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Tesla Model 3 becomes best-selling EV in Europe

(Photo: Andres GE)

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The Tesla Model 3 has taken the top spot as the most popular electric vehicle in Europe in terms of sales for August. The most-affordable EV from Tesla overtook the Renault Zoe in the rankings, which has dominated the European market for several months.

According to a report from the EV Sales Blog, the Model 3 was delivered to 7,020 customers during August. This figure was enough to give it the top spot by a sizeable margin. The second-place Zoe from Renault sold 6,183 units, trailing the Model 3 by nearly 900 units.

The Ford Kuga PHEV, Hyundai Kona EV, and Mercedes A250e finished off the top 5 with 5,055, 4,054, and 3,505 units delivered, respectively.

(Photo: Andres GE)

The domination of the Model 3 in the European market is quite impressive, considering Tesla does not have a functioning production facility on the continent. Currently, Tesla is building one near Berlin, Germany, but it won’t start building any cars until Summer 2021.

This means that any car that Tesla delivers in Europe must be imported from the company’s facility in Fremont, California, which makes the vehicles slightly more expensive. For example, the Model 3 Standard Range+ in the United States starts at $37,990. In Germany, importing the same variant would cost drivers just under $50,o00, at $49,840.

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Despite this, along with a sizeable concentration of competitive EVs from other manufacturers in the European market, the Model 3 is the top dog.

Due to the Model 3’s variants, which all offer different range ratings and performance specifications, drivers of all types have the ability to pick the perfect car for them. The prices may vary, but for the money, Tesla EVs are the best on the market.

Not to mention, now that Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features are beginning to gain notoriety and be approved for regular usage in some European countries, the cars are becoming even more popular.

In terms of 2020 as a whole, the Renault Zoe still holds an 11,000 vehicle lead over the Model 3 with 52,150 units sold. The Model 3 has just over 41,000.

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Credit: EV Sales Blog

However, Tesla does have more units sold than the Volkswagen e-Golf by just under 16,000 cars, which is impressive, considering Volkswagen is based in Germany. Also, the Audi e-Tron trails by over 20,000 vehicles.

The Model 3 shares 7% of the total EV market share in Europe, while the Renault Zoe has 9%.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.

The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.

On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.

Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD

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It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:

“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”

This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.

It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something

There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features

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(Credit: Megan Gale/Twitter)

Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.

Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.

Here are the full release notes for the suite:

  • Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
  • Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
  • Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
  • Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
  • Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.

These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

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He added:

“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”

Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

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tesla model 3 model y
Credit: Tesla Inc.

Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.

Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.

It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:

  • Start Self-Driving from Park
  • Arrival and Parking Options
  • Speed Profiles

The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.

However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.

Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.

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Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.

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