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Volvo Trucks receives record order for 126 electric semis from Maersk-owned Performance Team

Performance Team – A Maersk Company has ordered a total of 126 Volvo VNR Electric trucks to operate in its Southern California fleet operations.

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Volvo Trucks North America announced today that it received its largest global order of Class 8 electric semi-trucks with Maersk-owned Performance Team. The Maersk entity added 110 units to its order, making a commitment to purchase 126 Volvo VNR all-electric trucks after an initial order in Q3 2021 for 16 VNR electric semis.

Volvo said in a release Performance Team will begin operations in Q2 2022 in its Southern California fleet operations serving port drayage and warehouse distribution routes. Performance Team issued another order for 110 additional trucks in an effort “to scale its zero-tailpipe emission freight logistics fleet in 2022.” Volvo’s VNR all-electric semi-trucks will make their way to Performance Team in Q1 2023.

“Volvo Trucks, in partnership with our dealer TEC Equipment, is excited to continue growing our collaboration with Maersk on its fleet sustainability goals and commends the organization’s scaled investments in electromobility solutions,” Peter Voorhoeve, President of Volvo Trucks North America, said in a statement. “Incredibly, this is the second time in less than a year that Volvo Trucks has had the opportunity to announce that Performance Team – A Maersk Company, has placed the largest order of Volvo VNR Electrics to date, which underscores their organization’s firm commitment to reducing its carbon footprint.”

Maersk is the world’s largest integrated container logistics company, but is also leading a variety of new strategies to improve sustainability across its supply chain. CEO or Ocean & Logistics at A.P. Moller – Maersk, Vincent Clerc, said sustainability is important to customers now, and the company is working to oblige with the important requests of consumers and the environment.

“Our customers are looking for tangible actions on sustainable supply chains – not just conceptual.  With this in mind, we move decisively toward building an end-to-end, landside decarbonization offering for our customers – in line with our target to extend Maersk net-zero efforts to all transport modes in our global operation,” Clerc said. “These investments in our North America network will generate valuable experience for the continued journey towards similar customer offerings across the globe.”

Volvo Trucks’ largest West Coast dealership, TEC Equipment, facilitated the “landmark order.” The dealership locations in La Mirada and Fontana will support Performance Team in maximizing the uptime of the Volvo VNR fleets, Volvo said. The two TCE Equipment locations are suitable for any maintenance the VNR semis might need, as the service teams have been trained and equipped to perform any battery-electric truck maintenance needs for customers.

The VNR semi packs 275 miles of operational range. With a 250 kW charging capability that enables 80 percent charge in 90 minutes for the six-battery package or just an hour for the four-battery configuration, there won’t be much time to wait around as the truck will likely be fully charged after being loaded with goods.

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I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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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Elon Musk

SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo

SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.

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SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.

The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.

The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.

Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.

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Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.

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Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner

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Tesla Model Y L in a field
Credit: Tesla

Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.

Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990

Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.

However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.

Multi-Row Climate Control

Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:

Better Rear Window Visibility

One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.

Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:

PowerShare will be included

Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.

Wireless Charging Pad

There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.

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Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit

Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.

Thermal Management Improvements

These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:

  • Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
  • +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
  • 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
  • 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin

Demand

Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with

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  • 1 year of FSD Supervised
  • 1 year of Supercharging
  • 1 year of Premium Connectivity
  • Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
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Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor

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(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.

Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:

The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.

The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.

China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.

The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.

The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building

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This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.

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