2022 Tesla Model S on 2040-cars

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Tesla, European automaker may share Supercharger network [w/video]

Tesla Model S owners have had the now-500-plus Supercharger locations all to themselves since the free, high-speed charging network first opened up three years ago. The day may be coming when they'll have to start sharing, however. According to CEO Elon Musk, the company is "in talks with some manufacturers" about opening up its infrastructure to other autos. The mission statement of Tesla Motors is to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport," and it can be argued that the success of its Model S is doing this, at least to some extent, by inspiring other automakers to build long-range electric vehicles themselves. Witness the Porsche Mission E concept and Audi E-Tron Quattro Concept as two recently unveiled examples. Sharing the Supercharger system is another way to speed things up. When EV owners of other marques want to take a trip, they may find themselves facing a hodge-podge of charging networks, each with slightly different standards, availability, and fees. Supercharging for free at well-mapped and easily accessible locations can only make things easier, and Musk has long said he would like other companies to make use of the network. With some manufacturers declaring allegiance to the CHAdeMO and others, the SAE Combo system, it seemed like Tesla might not get any takers, but finally it may be getting traction. Musk mentioned the development on at least two different occasions recently at speaking engagements in Berlin: once in a morning discussion, and later during a larger meeting with the German Minister of Economy & Energy, Sigmar Gabriel. While in the first instance, Musk used the plural "manufacturers," indicating there may be discussions with more than one firm, the second mention might be more relevant to the near term. In that case, while answering a question about sharing the Superchargers, he stated that "the CEO of one European car company, not a German car company, has approached us recently about doing exactly that, and we're super supportive of anyone who wants to do that." The question now becomes, "who will be the first to use the Tesla high-speed network?" With the specific mention of a European company, and the exclusion of German ones, our best guess is Aston Martin. Its CEO Andy Palmer is quite bullish on electric vehicles and the iconic British brand already has a test mule for an 800-hp electric Rapide on the road, not to mention its fabulous DBX under development.

60 Minutes can't even get Tesla Model S EV sound right

60 Minutes has come under fire for screwing up important bits of news recently, but an error in Sunday's profile of Tesla Motors and CEO Elon Musk is completely perplexing. 60 Minutes has said it was an "audio editing error," but we're wondering how you manage to edit in internal combustion engine and transmission sounds into a video specifically on electric vehicles. The stock footage that 60 Minutes used is official Tesla material, but the videos on the company's YouTube page are devoid of engine sounds. 60 Minutes editors added the noises, which were noticed by eagle-eared (is that a thing?) viewers who know that one of the appeals of an EV is the silent ride. In other parts of the interview, Musk says that a 400-mile battery is possible today but it would be too expensive, talks about how the DOE loan was helpful but was not necessary to keep Tesla alive and his attitude that, "If something's important enough, you should try, even if the probable outcome is failure." This isn't the first time television producers have made a Tesla EV look bad. This isn't the first time television producers have made a Tesla EV look bad. The most famous case was when the BBC show Top Gear pretended to run out of juice in a Roadster. Tesla sued for libel in 2011, but the case was dismissed in 2013. Tesla declined to comment to AutoblogGreen on the situation and 60 Minutes told Fox News it will update the videos online. Even when the sound is gone, the profile of the man and the company remains interesting. You can watch it below. As of this writing, the engine sounds still can be heard at around the 40-second mark in the shorter video we've embedded below (the top one) and you can see the whole profile in the second video. The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience. The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience.

FTC officials question 'bad policy' that stops Tesla's direct sales

It looks like Elon Musk has a new group of allies over at the Federal Trade Commission. Writing on the FTC blog, three high-level FTC officials came out against the "protectionist" network of laws in the US that govern automotive dealers and prevent, in some cases, Tesla Motors from selling its cars directly to customers. They called the rules, "bad policy for a number of reasons." They write: [The legal] protections expanded until in many states they included outright bans on the sale of new cars by anyone other than a dealer-specifically, an auto manufacturer. Instead of "protecting," these state laws became "protectionist," perpetuating one way of selling cars-the independent car dealer. The post is not a call to arms, but more of a position statement co-authored by Andy Gavil (director of the Office of Policy Planning), Debbie Feinstein (director of the Bureau of Competition), and Marty Gaynor (director of the Bureau of Economics). "The collective [cost] impact of [the state-by-state battles] is one of the major concerns here. [Tesla is] just trying to sell their cars" – Andy Gavin Gavil told AutoblogGreen that the main goal was to bring attention to the issue, which the post has certainly done. There are so many of state fights going on, he said, that this was a way to reach a lot of people at once. "We've been watching this for months," he said. "It's very clearly a state-by-state battle. We are concerned about Tesla litigating state-by-state. The collective [cost] impact of that is one of the major concerns here. They're just trying to sell their cars. The way the industry is reacting shows that it's about more than that." Gavil wouldn't go so far as to say that there should be new national rules – it's up to Congress to do that, he said - but he has also been looking at the taxi industry and the upstarts like Lyft and Uber. The competition angle sometimes doesn't get the attention it deserves, he said. "If there's a more open debate about it, that can only be a good thing." One of the groups opposed to Tesla's direct sales is the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), which represents 16,000 new car and truck dealerships with about 32,000 domestic and international franchises.