Tesla’s HUGE Advantage No One Is Talking About. Take A Look | Elon’s 8x Factor?”- Today we’re getting into the latest Tesla news including video calling in Teslas, a new Tesla recall, Tesla beating Toyota, and more, so let’s get into it, Tesla is facing another recall.
As always, recalls are very important and ensure that everyone’s cars are safe, but the majority of headlines leave out any context for Tesla’s fixes. We also seem to hear more about Tesla recalls than any other company.
In many people’s minds, a recall means a car has to be “recalled” by the manufacturer, so when they see that “Tesla recalls more than 40,000 US cars over the possible loss of power steering”, it sounds bad.
Tesla Advantages
Again, this issue is important to be fixed, but as we see with Tesla all the time, “The recall requires a software update that’s pushed to the cars over the air.”. It’s automatically pushed to owners.
Not only that, but as of November 1st, around a week before this recall was announced “97% of the recalled vehicles have installed a new update that addresses the issue, and no further action is necessary from those owners.”.
Tesla identified 314 vehicles with the problem originally, and the recall affects 40,165 2017-2021 Model S and X vehicles that could have experienced the loss of power steering assist. NHTSA said “Reduced or lost power steering assist does not affect steering control, but could require greater steering effort from the driver, particularly at low speeds”.
Reportedly, an October firmware release is what caused the issue, when driving over bumped roads and potholes. “The problem began when Tesla rolled out an update for a new calibration value for their electronic power assist steering system only to have alerts about the update a week later, according to the NHTSA.”.
This particular recall does demonstrate both sides of a software focus. It’s great to receive regular updates, get improvements, and be able to have recalls fixed with no action from owners, but this issue was caused by a bug in a software update pushed to Teslas vehicles.
Next up today, many Tesla shareholders are upset with Elon Musk and his Twitter purchase, mainly because of how it’s affecting Tesla. This time, Tesla officially disclosed that Elon Musk sold another $3.9 billion worth of Tesla shares that he is almost guaranteed to be used to finance his Twitter acquisition.
Elon has always talked about being the last one out of Tesla stock, but in August he sold $6.9 billion of it to cover his Twitter purchase. When asked if he was done selling he said “Yes.
In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock.”.
Well, it appears he had to sell more anyway, selling another 20 million shares, worth nearly 4 billion dollars, and most attribute this to Tesla’s stock dropping a lot in recent weeks.
My personal view on this is that it’s not great for the time being, and very frustrating, but will end up blowing over the long term. Tesla is set up well and executing well, especially on production, without Elon.
We’re in the midst of him trying to make sweeping changes at Twitter, while also having to pay for his purchase, and most of his money is in Tesla. One way or another, if he tries to do something big like this outside of Tesla, it has to affect them in some way.
Tesla And Zoom Partnership?
The main thing I’m curious about is how it affects Tesla’s reputation, and consumers wanting to buy their brand. Next up today, Tesla and Zoom have officially announced a partnership for in-vehicle video conferencing.
Over the years, we’ve seen Tesla add many features in software updates, and sometimes these include games. Disney+ was a notable addition to Teslas in recent years, and ultimately, Tesla is only really limited by the hardware in their cars.
At Zoom’s Zoomtopia event yesterday, a spokesperson said “I can confirm that the Zoom integration for Tesla will be available on all new Tesla models soon.”, and a video demo of what this would look like was shared. For now, it seems to be a mockup of what it will be, but it will be using the interior camera which, until now, Tesla owners haven’t had access to.
It’s only used for driver monitoring right now but has been included in the Model 3, and Y since launch. The refreshed Model S and X added these as well. That means all of those cars should be able to get this functionality when it’s released.
In the past, Tesla has hinted at this feature coming to their cars and now it is confirmed. You’ll be able to click on the zoom link directly from your calendar, synced to your car, and it will open in the car. The big unknown here is how well this will work.
It could be nice to be at a supercharger or other location for a zoom meeting and have the call off of your phone or laptop, but the connection may not be the best in a Tesla. It’s cool to see, and definitely could come in handy, but I imagine most people will end up using their normal devices in their car to take the call.
We’ll see what this looks like in practice, and when it will come. So far, there’s no news on a release date, but regardless of this particular integration, this does look good for the future of software features and partnerships coming to Teslas.
Tesla tends to shy away from partnering with big companies if they can, but here, they’re directly partnering with the biggest name in video conferencing. Elon Musk has also talked a lot about Tesla integrating Steam to allow thousands of gaming options in Teslas.
At a certain point, Tesla is going to be working on developing these apps with companies, and finally, find it much more useful to just make a Tesla app store in the vehicle. That way companies can make their own, optimized apps for Teslas, and then Tesla can be much less involved in the development process.
There have been many rumors of Tesla working on this. Here’s a great mockup of what this could look like in a vehicle. Elon Musk has continually reiterated “Tesla is as much a software company as it is a hardware company, both in the car and in the factory.
This is not widely understood.”. With their software platform and continual shipping of millions of cars on it, it’s going to make sense to dive further in this direction. Ultimately as well, if Tesla can achieve self-driving at a level where driver attention is no longer necessary, this will become even more useful as your main 15-inch touchscreen can be used for a wide variety of apps from developers.
I think that last part is a ways off, but an app store would be very useful before this. I also think it would lead to better software experiences for things that Tesla has integrated, but has not been able to regularly focus on, like their web browser.
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Fantastik V9 Mate
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It also has an intelligent digital display that you can use to easily switch between high and low gear. Both vacuums can be maneuvered easily under, over, and in between your seats, with attachments made specifically for vehicles.
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Their cars are priced high, and in some ways, this is due to supply issues and the cost of batteries. At the same time though, Tesla’s profit margins are the best in the industry, so much so that Tesla is now earning 8 times more per car than Toyota.
This comes from data showing Tesla’s reported $3.29 Billion in net profit last quarter, compared with Toyota’s roughly $3.15 billion. Tesla beat Toyota here, but Toyota delivered more than 7 times as many cars as Tesla did at the same time.
For context here, they do mention that for Toyota “The automaker is currently shouldering increased material and electricity costs for its suppliers”, so that hurt their profitability, but at the same time “Tesla has become one of the most profitable automakers in the world”. This article calculates Toyota makes around $1200 per car, while Tesla makes $9,570.
Even with companies making EVs, Tesla’s profitability, and head start with EV production is continuing to prove difficult for brands to catch. Ford is in the process of refining its dealer strategy, diving into three divisions. There is Ford Blue for ICE vehicles, Ford Pro for commercial vehicles, and Ford Model E for battery electric vehicles. After dealer pushback, Ford has delayed the deadline for dealers to decide.
One big pushback is Ford’s new requirement that dealers institute no haggle pricing. Customers will only be charged the sum they agreed in writing to pay on day one, in an attempt to get rid of dealer markups that frustrate many and drive them to brands like Tesla with surprise markups.
At the same time, Ford’s CEO is asking dealers to cut up to $2000 from the cost of delivering EVs to customers. Ultimately, this is directly to compete with Tesla’s model, because Tesla continues to beat everyone’s profit margins.
This is largely because they’re vertically integrated, and Ford is now trying to do the same thing in other ways. Ford’s electrification chief Doug Field shared recent thoughts on bottlenecks that could be faced by EVs today.
His main ones are inadequate charging networks and limited availability of raw materials. “The companies that go very, very far upstream, capture the materials years ahead of time, lock them up and build a clear strategy around the battery supply chain will win.
This type of change is going to push companies to vertically integrate into ways that they haven’t been used to in many, many decades”. Essentially, this is the strategy that Tesla is already doing. We’re seeing companies back off on Tesla criticism, and use Tesla as a model for their future vehicle plans. Last up today, some updates about other Automakers.
Porsche announced that they have produced their 100,000th Taycan electric car. Porsche said “On 7 November, the 100,000th Taycan rolled off the production line. The milestone car left the assembly line about three years after production first started at the main plant in Zuffenhausen in September 2019. The Neptune Blue Taycan Turbo S is destined for a customer in the United Kingdom.”.
The Taycan is taking off, and proving to be a large portion of Porsche’s sales. “Porsche delivered just over 300,000 vehicles globally last year, and 41,296 of them were the all-electric Taycan, which even sold more globally than the Porsche 911 last year.
As a result of these sales, Porsche has pushed up their electrification goals, saying they plan for 50% of its sales to be electric in 2025. 80% electric in 2030. Right now, the Taycan is most popular in the US, China, and UK/Ireland. Great to see this car doing so well.
It’s a solid product and is proving to help out Porsche’s future. Over at Volvo, they officially unveiled their EX90. This is their follow-up to the XC90 SUV and makes a lot of great changes. It brings a range of up to 300 miles per charge, and a starting price under $80,000.
Dual Motor All Wheel Drive Powertrain
The first version of this car will come with a dual motor all-wheel drive powertrain, a 111kWh battery, a 0-60 in 4.7 seconds which beats the stock Model Y, and it will be able to do bidirectional charging. Especially for its size, that’s an impressive range on that battery pack and a big improvement over previous years.
They say it can be recharged from 0-80% in 30 minutes. For driver assist, they call it to ride pilot, and it utilizes LiDar. They say their system can see 250 meters ahead in complete darkness, and that it also includes 16 ultrasonic sensors, 8 cameras, and 5 radar systems standard.
All of this, along with the vehicle design itself contributes to this SUV being the safest vehicle Volvo has produced. Those sensors are in stark contrast to Teslas which now only include cameras. The big upgrade here is that it will run on NVIDIA’s drive computing platform, processing sensor data to power that advanced driver assists system.
For infotainment as well, they’re using Qualcomm’s snapdragon cockpit platform. Volvo says this will provide “lightning-fast computing power and high-quality graphics on the in-car screens and head-up display.”. As far as controls, the EX90 is going very much in Tesla’s direction, but with fewer physical controls. This should enter production in 2023, and looks to be a great premium SUV offering.
We’ll see how it competes for pricing, and overall premium features when it launches. It’s a large, 7-seater SUV, but Volvo plans to have other, more compact vehicles built on this same platform. Audi unveiled their remained Audi Q8 e-Tron.
This is the 2023 version and brings a lot of improvements. The battery pack is larger, 114kWh, up from 95kWh previously, and that brings a 300+ mile range. It also includes 170kW charging speeds which should allow it to charge from 10-80 percent in as little as 31 minutes.
It’s also more efficient than before and includes standard air suspension with up to 3 inches of travel there, there’s revised tuning for the air springs, and an updated steering ratio. Matrix LEF headlights are included but exclusive to Europe for the time being due to regulation, and the interior has two main touchscreens integrated into the dash.
Pricing has yet to be released for the US, but it is expected to arrive in the US in mid-2023. The car and driver estimate it to keep its current price of $71,995. At that pricing, it will surely be competitive with what it delivers. Other specs include a dual motor setup, a top speed of 130mph in the sport model, 0-60 in 4.5 seconds in the sport model, and more.
Glad to see companies improving their electric offerings in these ways, and particularly increasing range. Multiple electric SUVs becoming available with 300-mile ranges is great to see. On the more affordable side of things, Kia announced that they are dropping their base “light” trim level for the EV6 in 2023. This means that the “Wind” trim at $48,500 is now the base price.
Ultimately that means the cheapest EV6 is now $7100 more than it was in 2022. The version they are getting rid of had a 232-mile EPA range, so the base model is 310 miles of range, of 274 miles with the all-wheel drive version. For this change, a Kia spokesperson said “With strong sales and continued customer demand, the Wind RWD becomes the base EV6 for the 2023 model year, replacing the Light RWD.
With just a $1,000 MSRP increase from last year, its greater range and sought-after standard features – leather seating surfaces with ventilated front seats, external and internal vehicle-to-load ports, a smart power liftgate, and a Meridian premium audio system – ensures the Wind RWD offers tremendous value for discerning EV buyers.”.
The bigger impact here for Kia will be that with the EV6 no longer qualifying for a tax credit in 2023, the base model for many will have gone up over $14,000. That’s a bit of change, but there are efforts to try and change this legislation. Over at BMW, they just released the i7.
It’s an impressive vehicle, but very expensive. The majority of people are interested in more affordable EVs, something BMW isn’t known for. However, BMW has said they aren’t going to abandon this segment. BMW’s CEO said this week “We are not leaving the lower market segment.
Even if you consider yourself a premium manufacturer, it is wrong to leave the lower market segment – that will be the core of your business in the future.”. This is a big contrast to Mercedes’ plans, where they want 3/4ths of their investments to go to top-end and luxury segments.
BMW is truly beginning to dive into EVs, with recent manufacturing and battery manufacturing investments, so this could look good for the future. I’m excited to see what vehicle BMW can bring in the future. As always, it’s great to see these electric offerings.
Competition is awesome, and many of these cars will be competitive options to Tesla’s offerings, but what are these companies planning for charging infrastructure? So far, nothing. All of these vehicles will be reliant on networks like Electrify America. Once these cars truly scale, the effects of this will be seen, and hopefully, we’ll see brands investing in charging infrastructure.
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Informations Source:-Ryan Shaw