Today on Bloomberg News, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, ever the space junkie, described the new 100-strong Tesla supercharger network like this: “it will feel like alien spaceships landed at highway rest stops….a beacon of hope and inspiration.”
Tesla announced details of its superchargers network on Monday September 24th.
The new fast chargers will boost the existing west coast network that enables EV drivers to journey from Canada to Mexico using slower level 2 chargers. Meanwhile, terrestrial Tesla spokesperson Christina Ra shared more mundane details of the company’s new supercharger network during our recent test drive of the Model S.
“It’s intented to solve the conundrum of the road trip, long distance travel,” said Ra. “So we will have superchargers along frequently traveled roadways, for example between LA and San Francisco, to enable charging during road trips.”
It is anticipated these fast chargers will be located at Harris Ranch, Coalinga (for the LA/San Francisco travelers) as well as dozens of other locations like Tesla, Newport Beach to connect popular Tesla centers across the country.
Power Nap?
Tesla is eager to emphasize the speed and convenience of these super chargers, but let’s face it, no matter how cosmic, the experience won’t be as rapid as a five-minute pit stop at the gas pump.
“It doesn’t really modify your behavior,” says Ra. “It takes about a half hour to replenish 150-160 miles of range.”
Fresh Dialogues asked: Time for a cuppa coffee or a perhaps short nap? Indeed. The practice might add a whole new dimension to the term power nap.
Ever the pragmatist, Ra confirmed, “Time for lunch…bathroom break.”
Three intrepid Model S drivers just completed the first coast to coast drive, from San Francisco to D.C. Perhaps they can test drive some of the new superchargers on the return leg?
Click here for live video and full details of the Tesla superchargers network on Monday September 24th, 8pm (or beyond).
Tesla Motors released its first batch of all electric Model S sedans today. The cars are actually built – not just assembled – at the Tesla Factory in high priced Silicon Valley. The company’s CEO, Elon Musk, says he’s creating “the greatest car company of the 21st Century,” yet despite the hoopla, Tesla is one of the most shorted stocks on the Nasdaq. Will this ambitious entrepreneur – who led the successful SpaceX mission to the international space station last month – prove detractors wrong again?
I visited the factory on June 14 and Gilbert Passin, VP of Manufacturing at Tesla gave me a fascinating two hour tour. He explained the process of making a Model S, from the stamping shop, where huge hydraulic press machines stamp sheets of aluminum into 3-dimensional fenders, hood panels, doors, and roofs; to the quality testing where the paint work is meticulously checked and recycled water is used to test each model’s watertightness.
At the stamping shop, Passin says, “These parts are extremely critical because it’s like the foundation of what makes a good car…See the robot is actually picking up the part in slow motion to make sure that everything works well…you don’t want anything to break.”
Shiny red robots and red T-shirt clad employees work hard at the factory: stamping, assembling, welding, painting and testing. The release of the first ten Model S Sedans is a big milestone for this innovative company. We talk to Charles James Lambert, who is a team leader working on the stylish and unique door handles Tesla manufactures at the factory. “I’m building a door handle that’s going on something fabulous to me: the model S…so sexy to me, the car, right?” he says. “That we have a door handle that responds. It’s pure elegance to me.”
Steve Jurvetson, a Tesla board member, snagged the very first prelaunch Model S (Elon Musk had to wait for number 2) and raves about it with the wide-eyed glee of a teenager describing his first set of wheels. “It’s kind of like driving in a hyper space portal to the future…” says Jurvetson.
Yet this futuristic car, that accelerates 0-60 in 4.4 seconds, does so in a whisper, not a roar. Jurvetson argues that silent is better. “It’s like saying I sleep better when there’s industrial noise going on outside my house, really?” he says and suggests that for drivers who miss the roar of an internal combustion engine, downloadable sounds might be the answer… “People can make it sound like whatever you want. You know, Harley Davidson: “huff pwuffpwuff pwuff.” Fine…just dial it up…blast your ears out…who cares?” he says.
Jurvetson, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, sincerely believes that all vehicles will be electric one day and Tesla will lead the way. “I love what it represents: emblem of the future and a symbolic step towards a oil-free economy.”
The Model S is phase two of Elon Musk’s masterplan to disrupt the car industry and create efficient sustainable transportation. In 2008, Tesla released the Roadster, a high-end electric sports car priced at over$100,000. With the Model S, Tesla has made a more affordable car, and a year or two after its Model X comes out in 2013, aims to produce a 3rd generation model for $30,000. An electric car “for the masses.” Tesla has already catalyzed an industry shift. Today most major car companies are releasing electric or hybrid models. “Even some of the biggest competitors – the gas burning giants of the past – have admitted that they kicked off their electric vehicle program because they saw what Tesla did,” says Jurvetson. “Management said: this little company in CA is doing it, why can’t we?”
Tesla may be a trailblazer, but it faces a bumpy road ahead. Those shorting the stock (betting that the stock will fall in value on the Nasdaq) have a bearish reaction to Tesla’s high debt levels, tough competition and uncertain prospects for mass-market adoption. But it’s more than just the scrappy startup -the Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)- against the Empire (GM, Ford et al). Damon Lavrinc, Transportation Editor for Wired Magazine explains, “The established players don’t like to be challenged on their own home surf.”
He argues that to succeed, Tesla must address both range anxiety and charging time challenges. Price is also an issue. The 150-mile range car may have a base price of $50,000 after federal rebates. But for the fully loaded 300-mile range model, you’ll pay closer to $100,000. California buyers also get a state rebate ($2500) plus those precious carpool stickers. “Once we can get that price of entry lower, once we can get that battery capacity larger, that’s when it’s really going to take off,” says Damon Lavrinc. So far, Tesla has 10,000 reservations for the Model S and will deliver about half this year, ramping up to 20,000 in 2013, if the orders continue to come.
Experts compare it to the BMW 5 Series, but Tesla’s VP of Manufacturing explains its edge. “We’ll change the world by bringing a product that’s extremely efficient, very clean for theplanet, extremely fast, extremely comfortable…extremely beautiful,” says Passin. But Tesla has to get it right the first time, there’s no room for error.
Back in the Tesla Factory, at the end of our tour, Passin explains, “The car has to be finished, has to be perfect, the people working here know this is the end of the line, so it has to be good.” Although these challenges seem formidable, Elon Musk is attacking them like a true tech superhero, channeling the wild ambition of Steve Jobs and his obsessive search for perfection. Musk reportedly works 80-90 hours a week, splitting his time between Tesla and his space exploration company, SpaceX. Elon Musk was reportedly the inspiration for the Iron Man movies. “He may have superpowers, I don’t know,” says Passin, chuckling.
Last month, Musk proved naysayers wrong with his historic SpaceX Mission to the international space station. Can he do the same for the Electric Vehicle market? So much depends upon the successful launch of the Model S sedan. Damon Lavrinc of Wired Magazine sums up what’s at stake: “It’s not just so much a make or break it for Tesla, it is very much a make or break it for the entire electric vehicle industry.”
What do Elon Musk, SolarCity and Burning Man have in common? The answer is illuminating for those seeking climate friendly solutions to our energy needs.
Elon Musk is well known in Silicon Valley as founder of luxury electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors and SpaceX, the space transport company. But what’s less known is Musk’s contribution to SolarCity, the solar installer and energy efficiency auditor. Not only did Musk inspire the creation of the San Mateo based solar company, but he’s working closely with the founders on a futuristic clean energy storage solution, coupling lithium-ion batteries with rooftop solar power.
When you discover that SolarCity cofounders, Lyndon and Peter Rive and Elon Musk are first cousins, such ambitious collaborations make more sense, but where does the inspiration come from and how does Musk have the time to keep all these projects moving forward? SolarCity’s Lyndon Rive shared some family insights in a recent Fresh Dialogues interview.
Last week, SolarCity company confirmed that it’s working on stage two of a collaboration to couple Tesla lithium-ion storage batteries with SolarCity’s residential and commercial PV solar arrays. Stage one involved $1.8 M funding from the California Public Utilities Commission to fund a research program in 2010. Stage two seeks to commercialize the program on a modest scale, with over 7o applications pending under the California Public Utility Commission’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), which provides incentives for distributed energy generation. The strategy seeks to leverage funding from the federal investment tax credit (ITC) for clean power and subsidies from SGIP, up to 60% of the system cost.
As Chairman of SolarCity, Elon Musk is not involved in the day to day running of the solar company but CEO Lyndon Rive admits that his cousin only contributes “maybe two hours a month” to the company – by phone – and three hours a quarter for board meetings. Not many minutes to have a significant impact on a company, for your average chairman. But Musk appears to have a rare gift for strategy.
“Elon is a phenomenal genius,” says Rive. “So when he gives you the time and you lay out the plan, he can quickly identify the hole in the plan… this is the true definition of quality vs quantity. .. you can fix whatever potential pot-hole you might run into, just in a ten minute discussion with Elon.”
So you can only imagine the ambitious discussions Musk and Rive had in 2004 on a road trip to Burning Man, the weeklong cultural event held annually in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. It was en route that Rive shared his desire to do something that had a larger environmental impact (than enterprise software) and Musk “came up with the initial idea” for SolarCity.
Burning Man has been described as a seven day experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance and culminates in the burning of a wooden effigy. Perhaps it was the profusion of attendees using free standing solar panels to power their RVs; the atmosphere of radical creativity or witnessing all that carbon going into the desert air, but whatever sparked the conversation has had profound impact on the US solar market. SolarCity has the largest share of solar installations in the US and is growing so rapidly, it’s hiring four new employees a day nationally, 10 a month in the Bay Area. Rive’s ambitious goal is world domination in the energy market, no less.
Burning Man may yet become the Mecca for clean tech entrepreneurs as well as the counter culture set; a journey worth emulating for other entrepreneurs seeking clean tech solutions to the world’s energy needs. Past attendees from the business world include Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt.
For more Fresh Dialogues interview with SolarCity click here
Fresh Dialogues is delighted to announce that it is now a regular contributor to KQED’s Climate Watch, a multimedia initiative focusing on climate science and policy issues in California. Fresh Dialogues stories will focus on the intersection of clean tech and climate change.
Here is our first story for the NPR affiliate.
On February 8th, Tesla Motors CEO, Elon Musk, unveiled the company’s latest electric car: The Model X. Probably the sleekest and sexiest SUV you’ve ever seen, and also the priciest. But what’s most remarkable — beyond the falcon wings — is that the car will be manufactured here in the Golden State, at the former NUMMI plant in Fremont.
Why did Tesla choose to locate its headquarters and manufacturing in the high-priced San Francisco Bay Area? Was it linked to the state’s ambitious clean energy targets and policies? The new rules approved last month by the California Air Resources Board require automakers to produce 1.4 million zero-emission cars for the California market by 2025, and are part of the aggressive goal of reducing the state’s emissions 80% by 2050.
Tesla spokesperson Khobi Brooklyn eschewed policy explanations and told me, “We wanted to build our cars in California, not only creating jobs in the U.S., but also California specifically.” She cited Silicon Valley as “an incredibly rich pool of talent” and said that purchasing an existing car manufacturing facility saved money and time in preparing for car production. I’ve no doubt the California sales tax rebates on capital equipment purchasing (estimated at $20 Million) helped too.
California’s Governor Jerry Brown attended the Model X unveiling, and basked in the Tesla limelight. He was obviously delighted to be part of some good news from the Golden State for a change. “We can work our way out of our mess with creativity, openness and the kind of spirit that’s willing to take risks,” he said to the rowdy audience of Tesla groupies.
Three intrepid Model S drivers just completed the first coast to coast drive, from San Francisco to D.C. Perhaps they can test drive some of the new superchargers on the return leg?
