Debate over the profitability of Tesla electric cars has raged for years among its fans and detractors. Tesla supporters point to financial data from the Silicon Valley automaker to support the idea that it makes money on each car it sells. Skeptics point out that save for two marginally profitable quarters, one in 2009 and another this year... Tesla challenge: make money on electric cars when GM, Nissan, VW don’t have to
Debate over the profitability of Tesla electric cars has raged for years among its fans and detractors. Tesla supporters point to financial data from the Silicon Valley automaker to support the idea that it makes money on each car it sells. Skeptics point out that save for two marginally profitable quarters, one in 2009 and another this year...
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is among a roster of chief executives from Silicon Valley set to meet with president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, according to news reports. Musk has suggested that climate change is among the most urgent challenges facing mankind, one reason his company makes only zero-emission electric cars. The president-elect, on the...
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he wants his company to be building 500,000 electric cars a year by 2018. That's an ambitious goal, but at least one necessary piece of the puzzle is already in place. Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, previously produced that many cars when it was a joint operation of General Motors and Toyota. DON'T MISS...
Tesla Motors is not legally allowed to sell its electric cars directly to customers in Michigan, thanks to subtle changes made two years ago to the state's franchise laws. But Tesla now has one store in the home state of the Detroit Three automakers. However, that location is only a "gallery" where consumers can look at cars, but can't buy. CHECK...
The Tesla "gigafactory" near Reno, Nevada, is already billed as the largest lithium-ion battery cell plant in the world. But Tesla has discussed plans for at least one additional gigafactory, presumably to meet demand for battery cells related to large-scale electric-car production outside the U.S. One Finnish city is now making an official bid...
Tesla Motors will soon begin rolling out software to restore lost Autopilot driver-assistance features, its CEO says, as a prelude to what the company claims will be the launch of genuine self-driving capabilities. Last month, Tesla announced that it was equipping new Model S and Model X electric cars with a more elaborate suite of sensors, known...
Consumer Reports has an interesting relationship with Tesla electric cars: it's complicated. The magazine initially praised the Tesla Model S, but pulled its "recommended" rating after reliability issues cropped up. It has also become one of the loudest critics of Tesla's Autopilot system, criticizing the name and its beta status among other...
Electric-car maker Tesla Motors has always followed a different path than the rest of the automobile industry. Among the ways it has violated industry convention is ignoring annual model changes and simply updating its cars whenever changes were ready for production. This has occasionally made for some very frustrated high-end customers already...
It wasn't even close. When we asked our Twitter followers which electric car they thought would be judged by history as most important thus far, it was a slam-dunk. Fully four out of five survey participants voted for the same vehicle out of the four choices we offered. DON'T MISS: Tesla Model S: Green Car Reports' 2013 Best Car To Buy That car...
Like a human driver, a self-driving car needs to "see" its environment in order to navigate through it. But instead of eyes, autonomous vehicles use an array of sensors—including cameras and radar—to detect objects and obstacles. So what does a self-driving car's view of the road look like? DON'T MISS: Tesla's own numbers show...
Tesla Motors is facing a huge increase its production output in order to meet the ambitious goals set by CEO Elon Musk. He says he expects the company produce 500,000 electric cars per year by 2018. Much of that volume will come from the Model 3, the 215-mile, $35,000 sedan Tesla unveiled earlier this year, and plans to put into production by the...
Ah, Tesla Motors, source of hope, dreams, visions, contempt, dismissal, hilarity, frustration, and so much more. The Silicon Valley startup automaker, now in its ninth year of making electric cars, has built close to 150,000 expensive battery-powered luxury vehicles and defied critics numerous times. So what do our readers think the future holds...
It's no secret that many Tesla Model S owners are very enthusiastic about their cars. A chance encounter with one can easily turn into a discussion of the virtues of Tesla's electric sedan—and of electric cars in general. That passion is reflected in a recent survey of owners conducted by market-research firm Strategic Vision. DON'T MISS...
Tesla Motors ignores the standard product-development cycles used by other automakers. Rather than waiting for conventional model years to unveil new features, the Silicon Valley automaker simply pushes them out when they're ready, often in the form of over-the-air software updates. Tesla's latest software update will make the Model S...
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Tesla’s claim that its Autopilot driver-assistance software is safer than a human driver. After a fatal Autopilot crash last May, the company said the death was the first in 130 million miles of Autopilot driving—and noted that, “among all vehicles, in the U.S., there is a fatality every 94...
To those of us who cover the world of electric cars, Tesla's refusal to release its sales data in the conventional format is a continual irritant. Starting in June 2012, when the company said it didn't plan to release monthly sales because its backers didn't care, Tesla Motors has provided only partial data. While it started releasing quarterly...
Late last week, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk held a press conference whose underlying message was support for the proposed combination of Tesla with solar installer SolarCity. Musk's cousin Lyndon Rive runs SolarCity and Musk sits on its board, but the proposed acquisition has been criticized by analysts as a distraction for the electric car...