by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Markets, Online Marketing, Sales
San Francisco : Elon Musk-founded electric car maker Tesla has announced an entry-level Model 3 sedan for $35,000 that will have a top speed of 130 miles per hour with 220 miles of range.
The announcement came a day after Elon Musk changed his Twitter handle to Elon Tusk to the surprise of his 24 million followers on the platform.
The standard Model 3 with 0-60 mph acceleration of 5.6 seconds “is built to achieve the same perfect 5-star safety rating as the longer-ranged version, which has the lowest probability of injury of any car ever tested by the US government”, Tesla said in a statement late Thursday.
“In addition, we are introducing the Model 3 Standard Range Plus, which offers 240 miles of range, a top speed of 140 mph, 0-60 mph acceleration of just 5.3 seconds and most premium interior features at $37,000 before incentives,” the company added.
The Model 3 is “excruciatingly difficult” to make at the reduced price, Musk later told reporters on a conference call.
Tesla also said it is shifting sales worldwide to online only.
“Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6 per cent on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected,” the company announced.
Over the next few months, Tesla would be winding down many of its stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centres.
The announcement came after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asked a US federal judge to hold Musk in contempt for violating a settlement deal reached in 2018.
The development came in response to Musk’s tweet on February 19 that “Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019”.
Hours later, the billionaire sent a follow-up tweet indicating that the company will actually deliver just 400,000 cars in 2019.
Although Musk corrected his mistake, the US regulators slammed the Tesla CEO because he “once again published inaccurate and material information about Tesla to his over 24 million Twitter followers”.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Large Enterprise, Marketing Basics, Markets, Technology, World
San Francisco : Electric car maker Tesla has acquired US-based energy storage company Maxwell Technologies in an all-stock deal valued at $218 million, a deal aimed at helping the electric automaker improve its batteries and lower costs as more competitors enter the market.
According to the report, the offer will value each of Maxwell’s 45.9 million shares at $4.75. The merger is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019.
“We believe this transaction is in the best interests of Maxwell stockholders and offers investors the opportunity to participate in Tesla’s mission of accelerating the advent of sustainable transport and energy,” Franz Fink, CEO and President, Maxwell, was quoted as saying by TechCrunch on Monday.
Maxwell Technologies’ primary focus has been on ultracapacitors — energy storage devices that can charge and discharge rapidly, perform at a wide range of temperatures and have high power density and long operational life.
In December, the company sold its high-voltage battery product line to Renaissance Investment Foundation for $55.1 million in cash and up to $15 million in potential future milestone payments.
The company says that Maxwell’s dry electrode technology — used to make the ultracapacitors — which can be applied to batteries of varying chemistries, boosts performance and is more cost-effective than the more commonly used wet electrode technology.
That application could give Tesla a boost in an increasingly competitive electric vehicle market, the report said.
A number of automakers are introducing, or have introduced, electric vehicles in the past several months, including the Jaguar I-PACE, Audi e-tron SUV, Kia e-Niro and the Hyundai Kona.
“We are always looking for potential acquisitions that make sense for the business and support Tesla’s mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy,” a Tesla spokesman said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Investing, Large Enterprise, World
San Francisco : Aiming to ramp up its production targets to 5,000 cars a week, Elon Musk-run Tesla has reported revenue of $3.4 billion for the first quarter of 2018, saying that Model 3 production hit 2,270 a week in April.
Tesla’s cash balance dropped but the US-based electric vehicle automaker ended with $2.7 billion in cash.
“We made significant progress on the Model 3 ramp in the second half of Q1, and the momentum continued into early Q2. Prior to a planned shutdown in mid-April to further increase production, we produced more than 2,000 Model 3 vehicles for three straight weeks, and we hit 2,270 in the last of those weeks,” Tesla said in a shareholder letter late on Wednesday.
“Even at this stage of the ramp, Model 3 is already on the cusp of becoming the best-selling mid-sized premium sedan in the US, and our deliveries continue to increase,” the letter read.
According to Re/Code, the company lost $710 million on $3.4 billion in revenue as it struggled to meet the production goals for its mass-market vehicle Model 3.
Tesla was aimimg at producing 2,500 cars a week by March-end but ended up making only 2,270 cars a week in April.
“We now expect to reach a module production rate of 5,000 car sets per week even before we install the new automated line designed and built by Tesla in Germany,” the company said.
“Once we hit the 5,000 per week milestone, we intend to incorporate our learnings to continue to increase output on our existing manufacturing lines beyond 5,000 units per week, and then in a capital efficient manner to add incremental capacity to ultimately get to a 10,000 unit weekly rate,” the letter said.
In Q1, Tesla produced 24,728 Model S and Model X and 9,766 Model 3 vehicles, and delivered 21,815 Model S and Model X vehicles and 8,182 Model 3 vehicles — totalling 29,997 deliveries.
Musk has already told his staff that he expects “to reach full GAAP profitability in the third and fourth quarters of 2018. Achieving that will depend significantly on whether the company can produce 5,000 ‘Model 3s’ a week.”
In his recent email, Musk said the company will add 400 people per week at both factories for several weeks to meet the ambitious production goals.
Musk has also admitted that his electric vehicle-making company has been too reliant on robots for production and the human workforce is underrated.
“Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated,” Musk tweeted last month.
Tesla reported a record loss of $675.4 million — $4.01 per share — on a revenue of $3.29 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Markets, Social Entrepreneur, Social Media, Technology, World
San Francisco : After taking down SpaceX, Tesla and his own official pages from Facebook, the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has now justified his action.
“It’s not a political statement and I didn’t do this because someone dared me to do it. Just don’t like Facebook. Gives me the willies. Sorry,” Must tweeted on Saturday night.
The Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla disappeared minutes after Musk responded to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down the official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement.
“What’s Facebook?” Musk on Friday morning, sarcastically replied to a tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urging his followers to delete Facebook by tweeting: “It is time.”
Prior to the deletion, both the two pages had over 2.6 million Likes and Follows, and super high engagement rates.
The boycott “#DeleteFacebook” started after the US and British media reported that the data of more than 50 million Facebook users were inappropriately used by Cambridge Analytica, in activities allegedly connected with US President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
When it comes to Facebook-owned Instagram, Musk is a bit considerate.
“Instagram’s probably ok imo, so long as it stays fairly independent. I don’t use FB and never have, so don’t think I’m some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also, we don’t advertise or pay for endorsements, so a don’t care,” he tweeted.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that his company had made mistakes in a data leak that caused grave concern about user privacy possibly abused for political purposes.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology
Los Angeles : Verified Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla disappeared on Friday, minutes after Elon Musk responded to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down his rocket company SpaceX, electric carmaker Tesla and his own official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement.
“What’s Facebook?” Musk on Friday morning sarcastically replied to a tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urging his followers to delete Facebook by tweeting “It is time.”
Musk, CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, Inc, replied to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down the SpaceX, Tesla and Musk official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement by saying “I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.”
Less than half an hour, the verified Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla, Inc are no longer accessible, Xinhua reported.
Prior to the deletion, both the two pages had over 2.6 million Likes and Follows, and super high engagement rates.
The boycott “#DeleteFacebook” started after the US and British media reported that the data of more than 50 million Facebook users were inappropriately used by a British data analysis company, Cambridge Analytica, in activities allegedly connected with US President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted on Wednesday that his company had made mistakes in a data leak that caused grave concern about user privacy possibly abused for political purposes.
—IANS
