Coming up on today’s show: Hints at how
Tesla will charge for Model 3 Supercharger
use, the ongoing Hyperloop One court battle
gets weirder and weirder, and the Energica
Ego takes on some pretty powerful sports bikes
in its latest drag race video.
These stories and more, next on TEN.
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It’s Friday, September second twenty sixteen,
I’m Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield, and we start
today’s show with an unexpected discovery
made this week by eagle-eyed Tesla fans pertaining
to the upcoming Model 3 and supercharging.
Ever since Model 3 debuted earlier this year,
there have been a whole slew of questions
about how Tesla will charge customers for
access to its worldwide network of Supercharger
stations, which are free for Model X and Model
S customers.
But this week, a piece of code hidden on Tesla’s
Model 3 reservation page hinted for the first
time that Tesla might allow customers to pre-pay
for Supercharger ‘credits’ that can be
redeemed for time at a Supercharger station
when needed.
Most importantly, the code seemed to suggest
Tesla would charge per kilowatt-hour, which
could explain why it appears to be converting
money into credits which can then be used
to pay for kilowatt-hours, since not all countries
allow non utility companies to charge customers
per unit of energy.
Clever Tesla, circumventing those pesky rules
like that one kid in class who teachers can
never tell off because technically, they’re
always right…
We’re off to the UK next, where Japanese
automaker Nissan paired with ride-sharing
platform Uber and the UK’s Energy Savings
Trust this week to bring a fleet of fifty
Nissan LEAF electric cars to London’s busy
streets.
Of course, there are already some electric
vehicles in use around the world on Uber fleets,
but this addition represents the first official
placement of electric cars in Uber’s own
company-owned London fleet.
When fully commissioned, the cars will be
used to not only improve air quality in Britain’s
capital city but help the UK’s Energy Savings
Trust conduct a full-scale study into the
benefits and effects that running a large
electric vehicle fleet can have on air pollution
and the electrical grid.
We should not here that electric minicabs
have been used on London’s streets for years
-- so Uber is a little late to this particular
party.
Nevertheless, this is a feel-good story from
a company that’s been struggling with a
whole lot of negative press this year so we
can’t complain too much.
Folks who may be complaining a little more
than usual in a short while are Telsa Model
S and Tesla Model X owners after Tesla pushes
the upcoming version 8.0 over-the-air update
to customers’ cars in the coming weeks.
That’s because as we covered this week,
Tesla is implementing new software controls
designed to ensure that its autopilot semi-autonomous
driver assistance features aren’t abused
by owners eager to leave all the hard work
to their car.
The new restrictions -- which include an autopilot
lock out until the car is placed in park if
the driver doesn’t keep their hands on the
wheel -- are designed to ensure drivers remain
fully attentive and ready to take over when
autopilot is engaged.
This should help prevent accidents like the
one which claimed the life of Tesla Model
S owner Joshua Brown in Florida earlier this
year in which his car struck an eighteen wheeler
after neither he nor the truck noticed each
other.
While we’re on the subject, we should note
too that Tesla actually missed the original
deadline set to it by the U.S. National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration for information
concerning the above accident.
Tesla requested an additional week -- taking
the deadline to today.
We’ll know soon if it met that deadline
or not, so watch this space.
Onto better news now, we’re off to Audi,
where Volkswagen’s premium arm announced
this week that thirteen percent of all new
Audi A3s it sells are the A3 e-tron plug-in
hybrid variant.
For those who don't’ know, the Audi A3 e-tron
is mechanically identical to the Volkswagen
Golf GTE, and can travel around 25 miles in
all-electric mode before its gasoline-powered
four-cylinder engine kicks in to offer range-extending
capabilities.
Sold both in Europe and the U.S., the A3 e-tron
isn’t selling in as large a volume as say
the Chevrolet Volt, but it seems that as the
consequences of dieselgate continue, more
and more customers are opting for the plug-in
hybrid A3 over diesel or gasoline variants.
Having driven one ourselves, we can attest
to them being great fun when driven in sport
mode (combining electric and gasoline power
for some impressive performance).
But we're still waiting for Audi to produce
the all-electric version it produced in prototype
form four or so years ago.
C’mon Audi, great to hear about the e-tron
but give us more electric!
If you’ve ever founded a business or know
someone who has, you’ll know that there
are always small arguments between founders
and while I’m thinking about it, investors
too.
Normally such matters are fairly easy to fix
and yes, they sometimes do go to court -- but
they pale into insignificance against the
ongoing battle between the founders of Hyperloop
One.
Claiming that nepotism and bad management
was the order of the day, former executives
including Brogan BamBrogan had taken legal
action against the firm saying that when they
tried to fix the company’s problems they
were fired by the board, and even received
death threats.
Hyperloop One in its defence accused BamBrogan
and other executives of trying to orchestrate
a coup to take over the firm.
And this week, the company has filed fresh
legal papers alleging that it has evidence
of secret meetings held by BamBrogan in his
garage where it alleges he tried to orchestrate
a poaching of colleagues to and patents to
form a rival company.
It’s a sad state of affairs for a company
which could have at its fingertips the potential
to change the way we travel forever, but not
being legal experts nor big on business, we’re
going to leave this one to the trained professionals
to sort out.
One case we can comment on however is the
ongoing fallout from the Volkswagen Dieselgate
scandal in which Volkswagen was caught and
prosecuted for building certain diesel-engined
cars with hardware and software designed to
allow it to cheat in emissions testing.
Earlier this summer, Volkswagen, working with
Federal and state regulators, announced it
would offer customers either a buyback of
their cars or an (as yet unapproved) fix of
their cars in exchange for waiving future
legal action.
And even though the proposal was only announced
in June, more than half of those affected
in the U.S. by dieselgate have registered
for the TDI settlement program, with the overwhelming
majority opting to have Volskwagen buy their
car back.
This is good news for Volkswagen, as it’s
cheaper in the long run than trying to fix
customers cars.
It’s also the best choice for owners and
the environment, since Volkswagen hasn’t
yet figured out a fix for all those noncompliant
cars, meaning less pollution for all.
I wonder how many of those remaining customers
will opt to have a buyback too?
I’m guessing as many as possible…
Since dieselgate broke, we’ve heard of other
automakers with cars that aren’t meeting
air quality standards -- and now it turns
out that bikes are involved too.
You see, despite coming up with its all-electric
LiveWire concept motorcycle, it turns out
that all-american motorcycle manufacturer
Harley Davidson has been selling a so-called
‘super tuner’ to customers that allow
them to enhance the performance of their motorcycles
but at the same time emit massive amounts
of pollution.
While the motorcycles weren’t sold with
the devices fitted, the super tuner -- an
aftermarket device designed exclusively for
track use -- was popular with customers with
road bikes and now it’s been caught, Harley
Davidson has come to a settlement with the
U.S. EPA that will see it pay $15 million
in fines and of course, remove the aftermarket
product from sale.
That’s a lot of money, but far cheaper than
what VW has found itself paying eh?
We’re back to Tesla for this next story,
but this time its high-end Model X crossover
SUV and those massive Falcon Wing doors, which
are continuing to be a headache for the California
company.
Aside from being the main reason the car was
several years late to market, Tesla Model
X customers have found the Falcon Wing doors
to be extremely temperamental, sometimes failing
to properly close and/or hitting objects when
fully open.
Tesla’s solution?
Push a new software update that changes how
the sensors in the door operate to reduce
false-positives and ensure the doors close
more reliably.
But as Tesla owners have been demonstrating
on YouTube, that update now means that those
massive, heavy falcon wings aren’t detecting
all objects and happily slice through cucumbers
and other objects caught in the wrong place
when the doors shut.
Obviously, their concern is that a child or
adult could end up with their arms sliced
off by the doors, and pressure is on for Tesla
to fix it ASAP.
Watch this space.
This next story is actually from last week,
but it missed the cut to make it into last
week’s show -- and thus it’s here in this
week’s show.
And it concerns the self-driving car program
of Alphabet’s Google.
You see, while Google has so far concentrated
on refining its autonomous car technology
with a fleet of modified Lexus hybrids and
custom-designed pod-like electric cars, the
software giant hired former Airbnb executive
Shawn Stewart last week as director of the
self-driving car project.
The goal?
While Google hasn’t said specifically, Stewart’s
forte is building and scaling businesses,
suggesting it’s ready to turn its cool project
into a serious money maker.
And with other self-driving car-hire and ride-sharing
services due to come online in the next decade,
it’s no wonder that Google -- which has
a huge amount of autonomous vehicle experience
-- is getting ready to pounce with a killer
app product.
We’re just going to have to wait a little
longer to find out what that will be.
And finally…
If you’ve watched this show before, you’ll
know that we often finish with a drag race
video between some new, fast electric vehicle
and conventional gasoline-powered vehicles
and today is no exception.
But while our previous videos have been of
the four-wheeled variety, today we’re going
on two wheels thanks to the Energica Ego electric
motorcycle.
Billed as the world’s first true all-electric
superbike, the Energica Ego faces off against
the Pedercini Racing World Superbike Kawasaki
ZX-10R, and then takes on a Lamborghini LP570
Super Trofeo too.
If you like straight line drag racing -- I’m
more of a corners gall myself -- you should
watch the video in full when we’re done.
..which is about now because that’s your
lot for the day.
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