Connect with us

News

What to expect from Tesla’s solar roof event on October 28

Published

on

Tesla Motors, Inc. has sent invitations to a product reveal on Friday, October 28, 2016 at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. The product announcement is a formality, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on September 22: “Aiming for Oct 28 unveil in SF Bay Area of new Tesla/SolarCity solar roof with integrated Powerwall 2.0 battery and Tesla charger.”

Tesla is in the process of buying SolarCity in a deal worth $2.6 billion. The proposed Tesla/ SolarCity merger vote goes to the shareholders on Nov. 17. Friday’s upcoming announcement offers Tesla an opportune platform as it attempts to persuade shareholders that the merger has sound financial merit. Should the two companies join into one consolidated brand, the Tesla label would prevail, according to Motley Fool, with roof systems marketed alongside vehicles and energy storage products.

How can Musk’s vision for photovoltaic units integrated into the roof itself change the industry?

Traditional rooftop solar panels are attached to roofs using metal mounting systems. But Musk’s plans for an actual roof that’s integrated with a series of solar panels is a step into a new dimension of decentralized renewable energy systems. That means that re-roofing, which is generally required about every 20 years, could migrate into a common pattern of homeowners switching to the solar roof option. While likely more expensive than a conventional roof-mounted panel, the Tesla solar roof will offer homeowners the incentives of savings in power production, endurance of the product, and overt symbolism of a sustainable lifestyle.  The latter may have a profound effect on the highly-desired millennial market.

Musk has emphasized that the new solar roof product is “a fundamental part of achieving a differentiated product strategy.” The solar roof concept incorporates Tesla’s Powerwall, with 6.4 kWh storage capacity, sufficient to power most homes during the evening using electricity generated by solar panels during the day. The Powerwall can also act as a backup electrical system in the event of a power outage. Multiple batteries may be installed together for homes with greater energy needs. The upcoming Powerwall 2.0 will simplify the process of installation and feature a charger for Tesla automobiles.

Tesla-Energy-Powerwall-Crates-Gigafactory

A typical Powerwall system includes solar panels, an inverter for converting electricity between direct current and alternating current, a meter for measuring battery charge, and, in backup applications, a secondary circuit that powers key appliances. Each element interacts with the other.

Advertisement
-
  • Panels convert sunlight into electricity that charges Powerwall and powers the home during the day.
  • The home battery is charged with electricity generated by solar panels.
  • The inverter converts direct current electricity from solar panels, the grid, and Powerwall into the alternating current used by a home’s lights, appliances, and devices.

A Tesla/ SolarCity partnership also has the gravitas to succeed where others have failed. Research and development around building integrated solar has been underway by various companies for years, including some systems that moved into the development stage. However, cost factors as well as inefficient electricity generation have tabled many of these efforts. Recently, Dow Chemical ceased production of its solar shingles, citing a lack of sales, according to Fortune.
Among many partnerships, Tesla is now providing batteries for Swell Energy as part of its all-in-one home management energy system. It also recently announced its pledge with Panasonic to produce solar cells at a manufacturing facility in Buffalo, New York should the Tesla/ SolarCity merger reach stockholder approval.

Already, the Tesla Powerwall unit is in demand in areas where grid reliability is an issue. Recent power outages in Australia saw demand for the Powerall increase by 30x. This newest announcement comes on the heels of an October 19 frenzy of speculation about another Tesla mystery product, which turned out to be Tesla’s autonomous driving hardware.

Tune in on October 28 to see the live product unveiling via webcast on Tesla’s website or Follow Us on @Twitter to see behind the scenes action from the event.

Carolyn Fortuna is a writer and researcher with a Ph.D. in education from the University of Rhode Island. She brings a social justice perspective to environmental issues. Please follow me on Twitter and Facebook and Google+

Advertisement
Comments

Investor's Corner

Tesla has a Cybercab problem nobody saw coming

Tesla’s Cybercab line now builds robotaxis faster than Tesla can deploy them, Lars Moravy says.

Published

on

By

Tesla’s Cybercab line in Texas can now build the two seat robotaxi faster than the company can put it into service, according to Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering. “We don’t run every day because the line can run so fast. It’s currently outpacing our deployments,” Moravy said in a new Cybercab deep dive from Munro Live. “So, it’s a bit of a race right now. Who’s going to go faster? Right now the manufacturing line’s ahead.”

Tesla’s official Robotaxi account shared a Cybercab analysis video on X on Monday, calling it a “Cybercab engineering deep dive.” Moravy’s comments go further than what he told analysts on the Q3 earnings call last week, when he said the Cybercab line’s listed capacity of more than 125,000 units a year undersells what it can actually run.

The tour shows where that speed comes from. Tesla’s unboxed process splits the Cybercab into front, rear, side and center modules that are built and tested on their own before they meet on a short final line. That final line has just 25 fully automated stations, which Tesla’s team estimated is a fifth to a tenth of what a Model Y needs. The full line is about 78% automated, the framing line is already at 100%, and the layout uses roughly 50% less floor space per vehicle. The stated goal is “100% automation in 10 second cycle time,” or one finished Cybercab every 10 seconds.

Tesla also deleted the paint shop. Only the side modules are coated, and the exterior panels get their color inside the molding machine. Engineers said the car is designed to run at least 500,000 miles, which matters for a vehicle that will spend most of its day carrying riders.

The battery got the same treatment. The Cybercab uses an 88S6P pack of 4680 cells in a steel enclosure, a first for Tesla, with each module potted separately so a single failed module can be swapped instead of the whole pack. Wireless battery management boards replace a wiring harness, and new contactors are fast enough to drop the pyro fuse entirely. Tesla’s battery director graded the pack an A minus, compared with a D for the Model Y structural pack and a B minus for Cybertruck. Up front, the drive unit runs an 11:1 gear ratio versus roughly 9:1 on most Teslas, since the Cybercab does not need a high top speed.

Advertisement
-

The deployment side is now the bottleneck Moravy described. Tesla had more than 50 Cybercabs working the Formula 1 weekend in Austin, and Texas records show 463 Cybercabs registered. Tesla said on its earnings call that Cybercab service will launch in Dallas next month, and Moravy said the company is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of 2026. Every unit built so far has gone into Tesla’s own fleet since the line moved into volume production in April.

Munro Live also asked when it could get a Cybercab to tear down. Tesla’s answer: “Not yet.”

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

How SpaceX Is raising Raptor’s sea-level thrust while holding engine mass steady

Published

on

Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX’s Raptor engine family has steadily increased sea-level thrust while simultaneously reducing mass, turning iterative engineering gains into substantially higher performance for the Super Heavy booster. CEO Elon Musk shed more light on how powerful Raptor 4 will be, and it’s pretty crazy.

Raptor 1 delivered 185 metric tons of thrust at roughly 2,080 kilograms, while Raptor 2 raised that to 230 tons while cutting mass to about 1,630 kilograms. SpaceX data for Raptor 3 lists a target of 280 tons at 1,525 kilograms (with further reductions in associated vehicle hardware), while operational flight ratings have been cited near 250 tons.

This morning, Elon Musk stated that Raptor 4 is expected to reach 300 tons of sea-level thrust at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3. Across these versions, thrust has risen by more than 60 percent from the first engines while engine mass has fallen, producing a sharp improvement in thrust-to-weight ratio. This is a true testament to how great SpaceX engineering has been:

With 33 engines on SuperHeavy, the jump from earlier versions to a 300-ton Raptor 4 would produce roughly 9,900 metric tons of total liftoff thrust, nearly three times the Saturn V’s approximately 3,400 metric tons from its five F-1 engines.

This is not just a larger number on a data sheet, either, as sea-level thrust is the force available the moment the vehicle leaves the pad. This is when it is heaviest and still deep in Earth’s gravity well and dense atmosphere.

Higher levels of sea-level thrust directly improves the initial thrust-to-weight ratio of the full stack. A higher ratio produces faster acceleration off the pad, which shortens the time the rocket has to spend fighting gravity, and gravity losses during the first minute or two of the flight are a major drain on total available delta-v. Every second shaved off of that early climb preserves more propellant energy for reaching orbital velocity or for carrying extra payload.

Because Super Heavy’s engine count is constrained by vehicle diameter and packing density, increasing thrust per engine is the most straightforward way to raise total liftoff performance without redesigning the booster structure or design.

The same-mass target for Raptor 4 is equally important. Holding engine mass roughly constant while raising thrust improves the engine’s own thrust-to-weight ratio and reduces the structural and propellant mass fraction that must be carried solely to support the engines.

Earlier Raptor iterations also simplified or eliminated extensive vehicle-side hardware such as heat shields. These gains compound: more force for less installed mass leaves additional capacity for propellant, payload, or operational margins such as engine-out capability.

For Starship’s architecture, the practical effects are large. Greater liftoff thrust supports heavier vehicles, larger propellant loads, and higher payloads to low Earth orbit, figures SpaceX has targeted in the 100-plus-ton reusable range. That capacity underpins orbital refueling, lunar missions, and eventual Mars cargo and crew flights.

Continued growth in sea-level thrust therefore tightens the gap between theoretical rocket performance and the high flight rates and reusability needed to make large-scale space transport practical.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla Assisted Driving expands to tenth EU country

Published

on

Tesla has expanded its Tesla Assisted Driving (TAD) suite to its tenth European country, as Latvia joined a growing list of European Union member states authorizing the company’s advanced driver assistance technology.

Tesla Europe announced this morning that the system is now approved in Latvia, with a software rollout to begin soon.

The approval and rollout follow recognition of a provisional European type approval originally granted by the Netherlands’ RDW authority on April 10.

Latvia’s Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD) evaluated the Dutch documentation, coordinated with the other national authorities, and reviewed updates from Tesla. These included tightened limits on speed offsets, automatic resets of any manual speed adjustments after each trip, and stronger driver monitoring.

In Europe, the feature is marketed as Tesla Assisted Driving after a recent rule change that labeled the name “Full Self-Driving” as misleading.

Tesla starts showing how FSD will change lives in Europe

The system remains an SAE Level 2 driver assistance tool, not unsupervised autonomy. It can control speed, steering, braking, lane changes, and intersections while following a navigation route. Drivers need not keep their hands on the wheel at all times, yet they must continuously monitor the road and be prepared to intervene immediately.

The sequence of EU recognitions began with the Netherlands in April and continued through Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia, and Slovakia. Most have relied on mutual recognition of the single Dutch provisional approval rather than independent national testing.

These national clearances do not yet constitute bloc-wide authorization. An EU-wide decision requires a qualified majority in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles: at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population. Larger markets, like Germany, France, and Italy, remain under review, and a vote is expected this December.

However, for Latvian Tesla owners with compatible vehicles and software, the imminent rollout expands access to the supervised system while underscoring that attentive human oversight remains essential.

Continue Reading