Texas Runs Out Of Time To Grant Tesla Sales Permission | 28 May 2021

Show #1096.

 

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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Friday 28th May. It’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don't have to.

 

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"This year, the Legislature convened Jan. 12 and will wrap up its work on May 31 before breaking until 2023. And it will do so without making a widely expected change to Texas’ auto dealer franchise laws that would finally allow Tesla to sell its cars—many of which will be built at its new Austin factory next year—directly to the public in the nation’s second-largest state." writes The Drive: "esla is on the verge of having to jump through the most ridiculous one yet: having to ship its Texas-built vehicles out of the state before it can sell (and ship) them back to Lone Star buyers.   There’s not enough time left in the current legislative section to advance the bill that was supposed to avert that Kafkaesque outcome. This is going to happen unless Texas Governor Greg Abbott calls a special session specifically to debate this topic—extremely unlikely—or some arcane regulatory exemption can be crafted for Tesla in the months ahead. So how did we end up here?"

 

 

"Trust Tesla and its chief Elon Musk to come up with a big idea for solving the current chip shortage. This one would only help Tesla itself — it is considering buying and operating a plant of its own, according to people familiar with the matter" writes the FT: "A cutting-edge semiconductor fab requires investment of up to $20bn and the intricacies of operating such plants are notoriously hard to master. Tesla is also pursuing a more practical idea of paying in advance to secure supplies. That’s a strategy already adopted by other companies."

 

 

"On Tuesday, an explosion at the Callide Power Station, a coal-fired power plant in central Queensland, Australia, resulted in mass power outages from the New South Wales (NSW) border to Cairns. More than 470,000 customers were affected, particularly as the explosion caused a cascading impact on the Queensland grid." says Teslarati: "This was when the Hornsdale Power Reserve, a massive Tesla Powerpack battery farm, stepped in. With its upgraded toolkit that was added when it was expanded into a 150MW/194MWh system, the massive battery was able to immediately respond to the widespread power interruptions."

 

 

"Despite issues with its Solar Roof, Tesla's Powerwall has apparently been a hot-selling item over the last year. The company announced on Twitter that it has sold over 200,000 Powerwall units so far, around double the number it said it had sold at this time in 2020. " according to Engadget: "It could apparently be shipping even larger numbers if it could manufacture more of them. Tesla recently said during its first-quarter earnings call that it had a "multi-quarter backlog on Powerwall." It also announced in April that it would no longer sell its Solar Roof panels without a Powerwall unit, which ought to boost demand even further.  Tesla recently unveiled the Powerwall+, an updated version that can supply up to 9.6kW of power, up from 5kW continuous and 7kW of peak output. "

 

 

"Opel has received a major order for electric cars from the Italian postal service. The Rome-based postal and logistics operator has ordered 1,744 Opel Corsa-e vehicles. The first of the ordered Opel electric cars are to be delivered to Poste Italiane before the end of this year." reports electrive: "The Opel Corsa-e won over the Italian postal service in a public tender whereby Opel says the small electric car, “was selected in a public tender that was bid by leading automobile manufacturers.” Opal says the Corsa-e is ideal for everyday use."

 

 

"Hyundai Motor Group will slash the number of combustion engine models in its line-up to free up resources to invest in electric vehicles (EVs), two people close to the South Korean automaker told Reuters." according to Yahoo! Finance: "The move will result in a 50% reduction in models powered by fossil fuels, one of the people said, adding the strategy was approved by top management in March. While Hyundai did not specifically address a Reuters query on its plans for combustion engine models, it said in an email on Thursday that it was accelerating adoption of eco-friendly vehicles such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and battery EVs. Hyundai Motor Group, which houses Hyundai Motor Co and Kia Corp and Genesis, aims to sell about one million EVs per year by 2025 to achieve a 10% share of the global EV market"

 

 

"Hyundai developed an in-car payment system that will debut in its upcoming all-electric Ioniq 5 crossover that will offer drivers the ability to find and pay for EV charging, food and parking — the latest example of automakers finding new ways to generate revenue and offer customers features that are typically associated with smartphones." says TechCrunch: "When the vehicle comes to North America in fall 2021, the payments system will launch with Dominoes, ParkWhiz and Chargehub, the company said Monday. The in-car payments system was just one of several new details released during the Ioniq 5’s North American debut."

 

 

"Kia has announced that it will be offering a limited run of 1500 units of its new EV6 electric vehicle. The first 1500 EV6 electric cars will be called First Edition and will be offered in unique color combos only available through advanced reservation. First Edition orders start on June 3 at 10 AM PST, and customers can put down a $100 fully refundable deposit to reserve one of the vehicles." says Slashgear: "Kia currently expects to begin delivering the EV6 First Edition in Q1 of 2022. Among the upgrades, in addition to the unique colors, First Edition buyers get includes an augmented reality head-up display, remote smart parking assist, sunroof, 20-inch wheels, premium 14-speaker audio system, dual-motor all-wheel-drive power, and a battery pack with 77.4 kWh of energy."

 

 

 

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