New Zealand to boost electric car sales

WELLINGTON — New Zealanders who trade in their gas-guzzling car will get financial aid towards buying a cleaner alternative, in one of a raft of climate change initiatives announced by Jacinda Ardern's government Monday.

The country's first Emissions Reduction Plan, costing nearly 3 billion NZ dollars (1.88 billion US dollars), outlined spending for the next 4 years to help meet its goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions to net-zero by 2050.

A "scrap and replace" pilot scheme will initially give 2,500 low-income families financial support towards an electric or hybrid vehicle if they replace their petrol- or diesel-powered car.

Transport Minister Michael Wood said the scheme's details were yet to be finalized but he envisaged it would expand rapidly to include "tens of thousands" of New Zealanders.

He said the government's ultimate goal was for less reliance on all cars by 2035 by getting people to switch to public transport or other alternatives.

The government also allocated 650 million NZ dollars to help cut fossil fuel use in the industrial sector over the next 4 years.

There will also be an investment in developing agricultural technology -- regarded as critical in an economy heavily reliant on farming exports.

Conservationists noted the timing of the investment, coming on the same day scientists announced they had recorded a mass bleaching of sea sponges in New Zealand waters for the first time ever.

An ocean heatwave damaged the sponges in the normally cold waters off Fiordland, in the country's southwest, raising concern about the impact climate change is having on marine ecosystems in the region.

Agence France-Presse

Tesla's stock market value tops Facebook's in huge trading

Shares of Tesla surged to a record high in heavy trading on Thursday, with the electric car maker's stock market value exceeding Facebook's for the first time.

Shares in the company led by Elon Musk jumped nearly 8 percent to end the session at $816, putting its market capitalization at $774 billion and making it Wall Street's fifth-most-valuable company, just behind Google-parent Alphabet and ahead of Facebook.

Facebook's stock market value was $765 billion after its shares rose about 2 percent, according to Refinitiv data.

Over $39 billion worth of Tesla's shares were bought and sold during the session, a record for Tesla and more than the next three most traded companies combined, which were Apple , Alibaba Group Holding and Amazon.com .

Tesla, up over 700% in the past 12 months, has become the most valuable auto company in the world by far, despite production that is a fraction of rivals such as Toyota Motor, Volkswagen and General Motors.

Musk surpassed Amazon's Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest person, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Tesla's latest lift came after RBC raised its rating on the stock to "sector perform" from "underperform."

RBC analyst Joseph Spak said in his research note that he previously underestimated Tesla's ability to use its soaring stock price to raise capital to fund the company's expansion.

"We took a fresh look at the growth opportunity, what we got wrong about TSLA's positioning and the valuation and conclude that the stock price itself is likely to be somewhat self-fulfilling to TSLA's growth and strategy," Spak wrote.

Analysts, on average, expect Tesla to report $1.2 billion in net profits for 2020, compared with $5.8 billion in net profits expected from GM and $27.1 billion in net profits expected from Facebook, according to Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich, Editing by Nick Zieminski and Dan Grebler)

-reuters-

BMW names new boss as it looks to speed up electric transition

BERLIN -- BMW said Thursday that its production chief Oliver Zipse will replace Harald Krueger as chief executive in August, as the German auto giant looks to accelerate its transition to electric cars.

Krueger, who had been criticized for not steering the group quickly enough towards electric technology, said earlier this month that he would not seek another term when his current office runs out next April.

However BMW's supervisory board said in a statement on Thursday that Zipse will take his place on August 16.

Zipse, 55, began as a trainee at BMW in 1991 and has since held various management positions. 

As current head of the product division he supervised 31 factories worldwide as they were in the process of transitioning to electric car production.

The other main contender to head the car behemoth was believed to have been BMW research chief Klaus Froehlich.

One of the main tasks facing the new boss will be shifting gears to an electric future ahead of tougher anti-pollution measures gradually coming into force in the EU.

Supervisory board chairman Nobert Reithofer said that "decisive strategic and analytical leader" Zipse will "provide the BMW Group with fresh momentum in shaping the mobility of the future".

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Elon Musk's Tesla adds 'Model Y' SUV to line-up

HAWTHORNE, California -- Tesla introduced a new electric sports utility vehicle slightly bigger and more expensive than its Model 3, pitched as an electric car for the masses.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk showed off the "Model Y" late Thursday at the company's design studio in the southern California city of Hawthorne, and the company began taking orders online.

The all-electric Model Y has a starting price of $39,000 for a version with a 230-mile (370-kilometer) range. A long-range version of the SUV capable of traveling 300 miles (483 kilometers) on a single charge was priced at $47,000.

Deliveries were expected to begin late next year for the higher-priced Model Y vehicles, with the standard-range version likely get to buyers by spring of 2021, according to Tesla.

Musk said the Model Y has "the functionality of an SUV but it will ride like a sports car" accelerating from stand-still to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds.

Model Y featured a "panoramic glass roof" and could seat seven people, according to Musk.

Entry-level SUVs are a hot segment of the vehicle market.

"Even though the Model Y will debut with promises of grandeur, if there are any chinks in Tesla’s brand armor, this vehicle will expose them," said Edmunds executive director of industry analysis Jessica Caldwell.

"Tesla is about to learn exactly what it means to go head-to-head with the German automakers."

While Tesla has a devoted fan base, with people at the Thursday event shouting enthusiastically for Musk, the Model Y will be competing with attractive SUVs that titans such as BMW, Mercedes and Audi are bringing to market, according to Caldwell.

POSSIBLE TURNING POINT

The latest addition to the Tesla line-up comes shortly after the California-based company rolled out its lowest-priced Model 3, an electric car designed for the masses, at a base price of $35,000, with deliveries promised in one month.

At that price, the Model 3 is less than half the cost of most Tesla on the road and may be eligible for tax incentives which could further lower ownership costs.

"If Tesla truly wants to be a mainstream brand, it's going to have to figure out how to sell cars to people besides young men in California," Caldwell said.

Tesla has a sound foundation for the Model Y to be a "turning point," since it has an enviably young base of buyers for a luxury brand and the Model X has had strong appeal to women, according to Caldwell.

The new vehicles suggest Tesla has been able to overcome production bottlenecks to ramp up production to meet demand, and moving toward Musk's goal of making electric vehicles widely available.

Tesla this week reversed course on its decision to move most of its sales online, saying it will keep many of its showrooms open -- but will need to hike prices to do so.

Tesla made the announcement on Feb. 28 that it would begin selling its mass-market Model 3 at the promised $35,000 price, and close most of its retail locations to cut costs.

But the company said that after review, it had decided to keep some of its showrooms, although the specifics were not disclosed.

Tesla said the price hikes would start on March 18 for "the more expensive variants of Model 3, as well as Model S and X."

"To be clear, all sales worldwide will still be done online, in that potential Tesla owners coming in to stores will simply be shown how to order a Tesla on their phone in a few minutes," the statement added.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Tesla aims to calm fears over Model 3 production

NEW YORK - A day after launching one of its cars into space, Tesla moved Wednesday to ease concerns on earth over production delays for its Model 3, the key to future growth for the star electric carmaker.

In its quarterly earnings update, the carmaker led by entrepreneur Elon Musk said it was moving ahead toward its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by the end of the second quarter.

In a letter to shareholders, Musk said it had been difficult to get accurate forecasts for the car, a more affordable model for the automaker known for expensive vehicles.

"What we can say with confidence is that we are taking many actions to systematically address bottlenecks... and these actions should result in our production rate significantly increasing during the rest of Q1 and through Q2."

Tesla reported a record loss for the quarter of $675 million on revenues of $3.3 billion.

But Tesla shares rose 1.7 percent in after-hours trade, on the upbeat assessment of production efforts.

In the quarter, Tesla delivered 29,967 vehicles including 1,542 Model 3 vehicles.

The Model 3, priced starting at $35,000, is key to Tesla's effort to becoming a mass producer and reshaping the automotive market. Its other cars sell for around twice that price.

On Tuesday, Musk's other major company SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster into space aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket.

At Tesla, Musk has announced plans for an electric semi-truck, boosted production of batteries for its electric cars and for other uses and has expanded its network of charging stations.

It is also planning an autonomous coast-to-coast drive to "showcase a major leap forward for our self-driving technology," according to Musk.

The California-based company last month announced an unusual executive compensation plan that would enable Musk to be paid only if Tesla hits certain milestones.

Compensation for Musk, 46, will be based on a new 10-year performance stock award that could give him billions worth of company shares, or nothing at all if the company fails to meet its targets.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Nissan unveils new electric car in bid to drive off competition

CHIBA, Japan - Japanese automaker Nissan Wednesday unveiled a new electric car with an extended range and semi-autonomous driving functions, as it seeks to battle off competitors in a sector it once pioneered.

The second-generation Nissan Leaf has a potential range of 400 kilometers (250 miles) between charges, compared with 250 kilometers for its previous version.

It also boasts semi-autonomous driving capabilities such as keeping the vehicle automatically in one lane on the motorway or parking without human intervention.

Hiroto Saikawa, president and chief executive officer of Nissan, said in a statement that the new vehicle "strengthens" the firm's "leadership" in the electric car sector.

Nissan was an innovator in the sector seven years ago when it unveiled its first Leaf -- which has sold 280,000 units -- but has since had to contend with fierce competition from General Motors and Tesla among others.

Faced with tighter global environmental regulations, most carmakers are investing heavily in the electric car sector, sparking a ferocious race to create the next green vehicle.

The new car will be available next month in Japan, followed by the United States, Canada and Japan in January 2018.

The price tag in Japan will be 3.15 million yen (around $29,000).

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Tesla to build self-driving tech into all cars

SAN FRANCISCO - Tesla will build self-driving technology into all the electric cars it makes, running it in "shadow" mode to gather data on whether it is safer than having people in control.

"Every car that Tesla produces from here on out will have the full autonomy capability," said Tesla co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk.

A new onboard computer with 40 times the processing power of the previous generation will run a new "neural net" for vision, sonar and radar sensors, he said.

During a conference call with reporters, Musk referred to the hardware as "basically a super-computer in a car," different from auto-pilot technology to date.

It will be up to regulators and the public as to when the self-driving capabilities will actually be put to use on roads, according to Musk.

Meanwhile, the system will run in "shadow mode" to gather data regarding when it might have avoided or caused accidents if it was in command.

Musk hoped that Tesla would one day be able to impress regulators with a statistically significant amount of data showing the autonomous driving technology would avoid crashes and save lives.

"Then we are at a point where we can allow it to take action," Musk said of amassing data showing the system's merits.

Upgrading existing cars with the autonomous driving hardware was not practical, according to Tesla.

"It would be like giving someone a spinal cord transplant; not advisable," Musk said on the call.

MILLIONS OF MILES

Tesla planned to calibrate the system using feedback from millions of miles of real-world driving before enabling the new hardware.

In the meantime, Teslas with the first-generation Autopilot technology will lack some standard safety features such as automatic breaking and collision warnings.

As features are validated, they will be enabled with over-the-air software updated.

The United States last month unveiled a sweeping new regulatory framework for the unexpectedly rapid rise of self-driving automobile technology, just days after Uber broke ground with its first driverless taxis.

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the federal government intends to set the safety standards for cars of the future where no human is involved in the driving, even while individual states still regulate cars with humans behind the wheel.

Announcing a 15-point safety assessment for driverless car systems, Foxx stressed that the government wants to work with developers -- which include most large automakers as well as tech giants such as Uber and Alphabet (Google) -- without stifling their efforts.

A Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets boasts founding members including Ford, Google, Lyft, Uber and Volvo.

The coalition supports guidelines that standardize self-driving regulations across the country, avoiding confusion and lost industry momentum.

EXPECTATIONS

Meanwhile, Germany wants Tesla to stop advertising the "autopilot" function on its cars because it leads to false customer expectations, as the system comes under scrutiny following two fatal crashes.

Transport regulator KBA has written to the company, telling it: "In order to prevent misunderstandings and false expectations from clients, we are asking that the misleading term 'Autopilot' no longer be used in advertisements for the system."

The KBA letter cited in Bild am Sonntag was confirmed to AFP by the transport ministry.

Germany has been conducting an investigation into the autopilot system in vehicles made by electric carmaker Tesla, which has been available with its Model S series since October 2015.

Questions have been raised over the system after two fatal crashes, one in northern China in January and another in the US state of Florida in May.

In September, a Tesla electric car crashed into a tourist bus on a motorway in northern Germany, lightly injuring the driver who said he had activated the vehicle's autopilot system.

At the time, Tesla said the driver had confirmed the autopilot was "functioning properly and... was unrelated to the accident."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

How these energy geeks are reimagining an old school utility

Orange County, Ca. - Welcome to the utility industry's future - or at least that's what Southern California Edison is hoping.

Here in a non-descript, 53,500-square-foot building, the $12 billion utility's research team is testing everything from charging electronic vehicles via cell phone to devices that smooth out the power created by rooftop solar panels.

Those are some of the roughly 60 projects in the works at Edison's Advanced Technology division. It has a small $19 million annual budget, but its influence far exceeds that.

The engineers from California's largest utility are hatching plans to insure its survival - and maybe even the survival of the nation's other big utilities, which are watching the project closely.

The lab was formed by Southern California Edison in 2009 after California passed a landmark law to lower its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels - and source one third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

The result has been more electric vehicles here in the Golden State. And more solar and wind power, which has got the state's utilities, and those nationwide, scrambling to adapt. Unlike traditional electricity, power from solar and wind sources fluctuates depending on the weather, making it tricky to manage on the grid.

Also the cost of solar power has come down so much that more homeowners are producing their own power and paying less to their utility.

Simply put: long term, utilities will need new sources of revenue.

In 2013, California's three largest utilities sourced nearly 23 percent of their power from renewable sources, and Gov. Jerry Brown has called for a target of 50 percent by 2030. Twenty nine states have laws requiring more renewables, according to North Carolina State University's Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency.

With so much "distributed" energy on the grid now, mainly from solar panels, says Accenture, the utility industry could see revenues fall by between $18 billion and $48 billion a year by 2025. That's why some call it the utility "death spiral."

INDUSTRY MODEL

There's a reason why the lab's work is getting a lot of attention: It is producing results and they share the work with utility officials and researchers from as far away as China. For instance, Edison's work designing cyber security systems and developing uses for advanced energy meters have received high marks from other utilities, said Mark McGranaghan, a vice president at the Electric Power Research Institute.

Edison's lab has emerged as a model for others, too. In 2013 The National Renewable Energy Laboratory opened its $135 million Energy Systems Integration Facility, which complements Edison's research. The New York Power Authority is also working to establish a similar lab.

"The concept is really built off of learnings from Southern California Edison," McGranaghan said. "They have taken so many people through their labs, it's amazing."

THE WILD WEST

Edison is focused on energy storage, automation and digital communications that will improve the efficiency and reliability of the grid. That, the utility hopes, will result in new revenue as power demand flattens (more energy-efficient homes) and rooftop solar ramps up.

"There is only one provider of the wires, which is us," said Ted Craver, CEO of Edison International, the utility's parent company. "These new technologies are going to become much more prevalent and we, maybe immodestly, feel we are on the cutting edge."

Many of those technologies have yet to be commercialized, but the market is booming. Smart grid spending will grow to $70.2 billion in 2023 from $44.1 billion in 2014, according to Navigant Research.

That's why Edison built nine labs here.

In one room Edison researchers replicate a complete power grid. That was used to troubleshoot when Edison was working on a new transmission line to connect its grid with California's other behemoth utility, Pacific Gas & Electric. In another lab, "smart" inverters are being tested that are capable of smoothing out the voltage sent to the grid by solar panels. These devices are common in Europe, but have yet to be rolled out widely in the United States.

"It's a bit of the Wild West right now," Doug Kim, director of the utility's advanced technology group, said of the proliferation of new energy technologies.

Every year The Advanced Technology group solicits project proposals from the rest of the utility. Among them: a project that studied how large amounts of wind and solar power affect power restoration during blackouts; another tested different kinds of batteries to see how they perform when storing energy along the grid.

ELECTRIC GUINEA PIGS

Many of the new technologies are taken for a test drive at University of California, Irvine, faculty housing. "The Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration," a $79 million project launched in 2010 and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, will wrap up later this year.

SCE's take: If you can figure out ways to generate electricity at home, and use it more efficiently, you can cut costs related to new generation and transmission equipment.

"We threw everything in there that we could think of, thinking that maybe someday it was going to be real," SCE's Kim said. "Sure enough just about everything we are testing here is now real."

Crista Lopes, a computer science professor, said the project cut her electric bill to zero in the summer. The utility outfitted her house with solar panels, about 50 LED light bulbs and new appliances like a "smart" refrigerator whose power usage she can track.

THE ENDGAME

The stakes for the Irvine project are high. At the conclusion, Edison will make recommendations on smart grid technologies to the industry. The utility will then take the testing to a larger area - perhaps thousands of homes.

Of course, the industry will hear about the mishaps too. For example, Crista Lopes has a device that controls energy consumption when demand is high. That was great until she was without air conditioning for three hours during a heat wave; Edison planned the outage for just 15 minutes, but a system that worked in the lab failed to send the correct command.

But those stumbles are why the project is valuable, said Bob Yinger, the chief engineer. "We learn about what the issues are," he said, "and manufacturers learn about how their products behave in the real world."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

US electric car market full of spark

DETROIT, Michigan - The US market for all-electric cars is charging up, with plug-in vehicles rolling off US dealer lots despite much higher costs, battery fire scares, and falling gasoline prices.

Plug-in cars racked up strong sales in the first six months of the year, automakers said, even with their tall sticker prices and lifetime operating costs up to $6,000 more than conventional gasoline-run vehicles.

General Motors reported it sold more of its $39,000 Chevrolet Volts in the first six months than it did in all of last year, with 1,760 of the cars delivered to buyers in June.

Toyota said it has sold over 4,300 of its all-electric version of the popular Prius hybrid since it launched the model in March -- even though the plug-in Prius costs, at the $32,000 base price, a third more than the cheapest hybrid Prius.

Sales of Nissan's $35,000 Leaf, one of the first to plumb American drivers' desire for plug-ins, eased slightly amid higher competition and a change in distribution strategy, but still hit 3,148 units.

The drop owed mainly to the Leaf not having completed the move from its original Web-driven, built-to-order system to more of a traditional dealer-based model, said Nissan spokesman Brian Brockman.

At the high end of the auto market, sales of electrics are full of spark as well.

Fisker Automotive said it has sold more than 1,000 of its $105,000 luxury plug-in sports car, the Karma, since the start of the year.

And the waiting list for the Tesla Model S, billed as "the world's first premium electric sedan," numbered some 10,000 when it released the first cars on June 22. Reserving one of the cars -- base price $50,000 -- required a $5,000 deposit.

Buyers appear to be rejecting any hints that the vehicles might have a downside. Reports of battery fires have hampered the launches of the Volt, Karma and models from BYD, the Chinese company aiming at an exclusively electric vehicle business.

Those worries are being addressed, builders say, and battery specialists are improving their fuel cell technology. A123 Systems of Massachusetts recently disclosed it had come up with a technology to eliminate the threat of fire in high-tech lithium batteries.

Still, there is also the cost. The cars themselves are pricey compared to their internal-combustion engine cousins, and gas prices have fallen, lessening the incentive to switch to an all-electric vehicle.

All told, electric passenger cars currently cost $5,000 to $6,000 more to their owners than an equivalent fossil fuel car over the vehicle's lifetime, according to a new study by the Paris-based International Transport Forum.

"The current generation of electric cars represents a significant improvement over previous ones. Nonetheless, electric vehicles remain more expensive than their fossil-fueled equivalents and may need government assistance to trigger wide-spread uptake," the study said.

But the demand for electrics keeps rising, buyers are getting more choice and the technology is improving.

Ford has begun selling an electric model of its Focus.

Honda is rolling out an electric version of the Fit later this month, but only expects to sell 1,100 over the next two years. Spokesman Sage Marie said the company will go slow initially to make sure customers are satisfied with their new electric vehicles.

"The customer experience is very important to us," said Marie, noting the Fit EV has a range of only 82 miles (132 kilometers).

And Nissan is committed to opening a new assembly plant for its all-electric vehicles in Smyrna, Tennessee later this year. The project is being financed with $2 billion of loan guarantees from the US Department of Energy.

source: interaksyon.com

Tesla Motors Inc.

Shares of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors Inc. opened nearly 12 percent above their initial public offering price as investors bet that electric cars would define the future of transportation. The electric car manufacturer will today be introduced on the Nasdaq stock exchange and is expected to raise $244 million, according to most media reports.

It is holding the first initial public offering of a U.S. automaker in a half-century.