Tesla is expected to start production of its most affordable car - the Model 3 from July this year. The automaker is in the final stages of testing the car. A couple of undisguised test mules of the Model 3 have been photographed just outside the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

The source of these spy shots suggests that the spotted models are 'release candidates' i.e., they are in the final production-ready guise. Not much appears to have changed on the production-spec Model 3, as compared to the first prototype that was unveiled in 2016. However, the front-end has been given some minor tweaks, especially around the nose contours.

Reports indicate that the car will come with a total of 10 cameras which will help in making the autopilot system more efficient. The Model 3 was spotted alongside a BMW 3-series, which was likely being used as a benchmarking car. A couple of shots of the interiors have also surfaced, showing the massive tablet-like touchscreen in the centre and an overall minimalistic dashboard layout. It will continue to be offered with some of Tesla's semi-autonomous driving features as well.

At the time of the car's unveil, Tesla CEO - Elon Musk, had announced that the production model will be launched sometime in 2017 at a starting price of US$ 35,000. The company is already said to have received over 4 lakh bookings for the Model 3 from around the world.

US-based electric car manufacturer Tesla has surpassed Ford in market value, after the former's stocks recorded a growth of 5.8 %, taking its market value to US$ 48.2 billion. This valuation is around US$ 3.1 billion more than that of Ford. The stock hike has made Tesla the second largest American car maker in terms of market value, behind General Motors.

The increase in Tesla's share prices came a day after the company announced that it had shipped 25,000 units in the first quarter of 2017. This sales figure surpassed the expectations of market analysts and reflected Tesla's growing popularity and market share. Interestingly, while Ford sold a lot more cars in comparison to Tesla, it didn’t manage to meet market projections. This resulted in the stock tumbling down and thus helping Tesla's market capital to surpass it for the first time.

It must be noted that in all parameters except market value, Ford surpasses Tesla by a huge margin. While Tesla sold 25,000 cars worldwide in the first quarter this year, Ford clocked nine times this sales figure in the last month in the US market alone. Ford had registered an annual revenue of US$ 151.8 billion last year compared to Tesla's corresponding figure of US$ 7 billion.

However, Tesla is considered to be an evolving company. Shares of the electric car maker behave a lot like technology stocks, which rise as per the company's potential to make a mark in the near future. A major reason behind the recent rise in Tesla's valuation can also be considered to be the upcoming official introduction of the Model 3, which is the company's most affordable product and is expected to increase the manufacturer's global sales significantly.

Source: Bloomberg

When Tesla unveiled the Model 3 in April 2016, the company had announced that the electric car can also be booked by Indian customers. However, no specific timeline for Tesla's official India launch was mentioned. Now, company founder and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk has indicated that Tesla might officially launch in India by mid-2017.

The revelation was made after someone on Twitter asked the CEO about the timelines of Tesla's India launch, to which Elon Musk replied, "Hoping for summer this year". The automaker is yet to reveal an official announcement of its launch schedule in the country.

Tesla will be entering India with its most affordable car yet, the Model 3. This entry-level model from the American electric carmaker boasts of a company-claimed range of 346 km and a 0-96 km/h acceleration time of less than 6 seconds.

Tesla Motors has updated its four-door, all-electric saloon, the Model S. It now gets a 100 kWh battery pack in the top-end P100 D trim that has pumped up its range, speed, and acceleration figures. As a result, the updated, top-end Tesla Model S P100 D in Ludicrous mode can now accelerate from 0-100 km/h in an expected time of just 2.5 seconds in maximum power mode, while its range has been increased to around 507 kilometers.

The aforementioned acceleration figure has made the Model S the third fastest car in the world, just a whisker behind the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Porsche 918 Spyder. But keeping in mind the fact that both of these limited production hypercars are already sold out, the Model S can indeed be termed as the fastest production car currently on sale.

The Tesla Models S P100 D with the ludicrous mode will start at $134,500. The company is also giving the option where customers waiting for their P90 D Ludicrous model can upgrade to the 100 kWh battery by paying an additional sum of $10,000. Even those who have already taken deliveries of the P90 D Ludicrous can pay $20,000 to get the updated battery pack.

In addition to the Model S sedan, the new battery pack will also be employed in the Tesla Model X. Starting at $135,500, the Model X P100 D Ludicrous is expected to accelerate from 0-100 km/h in over 2.9 seconds, while its range has been increased to 465 km.

Earlier this week, we reported that Tesla has opened its first Gigafactory in the Nevada desert. The company's CEO, Elon Musk has commented that there is a possibility of India being home to a Gigafactory in the future.

In a speech about the establishment in Nevada, Elon Musk revealed that the company is open to building more Gigafactories in the future, if the demand arises. He said that the obvious way to optimize shipping costs and supply is to build new factories wherever there is a huge demand. As a result, the automaker might invest in more such facilities in Europe, China, and India, depending on how the markets respond to Tesla cars.

The Nevada Gigafactory is a part of Tesla's plans to be self-sufficient in developing sustainable power sources. The production facility is being developed in an area spanning 10 million square feet, and will be used for in-house development of battery packs for Tesla's cars and PowerWall business. This is expected to help the US-based automaker to reduce manufacturing costs of its cars, thus making them more affordable.

Source: Autocar India

Tesla Motors has officially opened its battery production facility called the Gigafactory. This facility is located in the Nevada desert, and has been built for in-house production of batteries in order to reduce production costs of Tesla cars.

Tesla started building the Gigafactory two years back. The construction is still only 14% complete, but the US-based electric car maker claims that 31 percent of the production facility would be completed by the second quarter of 2017. Once the entire facility has been built, the Tesla Gigafactory will spread over an area of 10 million square feet.

Tesla claims that the Gigafactory will help it reduce battery costs by more than a third by the year 2018. This will help the automaker to add more affordable cars to its portfolio.

At present, the biggest job at hand for the Gigafactory is the production of battery packs for Tesla's recently revealed car - the Model 3. The Model 3 is the company's most affordable car yet. Tesla engineers have used a new type of battery cell in it, which is different to the units used in earlier models like the Model S and the Model X. This new battery cell has helped the car maker to price the Model 3 at a relatively lower tag of $ 35,000.

Panasonic Corp., Tesla's long-term battery supplier, is also a partner in the Nevada based Gigafactory. The Japanese electronics firm has invested $ 1.6 billion in the production facility. Panasonic is expected to start making battery cells by the end of this year.

Tesla is aiming to build 5,00,000 vehicles per year by 2018. The company's CEO, Elon Musk, had recently disclosed its future strategy, which stated its plans to venture into other vehicle segments like pickups, compact SUVs, and commercial vehicles.

Source: Bloomberg

Tesla Motors' CEO and serial entrepreneur, Elon Musk, has recently revealed the company's future plans. In his detailed blog post, Musk has described the way forward for the American electric car manufacturer, and has talked about what all milestones he expects Tesla to achieve in the next 10 years.

Musk started off by remembering a similar blog post he made around 10 years ago, when Tesla Motors was in its inception stages. The first master plan, as he terms it, has now been completed, and thus the CEO has penned down the strategy of what the company needs to do in the future. He calls it "Master Plan, Part Deux".

Following are the major points of his blog post:

Tesla - SolarCity Merger

Musk stressed on the fact that Tesla Motors was formed to provide sustainable energy solutions to people throughout the world. The CEO is also a co-founder and major investor in SolarCity, an American company that deals in solar power systems for houses and industries. Last month, Tesla had pitched Rs. 23,500 crore to acquire SolarCity, and the CEO's blog post confirms that the two companies will soon come under the same umbrella. Musk claimed that since both the companies are chasing the same overarching goals, it would be better to merge them for easing the overall operations. Through the said merger, both companies would be able to achieve the goal of integrated energy generation and storage.

Expand product portfolio - Compact SUV and pickup coming soon

Tesla Motors managed to develop quite a stir when they launched the Model 3. Priced at USD 35,000 (around Rs. 22 lakh), the Model 3 is the most affordable Tesla car ever produced. And CEO Elon Musk has made it clear that they won't launch any product below the Model 3 in the near future. However, the company will now try to stretch its portfolio to various segments. As a result, Tesla is currently working on a Compact SUV and a pickup truck. Launch deadlines haven’t been made public.

Commercial Vehicles

Elon Musk also revealed Tesla's plans to venture into the commercial vehicle space. The automaker is reportedly working on heavy-duty trucks and high passenger density urban transports (buses). These Tesla commercial vehicles are still in their early stages of development, and will thus be introduced next year. Musk claims that these new commercial vehicles from Tesla will reduce the cost of cargo transportation, while making it safer and fun to operate.

Autonomous Driving

Tesla's autopilot feature has been under scanner since the last few weeks. But the CEO still stressed that Tesla would soon be introducing fully-autonomous driving in its cars. This will allow the users to simply punch-in their destination, and the car will automatically take them to the entered spot. Moreover, customers will be able to summon their distantly parked Teslas, so that the car can drive itself and pick them up, without any human intervention.

Tesla shared fleet

Elon Musk has also talked about the possibility of earning revenue from your car, when you aren't using it. For this to be applicable, autonomous driving would need to be approved by the concerned regulatory authorities of the region. As part of this mission, customers would be able to add their Tesla car to the company’s shared fleet through the Tesla car app. The customers' vehicle will then operate as a fleet car and earn revenue for the owner. The CEO claims that this could help lower the overall cost of ownership of the Tesla car.

Source: Tesla Blog

Tesla Motors has revealed the Model 3 electric car. It will be the company's most affordable model with prices starting from US $ 35,000. The production of the car is scheduled to start in late 2017.

The Model 3 is a 4-door sedan with 5 seats, a large touchscreen instrument panel located at the centre of the dashboard and a panoramic sunroof.

The car has a claimed range of 215 miles (346 km) and a 0-96 km/h time of less than 6 seconds. More powerful versions have been planned as well. 

The Model 3 will come with Tesla's supercharger technology. Tesla plans to have 7,200 superchargers by the end of 2017 in Europe, North America and Asia when the car goes on sale.

The car can been pre-ordered for US $ 1,000. India is one of the countries from which Tesla will be accepting pre-orders for the Model 3. However, the company has not yet revealed any plans of making an official entry into the country.

Electric car manufacturer Tesla, has launched the Model X SUV at a price of $ 132,000. The vehicle comes in six or seven seater configurations.

The Model X has a sloping roofline, giving it a coupe-like look and "falcon wing" (gullwing) rear doors which, the company claims, allow easy access to second and third row seats from any parking space. The car has a large windshield with solar tinting, independently reclining seats in the second row and third row seats that can be folded flat. Other equipment includes daytime running lights, maps and navigation with real time traffic updates, power-folding and heated ORVMs, automatic keyless entry, four child seat attachments and parking sensors.

The Model X has a drag coefficient of 0.24 and an active spoiler, which deploys to one of three preset positions when the vehicle is in motion. The vehicle has a floor-mounted battery, which lowers the center of gravity and reduces the risk of a rollover. The company claims that the battery support structure strengthens the car against side impact intrusions. The front trunk of the car acts as an impact-absorbing crumple zone.

Additionally, the Model X is equipped with camera, radar and sonar systems, which scan the surroundings and providing the driver with real-time feedback to avoid collisions. At highway speeds, the brakes of the car are automatically applied in an emergency.

The Model X also comes with medical grade HEPA filter, which filters out pollen, bacteria, viruses and pollution from outside air before circulating it into the cabin. There are three modes - circulate with outside air, re-circulate inside air and a bioweapon defence mode.

The Model X gets an all-wheel drive system and a 90 kWh battery. The car is available in two variants:

90D

• Front motor - 259 HP
• Rear Motor - 259 HP
• Range - 414 km
• 0-96 kph in 4.8 seconds
• Top speed - 250 kph

P90D

• Front motor - 259 HP
• Rear motor - 503 HP
• Range- 402 km
• 0-96 kph in 3.8 seconds (3.2 seconds with Ludicrous Speed Upgrade)
• Top speed - 250 kph

The Model X has a towing capacity of 5,000 lbs (2,273 kg).

Tesla is offering an 8-year, infinite mile battery and drive unit warranty on the SUV.

Later this month, Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, is scheduled to make a trip to the US West Coast. He is expected to visit the state of California and try to attract investments and expertise for the Digital India programme as well as innovation projects and clean energy initiatives. He will meet top IT CEOs of Silicon Valley. The trip itinerary could see the inclusion of a visit to the headquarters of Tesla.

Tesla, which manufactures premium electric cars, could be persuaded to bring its technology to India. The company could manufacture affordable electric cars in the future. Tesla's latest inventions, Powerwall and Powerpack, are lithium-ion charged batteries with large storage capacities. These could be used to in off-grid power systems that could be introduced in India.

The Prime Minister is also likely to visit the Google headquarters. India-born Sundar Pichai, has been appointed as the next Chief Executive Officer of the company.

Source: ET Auto