#TeslaMotors

The city of Shanghai claims Tesla could begin production in China in the second half of 2019, which would be an incredible achievement for the automaker. China is Tesla’s biggest market after the United States and assembling product within its borders would be a good way to avoid the nation’s aggressive tariffs on U.S autos, which currently stand at 40 percent.

However, the trade war between the two countries has also stifled sales — and not just for Tesla. China’s car market hasn’t been particularly robust this year and appears to be headed for the first major slump after nearly two decades of reliable growth. While President Trump has teased that the People’s Republic may be about to lower its automotive trade barriers with America, there’s no assurances coming from Asia. Regardless, setting up shop within China should be beneficial for Tesla’s bottom line and make it more competitive with Chinese EV brands like BYD and Nio.

According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the automaker was teetering on the edge of disaster earlier this year. “Tesla faced a really severe threat of death due to the Model 3 production ramp,” Musk told Axios during a video interview on HBO. “Essentially the company was bleeding money like crazy and just if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them.”

Musk said Tesla was within “single-digit weeks” of an unrecoverable catastrophe. While we appreciate his present candor, the assertion doesn’t mesh with comments made earlier.

In fact, Elon was down on the automotive firm needing more funds every since it posted its 2011 financial results. “Tesla does not need to ever raise another funding round,” he said in response to a question on the company’s cash position back in February of 2012. “We may want to do so, but we are in a strong cash position, and we don’t need to.”

Hoping to simplify vehicle assembly, Tesla tweaked its online car configurator over the weekend, culling numerous options from both the Model S and X. This translates into a price bump for more-basic models and a few dollars saved on the higher trims, but less choice overall. The Model S ($78,000) and X 75D ($84,000) now cost a grand more and offer improved interiors, but the 100D units cost $500 less than before. Meanwhile, all trims play host to a slimmer options list.

It was an expected move, as the brand has previously limited options to grease the wheels of production. Elon Musk said the company would embrace further streamlining to “simplify the product offerings” last month, but it’s a little surprising how far the company went.

Due to China’s increased tariffs on U.S.-manufactured vehicles, Tesla’s sales have taken a moderate beating there. Like any automaker hoping to move metal within the region, it wants a solution and seems to have come up with one. While there appears to be little hope of the brand’s larger vehicles circumventing the nation’s 40 percent import duty, there’s still hope for the Model 3.

The plan is a familiar one.

Tesla Motors is abandoning the “fully self-driving” purchasing option on all of its vehicles. The option debuted in 2016 as a way to ensure your new car would be future-proofed and able to incorporate autonomous features. But those upgrades never really came — leaving customers who spent $8,000 angry enough to file a class-action lawsuit against the company for failing to deliver on its promises. At least they still got those EV tax credits and free access to the company’s fancy new Autopilot chip (which is also a bit of a mystery item).

The option appears to have been removed from Tesla’s website this week — prompting customers to ask CEO Elon Musk what was up after he announced a rejiggering of the Model 3 lineup. According to a tweet from Musk, the self-driving option was removed because it “was causing too much confusion.”

Well, whose fucking fault was that?

When Tesla Motors began production of its Model 3 sedan, CEO Elon Musk announced the firm was entering into a kind of “ production hell.” He probably didn’t realize just how accurate a statement that would turn out to be. Already contending with a backlog of orders for the Model 3, Tesla simply couldn’t meet the volume targets it set for itself over the last year. It’s now bending over backwards to finish the quarter strong and prove to investors it is capable of turning a profit.

The automaker frequently referenced production bottlenecks as the culprit for the Model 3’s delay. Panasonic, the sole battery supplier for the vehicle, appears to be taking ownership of the issue. “The bottleneck for Model 3 production has been our batteries,” Yoshio Ito, Executive Vice President of Panasonic, said on Tuesday. “They just want us to make as many as possible.”

Tesla Motors is currently offering up a bevy of incentives, even a few it once discontinued, in order to maximize deliveries before the end of the quarter. The brand has also reached out to enthusiastic owners who may want to help during its time of need, creating a weird sort of volunteer army for itself.

The company is desperate to prove to investors that Model 3 volume is making meaningful headway before its next shareholders meeting. As you’ll recall, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation after the Securities and Exchange Commission began a civil probe into Elon Musk’s August tweet about possibly taking Tesla private. The automaker also fired more than 3,000 employes over the summer and lost several important executives. It’s been a rough year for the brand, which makes having a good quarter all the more important.

While a significant portion of that battle is being waged at the factory, helped by simplified paint options and new car carriers, Tesla thinks it can move enough extra metal at its delivery centers to make up some of the difference.

Tesla’s latest over-the-air update appears to have caused at least a few drivers to lose all Autopilot functionality. While the vehicles seem otherwise intact, the semi-autonomous driving mode that was supposed to be improved by the latest firmware installation ended up a little buggy. That’s unfortunate for Tesla — a company that could do without additional bad publicity.

Luckily, minor software issues are exactly that — minor. This isn’t on the same scale as Tesla’s CEO promising to go public or pretending to smoke weed online. It isn’t even as big of a deal as the company losing another high-ranking executive, which also happened this week.

Tesla’s Elon Musk announced Tuesday that the automaker will limit its paint options to simplify production and, hopefully, improve volume. “Moving [two] of [seven] Tesla colors off menu on Wednesday to simplify manufacturing,” said the CEO via social media. “Obsidian Black and Metallic Silver will still be available as special request, but at higher price.”

The announcement comes after a busy press week for Tesla. Musk lost his chief accounting officer after a comically brief tenure and was lambasted for smoking marijuana on Joe Rogan’s podcast. However, the real crime was how much of it Elon wasted by puffing on the monster wrap in an attempt to appease the host, without ever inhaling any smoke. That’s no way to get high.

The Model 3 was intended to be Tesla’s affordable alternative for the mass market and, for the most part, that’s what it has been. Granted, the automaker did opt to prioritize the production of higher trim levels as a way to maximize profitability. But, given its financial situation, it was an understandable strategy. The Model 3 is still the cheapest way to get into a Tesla. However, it’s not the cheapest vehicle to own — especially when it comes to insurance rates.

Last year, AAA said premiums on Tesla vehicles would likely go up 30 percent after reviewing data from the Highway Loss Data Institute. At the time, Tesla said the analysis was “severely flawed and is not reflective of reality.” But the auto club stated the HLDI’s findings matched its own research, as well as numerous other sources.

“Looking at a much broader set of countrywide data, we saw the same patterns observed in our own data, and that gave us the confidence to change rates,” said Anthony Ptasznik, chief actuary of AAA.

Save for some uplifting production news, Tesla Motors is still fighting an uphill battle. CEO Elon Musk’s earlier claim that the company would go private has gotten him into trouble with the Securities Exchange Commission — since it looks as if the automaker hasn’t procured the necessary funding to make that happen.

However it doesn’t appear as if Norway’s sovereign wealth fund will be the outlet to pick up that tab. Trond Grande, deputy CEO of the Norwegian fund, declined to say whether Tesla had approached the fund about going private. “We don’t have a view on that,” he said before adding “We want to be invested in companies that make money.”

We’ve got a treat for Tesla advocates today. Despite what seems like an attempt to surpass Volkswagen as the automaker to receive the most negative publicity in a single year, there remains a light in the darkness. Tesla may have finally sorted out its production issues with the Model 3.

Logistical problems had forced the company way behind schedule for most of 2018, making its goal of 5,000 units per week an unclimbable peak. But it finally managed to mount that hill and plant its flag in the final week of June. At the time, we had no idea if this was to be an isolated incident stemming from some divine automotive mercy or proof that Tesla had righted the ship.

While it not it did not experience a trouble-free July, the firm’s Fremont factory appears to be humming along at over 5,000 units per week now. What’s better is that analysts are now saying things are only looking up, estimating even higher output numbers in the months to come.

Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced his intention to take the automaker private. But speculation quickly arose that the claim was just a clever ploy to drive up the company’s share price and burn short sellers, a group Musk seems to have a particular disdain for. This resulted in a shareholder complaint, filed Friday as a securities-fraud class action in federal court in San Francisco, alleging he lied to manipulate shareholder prices.

However, the Securities and Exchange Commission was already investigating the matter at the time of the lawsuit’s filing. While the bulk of the initial investigation involved asking Musk if he was lying, it’s presumably advanced in scope and complexity since then. The lynchpin to the whole issue is whether Tesla actually secured the billions in funding necessary to go private. Even though the CEO said the money is real, he did not specify who would provide it.

That changed on Monday morning, when Musk pointed to oil-rich Saudi Arabia. But it’s not as simple as it sounds.

Tesla may be going private, according to a Tuesday message from Elon Musk’s Twitter account. “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” the CEO wrote. “Good morning,” he said immediately afterward, accompanying the message with the smiley face emoji.

What followed was rampant media speculation as to whether Musk was in his right mind or not, while Musk continued responding to questions online.

“I don’t have a controlling vote now & wouldn’t expect any shareholder to have one if we go private. I won’t be selling in either scenario,” he said after being asked whether it would be an outright sale and if he could retain control of the company. “My hope is *all* current investors remain with Tesla even if we’re private. Would create special purpose fund enabling anyone to stay with Tesla. Already do this with Fidelity’s SpaceX investment.”

Meanwhile, CNBC and a few other news outlets noted that the number 420 has a special significance in the marijuana-smoking community and that Musk’s good-morning tweet was issued at around 1:30 p.m. Eastern, which — gasp — isn’t in the morning at all!

Tesla Motors’ refresh for the Model S and and Model X has been in the works for quite some time, with efforts focused on the vehicles’ interior above everything else. While we’re not about to call the present-day cockpit of either vehicle dated, they’ve been operating mostly unchanged for quite some time.

However, the update will surely rub some customers the wrong way. That’s because the new interior design is expected to be heavily influenced by the minimalist cabin of the Model 3. Scheduled for the second half of 2019, both of Tesla’s larger models will see their own adaptation of “less is more,” with a full exterior refresh to follow in 2021. Both are big deals for the company, which typically introduces small changes to its vehicles every so often rather than expansive alterations.