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EPA holds EV video competition to promote electric transportation

Credit: Tesla Asia/X

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an electric vehicle (EV) video challenge to promote electrified transportation. The electric vehicle video competition started on October 27, 2027. 

The Agency’s video challenge has three categories: personal mobility, electric vehicles, and electric buses. The EPA offers three place prices for each category: first place is $3,000, second place is $1,000, and third place is $500.

Contestants must submit a short, 1-to-2-minute video to join the EPA’s video challenge. Judges will look for creativity, originality, and effectiveness in conveying positive aspects of electric transportation in the video submissions. Video winners might be featured on the Agency’s website and social media channels.

Below are more guidelines for the Agency’s video competition: 

Video Content

  • Videos should showcase real-life experiences using electric vehicles. In the 1- to 2-minute video, applicants should highlight their positive personal experience with electric mobility.
  • Videos should be informative and help to educate potential future users on what it is like to use an electric vehicle.
  • Applicants should strive to be creative, innovative, and educational in their video content.
  • Videos may include explanations, instructions, and/or lessons learned.
  • Videos should not promote or advertise a specific vehicle model or manufacturer.
  • Identities of people, organizations, companies, and institutions cannot appear in the video.
  • Use of music within video entries must follow EPA Music Licensing Guidance (pdf) (144 KB) related to copyrights.

Video Specifications

To be eligible to participate, videos must meet the following specifications:

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  • Be one to two minutes in length
  • Video file must use one of the following container formats: MP4, M4V, MOV, AVI, or WMV
  • Aspect ratio of 16:9
  • Horizontal orientation (landscape format, longer than it is tall) 
  • Either 24 or 30 frames per second
  • Frame size of 1920×1080 (HD)

Selected winners will need to provide an original video file to the EPA. The Agency will accept submissions until January 23, 2024, at 11:59 P.M. The winners will be announced in early 2024.

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via X @Writer_01001101.

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Tesla enters interesting situation with Full Self-Driving in California

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tesla model x
A Tesla Motors Inc Model X is seen at Tesla's introduction of its new battery swapping program in Hawthorne, California June 20, 2013. Tesla Motors Inc on Thursday unveiled a system to swap battery packs in its electric cars in about 90 seconds, a service Chief Executive Elon Musk said will help overcome fears about their driving range. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (UNITED STATES - Tags: TRANSPORT BUSINESS LOGO) - RTX10VSH

Tesla has entered an interesting situation with its Full Self-Driving suite in California, as the State’s Department of Motor Vehicles had adopted an order for a suspension of the company’s sales license, but it immediately put it on hold.

The company has been granted a reprieve as the DMV is giving Tesla an opportunity to “remedy the situation.” After the suspension was recommended for 30 days as a penalty, the DMV said it would give Tesla 90 days to allow the company to come into compliance.

The DMV is accusing Tesla of misleading consumers by using words like Autopilot and Full Self-Driving on its advanced driver assistance (ADAS) features.

The State’s DMV Director, Steve Gordon, said that he hoped “Tesla will find a way to get these misleading statements corrected.” However, Tesla responded to the story on Tuesday, stating that this was a “consumer protection” order for the company using the term Autopilot.

It said “not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.” It added that “sales in California will continue uninterrupted.”

Tesla has used the terms Autopilot and Full Self-Driving for years, but has added the term “(Supervised)” to the end of the FSD suite, hoping to remedy some of the potential issues that regulators in various areas might have with the labeling of the program.

It might not be too long before Tesla stops catching flak for using the Full Self-Driving name to describe its platform.

Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing

The Robotaxi suite has continued to improve, and this week, vehicles were spotted in Austin without any occupants. CEO Elon Musk would later confirm that Tesla had started testing driverless rides in Austin, hoping to launch rides without any supervision by the end of the year.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.

The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.

Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.

This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.

Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing

It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.

Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.

The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.

However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.

Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.

Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.

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Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says

“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”

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Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.

Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.

The analyst said:

“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”

Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.

There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.

This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.

Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing

CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.

Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.

Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.

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