#Tesla

Computer experts successfully broke a Tesla Model 3 at the “Pwn2Own” hacking event held recently in Vancouver. However, Tesla Motors isn’t biting its nails over someone finding vulnerabilities in its system, as it was privy to the plan. The automaker has operated a “bug bounty program” for the past 4 years, rewarding anyone who can pull it off — going so far as saying it wouldn’t void a vehicle’s warranty if a customer successfully hacked it in “good faith.” It even offered a maximum reward of $15,000 (USD) last year.

Meanwhile, the group that managed to break the Model 3 in Canada this month received more than a sack of cash from the automaker.

Over the weekend, Tesla CEO Elon Musk asked the world to “please note” that prices on all Tesla inventory would rise by about 3 percent on April 1st. While it sounds like the setup to a particularly bland April Fool’s prank, Musk followed up by saying, “To be clear, this doesn’t affect Tesla website order prices. Existing inventory prices are currently slightly lower than on website. This will bring them in line,” which is only slightly funny.

The automaker is also scrapping its extended service plans, intended to provide annual maintenance on its vehicles. Considering how often Tesla adjusts pricing, this is the bigger story. But let’s give the money matters a little attention before making our deep dive into the company’s bold reliability claims (which is Tesla’s stated reason for the yearly maintenance program’s kiboshing).

There’s no shortage of distractions coming out of Tesla to take the focus away from a smoldering legal battle between the automaker and its favorite foe, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC, however, isn’t easily led astray by retail store turmoil and the promise of a crossover with no home. The regulator has stepped up its efforts to see Tesla CEO Elon Musk held in contempt of court for violating an earlier settlement agreement. At the root of the two contempt orders, the latest filed on Monday, is the source of all evil in today’s world: social media.

First, it faded from the automaker’s ordering page — a disappearance noted on Sunday. Introduced last October as a cheaper stepping stone to the Model 3 lifestyle (and a sort-of apology for the then-undelivered $35,000 Standard Range), Tesla’s Mid Range variant offered 260 miles of driving range, compared to the 310 miles available to Model 3 Long Range drivers.

With the Standard Range now available to order, the Mid Range apparently serves no purpose in the Tesla stable.

Perhaps to give journalists a taste of what it’s like to be a Tesla reservation holder, Tesla’s Model Y launch event, scheduled for 11 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, started late. When it did, CEO Elon Musk launched into a rundown of his company’s well-documented history.

There were a few admissions during his speech, including this telling statement:

“I really think the difficulty and value of manufacturing is underappreciated,” Musk said, echoing a sentiment hurled in his direction since the start of Model 3 production. “It’s relatively easy to make a prototype and extremely difficult to mass manufacture a vehicle reliably and at scale.”

With tonight’s splashy California reveal of the upcoming Model Y crossover, Tesla CEO Elon Musk hopes to achieve two things: positive press, and an avalanche of deposits. It would be a change from the past several weeks, in which an assembly line of undesirable headlines made it appear that a green monument was in danger of toppling.

While pricing and specs should be revealed tonight, J.D. Power thinks it knows what Tesla fans will pay.

A recent report from Bloomberg frames Tesla CEO Elon Musk as quite the jerk in relation to his actions toward a former employee. This worker is the whistleblower who, last year, shared internal documents that suggested the company’s Nevada Gigafactory was blowing through raw materials at an alarming rate. Martin Tripp offered up information showing Tesla wasted $150 million in materials and accused the automaker of pursuing unsafe production procedures during its push to increase Model 3 volume.

Tripp, who tried briefly to maintain his anonymity, said he was concerned that Tesla was shipping cars that were potentially dangerous to consumers. However, Tesla quickly responded by suggesting the claims against it were ridiculous and the amount of waste cited in the report was an overstatement.

“As is expected with any new manufacturing process, we had high scrap rates earlier in the Model 3 ramp. This is something we planned for and is a normal part of a production ramp,” Tesla told Business Insider in 2018.

Following an intense Twitter rant from Elon Musk, the story died down. But the corporate task force charged with finding out who leaked the information would eventually lead to even more ridiculous claims.

If Tesla doesn’t exist anywhere on your shopping list, it’s easy to ignore the turmoil surrounding the automaker. If Tesla’s your employer, however, the past few weeks have been a roller coaster ride.

Retail employees, who, along with store managers and regional managers, learned of the automaker’s plan to divest itself of stores through media reports, claim they’re hanging by a thread, stripped of their commission and still in the dark.

It’s hard to keep up with the endless tweaks and about-faces made to Tesla’s short-term sales and pricing strategies. Some automakers roll out changes and stick to them for years; Tesla pulls over and adjusts its near-term operations from a rest stop off the side of the interstate.

The latest change to Tesla’s game plan involves a reversal of a strategy announced just a couple of weeks ago. The lion’s share of Tesla’s stores will not close, after all. And, instead of prices dropping across the board to reflect the cost savings, the automaker will raise them instead.

Let’s say you manage one of the soon-to-be-closed Tesla factory-owned stores and, for whatever reason, you have dozens of brand new Model 3 EVs sitting unsold on your lot. What are you going to do if one of them has a discharged battery? As car dealers learned a long time ago in the gasoline era, batteries won’t keep a charge forever and cars sitting for a long time sometimes need a boost to their batteries.

That’s true whether it’s a conventional 12 volt lead-acid battery for an ICE-powered vehicle’s electrical system or it’s the lithium-ion battery pack that powers a EV. That’s why car dealerships for conventional vehicles have battery tenders, heavy duty chargers that can be wheeled around the lot to whichever car might have a dead starter battery.

Of course, to recharge an EV’s battery, you’re gonna need a bigger charger.

Tesla, the upstart electric automaker who reminds your author of that person you knew in high school who existed in a perpetual cloud of drama, wants Tesla owners to juice up their cars in a hurry. Recharging times are one factor behind the slow adoption of EVs in North America (cost, range, and recharging availability being the others), so the automaker plans to ensure their time at the Supercharger station doesn’t go overlong.

Expect 75 miles in 5 minutes, Tesla claims.

On Thursday, Tesla announced it will finally begin delivering the Model 3’s long-awaited base trim to the public through direct online sales. By eliminating storefronts, the automaker believes it can reduce costs — helping to get that pesky profit situation under control.

Unfortunately, reports have emerged that claim those employees had no idea their jobs were on the line. Meanwhile, the company’s share price took a hit in the wake of the announcement, causing its stock to drop significantly. Since last Thursday, more than $8 billion disappeared from Tesla’s market capitalization.

Two fatal Tesla crashes in Florida last week, one of which bears a striking similarity to an earlier 2016 crash, have the NHTSA and NTSB on their toes.

While both federal safety agencies are looking into Friday’s West Delray, Florida collision, which involved a Model 3 and transport truck, only the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is probing the previous Sunday’s Davie, Florida crash. Both groups want to know if Autopilot was turned on at the time of impact.

Hoping to start this week in better form than last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter Sunday to generate buzz ahead of the Model Y’s debut. The upcoming crossover, based on the Model 3 sedan, will see the light of day on March 14th at the company’s L.A. design studio, Musk said.

As for when customers can expect to see one, that’s a matter for the bookies.

Is the long-awaited, stripped-down $35,000 Tesla Model 3 profitable? Company CEO Elon Musk won’t say, brushing off the question during a late Thursday conference call.

“Yeah, we’re not going to talk about that. Next question,” said Musk, who last fall warned that releasing the lower-priced car prematurely could sink the company. The nearly three-year wait period for the 220-mile electric sedan saw a constantly evolving end date, though the anticipated March deliveries jibes with Musk’s October prediction of four to six months.

What doesn’t jibe is Musk’s Thursday admittance that, after two profitable quarters, his company will likely sink back into the red.