Electric vehicles need to stay charged, and Tesla is making sure they do! Tesla is working to ensure that cars, the Semi, future Cybertrucks, and even non-Teslas stay charged. This article celebrates the progress Tesla is making and also looks ahead to where Tesla Supercharging is headed.
INCREDIBLE PROGRESS IN CALIFORNIA, TEXAS AND WORLDWIDE
In California in 2022 an astonishing 49 Superchargers were built from January to December. This amounts to an incredible 639 new supercharger stalls! (see Tesla Charging) Most recently another Supercharger station went live on December 8 in Visalia.
In Texas, 23 new Supercharger stations were added in less than 6 months from June to Dec 8, 2022, adding 284 more V3 Supercharger stalls!
Dallas-Fort Worth and metro areas are offering more options for charging than ever before. New Supercharging stalls have been added in McKinney, Allen, Addison, Ennis, Plano and in Dallas to already existing Superchargers for a total of 14 around the area! But the real surprise is how many more are slated to open in the Dallas-Fort Worth area! 11 more supercharging stations, reaching from Arlington to Plano to Frisco and Denton will be opening in 2023.
Dallas-Fort Worth and the metropolitan area have the largest population (second to Houston) in the state of Texas.
Newly opened Superchargers in Allen, Texas. Photo Courtesy Vi Gold.
My hometown of Austin and its surrounding metropolitan areas all the way from near San Antonio up to Waco have seen tremendous Supercharger growth. If you travel between San Antonio and Georgetown, Texas, there are 17 supercharger stations available with an 18th planned to open in Q2 2023 in Georgetown.
Tesla is adding Superchargers all across the USA. California may welcome one of the largest Supercharger stations ever in Coalinga with 164 stalls, according to Tesla filings cited by Drive Tesla Canada.
This map by Tesla gets updated every day and gives you an idea of the many V3 and V2 fast charging stations in the USA. For the latest locations, see Tesla | Charging.
MAKING SUPERCHARGING A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE
Occasionally, Tesla mobile tire service visits superchargers to offer free air/tire checks. Zach from Twitter encountered this recently. “Super nice technicians going around asking people if they want their tires filled while they charge.”
Tesla Mobile Tire Service at Rancho Cucamonga, California Superchargers filling up customers’ tires with air. Photo Courtesy Zach BLKMDL3.
Some Superchargers like Kettleman City, California, serve beverages, provide restrooms and even offer limited merch for sale. My take is that as people need to Supercharge more, Tesla may offer conveniences like this in other locations.
FUTURE GROWTH: CHARGING SEMI, CYBERTRUCK, AND NON-TESLAS
Dan Priestley, Sr. manager of Semi truck engineering, spoke at the Tesla Semi delivery event, saying that in 2023 chargers that will support both the Semi and the Cybertruck will be coming to already existing superchargers. Tesla has built Superchargers at Buc-ee’s in over 26 stores in 7 states and can be expected to expand rapidly. These and more may become places where you’ll see Cybertrucks charging. If you plan to buy a Cybertruck, this is welcome news!
Tesla plans to grow Superchargers to allow non-Teslas room to charge. Don’t be surprised if you supercharge alongside a Rivian or a Ford Lightening pickup truck next year!
From California to Maine and all around the world, there are more Superchargers being installed every day. You can make requests for your area directly to Tesla. Tesla says, “Vote on Tesla’s next Supercharger site. Every 3-month voting cycle, you can cast multiple votes to help us decide on new Supercharger locations. Cast a total of 5 votes (1 per location) for proposed Supercharger sites.”
My take is that it’s so much easier to build Tesla supercharger stations than any other type of charging infrastructure. And much much easier than building petroleum stations!
Incredible progress and expansion of superchargers is taking place worldwide, I gave specific examples of this happening in Texas and California.
Tesla works to make supercharging a great experience. Tesla mobile tire service offered customers tire air checks at one Supercharging station, and KettlemanCity offers customers a lounge, restrooms, beverages, and even merch for sale!
Tesla plans to grow superchargers to allow non-Tesla’s room to charge as well. Don’t be surprised if you go to charge your Tesla next year and pull up next to a Ford Lightning or a Rivian pick up truck.
2023 will be an incredible year as megachargers will be built to support both the Semi and the Cybertruck.
Don’t worry if there’s not a Tesla Supercharger location right near you, just vote on it, at Tesla Supercharger Voting. You can vote for five locations!
Photo of downtown Austin by Spencer Davis on Unsplash
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – December 11, 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. Header image Courtesy Bennett on Twitter.
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Elon Musk talks at Tesla Semi Event. Image Courtesy Teslavangelist.
On December 1, Tesla held an event in Sparks, near Gigafactory Nevada. The event was attended by Semi customers (industry professionals) and Tesla shareholders by invite only. Attendees were treated to a tour of the Semi production line and could speak with engineers who built the Semi. They were invited to walk into the cabin of a Semi and meet Elon Musk onstage. Elon handed over keys personally to Ramon Laguarta, CEO of Pepsi and Steven Williams, CEO PepsiCo Foods, and the crowd went wild! In this article, I’ll highlight Elon’s vision for the Semi, share some exclusive photos of the event with you, and answer,
What will a Semi cost?
How far will the Semi go and how much can it carry?
Where do you charge it and how long does it take?
Tesla Semi Event: People tour production line and speak to engineers. Image Courtesy Arash Malek.
Elon Musk’s Vision for the Tesla Semi
Elon explained that although combination trucks account for only 1% of US vehicles sold, they account for 20% of US vehicle emissions, and an astonishing 36% of US vehicle particulate emissions. This is because these trucks are huge vehicles, which are being driven all the time,
“People might wonder, Why build a semi-truck? Because if you look at the actual unit volume, it’s small compared to passenger vehicles, so for passenger vehicles, it’s on the order of almost 100,000,000 that are sold every year. whereas for semi trucks, it’s four or 500,000 (globally).
In the USA there are probably like 15 million passenger vehicles and a couple 100,000 semi trucks, so it seems like a small percentage, but, it’s actually 20% of US vehicle emissions because you’ve got a huge vehicle and it’s being driven all the time.
So when you factor in the number of hours driven, and the weight that is carried, it’s actually, although it’s only 1% of vehicle production, it’s 20% of vehicle emissions. and it’s over 1/3 of all particulate emissions. From a sort of health standpoint, particularly in cities, this is a huge impact, like, it’s gigantic. So, that’s why we’re doing it!
In addition to climate change, and global warming matters it’s also quiet and it’s going to improve the quality of your air and it will actually just fundamentally improve the health of people living near freeways which is obviously sort of a big deal.
We’re aiming to cover all major forms of transport, it’s consistent with the Tesla mission because sometimes we get asked, shouldn’t Tesla just produce fast cars or premium cars or whatever? But what’s our actual mission? The actual mission is to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. That’s why we’re making this wide range of cars that don’t really make sense from a brand standpoint I guess, traditionally. But they make total sense when you consider what’s the mission of the company.
The mission of the company is to accelerate sustainable energy. So it’s super consistent with that goal and really a crucial piece of the puzzle, and that’s why we’re doing it.”
Elon continued, “It looks sick, I mean you want to drive that, I mean that thing looks like it came from the future. I mean it drives like a, it’s like driving a Tesla, literally! And it’s fun, it looks awesome, and you know there’s actually a big shortage of drivers, and so if you are a truck driver and you want the most badass rig on the road, this is it! It’s a beast!”
Flashback to December 14, 2017. Elon Musk steps out of Semi after driving it onstage. Image Courtesy Tesla, Inc.
What will a Semi cost?
In 2017, Tesla offered the Semi (with a 500-mile range) for $180,000 and currently, Tesla offers a link to get updates on the Semi and does not take new reservations at this time. The cost, when the Semi becomes widely available, should be expected to be higher than the price offered in 2017. What do you think it will cost?
How far will the Semi go and how much can it carry?
In a test run video, the Tesla Semi was shown carrying 82,000 pounds and driving up an incline while passing a struggling traditional diesel semi. According to Tesla, the Class 8 Semi’s range per charge is between 300 and 500 miles when fully loaded at 82,000 lbs. Federal limits are 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight, and battery-electric trucks are granted an extra ton through the Consolidated Appropriations Act (2019) by the Federal Highway Administration. Tesla built the Semi in an aerodynamic bullet shape in order to decrease the drag coefficient. The is .36 which is about half of a conventional diesel truck. The Semi’s energy consumption is stunning at less than 2 kWh/mile.
Semi is built like a bullet, not a barn wall—optimized for efficiency. Image Courtesy Tesla, Inc.
Where do you charge it and how long does it take?
The Semi will charge at 1 Megawatt chargers (V4), supported by Megapacks in some cases, (V3 chargers, for Tesla’s other vehicles are ~324 kW). Dan Priestley, Lead Semi Engineer, explained these V4 chargers will be coming to Tesla Superchargers next year. Cybertrucks will also be capable of charging at V4s. Charging time will be fast due to Tesla’s new V4 charging cable, created exclusively for Semi and Cybertruck.
Tesla’s new V4 Charging cable. Courtesy Tesla, Inc.
My take is V4 megachargers may be installed next year at Superchargers that are already located where diesel trucks fill up. Tesla has already built Superchargers at Buc-ee’s in over 26 stores in 7 states. I also estimate that charging will take around the same time it takes for a driver to take a break, eat, use the restroom, etc. (around 30 minutes).
Tesla Semi Test Run graphic, Courtesy Tesla, Inc. see Tesla Semi Delivery Event
Looking at the above graphic, notice how regenerative braking is almost able to nullify the presence of hills. The efficiency of the entire 500-mile run is almost the same as the efficiency over the flat part of the journey.
Regen braking will add to safety and eliminate crashes like the one that happened in the 2019 Lakewood semi truck crash near Denver and led to the horrifying death of 4 people (and 10 injuries). If you are not familiar, here’s the link to a video of a man who was near the runaway diesel semi when it happened.
Dan Priestley explained, “So any highway grade you come across, you can tackle at speed, there’s no compromise, and the other beauty is you’ve got all this power coming up but you also have it going down and what that means, is, you’ve got regenerative braking so, rather than using a jig brake or an engine brake like a diesel truck does, you don’t have to worry about hitting your shifts. If you miss a gear, you’re onto your brakes and a potential runaway situation. You don’t have to worry about any of that. There’s no shifting, no nothing, and so the regen recaptures all that energy as you’re going down these grades, but on top of it, it’s also a safer system for not just the driver, but also everybody on the road because there’s no gear to miss.”
Another safety asset exclusive to the Semi are a collection of three cameras on each rear view mirror. See a closeup photo by Brandonee916 of this below taken at the event.
Close up of a Tesla Semi rear view mirror. Three cameras mounted in various positions. Image Courtesy Brandonee916.
CONCLUSION
Elon Musk stated, “The mission of the company is to accelerate sustainable energy. So it’s (the Semi) super consistent with that goal and really a crucial piece of the puzzle, and that’s why we’re doing it.”
Building a Semi is crucial because although combination trucks account for only 1% of US vehicles sold, they account for 20% of US vehicle emissions, and an astonishing 36% of US vehicle particulate emissions.
The cost for the Semi in 2017 was $180,000 for the 500-mile range version. Tesla has not posted the cost for future orders and is not taking reservations on the website at this time for this high-demand tractor.
Semi will travel from 300 to 500 miles on a full charge and be capable of carrying the maximum load allowed by law, which is 82,000 pounds. Tesla built the Semi in an aerodynamic bullet shape in order to significantly decrease the drag coefficient. The Semi’s energy consumption is stunning at less than 2 kWh/mile.
Tesla Semi will charge at 1 Megawatt chargers (V4) which will come to Superchargers next year. My take is they will be built at locations like Buc-ee’s where trucks fill for diesel. In addition, the battery regains energy on declines through regenerative braking, and, in the words of Dan Priestley, “There’s no shifting, no nothing, and so the regen recaptures all that energy as you’re going down these grades.”
5 Takeaways from Tesla’s 2022 Shareholder Meeting: Step into Tesla’s Cyber Roundup event at Giga Texas! It was held in August, 2022 and features exclusive pictures. I was able to attend the event and report on it firsthand!
Guests at Tesla Semi Event were treated to a S 3 X Y vehicle lineup! Image Courtesy Teslavangelist.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – December 4, 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. Thank you to Drive Tesla Canada for their reporting on V3 Supercharging and to Arash Malek for his insight on the Tesla Semi Delivery Event, you can view his video here.
Come along for 3.45 minutes to the Tesla Semi Event. Video Courtesy of Arash Malek, founder of Scentwedge.
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The holidays are a beautiful time for getting together with family and traveling, and the cold weather can be challenging. In this article, I’ll share suggestions that will help make traveling a pleasure and safer. Should you encounter a winter storm, these tips will be helpful.
Preparing for cold weather driving
Day of trip
On the road (one added suggestion for Tesla)
Upon arrival to your destination
Preparing for Cold Weather Driving
Install winter tires and keep them inflated to specifications and consider Tesla aero wheel covers for your vehicle, they help maximize range. You can change the wheel configuration in the service section of the Tesla touchscreen.
Top off windshield washer fluid using fluid rated for cold weather. Tesla says, “In temperatures below 4° C (39.2 °F), use a washer fluid with antifreeze. In cold weather, using a washer fluid without antifreeze can impair visibility through the windshield.” Tesla reminds us to be cautious, “Windshield washer fluid can irritate eyes and skin.” Model Y Owner’s Manual Courtesy Tesla
Your phone is the key to your car so make sure your phone is well-charged. always carry your Tesla key card with you.
Tesla message “Tap key card and press brake to drive” credit the author
I’m sharing this small list of items to store in your frunk for snow and emergencies: Flashlight, water, blankets, extra jackets, snacks, portable shovel, snow, brush for cleaning snow off the car, and gloves. I also recommend a tire air pump, roadside hazard kit, your 110-car charger, and adapters in the front trunk.
The Nurse in me suggests creating a first aid kit for your glove box which should be a small ziplock bag with a few Tylenol capsules, gauze pads, medical tape, and medium and large band-aids. If you are traveling through unpopulated areas, consider learning basic lifesaving CPR and the Heimlich maneuver. Watching this 2-minute CPR youtube video could save your loved one’s life.
Day of Trip
Tesla recommends you pre-condition your vehicle and schedule your departure in the Tesla App. Tesla created a pleasant experience so that if you know what time you plan to depart, your vehicle (and the battery pack) will be warm and ready to go. If your vehicle is outside in the cold or ice, the good thing about this is that preconditioning will melt the ice off the car, and then you can brush the ice off by hand.
Below are Tesla’s best practices for what to do before your cold-weather trip. In the rare event, your door handle is frozen, try tapping the center of the door handle with the side of your closed fist to break the ice free.
Winter Driving Tips Courtesy Tesla
An easier way to open the door to your Tesla (if it is frozen) is the open it using the Tesla App. Tesla created this feature in November 2022 just in time for the cold weather.
Recent Tesla App Update, credit the author
I recommend customizing the controls on your app for your trip’s needs. Here I’ve customized Model Y controls on the App to show Defrost Car, Trunk, Unlatch Door, and Front in preparation for a trip.
Customize controls on the Tesla App. credit the author
On The Road
Tesla recommends driving in “Chill Mode” to conserve energy on the road.
Using seat heaters can also save energy, “Heating the cabin takes a significant amount of energy that can then no longer be used for driving range. If possible, lower the cabin temperature setting and use seat heaters for added warmth.” Winter Driving Tips Courtesy Tesla
A small blue snowflake icon will appear on your car‘s touchscreen if the battery is too cold to access all of its stored energy. This is just a reminder that you temporarily have limited regenerative braking and limited battery power. The snowflake will melt when your battery warms.
Cold weather best practices. Model 3 Owners’ Guide Courtesy Tesla.
Tesla advises, “Vehicle deceleration due to regenerative braking may vary depending on the current state of the Battery. For example, regenerative braking may be limited if the Battery is cold or is already fully charged.
To experience the same amount of deceleration whenever you release the accelerator pedal, regardless of the state of the Battery, you can choose to have the regular braking system automatically engage whenever regenerative braking is limited. Touch Controls > Pedals & Steering > Apply Brakes When Regenerative Braking is Limited. Tesla owner Dan Burkland explains, “this feature is a great way for people to drive the vehicle the same even when it’s super cold and regenerative braking is limited.”
On the freeway, you may use Autopilot, and be prepared to take over if there is reduced visibility. I always recommend that people get familiar with Autopilot and its features. When your car has a software update, it often means an improvement in Autopilot is on the way. The image below from Model Y explains the importance of always being 100% alert when you use Autosteer (Beta).
Tesla Autosteer (Beta) Mode, credit the author
I’m sharing a safety suggestion here for Tesla, made by numerous Tesla owners and summed up nicely by an owner in Dallas, Texas, “Will be cool when they update the navigation with real-time weather data. Avoid or react to dangerous freezes, blizzards, and cold. (And hail, tornadoes, etc).”
EMERGENCIES ON THE ROAD: Be prepared are ready to triage your emergency and either call 911, request help from Tesla using the App, or call Tesla Roadside Assistance at Toll Free: 877 798 3752. Tesla Roadside Assistance is committed to providing you with immediate roadside services, 24/7 365 days a year. See https://www.tesla.com/support/roadside-assistance
Upon Arrival
Park in reverse so that it will be much easier for you to drive onto a snow-covered road.
If you’re expecting snow or ice buildup, turn on Wiper Service Mode.
One Tesla owner explains Wiper Service Mode, “Tesla’s (wipers) don’t flip up, but I have put them in “Wiper Service Mode” which brings them above the baseline and outs them where the defroster can heat them. There are wiper heating elements down below on cold weather package Teslas, but it’s not that effect I find in severe cold, especially once you’re moving and the wind chill keeps them frozen.” Teslavangelist
Tesla Wiper Service Mode credit the author
Keep your Tesla plugged in as often as possible. Tesla says that this will help your battery stay warm by drawing a very small amount of power from the wall. Winter Driving Tips Courtesy Tesla
What should you do if you get a warning that your charge port is not latched in the App due to the cold? Keep it latched. Tesla owner Gary Mark, shares that, according to Tesla support, this feature was a recent software change to prevent the latch freezing closed inside port on some models. Once the charger head is warm, the latch will engage itself.
Charge your Tesla overnight up to 100% instead of the usual 80-90%. Your Tesla will use more energy to combat the cold weather and the battery will discharge faster.
CONCLUSION
I hope you have a wonderful holiday trip! Here’s a brief overview of my recommendations, many based on what Tesla also recommends.
Preparing for a cold weather trip is done some days prior to traveling and I recommend winter tires, antifreeze washer fluid, packing emergency supplies, and being familiar with lifesaving CPR.
Day of the trip: Pre-condition and schedule your departure in the Tesla App. Also, customize the App to make use of its many features.
On the road: Try Autopilot with Chill mode! Increase range by lowering cabin temp, using snuggly blankets and seat heaters. (I love the heated steering wheel too!) Emergencies can happen, so 911 or activate Tesla Roadside Service ASAP.
Upon arrival at destination: Ideally you’ll back into your designated spot, plug in your Tesla, and set your wipers in service position.
Do you love What’s Up Tesla? Here’s 2 other great reads…
Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas. Photo courtesy CVSherman.
Article by Gail Alfar, creator of What’s Up Tesla. Yes, I am a Registered Nurse. My passion is to spread enthusiasm for the transition to sustainable energy. All Rights Reserved. November 20, 2022. Updated on November 22, 2022. Special thanks to Gary Mark and Dan Burkland for consultation on this article. Header image of Romance Mode is courtesy of Tesla, Inc. Tesla Asia.
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Thanks for coming back to “What’s Up Tesla.” I love experiencing life in Austin because there are so many exciting changes happening here, and the original flavor of the city is also prevalent. For example, I drove around the city in my Tesla using FSD beta software to a restaurant that is still in operation since 1954! El Patio Mexican Food is one of many great places to eat in Austin and if you come here, I recommend it!
This article is about Elon Musk, Boomtown Austin, and Giga Texas. Elon Musk moved to Texas in 2020, and since then there has been fast growth in Austin. The night skyline is impressive, so I wanted to find out details about high-rise construction, as well as population and job market growth. Finally, I wanted to know how many cars are being made at Giga Texas each week, how many people currently work there, and what are Giga Texas’ plans for increasing production?
ELON MUSK
Engineering, design, and production are how Elon Musk spends 80% of his waking hours, and he sleeps about 6 hours a night.
Elon spends much of his time in Austin at Giga Texas involved directly with his team to accelerate gigafactory progress.
“But I think what a lot of people don’t realize, is what I do 80% of the time in engineering. You know it’s actually quite rare for me to give a talk. My day-to-day work at SpaceX and Tesla is almost entirely engineering and design and also production. Production is key, although I consider that to be part of engineering.” – Elon Musk, Baron Conference ‘22
“Whether it’s Tesla, Neuralink, or SpaceX, these companies were all founded with the ultimate goal of enhancing the future of human life and creating as much practical value for the world as possible—Tesla to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, Neuralink for medical rehabilitation, SpaceX for making interstellar connections possible.” – Elon Musk
While working with his team at Tesla, Elon also plans to launch Starship this year for its first-ever orbital flight. As Owner/Chief Twit of Twitter, he is orchestrating major changes to protect free speech by creating an all-inclusive platform. His net worth on paper changes daily, but in reality, this is just a number, the contributions Elon Musk is making to humanity will benefit our world forever. Society has put a $ value on that by investing in Tesla and SpaceX.
BOOMTOWN AUSTIN PROGRESS
The population and job market of Austin has grown since Elon Musk moved to Austin in 2020. Other American metro areas have experienced population decline. High-rise construction projects are a visual indicator of Austin’s Boomtown progress. Increases in job postings and a high GDP (gross domestic product) growth are two others.
Austin held the title of 2nd fastest growing city in the USA for 2022 by the American Growth Project based on the 2nd highest GDP growth of 4.3% (and other factors). This was close to the top-ranking San Francisco of 4.8%.
Every time I drive around downtown Austin at night, the skyline looks magnificent!
I created this chart of Austin’s skyscrapers and those under construction (greater than 200 meters tall). There are 6 buildings in Austin over 150 meters tall currently and there are 9 more under construction. I added Giga Texas on its side for fun!
From observing Giga Texas flyover videos, it is apparent Giga Texas is running one Model Y general assembly line 6 days a week. This line produces approximately 2000 Model Y per week. That number should grow soon because observations point to the development of two more general assembly lines.
I spoke with Joe Tegtmeyer about Giga Texas, and he explained that “General assembly #2 and #3 are being built on the Southwest portion of the general assembly structure (from around the main entrance south) and on floors 1 and 2.” Joe also told me that one of the general assembly lines is for the Cybertruck.
How many people work at Giga Texas? I could not find out this information directly, and there are two shifts working 6 days a week. My guess is there are over 9000 people working at Giga Texas. Elon Musk estimates that an astounding 20K people will work at Giga Texas over time!
“Giga Texas is a $10B+ investment over time, generating at least 20k direct & 100k indirect jobs” – Elon Musk on Twitter
Tesla gives opportunities to Texas military veterans in the Texas Veterans Leadership Program (TLVP)
In the Report on the Transition from Military Service to Employment 2022 from the Texas Workforce Commission, Tesla was thanked for hiring 14 Transitioning Service Members (TSMs). This highlights Tesla’s extraordinary efforts at reaching out to Veterans to offer them exceptional opportunities as they transition from military life into civilian life. Tesla is known for their Veterans Program.
“The presence of TVLP staff on Fort Hood Army installation has been instrumental in showcasing employment opportunities. In March 2022, Tesla hiring managers from across the country spoke with 93 TSMs and military spouses. As a result, Tesla hired 14 TSMs.”
CONCLUSION
Elon Musk calls Texas home and spends time directly with his teams in Austin at Giga Texas to accelerate Model Y production and build Cybertruck production. Although his net worth is massive, this is not important as it is just a number on paper, what matters is how Elon is contributing to making life better for humanity.
Boomtown Austin is an accurate term to describe the rapid changes I see living in Austin. Alongside the rapid changes, local traditions are thriving, and one example is El Patio Mexican restaurant, in business since 1954.
Nine buildings over 200 meters tall are under construction!
The population of the Austin metro area has grown to over 2 million
There are over 94,000 active job postings
Giga Texas is making progress: building two more general assembly lines for the Cybertruck and the Y, and there are two shifts working 12 hours 6 days a week
Article by Gail Alfar. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – All Rights Reserved. November 12, 2022. Header image of Giga Texas is courtesy of Tesla, Inc. To learn more about Gail Alfar, click here.
UPDATED on January 25, 2023 to include information about Tesla hiring Veterans.
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In a rare appearance, Elon Musk talked at the 29th Annual Baron Investment Conference, on November 4, 2022 in NYC. For this article, I am sharing the parts of his talk that were about Tesla. Thanks to Ron Baron for this opportunity to hear Elon talk. Highlights,
Why he works so many hours
Why Tesla patents are free
Why autonomy matters
Elon’s First Principles Algorithm, 2 examples
Finding out the “Dilbert Ratio” of a company
On being all-in with his teams
Extreme Engineering Challenge
Tesla needs to get into the mining business
Investing in TSLA and the value of Autonomy and Optimus
Self-Sustaining Tesla Superchargers for the Zombie Apocalypse!
Tesla and SpaceX
“I think what I’m working on has an important effect on the future, in the case of Tesla, I think it’s fair to say that Tesla has significantly accelerated the advent of sustainable energy. Before Tesla, no one was doing electric cars, and now as a result of Tesla, I think, almost every major car company in the world is building electric cars and I think that’s a pretty big deal. But there’s still a long way to go to transition the world to a sustainable energy economy and so we still have a lot of work ahead of us at Tesla, but that’s our goal there.”
“For SpaceX, I think it’s important for the future to be exciting and for humanity‘s existence to be assured of in the long term, I think we must become a multi-planet species and a space-faring civilization. We’re here like 4 1/2 billion years after earth got started, 13.8 billion years into the age of the universe. It’s only now recently the last 5000 years that we even invented writing. I would say, date the first civilization by when there was the first writing, which was in ancient Samaria around five or 6000 years ago. So, we’ve basically just been here for a very brief instant. All of human civilization is a blink of an eye, if there was an eye, on an evolutionary time scale. So, I think its important we take the actions to ensure that the light of consciousness continues because we should really view consciousness as a small candle in a vast darkness that could easily go out.”
Elon Musk explains why Tesla’s Patents are 100% Free
“I think there is a role for patents. I would say if somebody’s spent a lot of money developing a particular medicine and has to go through expensive stage three medical trials and then they finally get some medicine that is approved but where the drug itself is cheap to manufacture, then I think a patent, in that case, makes sense, otherwise, no one would go to the trouble of doing stage three medical trials.”
“There are definitely roles for patents. In the case of Tesla, our goal is to advance sustainable energy and we can’t just do it by ourselves, we need the whole industry to go that way, so we gave them our patents for free in order to help them accelerate electric vehicles.”
The Importance of Autonomy
“We’ve not formally announced our next car program, so I can’t talk too much about our vehicle program or programs that have not been announced, but we do expect to make cars that are more affordable than the current Model 3 or Model Y (big applause by the audience here). I think by far the biggest factor is autonomy, in terms of the value of the car because right now, cars get driven for about 10 or 12 hours a week maybe 1 1/2 hours a day, but there are 168 hours a week and so if they were autonomous the cars could drive for 50 or 60 hours to see a five-fold increase in the utility of the car that could do autonomy. This is a really gigantic thing. It would also mean that we wouldn’t need anywhere near as many parking lots and this would also be helpful for the environment because you would need far fewer cars.”
Elon explains his First Principles Algorithm
Best part is no part! Interior Tesla Model Y. Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
“Well, I think the full explanation or at least an accurate explanation would take a long time. because the first approximation of a car is made of 10,000 unique parts and process steps. Tesla is, at this point, probably the best at manufacturing in the auto industry, which I think nobody was expecting.”
“Well, I’ve got this first principles algorithm that I find to be very helpful in the design and manufacturing of anything. People here may find it helpful. The first thing that you should do is make the requirements that you’ve been given less dumb. Whatever constraints and requirements you were given, they were to some degree, dumb, and you want to make them less dumb. If you don’t start with this, then you get the right answer to the wrong question. And the requirements must be given from a person who can explain the requirements, not from a department, because then you don’t know who to talk to. Then step two is to delete the part or delete the process step. This sounds extremely obvious, and yet, over and over again, we have found that parts are not needed, they were put in there, just in case, or by mistake. Or there was a step that someone thought was needed but was not actually needed. This sounds insanely obvious, but we have deleted so many parts from the car that did nothing.”
Two Examples of First Principles Algorithm
“There are so many examples, one example is there were three fiberglass mats on top of the battery pack. They partially covered the battery pack. I was on the battery pack production line, and the number one thing choking battery pack production was gluing these fiberglass mats on top of the battery pack. So the reason I repeat this algorithm myself is I try to first do things backwards. First, I try to automate it, then I try to accelerate it, just go faster, then I try to simplify it, and only then did I delete it. Because it turns out that the team at Tesla that does noise and vibration minimization, sort of making the car quiet, thought that the fiberglass mats were there because of the battery safety team for battery fire protection. Then I asked the battery fire prevention team what they were needed for and they said noise and vibration (laughter here)! So then we had two cars drive, with the microphone in each car and you could not tell the difference. So, we went to all that trouble for a part that should not exist.”
First Principle Algorithm: “So the reason I repeat this algorithm myself is I try to first do things backwards. First, I try to automate it, then I try to accelerate it, just go faster, then I try to simplify it, and only then did I delete it.” – Elon Musk
“Another example: And these were examples of chokepoints in the entire production system, I was running around the production line, just trying to fix the production line, just like a maniac, like a Tasmanian devil, just running around the factory, like a lunatic. The body production line for Model 3 was stuck because we had a laser welding cell to weld a small crossbar beam in the passenger footwell of the front seats. I’m looking at this beam, and I’m like “what the heck does that do?“ because the entire factory is stopped trying to get this laser weld cell to work. And I can’t imagine what this thing could do, and the production team said it was for crash safety. So then I called the crash safety team and I said ‘Is this for crash safety?’ and they said ‘Oh no this didn’t do anything we should delete it!’ It turned out to be totally useless, they forgot to tell the production team!”
What’s Your Dilbert Ratio!?
“Honestly, a bunch of these things just feel like you’re living in a Dilbert cartoon. I’m like, ‘Oh no what’s that one?’ Like any given company should have a question, ‘What’s your Dilbert ratio? It’s not zero! Dilbert quotient? Try to keep it low!”
Elon is All-In with his Teams
Around the time Elon Musk was living / working in Tesla Femont Factory, he gave a tour to Marques Brownlee on August 20, 2018. See https://youtu.be/mr9kK0_7x08
Ron Baron asked Elon Musk if this was him or somebody else who found these production problems. Elon responded,
“It’s literally me, it’s not someone else who did this, I was living in the factory in Fremont and Nevada for three years straight. It was my primary residence. I’m not kidding, literally. I actually slept on a couch in a tent on the roof at one point. And for a while there I was just sleeping under my desk, which is out in the open in the factory for an important reason. And it was damn uncomfortable on that floor, and when I woke up, I would smell like metal dust.” Ron Baron mentioned that he went to visit and they bought Elon a couch. Elon responded that “I stopped using the couch, which was in a conference room, and I just slept on the floor under my desk so, during shift change, the entire shift could see me, and that’s important because, the team, if they think their leader is sort of off somewhere having a good time, or drinking mai tais on a tropical island, which I could definitely have been doing and I would have much have preferred to do, I’m not actually a masochist, I think! (Elon raises one eyebrow and smiles) But the thing is, since the team could see me sleeping on the floor during shift change, just with nothing, they knew I was there. and that made a huge difference. and they gave it their all!” (lots of applause)
Ron asked Elon how he retains his best employees, wondering how Elon prevents them from leaving when they don’t really need the money. Elon said,
“Well, we do have that problem a little bit, so as a company has prosperity, and then people become wealthy, then for a lot of people, once they become independently wealthy, they just can’t bring themselves to work, or they just don’t want to work, and that’s totally understandable. No judgment! And so you know, I have a lot of friends who are extremely talented, they had some success earlier in life, and they just decided that was enough trauma, a good friend of mine said “Starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.” So when people say to me, “What can you do to encourage entrepreneurs to start companies?” I say if you need encouragement, don’t start a company!”
Extreme Engineering Challenge
“Well, my memory for technical matters is very good. But I think what a lot of people don’t realize, is what I do 80% of the time is engineering. You know it’s actually quite rare for me to give a talk. My day-to-day work at SpaceX and Tesla is almost entirely engineering and design and also production. Production is key, although I consider that to be part of engineering. Starship is something special. The holy grail, like the critical thing needed to make life multi-planetary and for humanity to be a spacefaring civilization, is a fully and rapidly reusable rocket!”
On Starship: “It’s a very difficult engineering challenge! If this was a video game, the setting would be at extreme difficulty. Not impossible, but extreme difficulty!” – Elon Musk
“We’ve gone most of the way there with Falcon 9, you’ve seen the rocket booster come back and land. And we also recover the nosecone or faring. But we do not recover the upper stage. So we’ve gotten to the point where we are about 70 to 80% reusable with the Falcon 9. With Starship, we are going for 100% reusable. iI’s difficult to see how profound a change this will be. A fully rapidly reusable orbital rocket has the potential to drop the cost of access to space by a factor of 1000. (applause) And I should say also, Starship is a very big rocket. It’s more than twice the thrust of a Saturn 5 and about twice the mass. The entire ship is designed to land propulsively. So it can land on any solid surface in the solar system. If we can make Starship work, then it enables us to over time, to get anywhere in the solar system! It’s a very difficult engineering challenge! If this was a video game, the setting would be at extreme difficulty. Not impossible, but extreme difficulty!”
Tesla Delivery Logistics and Tesla Mining
Tesla vehicles ready for transport at South Lot Tesla Fremont, picture credit Gail Alfar, author, 9/30/22Model Y await transport at Giga Texas near Austin, credit Joe Tegtmeyer.
“I believe I’ve said in the past publicly that our aspiration is to reach 40,000 cars a week by the end of the year. We had a bit of criticism for our Q3 (2022) results because we had a lot of cars in transit and the reason why is we got too big for our cars to be transported in the final few weeks. There just weren’t enough car carriers, and there weren’t enough shifts. But it’s actually good in the long run to smooth out deliveries and actually have cars in transit at the end of the quarter because then you’re not rushing to get everything delivered by the end of the quarter and paying all the expedite fees.” When asked if cars could be autonomously delivered, Elon replied, “We can also, if you’re in the area, we can have the car just drive it to you!”
On Tesla Mining: “But it is looking increasingly like for some of the critical elements of batteries that Tesla will need to get into the mining business: Mining and refining.” – Elon Musk
“The scaling constraints change as time goes by. At the beginning, we were very vertically integrated, because suppliers did not take us seriously. The best suppliers would not talk to us because a car start-up had not been successful in the United States since Chrysler in the 1920s when I believe they started up. So it’s been a century since a car start-up was successful in the U.S., that was not a foreign car company coming in that was already successful in their own market. For an American car start-up, Tesla is the first success in 100 years!
So, you can imagine, if you are an auto supplier, that does not sound like a smart, financial decision. So we had to build a lot of the stuff ourselves and be vertically integrated to create the car. And then that ended up being an asset. Because now we understood so much about the supply chain and what it took to build a car. So we were able to design an integrated vehicle that actually needed far fewer parts, and cost less and weighs less and has higher performance. But it is looking increasingly like for some of the critical elements of batteries that Tesla will need to get into the mining business: Mining and refining. We’ve never contemplated investing in Glencore, I’m talking about Tesla doing it ourselves.” (response to Ron’s comment)
Investing in TSLA and the value of Autonomy and Optimus
Tesla Optimus humanoid robot prototype at 5th China Expo. is compact and efficient. More photos here.
“I actually rarely try to convince anyone to invest in Tesla, and many times I’ve said to people, ‘Don’t invest in Tesla,’ and ‘Our stock is too high!’ But then people just ignore me, and keep buying the stock for some reason.”
“I think at a very high level I’d say autonomy is insanely a fundamental breakthrough. And no one is even close to Tesla for solving generalized autonomy or generalized self-driving vehicles. No one’s even close. And with the self-driving, as I talked about earlier, the car becomes roughly 5 times more useful. But it costs the same for both. Now can you imagine what would happen if the company was doing like 25 to 30% gross margins but suddenly that same thing was five times more valuable? What would that do to the value of Tesla and the value of that car? It boggles the mind, actually. So if you think of net present value and future cash flows, if you actually do the math on that, it’s insane. Then there’s also the Optimist program, which is our humanoid robot. We will leverage our manufacturing expertise and the intelligence we’ve developed for self-driving to have a useful humanoid robot. Now, the economy is fundamentally GDP per capita times capita. If you no longer have a constraint on capita because of the useful humanoid robot, it is not clear that there is any limit to the size of the economy!”
Self-Sustaining Tesla Superchargers for the Zombie Apocalypse!
Finally, in response to a question about if Tesla would use street lamp posts for charging cars, Elon Musk emphasized Tesla’s goal for Supercharging, “I think they are already doing that in London, and the long-term goal for our supercharger stations is that they will have Tesla Solar and Batteries at them so that as many as possible are self-sustaining. That the supercharger stations generate energy during the day, and then also have a localized battery pack so that people can charge at night. The Tesla supercharging stations would continue to function even in a Zombie Apocalypse! You just never know! That’s coming one day, we know it is, it’s just a matter of time!”
CONCLUSION
Elon Musk and Ron Baron at the Baron Investment Conference 2022
Elon works so many hours 16-18 hrs/day because the mission of Tesla and SpaceX is so important for humanity.
Tesla patents are free for all carmakers in order to accelerate the transition to all-electric.
Autonomy is a huge deal: Elon says, “…right now, cars get driven for about 10 or 12 hours a week maybe 1 1/2 hours a day, but there are 168 hours a week and so if they were autonomous the cars could drive for 50 or 60 hours to see a five-fold increase in the utility of the car that could do autonomy. This is a really gigantic thing.”
Elon’s First Principles Algorithm is very helpful in the design and manufacturing of anything.
Every company has a “Dilbert Ratio” and it’s not ZERO!
Elon is all-in with his teams, especially when there are challenges facing the teams.
Extreme Engineering Challenge: Starship is the biggest to date!
Tesla needs to get into the mining business, Elon said, “But it is looking increasingly like for some of the critical elements of batteries that Tesla will need to get into the mining business: Mining and refining.”
We are going to enter an Age of Abundance! Elon said, “We will leverage our manufacturing expertise and the intelligence we’ve developed for self-driving to have a useful humanoid robot. Now, the economy is fundamentally GDP per capita times capita. If you no longer have a constraint on capita because of the useful humanoid robot, it is not clear that there is any limit to the size of the economy!”
Self-Sustaining Tesla Superchargers with solar & batteries will function in the Zombie Apocalypse!
Author’s Note: Elon Musk also spoke about Twitter and X .com, you may listen to the full talk here. I write about Tesla and sustainable energy, so did not include those aspects.
Today, over a cup of hot Texas Pecan coffee, I began thinking about how great my Tesla is running on FSD beta, and I was wondering just how far away we all are from a Tesla Robotaxi.
My Tesla seems almost fully autonomous, so I wanted to find out about other peoples’ experiences. I did a little searching and came to find out there are many people all over the USA driving in many conditions with zero disengagements when they use FSD beta. I found out Tesla’s first concern is safety and that no other vehicle companies are doing it like Tesla. Let’s look further into these details, and come up with a smart estimate of how far away we are from full Tesla autonomy.
Three Tesla drivers (including me) experience near-autonomous driving on busy challenging roads
On a typical street in the suburbs in front of a typical Austin house, I got ready to do errands I put the Tesla in FSD beta mode –always remember that when you use FSD beta, your eyes must be constantly on the road and your hands on the steering wheel– and sat back and monitored the car’s driving as it began to wind around Austin streets, up and down hills and to a busy intersection where it made a right on red and merged quickly onto the 183. After a smooth change onto busy Mopac, the car exited onto a two-lane access road and a half mile down it slowed and turned onto a private drive and took us past parked cars, and stopped at the front doors of a medical clinic.
Several hours later, I was back in the Tesla. Tesla maps have a tab that says “hungry.” I used this to find a new place to get food and then pressed FSD beta and the car was off. We came to a 4 lane unprotected left turn –kinda an anxiety provoker for me– and the software found a break in the traffic and moved to the middle divider. After several cars, it made the left turn, moved over 2 more lanes, and then made a quick right. Taking a street I had never been on before, the car turned into a parking lot and stopped in front of the restaurant. We had a GREAT meal and talked about, you guessed it, Tesla!
People across the country, from California to Texas to New York, are essentially already experiencing supervised and safe autonomy on complex unmarked roads with turns, construction, and more.
Around the same time, in San Francisco, Omar Qazi of Whole Mars Blog, was testing FSD beta in his Tesla, he explains, “If you went and gave a few Uber rides using FSD Beta, the vast majority of the passengers would not notice that the car is being driven by software. Some people didn’t believe me so I ran an experiment… “ The first passenger had no clue at all that the car was driving itself, and when she found out she laughed with delight and called it cool!
The second passenger didn’t notice at first but then later noticed the car was stopping when Omar did not have his feet on the brakes, He said, “so this is like a driverless car?” He was clearly delighted and also thought it was awesome.
Meanwhile, in New York state, a similar scenario was playing out. Corey Aronson wrote, “Just did three Uber rides in a row. All zero takeover. All passengers on all rides had zero clue the car was driving itself. I can’t drive better than FSD Beta anymore, almost ever. Everyone is just on their phone getting driven by the robot.” Corey told me the most common things people ask first about FSD beta are if it “Works without the yellow road lines?” and “Will it put the blinker on?” Of course, the answer is YES to both!
What more is needed for full Tesla autonomy?
To try to answer this, I listened carefully to what Elon Musk said during the Tesla, Q3 2022 earnings call,
“The safety that we are seeing, when the car is in FSD mode is actually significantly greater than the safety that we are seeing when it is not, which a key threshold for going to wide beta.” – Elon Musk
Elon Musk explained that in Q4 2022, we should expect Tesla will release FSD beta to every single person that has purchased FSD.
This means that before we see full autonomy, more people need to use FSD beta, in order to contribute valuable data to Tesla’s AI team. The more use cases there are, the better!
Why is Tesla leading in this area and what’s the difference between what Tesla does and what other vehicle companies are doing for autonomy?
Tesla AI team has some of the best artificial intelligence researchers in the world, so the software evolves into sharper accuracy and greater safety over a short time. Elon Musk spoke about the great interest in Tesla AI at the Q3 2022 earnings call,
“Our goal with that AI Day was to push recruiting, and we’ve seen a massive influx of world class artificial intelligence engineers and scientists. It generated a tremendous amount of interest from some of the best AI researchers in the world.
I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. Because I think, finally, it has become clear to the smartest AI technologists in the world, that Tesla is among the very best!” – Elon Musk
No other companies that aim to produce vehicles are like Tesla because they are relying on outdated, overpriced, and unreliable technology like Lidar and radar.
Elon Musk has stated before that Tesla will offer their autonomous capabilities to others. Thus far, I have not found any other vehicle manufacturer outside of China to be seriously mass-manufacturing electric vehicles.
No other carmaker in the world has scaled the production of EVs like Tesla has. Tesla aims to mass-produce autonomous-capable cars. Other manufacturers appear to be content with creating cars based on assembly techniques better suited to combustion cars and to employ “driverless systems” that are expensive, limited in speed, limited to where they are used, and cannot be scaled.
CONCLUSION
As shown in this article, Tesla vehicles are already capable of a high degree of autonomy in challenging situations including where there are no lane markings. If you define autonomy in the high-quality way that Tesla does, Tesla is so far ahead of any other company, and when they offer Robotaxi, it’s going to apply to every situation, and it will not be limited.
It’s hard to say if autonomy will be solved for Tesla in 2023 or beyond, but I do think that the larger the fleet of vehicles are, the closer we are to it.
As a Registered Nurse, I always advocate for maximum safety for humans, and this coincides with Tesla’s mission!
Currently, there has to be a driver in the seat supervising because the system still needs to be safer. When the driver detects an unsafe situation, that driver takes over and that data can be sent to Tesla
Tesla’s AI Team, the best of its kind in the world, strives to increase safety all the time. The smartest AI technologists in the world like to work for Tesla!
As safety reaches a point where it is above or equal to what the best human driver could do, we will start to see local regulatory agencies open the door to allowing Tesla to test Robotaxis on complex roads.
Who Will Benefit Once Tesla Autonomy is Solved? I believe a world where autonomy is the norm is closer than we realize. This article attempts to answer the question, who will benefit once Tesla autonomy is solved?
You can use Autopilot on your daily drives and disable it anytime during a drive
Images in this article of the Model Y Midnight Cherry Red are Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
Article Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – October 29, 2022. All Rights Reserved. “My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-faring civilization.” – Gail Alfar
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Texas is on track to see a much stronger energy grid. ERCOT’s Board of Directors approved an Aggregated Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Pilot Project.
This article is about,
ERCOT’s support for the powerful Aggregated DER Pilot Project
Challenges: Get competitive power providers to enroll customers, complete ERCOT approvals by January 2023, and send Megawatts to the grid by February 2023 and more!
Tesla Megapacks, Angleton, Texas. Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
When I first participated in a Workshop about Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) hosted by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT or Grid Operator) in May 2022, I learned Tesla created a successful VPP Pilot Program involving 64 Powerwall owners.
Tesla presented the findings of that program to ERCOT in the VPP Workshop, and provided detailed data to ERCOT’s oversight agency, the Public Utility Commission of Texas (Commission) about the ability of small batteries to “paint over” the exact reliability signals provided by ERCOT and perform to the highest accuracy with those signals. I wrote about VPPs last June, “Tesla built a demonstration test in which 64 Tesla Powerwall battery owners participated in providing energy as an aggregate. The demo showed impressive performance, proving that there were no technical blocks to these owners providing power to the Texas grid.”
Both ERCOT and utilities submitted filings on Tesla’s proposal to quickly integrate VPPs in an existing market program called Aggregated Load Resources. With these stakeholders asking for a brand new market program to transition VPPs to the grid, and Tesla having proved the technology was ready and available today, the Commission supported an official Pilot that would allow companies like Tesla to actually get their customers compensated for the Megawatts they sent to the grid.
ERCOT’s Landmark Support for Aggregated DER Pilot Project
Now Tesla is part of a much larger Pilot Program. I was invited to make public comments on Oct 18 before the vote on this proposal, giving me 5 minutes to talk to people involved in decision-making at ERCOT. You can view my comments here.
When the Board of Directors at ERCOT voted unanimously to approve the Aggregated Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Pilot Project, I knew we were witnessing history!
This opens the way to allow all energy providers in Texas to choose to participate to aggregate energy stored in their customer’s Tesla Powerwalls, and deliver that energy to the grid during times of peak need.
Enrolling customers who have Tesla Powerwalls into VPPs also makes entire fleets of electricity customers smarter consumers in the days and hours before a weather crisis: with more customers ready and able to switch from grid-sourced power to self-produced power or vice versa, automatically doing so in a VPP in real-time, responding to what the grid needs, means utilities will struggle less to find the demand reductions they need to keep critical feeders and neighborhood lights on.
Tesla Powerwalls preparing for anticipated storm. credit James Locke.
CHALLENGES
The Aggregated Distributed Energy Resource Task Force (ADER Task Force) has an important responsibility. The ADER Task Force met monthly to assist ERCOT in developing the VPP program. Members of the public are encouraged to participate. The Task Force is formed of 20 experts selected by the Commission and will convene for at least three years to build a strong DER pilot program. Jason Ryan is the Chair and Arushi Sharma Frank is the Vice Chair.
Pictured: Jason Ryan (CenterPoint Energy, Houston) Arushi Sharma Frank (Tesla, Inc.) speak at an ADER Task Force monthly Workshop in Texas, open to the public. The co-sponsor of the ADER Task Force, Commissioner Will McAdams joins them for comments.
ADER Task Force has monthly Workshops open to the public. The 1st Workshop was on Aug 17, the 2nd Workshop on Sept 12, and the 3rd Workshop was on Oct 12.
Get Megawatts in the Market by February 2023
At the first ADER Task Force Workshop, Arushi explained the goal to get Megawatts in the Texas market, “One of the things that I want to mention is that the first goal for us as a team is to figure out what we do to get something done by the end of the year that will allow us to just get Megawatts in the market. All of the objectives we have are about studying the impact on the distribution system, studying reliability value, studying cost allocation, and studying the effectiveness of VPPs providing service to the grid. We’re not going to have that data if we don’t get the Megawatts in.” (The end-year goal has since moved to Feb 2023)
Phase One – ADER Pilot Program
The ADER Task Force is delivering on several objectives laid out in the sponsoring Texas Commission’s Memo. These topics present challenges to overcome and also represent core success metrics that the ADER Task Force wants to build over the next three years.
The ADER Task Force meetings have included materials shared with the public at every meeting (you can find them in Texas PUC Project Number 53911). In the first of many quarterly reports the Task Force will file publicly, they shared challenges and insights that needed to be gained in “Phase 1” of the ADER Pilot Program:
“1. Assess the operational benefits and challenges of ADERs and address those challenges to allow meaningful use of ADERs;
2. Understand the impact of having ancillary services and energy delivered by ADERs and assess how ADERs can best be used to support reliability;
3. Assess challenges to incentivizing competition and attracting broad ADER participation while ensuring adequate customer protections are in place;
4. Allow Distribution Service Providers (DSPs), the Commission, and others to study distribution system impacts of ADERs which inject to the grid;
5. Evaluate the impacts to transmission system congestion management associated with the dispatch and settlement of ADERs at a zonal level; and
6. Identify potential pilot project enhancements and study the need for and benefit of transitioning distribution-level aggregations to different levels of more granular dispatch and settlement and evaluate more complex use cases and business models.”
Source: Page 5, first ADER Task Force Quarterly Report, available at https://interchange.puc.texas.gov/Documents/53911_18_1241809.PDF
Technical Challenges
In the October Workshop, Arushi explained some additional behind-the-scenes challenges faced that I was not aware of, related to integrating various distributed technologies customers have with multiple energy providers or utility systems. “It is hard actually to do third-party integration for anything – I mean we still have iPhones and Androids with separate chargers – we can’t just plug one charger cable into the other product, and the same is true for the most sophisticated inverter-based technology out there today. We do not have universal interoperability as a standard, and the closest thing that we’ve come to it as an industry, at least in this country, is 2030.5 and that is a big struggle [to implement] for OEMs and manufacturers of inverter- based products.”
In the early days of developing the ADER Pilot, Arushi also published a technical note explaining core challenges and guiding principles under which Texas will learn from by doing its first VPP program. Those included: (i) understanding the impact of carrying ancillary services (grid reliability services like balancing demand and supply in real-time) on the distribution system (the low voltage lines carrying electricity from consumer homes) (ii) getting competition in VPP programs in competitive electricity choice areas of Texas (iii) understanding if there will ever be enough VPP batteries out there to cause congestion related to “exporting” energy back to the grid and how ERCOT will handle that (iv) how to help customers understand their compensation and ways to participate under new VPP programs, and (v) ensure that VPP programs can evolve and scale over time but remain simple and easy to understand for customers.
CONCLUSION
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has a huge task, and that is to manage the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers — representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load. ERCOT’s Board voted unanimously to approve the Aggregated Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Pilot Project, ushering in a new era for sustainable energy in Texas! But, there are challenges and here are just a few,
Get competitive power providers to enroll customers. This process should be simple and easy to understand for all customers.
Complete ERCOT approvals by January 2023
Send Megawatts to the grid by February 2023
This article went into great detail and will be a great reference to anyone interested in either observing or participating in the growth of sustainable energy in Texas and beyond.
Austin, Texas. Dawn of Liberty. Goddess of Liberty at Sunrise. Over the Texas State Capitol Building. Shot with special permission. Christopher Sherman
I would love to share four more interesting articles with you that relate to Tesla Energy!
Tesla’s Texas Virtual Power Plant ASAP details how Tesla is offering a proven solution to the fragile Texas grid currently operated by ERCOT. Tesla has proved that its Virtual Power Plant can work extremely well.
Tesla Autobidder explains Tesla’s software that interfaces with your Home Powerwall and potential energy markets
What is ERCOT? The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers — representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load.
Article Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – October 23, 2022. All Rights Reserved. “My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-faring civilization.” – Gail Alfar Header Image is Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
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I met up with Tesla owner and founder of Scentwedge Arash Malek who returned from a road trip in a Model Y. He and his family toured some remote areas in Iceland and he is sharing some awesome pictures with us! Our conversation includes,
Two big advantages of traveling in a Y
Charging on the road
Superchargers for other EVs
Reynivellir, Iceland, near glacier lagoon, credit Arash Malek
Two Big Advantages of Traveling in a Y: 12-Volt Ports and Larger Size
All Tesla vehicles are great for road trips and the Y stands out as the best!
If you must have access to a medical device like a sleep apnea machine, the Y can be a lifesaver! You can plug a converter into the 12-volt port and run your Resmed, Phillips Respironics, or any other sleep machine all night long. Arash had a load of camera gear that needed to stay powered up while on the road, “the fact that there is a 12-volt charger in the trunk was just so handy because I was running an inverter in the trunk charging up all my gear while we were driving and it was just amazing having that port there.” There are two 12-volt ports in the Model Y, one under the armrest, and one in the rear of the vehicle.
Gail: Thank you for sharing some of your beautiful Model Y road trip pictures in Iceland. What else besides the 12-volt ports did you and your family find useful about traveling in the Y?
Arash: The storage space was amazing! My parents took turns sitting in the front and the back seat, and I was the primary driver. My mom would note how much legroom she had in the back, how spacious it is and we all appreciated how high we were sitting.
Arash said the Y felt like being in a glass bubble, with a panoramic view of beautiful Iceland all around! “And then of course I appreciated the fact that I could use Autopilot and it just made admiring the views much safer and that much more comfortable because I could briefly take my eyes off the road and just experience the landscape, you know there’s barely any cars on the roads there, but they are narrow and windey so it was really nice.”
Charging on the road
G: I often hear this question: “Can you travel in your Tesla?” I think there is a misunderstood concept that combustion cars are better suited for road trips. I see there are 8 Superchargers in Iceland, 2 are “coming soon.” Were you able to travel where you wanted or were you restricted because of charging?
A: I was able to travel where I wanted to, I never experienced range anxiety, there are a ton of 3rd party charging stations in Iceland.
When Arash found it convenient to use a Tesla Supercharger en route to his destination, he would use one. In the planning phase, he booked hotels based on them offering destination charging. Some had Tesla destination chargers and some had 3rd party chargers nearby. Every night he would have the Model Y plugged in and then have it charged for the morning.
If you decide to car camp, the Y is designed to sleep two people in comfort. I wrote about Tesla car camping in my article, Tesla Summer Travel Trip.
Supercharging in Höfn í Hornafirði, Iceland credit Arash Malek
Superchargers for other EVs
Tesla has opened up supercharging to non-Tesla vehicles in Europe and now in Iceland. This pilot program is part of Tesla’s mission to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy and will move to the USA. I asked Arash if he had any experiences in Iceland with this new pilot. He explained, “I noticed that on the Tesla app when I was logging in, it asked if I was trying to log in for the supercharging network access in Iceland. It is interesting that Tesla would do that, there are not a lot of chargers out there but there’s a lot of Teslas there. There are also a lot of other electric cars and hybrids in Iceland. I guess it makes sense to open it to other people.”
G: Did you see any non-Teslas charging at Tesla Superchargers while you were there?
A: No, in fact every time I supercharged it was pretty much empty. I ran into one other Model Y at the Supercharging station while we were charging once.
G: I guess that’s very different from what you see in the Bay Area! Regarding Tesla opening Superchargers to non-Teslas, I’m curious how you feel about this, living in the Bay Area, where there are more people driving EVs?
A: I’m not too concerned about an overcrowdedness issue, I think Tesla is very data-driven and when they see that there’s a lot of congestion somewhere, a Supercharger pops up fast. I think the net positive is much greater because I think it does offer a slight marketing opportunity when non-Tesla EVs are charging next to Tesla EVs.
Arash explained that he thinks opening Superchargers for all EVs is a form of organic growth potential that can be huge for Tesla and its mission.
Moss Road on Lómagnúpur mountain, Iceland credit Arash Malek
If Arash could improve the Y, he would love to see Tesla create an electrochromatic window or something where you can change the tint dynamically on the windows of the Tesla. He was unable to capture some stunning shots of the aurora borealis through the glass roof of the Y due to the tinting. The tinted roof is amazing for maintaining temperature on a sunny day and it was “pretty much impossible to capture the aurora from the inside.”
CONCLUSION
Any Tesla is great to take on a road trip because Autopilot makes the journey much easier. The two big advantages to a road trip in the Y are,
Two 12-volt adapters. For people with a medical condition requiring a sleep apnea machine, for example, the Y can be a lifesaver!
The size! The big glass windows and higher ride allow for a great view of the scenery. The Y sleeps two people comfortably!
The tinted roof and windows in all Tesla vehicles may not allow for great night photography, but they will keep you comfortable as they block sun glare and heat.
Tesla has opened up Supercharging to non-Teslas in Iceland and most of Europe, and this pilot program will open in the USA, and Tesla is data-driven, so congestion will not be an issue.
Austin, Texas downtown and Boardwalk at Ladybird Lake credit Christopher Sherman
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – October 16, 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. Thanks to Arash Malek for his valuable insight for this article, please check out his amazing all-natural scents exclusively for the 3 and Y.
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Elon Musk installed a giant 30ft fork in the road created by Burning Man artist Hunter Leggitt outside the Autopilot office in Palo Alto, will this be a permanent art installation? Tesla’s Optimus robot is already working at the Fremont factory, and exactly how many robots are in Tesla’s fleet?
This article asks these questions and covers:
The giant fork in the road
What Optimus can do, jobs, other fun stuff
Optimus will be safe
GIANT FORK IN THE ROAD
Fork in the Road at AI Day 2022, credit Chuck Cook
Hunter Leggitt studios created “MetaFork in the Road,” a whimsical 30-foot tall and 4,500 lbs steel installation representing the classic metaphor for a deciding moment in life when a choice between presented options is required. The artwork may be planned for permanent installation at Tesla Bay Area Autopilot / A.I. Division in Palo Alto. You can learn more about the art here.
“I love the inverse poetry of making metaphors literal There is a giant 30ft (literal) fork in the road outside the Autopilot office in Palo Alto” Elon Musk
UPDATE: On October 10, Elon Musk tweeted that he commissioned the art piece, “It was built & paid for at my request. Hunter & team did great work.” This article was cited in Teslarati.
You and I are living in an age of transition, at the time of the giant fork in the road. Most people today did not grow up with smartphones, but now we use smartphones every day. We did not grow up with robotaxis, and in the future, they will be commonplace. The same goes for Optimus, none of us consider daily life normal with the robot yet, but one day we may, if we choose that path.
What amazed me about AI Day 2022 was that Tesla’s Optimus prototype has a brain and is working in the Fremont factory. It is significant that Optimus was shown doing jobs. This included watering plants, delivering packages, and at a Fremont factory workstation moving parts.
In the live demo at Tesla Palo Alto, Optimus sees the audience and just knows that he is supposed to walk out to the middle of the stage and when he sees a crowd of people he knows that he should wave. When the music was playing, Optimus just knew it was okay to dance.
One day this good-humored Optimus will help us inside our houses cleaning, and in the meantime, priority will go to having the robots work in Tesla’s Fremont factory.
“Our goal with Optimus is to have a robot that is maximumly useful as quickly as possible. So there’s a lot of ways to solve the various problems of a humanoid robot.
We want to pick something that’s going to allow us to produce the robot as quickly as possible, to be useful as quickly as possible, we’re trying to follow the goal of fastest path to a useful robot that can be made at volume and we’re going to test the robot internally at Tesla in our factory and just see, like how useful is it?
Because you’re going to close the loop on reality to confirm that the robot is in fact useful.” – Elon Musk
If Tesla bots are indeed useful in the factory, then will they eventually work in other Tesla factories? Giga Texas, Giga Shanghai, and Giga Berlin could benefit from employing Tesla bots. Tesla also operates ~13 production facilities around the world including Gigafactory Nevada.
Optimus’ prototype was built in ~ 6 months. The aesthetic design of Optimus that Tesla will mass produce has design undertones from Tesla’s Cybertruck. One of the features I appreciate is that the pieces do not look intimidating, rather they look beautiful and artistic. The robot above that is shown with Elon Musk wears a Giga Texas Tesla belt buckle. This led me to write an article titled “Don’t Mess with Tesla Bot” for Scentwedge creator Arash Malek.
Elon Musk describes a futuristic scenario that includes different types of Optimus,
“I think we want to have really fun versions of Optimus, so that Optimus can both be utilitarian and do tasks but can also be kind of like a friend and a buddy and hang out with you.
I’m sure people will think of all sorts of creative uses for this robot. Once you have the core intelligence and actuators figured out, then you can put all sorts of costumes on the robot.
I mean you can make the robot many different ways and I’m sure people will find many interesting ways.” – Elon Musk
I’m excited to see Tesla develop Optimus to do many roles within the factory. I think Tesla could modify the robot to work in different situations in the factory. For example, the greenskeeper Optimus that goes around and waters the plants should look different from the foundrybot Optimus that works placing ingots into the melting furnace.
A humorous quote was written into the design of the wristband at AI Day, which said,
“IF YOU CAN RUN FASTER THAN 5MPH, YOU’RE FINE.”
The term owning and Optimus does not sound quite right to Elon Musk, and I agree. We wouldn’t want a society where Optimus is thought of as our property or slave, that is too reminiscent of the dystopian, science-fiction movies where slaves are oppressed and treated horribly. Rather there should be a concept of kindness towards Optimus because it is not something that humans program, it’s something that will have its own brain, and in a limited way.
For people who drive their Tesla on Autopilot, you just know that at any moment you can completely take over control of the car. You do this by pressing on the brakes, tugging on the steering wheel or tapping on the stalk in your car. You might not want a robot that just stops functioning only because someone taps on it. Optimus will have a deactivation receiving signal and Tesla is developing this for our safety, in the rare situation that Optimus is found doing something that would be harmful to himself or humans.
There are a few unanswered questions. How many Optimus is already produced and working? Or, how big is the current Optimus fleet? Where and when will manufacturing at scale start? Elon Musk explained that Optimus could help humans move into an age of abundance. So although we are facing a crisis of underpopulation, the lucky people that will be alive into the future will be enjoying an incredible life. That means, if you have children, their children, and grandchildren, will be living in an age of abundance.
“The potential really boggles the mind, because you have to say what is an economy?
An economy is sort of productive entities times their productivity.
Capita times output, productivity per capita. But the point at which there’s not a limitation on capita, it’s not clear what an economy even means at that point!
Economy becomes quasi-infinite. So, taken to fruition, in the hopefully benign scenario, this means a future of abundance.
A future where there is no poverty. Where people, you can have whatever you want in terms of products and services.
It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it.” - Elon Musk
CONCLUSION
Optimus is already working in the Tesla Fremont factory, it is unknown how large the fleet of robots are there, and it is significant that the robot can do jobs such as water plants, deliver packages and function at a workstation
Optimus’ prototype design wears a “Don’t Mess with Tesla” belt buckle and has design undertones from Tesla’s Cybertruck
All Tesla’s products are built with safety in mind and Optimus is no different! The robot will have many safety measures and one humorous one is that, “If you can run faster than 5 mph, you’re fine!”
A giant 30-foot fork in the road stands as a monumental symbol at Autopilot office in Palo Alto and is planned for permanent installation, according to Hunter Leggitt Studio website
Read Elon Musk’s essay on technology for a better future Elon Musk is optimistic, lives with a sense of urgency, and takes action to make the future good. His essay is an inspiration to all people, and here he talks about exciting uses for the Optimus humanoid robot!
Who will Benefit once Tesla Autonomy is Solved? I believe a world where autonomy is the norm is closer than we realize. This article attempts to answer the question, who will benefit once Tesla autonomy is solved?
Credit Hunter Leggitt Studio for the header image of this article of Metafork in the Road.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – October 10, 2022 (Article updated on October 27, 2022 to say Metafork is possibly planned as a permanent art installation. It was noted that the MetaFork is not currently on display at Tesla Palo Alto as of 10/27/22). All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
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Optimus robot wears the Giga Texas “Don’t Mess with Tesla” belt buckle. Photo Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
Elon Musk is leading Tesla towards a bright future where the company is just as much an artificial intelligence company as it is a vehicle and energy company.
Elon spoke Friday evening on September 30 at Tesla AI Day 2022 in Palo Alto, California and he introduced the world to an Optimus robot wearing a Giga Texas “Don’t Mess with Tesla” belt buckle. The belt buckle was first seen at the October 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders in which it was used to announce the moving of the Tesla HQ from California to Austin, Texas.
Elon’s unveiling of the new Optimus is also worth a big celebration, so it is appropriate the robot wears the belt buckle. This article highlights,
Optimus is designed to be useful, affordable, and made at scale
Optimus has great potential to transform civilization into a future of abundance
Tesla is structured so the public can ensure a safe future in regards to Optimus
A technical presentation followed by a Q & A reveals more about Optimus
Optimus: Useful, affordable, and made at scale
Elon Musk explains,
“Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible and we’ve also designed it using the same discipline that we used in designing the car, which is to design it for manufacturing such that it’s possible to make the robot at high volume at low cost, with high reliability.
That’s incredibly important, I mean, you’ve all seen very impressive humanoid robot demonstrations and that’s great but what are they missing?
They’re missing a brain and they don’t have the intelligence to navigate the world by themselves and they’re also very expensive and made in low volume, whereas Optimus is designed to be an extremely capable robot but made in very high volume, probably ultimately millions of units and it is expected to cost much less than a car.
I would say, probably less than $20,000, would be my guess.
The potential for Optimus is appreciated by very few people.” – Elon Musk
Optimus has great potential to transform civilization into a future of abundance
One day our civilization may be one of great abundance, as Elon Musk explains,
“The potential really boggles the mind, because you have to say what is an economy?
An economy is sort of productive entities times their productivity.
Capita times output, productivity per capita. But the point at which there’s not a limitation on capita, it’s not clear what an economy even means at that point!
Economy becomes quasi-infinite. So, taken to fruition, in the hopefully benign scenario, this means a future of abundance.
A future where there is no poverty, where you can have whatever you want in terms of products and services.
It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it.” – Elon Musk
Tesla is structured so the public can ensure a safe future in regards to Optimus
This important issue was emphasized by Elon Musk,
“Obviously, we want to make sure that transformation is a positive one, and safe.
But that’s also why I think Tesla, as an entity doing this, being a single class of stock publicly traded owned by the public is very important and should not be overlooked.
I think this is essential, because then, if the public doesn’t like what Tesla is doing, the public can buy shares in Tesla, and vote differently.
This is a big deal, like, it’s very important that I can’t just do what I want. It’s very important that the corporate entity that makes this happen, is something that the public can properly influence.
So I think the Tesla structure is ideal for that. Like I said, self-driving cars will certainly have a tremendous impact on the world.
I think they will improve the productivity of transport by at least a half order of magnitude, perhaps an order of magnitude, perhaps more.
Optimus has maybe a two order of magnitude potential improvement in economic output. It’s not clear what the limit actually even is. But we need to do this in the right way. We need to do it carefully, and safely and ensure that the outcome is one that is beneficial to civilization and one that humanity wants.
This is extremely important, obviously.” – Elon Musk
Elon Musk also explained to the audience that,
“At Tesla, we really care about doing the right thing or are inspired to do the right thing, and really not pave the road to hell with good intentions and I think the road to hell is mostly paved with bad intentions, but every now and again, there’s a good intention in there.
We want to do the right thing.” – Elon Musk
Tesla Optimus humanoid robot. Photo Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
A technical presentation followed by a Q & A reveals more about Optimus
You can watch the presentation on Tesla YouTube, and it may be best watched in parts as it is
technical.
Prior to questions and answers from the audience, Elon explained,
“We really wanted to show the depth and breadth of Tesla and artificial intelligence, compute hardware, robotics actuators, and try to really shift the perception of the company away from … you know a lot of people think we’re just a car company, or we make cool cars, or whatever.
Most people have no idea that Tesla is arguably the leader in AI hardware and software and that we are building what is arguably the first, the most radical computer architecture since the Cray-1 supercomputer.
I think if you’re interested in developing some of the most advanced technology in the world that’s going to affect the world in a positive way, Tesla is the place to be.” – Elon Musk
Many interesting points were made during the 40-minute Q & A session, including,
There will be endless possibilities for Optimus, many different versions are planned
You will be able to have a conversation with Optimus
As a safety precaution, Optimus will not have over-the-air updates. Optimus will have a safety off-switch
Optimus should be ready for customers in 3-5 years
Tesla may begin a monthly podcast to explain what is going on behind the scenes
Tesla Optimus humanoid robot. Photo Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
It has great potential to transform civilization into a future of abundance.
To ensure this is done right, Elon Musk explained that, “Obviously, we want to make sure that transformation is a positive one, and safe. But that’s also why I think Tesla, as an entity doing this, being a single class of stock publicly traded owned by the public is very important and should not be overlooked. I think this is essential, because then, if the public doesn’t like what Tesla is doing, the public can buy shares in Tesla, and vote differently. This is a big deal, like, it’s very important that I can’t just do what I want. It’s very important that the corporate entity that makes this happen, is something that the public can properly influence. So I think the Tesla structure is ideal for that.”
How do you think an Optimus Robot could make your life more abundant?
Giant fork in the road leads to Tesla’s Optimus AI Tesla’s Optimus robot is already working at the Fremont factory, and exactly how many robots are in Tesla’s fleet? Elon Musk installed a giant 30ft fork in the road created by Burning Man artist Hunter Leggitt outside the Autopilot office in Palo Alto, will this be a permanent art installation?
Read Elon Musk’s essay on technology for a better future Elon Musk is optimistic, lives with a sense of urgency, and takes action to make the future good. His essay is an inspiration to all people, and here he talks about exciting uses for the Optimus humanoid robot!
Who will Benefit once Tesla Autonomy is Solved? I believe a world where autonomy is the norm is closer than we realize. This article attempts to answer the question, who will benefit once Tesla autonomy is solved?
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – October 2, 2022. All Rights Reserved.
My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
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Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time donation to support What’s Up Tesla
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is .36 which is about half of a conventional diesel truck. The Semi’s energy consumption is stunning at 
whatsuptesla.com 