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How four states are trying to woo Tesla Motors' gigafactory

And they're off! Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas are all in the running for Tesla Motors' gigafactory, USA Today says. And the politicians are already talking big, which is the operative word for a factory that could cost $5 billion, require 1,000 acres, take up 10 million square feet and support 6,500 jobs. Oh, and build battery packs for a half-million EVs a year. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez earlier this week said the state was considering a special legislative session to work up an economic package for a possible Tesla factory. The governor is playing up how the state recently cut corporate tax rates and says New Mexico's in talks with the electric-vehicle maker, though she's hush-hush about the details, the Albuquerque Journal says. Meanwhile, Arizona this week proposed a bill that would allow Tesla (which has a showroom in Scottsdale) to sell its vehicles in the state without a third-party dealership network. There are politicians claiming such a law wouldn't be a carrot of sorts to lure the company's new battery plant, according to AZ Central, to which we say "yeah, sure." The bill, which would need Arizona Senate approval, would put the state diametrically opposite Texas, which has been the most steadfast about retaining the age-old third-party dealer system that Tesla's been trying to subvert. Taking it one step further, Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said the city has identified a suitable site and is willing to pony up tax incentives over and above what the state will offer, according to the Arizona Daily Star. And Nevada? Well, it has Vegas. Of course, Tesla itself has encouraged a bit of March Madness-style guesswork by posting a forum on its website in which readers and writers can hypothesize on where the factory will end up. Stay tuned.

New Tesla, McLaren, and Ferrari models added to Takata recall list

UPDATE: A McLaren spokesperson confirmed to Autoblog that "a number" of McLaren models in the US, Japan, and South Korea will be recalled to fix non-dessicated airbag inflators. However, the recall only affects passenger airbags, as all driver's-side inflators use a different technology and are not affected. The timeline is still being determined. It's been more than two and a half years since the Takata airbag recall first made waves. Despite knowing which airbags were at fault and the exact cause of the failure, manufacturers like Audi, Ferrari, McLaren, and Tesla have been building and selling cars with defective airbags. Although it takes several years for the airbag to degrade to the point of failure, all of these new cars will eventually have to be recalled for replacements. It appears that time has come, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has now issued a recall on some of these new models. Models from Tesla and McLaren have been added to NHTSA's recall list for the first time. Tesla is recalling every 2012 - 2016 Model S while McLaren is bringing back every model it's made since relaunching its road-car business in 2012. Not even the P1 is free from failure. Other automakers have expanded their affected-vehicle list. All of Ferrari's 2016 - 2017 lineup now falls under the recall and joins a number of previously recalled models, while Audi is recalling the 2017 R8. Since the recall started, dozens of automakers have recalled millions of affected cars to replace potentially fatal and highly flawed airbags that can deploy bits of metal at occupants. Eleven deaths in the United States are directly related to the faulty airbags. Before the recall, Takata held a sizable share of the airbag market. When the failures began to occur, some automakers were left with no alternative suppliers. As it takes a few years for the airbags to fail, automakers without other options faced a choice: they could either build cars that would be recalled in the future or stop building cars altogether until a secondary supplier could be found. These recalls seem to be happening so frequently that owners may not know what to do or where to check to see if their car is potentially affected. NHTSA is keeping a comprehensive list of all affected models. Their website can help owners determine if they have a potentially problematic airbag installed and the steps to take to replace it.

Tesla's ZEV credit allotment changing under new CARB rules

Could the California Air Resources Board (CARB) be taking a $55-million bite out of Tesla Motors' profits? The state regulator, which grants zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) credits for automakers making plug-in vehicles, is planning to reduce the number of credits generated by each Model S battery-electric sedan from seven to four, Bloomberg News reports. That means the California-based automaker will have fewer credits to sell to big buyers such as General Motors and Chrysler, who don't make enough ZEVs on their own to comply with state mandates. While the selling price for these credits isn't disclosed (they're private transactions), the market was a lucrative one for Tesla, which generated $129.8 million in revenue from California zero-emissions credit sales and about another $65 million selling US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) credits last year. All told, California and federal zero-emissions credit sales accounted for about 10 percent of Tesla's sales last year. A Tesla representative didn't immediately respond to a request from AutoblogGreen for comment. This issue first came up last year when CARB hinted that it wouldn't give Tesla credit for having a battery-swapping option as it's method for quick-fueling compliance. Tesla, which appears to have been preparing for just this scenario, has been collecting revenue on credits since 2010 and achieved its first-ever profitable quarter in the first quarter of 2013 because of such credits. While the maximum number of zero-emissions credits a vehicle could garner was increased from seven to nine in the new rules, Tesla can't take advantage of that because it meets neither of the most stringent criteria: that the car in question is rated to go more than 300 miles on a full tank or battery and be able to be "filled up" (or fully charged, in this case) within 15 minutes. Those are more hydrogen fuel-cell-like targets, but Tesla has the EVs that come closest to meeting them.