LNG: TESLARATI

Recent observations from Tesla’s Powerwall API hint that the company’s electric cars will soon have a feature that will allow them to communicate better with the home battery system. With such a system in place, Tesla’s electric cars will not drain the Powerwall when the grid goes down.

The upcoming Powerwall and Tesla integration feature was first spotted by Model X owner and Reddit user u/cwiedmann.

“Looking through the data returned from the API, I see there’s now evidence of upcoming features for integrating Powerwalls and car charging as Elon mentioned. This appears to be support for preventing car charging from draining the batteries when the grid is down and maybe to allow the car to absorb surplus solar energy,” u/cwiedmann wrote on the r/TeslaMotors subreddit.

When the grid goes down, Tesla Powerwalls can meet the energy demands of a home, including charging an electric car like the Model 3, Model X, or Model S. That being said, there’s a big room for improvement especially when it comes to how a Tesla vehicle communicates with the home battery system. Tesla’s electric cars have massive battery packs after all, and they can drain an off-grid Powerwall if left unattended.

This appears to have happened in May 2019 to Tesla owner Erik Strait, who also runs the YouTube channel DӔrik. Strait brought up the Powerwall issue they encountered in Colorado and suggested features that may come handy to consumers, such as a setting that allows the home battery system to prevent cars charging when they are off the grid. Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded with a brief “Coming soon.”

Coming soon

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2019

Elon Musk posted his response to the Tesla owner-enthusiast last May, and there have been few updates on the feature since. Nevertheless, references to the feature in the Powerwall’s API today suggests that the home battery-electric vehicle integration may be coming sooner than expected. How the functionality will be rolled out remains to be seen too, but there’s a good chance that Tesla may introduce the feature through an over-the-air update, similar to how the company activates “Storm Watch” for Powerwall-equipped homes located in areas that are facing natural disasters.

Ultimately, the upcoming Powerwall feature shows that Tesla is making a lot of headway in integrating key features of its energy products and its electric cars. This ecosystem could ultimately encourage buyers of Tesla’s electric cars to adopt the company’s energy and battery storage products too, similar to how Apple has encouraged customers to purchase devices within its product line due to their feature integration.

Very early on, we had the ability to use the car as a battery outputting power. Maybe worth revisiting that.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 4, 2018

These recent observations on the Powerwall API also invoke some thoughts on a feature that was mentioned by Elon Musk back in 2018. In a tweet then, Musk noted that it may be worth revisiting the idea of using its cars as batteries that output power, similar to a V2G (vehicle-to-grid) system. Tesla does seem to be exploring this idea recently, as hinted at by the Cybertruck’s capability to use its massive battery pack to power tools from its onboard outlets.

Teslarati will update you once the Powerwall-Tesla electric vehicle integration feature goes live. For now, this is a welcome development so the habit of “always be charging” does not lead one to a home without power. But of course, there’s always Camp Mode just in case.

Upcoming Powerwall/Vehicle Integration API Leaks from r/teslamotors

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It appears that Tesla is getting faster with its Hardware 3 retrofits, with recent reports from the electric car community suggesting that the upgrade could now take as short as a few hours. This suggests a notable improvement in the turnaround times for HW3 upgrades, especially since previous anecdotes from Tesla owners indicated that the process could take as long as a few days.

Elon Musk has noted that Hardware 3 retrofits will be available for electric cars equipped with HW2 and HW2.5, and whose owners purchased the company’s Full Self-Driving suite. The CEO has also mentioned in the past that retrofits should not take too long, and that Tesla’s mobile service fleet should be able to accomplish the upgrade without any difficulties. 

Initial accounts of Hardware 3 retrofits suggested that this was indeed the case. A Tesla Model X P100D owner who runs the Electric Dreams YouTube channel reported back in December that his HW3 retrofit only took a few hours, thanks to a member of Tesla’s Mobile Service team coming over to his home to perform the upgrade. In the case of the Model X owner, the mobile service technician started the retrofit in the morning and completed the upgrade by night. 

As Tesla started ramping its Hardware 3 retrofits, it quickly became evident that not all owners will experience the same convenience as related by the Electric Dreams host. Tesla Model 3 owner and enthusiast Tesla Joy, for example, noted that her vehicle’s upgrade ended up taking over five days. This was highly inconvenient, particularly as it resulted in the Model 3 being stuck in the Service Center during New Year’s. 

Similar complaints from fellow Model 3 owners suggested that Joy’s experience was not an isolated case. Fellow Model 3 owner Greg Wester, for one, claimed that his Service Center advised him that his HW3 retrofit will take a whole week to complete because of the “disassembly and troubleshooting” that will be involved. Similar to Joy, Wester was given Uber vouchers due to the absence of loaner vehicles. 

More recent reports from Tesla owners suggest that Hardware 3 retrofits are now far quicker and more efficient. Tesla owner-enthusiast Tesla Raj recently shared that his Model 3, which was dropped off at a Service Center at 8:30 am, will be fully upgraded by 3:30 pm on the same day. Other Tesla owners commenting on Raj’s tweet shared similar stories, with some stating that their retrofits were also completed within the same day. Even vehicles that had to be left overnight for the retrofit were ready to get back on the road the following day. 

Overall, it appears that Tesla is now at a point where its HW3 retrofit process is getting quicker turnaround times. Recent anecdotes from electric car enthusiast @stillstainless noted that the Tesla Lynnwood WA Service Center was actually able to complete a HW3 upgrade in just 2 hours 20 minutes. During this time, the vehicle’s owner reportedly just opted to wait, instead of acquiring a loaner vehicle. 

Elon Musk has suggesting in the past that the HW3 retrofit will be a quick, simple process that could be performed by mobile service technicians without any issue. Based on the most recent reports from the Tesla community, it appears that the electric car maker is getting closer to Elon Musk’s estimates. This bodes well for Tesla’s push into the autonomous driving market, especially since Hardware 3 is an important part of the full self-driving puzzle that the company is trying to solve.

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Tesla takes a step closer to laying the first brick of its first Gigafactory in Europe as a German court ruled that the electric carmaker can resume clearing trees at the forest where it plans to build Giga Berlin.

The Berlin-Brandenburg court gave Tesla the green light to continue its work, noting that Brandenburg authorities did not violate laws and did not take any shortcuts when they allowed work to begin in Grunheide.

State authorities gave Tesla the initial go signal to clear about 90 hectares of land that will be used for the first phase of Giga Berlin. On Feb. 15 the clearing operation was halted after a complaint was filed by environmental group Gruene Liga Brandenburg that voiced concerns on the local water supply. The group also appealed that the carmaker must not clear trees until after March 5 when the deadline was set for the community and concerned groups to comment about Tesla’s project.

The favorable decision of the court would help Tesla keep to a proposed timeline to begin construction by mid-March. An unfavorable decision would have delayed construction by six to nine months and risk plans to vehicle production slated for July 2021. Tesla aims to produce 10,000 Model Y crossovers per week and expected to create 12,000 job opportunities for Germany and nearby countries.

The ruling was seen as a positive development by state Economics Minister Jorg Steinbach. “We are very pleased to see the verdict,” Steinbach said.

Tesla tried to address concerns of local residents and environmental groups in Grunheide by opening a community center where it held talks to inform locals that the carmaker is taking all the necessary steps to take care of the environment such as replanting trees three times the number it would cut and relocating wildlife as necessary.

Amid environmental protests, Tesla has won the heightened support of the economic minister and industry leaders who all called for faster review processes in Germany so as not to delay big projects such as Tesla. They warned that such long delays may weaken the appeal of Germany to investors.

German government’s Green Party also voiced out displeasure with the complaints lodged by the environmental groups.

“You don’t always have to be against everything,” Green Party member and Berlin’s deputy governing mayor Ramona Pop said.

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Tesla launched the official website of Giga Berlin to showcase a multitude of career opportunities and the company’s strong commitment to sustainability for its first European factory.

With goals to create as much as 12,000 new jobs for residents of Grunheide, talent from across Germany and the rest of Europe, Tesla is looking to fill various positions in construction, manufacturing, engineering, and operations.

“Phase 1 will focus on production of Model Y, with a target capacity of 10,000 vehicles per week. We estimate that during Phase 1, we will employ up to 12,000 people, with roles being filled by local residents and employees from wider Europe. We want the best talent collaborating and working together to achieve the mission,” Tesla wrote on its new Giga Berlin website.

In addition to the various positions that Tesla seeks to hire for construction of its factory are manufacturing and engineering roles that will be focused on production line design as well as vehicle manufacturing.

Tesla is looking to form a team of professionals that will help “create the factory of the future” at Giga Berlin. Among the job openings is a position for a stamping production manager who will oversee the designing and building of new tooling for the production line.  Tesla is also looking to hire chemical engineering leads who can help “create novel detailed designs for a wide range of systems from electrolyte to high purity water,” a position that can be crucial in the planned battery cell production at Giga Berlin.

The new positions in Germany further bolster Tesla’s strong presence in Europe as an employer. The company already has a strong workforce at its Model S and Model X assembly facility in Tilburg in the Netherlands, as well as at the Tesla Grohmann Automation in Prum, Germany. These facilities account for around 5,500 workers.

Tesla plans to begin construction of the Giga Berlin by mid-March and begin production as early as July 2021. In January, the Tesla board has approved the purchase agreement of the Grunheide property for about $45 million and is awaiting the second appraisal of an independent party. The electric car manufacturer has also started submitting documents needed to process a grant that can amount to 100 million to help fund the construction of Giga Berlin.

Earlier this week, the clearing of trees on the Giga Berlin build site was put on hold by court order after an environmental group lodged a complaint. Tesla has promised since the start to comply with all the rules in Germany and to focus on sustainability. It has outlined recently the environmental control measures it is taking to abide by the strict rules in the country such as relocation of wildlife from the forest. The Silicon Valley-based carmaker also put these things in the spotlight on its Giga Berlin website where it messages its commitment to improving the environment near Giga Berlin and the rest of the state of Brandenburg by collaborating with experts, environmental groups, residents, and German authorities.

Tesla will be replanting an area three times the size of its factory plot and has, so far, identified potential mass tree planting zones in Brandenburg an der Havel, Baruth/Mark, and Baad Saarow.

Giga Berlin will also install solar in a bid to help achieve the country’s “Energiewende” goals. Energiewende is the planned transition of Germany to a nuclear-free economy and expand the usage of renewable energies. The country aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% this year, by 55% in 2030 and up to 95% come 2050 compared to the GHG levels in the 1990s.

On Wednesday, the Minister for Economic Affairs Jorg Steinbach will issue an update on the state of preparations for Giga Berlin during a meeting of the Economic Committee in the State Parliament.

Recently, Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier voiced his support for the speedy construction of Giga Berlin, pointing out that any delay defeats the purpose of climate protection.

“The construction of the Tesla automobile plant in Brandenburg has been of great importance for more climate protection and one of the most important industrial settlements in the new federal states for a long time,” Altmaier said.

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Elon Musk has posted a new glimpse inside SpaceX’s South Texas Starship factory, revealing a nearly-completed rocket nosecone and indicating that the first upgraded Starship prototype’s flight debut is imminent.

SpaceX teams have been working around the clock for a little over a month to build the first full-scale, flightworthy Starship prototype, a process that only began after two ‘test tanks’ were fabricated, assembled, and pressurized until they burst on January 10th and 28th. Built with improved tools and methods, those test results – particularly from the second test tank – allowed SpaceX to empirically confirm that its current infrastructure and techniques are ready to manufacture orbital-class (and even human-rated) Starships right now.

And so work on the first truly flightworthy Starship prototype – known as SN01 (serial number 01) – thus began in earnest around mid-January, perhaps less than a month ago. Over the course of that month, SpaceX’s South Texas team has made spectacular progress. Starship SN01’s business half – comprised of a Raptor engine section, a liquid oxygen tank, a methane tank, and all associated tank domes and plumbing – is likely just a single big stacking and welding event away from being structurally complete. The upper section of the prototype – Starship’s curved nose and a few less-critical steel rings – has, however, been a bit more elusive.

Aside from a few partial glimpses earlier this month, that nose appeared for the first time two or so weeks on a local resident’s livestream earlier today – just a few hours before Musk offered an even better view inside the same tent it was spotted in. Situated in the second large sprung structure erected at SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas facilities, Musk’s video revealed that that tent – really only completed less than two weeks ago – is already full of Starship production hardware.

Without exaggerating, it’s safe to say that SpaceX has effectively gone from a handful of parts worth of Texas rocket production to a multi-vehicle, Starship production line concurrently manufacturing multiple vehicles in about eight weeks. While it would be theoretically easy for critics and a more general audience to see little more than some cheap stainless steel parts in a few hastily-constructed temporary tents, the reality is that SpaceX has already proven – at a minimum – that a steel Starship built with the exact same tools, facilities, and methods will likely be capable of spaceflight.

SpaceX’s January 2020 Starship test tank program proved as much, demonstrating that thin steel tanks built in tents can serve as orbital-class pressure vessels and survive at internal pressures greater as high as 8.5 bar (125 psi) while filled with cryogenic (extremely cold) liquid. Meanwhile, Tesla’s Fremont factory General Assembly line 4 (GA4) – having continuously churned out high-quality Model 3s for more than a year – has proven that sprung structures can make for fast, cheap, and more or less permanent factory solutions. Prospective SpaceX competitor Blue Origin even based its own brand new headquarters – opened in January 2020 – around an odd U-shaped sprung structure.

Nevertheless, SpaceX’s small test tank successes do not necessarily guarantee that the same kind of tests performed at full scale will be equally successful. The biggest proof of concept for SpaceX’s upgraded Starship production methods will involve manufacturing, fueling, static-firing, and – eventually – flying a complete Starship prototype built with the same methods as those test tanks.

The pressure vessel section of Starship SN01 – said pathfinder prototype – appears to be nearly complete, missing only its integrated engine section and oxygen tank dome before it could theoretically be ready to start cryogenic testing. Incredibly, information acquired and published by NASASpaceflight.com reporter Michael Baylor indicates that SpaceX wants to complete the prototype and transport Starship to its nearby launch site just ten days from now.

A step further, if things go as planned, SpaceX wants to install Starship SN01’s three Raptor engines and perform a live static fire test as soon as early March. In short, SpaceX’s Starship program is likely about to enter a new period of ambitious, rapid-fire testing. Stay tuned!

Check out Teslarati’s newsletters for prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes.

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Tesla is working on a new 110 kWh battery pack configuration that can stretch range well beyond 400 miles, according to a new discovery made in Tesla’s battery management system (BMS) firmware.

Jason Hughes, a notable Tesla owner and hacker who first uncovered the company’s plans for a “P100D” variant in 2016, found references to a larger battery pack capacity in the latest BMS firmware. “There is a packID that starts life set to ~109 kWh usable (400+ miles),” noted Hughes via Twitter, further suggesting that Tesla might be preparing for a battery pack as large as 115 kWh in capacity when factoring Tesla’s battery reserve.

Additionally, Hughes discovery points to a new battery pack configuration with 108 cells per group at ~450 volts per pack that could very well be a universal design to replace the aging Model S and Model X battery pack, while centralizing architecture for the Model 3 and upcoming Model Y.

Spent a little time RE’ing some recent Tesla BMS firmware.

Some variables were tweaked to fit 108 cell groups (~450V pack).

There is a packID that starts life set to ~109 kWh usable (400+ miles).

Bunch of other tweaks suggest prep for new S/X/3 pack configs at some point. 🔋

— Jason Hughes (@wk057) February 19, 2020

Battery pack improvements don’t come as a surprise considering CEO Elon Musk disclosed during the Tesla Q4 2019 earnings call that the company is rapidly approaching a 400-mile range for the Model S. “It won’t be long before Model S has 400-mile range,” said Musk.

Just last week, Tesla Model S received a range boost from 370 miles to 390 miles of EPA-rated range, while the flagship Model X SUV saw an increase from 328 miles to 351 miles.

With confirmation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk that the next-generation Model S and Model X will utilize a larger capacity battery to support its new Plaid Powertrain, the latest leak by Hughes can be seen as further validation that new battery advancements will be announced soon.

A future battery pack upgrade can only help Tesla break the 400-mile barrier and widen the range gap with any would-be competition. Tesla ups the ante and solidifies its position as the leader of the pack in the electric vehicle industry with its focus on new battery advancements – something the community expects Elon Musk to present in its upcoming “Battery Day”.

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Elon Musk has remarked that Tesla has arguably the most exciting product roadmap of any company today. With vehicles like the Semi and the Cybertruck coming in the pipeline, this statement rings true. But things will not be as easy as simply setting up production lines for the upcoming vehicles. For Tesla to properly ramp the Semi, for example, the company would have to make sure that it can get enough cells for the vehicle first. 

Producing electric cars is no easy task, and a lot of the challenges in EV making are connected in one way or another to vehicles’ batteries. This is something that is being learned by veteran carmakers like Jaguar today, as inadequate supply from battery companies like LG Chem has resulted in a halt of production for premium EVs like the I-PACE. Tesla is certainly aware of the battery supply challenges that EV makers face. This is one of the reasons why Gigafactory Nevada was constructed. 

Giga Nevada was built to support the company’s Model 3 ramp. Designed to manufacture the 2170 cells of the Model 3 with battery partner Panasonic, the massive facility forms the backbone of Tesla’s first foray into the mass market. But the story lies far beyond the Model 3 today. Tesla has an even higher-volume vehicle coming, the Model Y. The Cybertruck will likely sell in large volumes too, provided that the market embraces it. Just like the all-electric pickup, the Semi might see sufficient demand from the trucking market once it’s released as well, considering the cost benefits that the vehicle offers. 

Tesla is in a constant state of change, and this cannot be represented better than the company’s batteries. President of Automotive Jerome Guillen has noted that Tesla’s batteries are never static since they’re always being improved. Today, it is becoming more and more evident that Tesla’s batteries are among the best in the industry, particularly when it comes to energy density. Coupled with its vertically-integrated software, Tesla’s batteries can give vehicles impressive range even if they are not too large. 

The Model 3, for example, can squeeze out over 320 miles of range from a 75 kWh battery, and the Model S Long Range Plus can get 390 miles from a 100 kWh pack. This matters a lot, and it shows just how far ahead the company is when it comes to its batteries and their energy density. And this, ultimately, will likely help the company secure enough battery cells to support the ramp of its upcoming EVs, including the Semi and the Cybertruck, both of which are large vehicles that would usually require a massive pack to hit their target range. 

Tesla lists the Semi with a range of 300 to 500 miles. The company never announced the size of the Semi’s battery pack, but considering that the vehicle is a Class 8 truck that can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 20 seconds with a full load, speculations for the vehicle’s battery from the EV community included estimates that were as high as 1 MWh. The same concept applies to the Cybertruck. The vehicle is very heavy, and it is expected to have over 500 miles of range. To get this range, a large battery pack would usually be required. 

But with Tesla’s constant innovations on its batteries, this does not necessarily have to be the case. Considering that Tesla is closing in on 400 miles per charge on a 100 kWh pack with the Model S, there is a good chance that its next vehicles like the Cybertruck and Semi will be equipped with fewer, but more energy-dense cells than initially expected. Tesla has pretty much developed the skill of drawing out as much range as possible from every cell in an EV, so it’s not too farfetched to infer that the company will be very efficient with the batteries of its upcoming vehicles. 

More energy-dense batteries will be key to lowering production costs as well. Tesla may be drastically reducing its battery costs, but the packs themselves still comprise a huge portion of each of its vehicles’ prices. If Tesla can use slightly smaller packs that are still capable of providing optimum range, Tesla can make sure that its EVs like the Semi and the Cybertruck will be as competitive as possible when they enter the market.

The Tesla Semi and the Cybertruck are competing in the trucking and pickup market, two very lucrative segments in the automotive industry. Interestingly, both segments are also ripe for disruption, with most veterans such as Freightliner and the Ford F-150 sticking to tried and tested strategies to thrive today. Tesla needs a key to ensure that it can have a fighting chance when it enters the trucking and pickup segment with the Semi and Cybertruck. If challenges faced by electric car makers today are any indication, it appears that batteries and their energy density will be the difference-maker. Fortunately, these just happen to be two things that Tesla has been obsessively pursuing since the company was founded less than 17 years ago. 

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Tesla’s work at Giga Berlin may continue as early as next week, according to Brandenburg Minister of Economics Jörg Steinbach in a recent interview. He believes that the German court will ultimately rule in favor of Tesla, allowing the electric car maker to resume its tree-clearing activities in Brandenburg.

Tesla’s tree-clearing operations were unfortunately halted on February 15 after the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court acknowledged a complaint submitted by a local environmental activist group known as the Green League of Brandenburg. The electric car maker has only been working on its tree-clearing activities for a few days then.

Steinbach, for his part remains positive that this setback will be overcome and construction crews can get back to work as soon as possible. “If I delayed half a year or more, I would definitely see this risk,” he noted.

#GigaBerlin
The Minister of Economics of Brandenburg ( Jörg Steinbach ) just said in an interview that the court’s decision is expected before the end of the week and that he is confident that TESLA will be able to continue its work next week.👌🤞https://t.co/kIP7eDZs0z

— @GF4Tesla..🏗️🏗️.build #GigaBerlin. (@Gf4Tesla) February 19, 2020

Steinbach has been one of Tesla’s biggest supporters since CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla will be building a factory near Berlin, which would be producing the Model Y crossover and Model 3 sedan. After Tesla received preliminary approval on February 13 from the Brandenburg State Office to begin clearing trees from the first 91.5 hectares of land, Steinbach shared a picture of the initial tree-clearing process taking place.

Steinbach was also vocal in Tesla’s ability to provide a boost to Germany’s economy and provide jobs to German citizens. Most recently, Steinbach highlighted Tesla’s ability to provide climate protection with its automobiles and technology. “The construction of the Tesla automobile plant in Brandenburg has been of great importance for more climate protection and one of the most important industrial settlements in the new federal states for a long time,” he said to RTL.

Tesla was originally required to have the initial tree-clearing process finished by February 27. This was to prevent interference of the bird’s breeding season that begins in early March. Depending on when the decision from the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court is received, Tesla may have to push back its completion date so local wildlife is not interfered with. Otherwise, the electric car maker would have to work double-time to ensure that it can meet its targets without compromising any of the wildlife in the area.

Environmental groups have been concerned with Tesla’s construction of the Giga Berlin plant, but the company has made every stride to alleviate their worries. Tesla, for one, has expressed its intention to replant the trees it removes three-fold in local areas that are currently being finalized.

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