Elon Musk Just Revealed NEW Tesla Model 4!:- One of the big draws for electric vehicles is their reduced maintenance cost. In 2021, Hertz decided to give Teslas a try for their rental fleet, ordering 100,000 Model 3’s.
Later, they began adding Model Y’s after the Model 3’s were reportedly renting very well. Overall, the results for Hertz have been great. In August, Hertz reported that Tesla vehicles were increasing customer satisfaction as a whole at the company, and allowing them to rent more frequently at premium rates.
In September, they said, “We’re seeing demand not just among leisure travelers but also among corporate travelers, where in fact corporations want their employees in an electric vehicle to satisfy some of their carbon footprint objectives.”
They reported very solid demand, and also reported lower maintenance costs. In August, Hertz revealed that “the cost of maintaining its newer Tesla EV fleet is 50-60 percent below their ICE fleet.”
They do note that one area that has increased expense is tires. “Tyres were slightly more expensive on the Tesla EVs compared to other ICE cars in the fleet according to Hertz leadership team.
That’s not surprising as Tesla uses high-quality tires with acoustic treatment for lower road noise in the cabin.”. They note that the increase isn’t excessive though, and the increased uptime, along with lower costs from lack of maintenance are huge improvements.
Now, as of January 2023, Hertz not only has seen reduced costs but has seen profits grow. Since investing in electric vehicles, their yearly profits have increased by 12%.
Their CEO noted, “We focused on operational excellence and fleet optimization to produce financial results that facilitated investment in our strategic priorities, like electrification, while enhancing returns to our shareholders and being in the service of our customers.”.
Hertz plans to further invest in electrification through Tesla, Polestar, and GM electric vehicles and wants to be seen as the leader among rental giants for EVs. Next up today is an interesting development in the US for Tesla and Elon’s role. We’re seeing the first signs of Elon’s responsibilities as CEO being reduced.
It’s a small change, but it could signal the beginning of a shift. Tesla’s president in China is Tom Zhu. He has led Tesla’s massive success in china, particularly at Giga Shanghai, and recent rumors stated that he would soon become Tesla’s CEO, replacing Elon Musk.
Later, these reports changed, saying that he would be given a larger role at Tesla. Reports said he was being groomed for a bigger role, especially when he was brought in to troubleshoot production issues in North America, specifically at Giga Texas.
When Tesla posted about their recent accomplishment of 3000 Model Y’s built per week at Giga Texas, Zhu is part of this photo. Now, in a big move for Tesla, Zhu has been promoted “to take direct oversight of the electric carmaker’s U.S. assembly plants as well as sales operations in North America and Europe”.
This promotion makes Zhu the highest-profile executive at Tesla, just after Elon Musk. He now has direct oversight for deliveries in all of Tesla’s major markets along with “operations of its key production hubs.”
These are roles that Elon oversaw personally in the past. According to Electrek, Troy Jones, Tesla’s vice president of North American sales and service has been with the company for 12 years.
He has reported directly to Elon Musk, and now will be reporting directly to Zhu. This is the first sign we’ve seen of Elon’s role being reduced as CEO. At the very least, some of his responsibilities are being assigned elsewhere.
He has had direct oversight over much of the company, but after Zhu’s success in China, this move appears to make sense for Tesla. It could also make sense as many view Elon’s Twitter acquisition as a distraction.
For the first time as well, they are planning to “keep Tesla’s vehicle design and development – both areas where Musk has been heavily involved – separate while creating an apparent deputy to Musk on the more near-term challenges of managing global sales and output.”.
So Elon Musk will very much still be on the engineering side of things, where he has said he prefers to work. In November of 2022, Elon said “At SpaceX, it’s really that I’m responsible for the engineering of the rockets and Tesla for the technology in the car that makes it successful.
So, CEO is often viewed as somewhat of a business-focused role but in reality, my role is much more that of an engineer developing technology and making sure that we develop breakthrough technologies and that we have a team of incredible engineers who can achieve those goals.
It’s my experience that great engineers will only work for a great engineer. That is my first duty, not that of the CEO.”. So Elon’s main focus as he laid out here, will remain, and they’ll have Tom Zhu overseeing the other pieces.
The Tesla managers now reporting to Zhu include Tesla’s director of manufacturing at Giga Texas, their director of manufacturing at Fremont, vice president in charge of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and their vice president of North American sales and service as noted earlier.
Those who previously reported to Zhu, including country managers in China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand will continue reporting to him. It’s unclear right now where he will be located, and if he plans to stay in China or move to the US for this role.
It would seem that Giga Shanghai has grown incredibly well, and may be able to keep growing with him focused on Tesla’s US factories, but we’ll see how this develops.
The only factor he doesn’t oversee is Giga Berlin, for the time being. He is taking over these big roles right as Tesla is ramping up the Model Y in Texas, and planning to build the Cybertruck, so it’s a very big shift, and one many have wanted since Elon’s Twitter acquisition.
This will be very interesting to watch develop. It could be a very smart move for Tesla regardless of any Elon distraction, and it very would have been in planning before his Twitter acquisition.
What are your thoughts about this change though? Do you think this makes sense? Is it the first of many moves where Elon’s role will be reduced at Tesla? Leave a comment below to let me know your thoughts.
Next up today, some big news for Tesla that could signal their entry into electric planes, boats, and more. Tesla officially filed a trademark last week. It’s for the name “Tesla” but it extends the trademark to a new category, marketing electric motors “not for land vehicles”.
“TESLA™ trademark registration is intended to cover the categories of asynchronous motors not for land vehicles; Motors for airplanes; Motors, namely, synchronous motors not for land vehicles; Permanent magnet motors; Boat motors; Drive system having two or more synchronous motors coupled through clutches to drive a common load; Electric motors for toys; Linear motors.”.
Tesla specifies that they don’t currently use this trademark, but, they intend to use it in the future. Elon Musk has talked about electric planes for some time now. In response to the question, if planes can fly off of a battery, Elon said “Yes, but still a bit too limited on the range.
That will change in coming years as battery energy density improves.”. He also has said he’s dying to do a supersonic electric VOTL jet and has even said he has a design for a plane, so this could be what Tesla HOLD UP RYAN REAL QUICK, uh it turns out this whole thing isn’t quite what it seems.
While this trademark did happen, it was filed by a Tesla fan, on behalf of Tesla. Tesla had no knowledge that this was taking place. As for the fan who filed this trademark, “he intended to help the company by applying proactively after Elon Musk said its Cybertruck may be usable as a boat.
Eady said he has no affiliation with Tesla and the filing was made without the company’s knowledge.”. So as much as this is fun to hear about, and technically Tesla is now covered for trademarks in these areas…it’s not a sign that Tesla intends to make products in these areas anytime soon.
Tesla has been fined $2.2 million by the Korea fair trade commission for false advertising regarding range. Last year, KFTC announced that they were weighing penalties for Tesla overstating the range of their vehicles.
Korea uses the WLTP standard, and Tesla uses this there. This standard has been known to be exaggerated compared to the real world, with EPA being more accurate, but the main issue and reason Tesla was fined had to do with the range drop in cold weather.
“Now, the KFTC has announced that it is imposing a 2.85 billion won ($2.2 million) fine on Tesla for not clearly stating that its range might drop significantly in cold weather.”
In response to this fine, Tesla has added new fine print beneath the initially listed specs of a vehicle. It says “Performance and mileage may vary by model. The displayed drivable distance may vary depending on external factors such as speed, weather conditions, and road conditions.”.
This is interesting to see and one of the first times we’ve seen this type of communication enforced. It is well known that EVs get less range in cold weather. “More energy needs to go to the conditioning of the battery pack, and of course, the car also needs to heat the cabin.”.
This is something that isn’t well communicated by any EV manufacturer, including Tesla. I’m not sure how much this fine print truly tells you, but it at least warns you that the range can be affected by different factors.
I think the best way to know about this is to find some real-world testing on EVs and see what people’s real-world experience is like. Next up today, we’re finally getting some clarification from the IRS on why the 5-seater Tesla Model Y, certain Mustang Mach-E’s, the Cadillac Lyriq, and others are not eligible for any tax credit.
The inconsistencies are extremely confusing and lead to many fully electric vehicles being capable of receiving no tax credit, while several plug-in hybrid gas vehicles can get $7500 off.
An SUV should have an MSRP cap of $80,000, which would qualify cars like the Cadillac Lyriq or Model Y, but they’re being given a cap of $55,000, classifying them as a sedan, and disqualifying them from any credit.
The IRS is defining an SUV only by the vehicle’s Gross vehicle weight rating. In this case, it appears to need to be over 6000 pounds to be considered an SUV. There could be other aspects here, but this has begun answering some questions, and it’s frustrating.
The goal of this tax credit is to encourage the sale of efficient vehicles. An efficient vehicle is typically lightweight, but an efficient SUV is being punished in this case.
If Tesla had made the Model Y less efficient, requiring more batteries to get the same range, it would qualify for a $7500 credit here. As Elon Musk said,, “Penalized for making our SUV too mass-efficient? That is bizarre”.
According to electric, several SUVs have less cargo space than the Tesla Model Y and Ford Mustang Mach-E that are considered SUVs in the program, like the BMW X5 plug-in and Jeep Wrangler plug-in.”.
It just doesn’t work as a rule to classify these vehicles, but now the government is taking public comment on the rule. I’ll link it below if you’d like to submit a comment. In addition, there’s a petition to fix the inflation reduction act EV tax credit, already with about 25,000 signatures at the time.
This petition explains it well and urges that we should remove incentives for hybrids, and make SUV rules apply fairly, and consistently. The thing that’s so important here is that this isn’t just about Tesla.
Tesla does not appear to be targeted here as people think they are. Efficient electric SUVs are being targeted and punished for weighing less than other less-efficient SUVs that are worse for the environment.
As the guidelines are right now, they go directly against what the bill is trying to accomplish, and they disqualify great electric SUVs from several brands. VW, Ford, Tesla, and GM are all dealing with this.
Unless these rules change, soon enough we could see no electric vehicles even qualify for these credits. As more companies achieve better efficiency in the future, can reduce batteries,, and reduce vehicle weight, they’ll all be disqualified, leaving only large, inefficient plug-in hybrids eligible for an EV tax credit.
Hopefully,, these comments and petitions can get something done because right now, this does now accomplish what it should. One change for this new tax credit though is the ability to get a credit on a used EV.
The requirements there are incredibly strict, with a price cap of $25,000, but recurrent auto has made a “Used EV Tax Credit Guide and Eligibility” page. You can enter the VIN of the car you want to buy, and see if it will be eligible.
We’ve seen consistent Tesla price increases over the past few years. Many factors, including the impending tax credit, led to Tesla offering up to a $7500 credit at the end of 2022 to encourage delivery, so we may be on the cusp of finally seeing some price decreases.
However, an interesting article from Bloomberg seems to have finally figured out Tesla’s pricing strategy in a more general way, at least for the Model 3. “If you want to predict how much Tesla’s cheapest car will cost at any given time, you just have to know one thing: the average price paid for a new vehicle in the US.
Only $300 or so separates the two figures, on average.”. According to analysts looking at pricing data back from 2017 to now, the Model 3 has been consistent.
Tesla touted a $35,000 Model 3 price when it would first launch, and that was at a time when the average price of a vehicle in the US was $34,944. Today the Model 3 starts at $46,990, compared with the $47,692 US average.
Their chart of “The secret to Tesla’s vehicle pricing” shows the correlation between the cheapest Model 3, Cheapest Model Y, and the average new-vehicle price in the US.
A big way Tesla can do this is because they don’t use dealers. They have full control of pricing from A-Z and can match pricing in this way. Dealers on the other hand are offering discounts, charging fees, and more making it more complicated.
So far, Tesla has been starting their offerings at the average vehicle selling price in the US, but going forward, they’ll have a few different categories. The first is the Cybertruck.
They announced this truck starting at $39,900, but clearly, it’s going to come in higher than this, especially when it first launches with the highest trim. One clue into pricing however could be the average transaction price of a pickup truck in the US.
In June, this was $60,289, and today Bloomberg says it’s over $56,000. Following this same strategy, we could very well see the Cybertruck base model in this range.
They’re selling for the average, and likely will only lower prices once demand requires them to do so, and production costs are lower. Next up today, Tesla has signed an updated agreement to secure lithium supply from Piedmont Lithium.
We see these agreements come in every few months as Tesla is always looking into the future and securing as much battery supply as they can. To do so, they need to secure the raw materials, sometimes for suppliers, but also for themselves making 4680 cells at multiple future locations.
What’s interesting about this deal is that Tesla deals with established mining companies, but also smaller companies. Piedmont Lithium is a smaller company for that Tesla has signed an off-take agreement, and this helps smaller companies to raise money and build mining projects.
This new agreement says “Piedmont and Tesla have mutually agreed to amend their previous offtake agreement with the terms of this new agreement, which are binding for a three-year term and include an option to renew for another three years.
Under the amended agreement, Piedmont has agreed to deliver approximately 125,000 metric tons of SC6 to Tesla beginning in H2 2023 through the end of 2025.”.
Piedmont’s CEO added “This agreement helps to ensure that these critical resources from Quebec remain in North America and support the mission of the Inflation Reduction Act to bolster the U.S. supply chain, the clean energy economy, and global decarbonization.”
This is just one of many supply deals we’ll see, and it’s interesting to see Tesla building up other smaller companies along with the big ones. Last up today, some updates about other automakers.
Chevy has increased the price of the Bolt EV and EUV for the first time in a long time. Last year we saw price decreases on these cars, but now they have increased them by a very small amount.
The Bolt is up $900, and the EUV is up $600. Both cars are eligible for the full $7500 tax credit, so the price increase could be easily negated for many customers. As for future increases, GM said they have “nothing planned beyond what we’ve announced”.
At CES this week, VW rebranded the ID. Aero as the ID.7. The prototype is on display, and it’s fitting into the premium sedan space. It’s expected to have a range in the mid to high 300s EPA and includes several premium features like a 15-inch center touchscreen, digitally controlled vents, augmented reality heads-up display, illuminated touch sliders, and more.
This is one of 10 new EVs VW plans to launch by 2026, and VW plans to unveil the production version in Q2 of this year. For Rivian, they officially released Q4 production and delivery numbers, falling just short of their 25,000 vehicle goal.
They produced 10,020 vehicles in Q4, and delivered 8,054 closing out the year producing 24,337 vehicles, and delivering 20,332 of them.
This misses their target by 663 units, which is a very small miss. “Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe told Rivian employees in an internal email that there are 714 vehicles “currently being factory gated,” which means they have left the general assembly line but are “awaiting parts, software validation, wheel alignment, up fits and charging,” and thus do not count as being finished vehicles.
This means that a total of 25,051 came “off the line” in 2022, but as these were not finished vehicles, they don’t count against the 25k metric”.
This is a 24x increase over Rivian’s 2021 production and looks good overall for their future. They still have a lot of hard work ahead to get to profitable EVs, but I’m rooting for them.
—————————————————————————–
Thanks for reading till the end. Comment what’s your opinion about this information “Elon Musk Just Revealed NEW Tesla Model 4!”
Read More:-
- Elon Musk Announces 5 NEW Tesla For 2023
- SpaceX has Shocked The Entire World! 3 Rocket Launch in One Day
- BREAKING: HBO Fires “Toxic” Kathy Griffin After Call From Elon Musk
- Elon Musk is planning to sell usernames of Twitter accounts, But Why
Information Source:-Ryan Shaw
1 thought on “Elon Musk Just Revealed NEW Tesla Model 4!”