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Hmmm. The angular design has something to do with it. The Cybertruck was designed to look cool first, but with some thought applied to typical pickup aero problems (the tonneau cover eliminates the huge vortex behind the cabin and drag from the tailgate that exists for most pickups). And they...

I’m Prices are up on the website: $79900 for 2-motor awd, $99000 for tri-motor beast mode.

Oh, where to begin . . . if you have space to increase section, low-density materials generally make for better structures than high-density materials, particularly if specific strength is roughly equal -- which it generally is for common engineering metals. So magnesium>aluminum>titanium>steel...

MK Every vehicle company I've worked for or visited (many) buys competitive vehicles for benchmarking, both performance (acceleration, range, NVH etc.) and in construction details. I'd be shocked if Tesla didn't have at least a small fleet of appropriate competitive vehicles, and a small group...

I was wrong: It only has a 4.8 percent improvement in CD, from 0.23 to 0.219. Overall, though, they’re claiming a 12 percent efficiency improvement. Better tires, too, and driveline efficiency improvements. Tesla is apparently splitting the difference: slightly smaller packs AND improved range.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) requires a serial hybrid to have more range on battery than on gas to qualify as a ZEV, thus the tiny gas tank. I was considering buying an i3 REx before the M3 came out, but for my driving (frequent 400 mile trips) the small fuel tank killed the idea...

I agree if the Shanghai Highland Production start tweet is right we should see an announcement within a month. Photos without disguise will leak sooner. As well as economy of production through large cast structures, Highland might see a further aero optimization, eking out perhaps a 5 percent...

Tesla has never had motor disconnect in any of their autos, only the Semi. Instead, in the early cars they used induction motors both front and rear, which, when unpowered, have essentially no cogging losses like PMAC motors do. But PMAC (permanent magnet) motors are generally much more...

Laminated side windows "acoustic glass" have become common in European luxury cars, particularly German ones, for noise reduction reasons. See Use of PVB in Laminated Side Glass for Passenger Vehicle Interior Noise Reduction. The abstract notes an almost 3dB noise reduction from the laminated...

Porsche is pursuing an interesting path of manufacturing their own highly energy dense cells, probably at costs higher than open-market automotive cells. They're really going to push for longer range and/or lighter weight for their vehicles compared to mass market car companies, thus justifying...

It's possible to calculate approximately how fast your were going. Were you averaging about 170-180 km/h? Just imagine how fast a Plaid range drops at 250 km/h . . .

The two places where really large batteries are needed are the American West, with lots of lonely long range trips (I'm thinking of a memorable ride from Ely, Nevada to Newport Beach, CA, where I didn't see but 3 or 4 other vehicles in the first 4 hours) and Germany. The autobahn allows speeds...

Those side structures are stamped and welded sheet metal, not castings. Castings, forgings, and stampings are not the same thing, completely different manufacturing processes.

I've argued this thesis for the last 5 years: electrification and autonomy will most effect bus transit, pushing buses to smaller sizes, more frequency, and more use. There are a lot of hurdles for this happen, not the least being the mostly highly unionized and bureaucratic public bus...

This is of course true, but normally we're looking at energy increases in the same cylindrical cell form factor. That's always a volumetric specific energy increase, and almost always is a specific gravimetric energy increase as well. Occasionally the cell gets a little heavier, so the...

<pedant reply mode> I was iterating on CFD models of World Superbike motorcycles and testing vehicles in a wind tunnel when the Tesla Model S was still a gleam in Van Holthousen's eye. Yes, Cd, is a dimensionless number. So is the fineness ratio, which is worse for smaller cars. Also, the...

It's not impossible to get a decent Cd from a 4.2 meter car, just more difficult. As an extreme example, the 4.3 meter long GM EV1 had a Cd of 0.19 and a CdA of about 0.37 m^2, about a third better in CdA than a Tesla M3. When you package for 4 people, you're not going to be able to match this...

Americans who haven't spent a fair amount of time abroad don't understand how much smaller most vehicles are in the rest of the world compared to the ones we have here. In much of Europe, even a car the size of a 3/Y can be a pain on narrow streets and tight parking garages. A standard size...

The Corvette eRay battery pack is a KERS type pack. It almost certainly consists of LiFeP chemistry power cells, similar to A123 power cells. These are very very low impedance, limiting thermal issues somewhat. The control system programming almost certainly restricts the range of...

Hmmm. A single-motor MY with a 66kWh Lithium-FeP replacing a 80kWh 2180 pack might be somewhere around $3000-3500 cheaper to build. Figure at least $1000 from losing a motor and motor controller, the rest from the battery (some from the capacity reduction, the rest from the less expensive but...

Yes, the analyst consensus was that Android and MS's phone operating system would take over from iOS, and that AAPL had no long-term moat to prevent that from happening -- much like the discussion of emerging e-auto competition to TSLA. APPL was trading stupidly cheaply relative to earnings in...

I'm very much reminded of AAPL in 2009. At some point Apple's PE was in the 8-10 range, trading as if it was an aging US steelmaker about to shut down, as some wag noted. The current TSLA trading is starting to feel like capitulation, when even many long-time bulls throw up their hands and give...

These are Soviet-era mines with pressure rather than magnetic fuses. Supposedly 150kg sets them off, and they're powerful enough to disable a tank . . .

TeslaQ folk on Twitter are questioning whether the brakes are stock. I wonder if the calipers are a cataloged Tesla part, available to anyone who happens to have the right part number . . .

All motorcycle lithium-ion batteries are LFP (lithium ferrous phosphate, commonly called lithium-iron) chemistry. They’re optimized for power, as you may need 100 to 400 amps to get through the first compression stroke during ICE engine starting. LFP is great for power and safety, but falls off...

yes, they have adopted the steering system of a 1972 Citroen SM. Don’t believe me? Look it up.

I'm sure Tesla will make as much use of the shutdown as possible to clean up and upgrade production processes where possible. But you have to keep in mind that things like enormous stamping machines and the largest die-casting machines in the US have very long lead-times and are custom orders...

I'm 75 percent reinvested, perhaps prematurely. Saving the 25 percent cash to see what happens over the next week or three. My IRA is down about 15 percent from its February peak, instead of the 40 percent or so if I hadn't cashed out. The 15 percent paper loss is from trying to catch a few...

The US pandemic is a couple of weeks behind Italy, and by the end of March, the macros are going to be horrific. It's impressive how well TSLA is holding up, but I expect before the overall situation starts improving, TSLA may dip below 600 -- at least I have a buy order in at 588. It's a fight...

It's not cancelled; the press event was delayed because of Corona virus concerns. It's so far in advance of production (next year) that GM doesn't have a lot of urgency with the event. Cadillac postpones reveal of EV over coronavirus concerns

So think of the good news: Tesla won't have to reserve soon for Musk's 2nd incentive stock grant . . .

My IRA is looking quite green (at least for the moment) after buying back into TSLA at 615 this morning. I went to almost all cash 10 days ago as it became clearer that the Corona virus would not be contained. I'm prepared to cost average down on TSLA, as this purchase may have been premature...

Not quite. The announcement was of EVs that would be available through 2025. It was certainly backloaded, with some arriving late, but some of the new platform EVs, such as the Hummer, will be available in late 2021. The Cadillac Lyric wagon/SUV will be sold in China in 2021 and in the US in 2022.

I found the question about the single-crystal materials at 58:12 fascinating. Paraphrasing, "If you want this, once the Corona virus is gone, get on an airplane and go to China. It's fully commercialized there. In North America, forget about it -- we're so far behind . . ."

It could have its companion Elon Bust fund, to fill the TSLAQ niche . . . /s

I already have a tweet that Corona virus may do more for the Social Security trust fund than any politician /s

Mild hybrids are just that: slightly electrified ICE cars. They’re cheap to make; the current preferred tech is a 48v motor/generator replacing the alternator, often belt driven, and a slightly higher capacity 48v battery replacing the 12v system. You can do start/stop when the car isn’t moving...

There is no reason to let another major automaker into the Supercharger network until charging networks are largely a commodity, and not a competitive advantage, something that we're unlikely to see until past 2024 or even later. Now if Ferrari or some other small exotic maker wanted to join...

Keep in mind that the deaths in China are running about 1/3 women, 2/3 men. Very few Chinese women smoke, roughly 50 percent of Chinese men do. Perhaps a congestive lung disease might prove more dangerous to people who have previously damaged their lungs, eh?

I'm assuming Tesla acquired SilLion on the available evidence. I also assume the SilLion team in Colorado has been working with Maxwell and Dahn's lab for awhile. We'll hear more in April, and until then here are some promotional tidbits from SilLion prior to the acquisition. The Highest Energy...

Agreed. I designed the first LFP starter battery to be used as standard in a production ICE motor vehicle more than a decade ago. It weighed 25 percent of the high-performance lead-acid alternative -- even though lead-acid is surprisingly good in power applications. LFP has many advantages in...

Single-crystal parts in gas turbines are used as much for creep resistance than anything else; parts where the operating metal temperature is not all that far from the liquidus temperature and are also heavily loaded tend to grow, and that's right into the shrouds for turbine blades. Chocochip...

I read from a power electronics analyst that the companies that made drivetrains for electric locomotives ended up controlling a lot of the mid-power electric-generation/control-electronics/etc. business, and that he expected the same thing in the sub-megaWatt space with Tesla and other emerging...

Wouldn’t the reduction in interest expense from the capital raise accelerate when Tesla has to change their tax loss accounting, providing a double positive bump to GAAP earnings? That is, the interest reduction plus the tax loss benefit accrual?

The former SilLion CEO ended employment at SilLion in June 2018. He claims credit for the successful sale of the company. Musk might have been visiting, but the timing isn’t right for the acquisition.

Another SilLion/Tesla connection, but not one that proves anything other than perhaps SilLion has been preserved as a subsidiary of Tesla (consistent with the SilLion currently having a President but no CEO). Also interesting the title change from Research Scientist to Research Engineer: Perhaps...

The Engineering Technician Tesla is looking to hire in Louisville, Colorado, should be familiar with silicon anode materials. We know that SilLion was acquired by a large, international tech company. We know that Tesla is looking for a hire at their approximate location, a person familiar with...

Background information on SilLion: SiILion | Company Week It certainly seems like something that Tesla would want to own, if the technology worked. The former CEO noted improvements were needed in charge rate and cold-weather performance, as of 2018.

The question is whether these people are currently Tesla employees: BTW, LinkedIn says SilLion is looking for a battery technician ... SilLion was claiming their tech took battery energy density to 350Wh/kg.