Why the Tesla is your new dream car

There's an electric car in your future.

Perhaps a fuel cell vehicle, which turns hydrogen and air into electricity, or, more likely in the short term, a hybrid electric vehicle that uses electricity in urban areas and cranks over a conventional engine on the highway.

Or it could be a pure electric car. A car that has enough range for a week's commuting and is 'refuelled' at your home from a storage system that itself is charged 'off-grid' by solar panels on your roof.

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Tesla, the upstart US automotive start-up, would have it the logical choice is the latter. And it says, with some justification, the future is now.

The company has made a big noise in a very short period. The brainchild of tech pin-up Elon Musk, it's gone from 'lunatic fringe' dweller to close-to-mainstream car brand in what in automotive terms is a blink of its eye. It jealously guards its production numbers but make no mistake Tesla is selling cars – and much to the chagrin of established auto dealer networks, from its own company-owned stores.

The Powerwall electricity storage technology that will allow you to solar-power your Tesla will go on sale Down Under within months. But the brand's game-changing Model S large luxury sedan is already on Australian roads. And it's good. Very good!

Tesla CEO and engineer Elon Musk is a captivating figure.

Priced from around $115,000, Tesla Model S is a luxury buy that pushes the right buttons in terms of looks, execution and performance.

Some suggest there's a hint of Aston Martin in styling and although it's actually a five-door, the profile is, indeed, pure premium. There's no chance of it being mistaken for mass market hatch. Indeed, parked among high-end Mercedes-Benz and BMW's it looks at home. I reckon Audi's designers secretly wish had made their brand's conceptual similar flagship A7 look as good.

The Model S's innovative architecture uses compact electric motors front and rear and loads over 500kg of battery under the floor plan, guaranteeing flexibility in terms of interior packaging. There's genuine room for five and although it show signs of the relative immaturity of the product in terms of interior design, there's no denying its functionality.

Bizarrely, the car has nothing under the front trunk.

Step from an established luxury brand and you will find the cabin a touch Spartan. You may recognise some switches or other components and perhaps even grizzle that there's no secure incidental storage. But no other car in the segment provides a 'frunk'! Instead of an engine under the bonnet there's another boot — FRont trUNK in Tesla parlance.

No other car has the start-up sequence of the Model S either. The key is almost a metaphor for the car and company itself. There are no markings on it, save for the Tesla logo, but tap it in different places and it'll do different things. As long as you're in the know…

Pop the key in your pocket and proximity sensors extend the normally flush door handles as you approach the Model S. Once you're seated and touched the brake pedal (there are two like a conventional auto), it's ready to go. No pushing of buttons even. Select D and make your exit.

And in top-spec versions that departure can be fast… In fact, eye-wateringly, supercar-fast.

Although some would argue the point, Porsche's 911 Turbo S is generally accepted as the fastest accelerating production car on sale today. The factory claims this purpose built 2+2-seater sports-car will go from standstill to 100km/h in 2.9sec. Tesla says in its most potent P85 D form, the Model S can not only match the Porsche, but now beat it. The margin's just 0.1sec but that's a lifetime in drag races.

The fastest Holden sedan ever – a supercharged 6.2-litre V8 – takes almost two seconds more!

A Tesla supercharger station in Sydney.

Of course, the perceived problem with electric cars is not how fast but how far. Auto experts use the term 'range anxiety' to describe the factor that currently limits acceptance of EV technology.

Arguably the biggest achievement of the Tesla Model S is that its real world range hits range anxiety for six. In two stints of 'living' with the Model S I've witnessed ranges in excess of 350km and careful drivers might add up to 100km to that number.

That might not get you from Melbourne to Sydney but therein starts the argument for EV fast-charge infrastructure. Such is the importance of the Aussie marketplace, Tesla says it's buying into the game via the installation of its own SuperCharging stations at strategic highway locations over the next 18 months.

So that box is ticked. What about this continent's love affair with the softroader?

Did we tell you Tesla will have an all-electric high-riding seven-seater SUV on sale in Australia in 2016. It'll be an electric dream come true for some.

Source: Why the Tesla is your new dream car

Some Cars Today Already Meet 2025 Gas-Mileage Standards: Did You Know?

With a midterm review coming up to look at progress on meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations so far, you can expect some gloom and doom from automakers.

Still, industry consensus says the second half of the standards, for model years 2018 to 2025, won't change in a major way.

The overall fleet average for 2025 will likely remain at 54.5 mpg--which means about 40 miles per gallon on window-sticker ratings.

DON'T MISS: Gas Mileage Rules For 2025 Could Be Lowered If Buyers Stick With SUVs

Ten years ago, most makers thought they would have to add high percentages of hybrids to their fleets to hit those numbers. But the industry has made huge progress since then in improving efficiency without electrifying powertrains.

Multi-speed automatic and continuously variable transmissions, direct injection, turbocharging, start-stop systems, weight reduction, reduced aerodynamic drag, and a host of other incremental technologies have steadily boosted EPA ratings.

Hybrids, meanwhile, have stayed at 3 to 4 percent of the  U.S. market--less, lately, as the market share of SUVs and crossover utility vehicles has steadily risen while gas prices remain low.

National Research Council infographic: 2015 cars vs CAFE rules by MPG and vehicle footprint

Enlarge Photo

And yet, as a recent study by the National Research Council points out, a number of cars sold this year already meet or exceed the toughest standards for 2025.

One particular graphic stands out in its report, Cost, Effectiveness and Deployment of Fuel Economy Technologies for Light-Duty Vehicles [via a post on the Navigant Research blog].

Shown just above, it's a nice depiction of how the CAFE standards for 2014, 2017, 2021, and 2025 are staggered--showing the lower efficiency numbers required for vehicles with larger footprints.

ALSO SEE: Hybrids, Electrics Not Needed To Reach 54.5 MPG In 2025: Industry Exec (Jan 2014)

European makers complain that staggering the rules that way is a huge concession to the three domestic makers, all of which sell enormous numbers of full-size pickup trucks, SUVs, and (in Fiat Chrysler's case) minivans.

U.S. automakers and their advocates respond that those rules simply take into account the realities of the North American market as it's been for decades.

A footnote on the graphic notes that the Miles Per Gallon scale measures "EPA certification fuel economy" that is higher than advertised fuel economy.

That's due to numerous "adjustment factors" applied by the EPA to keep the numbers automakers use in vehicle ads roughly consistent with the real-world results obtained by actual drivers--which is how the 54.5 mpg law becomes about 40 mpg on window stickers.

But the graphic also shows a scattering of dots that represent vehicles on the market today. Notice anything?

Indeed, nine of those dots sit above the 2025 line--and a dozen more sit above the 2021 level.

Which is simply to point out that with steady, incremental improvement, achieving those higher fuel-efficiency goals isn't as impossible as naysayers might have you think.

Sure, today most of those cars are smaller vehicles: the Mitsubishi Mirage and various Toyota Prius models, for example, all of them five-door vehicles ranging from a minicar (the Mirage) to compact or mid-size at best (various Priuses).

But they're also 10 years ahead of their time in fuel economy. And the Mirage isn't a hybrid; it's a small, light, relatively slow, and very efficient conventional gasoline car with a CVT.

The question of plug-in cars--their prevalence, how they contribute to boosting CAFE numbers, and whether they will actually have a market--is an entirely different one.

Many electric-car advocates strongly believe that when 200-mile electric cars hit the market at prices under $40,000 and ubiquitous DC fast-charging is available, those two advances will create a tipping point.

We'll know more about whether that's true within five years.

Tesla Supercharger site in Newburgh, New York, up and running - June 2015

Enlarge Photo

Meanwhile, gasoline alone still fuels more than 95 percent of new vehicles sold in North America today.

And on that front, we seem to be on the right path.

Who knew?

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Source: Some Cars Today Already Meet 2025 Gas-Mileage Standards: Did You Know?

Smart Highways That Can Charge Your Electric Car Are Coming To The U.K.

If you've got an electric car in the United States, the distance between charging stations could make a long road trip fraught with anxiety. But what if the highway you're riding on recharged your car as your drove it, no stops required?

The U.K., through a group called Highways England, is about to begin trials on electric highways which will see inductive charging equipment fitted underneath roads. When electric cars drive on them, their batteries would be juiced up as they drove by wireless technology running under the asphalt.

Transport Minister Andrew Jones says the U.K. government is committing around $780 million over the next five years to develop rechargeable low-emission vehicles, aiming to "keep Britain at the forefront of this technology." As part of this overall initiative, the off-road trials will start later this year, and last for 18 months, while the government figures out the cost and feasibility of bringing it to the nation's highways.

So it'll be a while before Brits can drive their Teslas indefinitely down the M25 without stopping for "gas." But the U.K. is not the first country to look into smart highways. A similar project in the Netherlands imagined a Smart Highway that could charge electric cars as they drove. This is clearly a path more than one country is considering pursuing.

//NETHERLANDS SMART HIGHWAY PROJECTStudio Roosegaarde

From a civic standpoint, it makes sense. Not only are electric vehicles more environmentally friendly than traditional combustion engines, but they cost less money over time to actually keep on the road. An electric highway would presumably come with some sort of toll, allowing cars to slurp up the government's electricity as they drove; this, in turn, would help the government bring in more revenues. The toll booth of the future might not be all that different from pulling into a gas station today.

The U.K.'s flirtation with electric highways is part of a $17 billion, five year plan undertaken to transform England's existing "brutal, crass, and ugly" ecosystem into something "beautiful and award-winning," according to transport minister John Hayes. "We want roads to be based upon principles of good design, he said. "From maintaining the right proportions in construction to use of street lighting, signage and other roads 'furniture' and from delivering better air quality and biodiversity."

Wouldn't it be nice if America, which has been letting its own infrastructure crumble for decades, tried something similar?

[via Designweek]

Source: Smart Highways That Can Charge Your Electric Car Are Coming To The U.K.

Luxury car maker Fisker to build cars in Southern California

Fisker Automotive is back in business.

The luxury car company will establish Southern California's first new car manufacturing plant in more than two decades in the city of Moreno Valley, where it will begin building its plug-in electric hybrid automobiles.

The admired but embattled Fisker, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2013 and was purchased by Chinese auto parts giant Wanxiang Group a year later, has signed a long-term, $30-million lease for a 555,670 square-foot facility in the Riverside County city.

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Wanxiang Group also owns A123, the company that builds the lithium ion batteries that power the Fisker. The company is reportedly seeking to begin sales as soon as next year.

The assembly plant will be Southern California's first since General Motors closed a Van Nuys facility in 1992, and the state's second electric c ar manufacturing factory – joining entrepreneur Elon Musk's Tesla Motors plant in the Bay Area city of Fremont.

It also marks a second Chinese foothold in the Southern California alternative-vehicle market. Chinese automaker BYD employs 160 workers at a plant in Lancaster that builds electric buses, some for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The electric-car company was co-founded by Henrik Fisker, a graduate of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design who won admirers for his elegant Aston Martin and BMW designs. Its Karma plug-in electric hybrids captured the imagination of the automotive press, and despite their $100,000 price tag were brisk sellers - until battery glitches resulted in a product recall that bankrupted the battery manufacturer, damaged the brand's reputation and brought production to a halt.

Fewer than 2,500 of the cars were sold before production ceased in 2012, and before the company could begin selling a pr omised mass-market, affordable electric vehicle. Fisker himself resigned from his executive chairman position at the company amid its financial struggles in 2013.

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It was not immediately clear what involvement Fisker would have, if any, at the new facility.

The company has agreed to rent a new 556,000-square-foot industrial building at 17100 Perris Blvd., according to real estate broker Ian DeVries of Colliers International, who represented landlord First Industrial Realty Trust in the deal. The structure is attractive for operating an assembly line, he said, because it is slim and 1,600 feet long.

Terms of the lease were not disclosed, but real estate experts familiar with the Inland Empire valued the transaction at nearly $30 million over the next decade or so.  

The neighborhood is home to fulfillment centers for large retailers including Amazon, Procter & Gamble and Walgreens, DeVries said, but not many products are actually being built there.

"This is one of the first manufacturing deals there of any significance," said DeVries, who noted the company is trying to open the factory as soon as possible.

Jobs at the plant will bring a welcome addition to the Inland Empire, where the 46% of residents are not educated beyond high school, economist John Husing said.

"You need jobs that can allow people to migrate up to the middle class," Husing said.

Wanxiang, said to be China's largest auto parts company, paid a reported $149 million to take over the bankrupt Fisker and $257 million for A123, which also made batteries for BMW's hybrid 3- and 5-Series cars and the Chevrolet Spark.

Formerly seen as a possible rival to Northern California's Tesla, Fisker Automotive re-enters a matured electric ve hicle market. The once-struggling Tesla now produces 50,000 of its Model S electric luxury cars annually, and continues to promise delivery of a mass-market electric sedan within two years.

Still, while many other car companies have fielded many variations of battery-electric and electric-hybrid automobiles, the alternative-fuel vehicle market has struggled to gain momentum.

"The alternative fuel segment is the only part of the auto market that isn't growing," said Kelley Blue Book senior analyst Karl Brauer. "But Tesla is still growing. The market for high-end, stylish electric vehicles still shows signs of life."

In making the announcement, the city of Moreno Valley said it expected Fisker to create 150 new jobs to work in the new facility, which in addition to manufacturing automobiles would also feature a showroom and guided tours.

"This is a landmark for our city," Moreno Valley Mayor Jesse Molina said in a statement that lauded the compa ny's promise to hire locally from the area's "highly qualified workforce."

Fisker representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

DiCaprio, Bieber caught up in Fisker Karma hybrid recall

Management fight pushes Henrik Fisker from car company he founded

Plug-in hybrid maker Fisker Automotive gets $529 million from Obama administration

Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times
Source: Luxury car maker Fisker to build cars in Southern California

Car Tech 101: Electric turbos are coming:

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Source: Car Tech 101: Electric turbos are coming:

Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold

By Joseph White and Paul Lienert

DETROIT (Reuters) - It's crunch time for Tesla Motors.

The Silicon Valley automaker is losing more than $4,000 on every Model S electric sedan it sells, using its reckoning of operating losses, and it burned $359 million in cash last quarter in a bull market for luxury vehicles. The company on Wednesday cut its production targets for this year and next. Chief Executive Elon Musk said he's considering options to raise more capital, and didn't rule out selling more stock.

Musk has taken investors on a thrill ride since taking Tesla public in 2010. Now he's given himself a deadline, promising that by the first quarter of 2016 Tesla will be making enough money to fund a jump from making one expensive, low volume car to mass producing multiple models, and expanding a venture to manufacture electric power storage systems.

Tesla's shares fell almost 9 percent on Thursday and slipped another 2 percent on Friday as investors and analysts weighed the risks of Musk's ambitious plans for expanding Tesla's auto and energy storage businesses. Tesla had just $1.15 billion on hand as of June 30, down from $2.67 billion a year earlier.  

Automakers consume cash to pay for assembly line equipment, including metal dies and plastic molds, as well as testing to meet safety and emissions standards. A typical new car can cost $1 billion or more to engineer and bring to market. 

Established automakers such as General Motors Co (NYSE:) and Ford Motor (NYSE:) Co have amassed far larger cash cushions as they've rebuilt balance sheets battered by the 2008-2009 recession. GM, restructured six years ago in a government funded bankruptcy, has targeted cash reserves of $20 billion and had more than $28 billion in cash equivalents as of June 30. 

To be sure, GM sells more than 9 million vehicles a year, while Tesla plans to build between 50,000 and 55,000 cars this year. Tesla, most of whose cars are built to order directly, delivered 11,532 cars in the second period and said it had an operating loss of about $47 million, for an operating loss per car of about $4,000.

Tesla's narrower margin for error is just one more way in which it is different from its century old rivals.

The company said it plans $1.5 billion in capital spending this year, mainly to launch its Model X, battery powered sport utility vehicle with eye-catching, vertical-opening "falcon wing" doors. Tesla reported $831 million in capital spending during the first half of the year, indicating it will spend roughly another $700 million. 

During the second quarter, Tesla said operating costs and research and development spending rose, while average selling prices for the Model S lineup, which starts at $70,000 before federal and state electric vehicle tax breaks, fell 1 percent as the mix of sales shifted to less expensive models and a strong dollar hit revenue generated overseas. The Model S comes in several different versions, ranging in price up to $106,000 or more, depending on options.

CAPITAL SPENDING

Tesla has signaled capital spending will drop next year because the company won't be spending on a major vehicle launch. In 2017, Tesla plans to launch its Model 3 line, which the company says will start at about $35,000 and push total sales toward the goal of 500,000 vehicles a year by 2020.

Barclays (LONDON:) analyst Brian Johnson disagreed with the company's estimates, and said he expects Tesla's capital spending will go up in 2016 and 2017 as the company ramps up its battery factory and Model 3 development. "Their small scale means the cash generation is not as great as they might have hoped for," he said.

Musk said this week Tesla expects to have $1 billion in cash over the next year, and told analysts "there may be some value" in raising capital "as a risk reduction measure."

Tesla's stock is still about 70 percent higher than it was two years ago, and 8 percent ahead of its level on Jan 1. With a market capitalization of $31 billion, Tesla is worth more than Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (NYSE:) NV, the much larger maker of Ram pickups and Jeep Grand Cherokees.

"A capital raise, given the way they're burning cash today, given the fact that they have future investment needs, seems very likely at some point," said UBS Securities analyst Colin Langan, who has a sell rating on the stock.

Musk has steered Tesla out of tight corners before. In September 2012, the company faced a cash crunch, but raised money by selling shares and renegotiating the terms of a federal loan. The Model S started production in miod-2012.

Tesla has made moves to expand sales volume, and lure people to pay more for its vehicles. In addition to adding a lower priced version of the Model S, Tesla last month said it would offer performance upgrades for its Model S 85 and 85D for $5,000 and launched the Model S 90D and P90D high performance cars at a $10,000 price premium. 

Tesla reports its finances in a different way from the Detroit automakers. Using the generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, used by GM or Ford, Tesla's operating losses per vehicle have steadily widened to $14,758 from $3,794 in the second quarter of 2014.

But Tesla points out in its statements to investors that its GAAP accounting excludes certain revenue and profits from Model S sedans that customers lease. In the second quarter, the deferred gross profits from Model S leases amounted to $61.9 million, Tesla said. Analysts say they add back the deferred revenue to make Tesla's figures more comparable to the reporting used by other automakers.

Source: Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold

Meet WalkCar, the $800 pocket size electric vehicle from Cocoa Motors

Earlier we've witnessed Segways, then we were introduced to those super-fast electric skateboards, followed by self-balancing hover boards. Now, a Japanese engineer Kuniako Saito and his team at Cocoa Motors have introduced of what is deemed to be the world's smallest electric vehicle. Dubbed as the 'Walkcar', the automobile is about the size of your average laptop and looks more like a small skateboard as opposed to a traditional car. Saito says, "it's the world's first 'car in a bag' featuring an aluminum body weighing a mere two-three kilograms (4.4lbs to 6.6lbs), depending upon the variant."

The Walkcar gets both indoor and an outdoor version, with the latter being slightly heavier as it is better equipped to handle outdoor conditions. Despite the small size of the aluminum board, Saito adds that it's more robust than what it appears and can handle loads of up to 120kgs (256 lbs).

The tiny vehicle is easy to operate as well. To start using the car, all one needs to do is to simply stand on the aluminum board to get it started, get off the aluminum board, and the vehicle automatically shuts down. While to change direction, the user just needs to shift their bodyweight in the desired direction.

And the best part, it saves commuters from the hassles of find a parking space as it easily fits into a backpack or a knapsack while not in use. Saito seems pretty confident that his Walkcar offers much more utility compared to the bulky devices like Toyota's Winglet or Segway.

Saito and his team expects that the Walkcar can be put to several uses as a means to commute, adding that the slender vehicle has enough power to push electric wheelchairs with ease. It can reach top speeds of up to 10 kmph (6.2mph), and can travel up to 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) after three hours of charge.

The Walkcar from Tokyo based Cocoa Motors will go up for pre-order starting in October as a part of a Kickstarter funding campaign, though its regional availability is not yet confirmed. The Walkcar will start shipping next spring and is priced at approximately $800.

This 21-century magic carpet of sorts seems quite promising as it offers a new hassle free way to commute, giving portability as well as mobility without those woes of limited parking space.

Source: Meet WalkCar, the $800 pocket size electric vehicle from Cocoa Motors