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Tesla Supercharger UK Dispute Resolved

Tesla and Ecotricity have resolved a contentious legal dispute between them. They will collaborate to build Tesla Supercharger stations along UK motorways.

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Oh, those pesky e-mails. First they caused major embarrassment to Sony Pictures this winter; then they came back to haunt Hillary Clinton in the spring. Now it seems an internal Tesla e-mail was forwarded by accident, causing a major dispute between the company and Ecotricity, the UK’s leading provider of green energy.

Business Insider calls Ecotricity CEO Dale Vince “Britain’s richest hippie.” He left school at 15 to join a hippie commune. While living in an old fire engine, he constructed a makeshift turbine to generate electricity for his dilapidated traveling home on wheels. He then used his sense of environmental activism to leverage that invention into a massive green energy empire. Ecotricity now has more than 155,000 customers and operates a network of electric charging stations at key locations along England’s motorways — equivalent to interstate highways in the US.

Until quite recently, Tesla and Ecotricity were discussing a collaboration that would allow Tesla Supercharger stations to be installed at Ecotricity “electric highway” locations. According to Dale Vince, things were going swimmingly until Greg Callman, head of Supercharger deployment and stationary storage at Tesla, accidentally sent an e-mail to Simon Crowfoot, Ecotricity’s director of new ventures.

Vince tells The Independent, “The email basically said that two senior people were flying out the following Wednesday. They were going to blacken our name with the Government, work with our motorway partners to help them break contract with us, and use the media to show us up as the bad guys.” Enraged, Dale Vince initiated legal action seeking an injunction against Tesla.

For his part, Elon Musk says, “I’ve never even met the guy. Initially when we tried working with him he started making all sorts of outrageous demands, so we thought, ‘Well, OK, we’ll just not work with you’ – and then he sued us.”

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A hearing on Ecotricity’s injunction request was scheduled for this week, but it appears now the judge in the case has done what judges the world over tend to do when confronted with emotional disputes between litigants with outsized egos. He sent the attorneys for both sides away with instructions not to return until they had settled their differences.

And it worked. The parties have agreed to resume their cooperation, with Tesla in line to get a 15 year exclusive arrangement to construct and operate Supercharger locations along Britain’s motorways. That’s good news for Tesla, which has just launched the Model S sedan officially in England this month. As for Greg Callman, he will presumably be a bit more circumspect about who he sends e-mails to from now on.

Neither side would discuss how much their spat cost, but Vince did say that High Court actions were “never cheap”. That’s probably an understatement.

 

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Tesla flexes its most impressive and longest Full Self-Driving demo yet

Tesla is flexing a lengthy Full Self-Driving demo from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla its most impressive and longest demo of the Full Self-Driving suite, showing a zero-intervention trek from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles. The drive required no interventions from the vehicle operator, the video showed.

It also included a quick Supercharging stop about two-thirds of the way in.

Tesla has been extremely confident in the performance of the FSD suite since releasing it years ago. However, with improvements in data comprehension and storage with its neural nets, as well as a more refined Hardware system, FSD has made significant strides over the last year.

I took a Tesla Model Y weekend-long Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned

Tesla’s prowess with driving tech has established the company as one of the industry leaders.

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In a new video released on Tuesday, Tesla showed a drive of roughly 360 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a trek of about six-and-a-half hours, with zero interventions using Full Self-Driving:

Full Self-Driving is not fully autonomous, but it does operate under what Tesla calls “Supervised” conditions. This means that the driver does not have to have their hands on the wheel, nor do they have to control the accelerator or brake.

Instead, Tesla’s internal cabin-facing camera tracks eye movement to ensure the driver is ready to take over at any time and is paying attention.

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The version of FSD used in this example is likely the version that the public has access to; the only differentiating factor would be the Hardware version, as older vehicles do not have HW4.

With Tesla’s Robotaxi suite in Austin operating since late June, the company stated that those vehicles are using a version that is not yet available to the public. It does not require anyone to be in the driver’s seat, which is how the vehicles are able to operate without anyone in the driver’s seat.

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Elon Musk’s new $29B Tesla stock award gets strange synopsis from governance firm

Did CGI not realize that Tesla Shareholders supported Musk being paid not once, but twice?

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Credit: TED

Elon Musk was recently awarded around $29 billion in Tesla stock as the company’s Board of Directors is attempting to get its CEO paid after his original pay package was denied twice by the Delaware Chancery Court.

But a new and strange synopsis from the Corporate Governance Institute (CGI) says the award is potentially a strength move to “endorse the will of a powerful CEO.” The problem is, in the same sentence, the firm said the new award brings up a “question of whether the board exists to steward a company in the interests of all stakeholders.”

The problem with their new analysis of Musk’s pay package is that shareholders voted twice on Musk’s original pay package of $56 billion. They voted to give Musk that sum on two separate occasions.

Musk’s original $56 billion pay package was approved by shareholders twice; once in 2018 and once again last year. Last year’s vote was in response to Delaware Chancery Court Kathaleen McCormick’s decision to revoke the “unfathomable sum” from Musk.

Shareholders still showed support for Musk getting paid. Tesla said in its new award to the CEO that this is a way to give him compensation for the first time in seven years.

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CGI said in its note (via TipRanks):

“When a board builds its strategy around a single individual, it creates a concentration risk, not just operationally, but culturally and ethically. If that individual becomes a source of volatility, the company becomes fragile by design.”

What’s strange with this type of narrative is the fact that Tesla’s valuation has skyrocketed with Musk at the helm. Go back to 2020, and the stock is up over 200 percent. Since Musk’s $56 billion pay package was introduced in 2018, shares are up well over 1,000 percent.

Tesla engineer explains why Elon Musk deserves new pay package

Musk’s 2018 pay package was also not awarded to him without performance-based incentives. He was required to reach certain growth goals, all of which were accomplished through the launch of new vehicles and the advancements of its driver-assistance suites, like Autopilot and Full Self-Driving.

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It is tough to agree with CGI’s perception of Musk’s new pay plan, especially as it is much less than what shareholders voted on twice. Musk deserves to be paid for his contributions to Tesla.

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Tesla Robotaxi is headed to New York City, but one thing is in its way

Tesla is working to hire Vehicle Operators in New York City, but the company still needs some regulatory hurdles to go through.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Robotaxi will be headed to New York City, but there is one huge thing that stands in its way: approval to test autonomous vehicles.

Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi platform across the United States as it currently operates in Austin, Texas, and the Bay Area of California.

The company has also been seeking approvals in several other states, including Nevada, Arizona, and Florida.

However, the company is also working to expand to major metropolitan areas across the U.S. that it has not explicitly mentioned, as it attempts to reach CEO Elon Musk’s goal of giving half of the country’s population access to the platform by the end of the year:

It appears New York City is next on the list, according to a job posting on Tesla’s Careers website.

The company says it is hiring a Vehicle Operator for Autopilot in Flushing, New York, a section of the borough of Queens. Queens is connected to Brooklyn and Long Island, so it seems more ideal than launching in Manhattan or the Bronx, where traffic is heavy and charging is not as readily available.

Tesla’s job posting states:

“We are looking for a highly motivated self-starter to join our vehicle data collection team. As a Prototype Vehicle Operator, you will be responsible for driving an engineering vehicle for extended periods, conducting dynamic audio and camera data collection for testing and training purposes. Access to the data collected is limited to the applicable development team. This role requires a high level of flexibility, strong attention to detail, excellent driving skills, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.”

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It also lists the hours of operation as Tuesday through Saturday or Sunday through Thursday, with its three shifts listed as:

  • Day Shift: 6:00 AM – 2:30 PM or 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM
  • Afternoon Shift: 2:00 PM – 10:30 PM or 4:00 PM – 12:30 AM
  • Night Shift: 10:00 PM-6:30 AM or 12:00 AM-8:30 AM

We wouldn’t count on New York City being the next place Tesla launches Robotaxi. According to a report from CNBC, a spokesperson for the NYC Department of Transportation confirmed Tesla has not yet applied for permits that are needed to operate its ride-hailing service.

For what it’s worth, it could just be the first step in Tesla’s plans. It also has Vehicle Operator job postings in other regions. Houston, Texas, as well as Tampa, Miami, and Clermont, Florida, are all listed on Tesla’s Career postings.

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