The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station is an impressive beast. With 98 charging bays, the facility in Coalinga, California, is the largest charging station in the world. But to provide that kind of power takes something solar can’t provide — diesel generators. //

Just as these charging stations find they can’t run without some fossil fuel backup, the retirement of a coal-fired power plant in Kansas is being delayed to accommodate the energy demands of an electric vehicle battery factory that’s under construction.

Blackmon said that these stories illustrate well the lack of thought going into the demands that will be placed on the grid with increasing amounts of electric vehicle adoption.

As those demands pile on, U.S. energy policy pushes to remove coal, nuclear and natural gas from the grid.

Blackmon said he watched all summer as the Texas grid, which operates separately from the rest of the county, nearly collapsed with the incessant heat. //

Musk has also been taken to task for his solar promises. Energy expert Alex Epstein ran a fact check on Musk’s claim that we could power the world with a small area of the Sahara Desert and “some batteries.”

Epstein calculated that enough battery storage to create a reliable grid would cost $590 trillion for the batteries alone. It doesn’t include the cost of all the transmission infrastructure. And the batteries would have to be replaced every decade.

Launched in 2012 with the Tesla Model S, the NACS plug predates the widespread CCS—and now succeeds it—as the primary EV connector used in the United States. Found at Supercharger stations, the NACS connector is capable of up to 250 kilowatts of DC fast-charging following the upgrade to Tesla's Supercharger V3.

By contrast, the newer CCS was designed with loftier capabilities in mind. It's already capable of 350 kW at some Electrify America stations, and is designed to handle up to 800 kW with an upgrade to liquid-cooled cables. That's more than triple the power of a Tesla Supercharger V3, and more than twice what the most powerful Electrify America stalls can put out. When it arrived as a competing standard, and was adopted by most of the auto industry, it seemed only a matter of time before its superior potential would force even the pioneering Tesla to switch over. (To some degree, it has: a CCS variant is Tesla's standard connector in Europe.)

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Replying to @krassenstein
You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.
10:14 PM · May 15, 2023 //

Elon Musk may not be a conservative. He has his issues, like all of us. But he’s a considered thinker, who seems to be learning fast about the dangers of the left. He’s spoken about the threat to civilization in the past posed by the “woke mind virus.”

Musk showed again that he does have some understanding of the left during an interview he gave to CNBC on Tuesday. //

Musk was asked about why he made his comment about Soros during the interview and he laughed at the interviewer, David Faber. “I think that’s true, that’s my opinion,” Musk responded. //

But why share it if people might not agree with you? Faber asked. What if advertisers on Twitter or Tesla buyers might not agree?

Boy, isn’t that a liberal in a nutshell? Why not share it if it’s his opinion? Is he supposed to go easy on what he thinks about Soros because it will upset the left? Maybe it’s more important to point out that Soros is doing harm to society. The look on Musk’s face in response was priceless — like, are you nuts?

He paraphrases Inigo Montoya in “The Princess Bride”: “Offer me power, offer me money, I don’t care.” To drive the point home, Musk declared: “I’ll say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it.”

Ever since the early 1990s, when China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, declared the metals to be his country’s equivalent to Saudi oil, they’ve been a kind of buzzword for trans-Pacific geopolitical anxieties. Never mind that rare earths are nothing like oil—the total market is worth about the same as the US egg market, and the elements can theoretically be mined, processed, and turned into magnets all over the world. But China is the only place that does all of it.

China’s near-monopoly is partly due to economics—in the 1990s, cheap Chinese rare earths flooded the market, hastening the shutdown of mines and processing in places like the US—and partly due to environmental concerns. Mining and refining rare earths is a notoriously toxic business, in part because the most valuable elements, like that magnet-boosting neodymium, come tightly bound with other rare earths, as well as radioactive elements like uranium and thorium. Today, China produces nearly two-thirds of rare earths mined worldwide and processes more than 90 percent of the world’s magnets.

“You have a $10 billion industry, which enables products that are worth between $2 trillion and 3 trillion a year. It’s enormous leverage,” says Thomas Kruemmer, a minerals analyst and author of the popular Rare Earth Observer blog. //

Currently, 12 percent of rare earths go into EVs, according to Adamas Intelligence, a market that’s just now taking off. At the same time, rare earth prices have recently whiplashed due to internal Chinese markets and political interventions that outside companies cannot always predict.

All in all, if you’re in a business where you can make an alternative work, it probably makes sense to do so, says Jim Chelikowsky, a physicist who studies magnetic materials at the University of Texas, Austin. But there are all kinds of reasons, he says, to look for better alternatives to rare earth magnets than ferrite. The challenge is finding materials with three essential qualities: They need to be magnetic, to hold that magnetism in the presence of other magnetic fields, and to tolerate high temperatures. Hot magnets cease to be magnets.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Vegas Loop has given one 1 million passengers a ride throughout the Sin City, the company confirmed today.

After being proposed in 2019 and unveiled in April 2021, the Vegas Loop has provided a new, express-geared method of transportation for residents and visitors to travel between various hotspots in Tesla Model 3 and Model X vehicles. //

Initial projections showed that the Vegas Loop was capable of transporting over 4,400 passengers every hour, and projections for the future could allow as many as 20,000 people to receive affordable, express rides in Tesla vehicles each hour to travel between points of interest throughout the city.

The Vegas Loop includes numerous stops along the Las Vegas strip, including to various casinos, the Harry Reid International Airport, Allegiant Stadium, and more. The fares vary according to each trip, but the Boring Company says the 4.9-mile trip from Harry Reid International Airport to the Las Vegas Convention Center takes 5 minutes and costs $10.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Tesla chief executive Elon Musk donated a total of 5,044,000 shares in the world's most valuable automaker to a charity from Nov. 19 to Nov. 29 last year, its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed on Monday.

The donation was worth $5.74 billion, based on the closing prices of Tesla shares on the five days that he donated the stock. The filing did not disclose the name of the charity. //

He said on Twitter that he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes in 2021 due to his exercise of stock options set to expire this year.

He also traded barbs with politicians Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who called on wealthy people to pay more taxes.

In assertive mode, if a Tesla approaches a four-way stop intersection at less than 5.6 mph (9 km/h) and it detects no other road users or pedestrians near the intersection, it will carry on traveling at that speed instead of coming to a complete stop at the stop sign.

Tesla first released the rolling stop function in October 2020. But in January of this year, it met with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration twice, deciding to issue the recall suspending the law-breaking feature the day after the second meeting.

Tesla's 2021.44.30.15 firmware will disable the rolling stop ability. The automaker told the NHTSA that the update would begin being pushed out to cars in early February 2022.

Published 2 days ago ‌
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post (which Steve Hanley already skewered), the author wrote about the recent icy traffic disaster on I-95 in Virginia but imagined a scenario where the only vehicles were EVs. The issue, the writer claimed, was that if everyone had been driving EVs, the mess could have been worse. //

It should be noted that there were a few Tesla owners caught in the traffic jam and in one of the comments to his video, a user noted that a pregnant woman from the Facebook Tesla Divas group shared that she was stuck in her Tesla for 16 hours during the traffic jam. Her battery was at 74% and only dropped to 61% by the time she got home. She simply turned on Camp Mode and slept. //

Other commenters shared how their Teslas fared during the Texas winter storm last year, and a Nissan LEAF owner shared that they were stuck in traffic for 6 hours once and used the seat heater and their electric blanket. They only used 15% percent of the battery and their LEAF was a 2012 model. //

To answer the Washington Post’s question, the Teslas did pretty well during 18 hours of freezing temperatures. He noted that he used solar at home to charge his cars but included the cost of electricity for those who may not have solar at home. //

12 Hour Check-in
The Model Y battery level went from 91% down to 58%. It used 26.5 kWh at 0.16 per kWh, which would cost $4.22.

The Model X battery dropped from 90% to 47% and used 43 kWh at 0.16 per kWh, which would cost $6.88.

Time Magazine isn’t exactly known for being a news outlet with a lot of love for the good guy. It often awards its “Person of the Year” title to people who are in vogue on the left.

This is the magazine that declared Adolf Hitler was the winner in 1938, then named Joseph Stalin the winner the very next year. In 2011, they named “the protester” the person of the year, and then Greta Thunberg in 2019. To be sure, they’ve put their fair share of Republicans on the cover for the award, but they do it with pretty much all presidents, and being on the cover doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be kind.

But this year they actually made the right decision, and while I would say it was the obvious choice, Time doesn’t always go with who they should.

This year it’s Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and in this day and age, I’m more than thrilled to see this as their decision. //

This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad; a madcap hybrid of Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan, the brooding, blue-skinned man-god who invents electric cars and moves to Mars. //

What I like is that for the first time in a long time, the “Person of the Year” is someone who is someone who is taking us forward, not backward and that the person doing it is just as weird and human as you are. Musk is the richest man in the world, he’s the CEO of companies that are breaking ground in futuristic tech, but he’s just as liable to fire off a tweet containing an anti-woke meme as he is to create a reusable rocket.

Too often I’m looking around and see people suggest that regression is the way to a better life. They say that sending people into space is a bad idea when we have people in need here on Earth. They push failed governmental systems as the way to achieve a better life. Hell, they even continue to bring back old properties and slap new coats of paint on them.

According to Musk, Tesla’s decision in Germany was partly due to lessons that the company learned in the United States. The CEO noted that the loan’s onerous terms ultimately ended up exceeding the value of the money that Tesla received. Thus, the company decided to pay its $465 million loan early, even if it had to pay an “early repayment penalty.”

This was quite a surprise for many, as Tesla ended up being negatively incentivized not because it didn’t pay off its loan; but because it paid off its loan early. In comparison, the United States government ended up losing $11.2 billion in its bailout of General Motors, a company that, at least according to US President Joe Biden, is leading the electric vehicle revolution.

Dr. Eli David
@DrEliDavid
Fact check:

🔹 2% of @elonmusk's wealth is $6B
🔹 In 2020 the UN World Food Program (WFP) raised $8.4B. How come it didn't "solve world hunger"?

_
11:50 AM · Oct 30, 2021

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
·
Oct 31, 2021
Replying to @DrEliDavid
If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.
9:55 AM · Oct 31, 2021 //

Beasley would later respond with his own tweet.

“With your help we can bring hope, build stability and change the future. Let’s talk: It isn’t as complicated as Falcon Heavy, but too much at stake to not at least have a conversation. I can be on the next flight to you. Throw me out if you don’t like what you hear!” said Beasley.

Firstly, it’s interesting that Musk specifically asked Beasley to provide him the plan in an open Twitter thread and he refused to, wanting to meet privately instead. Secondly, it’s highly unlikely that Beasley could actually come up with a plan that utilizes Musk’s money in such a way that wouldn’t look bad to the general public. //

Handing someone a meal and medicine is great, but once they eat that meal they’ll soon need another.

Infrastructure changes, national politics, and the environment all play a role in the solving of world hunger, and it’s highly unlikely that six billion dollars are going to solve it. It’s even more unlikely that the United Nations is going to solve this problem, especially given their bloat. //

2buildit2
an hour ago
As usual, the UN doofus has it backwards, now if the UN gave Elon Musk the 6 billion and the command and control of the feed the hungry aid structure, things would improve for everyone but the bureaucracy.

Tesla aims to eventually become a massive distributed electric utility, and we’ve now learned of a new product, Autobidder, which appears to be the next step in that direction.

Because you can't sell cars that have a 1 in 150 chance of randomly going boom.

• A Tesla Megapack fire at the Victorian Big Battery in Southeast Australia was brought under control Monday afternoon.
• Results of the investigation will be closely watched, and could influence the way such systems are designed and built, according to Paul Christensen, a professor of electrochemistry at Newcastle University whose research focuses on lithium ion battery fires and safety.
• His recommendations include monitors within the systems, and enough space for fire crews to maneuver and aim a hose. //

Christensen also said these systems should be designed to allow space for first responders to maneuver around and aim a hose. Plenty of water should available on site, with enough hydrants installed. Containers would ideally have "dead pipes" that are capped and stick out, allowing firefighters to connect a hose, then step away and flood the container to extinguish the flames from a safe distance.

At the moment, water remains the best way to suppress a fire in any lithium ion battery energy storage system //

The Tesla Megapack fire first occurred within the 300 megawatt (450 megawatt hours) system in Geelong, Victoria starting Friday morning. More than 30 fire trucks and support vehicles and about 150 fire fighters from the CFA and local Fire Rescue Victoria responded, containing the flames so they only affected two Megapacks of the approximately 210 that make up the system. //

There have been around 40 known fires that have occurred within large-scale, lithium ion battery energy storage systems, according to Christensen's research. Those incidents, most of which occurred in the past three years, date back to 2012, and include four fires at three facilities in the U.S. in Arizona, Wisconsin and Illinois.

The electric car company said Edmunds had to drive them until they stopped. Well… //

As Alistair Weaver stresses in the video, what this shows is that you can’t just rely on government figures. We have gone even further than Edmunds’ editor-in-chief when we recommended that EVs have specific testing rules that take them into full consideration and are able to determine how energy-efficient they really are.

A [poor] human driver might do what the Tesla did and maintain or increase speed while the BMW was attempting to pass — an aggressive pass, sure, but hardly anything that unusual. A decent driver would have, again, let off the throttle, let the BMW pass, and then, ideally, gotten out of the passing lane.

So, in this example that was sent to me specifically as an opportunity for me to finally redeem myself and give Autopilot some of the praise that it desperately craves, I’m afraid I’ve failed. I’ve failed because I can’t praise Autopilot here — it is driving like an idiot, and if this is what’s being shown as examples of Autopilot “saving lives,” then I think we’d be better off fending for ourselves, thanks.

Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk mentioned that he believes the energy density of iron phosphate (LFP) batteries have improved enough that it now makes sense to use the cheaper and cobalt-free batteries in its lower-end vehicles.

Furthermore, the CEO indicated that the use of LFP batteries also frees up more battery supply of lithium-ion chemistry cells using nickel cathode for Tesla’s other vehicle programs. //

Nickel is our biggest concern for scaling lithium-ion cell production. That’s why we are shifting standard range cars to an iron cathode. Plenty of iron (and lithium)! //

Battery cells with nickel cathodes have more energy and power density than cells using iron phosphate, hence that’s why Tesla is only using the latter in shorter-range electric vehicles.

Quote of the day: "Give my regards to your puppet master [Jeff Bezos]," Elon Musk said in response to the Washington Post's request for comment on an article published by the newspaper today. //

As properly called by our friend Benny Johnson:

@Elonmusk just Rekt Bezos.

Tesla recently shared some footage of its next-generation 4680 battery cells being produced. The video, which seems to be taken from the electric car maker’s pilot Roadrunner line, suggests that Tesla’s 4680 battery manufacturing system may very well be Elon Musk’s elusive “Alien Dreadnought” concept coming to life.

During the lead up to the Model 3’s initial ramp, Elon Musk envisioned a vehicle production system that was so automated, it would look extraterrestrial in nature. Dubbed as the “Alien Dreadnought,” this concept ultimately fell short of its targets, and Tesla eventually adopted a production system for the Model 3 that combined both human and automated machines. Since then, Tesla has taken steps towards increasing the automation of its vehicle production system, as evidenced by parts like the Model Y’s rigid wiring, which are optimized for installation by robots.

Tesla has the experience, data, and the miles to prove that it is going to be the top dog, and it is going to be difficult to knock them off of the pedestal. Tesla had over 3 billion miles driven on Autopilot in May, and Wood says the company is coming up on 20 billion real-world miles. Google only has between 20 and 50 million, she added, according to Seeking Alpha.