Tesla’s New Competitor May Setup A Factory In Vallejo

Faraday Future’s proposal to establish factory in Vallejo will be discussed in the city council

Members of city council Vallejo met on May 31, 2016 to decide whether to approve the requisition of electrically powered car maker Tesla Motors’ rival Faraday Future to set up a manufacturing plant. The plant will be used for assembling vehicles as well as for customers’ correspondence.  The California based EV maker Faraday Future, which is backed by China-investors and is establishing a plant in the state of Nevada, seems to be following closely the footsteps of potential competitor Tesla.

The headquarters of Tesla is located in Pal Alto, manufactures its vehicles in Fremont, and is establishing a battery manufacturing plant outside the city of Reno in Nevada. At the moment, the Chinese backed organization is big on promise, but it is quite early to say if the organization will succeed in implementing its aspiring plans. The start-up connected to the China based online video company LeTV, just emerged in late 2015. The organization could finally become more like Fisker Automotive- a heavily- financed electric vehicle startup that burned and crashed- than CEO Elon Musk’s organization.

In May 2016, Faraday inaugurated a 3 million square-foot plant in the state of Nevada. The startup states it will pay $1 billion establishing the Nevada plant and recruit 4500 workers in a decade. Nevada has provided the organization with tax incentives worth $215 million to establish the plant in North Las Vegas. The head office of Faraday is in Los Angeles(L.A.), and the organization states it has employed 700 people.

In Vallejo, Faraday intends to do electric car assembling as well as establish a “customer experience center,” presumably to show EV technology, similar to how the automaker teaches potential consumers about electrically powered car tech at its storefronts. The land in Vallejo that the startup is taking interest in is known as North Mare Island, which covers an area of 150 acres controlled mostly by the waterfront city. The city has continued to work for revitalizing the region for a number of years following the closure of a base by the Navy in 1996.

The land requires high investment to meet industrial purposes. The proposal of the city council of Vallejo states North Mare Island has “negative land value.” Faraday would acquire the area in its present condition, and Vallejo would give the site free of cost. An investment of $50 million will be required to get it prepared to establish the plant.

It is not clear precisely what Faraday intends to establish in its Nevada plant and do assembling in the B.A facility.  The organization has been light on specifications of its planned EVs and just showed a vague concept vehicle to the doubtful media during the yearly technology conference Consumer Electronics show in Jan 2016.Faraday’s choice of the city further strengthens the spot of California as the electric car industry center.

 

Tesla Working On a New Update to Help its Customers

The American electric car maker is testing a new software update to address the range anxiety concerns of its electric vehicle users.

While power efficiency as well as range calculations are significant for every automobile regardless of the kind of fuel it consumes, it’s especially significant for electrically powered vehicles if just to help address the anxiety concerns regarding whether they’re acceptable or not. The American EV maker is making efforts to further enhance its own power consumption calculations as well as range to show more correct range estimates to owners of Tesla, which must be offered in a forthcoming over-the-air update, revealed sources aware of the matter.

The electric car maker is currently testing the upcoming iteration of its 7.1 software for Tesla Model S to comprise these enhanced calculations. In 2015, the automaker claimed it “eliminated range anxiety” through its software update 6.2 as well as the launch of many new features related to trip and range planning. Whereas the update was entirely welcomed, inefficiencies associated with the tour planner have been reported many times.

If one is interested in learning how factors such as climate control, temperature, speed affect the range he or she can play with the company’s online range calculator, which tells us nicely which different inputs the software of Model S takes into account to accurately demonstrate the possible range in real-time. As to end range anxiety, the low range stigma associated with electrically powered automobiles has prevailed to such a huge extent that it’s doubtful that the 6.2 launch was able to truly end it.

The reality is that range anxiety should not firstly be experienced with an efficient charging network combined with accessible and accurate range estimates. If one knows how far he or she can travel and access charging options without a hassle, he or she must not need to be concerned regarding range irrespective of the capability of one’s vehicle on a charge. The automaker’s extending Supercharger as well as Destination charger networks are slowly caring for the first part of the difficulty and the upcoming update of the automaker must further help resolve the second part by providing more correct range predictions.

Tesla has previously been successful as far its introducing new products is concerned as the Huffington Post has reported that  its recently introduced mass-market automobile Model 3 reached very high levels of popularity with 253,000 pre-orders. This helped Tesla secure a standing as the newest affordable electric car manufacturer. Those who have given the pre-orders have been told that the California based organization can take at least one and a half year to deliver.

CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk stated the average  Model 3 will be offered at a retail price of around $42000, which includes every option and feature ( certain additions can take the price up to $55,000 and greater). Given that figure, estimates take the pre-order value to somewhere at $10.6 billion. The result was that Tesla stock grew up by 3%, the stock has enhanced by over half since February.

To meet the demand for Model 3, the company is extending its California based production plant. The objective is to manufacture half a million automobiles on an yearly basis by 2020.

 

Tesla’s Vision Might Trouble its Shareholders

The vision of the American electric car maker can challenge the interests of its shareholders in the capital market

Dreams of having an electric future have  been historically significant much to Tesla shareholders than present business reality. But the huge amount of money spent by the American electric car maker  and growing rivalry could still flip that script. CEO of Tesla Elon Musk has stated he would be interested in retiring on Mars, isn’t certainly stranger to huge promises. In the recent times Mr Elon arguably made his audacious claim yet: the EV maker will sell half a million new vehicles in 2018, and one million by 2020, boosted by the upcoming mass-market EV Model 3.

That timeframe is a lot more ambitious than what the organization had communicated in the past. Bulls holding the belief in the story of the automaker cashed in. The debt-adjusted market value of Tesla has exponentially surged since its IPO in 2010. According to the plan, cash from the sales of luxurious automobiles would finance automobiles for the car manufacturer, transforming the automobile sector on the way. The rise of the California based organization did not entirely occur as planned.

The profitability has not materialized up till now. Total operating cash flow minus capital expenditures is -$4.6 billion since the organization went public. And manufacturing snags have postponed the introduction of important products. Those difficulties did not prevent a huge rise in the share price, for 2 major reasons. Exciting initial products and a large number of customers, together with easy cash investing environment, which meant the automaker could easily explore the capital markets.

FactSet has revealed that the company has received funds through convertible debt or equity each year since 6 years ago, for  a sum of almost $5 billion. And since the automaker was the one and only significant player pioneering a luxurious electric vehicle manufacturing problems did not cost the organization market share. But the recent promises have significantly raised the level of expectations, and they warrant skepticism.

For putting the 2018 objective in context, the automaker forecasts 80,000 to 90,000 units in the next year. Even that could prove to be ambitious, Tesla anticipates to sell around 30,000 vehicles in the first six months of the year. 2 years ago, Elon stated the electric car maker would sell vehicles at an  yearly rate of over 100,000 units by late last year.

The new timeframe has significant knock-off effects. Elon stated the company would be interested to develop its own automobile parts provided that its vendors are not able to challenge. That could yet make the production of Tesla Model 3 more complex. And recently the automaker announced  that 2 leading production officials are aiming to quit the company.

In the meantime, the company scrapped its promise, made 3 months ago, to have a positive cash-flow in the next year. Significantly, it also stated its new manufacturing plans would “ likely” need yet more capital. It is probable that capital expenditures will be $2.25 billion in 2015, up from one and a half billion forecast in February.

 

Google Step Forward to Make Travelling Easier For People

Google introduces its Trip application and adds a feature to Maps to ease travelling for persons

 

 

While nearing the weekend, one is bound to give some serious time to Google Maps. Thankfully, a number of new tech features have been introduced to test out what may make any distant or local travel comparatively easy to manage. An important feature is one’s contacts and his or her addresses will currently show up in one’s Places section. This way if one is going to his or her friend’s house, he or she can directly go to Maps to look for their address rather than digging through his or her contacts.

In addition to that, if one is making efforts to boost up his or her level in Local Guides, he or she might know that including pictures is a best way to do it. The screen that shows the photos one took from where he or she visited has been re-worked to ease the process of uploading the group of pictures at once.  Under the efforts of the American search engine developer to turn Maps into a friendly sage, there are currently more suggestions available on local pages.

The Mountain view based organization is about to take another step to facilitate travelling  as it would soon start testing its new mobile travel app revealed out in the previous week, and currently we have greater details, including screenshots, of what that application will seem like. The app, known as Trips, is being tested with a small tester group, and will permit users to keep a track of upcoming and previous tours, while also recommending regarding restaurants, domestic transportation options as well as tourist destinations.

The members of the Local Guides Program of Google are being only allowed to access the Trips mobile application. A re-branding and revamp of the prior City Experts effort of the company, Local Guides introduced in 2015 as the rival of Google Maps to Elites of Yelp. As with Yelp, members of program are provided various benefits as well as rewards in return for posting pictures, writing business reviews, and letting it to correct and fill Maps details.

A benefit as the search organization indicated is initial access to the newly introduced Google features and products. This looks an example of that incentive in action. The initial leak has revealed that, invitations were given to Local Guides to be amongst the first to trial a new “travel assistant app for Android and iPhone.”

What is interesting regarding the new application is that it is able to gather one’s trip details only by scanning his or Gmail messages, similar to the work done by the virtual assistant of Google, Google Now.

 

Tesla Powerwall Challenged By Mercedes Home Batteries

The European automaker have challenged Tesla Motors by introducing batteries and autonomous technologies

The batteries made to meet the high demands for electric Mercedes Benz cars are finding a new application as in-home power storage units. It is quite like Tesla Powerwall. The parent company of the German automaker announced that Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE is producing the energy storage units. The batteries are delivered, supported and installed by partners, such as solar technology and utility companies. This is logical because the batteries are typically installed along with solar panels.

Batteries are already offered in Germany and Mercedes says it will be internationally extending the program. Up to 8 of the columnar 2.5 kilowatt-per-hour lithium-ion batteries can be equipped with its maximum capacity or 20 kilowatt-per-hour together. Mercedes revealed that this is sufficient to capture solar electricity for use later with “virtually no losses.” The unit price has not been revealed, since it can include many components: the unit itself (or three or two), perhaps some photovoltaic panels and installation.

Mercedes Benz subsidiary has been manufacturing similar units since the last year for industrial purposes. The technologies were developed to be scalable; therefore, they can rapidly enter the private house market. Daimler is relying on its power storage subsidiary greatly – it has invested over a sum of half a billion dollar in a second battery manufacturing facility at the Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE site, which will start running in summer next year.

Compared to that, the Tesla Energy Powerwall does the same job, with arguably much style. The American electric vehicle maker’s battery has 6.4 kilowatt-per-hour of power storage “for daily cycle applications,” revealed the website. Like Mercedes power storage units, they can be installed for solar systems that need more energy storage. Tech Crunch does not know how much does Powerwall costs — $3500. It knows demand had reached high levels, indicated by 38,000 reservations when announced of the Powerwall in 2015.

That demand level appears to leave a lot of room for a rival such as Daimler AG to enter its road-tested battery technology in 2015. Daimler is not the only one to challenge the Californian organization as the Swedish automaker Volvo has targeted its reputation by stating that Autopilot, which is the semi-autonomous driving technology of Tesla, is “just a beta,” “wannabe” and claimed that it was dangerous.

Volvo has been making efforts to turn itself into the leader of the autonomous automobile world. It has done huge displays regarding launching self-driving vehicle networks, and appreciated its own semi- autonomous technology, Pilot Assist, in a very ingratiating manner. But the reality is that the Gothenburg-based organization is lagging behind the US company in its self-driving technologies, and this looks like a blind and dumb lashing out.

 

Tesla CEO Has Something To Tell About Autonomous Vehicles

CEO Elon Musk believes that his company’s self-driving cars are much safer than that of conventional vehicles

Autonomous vehicles and their self-driving features have been unable to win public trust up till now, but Tesla’s autopilot feature, which provides partial autonomy to vehicles, is 50% safer than that of a human driver, revealed Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “The probability of having an accident is 50% lower if you have Autopilot on,” said Musk while addressing an energy conference in Oslo, Norway. “Even with our first version, it’s almost twice as good as a person.”

Extracting data from the automaker’s vehicles, Elon said, on average kilometers driven by a vehicle was nearly twice when Autopilot was turned on. The results were given by the company’s first generation of Autopilot, which its owners have previously used to drive more than 47 million miles following its introduction in October last year.

An Autopilot technology uses radar and ultrasonic sensors to execute functions, including switching lanes, steering on a motorway, parking and adjusting speed to respond to traffic. Elon anticipates that the second, entirely self-driving version of the car will even be much safer than the present technology.

Two years are yet away, the second generation of Autopilot of Tesla will need to make regulatory bodies realize that it’s “definitively” safer. He said, the company will need much data to demonstrate “that the safety level is definitely better, by a meaningful margin, if it’s autonomous versus non-autonomous.”

The self-driving vehicles of Google are far behind, as they have just been driven 1.3 million miles since testing in Texas and California started in 2012. Human beings need to take over the wheel 341 times in a passage of 14 months to avoid software failures and accidents, the organization disclosed in January.

Google announced that it was making self-driving vehicles in 2009 and started to test them on the roads of California in 2012. In February next year, it said it bore “some responsibility” following an accident of its driverless vehicle, which suffered from a minor crash when it hit a bus.

Google aims to offer the vehicles to the masses in 2020. Ford Motors is a traditional automaker, which is keen to demonstrate its lead in the development of making new vehicle technology. It is heavily investing in self-driving technology and said its vehicles are equal to Google in reaching “level 4” autonomy. The Michigan-based organization is even rumored to be discussing with Larry Page’s company about a partnership on self-driving technology.

Tesla is an icon of the electric vehicle movement. It has also continued to rapidly add semi-autonomous features to its highly advanced automobiles. This includes autopilot, which allows vehicles to navigate by themselves in many scenarios and Summon, which allows Tesla owners to order vehicles to their door through a smartphone.

The future of the ride-sharing app of Uber could be vehicles, getting riders between points without needing the help of driver, a situation that could cut down prices in a dramatic manner.

 

Tesla Rival NextEV Gives Tough Time To CEO Musk In China

NextEV is interested in dominating and exploiting the highly lucrative Chinese EV market

William Li is not a boundlessly optimistic and typical Chinese technology entrepreneur. The startup ‘NextEV’ founder has huge plans to disrupt the Chinese EV market. Venture capital companies ‘Hillhouse Capital’ and ‘Sequoia Capital’ are financially backing the startup. Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk inspire Li.

Li grades his chance to succeed in the Chinese fast-moving vehicle market at a whopping rate of 5%. He also holds the perspective that many new business models for electric vehicles discussed by technology companies will turn into junk.

Such hard-nosed realism is possibly wise. As international automobile executives join for the Beijing Auto Show next year, a torrent of funds is flowing into the alternative energy automobile market of the nation, which includes fuel-cell cars, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

In a region with very high levels of pollution and a highly urbanized population, the auto-market of the country looks huge to traditional vehicle companies and new technology businesses jumping in.

The government of China is promoting what it views as a strategic sector with huge subsidies for consumers and companies. It is interested in increasing the new EV sales to 3 million units on an annual basis by 2025, which are far more than 330,000 last year. In February, Chinese premier Li Keqiang urged industry players and local government to ramp up building of charging stations to house 5 million EVs by 2020.

Now, a Shenzhen-based car maker ‘Build Your Dreams’ dominates electric car business, 9% owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, that has a 18% share of  the Chinese new energy automobile market. At the show, Buffett’s company will introduce its new entry-level SUV known as The Yuan, which is the name of the 13^th century Chinese dynasty.

Yuan has a starting price of $32,368 (209,800 Yuan) for its hybrid version. In China, Tesla is one of the players too, where it delivers Model X and Model S, though the Pal Alto based vehicle maker would wish to turn into a larger one. For the initial 9 months, the company delivered 3025 automobiles in the Chinese region, which is less than 11,477 units sold by BYD.

BYD also sells its electronics in Japan, Germany and the US and successfully crossed Musk’s organization to turn into the largest manufacturer of new EVs in 2015. This could play to the tech companies’ strengths. The Chinese automobile market could turn into the perfect lab to test new business models and services, according to Chinese auto consultant Gao Feng Advisory’s managing director Bill Russo.

Bill compares vehicles of today with the cellular phones 10 years ago, when apps began to rise in popularity. Tech organizations could award contracts of automobile production to manufacture vehicles, but then generate recurring sales revenue by offering vehicle owners with internet facilities and data products.

It is definitely a vision to gather details. Many tech organizations are participating in the competition. Some of those include Foxconn and Tencent.

 

Alibaba Introduces Unique Music App, Planet

Alibaba introduces a portal open for composers, merchants, music producers and fans in the field of music

Alibaba, which declared its market capitalization is worth $198.76 billion, has announced the launch of its new music-focused platform for fans and artists. The first “tier” of the new platform permits fans to purchase merchandise, stream music, view live streaming of performances; features earlier introduced on rival platforms such as Spotify by signing its contract with Bandpage – at least, prior to the late takeover by YouTube. The company states it has signed licensing contracts with Universal Music Group and BMG. It does not mention either Sony Music or Warner Music Group.

Much like Alibaba’s core – extensively speaking, the organization connects buyers to sellers, both consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business – Alibaba planet’s second tier is compelling, provided the massive scale of the organization and the unique advantage Chinese companies were provided in the aftermath of confusing new rules on music streaming.

The implementation of those rules provide Chinese organizations, or at least those working with the Ministry of Culture, an important advantage as foggy content requirements placed on music streaming catalogs.

The organization hopes to introduce the English language version of its application in the last 6 months of 2016. According to Alizila, music fans can follow their beloved stars by using their smartphones, buy related merchandise, take part in fan activities and view live shows of famous singers and cyber stars apart from hearing streaming songs, Alibaba music said. The artist friendly platform is developed on music streaming app, TTpod (Tiantiandongting) purchased by Alibaba 3 years ago.

The new platform is not just a fan portal. It is open also to merchants, composers, music producers and other organizations related to the music sector that are finding business opportunities. For example, singers will be in a position to find out songwriters and sellers will be in a position to find out celebrity endorsements. Stars presently on the platform include Chinese singer and actor Li Yifeng, Korean pop brand Exo and Chinese born Malaysian singer Cao Ge who have established their own areas in the application to have an interaction and engagement with their own followers.

Alibaba music was created in 2015 under the online retailer’s plans to expand into the digital entertainment industry. Besides the integration of Xiami and TTpod streaming applications, the Hangzhou based organization hired many music-industry experts to run the unit, including famous talk show host, songwriter and film director Gao Xiaosong to work as chairman, Song Ke, who is a prominent music executive as its CEO and well-known host at Hunan TV as its Chief Content officer.

The unit is owner of a large number of copyrights to provide support to its album downloads and subscription streaming facility.

 

Tesla Admits Incompetence Behind Sluggish Sales Growth

Tesla concedes that its hubris and lack of capability has contributed to its slow sales growth

Tesla Motors said its first-quarter global sales grew to 14,820 automobiles, up by half over a year ago but crimped due to supply shortages and, what the automaker stated, its own “hubris”.

The electric vehicle manufacturer had forecasted deliveries of 16,000 units in the year’s first quarter, a figure little less than the 17,400 vehicles sold in the past three months. The company does not reveal sales figures region-wise.

In the first quarter of the year, Tesla said it delivered 2400 Model X SUVs and 12,420 Model S vehicles. It blamed trouble in producing the automobile due to its own “hubris in adding far too much new technology to the Model X in version 1.”

It lacked enough in-house ability to manufacture some auto parts, the organization told. Yet, it produced 750 Model X vehicles weekly, by late March, which is approximately its full capacity. In addition, Tesla said it would maintain its forecasted figure between 80,000 and 90,000 EV deliveries in the upcoming year.

The sales of Tesla have been growing as it enters new auto markets and adds to its manufacturing capability. It delivered only over 50,000 automobiles last year. It revealed in the first quarter of the year that new orders surpassed the vehicles sold by a “wide margin”.

The report came days after the automaker began taking reservations for Model 3, a compact car with a 215-mile range on a single charge that provides seating to five people. According to Bloomberg, the mass-market car is also capable of running more than 215 miles on a single charge.

Through, March 2, 2016, the company had logged reservations of 276,000 units of Model 3, each reserved with a refundable deposit of $1000. The interest in Model 3 shows a robust demand for the company’s car that currently is inhibited by the costly price of its present offerings, which are offered at a starting price of $76,000 and often offered for over $100,000 with its options.

Reservations for the upcoming Model 3 lifted the shares to a 7-month high, reaching 4% at price of $246.99 at 4 p.m. On February 9, the organization’s share trading ended at $142.32. After the release of the sales report, its stock fell by 2.4% in trading done after the closure of the regular stock market on NASDAQ.

Sydney Morning Herald reported the company is challenged by rival automakers, which are ready to enter the EV market. It is facing supply-side problems. Washington Post claimed that it now looks to achieve what everyone has failed to achieve – deliver electric vehicles to the masses.

It could be said that by accepting its mistake, Tesla would be able to enhance its image in the competitive industry.

 

Chevy Bolt Threatens Tesla Model 3 With Low Price

Tesla Motors needs to compete with Chevy Bolt to dominate the competitive auto-market as both electric vehicles are low priced

Forget about old fights fought between Ford and Chevrolet or Toyota Motors and Honda. The wars between Tesla and GM are becoming nastier. Both automakers will soon move after the customers who can pay a sum or $30,000 or greater on an electric vehicle, as GM unveils its electric car Chevy Bolt in late 2016 and Tesla starts delivering Model 3 next year.

In January, GM exhibited Bolt, while Tesla will launch its Model 3 on March 31. The Michigan-based company positions Chevy Bolt to deliver to a large number of people, which will allow the organization to meet regulatory targets for required zero-emission car sales, and to point out technology made by GM with its first EV, the EV1, launched 19 years ago.

When GM stopped producing EV1in 2002, Toyota turned into darling of environment–friendly purchasers by launching its Prius Hybrid. In the meantime, Tesla looks to its Model 3 to help it prove that it can deliver battery-powered cars to the mass market and earn a profit.

Both vehicles will be offered at a starting price of $30,000 or less after federal tax credits worth $7500 are provided. Both have a range of 200 miles on a 321.869 km with their fully charged batteries.

The Chevy is a 5-passenger hatchback that has more legroom and boasts cargo area for rear passengers – front-seat backs are one inch thinner compared to those in most vehicles. The Californian organization has hidden details, but the low-priced Model 3 will probably be around the size of the German BMW 3 Series.

In January, CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra described the virtues of Bolt at the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas by stating, “Bolt customers won’t have to drive to another state to buy, service, or support their vehicle.”

Tesla owners outside California should sometimes drive long distances for repairs and maintenance, the EV maker has less than 100 stores across the nation, while Bolt has 3000 dealerships. In February, CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk said he welcomes GM’s new car to the auto-market, but does not view it as a competitor.

“You should think of the Model 3 as sort of really competing in kind of the BMW 3 Series or Audi A4 market,” he said. Elon successfully aimed at luxury carmakers such as BMW, Porsche and even Audi, with its Model S, the first full-size electric vehicle of Elon Musk’s company, which was brought to the streets of the US 4 years ago.

It now begins at around $75,000 and can go well ahead of $100,000. Chevy will promote Bolt on its practical features and value. “Frivolous gadgets” would not cut it, states an official of GM, Darin Gesse.