2016 Tesla Model S on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Nevada lawmakers debating Tesla gigafactory tax breaks today

When it comes to Nevada's financial incentives that lured Tesla Motors to build its Gigafactory in the Silver State, some lawmakers have said Gov. Brian Sandoval has some 'splain' to do. And such explanations are slated to start today, reports Reuters. When there are $1.3 billion or so worth of incentives, the conversation's likely to be a lengthy one. Nevada Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick is expected to oversee the talks about the incentives, which have been criticized in some circles as being overly generous (even the idea of massive incentives was criticized). Tesla's tax exemptions alone would amount to about $725 million, and there would be about $300 million in payroll savings. Other goodies include business-tax abatements and discounted electricity rates. Sandoval has argued that the Gigafactory, which could open by late 2016, could create $100 billion worth of economic activity during the next two decades, making it a pretty good deal for the state. The factory, to be built near Reno, will be about 5 million square feet and includes battery-maker Panasonic as an investor. It's considered vital to Tesla's goal of making a $35,000 electric car with a 200-mile range. Nevada beat out Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Tesla's home state of California for Gigafactory bragging rights, but the fight might be just beginning.

Even hardcore Tesla fans can get stranded sometimes

Driving a few laps around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a Tesla Model S can be quite a treat. Driving between Los Angeles and Las Vegas? Sometimes, not so much. The fine folks at Teslarati had the good fortune of taking the all-electric luxury sedan for a few spins around the racetrack near Sin City, and found that the Tesla handled "quite well" and was able to reach a top speed of 110 miles per hour on one of the straightaways. And the car turned in a best time of two minutes and 17 seconds around the 2.4-mile circuit. Still, the car started limiting its own power as early as its second lap, and by the seventh lap or so, the car brought down its power capacity to about 25 percent in order to conserve juice. The drivers were able to make do because a Tesla Supercharger fast-charging station was 11 miles away and they could get a good charge in about an hour. Less of a treat was the car's performance between Vegas and Southern California. Despite being big Tesla fans (the driver writes for Teslarati, after all), the unexpected appearance of 35-mile-per-hour headwinds and the totally expected elevation changes between Las Vegas and Barstow, CA proved particularly problematic. The driver slowed down to 40 mph and dropped the Model S' power consumption to something in the 400-500 wh/m range, but still, our intrepid explorers ran out of juice and were stranded beside the road until Tesla kindly arranged for a tow. D'oh!

This is why Tesla doesn't release monthly sales numbers

While most automakers that sell vehicles in the US release a flurry of numbers at the beginning of every month to tell us how many cars and trucks they've sold, Tesla Motors has resisted following the herd. This can be frustrating for those of us who like to look at some cold, hard numbers, but CEO Elon Musk has a good explanation for why he won't play the sales figures game. During a call with investors about Tesla's third-quarter activities – Tesla does reveal its deliveries every three months – Musk was asked by John Lovallo of Bank of America if Musk would ever consider releasing monthly sales numbers? Musk's initial reply was a short: "Um, no. Sorry," but he then explained why: Part of the reason why we don't release the monthly deliveries number is just because it varies quite a lot by region and the media tends to read all sorts of nonsense into the deliveries. So, we'll have 1,000 cars reach a country one month and none the next month or 100 the next month trickle in because those are the numbers that were registered one month versus the next. People will say, 'oh, wow, Tesla sales drop by a factor of 10. Well, no, the boat arrived in January and not all the cars got registered in January and some got registered in February and in March it's back up again. People assume deliveries are a proxy for demand, and that's not the case. It is the case for other car companies but in our case, it really needs to be parsed into orders and deliveries. And bear in mind, there are a lot of things we could do to amplify orders. Orders is not a true measure of demand, it's just a measure of what we need to do to meet our production and deliver number. In other words, let's not worry about the little ups and downs because we've got plenty of demand and we're selling plenty of cars. See you in February! You can read the full transcript of the call here and listen here.