April 20, 2015 at 10:30 am by Alex Nunez | Photography by Lily Lawrence/Getty Images for Oceanic Preservation Society
Ashlee Vance’s upcoming book Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a Great Future seems like it could be a fascinating read.
In an excerpt published by Bloomberg Company, we find out that in early 2013, when factors had been going decidedly not nicely for Elon Musk’s startup automaker, he arrived at a deal with Larry Page to sell the company to Google for billions, with assurances that the tech giant would leave Musk in location for 8 years or till Tesla released a mainstream-oriented third-gen electric automobile.
After the Tesla Model S first went on sale in June of 2012, early shortcomings had led to poor word of mouth. The auto lacked some of the functions of competing luxury vehicles, and some components, like the chintzy sun visors and wonky door handles, had early adopters grumbling.
Sales targets had been in danger of being missed, so Musk shook up the whole organization and generally tasked everybody with assisting close sales on preorders. As all this was happening, he reportedly approached Page and Google and created the deal that would have rescued the business if it couldn’t turn its fortunes around in the brief term.
Except Tesla did turn it about. Sales have been created, vehicles have been moved, and the fairy-tale saga of income and cooking stock costs took hold. Musk never ever had to sell to Google, and right here we are.
If the book is filled with stories like this, it’s going to be a page-turner. Read the complete excerpt right here.
This story originally appeared on roadandtrack.com.
March 16, 2015 at 11:00 am by Robert Sorokanich | Photography by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
The Tesla Model S has arguably accomplished much more than any other auto to make electric vehicles trendy and desirable, but it cannot change the reality: For numerous drivers, the charging infrastructure just cannot support their vehicular wants the way old-fashioned internal combustion can.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he’s about to modify all that.
With a boldness—and lack of detail—that’s become trademark for the a lot-loved CEO, Musk tweeted over the weekend that his electric automobile firm is about to resolve Tesla Model S drivers’ driving-range worries forever:
Tesla press conf at 9am on Thurs. About to finish variety anxiousness … by means of OTA software update. Affects entire Model S fleet.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 15, 2015
Quite powerful stuff.
It’s hard to read any sort of detail into a purposefully cryptic announcement sent out in a packet that can only carry 140 characters, but 2 items jump out. Very first, Musk’s claim that the trick operates by means of over-the-air computer software update indicates that it is most likely some sort of power-management tweak, updated battery-status gauge for the dashboard, or other repair. Second, given that it impacts the “entire Model S fleet,” we know it can’t be a trick that only performs for dual-motor all-wheel-drive models.
Our hunch is that, whilst the new software update will possibly give Model S owners a nice little range boost or a far more fine-grained information report from the battery area, it is most likely not going to do away completely with the issue of driving an electric-powered car in a gas-focused world. But that sort of nuance doesn’t match into a tweet.
This story initially appeared on roadandtrack.com.
Elon Musk, Tesla Factory, Fremont (CA, USA) by Maurizio Pesce is licensed beneath CC BY 2.
He’s the billionaire owner of Tesla Motors, has styles on industrial space exploration and desires to colonise Mars.
Oh, and he’s basically Batman.
Now I’m not accusing Elon of donning a cape and cowl to strike worry into the hearts of criminals on a nightly basis, but what I am saying is that if Batman had been real, and we had been trying to guess his secret identity, Elon Musk would have a lot to answer for.
Here’s why…
1. He’s richer than Scrooge McDuck, with an estimated net worth of $ 9.6billion. You know who else is that rich? Bruce Wayne – yeah,BATMAN.
2. He’s generally a genius. At 16 years old, he scored the highest achievable grade in the IBM test for engineers. You know who else is a genius engineer? BATMAN.
3. He has 5 sons. Okay, so Bruce Wayne doesn’t really have 5 biological little ones, but if you count the Robins (Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne and Stephanie Brown) – he has 5 young children. MUSK = BATMAN.
4. He’s a globe trotter, having reside in South Africa, Canada and the US. You know who else is a globe trotter? BATMAN.
5. He owns a gadget-laden auto, namely, the Lotus Esprit submarine car from Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
He also designs and builds next-generation electric automobiles. You know who else has a tricked-out ride? BATMAN.
6. He’s a polymath, with degrees in economics and physics. You know who else is a polymath? BATMAN.
7. He’s a philanthropist, and as chairman of the Musk Foundation functions to promote science, education, pediatric overall health and clean energy.
You know who else has a charitable foundation? Bruce Wayne. Yeah – BATMAN.
8. Musk describes himself as a workaholic and admits to operating up to 25 hours a week. You know what else does not sleep? Crime. And who’s there to cease it? BATMAN.
9. He has styles on space exploration and colonisation.You know else has had all sorts of adventures in space with the Justice League? BATMAN.
10. Ultimately, and here’s the NOT-AT-ALL-TENUOUS smoking gun, Bruce Wayne’s parents were shot dead by mugger Joe Chill on June 26, providing birth to the vigilante identified as Batman.
When is Elon Musk’s birthday? 2 DAYS LATER.
Tiny caveat: Elon’s unusual name, immense wealth and considerable influence make him just as likely to be a supervillain as a superhero. He’s currently talking about colonising Mars, so let’s just maintain an eye on him, yeah?
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.
