the Financial Times that the company needs to climb “Mount Everest” to win over shareholders ahead of an annual meeting on June 13. 

    The result has been a parade of appeals and additional proxy materials that make the pitch for the controversial pay deal that — reminder! — was struck down in January by a Delaware court. 

    Do you think shareholders will say yes? 

    A little bird

    Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

    This week, TC contributor Jagmeet Singh didn’t overhear a little nugget; he saw it. 

    During a trip to Dubai, Singh opened up the BluSmart ride-hailing app and discovered the India-based company had quietly launched a service in the United Arab Emirates’ most populous city. 

    Rumors that BluSmart was planning to set up shop in Dubai and Abu Dhabi has swirled for months. After spotting the new service area, TechCrunch received confirmation from BluSmart co-founder Anmol Jaggi that a pilot started Tuesday, with 100 Audi E-Tron SUVs and 130 drivers in the city. The formal launch will be in early June, he said.

    Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop.

    Deals!

    money the station
    Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

    Harbinger, a startup building medium-duty electric commercial vehicle chassis, has had my interest since I visited the Southern California-based headquarters earlier this year. The market opportunity to electrify medium-duty vehicles has always seemed like a bit of a no-brainer to me since the segment covers such a wide swath, from school buses and RVs to delivery vans and emergency response vehicles.

    And it seems the interest — at least in Harbinger’s chassis — is high. The company announced this week at the ACT Expo that it has locked in $400 million of binding vehicle preorders from customers, including a multi-year order from Bimbo Bakeries USA, the U.S. business of Grupo Bimbo. Thor Industries, the recreational vehicle manufacturer behind brands Airstream, Jayco, Tiffin and Thor Motor Coach, also placed an order. 

    Harbinger also shared this week that it closed an additional $13 million in Series A funds from investors that included the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, managed by Greycroft. The added funding pushes its Series A round to $73 million. 

    Other deals that got my attention …

    South 8, a battery startup focused on boosting EV performance in cold weather, recently attracted new funding from Porsche Ventures in the form of a SAFE note, which will be applied to a Series B round that the company is starting to raise. The size of Porsche Ventures’ investment was not disclosed.

    Seattle-based Overland AI and New Brunswick, Canada-based Potential — two startups focused on off-road autonomous vehicle technology — have both raised seed rounds. Overland raised a $10 million seed round led by Point72 Ventures, and Potential raised a CA$2 million (~$1.5 million) extension to its seed round led by Brightspark Ventures, a Canadian early-stage VC.

    Spiro, an Africa-based electric two-wheeler company, secured a $50 million debt facility with the African Export-Import Bank. 

    Notable reads and other tidbits

    Autonomous vehicles

    Aurora Innovation revealed a new self-driving truck, loaded with its autonomous vehicle tech and manufactured by Volvo, that could be on public highways as early as this summer. 

    The U.K. government has enacted the Automated Vehicles Act, a law that regulates self-driving vehicles and is expected to bring the technology to public roads within two years.

    Electric vehicles, charging & batteries

    Airbnb and ChargePoint have partnered to “make it easier” for hosts to install EV chargers at their listings by providing discounts on chargers and accompanying installation services.

    Audi plans to jointly develop a new EV platform designed for China with partner SAIC. 

    The Chevrolet Equinox EV, which has an estimated range of 319 miles on the front-wheel-drive model, is rolling into dealerships. The Equinox EV has a starting price of $43,295. However, GM says a cheaper $34,995 version will be available later this year.

    Kia revealed the EV3 — the next electric vehicle in its lineup. One item that got my attention: It used OpenAI’s large language models (LLMs) to build a highly customized version of ChatGPT for its in-car assistant. 

    InfluenceMap released an analysis last week that I missed. The report, which examined climate lobbying activities of 15 of the largest automakers, found that all except for Tesla have actively advocated against at least one policy promoting electric vehicles. 

    McLaren Automotive is getting into the “hyperbike” business. The company unveiled four limited edition electric bike models – the Extreme 600, Extreme 250, Sport 600, and Sport 250. No word on pricing!

    The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched a formal investigation into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF 8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family of four.

    Yoshi Mobility, a mobile car care startup that raised $26 million in April, is launching an EV mobile charging service that will debut on General Motors’ BrightDrop Zevo 600 vehicles. The company aims to commercialize the service by early next year. 

    Ride-hailing 

    Uber and Lyft reached an agreement with Minnesota that will result in higher pay and protections for drivers while placing limits on state government. TC reporter Rebecca Bellan digs into who wins, who loses and who pays. 

    This week’s wheels

    What is “This week’s wheels”? It’s a chance to learn about the different transportation products we’re testing, whether it’s an electric or hybrid car, an e-bike or even a ride in an autonomous vehicle. Keep an eye out to learn about my time behind the wheel of the 2024 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, as well as two EV surprises that I just can’t mention quite yet! Later this summer I plan to get into the Fiat 500e, test a few e-bikes and more!

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    Carrie Andrews

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  • Teslas Can Still Be Stolen With a Cheap Radio Hack—Despite New Keyless Tech

    Teslas Can Still Be Stolen With a Cheap Radio Hack—Despite New Keyless Tech

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    In 2020, Tesla even wrote in a filing to the US Federal Communications Commission that it would be implementing ultra-wideband in its keyless entry systems, and that the ability to far more precisely measure the distance of a key fob or smartphone from a car would—or at least could—prevent its vehicles from being stolen via relay attacks. “The distance estimate is based on a Time of Flight measurement, which is immune to relay attacks,” Tesla’s filing read. That document, first turned up by the Verge, led to widespread reports and social media comments suggesting that the upcoming ultra-wideband version of Tesla’s keyless entry system would spell the end of relay attacks against its vehicles.

    Yet the GoGoByte researchers found they were able to carry out their relay attack against the latest Tesla Model 3 over Bluetooth, just as they had with earlier models, from a distance as far as 15 feet between their device and the owner’s key or phone. While the cars do appear to use ultra-wideband communications, they don’t apparently use them for a distance check to prevent keyless entry theft.

    Tesla has not yet responded to WIRED’s requests for comment.

    When the GoGoByte researchers shared their findings with Tesla earlier this month, the company’s product security team immediately responded in an email dispelling any rumor that ultra-wideband, or “UWB,” was even intended to prevent theft. “This behavior is expected, as we are currently working on improving the reliability of UWB,” read Tesla’s email in response to GoGoByte’s description of its relay attack. “UWB ranging will be enforced when reliability improvements are complete.”

    That answer shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise, says Josep Rodriguez, a researcher for security firm IOActive who has previously demonstrated relay attacks against Tesla vehicles. Tesla never explicitly said it had started using the ultra-wideband feature for security, after all—instead, the company has touted ultra-wideband features like detecting that someone’s phone is next to the trunk to open it hands-free—and using it as a security check may still produce too many false positives.

    “My understanding is that it can take engineering teams time to find a sweet spot where relay attacks can be prevented but also not affect the user experience,” Rodriguez wrote in an email to WIRED. “I wasn’t expecting that the first implementation of UWB in vehicles would solve the relay attacks.”

    Automakers’ slow adoption of ultra-wideband security features isn’t just limited to Tesla, the GoGoByte researchers note. They found that two other carmakers whose keys support ultra-wideband communications are also still vulnerable to relay attacks. In one case, the company hadn’t even written any software to implement ultra-wideband communications in its cars’ locking systems, despite upgrading to hardware that supports it. (The researchers aren’t yet naming those other carmakers since they’re still working through the vulnerability disclosure process with them.)

    Despite Teslas’ high price tag and continuing vulnerability to relay attacks, some studies have found that the cars are far less likely to be stolen than other cars due to their default GPS tracking—though some car theft rings have targeted them anyway using relay attacks to sell the vehicles for parts.

    GoGoByte notes that Tesla, unlike many other carmakers, does have the ability to push out over-the-air updates to its cars and might still use that feature to implement a relay attack fix via ultra-wideband communications. Until then, though, the GoGoByte researchers say they want Tesla owners to understand they’re far from immune. “I think Tesla will be able to fix this because they have the hardware in place,” says Li. “But I think the public should be notified of this issue before they release the secure version.”

    Until then, in other words, keep your Tesla’s PIN-to-drive protection in place. Better that than keeping your keys and smartphone in the freezer—or waking up to find a vacant driveway and your car sold for parts.

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    Andy Greenberg

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  • Making sense of the markets this week: May 19, 2024 – MoneySense

    Making sense of the markets this week: May 19, 2024 – MoneySense

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    Rainey went on to comment on the state of American consumers. While “wallets are still stretched,” it was also the case that “even the low-income consumer seems to be holding in there pretty well,” he said. He also added that shoppers were still coming to Walmart to buy necessities like food and health-related items, along with less general merchandise (such as home goods and electronics).

    Going forward, Walmart is banking for growth on new revenue drivers, such as its subscription program, Walmart+. Global advertising grew 24% in Q1 and will be an interesting supplemental line of business for the company going forward—as it has been for retail rival Amazon. 

    In less celebratory news, Walmart has plans to streamline its store offerings by shuttering Walmart health clinics in American locations.

    Fellow big box-store titan Home Depot had a predictably-less stellar quarter than Walmart.

    Given that consumers continue to cut back on home renovations after the massive COVID reno-boom, it stands to reason that Home Depot shareholders might be in for a bit of a sideways run for a while.

    On Monday, the company revealed that while it was reporting its worst revenue miss in two decades, its bottom line was still holding up pretty well. Shares were mostly flat on the week.

    Photo by Loan on Unsplash

    Meme stock madness returns 

    One post on X, formerly known as Twitter, is all it took to squeeze a billion dollars out of companies shorting GameStop this week.

    For those who haven’t watched Dumb Money or Eat The Rich (excellent airplane flicks btw), GameStop stock is the iconic “meme stock.”

    What is a meme stock?

    A meme stock is an equity that sees growth instigated by internet memes—usually not based on earnings or value. To sum it up: GameStop is a semi-dying company that appears unlikely to make a profit in the foreseeable future. Consequently, it doesn’t make a lot of sense (according to traditional investing metrics) to pay a high price for GameStop stock. However, speculative bets on where its price could move can quickly make investors money (or make them lose it) quite quickly. Investors who short sell GameStop’s stock are essentially betting that the price will continue to go down. If enough people buy shares of GameStop, those short bets against its share price can cost those investors a ton of money.

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    Kyle Prevost

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  • Tesla’s Controversial Factory Expansion Is Approved

    Tesla’s Controversial Factory Expansion Is Approved

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    The controversial expansion of Tesla’s only European Gigafactory was approved on Thursday, as the local council in the German municipality of Grünheide voted in favor of the carmaker’s plans to grow its facility near Berlin.

    The majority of 19 council representatives supported Tesla’s plans to expand the factory. Eleven councilors voted in favor of the expansion, six voted against, while two abstained. The vote improves Tesla’s chances of being able to build more space for logistics, including a train station, although the company still has to secure the approval of local environment authorities. In July, Tesla announced plans to build 1 million electric cars per year at the site.

    Around 50 protesters gathered outside the local government building as the result was announced, according to local reports. “It’s pretty disappointing,” says Esther Kamm, spokesperson for the anti-Tesla protest group, Turn Off the Tap on Tesla (TDHA), who watched the vote take place. She said the group would still try to stop the expansion by continuing to hold protests while exploring their legal options.

    “It was a bad decision today, and this makes things harder, but it’s definitely not the end of the story.”

    TDHA is just one of a wide alliance of environmental groups who oppose the expansion, claiming that the factory’s presence threatens to pollute local water supplies and describing the carmaker’s reputation as an environmentally friendly company as misleading.

    “I’m pissed,” says Manu Hoyer, spokesperson for the Citizens Initiative Grünheide (Bürgerinitiative Grünheide), which represents local residents who oppose the factory, in a statement. “Today the local council ignored the vote of me and my fellow citizens.” In February, 65 percent of locals voted against the expansion plan in a nonbinding poll.

    Last week, during a demonstration against the expansion, hundreds of protesters attempted to storm the factory, amid clashes with police. As part of a five-day protest, police said 23 demonstrators were detained and 27 officers injured.

    Anti-Tesla protesters say they want to draw attention to the mineral mining necessary to build electric car batteries and the problems that can pose to local communities. Compared to conventional cars, electric car batteries require 170 kilograms more minerals such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, according to 2021 figures published by the International Energy Agency.

    Since February, a handful of protesters have been living in treehouses in the forest, just footsteps away from the Tesla factory, in another attempt to stop the site’s expansion. They currently have permission to stay until May 20. An attempt by police to force the camp to leave before that date was rejected today by a German court.

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    Morgan Meaker

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  • Elon Musk’s Neighbors Fed Up With Eyesore Yard Covered In Broken-Down Cybertrucks

    Elon Musk’s Neighbors Fed Up With Eyesore Yard Covered In Broken-Down Cybertrucks

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    BOCA CHICA, TX—Accusing the billionaire tech mogul of dragging down property values, neighbors of Elon Musk told reporters Thursday they were fed up with his eyesore yard covered in broken-down Cybertrucks. “I don’t know if the guy who lives there is sick or has fallen on hard times or what, but I’m sorry—that yard looks like absolute shit,” said Alaina Barett, who was one of several neighbors who had called 311 in response to the mess strewn over Musk’s front lawn, complaining that the ramshackle Tesla trucks were a public health hazard due to the multiple families of rats, opossums, and hornets that had taken up residence inside the vehicles. “You can tell those things haven’t run in a very, very, very long time. Occasionally you’ll see him out in the yard trying to work on one, but most of the time it just starts sparking. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just haul all that junk away. They’ve got to be worth at least something at the scrapyard.” At press time, Musk had been fined $250 by his neighborhood’s HOA.

    Edgelords Explain Why They Love Elon Musk

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  • An Innovative EV Motor Used by Lamborghini, McLaren, and Ferrari Is Being Mass-Produced by Mercedes

    An Innovative EV Motor Used by Lamborghini, McLaren, and Ferrari Is Being Mass-Produced by Mercedes

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    Car enthusiasts mourn the commoditization of propulsion. Once petrolheads would have chosen a BMW for its sonorous straight-six or a Mercedes-AMG for its thunderous V8. Now many believe that distinctiveness is rapidly diminishing. Electric cars might provide mad, silent thrust, but a common complaint is they are mostly indistinguishable for the character of their drivetrains.

    Carmakers worry about this too. Their engineering DNA is less apparent in the EV age, leaving them more reliant on design, brand power, and other types of technology to differentiate their cars and keep their customers. There’s no point trying to trump the competition on power when the quickest Teslas and Lucids already have far more than you can ever deploy on the public road. More isn’t better when you already have too much.

    But soon there’ll be a choice again: between the conventional radial-flux motors that have powered almost every EV until now and something radically different.

    Axial-flux motors won’t necessarily offer more power, but they are so much lighter and smaller that their proponents say they have the potential to transform almost every other key measure of an EV’s performance—and the entire architecture of a car designed around them.

    By fitting axial flux motors into the wheels, the spaces in a car’s body currently occupied by motors could be largely vacated, clearing the way for more batteries, people, or stuff, and permitting the sort of design exuberance that EVs have long promised but never quite delivered.

    More importantly, this new design of motor might help address the growing public backlash against overweight, expensive EVs. They might reduce the weight of a typical EV by around 200 kilograms (440 pounds)—half in the motors themselves, and half from the mass-compounding effect which allows you to reduce the weight of other systems such as batteries and brakes as a result.

    By sending mass into a virtuous downward spiral, carmakers could increase range, decrease cost, and perhaps even preserve the agile handling of lightweight cars, which enthusiasts also worry might disappear with the advent of the EV.

    Flux Capacity

    The principle isn’t new. The axial-flux motor was first demonstrated by Michael Faraday in 1821, but in the intervening two centuries nobody had figured out how to mass-produce one reliably.

    British academic Tim Woolmer, however, likes a challenge. He devoted his Oxford PhD to designing the optimum motor for an electric car. An axial-flux motor would make more sense than the almost ubiquitous and easily mass-manufactured radial flux design, he decided. But not only had his chosen design barely made it out of the lab in nearly 200 years, there simply wasn’t a market for it when he started in 2005: GM’s EV1 had long been canned, and the Tesla Roadster was still three years away.

    In an axial-flux “pancake” motor, the stator (the stationary part of an electric motor) and rotors are discs, sitting alongside each other less than a millimeter apart, the flux flowing through the stator axially or parallel with the shaft, and acting on the permanent magnets in the rotors on either side to turn them.

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    Ben Oliver

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  • At least 5 Tesla Supercharger locations targeted across Houston in less than a week, but motive remains unclear

    At least 5 Tesla Supercharger locations targeted across Houston in less than a week, but motive remains unclear

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    HOUSTON – At least five Tesla Supercharger locations have been targeted in a string of cable thefts this week.

    After KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding reported on the theft of 18 high-voltage cables from a Tesla charging station in Montrose Monday, more and more charging stations across the Houston area are being ransacked, leaving electric vehicle drivers scrambling to power up.

    KPRC 2′s Bryce Newberry visited the Yale Street Marketplace Supercharger, the latest charging station to be looted.

    The chargers are back up and running now, and they’ve been working all evening. The scene this morning was a different story, as Tesla drivers were notified that the station was closed after its two dozen cables had been clipped.

    A damaged Tesla Supercharger in Houston, Texas after thieves cut the high-voltage charging cable. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)

    Israel Robles is one of the many Tesla drivers who had to find a different outlet.

    “It’s, like, really inconvenient, because you plan your destinations based on being able to charge on the way,” Robles said.

    Here’s all the charging stations we know have been hit so far:

    1. Kipling St – Montrose

    2. Glenbrook Square, 6300 Telephone Rd

    3. 10850 Louetta Rd – Northwest Harris County

    4. Westheimer & Dairy Ashford – West Houston

    5. 195 Yale St – Heights

    With this sudden uptick in cable clipping, the question as to who’s committing these crimes—and why—remains unclear.

    Some speculate that copper wire theft could be a motive, but this scrapyard owner says these thieves should think again.

    Brandi Harleaux owns South Post Oak Recycling Center, a metal scrapyard in southern Houston where thieves might think to sell the insulated copper wire found in a Tesla charging cable.

    “There could be folks who think that they can make a lot of money selling to a recycling facility like ours,” Harleaux said.

    At Harleaux’s yard, the insulated wire goes for just 70 cents per pound. So hypothetically, 50 pounds of Tesla charging cable would only be worth $30.

    Not only is the potential payout underwhelming, but the strenuous documentation process that scrapyards adhere to makes recycling stolen materials especially risky.

    “It’s more steps to recycle material here than it is for many people to go to a bank,” Harleaux said.

    Sellers are required to sign documents, have their picture taken and even submit their fingerprints. That information is then uploaded to state and local databases. With such stringent surveillance, Harleaux says targeting the charger cables just doesn’t make sense.

    “Leave it alone,” she said.

    Tonight, the motive of these crimes remains unknown. However, earlier this week, the owner if an electric vehicle repair company told KPRC 2 that his guess is it’s either a copper thief, or someone who has it out for electric vehicles.

    “I feel like eventually, they’re going to get caught,” Robles said.

    If you have any information that could lead to an arrest, you can submit an anonymous online tip to Crime Stoppers of Houston or you can call 713-222-TIPS (8477).

    Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.

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    Bryce Newberry, Michael Horton

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  • Making sense of the markets this week: May 12, 2024 – MoneySense

    Making sense of the markets this week: May 12, 2024 – MoneySense

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    Buffett not “uncomfortable” with Canada

    When countries look to attract the attention of big financial funds, they often attempt to brand themselves in a manner that will bring much-needed foreign investment to their shores. For example, you might see buzzwords such as:

    • Innovative
    • Efficient
    • Attractive 
    • Shareholder-friendly

    But given Canada’s stagnating economy, I think it’s appropriate to get excited about this Warren Buffett quote:

    “We do not feel uncomfortable in any shape or form putting our money into Canada.”

    When Buffett takes the stage at his annual “Woodstock for capitalists” in Omaha each year, the investing world sits up to take notice. So, it was noteworthy to hear his lukewarm notes about Canada, including:

    “There are a lot of countries we don’t understand at all. So, Canada, it’s terrific when you’ve got a major economy, not the size of the U.S., but a major economy that you feel confident about operating there. … Obviously, there aren’t as many big companies up there as there are in the United States. There are things we actually can do fairly well that Canada could benefit from Berkshire’s participation.”

    He went on to reveal his company’s possible Canadian strategy, saying, “In fact, we’re actually looking at one thing now.” While most other investors are cool on Canadian stocks, it’s interesting to see Buffett warm (again).

    Buffett’s last major foray into Canada generated a massive 70% gain in a single year back in 2017 when he invested in Home Capital Group, so he may know a thing or two about making money in the Great White North.

    Other highlights from the annual general meeting included (all figures in U.S. dollars):

    • Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A/NYSE) is currently benefiting from high interest rates, as it sits on a massive cash hoard of $189 billion.
    • Berkshire sold about $39 billion worth of Apple stock during the quarter. Berkshire remains Apple’s single biggest shareholder with over $135 billion still invested.
    • In the absence of big deals, Berkshire continues to reward its shareholders by buying back its own shares to the tune of $2.6 billion for the quarter. When asked why he hadn’t used the cash to make big, flashy investments, Buffett responded, “I don’t think anyone sitting at this table has any idea how to use it effectively, and therefore we don’t use it. We only swing at pitches we like.”
    • Berkshire’s operating profit rocketed up 39% on a year-over-year basis.
    • Underwriting profits at Buffett’s insurance companies were up 185% year-over-year to $2.6 billion.
    • Buffett told the audience that he had sold all of Berkshire’s remaining Paramount Global shares and was refreshingly honest in admitting, “It was 100% my decision, and we’ve sold it all and we lost quite a bit of money.”

    Buffett wrapped up the annual meeting by saying humbly, “I not only hope you come next year, [but] I hope I come next year.” He later added, “I know a little about actuarial tables,” in reference to his insurance expertise.

    This insight was made particularly relevant given the absence of long-time friend and partner Charlie Munger at this year’s event. Munger passed away at age 99 in November 2023.

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    Kyle Prevost

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  • Thieves hit four Tesla Supercharger stations in Houston area this week

    Thieves hit four Tesla Supercharger stations in Houston area this week

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    HOUSTON – Monday, KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding reported on the theft of 18 cables from a Tesla charging station in Montrose.

    Since his report, more charging stations across the Houston area have been ransacked, leaving electric vehicle owners without a spark.

    On Wednesday, the cables from all charging stations at the Glenbrook Square shopping center were stolen. Every single connector in the lot had been slashed.

    An image of the stations after the theft (Adrian Montes, KPRC 2)

    Then last night, more charging stations were clipped in northwest Harris County. One was located at 10850 Louetta Rd.

    In the burglary on Louetta, a source tells KPRC 2 that a man, wearing a bIack hoodie and bIack pants, was seen cutting the charger cables at the station, before bolting across the street and getting into a bIack sedan.

    It’s unclear whether the crimes are being committed by the same perpetrators.

    Nathaniel French has owned a Tesla for nearly six years. As a long-standing fan of electric vehicles and someone who commutes from Austin for work, he knows his way around a charging station.

    He visited a station that had been hit when he needed a charge, before being shocked by the inconvenient revelation.

    “It’s unfortunate,” French said. “People don’t realize how much it affects you. It’s just kind of like going to get gas, and then you can’t get gas for your cars. It’s a struggle, and it’s frustrating to say the least.”

    If you have any information that could lead to an arrest, you can submit an anonymous online tip to Crime Stoppers of Houston or you can call 713-222-TIPS (8477).

    Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.

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    Michael Horton, Gage Goulding

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  • Tesla’s Autopilot drove car into tree, killing Colorado man in fiery crash, lawsuit alleges

    Tesla’s Autopilot drove car into tree, killing Colorado man in fiery crash, lawsuit alleges

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    Hans Von Ohain and Nora Bass (Photo via lawsuit filed by MLG Attorneys at Law)

    Tesla’s advanced Autopilot driving system malfunctioned and caused one of the electric car maker’s Colorado employees to drive off the road and die in a fiery crash, a newly filed wrongful death lawsuit alleges.

    The widow of Hans Von Ohain says her husband was driving back from golfing in Evergreen with a friend on May 16, 2022, when the Autopilot system “unexpectedly caused the 2021 Tesla Model 3 to sharply veer to the right, leading it off the pavement” on Upper Bear Creek Road.

    The 33-year-old Von Ohain, who was intoxicated, fought to regain control of the vehicle, “but, to his surprise and horror,” the car drove off the road and into a tree, where it burst into flames, according to the 16-page complaint filed May 3 in Clear Creek County District Court.

    The Colorado State Patrol said in its 403-page crash report that the car’s condition after the crash made it impossible to access data to determine whether the self-driving feature was engaged at the time.

    But the passenger in the car, Erik Rossiter, who suffered injuries in the crash, told investigators that Von Ohain was using the autonomous drive feature on the trip home, according to the CSP’s final report.

    “It was uncomfortable,” he told troopers. “The car would swerve off toward the side of the road periodically and bring itself back.”

    The vehicle was traveling 41 mph at the time of the crash, just above the 40 mph speed limit, according to the CSP report.

    Von Ohain also used the self-driving feature on the way to the golf course, Rossiter said — a trip he called “a bit nerve-wracking.”

    An autopsy report showed the driver’s blood-alcohol level at three times the legal limit. His widow, Nora Bass, told the Washington Post in February that she had been unable to find an attorney to take the case due to his intoxication.

    “Regardless of how drunk Hans was, (Tesla CEO Elon) Musk has claimed that this car can drive itself and is essentially better than a human,” Bass told the newspaper. “We were sold a false sense of security.”

    Efforts by The Denver Post to reach Bass or her attorney were unsuccessful.

    If Von Ohain was, in fact, using the Full Self-Driving feature, it would make his death the first known fatality involving Tesla’s most advanced driver-assistance technology, the Washington Post reported.

    Bass and her attorneys allege Tesla knowingly released the self-driving system in vehicles when it was just a prototype and unready for consumers.

    Tesla did not respond to messages from The Post seeking comment. Von Ohain worked for the Texas-based carmaker as a recruiter.

    Federal regulators have logged more than 900 crashes in Teslas since they began requiring automakers to report accidents in 2021 involving driver-assistance systems, the Washington Post found. At least 40 resulted in serious or fatal injuries.

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    Sam Tabachnik

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  • Tesla Temporarily Shuts Factory Down as Environmentalists Call the Company a Sham

    Tesla Temporarily Shuts Factory Down as Environmentalists Call the Company a Sham

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    Mara is sick. The 24-year-old has been living in a mosquito-infested forest near Tesla’s German gigafactory since March, and despite the 78 degrees Fahrenheit heat, a cold is spreading through the camp. Sitting on a makeshift bench, she tells me how she left Berlin to live among the pine trees, roughly an hour’s drive outside the city, in an attempt to stop the company from expanding.

    This week, she will be joined by the notorious German climate group Here And No Further (Ende Gelände), known for its theatrical, often law-breaking blockades, for a five-day-long protest. Anticipating the arrival of hundreds of demonstrators, Tesla said it would shut the factory for four days, telling its employees to work from home, according to an internal email obtained by the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

    Despite the absence of Tesla workers, the company employees and local authorities will be on high alert for troublemakers. The factory is separated from the forest by only a thin fence, and as I walk the forest track tracing the factory’s perimeter, a police car lumbers slowly past, carrying out patrols. On the two days I visit, a black Tesla stands guard at the end of the path connecting the factory fence and the forest camp.

    Mara, who declines to share her surname, vaguely estimates that there are 50 to 100 people involved in this anti-Tesla movement. But on a Thursday afternoon, the camp is quiet. Above us is a city of treehouses. She shows me where she sleeps, a broad wooden platform—built 10 or so meters aboveground and draped in green tarpaulin. The height provides some respite from the mosquitoes, she says, as I catch three sinking into my arm at once. A man with a partially shaved head lies on a salmon-colored sofa eating cake. Closer to the road, activists talk in raised tones about Israel. Several people are barefoot. The group expresses its politics in banners hanging from the trees—electric cars are not “climate protection”; “water is a human right”; “there is no anticolonialism without a free Palestine.”

    Germany is Europe’s car-manufacturing heartland, the birthplace of BMW, Volkswagen, and Porsche. So why Tesla? The company’s presence threatens everything from local water supplies to democracy itself, she argues. “This is an existential issue.”

    Their reasons for being here are part environmental, part anti-capitalist, Mara explains, turning a piece of bark between dirt-encrusted fingernails. Tesla’s ambition, to produce 1 million electric cars a year in Germany, isn’t in service to the climate, Mara says. Instead she describes the 300-hectare Tesla factory as a byproduct of “green capitalism,” a plot by companies to appear environmentally friendly in order to convince consumers to keep buying more stuff. “This has been completely thought up by such companies to have more growth, even in times of an environmental crisis,” she says, adding that the protesters have had no contact with Tesla.

    To people like Mara, Tesla is a symbol of how the green transition went wrong and, as a result, the company’s German gigafactory has become the target of increasingly radical protests. The activists moved into the forest in February, in an attempt to physically block Tesla from clearing another 100 hectares of forest for its expansion. One month after the forest camp appeared, unknown saboteurs blew up a nearby power line, forcing the factory to close for one week. (A left-wing protest group called Vulkan, whose members are anonymous claimed responsibility for the action.)

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    Morgan Meaker

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  • Thieves steal high-voltage Tesla Supercharger cables from Montrose charging station

    Thieves steal high-voltage Tesla Supercharger cables from Montrose charging station

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    HOUSTON – Imagine pulling into the gas station only to find out that someone cut all of the hoses attached to the pumps.

    That’s the equivalent of what happened at a Houston-area electric vehicle charging station over the weekend.

    Drivers pulled into the Kipling Street Tesla Supercharger only to find that all but one of the cords to plug into their vehicle was cut clean and stolen.

    The Houston Police Department tells KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding that 18 of the 19 charging stations had their cables stolen, according to a report that was filed by a Tesla service technician on Monday.

    “Yeah, I’d be pretty upset about that,” said Alex Longo, who’s traveling through Houston on his way to San Antonio. “I would have been in trouble.”

    You likely would be too if you really needed to use that charger and the plug and cord were missing.

    “I mean, I love my EV but the anxiety of running out of juice,” Vincent Evangelista said while charging his Tesla.

    Tesla Supercharges recently were opened up to other makes and models of vehicles to also tap into the expansive network of electric vehicle chargers built by Elon Musk.

    A damaged Tesla Supercharger in Houston, Texas after thieves cut the high-voltage charging cable. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)

    The Superchargers get their name from the impressive jolt their able to give electric vehicles in such a short time.

    At this location, they can deliver a max charge rate of 250kW at 500 DC volts.

    In simple terms, that’s enough electricity to power more than three average American homes.

    So, what would happen if you came in contact with that much energy?

    “Oh, it would kill you in an instant,” said Cameron Trial, owner of CPR EV Repair.

    But it didn’t. Why?

    “The cables themselves are not live. The supercharger has to make communication with the car before it powers the cable,” Trial said. “But that’s not to say that you could have a faulty supercharger. That the cable was always live. And if that’s the case, and you try to cut through it, you’re going to kill yourself.”

    A damaged Tesla Supercharger in Houston, Texas after thieves cut the high-voltage charging cable. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)

    This leads him to believe that whoever is behind this crime likely knows what they’re getting into.

    Trial was able to come up with two reasons.

    “Personally, I think it’s, it’s an anti-EV movement,” he said.

    Someone who hates electric cars so much that they’d risk a felony and their life.

    Or it could be what’s under the black coating of the cable: copper.

    “For the amount of work it took to do that and, the risks that it takes, it’s not worth your life,” Trial said.

    Copper thefts have been a problem in the Houston area, so much that the Houston Police Department has a Metal Theft Unit.

    However, it’s too early for investigators to call copper theft a motive in this case.

    Tesla didn’t respond to KPRC 2′s request for comment. However, all of the chargers were replaced and functional by Monday evening.

    Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.

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    Gage Goulding

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  • Hyundai antes up $1B for AV startup Motional and Elon unplugs the Tesla Supercharger team | TechCrunch

    Hyundai antes up $1B for AV startup Motional and Elon unplugs the Tesla Supercharger team | TechCrunch

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    Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.

    Before I jump into the all the news — and boy there was a lot! — I have an important update for all of you lovely readers. TechCrunch Mobility is moving to Thursdays! It will be the same newsletter filled with news and insights on the sector, but just landing in your inboxes Thursday morning. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!

    EV startup Fisker laid off more employees to “preserve cash” as bankruptcy inches ever closer; ride-hailing company Ola cut about 180 jobs and ousted its chief executive, Hemant Bakshi, merely four months after appointing him to the post; and lidar company Luminar slashed its 700-person workforce by 20% as part of a restructuring to adopt an “asset light” business model.

    Oh, and then there was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who axed the automaker’s global Supercharger network team. That perplexing decision comes just as non-Tesla EV drivers gain access to the network.

    That’s not to say the entire transportation sector was surrounded by economic storm clouds. There were brighter moments as well. Let’s go check it out!

    A little bird

    In the fallout from Tesla’s great Supercharger culling, we’ve spoken to several little birds, including those who were laid off and folks working at other automakers. As I mentioned above, Elon Musk gutted Tesla’s global Supercharger organization of about 500 people. Insiders at several different automakers — all of which are adopting Tesla’s charging tech — said they did not see this coming. “Shocked” and “stunned” were the most common phrases I heard.

    On the employee front, there was a lack of communication from human resources in the hours directly following the mass layoff. Some told me they and their fellow former co-workers had not received information about severance and that communication had stopped altogether. A few of those folks had received severance emails by Friday. All of the people I communicated with were still struggling to understand why Musk would cut the Supercharger team — an organization that is fundamental to Tesla and its EV sales. Others surmised only Elon and maybe the former head of the Supercharger team, Rebecca Tinucci, would ever know the answer.

    Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.

    Deals!

    money the station

    It’s been a minute since we heard of an autonomous vehicle startup raising a substantial amount of money — or heck any money at all. That all changed this week when Motional scored an essential multi-million-dollar win, courtesy of Hyundai.

    Hyundai’s total commitment is $1 billion, but there are important details. Here’s how it breaks down. Hyundai invested $475 million directly into Motional as part of a broader deal that includes buying out joint venture partner Aptiv. Hyundai is spending another $448 million to buy 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest in Motional.

    The quick backstory: Motional was formed in 2019 as a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv. Motional has spent the past several years plugging away at its autonomous vehicle tech, working toward a goal of launching a robotaxi service using driverless Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles in 2024. As Motional and Hyundai got closer — the companies announced plans in November to co-develop production-ready versions of the all-electric Ioniq 5 robotaxi — it seems Aptiv began to understand its own financial limitations. By January, Aptiv chairman and CEO Kevin Clark flagged that the company would reduce its ownership interest in Motional and stop allocating capital to the venture due to the high cost of commercializing a robotaxi business and the long road ahead to profits.

    The decision, while not particularly surprising to the industry insiders I spoke to, still put Motional and Hyundai in a sticky spot. Would Hyundai step up? Would outside investors step in? Hyundai answered the call.

    My question is will Motional, with the blessing of Hyundai, seek out other investors? That will all come down to how much capital Motional is burning through and whether it continues to chase the same robotaxi goals. If so, it seems the company will eventually need more capital.

    Other deals that got my attention …

    LiNova Energy, a California-based startup developing polymer cathode batteries, raised $15.8 million in a Series A funding round led by Catalus Capital, which was joined by Saft, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, Chevron Technology Ventures and a syndicate of investors.

    Rivian was awarded an eye-popping $827 million incentives package from the state of Illinois, funds that will be used to build out production lines for its next-generation EV, the R2.

    Viking Holdings, the luxury cruise operator backed by private equity firm TPG and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, raised $1.54 billion in its IPO.

    X Shore, a Swedish electric boat maker founded in 2016, raised €8.5 million in new funding from several unnamed existing backers, including founder Konrad Bergström.

    Notable reads and other tidbits

    ADAS

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Ford’s hands-free driver-assistance system, BlueCruise, after it was found to be active during two recent crashes that killed multiple people.

    The NHTSA made another big move in the sector and finalized a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard that will make automatic emergency braking, including the ability to detect and automatically brake for pedestrians, standard on all passenger cars and light trucks by September 2029. The agency said the safety standard is expected to significantly reduce rear-end and pedestrian crashes. Now, the NHTSA isn’t picking the technology automakers have to use. A number of computer vision and lidar companies have reached out to me to note how it could be beneficial to their business models.

    Autonomous vehicles

    TC contributor Tim Stevens takes us behind the scenes of the first Autonomous Racing League event in Abu Dhabi that pitted a self-driving car against a Formula 1 driver. His take? Yes, there were struggles; he also saw a lot of progress.

    Electric vehicles, charging & batteries

    Remember last year when Henrik Fisker proudly debuted two prototypes designed to catapult his eponymous EV startup into the mainstream? TC reporter Sean O’Kane learned the engineering firm that helped develop those vehicles is suing Fisker for $13 million in damages. Read more to learn about this lawsuit, plus several others.

    This week’s wheels

    Image Credits: Emme Hall

    I turned the wheel over to TC contributor Emme Hall this week for a test drive of the new all-electric Acura ZDX Type S. You can read the entire review here, plus I suggest you watch her video of the hands-free advanced driver-assistance system in the vehicle. For those who want a sneak peek before committing to the longer read, here’s the gist.

    Hall expected joy and delight. Instead, it was more meh. Here’s one of the whys. The Type S weighs over 6,000 pounds. Even if the weight is evenly distributed front to rear, that’s a lot of heft to get around a turn. She liked the hefty steering, but there wasn’t much feedback happening.

    “The torque is always there on corner exit and body roll is kept in check, yet I’m not feeling the delight,” she wrote, adding that the 275/40 Continental Premium Contact 6 summer tires on the Type S offered up plenty of grip, but the low-profile sidewall combined with the harder run-flat rubber compound meant that the ride was just a touch harsh.

    Hall’s pursuit of an all-electric SUV that’s fun through the twisties continues.

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    Kirsten Korosec

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  • Wine Country Inn Offers High End Charging Stations

    Wine Country Inn Offers High End Charging Stations

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    PALISADE, Colo., May 5, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    E-vehicle travelers to Colorado Wine Country can stop worrying about running out of juice once they get there. Wine Country Inn now offers two 40amp 240volt dual port EV charging stations to boost power for Plug-in Hybrid or All-Electric vehicles.

    The 80-room boutique hotel in Palisade inaugurated service in late April with two XCP Corporation cashless Level 2 dual hookups that can simultaneously charge four vehicles in one-hour increments for up to 4 hours. That capability includes Tesla models that have the brand’s adaptor.    

    “This wide spectrum of models and the quicker charging time is a major convenience for hotel guests or visitors who might otherwise have to search for charging stations in the area,” points out WCI General Manager Ian Kelley. “They can charge up while having dinner, lounging by the pool or resting.”

    Due to supply chain delays and installation demands, the project took a while to execute after the owners consulted Alpine Bank Senior Vice President David Miller, who has spearheaded an effort to boost clean energy consumption through the bank’s Green Team efforts for the past 20 years. Alpine publishes an Environment Report annually and offers a wide spectrum of services to customers.

    “This is a major capital investment for sure, but the projections convinced us that the demand would grow exponentially sooner rather than later,” explains Kelley. “The incentives offered by the State of Colorado help on cost too. Besides, we strongly believe in doing what we can to support cleaner energy consumption.”

    As for Alpine’s Miller, who installed the first charging station at the bank’s downtown location almost a decade ago, he had the satisfaction of being one of the first to test the new hotel chargers for his Chevy Bolt EV, while Saunders Collins, WCI Director of Sales, utilized another port to “top off” her Tesla’s battery.

    Kelley says the new charging stations may be a novelty for now, but he is confident they will be commonplace in a few years. “It’s a no brainer,” he observes.
                                                                                                                          ######

    Source: Wine Country Inn

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  • As Elon Musk Abandons the $25K Tesla, This EV Costs Just $4,400

    As Elon Musk Abandons the $25K Tesla, This EV Costs Just $4,400

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    As Elon Musk steps away, yet again, from the idea of a $25,000 Tesla, let’s take this opportunity to zoom out and appreciate what a truly affordable EV can be. For this we need to ignore the Nissan Leaf—currently the cheapest EV in the US at $29,280—and skip over Europe, home to the adorable but flawed $10,000 Citroen Ami, and head to China.

    Here you’ll find the equally cheap BYD Seagull, a small electric hatchback styled by ex-Lamborghini designer Wolfgang Egger and with a 200-mile range—four times that of the Ami.

    But what if even that is too expensive? Then allow us to present the Zhidou Rainbow. This is a compact city EV priced from 31,900 yuan before subsidies—that’s just $4,400. For a new electric car. WIRED literally recommends ebikes that cost more that this.

    The Rainbow has three doors and four seats, and an interior with a 5-inch digital driver display and a 9-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system. There’s even a connected smartphone app, charge scheduling, and the promise of over-the-air (OTA) software updates.

    Splash out on the flagship Color Cloud Edition (which costs $5,800, or about half the price of Porsche’s fanciest bicycle) and you can have each panel of your Rainbow painted a different color. A bit like Volkswagen did with the somewhat mad Polo Harlequin in the mid ’90s.

    Cheaper Than an Ebike

    There are two models on offer. The first has that headline $4,400 price tag and is powered by a 20-kW (27-horsepower) motor with 85 Nm (63 ft-lbs) of torque and fed by a tiny 9.98-kWh battery. Spend 39,900 yuan ($5,500) and your Rainbow is fitted with a 30-kW (40-horsepower) motor with 125 Nm of torque and a 17-kWh battery pack. Range is between 78 and 127 miles using China’s generous CLTC testing standard.

    Be under no illusion here, these are tiny numbers. Even the larger battery is the same capacity of that of a plug-in hybrid Honda CR-V, which also employs a 2.0-liter engine to help it get around. But the range isn’t terrible. Even if the testing standard is generous, and the larger battery has a more realistic range of 100 miles, that’s about the same as the Honda e, which cost a whopping £37,000 ($46,000) before it went off sale at the end of 2023.

    There are two Rainbow models: One powered by a 20-kW (27-horsepower) motor fed by a tiny 9.98-kWh battery; and a pimped 30-kW (40-horsepower) motor version with 17-kWh battery.

    Courtesy of Zhidou

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    Alistair Charlton

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  • Ashley Madison Is Still Around, a Powerful Chatbot Disappeared, Elon Musk Lays Off More Workers and More

    Ashley Madison Is Still Around, a Powerful Chatbot Disappeared, Elon Musk Lays Off More Workers and More

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    Illustration: Vicky Leta, Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg (Getty Images), Said Fx (Getty Images), Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images), Mario Tama / Staff (Getty Images), Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic (Getty Images), David Paul Morris/Bloomberg (Getty Images), Dimitrios Kambouris for The Met Musuem/Vogue (Getty Images), Bene Riobó via Wikimedia Commons, Screenshot: YouTube / Mint Mobile

    This week saw a blast from the past as we told the tales of numerous fraud victims who were targeted by scammers on the cheating site, Ashley Madison. A new chatbot came and went leaving so many people with questions. And then there’s Elon Musk who went “hardcore” with layoffs he even got rid of those pesky interns that really hit a company’s bottom line with those big salaries given to college students. Here are the top tech stories of the week.

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    Gizmodo Staff

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  • Making sense of the markets this week: May 5, 2024 – MoneySense

    Making sense of the markets this week: May 5, 2024 – MoneySense

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    Oil sands producers await TMX price bump

    Diluted bitumen started flowing through the expanded Trans Mountain Pipeline on Wednesday (even at a brisk walking pace, it’ll take weeks to reach its destination). This is raising hopes that at last Canada’s oil sands producers will be able to narrow the discount paid by a now-larger cohort of refiners for their product. Meanwhile, two of the largest shippers on the pipeline reported first-quarter earnings sans that hoped-for revenue bump.

    Oilsands earnings highlights

    Two producers released their financials this week.

    • Cenovus Energy (CVE/TSX): Earnings per share rose to $0.62 (versus $0.54 predicted) on revenues of $13.4 billion.
    • Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ/TSX): Earnings per share of $1.37 (versus $1.48 predicted) on revenues of $8.244 billion.

    Cenovus output and profits both surprised on the upside, and the company further sweetened the pot by hiking its base dividend by 29% and announcing a variable dividend of 13.5¢ a share for this quarter. Production for the quarter exceeded 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. At the same time the company modestly reduced its overall debt level.

    Results for Canadian Natural Resources  suffered from lower-than-expected production and realized prices, especially on the natural gas side. Output came in at 1.33 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

    Amazon, Apple still magnificent

    Two more technology mega-caps reported first-quarter results this week, helping keep the Magnificent 7 bandwagon rolling.

    U.S. earnings highlights

    All amounts in U.S. dollars

    • Amazon (AMZN/NASDAQ): Adjusted earnings per share were $0.98, exceeding the consensus estimate of 83¢, while revenue of $143.3 billion outstripped the $142.6 billion predicted.
    • Apple (AAPL/NASDAQ): Earnings per share hit $1.53 (beating the estimate of $1.50) on revenue of $90.8 (versus expectations of $90.3 billion).

    Amazon reported continued strong demand for its Web Services, as corporate customers signed longer-term deals with bigger commitments. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) components added to the overall spend, the company said. Advertising revenue also enjoyed strong growth, although there are signs consumers are turning more cautious with retail spending. Following the earnings release, the stock rose 3% Wednesday morning. 

    Amazon rival Walmart, meanwhile, opted to close 51 health clinics at U.S. stores and discontinue its virtual health services, the company announced Tuesday. It blamed high operating costs and “a challenging reimbursement environment” for poor profitability in the division first launched in 2020.

    Apple’s revenues fell less than expected and earnings surpassed Wall Street estimates. The company also said it would boost its dividend to 25¢ a share and authorize $110 billion worth of share buybacks. Services revenue grew to nearly $24 billion, offsetting declines in sales of iPhones and other devices. Sales fell 8% in Greater China (including Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong), but that drop-off was not as severe as analysts anticipated. Apple shares surged nearly 6% before markets opened Friday, and more than a dozen analysts raised their target price on Apple.

    Tipping on fast food

    There’s no accounting for taste as fast-food purveyors moved in divergent ways in the first quarter; some were squeezed between cost inflation and consumer austerity while others continued to super-size their sales.

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    Michael McCullough

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  • As Questions Swirl Around Tesla’s Superchargers, the Race Is On to Fill the Power Gap

    As Questions Swirl Around Tesla’s Superchargers, the Race Is On to Fill the Power Gap

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    Familiar says Revel is less concerned about the material effects of the Tesla layoff than the “cultural impact, tacking onto pessimism around EVs recently.”

    New York City officials seem confident someone will fill in the Tesla-sized charging gap. City programs ensure “that any provider doing business in NYC has a reliable, growing customer base, and one provider backing out of a lease is a great opportunity for another to snap it up, especially if that site is power-ready,” a spokesperson for the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, Jason Kersten, said in a statement.

    In Maspeth, Gordon says he’s already heard from several charging companies interested in leasing the land once intended for Superchargers.

    Power Puzzler

    In recent months, the Tesla Supercharger network has been cited as a bright spot in a company troubled by new competition from Chinese car companies and legacy automakers, questions around the slackening electric vehicle market, falling revenues, and most recently, a series of rolling layoffs. Tesla customers have said the company’s public charging stations are generally reliable and well maintained, and a huge selling point for Tesla-curious buyers. Last summer, the energy research organization BloombergNEF predicted that Tesla could bring in $7.4 billion in charging revenue by the end of the decade, constituting some $740 million in profit—not a shabby side hustle for an auto manufacturer.

    At the time of the reported layoffs, Tesla’s charging team had just pulled off a decisive coup by convincing the entire US auto industry to use its plug. In return, Tesla dangled to other automakers—and their customers—a public charging network that’s remarkably reliable and well developed, especially when compared to the shoddier records of their closest charging rivals.

    In financial filings submitted just last week, Tesla previewed its expansion plans for its charging network. As other automakers adopt the Tesla plug, “we must correspondingly expand our network in order to ensure adequate availability to meet customer demands,” the company wrote.

    Tesla last fall officially handed over work on the plug standard to the Society of Automotive Engineers, a global standards organization. Jeff Laskowski, a spokesman for the group, said that work to finish that plug standard was “well underway” and expected to wrap up by the end of this year.

    It is not unusual for companies given government grants to change direction or give them back, sources involved in government grantmaking told WIRED. In statements and interviews, those involved in building, selling, and developing electric vehicle charging said that Tesla’s sudden about-face on charging might affect the short-term future of public charging infrastructure, but not the long-term electric transition.

    A spokesperson for the federal Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, the authority overseeing electric vehicle infrastructure in the US, said that, because each individual state runs a competitive process to choose who will build charging networks, “we don’t expect individual business decisions to impact EV charging projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” the 2021 federal legislation that earmarked money for the charging infrastructure.

    Industry players said that while Tesla’s move was very unexpected, it could signal that the automaker believes other charging firms have caught up to it and are ready to take on the responsibility—and the capital costs—of building out the network that will make electric cars go.

    Competitors said the abrupt shift might even be an opportunity. In a statement, Sara Rafalson, the executive vice president of policy and external affairs at the charging company EVgo, said her company would soon begin to build Tesla plugs onto its chargers. “We welcome the opportunity to serve more Tesla vehicles and remain steadfast in our commitment to serve all electric vehicle models,” she said.

    UPDATE 5/1/2024 9:30 PM ET: This story has been updated to clarify the status of Revel’s lease talks in New York City.

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    Aarian Marshall

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  • Tesla retreats from next-generation ‘gigacasting’ manufacturing process

    Tesla retreats from next-generation ‘gigacasting’ manufacturing process

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    By Norihiko Shirouzu and Giulio Piovaccari

    AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Tesla has backed away from an ambitious plan for innovations in gigacasting, its pioneering manufacturing process, according to two sources familiar with the matter, in another sign that the electric-vehicle maker is retrenching amid falling sales and rising competition.

    Tesla has been a leader in gigacasting, a cutting-edge technique that uses huge presses with thousands of tons of clamping pressure to die-cast large sections of the car’s underbody. On a typical vehicle, the underbody can consist of hundreds of individual parts.

    Last year, as Tesla developed a new small-vehicle platform, it aimed to punch out the underbody in a single piece, Reuters exclusively reported last September, citing five sources familiar with the automaker’s gigacasting operations. The long-term goal was to radically simplify manufacturing and slash costs.

    But Tesla has since halted the effort, opting to stick with its more proven method of casting vehicle underbodies in three pieces: two gigacasted front and rear sections and a midsection made of aluminum and steel frames to store batteries, according to the two sources familiar with the matter. That is largely the same three-piece method the company has used for its last two new models, the Model Y crossover SUV and the Cybertruck pickup.

    Tesla’s retreat from one-piece gigacasting has not been previously reported. The automaker did not respond to a request for comment.

    The decision to hold off on the potential manufacturing breakthrough marks another example of Tesla slashing short-term spending as it adjusts to falling sales and profit margins, softening EV demand globally, and intensifying competition from rival EV makers such as China’s BYD. Tesla last month laid off more than 10% of its global workforce. A handful of senior executives have also resigned or been pushed out.

    Such moves also reflect a fundamental strategy shift, with Tesla now focusing more on developing self-driving vehicles than on pushing for huge growth in EV sales volume, which many investors had been counting on.

    The step-back on gigacasting occurred last autumn, the people said, before Tesla decided in late February to halt development of an all-new affordable car, often called the Model 2, which would have been the first vehicle it built with one-piece gigacasting. Reuters first reported the cancellation of the Model 2 on April 5.

    On April 23, as it released earnings that missed Wall Street expectations, Tesla said it had a simpler, faster plan for producing “more affordable” cars after shelving plans for the Model 2, which was expected to cost $25,000 and be released in the second half of 2025.

    Instead, Tesla officials said, it would produce affordable models using a current platform and production lines. On an investor call, Chief Executive Elon Musk declined to provide details on the planned new offerings or their target prices.

    Tesla has not entirely abandoned the small-vehicle platform it had planned for the Model 2. Instead, it will move forward in developing a self-driving robotaxi on the same platform, Reuters reported in the April 5 story. One of the two sources familiar with the automaker’s gigacasting operations said the suppliers involved are now adapting Tesla’s three-piece process for the next-generation vehicle.

    Both sources said the automaker decided last autumn to halt work on the more innovative and difficult one-piece casting process. At the time, the rationale for the decision was to speed development of the now-defunct Model 2 and avoid any costly delays or manufacturing problems, the two sources said.

    BIG UPFRONT INVESTMENT

    Tesla and Musk have said gigacasting helps the automaker reduce costs over the long term. But the process requires large initial investments and is difficult and time-consuming to perfect, automotive manufacturing experts say.

    Experts in vehicle manufacturing said Tesla’s more conservative path on gigacasting is no surprise and in part reflects the pains it has experienced historically in launching complex and innovative vehicles on time. The automaker’s highly experimental Cybertruck arrived last autumn at a far higher price than predicted after substantial delays to work through manufacturing issues. Tesla is still struggling to produce the angular, stainless-steel pickup in mass-market volumes.

    Holding off on one-piece gigacasting will save the company from making massive short-term capital investments in manufacturing and design, said Terry Woychowski, president of U.S. engineering company Caresoft Global, who has led teardowns and engineering analyses on numerous vehicles, including Teslas.

    “Would they rather have done it all in one big piece? Sure, they would’ve, but at what cost?” Woychowski asked.

    James Womack, a vehicle manufacturing expert and former research director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Tesla’s gigacasting pullback reflects the company’s scramble last year to launch an all-new $25,000 car to catch up with Chinese EV makers who are already dominating the low-cost EV segment.

    But pushing forward with an innovative production technique would do little to help sell a Tesla car to consumers, Womack said.

    “It’s not very exciting from the standpoint of the public and buyer,” Womack said, “and you don’t know whether this is really a big cost-saver or not.”

    (Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu in Austin, Texas, and Giulio Piovaccari in Milan; Editing by Brian Thevenot and Matthew Lewis)

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  • Elon Musk Can’t Solve Tesla’s China Crisis With His Desperate Asia Visit

    Elon Musk Can’t Solve Tesla’s China Crisis With His Desperate Asia Visit

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    Elon Musk will be pleased that his surprise jaunt to China on Sunday garnered many glowing headlines. The trip was undoubtedly equally a surprise to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who had been scheduled to offer Musk the red carpet on a long-arranged visit.

    The billionaire blew off India at the last minute, citing “very heavy Tesla obligations.” Indeed, Tesla has had a tumultuous couple of weeks, with federal regulator slap-downs, halved profits, and price-cut rollouts. Yet, in a very public snub that Modi won’t quickly forget, the company CEO made time for Chinese premier Li Qiang.

    And well Musk might. Tesla needs China more than China needs Tesla. After the US, China is Tesla’s second biggest market. And ominously, in the first quarter of the year, Tesla’s sales in China slipped by 4 percent in a domestic EV market that has expanded by more than 15 percent. That’s enough of a hit for any CEO to jump in a Gulfstream and fly across the Pacific for an impromptu meeting with a Chinese premier.

    Globally, Tesla has lost nearly a third of its value since January, and earlier this month, Tesla’s worldwide vehicle deliveries in the first quarter fell for the first time in almost four years. As they are wont to do, Tesla investors continue to complain over repeated delays to the company’s rollout of cars with genuine driverless capabilities.

    One of Tesla’s stop-gap technologies—a now heavily-discounted $8,000 add-on—is marketed as Full Self-Driving, or FSD. But, like the similarly confusingly named Autopilot feature, it still requires driver attention, and may yet still prove to be risky.

    Among the deals said to have been unveiled at Sunday’s meeting with Li Qiang was a partnership granting Tesla access to a mapping license for data collection on China’s public roads by web search company Baidu.

    This was a “watershed moment,” Wedbush Securities senior analyst Dan Ives said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. However, Tesla has been using Baidu for in-car mapping and navigation in China since 2020. The revised deal, in which Baidu will now also provide Tesla with its lane-level navigation system, clears one more regulatory hurdle for Tesla’s FSD in China. It does not enable Tesla to introduce driverless cars in China or anywhere else, as some media outlets have reported.

    Press reports have also claimed that Musk has secured permission to transfer data collected by Tesla cars in China out of China. This is improbable, noted JL Warren Capital CEO and head of research Junheng Li, who wrote on X: “[Baidu] owns all data, and shares filtered data with Tesla. Just imagine if [Tesla] has access to real-time road data such as who went to which country’s embassy at what time for how long.” That, she stressed, would be “super national security!”

    According to Reuters, Musk is still seeking final approval for the FSD software rollout in China, and Tesla still needs permission to transfer data overseas.

    Li added that a rollout of even a “supervised,” data-lite version of FSD in China is “extremely unlikely.” She pointed to challenges for Tesla to support local operation of the software. Tesla still “has no [direct] access to map data in China as a foreign entity,” she wrote.

    Instead, Tesla is likely using the deal extension with Baidu as an FSD workaround, with the data collected in China very much staying in China. Despite this, Tesla shares have jumped following news of the expanded Baidu collaboration.

    Furthermore, Li said there’s “no strategic value” for Beijing to favor FSD when there are several more advanced Chinese alternatives. (We’ve tested them.)

    “Chinese EVs are simply evolving at a far faster pace than Tesla,” agrees Shanghai-based automotive journalist and WIRED contributor Mark Andrews, who tested the driver assistance tech available on the roads in China. The US-listed trio of Xpeng, Nio, and Li Auto offer better-than-Tesla “driving assistance features” that rely heavily on lidar sensors, a technology that Musk previously dismissed, but which Tesla is now said to be testing.

    Although dated in shape and lacking in the latest tech, a Tesla car is nevertheless more expensive in China than most of its rivals. Tesla recently slashed prices in China to arrest falling sales.

    Musk’s flying visit to China smacked of “desperation,” says Mark Rainford, owner of the Inside China Auto channel. “[Tesla] sales are down in China—the competition has weathered the price cuts so far and [the Tesla competitors have] a seemingly endless conveyor belt of talented and beautiful products.” Rainford further warns that the “golden period for Tesla in China” is “at great risk of collapsing.”

    Tesla opened its first gigafactory in Shanghai five years ago, and it is now the firm’s largest—but the automaker has been playing tech catchup in China for some time. In addition to Xpeng, Nio, and Li, there are other Chinese car companies competing with Tesla on autonomous driving, as Musk will see if he visits the Beijing Motor Show, which runs through this week.

    Beijing is now arguably the world’s preeminent automotive expo, but Tesla is not exhibiting—a sign that it has little new to offer famously tech-hungry Chinese autobuyers. Pointedly, the Cybertruck is not road-legal in China, although that hasn’t stopped Tesla from displaying the rust-prone electric pickup in some of its Chinese showrooms.

    Likewise, Tesla has just announced plans for a European Cybertruck tour. But, just like in China, the EV pickup cannot be sold in the EU, either—and according to Tesla’s lead on vehicle engineering, it likely never will be.

    Speaking on tighter pedestrian safety regulations in the EU compared to the US, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, told Top Gear that “European regulations call for a 3.2-mm external radius on external projections. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to make a 3.2-mm radius on a 1.4-mm sheet of stainless steel.”

    The “Cybertruck Odyssey” tour—as Tesla’s European X account calls it—may titillate Tesla fans, but it could prove to be about as useful as shooting a Roadster into space.

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    Carlton Reid

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