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Tesla celebrates arrival in Spain with inspiring promotional video

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Spain has become the newest market for Tesla as the company officially opened its online Design Studio to customers within the country. New orders of Model S and Model X vehicles are expected to arrive as early as the end of the first quarter 2017.

The formal announcement, which also confirmed both Barcelona and Madrid as locations for future Tesla stores and service centers slated for the end of 2017, was supported by a 45-second promotional video circulating in Barcelona.

The video begins with the morning sun rising over the ocean through a partly cloudy sky. Spain. For ages, the caption reads, Spain has followed the sun, using nothing more than the wind. Slow Spanish guitar notes punctuate the scene, which switches to the famous 198 ft. tall statue of Christopher Columbus, who points over the Barcelona city center. And discovered a new world.

The new world that is here. With the metaphor of old and new coalescing, the imagery focuses on several views of wind turbines, which serve as a reminder of the corruption and moratorium on wind power that the Spanish national wind association AEE had declared in January, 2016 following scandal-filled elections. And now. We are on street level, walking along with pedestrians through their typical days that include cell phones, cafes, and city buses. Clean. Calm. We glimpse a Tesla Model X partially in each scene: shiny, natural, alluring. Powerful and potent. A full shot of the Model X is next, set against the famous W hotel, which resembles a giant sail. 613 kilometers range. 

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The Tesla logo appears in a diffused background. 100% electric. The Model X cruises down a gray brick city street next to the nationally ranked Quadra Panis. 0-100 km. in only 2.7 seconds. The Model X flashes among various Barcelona city spaces. A growing network caption is superimposed beside the Model X and a Tesla Supercharger station. As the promotional video reaches its crescendo, the Model X becomes part of a wide array of city spaces, including the cathedral La Sagrada Família with its magnificent flying buttresses, ancient arches, private side streets, tropical palms, empty beaches, parking garages, and town squares.

Order now at Tesla.com glides across the screen as the Spanish guitar’s final notes dissipate. We are left with a black background and the white Tesla logo.

Stunning. And very effective.

In October, Tesla advertised for openings in its upcoming store and service locations in Spain as precursor to accepting orders for Model S and Model X in the Spanish territory. The Model S is being offered at a price range of €80,100-154,500 ($85,300-165,500), which includes value-added tax and documentation costs. The base price of the Model X is €103,100; Spanish customers may end up paying €158,400 for its fully accessorized options.

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Spanish customers can also reserve the Model 3 for €1,000, with deliveries anticipated by mid-2018.

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+

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Tesla just told us twice that Model Y L is coming to the U.S.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla just told us twice that the Model Y L is coming to the U.S., and two social media posts definitely just tipped the company’s hand, as if they wanted it to be any other way.

The two social media posts basically confirm that the slightly longer version of the Model Y will be heading to the United States soon, and many have speculated that the company could launch the vehicle as soon as this weekend.

The first post was directly from Tesla, and it showed an incredibly long Dachshund, with words above that said, “Looking forward to the long weekend.”

Anyone who knows Tesla knows the company loves to troll its fans and have fun, and this is a perfect example of that. While not a direct acknowledgement, Tesla is very involved on social media, especially CEO Elon Musk’s platform X, and the company is well aware of what is being discussed within the community.

With recent sightings of Model Y L test mules in California, peeks of the vehicle at Giga Texas, and a large call for the car to come to the U.S., Tesla is simply stoking conversation with this.

However, the company also made another move that was recognized on social media. Tesla has a large gallery that includes photos of its products so media and others can use them. This gallery applies to the U.S. market specifically, unless otherwise specified.

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Tesla uploaded a Model Y L to the Gallery last night:

This seems to be another indication that the Model Y L is coming to the United States.

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Musk said last year that the Model Y L could make its way to the United States late this year, but it was not something that was set in stone by Tesla. The company definitely needs to establish something in the SUV market that is larger than the Model Y, and the Model Y L might be the answer.

Even still, there are consumers out there who would love Tesla to develop something even larger, like a competitor to the Tahoe or Expedition. Tesla has not really given much of an indication that it will go in that direction.

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Tesla is using vehicle microphones to improve build quality: here’s how

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is using the vehicles’ internal microphones to improve build quality, Vice President of Engineering Lars Moravy revealed recently.

It’s no secret that Tesla is always finding ways to make its manufacturing operations more efficient, accurate, and valuable. Constantly trying to make its cars better, the company has never placed any restrictions on what it will do to improve everything from panel gaps to paint.

As Teslas have been driving autonomously on the property of the Gigafactory Texas plant for a while now, Moravy revealed to Herbert Ong in a new interview that cars rolling off production lines now autonomously navigate themselves through a bumps, squeaks, and rattles (BSR) portion of the line. This helps to identify any loose or improperly installed internal parts.

The cabin’s microphones, which are used for a variety of things in ownership, simultaneously monitor any noises inside the vehicle while it rolls through the BSR portion of the production line. Moravy actually revealed that Tesla is trying to build “Full Self-Hearing,” an AI system that will detect minor imperfections so they can be corrected before delivery.

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It’s no secret that build quality is something that Tesla struggled with as it scaled to a fully massive production operation that manufactures over 1.6 million vehicles per year. However, in recent years, especially, there have not been as many complaints. Tesla has truly improved upon its build quality and paint quality over the past several years, especially in the U.S.

Tesla’s ‘megacasts’ are key to massive build quality improvements

While those improvements have been evident, there are still some complaints; no automaker is perfect with this. But this step will now ensure that every single car that rolls off the production lines at Gigafactory Texas will be void of any creaks, squeaks, or squeals when it leaves the factory.

This measure is one of the most unique we’ve seen in terms of a strategy to avoid build quality issues, but it is not exclusive to Tesla.

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Ford uses acoustic analysis AI to find abnormalities in seat motors, climate control units, and other components. Suppliers and OEMs will also use microphone arrays or particle velocity sensors in end-of-line stations.

The full interview with Lars Moravy is available below:

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Investor's Corner

Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) beat Wall Street expectations of 406,000 vehicles delivered in Q2 by reporting 480,126 deliveries for the three months ending in June.

Tesla reported it delivered 467,762  Model 3 and Model Y units, while 12,364 Model S, Model X, and Cybertrucks switched hands during the quarter. The Model S and Model X were officially sunset this past quarter and will no longer be part of the company’s Production & Delivery reports moving forward.

The quarter is a pleasant surprise and a good rebound from Q1, when Tesla slightly missed the Wall Street consensus of 365,645 cars by reporting 358,023 deliveries for the first three motnhs of the year.

Energy storage deployments also provided some strength in Tesla’s delivery report, hitting 13.5 GWh for Q2. This is a particular division of Tesla’s business that has been overwhelmingly robust over the past few years, truly being a strong point of the company’s overall model.

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For the year, Tesla analysts still predict deliveries to trend in the 1.69 million unit region, a modest 3 to 5 percent increase from the 1.64 million cars the company delivered last year. Tesla will likely return to more sequential and noticeable year-over-year growth as the Cybercab project starts to ramp up considerably in the next few years.

Tesla has some other potential catalysts to spur vehicle deliveries, too. Not only is it expecting Cybercab to truly start making a change in the next few years, but other vehicles could be entering the company’s lineup.

Tesla sends production Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals to on-road testing

The slightly longer Model Y L has been a highly speculated release candidate in the U.S. It has already done incredibly well in China, and U.S. buyers have been wanting slightly more interior space than the Model Y. Now that the Model X is gone, it is more needed than ever.

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Q2 highlights a pretty stable automotive division within Tesla, and no true concerns arise from these figures, especially considering it managed to beat expectations convincingly.

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