A Tesla Supercharger station located at a Wawa convenience store in New Jersey caught on fire yesterday. The cause of the fire is currently unknown and Tesla is reportedly investigating the situation. //

might be a first.

In comparison, every year more than 5,000 gas station fires are reported in the US, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

A significant part of Tesla’s business relies heavily on the durability and longevity of its battery packs, and in the spirit of disruptive innovation, the Silicon Valley-based company has continued to make improvements to its battery technology to make them more durable and more efficient. Tesla was able to achieve this through several ways, one […]

Energy Capacity
210 kWh (AC) per Powerpack

Power
50kW (AC) per Powerpack

Enclosures
Pods: IP67
Powerpack: IP35/NEMA 3R
Inverter: IP66/NEMA 4

When earlier this year Tesla’s Elon Musk said the company could soon have batteries lasting for over one million miles, many probably took it as yet another grand promise with less substance than realism requires. Now it seems Musk may have not been exaggerating. //

This second paper builds on that, it seems. It details a “moderate-energy-density lithium-ion pouch cell chemistry” that, according to the authors, should serve as a benchmark for other researchers. Those other researchers will probably appreciate it because “cells of this type should be able to power an electric vehicle for over 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) and last at least two decades in grid energy storage.” //

The paper is open to anyone interested in reading about how this new and improved battery works. Why? Because, as one former member of the Dalhousie University team told Wired, Tesla patented an even superior battery before the paper came out. The carmaker announced it had received a patent for a battery very similar to the one described in the paper, with team leader Jeff Dahn listed as one of its inventors.

Fremont Police’s new Tesla police cruiser ran out of battery while leading a chase, but it was actually a user error. //

I know Tesla detractors are already sharing these news report laughing, but it’s simply a user mistake.

I am sure that police officers forget to fill up their vehicles’ gas tanks all the time, and it also results in mishaps.

Charging an electric vehicle is actually a lot more convenient than going to the gas station, and they just need to get into the habit of plugging in after their shifts

Teslas are among the safest cars on the road, and part of this is due to their suite of active and passive safety features. From Autopilot’s capabilities to standard features like Automatic Emergency Braking, Tesla’s electric cars are designed to avoid accidents, or protect its occupants in the event that a crash is unavoidable.  //

Every year, Swedish insurance company Folksam releases the results of its annual study on the country’s safest cars, a list that was dominated this year by the Toyota Rav4. To determine which vehicles make the cut, Folksam stated that it must be able to analyze actual crash data from an ample number of collisions.

This proved problematic for Tesla’s electric cars, as the company’s vehicles simply did not crash often enough for Folksam to get enough data. This year, for example, the insurance company only recorded seven accidents from Tesla’s vehicles, which is simply too few. //

Elaborating further, the Folksam head of research explained that its safest cars list is published primarily for car buyers looking to purchase used vehicles. When asked by an electric car enthusiast on Twitter why vehicles in its safest cars list require an ample number of real accidents to qualify for the firm’s rankings, Folksam responded that it actually acknowledges Tesla, which it lists as one of its recommended new cars. //

Teslas are among the safest vehicles on the road today. The electric car maker’s Q2 2019 vehicle safety report showed one accident for every 3.27 million miles driven with Autopilot engaged. Vehicles without Autopilot but have Tesla’s active safety features engaged recorded one accident for every 2.19 million miles driven, and cars operating without Autopilot and active safety features enabled recorded one accident every 1.41 million miles. In comparison, the NHTSA recorded one accident for every 498,000 miles driven.

The Model 3, Tesla’s more affordable vehicle yet, has also set records with its safety features. After garnering a perfect 5-star safety rating from the NHTSA, the electric sedan also granted a perfect score by the Euro NCAP in all four of its tests’ categories. //

“Tesla has done a great job of playing the structural benefits of an electric vehicle to its advantage. The Tesla Model 3 achieved one of the highest Safety Assist scores we have seen to date,” he said.

Ford Autonomous Vehicles operations chief John Rich believes in a future where the world’s roads are populated by full self-driving vehicles. In a recent interview, the executive revealed that he also believes that this upcoming world will have autonomous cars that only last four years before they are retired. Rich’s point comes as a response […] //

In a way, Rich’s surprisingly short prediction for the lifespan of full self-driving cars might be due to his expectation that a significant number of Ford’s autonomous vehicles will be powered by an internal combustion engine. Extended mileage is less of an issue among all-electric cars, after all, mainly on account of their significantly fewer moving parts. Tesla’s electric motors, for example, are expected to last one million miles. The electric car maker is working on developing a battery pack that is expected to last a million miles as well.

During a recent interview with Tesla owner-enthusiast Sean Mitchell, Detroit veteran Sandy Munro of Munro and Associates mentioned that among the Model 3’s unique components, its “Superbottle” is one of the most innovative. Combining two pumps, one heat exchanger, and one coolant valve in one cleverly-designed bottle, the Model 3’s cooling system is arguably the most unique in the auto industry.

The traditional automotive industry is all about suppliers and outsourcing the different components of a vehicle to different companies. This results in cars having redundant components. The Chevy Bolt, for example, has three cooling systems: one for its battery pack, one for its cabin, and one for its electronics. This is not the case with the Model 3, as the fondly-named Superbottle handles the entire cooling system of the whole vehicle — battery pack, cabin, and electronics included.

Last June, when my family and I moved to Florida from Poland, we bought a used BMW i3. Now it's time for a Tesla Model

Tesla might have left the first quarter of 2019 worse for wear due to delivery difficulties with the Model 3’s international ramp, but the carmaker still stands tall among its rivals in one key metric: battery deployment. In March alone, Tesla’s battery deployment completely left behind competitors, //

It should also be noted that the figures of Tesla’s competitors include batteries that were installed on hybrid vehicles, making the Silicon Valley-based electric car maker’s performance even more notable.

Tesla recently confirmed that it had completed the acquisition of Maxwell Technologies Inc., a California-based company that specializes in ultracapacitors and batteries. In a press release on Thursday, the electric car maker noted that it is transferring stocks worth over $235 million to take over Maxwell. //

Maxwell has previously stated that its dry electrode technology has demonstrated an energy density of 300 Wh/kg, and that it had “identified” a path to path to 500 Wh/kg. A Tesla Model 3 battery pack, on the other hand, has an energy density of 272 Wh/liter, with the 2170 cells producing 207 Wh/kg, according to Extreme Tech.

In its continued pursuit of making the most secure internet-connected vehicles on the road, Tesla is upping the ante of its “bug bounty” program, which encourages security researchers to actively locate and report vulnerabilities on the company’s hardware and online services. As part of the program’s most recent update, Tesla has raised the maximum payout to $15k. //

Just like the previous iteration of its “bug bounty” program, whose maximum payout was listed at $10,000, Tesla assured hackers that vehicles used for security research would not have their warranties voided, provided that the hacking is conducted within parameters allowed by the company. Tesla further noted that if vehicles used by participants in their good-faith security research end up being compromised, the company will take steps to update or “reflash” the hacked electric cars.

Tesla’s 100 MW/129MWh Powerpack system near Jamestown in South Australia is proving to be so quick in providing backup power to the energy grid that 30-40% of the services it provides end up unpaid. The electric car and energy company claims that this is due to SA’s legacy utility billing system not being optimized for the big battery’s response time. //

Tesla’s earnings from its big battery installation currently follow the standards set by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which breaks down a power provider’s response time into 6 seconds, 1 minute, and 5 minutes for energy to be fed into the grid. Tesla’s SA Powerpack farm near Jamestown, however, has been providing backup energy in as quick as 200 milliseconds. Thus, any amount of energy sent from Tesla’s battery into the grid that lasts between 200 milliseconds and 6 seconds is just too quick to be registered according to AEMO’s current specifications.

At the launch of Supercharger V3 earlier this year, Tesla announced that it will also unlock more power in existing Supercharger stations (from 120 kW to 145 kW). Tesla confirms today that it will …

Today at Tesla’s first Autonomy Day event, Elon Musk took questions from the press but didn’t have time for questions about lidar. Historically, he’s been vocal about the technology, and this time he put it as clear as he could. “Lidar is a fool’s errand,” Elon Musk said. //

Andrej Karparthy, Senior Director of AI, took the stage and explained that the world is built for visual recognition. Lidar systems, he said, have a hard time deciphering between a plastic bag and a rubber tire. Large scale neural network training and visual recognition are necessary for Level 4 and Level 5 autonomy, he said.

“In that sense, lidar is really a shortcut,” Karparthy said. “It sidesteps the fundamental problems, the important problem of visual recognition, that is necessary for autonomy. It gives a false sense of progress, and is ultimately a crutch. It does give, like, really fast demos!”

In South Australia, though, Tesla's giant 100MW/129MWh battery has seen a lot of success—not by selling power to meet general demand but by providing so-called "frequency response services." And a company called Restore has just partnered with Tesla to replicate that success for itself in Belgium.

In South Australia, Tesla Powerpacks are charged by the energy from a nearby wind farm, and the battery installation dispatches electricity to the grid when grid frequency suddenly drops. Grid frequency—a measure of current that must be held constant for the grid to work properly—is vitally important to the functioning of any grid system.
In Europe, for example, a recent power dispute between Serbia and Kosovo led average frequency on the Continental Europe Power System to drop to 49.996Hz instead of the required 50Hz, which resulted in oven and microwave clocks everywhere across Europe being six minutes slow after just a month of these conditions.

Grid operators will generally pay a premium for frequency response services, which are often provided by natural gas plants or other generators that can reliably ramp up and begin sending power to the grid in minutes' time. But in South Australia, Tesla's battery has been valuable in that it's able to nearly instantaneously send power to the grid as soon as frequency fluctuates. Compared to other spinning generators that might compete with the battery, it's very fast.

That has allowed Tesla's battery to take advantage of frequency response pricing, which has piqued the interest of investors. And according to a recent presentation by some McKinsey analysts, the battery has been able to cut South Australia's frequency-maintaining costs by up to 90 percent. In addition, the battery has taken over nearly 55 percent of the Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) market on that grid, according to McKinsey.

Tesla owner and Youtuber Marques Brownlee came back to his Model S in a parking lot to find his vehicle partially blocked on each side by large trucks. It gave Brownlee a rare opportunity to use Te…