The days are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping, and according to Tiger Wheel & Tyre it’;s time to give your car battery the old pre-winter once over.
“Much like humans, car batteries aren’;t especially enthusiastic about getting started in the cold. The exercise is often accompanied by much groaning and if you’;re lucky, after a few failed attempts you might enjoy success. But if you’;ve ever been stranded in the cold with a dead car battery, you’;ll need no encouragement to bring your vehicle to Tiger Wheel & Tyre and have your battery tested,” said Group Marketing Executive Joe du Plooy.
It bears mentioning that even a relatively new car battery can die prematurely if you don’;t actively take measures to extend its life. Here are some guidelines from Tiger Wheel & Tyre to extend your battery’;s life this winter:
• If you go away for any length of time, disconnect the battery and attach it to a trickle charger or arrange to have someone come over regularly to start and run your car for several minutes at a time. • Keep in mind certain vehicle tracking devices draw power from your car battery and will drain it completely if the battery isn’;t allowed to recharge. • Cut down on short trips. Frequent trips of less than 20 minutes don’;t give your battery enough time to charge and drain it faster. • Park inside the garage where it’;s warmer, to protect the battery from extreme cold which shortens its lifespan.
Kickstart winter with a free battery test from Tiger Wheel & Tyre, because you know that if it is going to die it will happen on a Sunday morning at 2 AM,” concluded du Plooy.
Tiger Wheel & Tyre stock a range of superior quality, maintenance-free automotive batteries from leading brands ATLASBX and Duracell. Visit the website www.twt.to to locate the store nearest to you, then stop in for your free battery test and to get sound advice on the best battery for your vehicle.
The days are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping, and according to Tiger Wheel & Tyre it’;s time to give your car battery the old pre-winter once over.
“Much like humans, car batteries aren’;t especially enthusiastic about getting started in the cold. The exercise is often accompanied by much groaning and if you’;re lucky, after a few failed attempts you might enjoy success. But if you’;ve ever been stranded in the cold with a dead car battery, you’;ll need no encouragement to bring your vehicle to Tiger Wheel & Tyre and have your battery tested,” said Group Marketing Executive Joe du Plooy.
It bears mentioning that even a relatively new car battery can die prematurely if you don’;t actively take measures to extend its life. Here are some guidelines from Tiger Wheel & Tyre to extend your battery’;s life this winter:
• If you go away for any length of time, disconnect the battery and attach it to a trickle charger or arrange to have someone come over regularly to start and run your car for several minutes at a time. • Keep in mind certain vehicle tracking devices draw power from your car battery and will drain it completely if the battery isn’;t allowed to recharge. • Cut down on short trips. Frequent trips of less than 20 minutes don’;t give your battery enough time to charge and drain it faster. • Park inside the garage where it’;s warmer, to protect the battery from extreme cold which shortens its lifespan.
Kickstart winter with a free battery test from Tiger Wheel & Tyre, because you know that if it is going to die it will happen on a Sunday morning at 2 AM,” concluded du Plooy.
Tiger Wheel & Tyre stock a range of superior quality, maintenance-free automotive batteries from leading brands ATLASBX and Duracell. Visit the website www.twt.to to locate the store nearest to you, then stop in for your free battery test and to get sound advice on the best battery for your vehicle.
The days are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping, and according to Tiger Wheel & Tyre it’;s time to give your car battery the old pre-winter once over.
“Much like humans, car batteries aren’;t especially enthusiastic about getting started in the cold. The exercise is often accompanied by much groaning and if you’;re lucky, after a few failed attempts you might enjoy success. But if you’;ve ever been stranded in the cold with a dead car battery, you’;ll need no encouragement to bring your vehicle to Tiger Wheel & Tyre and have your battery tested,” said Group Marketing Executive Joe du Plooy.
It bears mentioning that even a relatively new car battery can die prematurely if you don’;t actively take measures to extend its life. Here are some guidelines from Tiger Wheel & Tyre to extend your battery’;s life this winter:
• If you go away for any length of time, disconnect the battery and attach it to a trickle charger or arrange to have someone come over regularly to start and run your car for several minutes at a time. • Keep in mind certain vehicle tracking devices draw power from your car battery and will drain it completely if the battery isn’;t allowed to recharge. • Cut down on short trips. Frequent trips of less than 20 minutes don’;t give your battery enough time to charge and drain it faster. • Park inside the garage where it’;s warmer, to protect the battery from extreme cold which shortens its lifespan.
Kickstart winter with a free battery test from Tiger Wheel & Tyre, because you know that if it is going to die it will happen on a Sunday morning at 2 AM,” concluded du Plooy.
Tiger Wheel & Tyre stock a range of superior quality, maintenance-free automotive batteries from leading brands ATLASBX and Duracell. Visit the website www.twt.to to locate the store nearest to you, then stop in for your free battery test and to get sound advice on the best battery for your vehicle.
The days are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping, and according to Tiger Wheel & Tyre it’;s time to give your car battery the old pre-winter once over.
“Much like humans, car batteries aren’;t especially enthusiastic about getting started in the cold. The exercise is often accompanied by much groaning and if you’;re lucky, after a few failed attempts you might enjoy success. But if you’;ve ever been stranded in the cold with a dead car battery, you’;ll need no encouragement to bring your vehicle to Tiger Wheel & Tyre and have your battery tested,” said Group Marketing Executive Joe du Plooy.
It bears mentioning that even a relatively new car battery can die prematurely if you don’;t actively take measures to extend its life. Here are some guidelines from Tiger Wheel & Tyre to extend your battery’;s life this winter:
• If you go away for any length of time, disconnect the battery and attach it to a trickle charger or arrange to have someone come over regularly to start and run your car for several minutes at a time. • Keep in mind certain vehicle tracking devices draw power from your car battery and will drain it completely if the battery isn’;t allowed to recharge. • Cut down on short trips. Frequent trips of less than 20 minutes don’;t give your battery enough time to charge and drain it faster. • Park inside the garage where it’;s warmer, to protect the battery from extreme cold which shortens its lifespan.
Kickstart winter with a free battery test from Tiger Wheel & Tyre, because you know that if it is going to die it will happen on a Sunday morning at 2 AM,” concluded du Plooy.
Tiger Wheel & Tyre stock a range of superior quality, maintenance-free automotive batteries from leading brands ATLASBX and Duracell. Visit the website www.twt.to to locate the store nearest to you, then stop in for your free battery test and to get sound advice on the best battery for your vehicle.
The days are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping, and according to Tiger Wheel & Tyre it’;s time to give your car battery the old pre-winter once over.
“Much like humans, car batteries aren’;t especially enthusiastic about getting started in the cold. The exercise is often accompanied by much groaning and if you’;re lucky, after a few failed attempts you might enjoy success. But if you’;ve ever been stranded in the cold with a dead car battery, you’;ll need no encouragement to bring your vehicle to Tiger Wheel & Tyre and have your battery tested,” said Group Marketing Executive Joe du Plooy.
It bears mentioning that even a relatively new car battery can die prematurely if you don’;t actively take measures to extend its life. Here are some guidelines from Tiger Wheel & Tyre to extend your battery’;s life this winter:
• If you go away for any length of time, disconnect the battery and attach it to a trickle charger or arrange to have someone come over regularly to start and run your car for several minutes at a time. • Keep in mind certain vehicle tracking devices draw power from your car battery and will drain it completely if the battery isn’;t allowed to recharge. • Cut down on short trips. Frequent trips of less than 20 minutes don’;t give your battery enough time to charge and drain it faster. • Park inside the garage where it’;s warmer, to protect the battery from extreme cold which shortens its lifespan.
Kickstart winter with a free battery test from Tiger Wheel & Tyre, because you know that if it is going to die it will happen on a Sunday morning at 2 AM,” concluded du Plooy.
Tiger Wheel & Tyre stock a range of superior quality, maintenance-free automotive batteries from leading brands ATLASBX and Duracell. Visit the website www.twt.to to locate the store nearest to you, then stop in for your free battery test and to get sound advice on the best battery for your vehicle.
Through cynical eyes, BMW’s i division is a hyper-expensive experiment that hedges against strict emission laws, all so Munich can preserve developing cars that truly make a profit. Although this is true, there are many tangible advantages to BMW’s sophisticated carbon fiber manufacturing—such as driving down the material’s cost and receiving ahead of competitors—and now it has even drawn the praise of one Elon Musk. Yep, overlook the diesel and hybrid Bimmers that sell for regular-ish money—Tesla CEO Musk is turned on by the i lineup’s exotic building.
According to a Der Spiegel interview translated by Reuters, Musk has been chatting with BMW executives about a possible collaboration that would include the sharing of lightweight components and batteries. Musk says he desires to open a battery plant in Germany inside the subsequent 5 to 6 years—his “Gigafactory” in Reno, Nevada will be on-line in 2017—and that the carbon fiber components on the i3 and i8 were “relatively expense-efficient.” Tesla itself has not confirmed any deal with BMW, only that a “casual conversation” amongst a self-made billionaire and some German engineers did in reality take place.
As items sit, both firms are all-in on electrification and currently have alliances at play. BMW is functioning with Audi and other researchers to develop carbon fiber that is 90-% less costly as it triples material production to 9000 tons a year. It’s also tagging along with Mercedes to standardize wireless charging and recently signed a deal with Toyota to develop much more effective lithium-air batteries (in addition to jointly-building a new sports vehicle and advancing Musk’s favored brand of haterade, hydrogen fuel).
Smile! You are on corporate collaboration candid camera!
Tesla, aside from spending billions to construct the world’s biggest battery plant for an expanded lineup of higher-volume cars, doesn’t have any willing automotive partners who’d like to split R&D expenses. And while Tesla investors do not genuinely seem to care about such items right now, sooner or later they’d like to see the firm make a profit every quarter or 2. A partner like BMW—which has sold only about 13,000 i models since late 2013 versus the 50,000 Model S sedans Tesla’s peddled since 2012—would be important to producing true income.
Tesla still builds powertrains for the electric Smart For2, Mercedes B-class Electric Drive, and Toyota RAV4 EV, yet these are limited-time contracts for quite little numbers of vehicles. (Toyota is killing the RAV4 EV in about a month, although Daimler sold its 4-% Tesla stake around the very same time.) BMW is one of the handful of key automakers to invest so heavily in electric vehicles, even if numerous of the Bimmer EVs are really plug-in hybrids, anything Musk also derides. (In the very same Der Spiegel interview, he associated them to “an amphibious automobile, not excellentin the water andnot idealon land.“) But do not anticipate that to be a deal-killer after all, Smart, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota predominantly build fossil fuel–powered autos, and, generally, Musk does not say issues with out putting his considerable funds exactly where his mouth is. So, humble observers , you would be smart to watch how this small “conversation” concludes.
By means of cynical eyes, BMW’s i division is a hyper-pricey experiment that hedges against strict emission laws, all so Munich can hold building automobiles that really make a profit. Whilst this is correct, there are several tangible positive aspects to BMW’s sophisticated carbon fiber manufacturing—such as driving down the material’s price and getting ahead of competitors—and now it has even drawn the praise of one Elon Musk. Yep, neglect the diesel and hybrid Bimmers that sell for typical-ish money—Tesla CEO Musk is turned on by the i lineup’s exotic construction.
According to a Der Spiegel interview translated by Reuters, Musk has been chatting with BMW executives about a feasible collaboration that would include the sharing of lightweight parts and batteries. Musk says he desires to open a battery plant in Germany inside the subsequent 5 to 6 years—his “Gigafactory” in Reno, Nevada will be on the web in 2017—and that the carbon fiber parts on the i3 and i8 had been “relatively expense-efficient.” Tesla itself has not confirmed any deal with BMW, only that a “casual conversation” among a self-made billionaire and some German engineers did in reality occur.
As issues sit, both organizations are all-in on electrification and currently have alliances at play. BMW is working with Audi and other researchers to develop carbon fiber that is 90-% more affordable as it triples material production to 9000 tons a year. It is also tagging along with Mercedes to standardize wireless charging and recently signed a deal with Toyota to create a lot more effective lithium-air batteries (in addition to jointly-constructing a new sports auto and advancing Musk’s preferred brand of haterade, hydrogen fuel).
Smile! You’re on corporate collaboration candid camera!
Tesla, aside from spending billions to construct the world’s biggest battery plant for an expanded lineup of higher-volume automobiles, does not have any prepared automotive partners who’d like to split R&D charges. And whilst Tesla investors don’t really seem to care about such things correct now, sooner or later they’d like to see the business make a profit each and every quarter or 2. A companion like BMW—which has sold only about 13,000 i models because late 2013 versus the 50,000 Model S sedans Tesla’s peddled since 2012—would be key to producing genuine income.
Tesla still builds powertrains for the electric Smart For2, Mercedes B-class Electric Drive, and Toyota RAV4 EV, however these are limited-time contracts for really small numbers of cars. (Toyota is killing the RAV4 EV in about a month, whilst Daimler sold its 4-% Tesla stake around the same time.) BMW is one particular of the handful of major automakers to invest so heavily in electric vehicles, even if several of the Bimmer EVs are actually plug-in hybrids, some thing Musk also derides. (In the same Der Spiegel interview, he related them to “an amphibious car, not perfectin the water andnot beston land.“) But don’t count on that to be a deal-killer after all, Wise, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota predominantly build fossil fuel–powered cars, and, generally, Musk doesn’t say things without putting his considerable income where his mouth is. So, humble observers , you would be smart to watch how this small “conversation” concludes.
November 12, 2014 at 6:16 pm by Jens Meiners | Photography by Robert Kerian
When BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer announced final year that “What the mobile telephone did for communication, electric mobility will do for individual mobility” and board member Peter Schwarzenbauer proclaimed that “never ahead of has the BMW Group been so proud to present a auto to the world” at the i3 launch, we weren’t skeptical, per say, merely unsurprised. What else would you count on a company that’s invested billions into a pair of new electric cars—the i3 and the i8—to say? A year on, BMW has assured us that the i vehicles are “selling properly,” but that might not be the case in Germany.
According to a report by kfz-betrieb, a newspaper that keeps extremely close ties to the automobile dealers in Germany, the i3 is not faring as effectively in its home market place as it is abroad. Right after 9 months of sales, dealers have sold just half of the autos they had been told to move. These figures even include sales delivered during the i3’s initial hype a dealer who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions has stated that the honeymoon period is most definitely more than.
Dealers have been capable to sell 1900 units considering that the starting of the year, a third of which came with the optional gasoline-fueled variety extender, says kfz-betrieb. That’s woefully short of the 5000 to 6000 units the 43 German “i agents” are supposed to sell ahead of the end of the year. This September has been the most disappointing month so far, with only 131 i3s discovering new properties. BMW is blaming long shipping instances of up to 6 months for the weak sales. “Dealers say they could sell a lot more automobiles than allocated,” Reithofer lately claimed, but as Kfz-betrieb notes: “He did not say which dealers.”
Internal bickering aside, BMW is resorting to unconventional techniques to jumpstart sales and providing potential German customers an i3 for €555 ($ 692) a month. That price involves a full collision waiver and a whopping 3333 kilometer (2071 miles) allotment. If the customer bites and outright purchases the vehicle, the original fees are reimbursed. It’s an fascinating strategy, one that nicely avoids conventional incentive measures like money on the hood, and we’ll be watching to see how it shakes out—who knows, if a comparable sales dilemma befalls BMW in other markets where the i3 is sold, this method could someday escape Germany.
Elon Musk isn’t waiting for someone else to figure out how to build a better battery. While lithium-ion technology remains expensive and somewhat fraught with technical issues, the headstrong Tesla CEO has a plan that should at least make batteries cheaper. Many also think it’s his bid to establish the battery as the dominant alt-fuel technology.
Musk wants to cut the price of a Tesla battery pack by more than 30 percent by building a 10-million-square-foot Nevada factory that condenses the company’s current ocean-spanning supply chain onto a single property. His proposed “Gigafactory” would make batteries from start to finish, beginning with raw materials and ending with battery-pack assembly.
Unlike Henry Ford’s revolutionary vertical integration in the 1900s, Musk won’t own the entire Gigafactory operation. Part of his plan is convincing established industrial giants to carry some of the $ 5 billion financial burden. Panasonic, which already supplies battery cells for the Model S, will make an initial investment of $ 200 million to $ 300 million to be the sole cell manufacturer on site. The Japanese electronics giant could chip in as much as $ 1 billion by the time the project is complete, while Tesla says it will put up $ 2 billion to $ 3 billion.
A rendering of Tesla’s proposed Gigafactory as seen from the vantage of a SpaceX rocket.
Barring a breakthrough in battery technology, the largest cost savings for Tesla will come from optimizing every aspect of the supply chain. Musk wants to go as far as importing steel and aluminum to stamp out cases for the battery packs. “It’s a lot faster, a lot less linkage, a lot less packaging, and inventory would be reduced,” says Bob Rauh, director of business development for automotive and infrastructure at Panasonic.
Today’s Model S batteries are manufactured in Japan before taking the long boat ride to California. Moving those processes stateside eliminates logistics expenses and Tesla’s exposure to Japan’s electricity rates, which are roughly twice those of the United States. Musk plans to drive his energy expenses even lower with an expansive solar array and wind turbines on-site. (Conveniently, Musk is also chairman of the SolarCity energy-systems enterprise.)
Even if there isn’t a wholesale shift in the technology, Tesla will do everything it can to squeeze pennies out of the battery cells, which account for 70 to 80 percent of the cost of the pack. Model S cells use Panasonic’s cylindrical 18650 format, basically an oversized AA battery and the most common lithium-ion battery type in the world. That decision allowed tiny Tesla to benefit from the economies of scale created by the largest consumer of lithium-ion batteries, the consumer-electronics industry.
Tesla Model S
Musk’s ambition—he claims the Gigafactory will supply battery packs for 500,000 cars per year by 2020—means Panasonic could be manufacturing billions of battery cells annually for Tesla. That kind of volume would allow Tesla to create its own economies of scale for a new battery shape rather than depend on the 18650. “The sheer size of the Gigafactory allows us to drive what is the most cost-effective size of the battery,” Rauh says.
Panasonic is studying new cylindrical-cell geometries that would optimize both the cost and the energy density for Tesla’s needs. Today’s Model S lithium-ion battery already uses a nickel-intensive cathode that is cheaper than the usual cobalt chemistry, but Tesla acknowledges that it is working with new cathode and anode materials for its next-generation battery, hoping to improve cost, density, and longevity.
As with other news about Tesla, the Gigafactory has created hype well ahead of the product. Analysts at Credit Suisse recently released a report suggesting Tesla could drop the cost of a powertrain from $ 16,500 to $ 7500, putting electric technology on par with the cost of a high-end internal-combustion engine. The fact that Credit Suisse’s predicted 55-percent improvement far exceeds Tesla’s own 30-percent claim didn’t stop media outlets from trumpeting this speculation as fact.
Many complex factors must align for the Gigafactory to come together and deliver the predicted cost savings. That said, Musk has shown real talent in talking others into giving his small company the things it needs to move forward, from the government’s first $ 465 million loan to Toyota’s bargain-priced Fremont, California, factory. The Gigafactory is slated to turn out its first battery packs in 2017—but don’t hold your breath. Every hero has his Kryptonite, and Musk’s has been sticking to a schedule.
Panasonic has agreed to partner with Tesla on its Gigafactory battery-manufacturing facility, which will at some point assemble all battery packs for both the automaker’s lineup and its foray into electrical storage for residences and firms.
The Japanese electronics giant, which currently supplies the lithium-ion cells in the Model S, won’t commit to hauling its own gear to the U.S. just however, even so. Just as it does now at its factory in Fremont, California, Tesla will import Panasonic cells from Japan and assemble them into battery packs. This must take up half of the planned 10-million-square-foot Gigafactory facility, according to Tesla, with some further unnamed “key suppliers” taking up the other space. Tesla has currently committed about $ 2.3 billion to the estimated $ 5 billion price for the factory since the firm announced plans to construct it in March. So even though Panasonic is throwing down some yen, the Gigafactory likely demands a lot more funding just before Elon Musk’s organization starts construction.
In its second-quarter SEC filing, Tesla said it plans to pick a building web site inside “the subsequent handful of months” from amongst 5 possible locations—Reno, Nevada, being a top selection, along with web sites in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas—and plans to have the factory completed prior to the Model 3 debuts in 2016 as a 2017 model. That higher-volume automobile, which will arrive after the Model X crossover’s 2015 rollout, is amongst the principal causes that the Gigafactory will exist. Tesla wants to reduce battery fees if it hopes to be able to sell the Model 3 for its target starting cost of $ 35,000, and the Palo Alto company also hopes to grow to be a major supplier to other automakers or even to consumer-electronics firms such as Apple.
We’re slightly bearish on the Gigafactory upending the entire battery enterprise so swiftly, particularly provided Tesla’s consistent economic losses (it lost $ 62 million in the second quarter). Nonetheless, in spite of earning a “junk” credit rating in Could, Tesla is upgrading its Fremont assembly line, is opening new retailers in China, is adding but much more totally free Supercharger stations, and says it is “on track” to provide the gullwinged Model X early next year. If everything goes to strategy, 6500 individuals will discover steady employment at the Gigafactory and Tesla will churn out 500,000 cars per year by 2020—and Tesla’s most zealous owners just may possibly form a religion.
