Tesla

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com April 2, 2013 Tesla announced some interesting bits of news yesterday. In a press release, the company announced sales of the Model S have exceeded a previous estimate for the first quarter by 250 vehicles. Tesla also said that they're delivering 500 vehicles a week, up from 400 not too long ago. But that wasn't the most interesting bit of news. Further down the release, Tesla announced that they would not be building any of the 40 kWh Mode

It was going to happen sooner or later, but Tesla is taking the state of Michigan to federal court over its ban on direct sales to consumers. According to the suit, Tesla is seeking “to vindicate its rights under the United States Constitution to sell and service its critically-acclaimed, all-electric vehicles at Tesla-owned facilities in the State of Michigan”. This suit comes after the Michigan's Secretary of State office denied Tesla a dealership license earlier in the month. “The l

Over two years ago, hundreds of thousands of people put down $1,000 deposit to order their very own Tesla Model 3 with the hoping of getting it in 2018. Flash forward to now and a growing number of those have been asking for their money back. Second Measure, a company that analyzes billions of dollars in anonymized credit and debit card purchases to determine various trends said in a post today that 23 percent of reservation-holders have asked for a refund as of April, a noticeable increase

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com April 3, 2013 Yesterday, Tesla announced a new, more affordable way to get behind the wheel of a Model S. Its what Tesla calls a "revolutionary new finance product" that combine the "best aspects of car leasing and ownership." How affordable are we talking about? Tesla was throwing a cost of less than $500 per month*. How does this product work? From Tesla's press release, Note a key phase in that quote. "When considering the savings fro

Last May, Joshua Brown was killed in a crash when his Tesla Model S in Autopilot collided with a tractor-trailer. After an investigation that took over half of a year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released their findings today.  In a report, NHTSA said they didn't find any evidence of defects with the Autopilot system. The agency also stated that they would not ask Tesla to perform a recall on models equipped with Autopilot. In a statement, Tesla said "the safety

There were serious concerns before the beginning of Tesla's annual shareholders meeting mostly due to CEO Elon Musk's erratic behavior over the past month or so. But Musk was on his best behavior during the meeting, where some big announcements were made. On the business front, Tesla shareholders voted to keep Antonio Gracias, James Murdoch, and Kimbal Musk on the board, despite criticisms from a group of shareholders that they aren't fully independent from Musk. There was also the proposal

During their first quarter presentation, Tesla announced that it would be accelerating plans to produce 500,000 vehicles from 2020 to 2018. This in part due to the demand for the recently announced Model 3. This is an ambitious goal to say in the least and one that could haunt Tesla if they don't meet. Already, they might have hit a roadblock.   Reuters reports that Tesla hasn't finalized the design of its new Model 3. During a call with analysts last week, CEO Elon Musk said design is still b

For the past couple of years, Tesla has been offering an $8,000 "full self-driving" feature for their Autopilot system. But you couldn't use this feature as Tesla had not yet activated this feature. Basically, you were buying a system that Tesla promised would come online sometime in the near future. But that is not happening as Tesla has pulled the option for the time being. Last night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted the option has been taken off due to it causing "too much confusion". S

After a long journey, Tesla has finally revealed the production version of the Model X crossover. Introduced at an event last night at the company's headquarters, CEO Elon Musk made his case as to why you want it.   Musk began with safety as he states that the Model X is the first SUV that gets five stars in every crash test category. This is due to no gas engine in the front of the vehicle, and the heavy battery mounted so low in the vehicle which reduces the risk of a rollover. There is also

If you happened to be perusing the Monterey, CA Craigslist this morning, you might have come across an interesting ad. Someone had posted an ad for a Tesla Model 3. The vehicle allegedly has about 2,000 miles on the odometer. Like many of Model 3s currently rolling off the production line, this is the long-range variant with a 310-mile range. Other features include a panoramic glass roof, upgraded sound system, and "Aero" wheels. The price? $150,000. Our favorite part of the ad is the

If you are one of the lucky people to order their Tesla Model 3 first, you'll be somewhat disappointed in the number of options available. At Tesla's annual shareholder meeting, CEO Elon Musk said buyers of the first Model 3s will only have two configuration options; colors and wheels. This is an effort to help ramp production of the Model 3 quickly. "You just need to decide what color you want and what size wheels, at least for the initial production," said Musk. Musk went on to

In a staff-wide email sent today, Tesla CEO announced that the company would be laying off nine percent of its staff across the company. The cuts comes as part of "an effort to reduce costs and become profitable.” “Given that Tesla has never made an annual profit in the almost 15 years since we have existed, profit is obviously not what motivates us. What drives us is our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable, clean energy, but we will never achieve that mission unless

Tesla reported Q3 2018 Earnings on Wednesday with revenue of $6.82 billion and a profit $417 million or $2.90 per share. Tesla's earnings per share widely out-paces analyst estimates of losses of 15 to 19 cents per share. Revenue on automotive production increased 158% year over year with a dramatic increase in sales during the summer of 2018 due to increased sales of the Model 3 sedan. Tesla also cites increased gross margins on the Model S and Model X due to increased efficiencies.  The M

There is no love lost between Tesla Motors and the former director of Autopilot. Bloomberg reports that the Silicon Valley automaker has sued Sterling Anderson over allegations of stealing confidential information about Autopilot and trying to recruit Tesla employees to his new venture. In the court filing, Tesla says Anderson began work on an autonomous-car venture, Aurora Innovation LLC back in summer when he was head of the Autopilot project. As the director of Autopilot, Anderson would

The latest way Tesla has been trying to get around states that ban direct sales (Michigan for example) is to apply for a dealer license. But this plan appears to not be working.   Automotive News reports that North Carolina's Division of Motor Vehicles has rejected Telsa's application to attain a second dealership license and said the automaker must go through a third-party dealership group. The ruling states that Tesla didn't meet the specific requirements to become exempt from a state law pr

Tesla has been fighting in various states to allow for direct sales of their vehicles. The most contentious being the state of Michigan which enacted a law in October 2014 banning automakers from selling vehicles directly to consumers. Tesla has been working hard to try and change the law by offering test drives and education to legislators, to no avail. Even the Federal Trade Commission has called on the state to rethink this law. But Michigan is sticking to its guns.   So Tesla decided to do