According to a non-peer-reviewed paper, Humphreys and Peter Iannucci of the Radionavigation Laboratory state they have determined the Starlink satellites operating in low Earth orbit could provide an 'unjammable' alternative to Global Navigation Services, GPS. "Anticipation is building for commercial broadband Internet services provided by mega-constellations of satellites in low Earth orbit. Such services’ global reach, low latency, and wide bandwith situate them to revolutionize broadband communications. This paper seeks to establish a less-obvious assertion: In addition to broadband service, these constellations could revolutionize satellite-based positioning, navigation, and timing," the paper reads. "Their space vehicles are far nearer and more numerous than those of traditional global navigation satellite systems in medium Earth orbit or geostationary orbit, and their communications transponders have both exceedingly high gain and access to a vast allocation of spectrum."

The paper describes in great technical detail, a system that utilizes the Starlink satellites working alongside traditional GPS signals to deliver precise location signals more accurate and faster than current GPS. Read the research paper published by the University of Texas at Austin: Fused Low Earth Orbit Global Navigation Satellite Systems

You can save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars with continuous improvements to a Tesla, which is a stark contrast to other automaker that do something else continuously: ask you to pay again!

Elon Musk put up a proverbial middle finger to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) earlier this week with his announcement that Tesla vehicles would either play snake jazz or Polynesian elevator music out of an external speaker. //

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
New Tesla feature coming that enables your car to play snake jazz or Polynesian elevator music through its outside speakers wherever you go
3:17 AM · Aug 20, 2020

The NHTSA passed a mandate a decade ago called “the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010,” which states that electric vehicles must have an audible sound at speeds below 19 MPH. The noise will warn nearby pedestrians of the vehicle’s presence. Because electric cars are missing a combustion motor, the cars make very little noise, which could be a hazard to some pedestrians.

First, this meme from the Tesla bears is false. They do buy Tesla cars, in reasonable numbers. Second,

We've just discovered that the Tesla Model 3 is actually the safest car ever tested by the NHTSA, but you might be surprised by the 2nd and 3rd safest cars. //

Based on the advanced architecture of Model S and Model X, which were previously found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to have the lowest and second lowest probabilities of injury of all cars ever tested, we engineered Model 3 to be the safest car ever built. Now, not only has Model 3 achieved a perfect 5-star safety rating in every category and sub-category, but NHTSA’s tests also show that it has the lowest probability of injury of all cars the safety agency has ever tested. //

NHTSA’s previous tests of Model S and Model X still hold the record for the second and third lowest probabilities of injury, making Tesla vehicles the best ever rated by NHTSA.

Tesla has been hinting at some revolutionary new battery technology for a few months now, and a Reuters story today revealed that the goals are to create a “million mile” battery design that can finally make EVs on par with the cost of building ICE vehicles. There are lots of elements to what will make this possible, but for the moment I’d like to focus on the one that doesn’t seem to require an advanced degree in chemistry: the switch to “cell-to-pack” batteries.

It is no secret that Tesla is pursuing a million-mile battery. This battery will be so advanced, it would be able to stand the most stressful conditions for electric vehicles without compromising its quality and longevity; and when used for energy storage devices, it could last decades with regular use. If recent reports are any …

Tesla is working on a bid to deploy one of the biggest battery systems in the world with 244 Megapacks, Tesla’s latest giant battery system, on an island in Hawaii. After a lot of rumors and anticipation, Tesla launched its “Megapack” last year. It’s the company’s latest energy storage product, after the Powerpack and the …

Tesloop drove a Tesla Model X for 409,000 miles and spent $29,000 for maintenance and repairs. Is that a lot? It depends on your point of view.

Tesla intends to have the plant completed and fully functional by mid-2021, and will eventually produce up to 500,000 cars a year there.

Germany is on the brink of recession as its auto industry slumps. Tesla and the rise of electric cars are putting pressure on VW and BMW //

The sweeping electric car pivot that's being led by Tesla is starting to have an impact on Europe's biggest economy - Germany, by striking at its backbone, the automobile manufacturing industry. | //

• Germany is on the brink of recession after growth slowed to zero in the last quarter.
• The economy is being dragged down by a seismic slump in car manufacturing.
• The Tesla effect – and the shift to electric vehicles – is leaving Germany in dire straits.

A new teardown of the Tesla Model 3 by Nikkei Business Publications just sent a shiver through the spine of legacy automakers. Based on the findings of the teardown, it is becoming evident that the company’s tech is on an entirely different level compared to the electronics used by veteran automakers today, and a lot …

Sandy Munro, a teardown specialist and auto industry veteran, is releasing the results of a study he conducted with battery expert Mark Ellis comparing the motors inside four electric vehicles, one of which was a Tesla Model 3. Despite analyzing the vehicle for a long time, the auto expert states that there are still mysteries that he is yet to uncover on the electric sedan.

“The Tesla has a lot of stuff hidden. The Tesla is a big mystery. It’s not obvious sometimes what clever things they’ve done, ” he commented about the California-based car maker’s motor in a recent interview summarized by Industry Week. “There’s mysteries every day. We thought we were clever, but we’re not that clever.” //

While the study Sandy Munro and Mark Ellis have conducted has not yet been released, from the sounds of it, crow seems to have still been on the menu for Tesla’s inner workings while old criticisms still stand about its outer packaging.

As more and more automakers begin the transition to electric vehicles, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Tesla’s intense focus on batteries was right all along. Tesla’s strategies have always been criticized and examined under a microscope, and the company’s decision to build Giga Nevada, a facility dedicated to battery production for the Model 3, was no exception. But as veteran automakers like Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz are now finding out, investing tons of effort and resources on batteries matters a lot. //

A lot of Tesla’s resources are dedicated to its battery improvements. Teslas stand tall among their rivals in the EV marketplace today primarily due to their efficiency and range, and this is made possible by the company’s battery tech. The company is not showing any signs of stopping too. Tesla has acquired several companies that could further improve its batteries, such as Maxwell Technologies and Hibar Systems.

Tesla wants to make more cars, but it can't. //

TESLA IS RUNNING UP AGAINST THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN ELECTRIC CARS
Tesla wants to make more cars, but it can't.

Tesla’s entire business depends on electric cars, which in turn depend on batteries. A shortage of batteries, a seemingly small bump on the road to electrification, could slow down the otherwise-accelerating leap to the future of cars.

The issue came to the forefront during Tesla’s fourth-quarter 2019 earnings call last week. CEO Elon Musk described battery production as “very fundamental and extremely difficult,” as the company struggles to transition from being a niche premium carmaker to a mass-market juggernaut. The cell-starved firm was previously forced to scale back Solar Roof production to meet car demand, and mass production for the cell-hungry Semi truck has now missed its 2019 start date as Tesla focuses on the Model 3 and Model Y mass-market cars.

So why is this happening? Is Tesla’s dependence on materials like lithium and cobalt holding back production? While lithium production surged from under 40,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent in 2016 to over 80,000 tons in 2018, demand for batteries has also skyrocketed during that time.

“At the moment, as far as I know, lithium supplies are not currently affecting production of lithium cells,” Maria Chavez, an energy analyst at Guidehouse, tells Inverse.

Chavez noted that Tesla and other firms have announced plans to develop batteries with less lithium, nickel, and cobalt. Musk announced plans in June 2018 to ditch cobalt entirely, a material mainly sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in terrible conditions. A Battery Day event scheduled for April is expected to detail the company’s plans for future technologies in more detail.

“The industry is moving toward formulations that replace up to 90 percent of that cobalt with other metals like nickel and manganese, both of which are more readily available,” James McKone, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s department of chemical and petroleum engineering, tells Inverse. “As an added benefit, these ‘low-cobalt’ electrodes can also be made to deliver more energy in the same package. The real challenge, though, will be eliminating cobalt entirely, which may require a more significant rethinking of the basic chemical formulations in these batteries.”

But the main reason why Tesla doesn’t have enough batteries may be simpler than access to materials or chemical composition – it could be because they don’t produce enough.

“I think it’s more to do with actual lack of battery manufacturing capacity than an issue with lithium supply,” Calum MacRae, automotive analyst at GlobalData, tells Inverse.

Considering how quickly the company has expanded, that’s perhaps not surprising. Tesla has produced around 900,000 cars since its founding, more than two-thirds of which were produced after the entry-level Model 3 entered production in July 2017. These cars need batteries that can reach up to 100 kilowatt-hours. //

Tesla’s battery production has been gradually increasing. In August 2018, Tesla announced it had reached a production rate of 20 gigawatt-hours per year at the Nevada Gigafactory, more than every other automaker combined. During Tesla’s July 2019 earnings call, Musk revealed that the company was producing around 35 gigawatt-hours worth of batteries annually.

But Tesla wants more, and Musk has spoken of his ambition to reach the terawatt-hour scale. That’s far beyond total global capacity. Wood Mackenzie claims total global manufacturing capacity reached 285 gigawatt-hours by November 2019, and is set to reach 777 gigawatt-hours by 2026.

On December 16, 2019, California’s Office of Administrative Law approved amendments to its Electric Vehicle Fueling Systems Specifications. Effective January 1, 2020, these new rules ban operators of electric vehicle charging stations from billing by the minute. This is a huge blow to Electrify America and EVgo. Both firms bill by the minute for EV … //

The Department acknowledges this group of comments and disagrees with the interpretation of the primary commodity being traded. As defined in BPC § 13400(a)(4) and (p), electricity is considered a type of motor vehicle fuel. NIST Handbook 44 makes clear what the unit of measure of electricity as motor vehicle fuel dispensed from EVSE shall be measured by — either the kWh or the megajoule (MJ). The Department concludes that the primary commodity delivered by EVSE is electricity, not parking space accessibility, parking space rental time, or accessibility to the EVSE itself. The Department considers those as “other services” of the transaction. The Department clarifies that time is not an acceptable unit of measure for dispensing and billing electricity as motor vehicle fuel. //

Electrek e-mailed Schnepp about operators’ ability to charge separate fees, who confirmed, “Electric vehicle service providers are allowed to charge ancillary fees such as: a connection fee; waiting fee for staying connected after reaching full state of charge; parking fee where such charges are normally applied; and a non-network access fee where applicable, provided that these fees are disclosed to the consumer prior to initiating a charging session (there may be other allowed fees not identified in this example).” //

In DMS’ survey of existing EVSEs, they found stations with equipment that DMS felt could not accurately convey energy delivered. These regulations will enable effective auditing of for-profit EVSEs and ensure the public isn’t getting ripped off. We hope other jurisdictions follow suit, and if private operators don’t like the rules, they’re free to step aside and let our utilities take over.

A new study looked at 6,300 electric cars, and it was clear what led batteries to degrade quicker. //

Thankfully, new research shows the typical electric car batteries degrade at such a slow rate that they'll outlive the usability of the car they're installed in.

A new study from fleet-management company Geotab looked at 6,300 electric vehicles to understand how quickly EV batteries degrade. On average, an EV saw its battery degrade 2.3% each year, which is so minor it doesn't reflect an outright reduction in usable range. Without going into the wild math and innards of a battery, if the average battery's energy storage declines by 2.3% every year, over five years that's only a loss of 15 miles of driving range in an EV with 150 miles of total range. //

there were two major factors that sped up battery degradation: DC fast charging and how an automaker engineered its cooling solution. //

DC fast charging is the preferred way to juice an electric car up quickly. Otherwise, drivers are stuck with a 240-volt outlet (Level 2 charging) or a standard 120-volt outlet (Level 1 charging), which can take hours to charge. The study showed EVs that exclusively charged on L2 and L1 chargers saw very little degradation, while the more an EV was subjected to DC fast chargers, the more battery degradation occurred. //

Comparing a 2015 model year Nissan Leaf, which uses a passive air-cooling system, to a 2015 Tesla Model S, which uses liquid cooling, the Leaf saw 4.2% degradation in a year versus 2.3% for the Model S. Again, higher temperatures lead to more degradation.

The average decline in energy storage is 2.3% per year. For a 150-mile EV, you’re likely to lose 17 miles of accessible range after five years.

Tesla’s Virtual Power Plant project in South Australia is only around ~2% complete, but it is already proving to be a difference-maker, rescuing Queensland’s grid during an unexpected power outage. The response time and efficiency of the Virtual Power Plant mirror that of Tesla’s other large-scale energy project in the region, the highly-acclaimed Hornsdale Power […]

If you live on planet Earth, you surely know that holiday weekends can generate an enormous amount of traffic. Thanksgiving weekend is probably the worst in the United States. Historically, Tesla drivers on certain high-volume routes, especially in California (where Teslas are most abundant), have faced some struggles while stopping to Supercharge before continuing on to grandma's house (actual lines, and sometimes long ones)