Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla allowed racial harassment of its Black employees to run rampant at its Fremont, Calif., plant and retaliated against some workers who complained, the federal agency charged with enforcing civil rights laws alleged in a lawsuit Thursday.

Black employees routinely faced racial slurs, including variations of the N-word, at the Fremont site, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and graffiti depicting nooses, swastikas and more were casually drawn across the facility’s public spaces. Tesla did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of allegations blasting the billionaire’s workplace environments — the Justice Department sued SpaceX, also owned by Musk, last month, alleging the company discriminated against refugees and asylum seekers in its hiring process. Half a dozen women sued Tesla in 2021, arguing that the company fostered a culture of sexual harassment. That same year, a federal court in California ordered Tesla to pay nearly $137 million in damages after an employee said they encountered racist abuse at Tesla’s Fremont site. The Fremont plant faced scrutiny again last year, when the state’s workplace regulator sued Tesla over similar claims of racial discrimination and harassment.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, since at least 2015, Black employees at the Fremont facility “have routinely endured racial abuse, pervasive stereotyping, and hostility as well as epithets such as variations of the N-word, ‘monkey,’ ‘boy,’ and ‘black b*tch.’”

“Slurs were used casually and openly in high-traffic areas and at worker hubs. Black employees regularly encountered graffiti, including variations of the N-word, swastikas, threats, and nooses, on desks and other equipment, in bathroom stalls, within elevators, and even on new vehicles rolling off the production line,” the EEOC wrote in a press release announcing the suit.

The agency added that employees who objected to the hostility were terminated, transferred or had their job duties changed.

“Every employee deserves to have their civil rights respected, and no worker should endure the kind of shameful racial bigotry our investigation revealed,” EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows said in a statement.

Tesla’s Fremont site is the company’s first manufacturing facility, and where it continues to produce the company’s Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y. Tesla has since grown to include facilities in Nevada, Texas, New York, Shanghai and Berlin.

The lawsuit is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The government seeks compensatory and punitive damages, back pay for the affected workers and measures to reform Tesla’s employment practices.

“When you let a standard slip, you’ve set a new standard. Determining that prolific racial slurs do not merit serious discipline and failing to correct harassing conduct sends an entirely wrong message to employees,” said EEOC San Francisco District Office Director Nancy Sienko. “It also violates an employer’s legal responsibility to act swiftly and effectively to stop race-based harassment.”

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The traditional Iñupiaq village of Teller sits on a long spit of land separating two bodies of water off Western Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. The bay of Port Clarence is west toward the Bering Sea, and Grantley Harbor is inland to the east. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

SEWARD PENINSULA, ALASKA — Ducks and swans flew overhead as Sylvester Ayek, 82, and his daughter Kimberly, 35, hauled rocks to anchor their small salmon net on the bank of a deep, tidal channel — 25 miles inland from the open Bering Sea coast. 

Nearby on that July day, Mary Jane Litchard, Ayek’s partner, picked wild celery and set out a lunch of past subsistence harvests: a blue-shelled seabird egg, dried beluga whale meat and red salmon dipped in seal oil.

Then, as they waited for fish to fill the net, the family motored Ayek’s skiff up the channel, known as the Tuksuk, spotting birds and seals and passing family fish camps where drying salmon hung on racks. Soon, the steep channel walls gave way to a huge, saltwater lake: the Imuruk Basin, flanked by the snow-dotted peaks of the Kigluaik Mountains. 

Ayek describes the basin as a “traditional hunting and gathering place” for the local Iñupiat, who have long sustained themselves on the area’s bounty of fish, berries and wildlife.

Sylvester Ayek, an Iñupiaq hunter, fisherman and sculptor, prepares to set his salmon net off the bank of the Tuksuk Channel on the Seward Peninsula. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

On a day trip fishing in the Tuksuk Channel, Mary Jane Litchard, 72, holds up a part of her family’s lunch: a hard-boiled murre egg. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

But despite a long Indigenous history, and a brief settler boom during the Gold Rush more than a century ago, a couple of weather-beaten cabins were the only obvious signs of human impact as Ayek’s boat idled — save for a set of tiny, beige specks at the foot of the mountains.

Those specks were a camp run by a Canadian exploration company, Graphite One. And they marked the prospective site of a mile-wide open pit mine that could reach deep below the tundra — into the largest known deposit of graphite in the U.S.

The mine could help power America’s electric vehicle revolution, and it’s drawing enthusiastic support from powerful government officials in both Alaska and Washington, D.C. That includes the Biden administration, which recently announced up to $37.5 million in subsidies for Graphite One through the U.S. Department of Defense. 

So far, the announcements from the project’s politically connected boosters have received far more attention than the several hundred Alaskans whose lives would be affected directly by Graphite One’s mine. 

While opinions in the nearby Alaska Native villages of Brevig Mission and Teller are mixed, there are significant pockets of opposition, particularly among the area’s tribal leaders. Many residents worry the project will harm the subsistence harvests that make life possible in a place where the nearest well-stocked grocery store is a two-hour drive away, in Nome.

Kimberly Ayek picks a salmon from her family’s net in the shallows of the Tuksuk Channel. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

“The further they go with the mine, our subsistence will just move further and further away from us,” Gilbert Tocktoo, president of Brevig Mission’s tribal government, said over a dinner of boiled salmon at his home. “And sooner or later, it’s going to become a question of: Do I want to live here anymore?”

Despite those concerns, Graphite One is gathering local support: Earlier this month, the board of the region’s Indigenous-owned, for-profit corporation unanimously endorsed the project. 

The Nome-based corporation, Bering Straits Native Corp., also agreed to invest $2 million in Graphite One, in return for commitments related to jobs and scholarships for shareholders.

The tensions surrounding Graphite One’s project underscore how the rush to bolster domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles threatens a new round of disruption to tribal communities and landscapes that have already borne huge costs from past mining booms.

Sylvester Ayek points toward the Kigluaik Mountains and the site of the Graphite One exploration project as his skiff bobs in the Imuruk Basin. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Sylvester Ayek and his daughter Kimberly set their gillnet in the Tuksuk Channel. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Across the American West, companies are vying to extract the minerals needed to power electric vehicles and other green technologies. Proposed mines for lithium, antimony and copper are chasing some of the same generous federal tax credits as Graphite One — and some are advancing in spite of objections from Indigenous people who have already seen their lands taken and resources diminished over more than a century of mining.

The Seward Peninsula’s history is a case in point: Thousands of non-Native prospectors came here during the Gold Rush, which began in 1898. The era brought devastating bouts of pandemic disease and displacement for the Iñupiat, and today, that history weighs on some as they consider how Graphite One could affect their lives. 

“A lot of people like to say that our culture is lost. But we didn’t just go out there and lose it: It was taken from us,” said Taluvaaq Qiñuġana, a 24-year-old Iñupiaq resident of Brevig Mission. A new mining project in her people’s traditional harvesting grounds, she said, “feels like continuous colonization.”

Taluvaaq Qiñuġana, pictured in her home village of Brevig Mission, is opposed to Graphite One’s proposed mining project. The open pit mine would be built in the area of her family’s traditional harvesting grounds. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

But other Indigenous residents of Brevig Mission and Teller say the villages would benefit from well-paying jobs that could come with the mine. Cash income could help people sustain their households in the two communities, where full-time work is otherwise scarce. 

Graphite One executives say one of their highest priorities, as they advance their project toward permitting and construction, is protecting village residents’ harvests of fish, wildlife and berries. They say they fully appreciate the essential nature of that food supply.

“This is very real to them,” said Mike Schaffner, Graphite One’s senior vice president of mining. “We completely understand that we can’t come in there and hurt the subsistence, and we can’t hurt how their lifestyle is.”

The Iñupiaq residents of the village of Brevig Mission depend on local harvests of fish, wildlife and berries. Some fear a planned graphite mine nearby could interfere with their way of life. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

U.S. produces no domestic graphite

Graphite is simply carbon — like a diamond but far softer, because of its different crystal structure. Graphite is used as a lubricant, in industrial steelmaking, for brake linings in automobiles and as pencil lead.

It’s also a key component of the high-powered lithium batteries that propel electric cars. 

Once mined and concentrated, graphite is processed into a powder that’s mixed with a binder, then rolled flat and curled into the hundreds of AA-battery-sized cylinders that make up the battery pack.

America hasn’t mined any graphite in decades, having been undercut by countries where it’s extracted at a lower cost.

China currently produces more than half of the world’s mined graphite and nearly all of the highly processed type needed for batteries. The country so dominates the supply chain that global prices typically rise each winter when cold temperatures force a single region, Heilongjiang, to shut down production, said Tony Alderson, an analyst at a price tracking firm called Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Some forecasts say graphite demand, driven by growth in electric vehicles, could rise 25-fold by 2040. Amid growing U.S.-China political tensions, supply chain experts have warned about the need to diversify America’s sources of graphite. 

Last year’s climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, written in part to wrest control of electric vehicle manufacturing from China, is accelerating that search.

For new electric cars to qualify for a $3,750 tax credit under the act, at least 40% of the value of the “critical minerals” that go into their batteries must be extracted or processed domestically, or in countries such as Canada or Mexico that have free-trade agreements with the United States. 

That fraction rises to 80% in four years.

Graphite One is one of just three companies currently advancing graphite mining projects in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And company officials are already marketing their graphite to global electric vehicle makers.

But when they presented their preliminary plans to Tesla, “they said, ‘That’s great, we are interested in buying them, but we would need to write 40 contracts of this size to meet our need,’” Schaffner, the Graphite One vice president, said at a community meeting this year, according to the Nome Nugget. 

In response, Graphite One is now studying a mine that could be substantially larger than its original proposal.

The Tuksuk Channel, which reaches inland to the Imuruk Basin and its surrounding tundra, is a vital area for harvests by residents of the nearby Iñupiaq villages of Brevig Mission and Teller. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

It’s too early to know how, exactly, the mine’s construction could affect the surrounding watershed. One reason is that the level of risk it poses is linked to its size, and Graphite One has not yet determined how big its project will be.

While graphite itself is nontoxic and inert, the company also hasn’t finished studying the acid-generating potential of the rock that its mine could expose — another key indicator of the project’s level of risk. Stronger acid is more likely to release toxic metals into water that Graphite One would have to contain and treat before releasing back into the environment.

One fish biologist in the region has also said he fears the mine’s construction could negatively affect streams flowing out of the Kigluaik Mountains, though Graphite One officials disagree. The streams’ cool water, according to Charlie Lean, keeps temperatures in the shallow Imuruk Basin low enough to sustain spawning salmon — a critical source of abundant, healthy food for Brevig Mission and Teller residents.

Graphite One plans to store its waste rock and depleted ore in what’s known as a “dry stack,” on top of the ground — rather than in a pond behind a dam, a common industry practice that can risk a major breach if the dam fails. 

But experts say smaller-scale spills or leaks from the mine could still drain into the basin and harm fish and wildlife.

“There is always a possibility for some sort of catastrophic failure. But that doesn’t happen very often,” said Dave Chambers, president of the nonprofit Center for Science in Public Participation, which advises advocacy and tribal groups across the country on mining and water quality. “There’s also a possibility there will be no impact. That doesn’t happen very often, either.”

Freshly cut salmon dries on racks in Teller, a traditional Iñupiaq village on Western Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. Salmon are an essential food source for Teller residents, who otherwise must drive 70 miles on a gravel road to reach affordably priced groceries. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Alfred Kakoona, 45, cuts up his morning’s catch of fresh salmon, a staple food for the Indigenous peoples of the Seward Peninsula, on the beach at Brevig Mission. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

A way of life at stake 

There are no Teslas in Brevig Mission or Teller, the two Alaska Native villages closest to the proposed mine. 

To get to the communities from the nearest American Tesla dealership, you’d first board a jet in Seattle. Then, you’d fly 1,400 miles to Anchorage, where you’d climb on to another jet and fly 500 more miles northwest to Nome, the former Gold Rush town known as the finish line of the Iditarod sled dog race.

A 70-mile gravel road winds northwest through tundra and mountains before dipping back down to a narrow spit on the Bering Sea coast. The road ends in Teller, population 235, where most residents lack in-home plumbing — let alone own electric cars.

If you need a bathroom here, you’ll use what’s known as a honey bucket.

Brevig Mission, population 435, is even more remote than Teller. It sits across a narrow strait and is accessible only by boat or plane.

(Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

The region’s Indigenous history is memorialized in the 1973 book “People of Kauwerak,” written by local elder William Oquilluk. It documents the founding of Kauwerak, an Iñupiaq village by a sandbar near the Imuruk Basin’s innermost reaches.

The area was chosen, according to the book, for the same reasons it’s treasured now: abundant fish and birds, berries and moose, even beluga whales. Kauwerak became one of the Seward Peninsula’s largest villages before it was abandoned in the 19th century, as residents left for jobs and schools.

Whalers, then gold miners, brought profound changes to the Indigenous way of life on the Seward Peninsula, especially through the introduction of pandemic diseases. One outbreak of measles and flu, in 1900, is thought to have killed up to one-third of residents in one of the region’s villages. In Brevig Mission, 72 of 80 Native residents died from the 1918 Spanish flu.

Today, the miners and whalers are gone. In Teller, the population of 250 is 99% Alaska Native. 

Four in 10 residents there live below the poverty level, and a typical household, with an average of three people, survives on just $32,000 a year, according to census data.

At the community’s main store, the shelves are completely barren of fresh fruits and vegetables. A box of Corn Chex costs $9.55, and a bottle of Coffee-Mate runs $11.85 — more than twice the Anchorage price. 

Residents can buy cheaper groceries in Nome. But gas for the 70-mile drive costs $6.30 a gallon, down from $7 in July.

The main store in Teller lacks fresh produce and charges steep prices for groceries, making hunting and fishing essential for the village’s Iñupiaq residents. (Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal)

The high cost of goods combined with the few available jobs helps explain why some Teller and Brevig Mission residents are open to Graphite One’s planned mine, and the cash income it could generate. 

As Ayek, the 82-year-old subsistence fisherman, pulled his skiff back into Teller with a cooler of fish, another man was slicing fresh sides of salmon a little ways down the beach.

Nick Topkok, 56, has worked as a contractor for Graphite One, taking workers out in his boat. As he hung his fish to dry on a wood rack, he said few people in the area can find steady jobs.

“The rest are living off welfare,” Topkok said. The mine, he said, would generate money for decades, and it also might help get the village water and sewer systems.

“I’ll be dead by then, but it’ll impact my kids, financially,” he said. “If it’s good and clean, so be it.”

Topkok also acknowledged, however, that a catastrophic accident would “impact us all.”

Many village residents’ summer fishing camps sit along the Tuksuk Channel, below the mine site. Harvests from the basin and its surroundings feed families in Brevig Mission and Teller year-round.

“It’s my freezer,” said Dolly Kugzruk, president of Teller’s tribal government and an opponent of the mine.

Researchers have found all five species of Pacific salmon in and around the Imuruk Basin. Harvests in the area have hit 20,000 fish in some years — roughly 30 per fishing family, according to state data.

At a legislative hearing several years ago on a proposal to support Graphite One’s project, one Teller resident, Tanya Ablowaluk, neatly summed up opponents’ fears: “Will the state keep our freezers full in the event of a spill?”

Some 30 miles outside Nome, supplies for Graphite One’s remote mining exploration camp wait at a staging area the company uses for its helicopters. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

Gold Rush prospector’s descendants would reap royalties

Elsewhere in rural Alaska, Indigenous people have consented to resource extraction on their ancestral lands on the basis of compromise: They accept environmental risks in exchange for a direct stake in the profits.

Two hundred miles north of the Imuruk Basin, zinc and lead unearthed at Red Dog Mine have generated more than $1 billion in royalties for local Native residents and their descendants, including $172 million last year. On the North Slope, the regional Iñupiat-owned corporation receives oil worth tens of millions of dollars a year from developments on its traditional land.

The new Manh Choh mine in Alaska’s Interior will also pay royalties to Native landowners, as would the proposed Donlin mine in Southwest Alaska.

No such royalties would go to the Iñupiaq residents of Brevig Mission and Teller, based on the way Graphite One’s project is currently structured.

The proposed mine sits exclusively on state land. And Graphite One would pay royalties to the descendants of a Gold Rush-era prospector — a legacy of the not-so-distant American past when white settlers could freely claim land and resources that had been used for thousands of years by Indigenous people.

Nicholas Tweet was a 23-year-old fortune seeker when he left Minnesota for Alaska in the late 1800s. His quest for gold, over several years, took him hiking over mountain ranges, floating down the Yukon River by steamboat, walking hundreds miles across beaches and, finally, rowing more than 100 miles from Nome in a boat he built himself.

Tweet settled in Teller with his family, initially prospecting for gold. 

As graphite demand spiked during World War I, Tweet staked claims along the Kigluaik Mountains, and he worked with a company that shipped the mineral to San Francisco until the war ended and demand dried up. 

Today, Tweet’s descendants are still in the mining business on the Seward Peninsula. And they still controlled graphite claims in the area a little more than a decade ago. That’s when a Vancouver entrepreneur, Anthony Huston, was drawn into the global graphite trade through his interest in Tesla and his own graphite-based golf clubs. 

News of a possible deal with Huston’s company arrived at one of the Tweets’ remote mining operations via a note dropped by a bush plane. They reached an agreement after months of discussions — sometimes, according to Huston, with 16 relatives in the room.

So far, the Tweet family, whose members did not respond to requests for comment, has received $370,000 in lease fees. If the project is built, the family would receive additional payments tied to the value of graphite mined by Graphite One, and members could ultimately collect millions of dollars.

Bering Straits Native Corp., owned by more than 8,000 Indigenous shareholders with ties to the region, recently acquired a stake Graphite One’s project — but only by buying its way in. 

The company announced its $2 million investment this month. The deal includes commitments by Graphite One to support scholarships, hire Bering Straits’ shareholders and give opportunities to the Native-owned corporation’s subsidiary companies, according to Dan Graham, Bering Straits’ interim chief executive. He declined to release details, saying they have not yet been finalized.

As it considered the investment, Bering Straits board members held meetings with Brevig Mission and Teller residents, where they heard “a lot of concerns,” Graham said. Those concerns “were very well thought through at the board level” before the corporation offered its support for the project, he added.

“Graphite One is very committed to employing local workers from those villages, to being as transparent as possible on what the development is,” Graham said.

Graphite One officials say they have work to do to ensure the region’s residents are trained for mining jobs in time for the start of construction. The company had a maximum of 71 people working at its camp this summer, but Graphite One and its contractors hired just eight people from Teller and Brevig Mission. Sixteen more were from Nome and other villages in the region, according to Graphite One.

Company officials say they have no choice but to develop a local workforce. Because of graphite’s relatively low value in raw form, compared to gold or copper, they say the company can’t afford to fly workers in from outside the region.

Graphite One says it’s also taking direction from members of a committee of local residents it’s appointed to provide advice on environmental issues. In response to the committee’s feedback, the company chose not to barge its fuel through the Imuruk Basin earlier this year; instead, it flew it in, at an added cost of $4 a gallon.

Since Graphite One acquired the Tweets’ graphite claims, progress on the development has been slow. But now, escalating tensions with China and the national push to Americanize the electric vehicle supply chain are putting Huston’s project on the political fast track.

In Nome, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski walks away from a helicopter that flew her to the Graphite One project, a mining exploration camp that the Canadian company is developing to build an open pit graphite mine. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, stands in the Nome airport, holding a bag with chunks of graphite she received at Graphite One’s exploration project. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

‘We don’t have a choice’

In July, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski boarded a helicopter in Nome and flew to Graphite One’s remote exploration camp overlooking the Imuruk Basin.

A few days later, the Alaska Republican stood on the Senate floor and brandished what she described as a hunk of graphite from an “absolutely massive,” world-class deposit.

“After my site visit there on Saturday, I’m convinced that this is a project that every one of us — those of us here in the Congress, the Biden administration — all of us need to support,” she said. “This project will give us a significant domestic supply, breaking our wholesale dependence on imports.”

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, and GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy have all expressed support for the project.

Graphite One has enlisted consultants and lobbyists to advance its interests, according to disclosure filings and emails obtained through public records requests.

They include Clark Penney, an Anchorage-based consultant and financial advisor with ties to the Dunleavy administration, and Nate Adams, a former employee of Murkowski and Sullivan who’s worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Murkowski has said the mine will reduce dependence on foreign countries that lack America’s environmental and human rights safeguards.

“Security of supply would be assured from day one, and the standards for the mine’s development and operation would be both exceedingly high and fully transparent,” Murkowski wrote in a letter to the Biden administration in 2022.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, announced its grant of up to $37.5 million for Graphite One in July. This month, the company also announced it had received a $4.7 million Defense Department contract to develop a graphite-based firefighting foam. 

In a statement, a department spokesman said the July agreement “aims to strengthen the domestic industrial base to make a secure, U.S.-based supply of graphite available for both Department of Defense and consumer markets.”

In Teller and Brevig Mission, Graphite One’s opponents have noticed how the electrical vehicle transition seems to be driving interest in the mine planned for nearby. 

Gilbert Tocktoo is the president of the tribal government in Brevig Mission. In an interview at his home, he said he opposes the large graphite mine planned on state land near the Imuruk Basin. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

As the project gathers outside political support, some village residents said that local attitudes have been shifting, too, in response to the company’s offers of jobs and perks. 

Tocktoo, the chief of Brevig Mission’s tribal council, said resistance in his community has diminished as Graphite One “tries to buy their way in.”

The company awards door prizes at meetings and distributes free turkeys, he said. Two years ago, the company gave each household in Brevig Mission and Teller a $50 credit on their electrical bills.

The project, though, remains years away from construction, with production starting no earlier than 2029.

Before it can be built, Graphite One will have to obtain an array of permits, including a major authorization under the federal Clean Water Act that will allow it to do construction around wetlands.

And the project also faces geopolitical and economic uncertainties. 

At least last year, Graphite One was tight on cash. It had to slightly shorten its summer exploration season because it didn’t have the money to finish it, company officials said at a public meeting this year. 

And while Graphite One is counting on a partnership with a Chinese business to help set up its graphite processing and manufacturing infrastructure, the partner company’s top executive has said publicly that U.S.-China political tensions may thwart the transfer of necessary technologies.

Murkowski, in an interview at the Nome airport on her way home from her visit to Graphite One’s camp, stressed that the project is still in its very early stages. 

The permitting process and the substantial environmental reviews that will accompany it, she added, will give concerned residents a chance to pose questions and raise objections.

“There’s no process right now for the public to weigh in. And it’s all so preliminary,” she said. “When you don’t know, the default position is, ‘I don’t think this should happen.’”

Lucy Oquilluk is president of the tribal government of the Iñupiaq village of Mary’s Igloo. Though the Mary’s Igloo village site near the Imuruk Basin is now abandoned, the area is still an important place for tribal members to fish, hunt and gather food. Many of them live in the nearby community of Teller and maintain their own tribal government. (Berett Wilber for Northern Journal)

But opponents of the project in Brevig Mission and Teller say they fear their objections won’t be heard. Lucy Oquilluk, head of a Teller-based tribal government, said she feels a sense of inevitability.

“It just feels like we have nothing to say about it. We don’t have a choice,” Oquilluk said. “They’re going to do it anyways, no matter what we say.”

This story was produced by Northern Journal, APM Reports and Alaska Public Media as part of the Public Media Accountability Initiative, which supports investigative reporting at local media outlets around the country.

Nathaniel Herz is an Anchorage-based journalist. He’s been a reporter in Alaska for a decade, and is currently reporting for Alaska Public Media. Find more of his work by subscribing to his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com. Reach him at natherz@gmail.com.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk’s big bet that Tesla price cuts could boost sales and profits amid increased competition and poor economic sentiment appears to be yielding mixed results. Sales soared and the company beat analysts’ expectations for net income in the April-June quarter, even as the company’s profit margins declined. Tesla shares followed suit in after-hours trading.

The Austin, Texas-based maker of electric vehicles, solar panels and batteries reported net income of $2.7 billion in the quarter, up 20% year over year. Earnings per share also rose 20% to 78 cents as measured using generally accepted accounting principles. Total revenue increased 47% to $24.93 billion.

However, analysts tend to focus on Tesla’s own earnings measure, which excludes stock-based compensation expense. Using that metric, Tesla’s net income rose to $3.15 billion, or 91 cents a share, comfortably beating the average analyst estimate of 80 cents a share, according to FactSet. Some analysts had expected falling profits due to the price cuts.

However, Tesla shares initially remained flat around $292 in after-hours trading immediately following the release of the earnings report, climbing slightly above its close of $291.26. As Tesla executives spoke to analysts on a conference call, shares plunged more than 4%.

Tesla reported strong vehicle shipment numbers on July 2, saying they were up 83% from the year-ago quarter after the company repeatedly slashed prices on its four electric vehicle models. Tesla sold a record 466,140 vehicles worldwide from April to June, almost double the same period last year (254,695).

The vast majority of these sales were for Tesla’s popular Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossover SUVs.

However, the earnings report delivered mixed messages on one of the larger questions facing Tesla: whether the automaker’s rebate strategy can increase sales while preserving its profit margins. Tesla’s operating margin, which measures how efficiently it converts sales into pre-tax profits, fell to 9.6% in the April-June quarter, a notable decline from 14.6% a year earlier. The key figure also fell sharply in the January-March quarter.

While profitability and pricing pressures continue to weigh on Tesla, Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said he found some comments from management on cost controls optimistic and said the company’s overall performance remains solid.

“The long-term drivers of growth remain and there will only be short-term headwinds in the current environment that we are in,” he said.

On the company’s conference call with analysts, Musk praised the company’s performance despite high interest rates and what he called significant economic uncertainty, then quickly switched to the topic of Tesla’s advanced projects like its so-called “full self-driving” software.

Despite the name, software-enabled Tesla cars can’t drive themselves, and the company warns drivers to be ready to intervene at all times. Musk praised Tesla’s work on a new machine learning system called Dojo, which the company plans to use to improve its self-driving software.

Musk also said Tesla should deliver its long-promised Cybertruck — an unusual-looking pickup truck with an angular design that couldn’t look out of place in a Mad Max movie — by the end of the year. Tesla announced on Saturday that the first Cybertruck had rolled off the assembly line.

However, analysts aren’t convinced the vehicle will be widely available anytime soon, not least because other automakers have already unveiled conventional-looking electric pickups like the Ford F-150 Lightning.

“I don’t think we’re going to see significant volume, especially this year,” said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar Research. “Not even next year. Maybe we’ll be looking more to 2025, 26, 27 until we see them.”

(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, transcribed, or redistributed without permission.)

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Plaintiff Owen Diaz had refused a $15 million payout from Tesla, arguing that it was not punitive enough.

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Witnesses on Tuesday painted a picture of Tesla’s Fremont, California factory as a place where racist language and harassment flowed freely and supervisors did little to nothing about it.

Plaintiff Owen Diaz, a black man who was then an elevator driver at the 5.5-million-square-foot factory, sued Tesla in 2017, alleging that he had been subjected to racial abuse and harassment, including derogatory racist drawings of black people with bones in their hair and exaggerated features bore marks.

A jury awarded Diaz $137 million in damages in 2021, with nearly $7 million earmarked for emotional distress and the rest as punitive damages, but U.S. District Judge William Orrick III reduced the award to $15 million dollars while continuing to affirm the jury’s findings.

Tesla had pushed to limit the damage to $600,000. However, Diaz eventually turned down the award, saying it was not punitive enough. This week’s trial is expected to identify new damage.

Witnesses called to the stand Tuesday included three former supervisors: Tamotsu Kawasaki, Michael Wheeler and Wayne Jackson. Although none of them were present during the incidents leading up to Diaz’s lawsuit, they all played a role in the subsequent investigation and knew Diaz.

Kawasaki, who recommended Diaz for the position of elevator operator moving materials from one floor to the next, was on hand when Diaz and another employee, Judy Timbreza, got into an altercation in one of the elevators. Though he didn’t see the conflict between the two, Kawasaki said he got there just in time to find them “face to face” and separate them. Afterwards, witnesses Kawasaki said they heard Timbreza call Diaz a racial slur.

Defense attorneys Alex Spiro – who led the defense in February’s Tesla securities trial – and colleague Asher Griffin took a combative stance on the witnesses. Kawasaki – now a plumber in nearby Daly City – seemed defensive and kept trying to deepen his answers, despite Spiro struggling to ask yes-or-no questions. Spiro lashed out at Kawasaki’s use of the term “racial in nature” to describe racist terms used by the former boss in an email to his boss reporting on the incident.

Kawasaki, who said he is married to a black woman and has black children, said he does not feel comfortable using the slur and said it was unprofessional to include it in a work-related email. Spiro in a smart gray suit and Kawasaki in a tight t-shirt and work pants got on each other’s nerves.

It didn’t get much better as the morning wore on. Both Wheeler and Jackson seemed short-tempered towards Spiro and Griffin, and Orrick had to smooth things over on more than one occasion. At one point, a visibly upset Jackson felt compelled to explain to Griffin during his cross-examination why it was demeaning for a black man like him to hear the N-word so casually dabbled at work. Griffin then noted that he is also black and had a black father.

Investigator Amy Oppenheimer of the Berkeley-based Oppenheimer Investigations Group, a law firm that provides workplace investigations, mediation and dispute resolution, addressed numerous failures by Tesla management to curb racist language and harassment at the plant and to investigate incidents, when they performed.

Oppenheimer pointed to several instances where Tesla management failed to investigate what happened to Diaz, noting that the actual investigation was neither thorough nor documented, and that no results had been obtained. While the automaker certainly had policies on how to handle such matters, it hadn’t trained its employees on how to handle it.

She also told the jury: “The message has to come from above. Because if the person at the top doesn’t respond, the whole organization follows what they see and not what they’re told.”

The process is expected to last until Friday. Plaintiff Diaz is scheduled to take the witness stand on Wednesday.

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This week, Austin-based Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that he will move the company’s technical headquarters from Austin back to Silicon Valley, marking a retreat from his much-touted embrace of the Texas economy’s low taxes three years ago.

In an apparent business reality check, Musk made the announcement in a joint news conference with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Wednesday, two years after Musk moved the automaker’s headquarters to Texas and just months after Musk moved the San Francisco-based one Twitter had bought in a controversial and controversial purchase botched acquisition.

Newsom, one of the first buyers of the Tesla Roadster in 2007, said the company’s return to electric sports cars is critical to securing California’s place as the nation’s automotive leader. “We can lay claim to 44 electric vehicle manufacturing companies, but none of them are as dominant as Tesla,” Newsom said.

Musk will open the new engineering headquarters in Palo Alto, California, just over a year after the company first announced it would be moving its headquarters to central Texas.

The company is taking over a space occupied by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which moved its headquarters to Houston in 2020 when Musk found itself in an ongoing battle with Alameda County health officials over his desire to reopen the Fremont manufacturing facility amid the coronavirus pandemic .

“This was HP’s original headquarters, so I think it’s a poetic transition from the founders of Silicon Valley to Tesla, and we’re very excited to make this our global engineering headquarters,” Musk told CNBC . “And we’re a California and Texas company.”

Prior to the announcement, California was already hosting the largest electric car maker in America, and Musk says Tesla’s Fremont plant is the busiest in North America and plans to produce more than 600,000 vehicles by 2024.

But this week, Arnold Ventures communications director Evan Mintz speculated on City Cast Houston about what kind of message this sends to other big tech companies that may have had their eye on Texas but may now be reconsidering, until the job market arrives Texas is developing the necessary expertise by investing in technology-specific higher education.

“You get a lot of sizzling from Musk, but sometimes the steak is a little plainer than you think,” Mintz said. “Much of the rhetoric about moving to Texas … breaks down when you think about the reality of what it takes to run a giant, high-tech company, and it requires engineers and a highly skilled workforce. And if you just look at the quality of the universities in California compared to those in Texas, we can’t match — we’re not there, we’re not up to it,” Mintz explained.

According to US News and World Report, the University of Texas is the only university in the state to rank among the top 10 public universities in the country — while California has six — belying the notion that Austin will likely ever become the next Silicon Valley without transformative investment in higher education by the Texas Legislature.

“We’re just not there yet… so if we don’t just want to see a lot of tech but not see steak, we need to start investing in our universities,” he continued. “And we have leaders in the state who have really failed to invest in higher education and have failed to put the money, resources and support behind these institutions that are growing the state and becoming a technology leader of the 21st century.”

But Texas Tech and the University of Houston recently asked the Legislature for a $1 billion state endowment, which is notable given that the two schools don’t have access to the state’s permanent university fund,” Mintz said. This fund was established by the state government in 1876 in the form of constitutional land grants exclusively to the University of Texas and Texas A&M.

Mintz speculated that if a high-profile owner like Musk makes headlines by moving to Texas — despite the state’s current economic and business realities — Tesla’s latest decision will likely keep most tech companies in California.

“I’ll imagine that the prestige of having a headquarters, having a large workforce … not 100 percent moving from California to Texas should come as a real shock to Texas leaders, who assumed that our model with low taxes and low services … not a silver bullet to get tech companies to move here,” Mintz added.

But Austin is the fastest growing major metro area in America, having grown by a third in the last decade making it the 11th largest city, and in recent years high rollers from Silicon Valley, Hollywood and New York have gained along very great wealth, larger-than-life lifestyles, and very different ideas of what Austin should become.

To the dismay of longtime residents, swanky shops like Hermès and Soho House now line South Congress, formerly known as the city’s funkiest street. Evan Smith, one of the founders of the Texas Tribune, told the New Yorker, “Austin has an upper class now,” pointing out that Austin is now characterized by stifling traffic and unaffordable restaurants.

However, Musk’s announcement is the second major company trying to downsize its footprint in Austin. Walmart announced last week that it is offering its remote employees in Austin office space to work from in Dallas if they wish to continue working for the company.

The post Elon Musk Rethinks Texas, Pronounces Tesla Engineering HQ Transferring to California appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Nov 11, 2022Updated: Nov 11, 2022 8:52 am

Photo of crashed Tesla

SFFD

Three people were seriously injured and taken to a trauma center after two cars drove into a home in San Francisco on Thursday night, officials said.

Two people were rescued from a Tesla and one from a Prius, the San Francisco Fire Department said in a statement. All three were taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “The three injured are recovering,” said Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a spokesman for the fire department, told SFGATE.

Photo of the garage at 3217 San Bruno

SFFD

The cars pulled into the residence on San Bruno Ave. 3217 in the Visitacion Valley, police said. The property, located off Highway 101, is a duplex according to city property records.

The Tesla hit gas and water lines, firefighters secured both after arrival. The crash also damaged utility lines, Baxter said.

The incident displaced 22 people, 18 adults and 4 children; They receive services from the Red Cross, police said.

This is breaking news and has been updated.

Amy Graff is the news editor at SFGATE. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she began her career at the Daily California newspaper at UC Berkeley, where she studied English Literature. She has been with SFGATE for more than 10 years. You can email her at arafff@sfgate.com.

The post 22 folks displaced when Tesla, Prius crash into San Francisco dwelling appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Nov 11, 2022Updated: Nov 11, 2022 8:52 am

Photo of crashed Tesla

SFFD

Three people were seriously injured and transported to a trauma center after two cars crashed into a home in San Francisco on Thursday night, officials said.

Two people were rescued from a Tesla and one from a Prius, the San Francisco Fire Department said in a statement. All three were taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “The three injured are recovering,” Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a spokesperson for the fire department, told SFGATE.

Photo of garage at 3217 San Bruno

SFFD

The cars plowed into the residence at 3217 San Bruno Ave. in Visitacion Valley, police said. The property, which is located close to Highway 101, is a duplex, according to city property records.

The Tesla struck gas and water lines, Firefighters secured them both after arrival. The crash also damaged utility lines, Baxter said.

The incident displaced 22 people, 18 adults and 4 children; they are receiving services from the Red Cross, police said.

This is a breaking news story and has been updated.

Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. She was born and raised in the Bay Area and got her start in news at the Daily Californian newspaper at UC Berkeley where she majored in English literature. She has been with SFGATE for more than 10 years. You can email her at agraff@sfgate.com.

The post 22 individuals displaced when Tesla, Prius crash into San Francisco house appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

July 20, 2022

By Gabe Rodriguez Morrison

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company is interested in making its own HVAC system for homes. “It’s on the future product list,” says Elon.

Tesla is known for having remarkable air quality inside their electric vehicles. They went as far as integrating large HEPA filters into most of their models, which Tesla calls Bioweapon Defense Mode.

The HEPA filter removes 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and any airborne particles with a size of 0.3 microns (µm). The filter is adapted into an efficient HVAC system to prevent decreasing the vehicle’s range.

Last year, when Tesla announced a software update to make the Model S HVAC system quieter, Elon was asked about Tesla making a home HVAC system, to which he replied:

“Oh man, home HVAC that is super energy efficient, quiet & purifies the air would be great. We developed it for the car, but it can be scaled up for home use.”

Residential HVAC is a product that Elon has been talking about for years and really wants Tesla to manufacture in the future. More recently Elon said that it is on Tesla’s list of future products.

It’s on the future product list. Especially important in places like Austin, which has next-level amounts of pollen in the air.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2022

Back in 2020, Elon Musk spoke about his desire to create a “super efficient” HVAC system for homes.

HVAC and AI seem to be two areas that interest Elon. Last year Elon said that Tesla would look into adding an AI-based HVAC system into their vehicles (and now possibly into homes).

The system could take environmental readings into account such as the air quality in the area, whether the car is in stop-and-go traffic, and automatically control car features that would improve the air quality inside the car.

The car could automatically enable air circulation or even turn on Bioweapon Defense Mode.

Tesla is working on many other projects right now and the HVAC is not in an advanced stage of development yet. It is unknown when Tesla will officially unveil an HVAC system but this news confirms that the HVAC system is in fact on a “list of products” and can be expected in the distant future.

I’m dying to do super efficient, quiet home HVAC with HEPA & water distillation. It’s weird, but I really want to do it.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2020

November 4, 2022

By Lennon Cihak

Tesla’s bringing its collection of revolutionary electric vehicles to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

The exhibit, dubbed “Inside Tesla: Supercharging the Electric Revolution,” will offer an in-depth look at the past, present, and future of the electric vehicle revolution. It will also showcase Tesla’s history, from its early and rough beginnings to the present global leader in EVs.

The exhibit will feature the most comprehensive collection of Tesla’s products to date. From early prototypes of the Model 3 from 2016 to the 2012 Model X prototype, as well as Tesla’s 1 millionth vehicle ever produced, these rare vehicles will be on display.

In addition to the vehicles, there will be information about the products and software that powers each car. Information about Tesla’s energy ecosystem, manufacturing automation, autopilot, and full self-driving expertise will be on full display. Attendees will also get an inside look at projects from SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Hyperloop.

“Tesla has revolutionized the automotive, EV, technology, and manufacturing spaces within a relatively short time span, begetting the question, ‘How did they do that?’” Terry L. Karges, Petersen Automotive Museum’s Executive Director, says in a press release shared with Not a Tesla App. “This exhibit strives to be a holistic walk-through of how the brand became a global phenomenon and further details what lies ahead.”

“Inside Tesla: Supercharging the Electric Revolution” will be open to the public on November 20 in the Mullin Family Grand Salon and Phillip Sarofim Porte Cochere on the museum’s first floor. The exhibit will be open until October 22, 2023.

For more information and how to purchase tickets, visit the Petersen Automotive Museum’s website.

November 4, 2022

By Gabe Rodriguez Morrison

The Financial Times recently reported that Tesla had talks with Glencore about taking a stake in the Swiss mining giant. It seems that Tesla and Glencore held some sort of discussions starting as early as last year. Discussions apparently continued until March this year when Glencore’s chief executive Gary Eagle visited Tesla’s Fremont Factory.

According to the FT, Tesla supposedly planned to buy a minority equity stake of 10% to 20% in Glencore but both parties were unable to reach an agreement. Tesla had concerns about Glencore’s coal mining business which conflicted with the EV manufacturer’s environmental goals.

However, at an investor’s conference today in New York, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla “never contemplated investing in Glencore.” It’s not clear what led the FT to think that Tesla was considering investing in Glencore, but there may have been conversations between Tesla and Glencore as Tesla tries to secure mining materials.

Glencore does plan to align itself with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and shrinking its coal portfolio over time.

Glencore is the world’s largest trading house and producer of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, and Canada. A few years ago, Tesla secured a cobalt offtake agreement with the Swiss mining giant for Giga Shanghai and Giga Berlin.

Will Tesla invest in mining?

Although talks between Tesla and Glencore did not lead to Tesla considering an investment in the mining giant, the discussions hint that Tesla is interested in what’s happening in the mining industry.

Elon has said in the past that he prefers not to enter the mining industry, although Tesla will if they have to. Mining could become more of a constraint as Tesla increases vehicle production and scales the 4680 battery assembly line.

At the Q3 2022 earnings call, Elon was asked about vertically integrating into mining, and he responded:

“We’ll do whatever we have to. Whatever the limiting factor is, we’ll do. We do not artificially constrain ourselves. We don’t vertically integrate just for the hell of vertically integrating,” Elon Musk replied to Jonas.

“Like if there was a great supplier who’s better than us or we think is at least very good, or even where the economics of comparative advantage suggests that we should use that supplier, even if we could beat them, but we could use our resources to do something else that will be more productive, then we would in source in that case. But if we have to go mine, we will mine,” Musk explained.

The rise of EVs has caused many carmakers to become more involved in the mining industry to secure raw materials such as cobalt, lithium and nickel that are needed to manufacture batteries.

These types of discussions will likely continue as the need for such raw materials increases. It is possible that Tesla’s Master Plan Part 3 will involve the acquisition of a mining company so that Tesla can “scale to extreme size to shift humanity away from fossil fuels.”

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September 21, 2022

By Kevin Armstrong

Tesla may be ramping up how it uses simulation to train its Autopilot system. A report by Electrek asserts that it has sources claiming that the company is concentrating on a reproduction of San Francisco. The article includes an image of the recreation and states that Tesla is working with Real Engine on its simulation.

According to Electrek, the image below is part of Tesla’s simulation of San Francisco.

Tesla gave the world a look at how it uses simulation to advance the Autopilot program during the first AI Day in August of 2021 (recap).

AI Day

At the first AI Day Tesla talked about the use of using simulations to help train Autopilot. The video below is cued up to where they discuss a simulation.

Ashok Elluswamy, the Director of the Autopilot Program, showed a video that, at first glance, looked real other than an appearance by a Cybertruck. “I may say so myself. It looks very pretty,” said Elluswamy. He explained that the company is investing heavily in using simulation. “It helps when data is difficult to source. As large as our fleet is (FSD Beta users), it can still be hard to get some crazy scenes,” the director explained while showing a rendering of two people and a dog running in the middle of a busy highway. “This is a rare scene, but it can happen, and Autopilot still needs to handle it when it happens,” said Elluswamy.

It appears that Tesla has jumped on Fortnite’s Battle Bus by teaming up with Epic Games and its development platform — Unreal Engine. Fortnite is one of the most popular games of all time, with 80 million subscribers and 4 million daily users, and it was created with Unreal Engine. Epic flexed its creative muscles when it gathered experts to create The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience. The goal was to “blur the boundaries between cinematic and game, inviting us to ask — what is real?” The project spotlight on Unreal Engine shows just how incredibly realistic a simulation can be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0gvPcc3

After Elluswamy explained that the company is investing in simulation, it makes sense that Tesla would be hiring several positions with simulation in the job description. Electrek pointed out one posting for Autopilot Rendering Engineer. The posting states the successful candidate “will contribute to the development of Autopilot simulation by enabling and supporting the creation of photo-realistic 3D scenes that can accurately model the driving experience in a wide range of locales and conditions.” Tesla prefers the candidates to have experience working with Unreal Engine.

While not new, this does show that Tesla is doubling down on efforts to improve Autopilot. It has recently rolled out Full Self Driving to 60,000 more users, bringing the FSD Beta program to 160,000 in North America.

We can only guess how many thousands of simulations the Autopilot team is conducting to add to the data the Beta testers are collecting. It seems unlikely that Tesla has only created the City by the Bay in its simulations. Perhaps Elluswamy will show more renderings at the second AI Day on September 30th.

November 3, 2022

By Kevin Armstrong

Shiny new Model 3s started appearing last month, missing the small, round polka dots on their bumpers. The circles were gone after the company announced it was removing the ultrasonic sensors (USS) to move to strictly Vision. However, after a few weeks in the wild, evidence suggests the company will mimic what USS used to perform and display.

Twitter user @EZebroni tweeted a helpful video demonstrating the difference between a Tesla with and without USS. It’s noticeably different then what Tesla drivers are used to seeing. The distance lines are gone, and even the images of what is beside the non-USS Tesla are not there, just a lot of white screen.

As seen in the video, a vehicle without USS will not display any information to the driver regarding nearby objects. The distance to nearby objects is not displayed on the screen nor are the colored arcs that usually display when an object is nearby.

However, update 2022.40.4 appears to reintroduce some functionality to owners of these vehicles, at least in shadow mode.

Twitter user @greentheonly, a well-known Tesla hacker, tweeted: 2022.40.4 merges no-ultrasonics code into “mainline,” now receives parking distances from Autopilot (where not equipped with proper ultrasonics).

From Green’s findings, it looks like Tesla is preparing to mimic ultrasonic sensors with Tesla Vision, which essentially means that the vehicle is likely to display not only the arcs when an object is nearby, but also the distance to the given object.

Greentheonly was asked several questions after tweeting this information. Someone wanted to know if the Tesla no-ultrasonics code was working in shadow mode, a blend or pure AutoPilot. Green said that it is not a blend, but he needed to figure out what is displayed on USS-less cars, encourage someone with a new Model 3 or Model Y to try 2022.40.4.

Although the code is available in 2022.40.4, it’s not clear yet whether Tesla is running this code in shadow mode, meaning that the code is run in the background without notifying the user, or if distances are now being shown on vehicles without USS. Video

Will Tesla stop utilizing ultrasonic sensors like they did radar?

Another Twitter user asked if this would make the USS on the existing vehicles “ornaments?” This has been a widespread concern since the non-USS cars started showing up. Tesla addressed this matter when it announced it was removing USS. It states on the company website: At this time, we do not plan to remove the functionality of ultrasonic sensors in our existing fleet.

At this time USS have only been removed from the Model 3 and Model Y, but they will also be removed from the Model S and Model X in 2023. Green also believes the existing USS will remain operational, tweeting: not any time soon, I imagine. Also, the front ones still cover an area where the cameras don’t see.

Another user questioned, does it only take information from the moving/static object networks, or is it able to use the occupancy, and road edge networks as well? To which Green responded that he had not looked into that kind of detail yet.

The new world of non-USS is upon us, and there will be many questions. This revelation is likely the first of a long line of updates to assist vision in making up what was lost with ultrasonic sensors.

November 2, 2022

By Gabe Rodriguez Morrison

Since the Cybertruck unveiling in 2019, Tesla has pushed production dates back numerous times: from late 2021 to late 2022, to early 2023, and most recently to the mid-2023 target for initial low-volume production.

Tesla is reportedly planning to begin Cybertruck high-volume production at the end of next year. The company is preparing to set production dates according to a report from Reuters, indicating mass manufacturing of the Cybertruck to begin at the end of 2023.

It still seems that Tesla is on track to start low-volume production in mid-2023, with mass production beginning at the end of the year.

During the Q3 2022 earnings call, Tesla stated that it was working on preparing the Austin, Texas plan to build the Cybertruck, with “early production” set to begin mid-2023. During the call, Elon Musk said that Tesla is “in the final lap for Cybertruck.” The Q3 2022 Shareholder Deck also listed Cybertruck’s production status as in the “tooling” phase which means it’s preparing for production.

This aligns with timelines from IDRA Group, the die-casting company making the 9,000-ton Giga Press that will be used for the Cybertruck. The Giga Press has reportedly arrived in Houston, Texas and can be expected to reach the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas soon.

Reuters points out that gradually ramping up Cybertruck production starting mid-2023, reaching high volume production by late 2023 would mean that some of the roughly 1 million reservation holders may have to wait more than a year before their truck is delivered.

Elon stated that the company had more orders “than we could possibly fulfill for three years after the start of production.” For these reasons, Tesla stopped taking orders for the Cybertruck outside North America in May 2022.

The post Tesla is creating San Francisco in a simulation to assist practice Autopilot/FSD appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

September 21, 2022

By Kevin Armstrong

Tesla may be ramping up how it uses simulation to train its Autopilot system. A report by Electrek asserts that it has sources claiming that the company is concentrating on a reproduction of San Francisco. The article includes an image of the recreation and states that Tesla is working with Real Engine on its simulation.

According to Electrek, the image below is part of Tesla’s simulation of San Francisco.

Tesla gave the world a look at how it uses simulation to advance the Autopilot program during the first AI Day in August of 2021 (recap).

AI Day

At the first AI Day Tesla talked about the use of using simulations to help train Autopilot. The video below is cued up to where they discuss a simulation.

Ashok Elluswamy, the Director of the Autopilot Program, showed a video that, at first glance, looked real other than an appearance by a Cybertruck. “I may say so myself. It looks very pretty,” said Elluswamy. He explained that the company is investing heavily in using simulation. “It helps when data is difficult to source. As large as our fleet is (FSD Beta users), it can still be hard to get some crazy scenes,” the director explained while showing a rendering of two people and a dog running in the middle of a busy highway. “This is a rare scene, but it can happen, and Autopilot still needs to handle it when it happens,” said Elluswamy.

It appears that Tesla has jumped on Fortnite’s Battle Bus by teaming up with Epic Games and its development platform — Unreal Engine. Fortnite is one of the most popular games of all time, with 80 million subscribers and 4 million daily users, and it was created with Unreal Engine. Epic flexed its creative muscles when it gathered experts to create The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience. The goal was to “blur the boundaries between cinematic and game, inviting us to ask — what is real?” The project spotlight on Unreal Engine shows just how incredibly realistic a simulation can be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0gvPcc3

After Elluswamy explained that the company is investing in simulation, it makes sense that Tesla would be hiring several positions with simulation in the job description. Electrek pointed out one posting for Autopilot Rendering Engineer. The posting states the successful candidate “will contribute to the development of Autopilot simulation by enabling and supporting the creation of photo-realistic 3D scenes that can accurately model the driving experience in a wide range of locales and conditions.” Tesla prefers the candidates have experience working with Unreal Engine.

While not new, this does show that Tesla is doubling down on efforts to improve Autopilot. It has recently rolled out Full Self Driving to 60,000 more users, bringing the FSD Beta program to 160,000 in North America.

We can only guess how many thousands of simulations the Autopilot team is conducting to add to the data the Beta testers are collecting. It seems unlikely that Tesla has only created the City by the Bay in its simulations. Perhaps Elluswamy will show more renderings at the second AI Day on September 30th.

September 30, 2022

By Nuno Cristovao

Tesla is hosting its recruiting event, AI Day 2 tonight in Palo Alto, California.

Elon Musk said to expect a lot of technical detail and “cool” hardware demos. We don’t know which demos exactly, although Elon did say the event will be focused on AI and robotics.

Elon also talked about how these events are specifically aimed at showing off the exciting things Tesla is working on to attract more talent.

We can expect Tesla to show off its new Tesla bot, Optimus, talk about FSD and AI and possibly share some details on FSD hardware 4.0 and its upcoming Steam integration.

Pretty much. AI/robotics engineers who understand what problems need to be solved will like what they see.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 29, 2022

Start Time

The event took place in Palo Alto, CA on September 30th at 6:15 pm PT.

Watch on Demand

You can watch the event on demand below:

September 30, 2022

By Nakatomi2010

Back in 2017, I was in a home with solar panels, but no battery backup. Hurricane Irma passed overhead, and I found myself without power for 24-48 hours. We lost all of our food as a result.

When the storm passed, I called up the company that installed my solar panels and found that adding in a battery would be cost-prohibitive, as it would require replacing the solar inverter. As my wife and I started shopping for a new home for our family, I kept this information in mind as I had planned on having solar+battery put in at the new house. I worked on finding a home that would be oriented properly to get the best solar collection capacity, and we bought it in 2018.

Once the home was bought I went through the process of getting quotes for solar + battery arrays and ultimately settled on Tesla.

Tesla was largely chosen because, at the time, the Powerwall battery had the shortest cutover time in the event of an outage. It kicks in right away, while the others took 2-3 seconds to switch over.

By the end of 2018, the array and Powerwall were installed and operational. The array has a max output of 9.425 kW using a SolarEdge SE7600H-US inverter, which has a max output of 7.64 kW, and a single Gen 2 Powerwall 2. During the design, I chose not to have the HVAC and car chargers run off the Powerwall.

As Hurricane Ian approached, Tesla’s Storm Watch kicked in on the Powerwall.

The Powerwall started charging to 100% about two days before the hurricane made landfall. I debated on letting the Powerwall’s power get used leading up to landfall, but having been through hurricanes before, I opted to let Storm Watch do its thing. As the hurricane approaches it’s not uncommon for the winds to cause power stability issues. Leading up to the hurricane the power blinked numerous times.

By the afternoon of September, 28th people in the Tampa area were already starting to lose power.

At around 4:15-4:30 pm, as the winds outside were getting stronger, my wife and I decided to start making dinner for the kids. For reasons unknown, we decided to cook some things that involved the stove. At 4:42 pm the power blinked, and the Powerwall took over for about 5 minutes, putting us back on the grid at 4:47 pm. Once back on the grid the Powerwall charged back up to 100%.

At 5:03 pm on September 28th, the power went out again. After making dinner, we turned off the appliances and watched Andor on Disney+.When it was over I looked at the Powerwall’s status and found that we were now down to 91%.

There was a notice that said we had about 8.1 hours of power remaining, I started to cycle through the things in the house that consumed power and began shutting them off, either at the breaker box, or by unplugging them, intending to ensure there was enough power to keep our fridge, and a chest freezer in the garage online.

I was able to get us down to about .3-.4 kW of use before going to bed and hoped that was enough. Things that were turned off were the water heater, the dishwashers, computer gear, TVs, etc. Anything that might have vampire drain in the long run, including the internet gear.

At around 7 pm yesterday, two hours after the power had gone out, Tesla sent me an email with the VIN for my new Model Y.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at their timing.

I woke up the next morning, September 29th, at around 6:30 am. I had to connect to the Powerwall directly to check the stats since I had powered down the internet gear and Gen 2 Powerwalls don’t have cellular connectivity any longer due to AT&T’s 3G network being shut down earlier this year. I found that the Powerwall was down to 46%.

By this time the storm had moved beyond my area, and I went outside to start inspecting for potential property damage and such. Thankfully, we were spared property damage. The most we had was a panel that covers the service box for our internet cables get blown off the side of the house. I found it about 4 feet away and put it back on.

Others in the community I live in were less fortunate. Several smaller trees had been tipped over, some homes had shingles blown off their roof, and in at least one case a tree had fallen on top of a vehicle.

At 8 am I checked to see how many people in my neck of the woods were without power and found that the total increased from 21,2000 to 292,247 as the hurricane moved away.

The day after a hurricane is a tricky one, particularly if the hurricane is a big one because there’s still a lot of cloud cover. By around 8:38 am the Powerwall was at 36% charged and the sun was barely peaking out around the clouds, resulting in a lower power generation rate.

About 30 minutes later, at 9:10 am, enough sun was shining through the clouds for the Powerwall to start charging.

35% would be as low as the Powerwall went during this event.

As the day went on, we used power sparingly, mostly trying to ensure our mobile devices were charged. We used a microwave and a toaster oven to make breakfast, and at around 11 am I got a chuckle at my impact card showing 0% grid usage.

By lunchtime, the Powerwall showed Storm Watch was over, and the Powerwall was charged to 68%.

So we again used the microwave and toaster oven to make lunch and feed the family.

At around 1 pm the Powerwall started to hit around 80-85% charged, and we started running into an issue with generating power. Every time the Powerwall generated more than 5kW of power, we got an error that read “DC VOLTAGE NOT SAFE! DO NOT DISCONNECT! VDC 445.4”

Followed by another “Error code 18×40 AC Freq too high”

And then it would go to “Waking up…” and start a five-minute timer. Once the five-minute timer was done, the cycle would repeat, the array would generate 5 kW, give an error, and reboot.

I tried to open a support ticket with Tesla, first using the Tesla app. I started a chat session with someone who immediately disconnected the chat session saying “Weather-related issue”, as I was not on the grid.

Irritated, I re-opened the chat session and got a different person who worked with me.

Initially, the individual claimed that the issue was related to the overcast sky, however, that wasn’t the case as the inverter *does* shut down when there’s a lack of sunshine. In this case, it was shutting off every time it hit 5 kW generation. While still on chat support I used a different mobile device to call Tesla’s solar number. I received different answers from the chat advisor and the representative on the phone.

Chat support said that there did appear to be an issue and advised me to schedule a service ticket, and ended the chat.

The person on the phone took the time to explain to me what was happening, and ultimately resolved the issue. The Powerwalls are limited to 5 kW of intake. As I only had one Powerwall, once the array generated more than 5 kW of Power, the Powerwall was changing the frequency to tell the array “Whoa, stop, you’re giving me too much power”, which would reboot the array for five minutes, and repeat the cycle.

The solution to this issue is rather amusing.

You have to use more power to use the excess energy that the array is generating.

Armed with this new information I turned back on the dishwasher and the water heater, and started doing dishes, taking a shower, and watching TV. We eventually found a happy medium where we were using enough power to have the Powerwall stop shutting off the array and continue charging.

From 2 pm to 4 pm we greedily used power, but at 4 pm the intake wasn’t as good anymore as the sun was starting its trek to go below the horizon.

After the dishwasher finished, I turned the water heater and dishwasher back off and started going back to “low power” mode as we began making an early dinner, again, using the toaster ovens, and an air fryer.

We took some time to eat our food while watching TV, catching up on Paramount+’s Lower Decks, and Disney+’s She-Hulk, and we started turning things off again.

By 6:22 pm the Powerwall reached 98%. The sun finally went low enough on the horizon for power to stop being generated.

By the end of the day when we getting ready for bed, we still had no power.

By 2:15 am, on September 30th, I awoke to go pee, then sat on the edge of the bed and decided to check the Powerwall’s state of charge. I found it to be at 45% and heard a rumbling outside the bedroom door that turned into a roar.

After initially thinking it was an Amazon plane flying overhead, I got up and checked the thermostat to find that the HVAC had turned back on again. After checking the Tesla app again I found that power had been restored.

Looking at the Impact card to try and see how long the outage was, I realized that Tesla’s app doesn’t seem to know how to handle an outage that’s longer than a day.

The power went out at 5:03 pm on Wednesday, September 28th, and ultimately returned at 2:17 am on Friday, September 30th. A total of about 32 hours being off-grid.

What would I do differently? Tough to say honestly.

Having to go to the garage to flip breakers to reduce or increase the power load was annoying, putting in a Smart breaker panel would’ve been beneficial, but only so long as we had internet access.

A second Powerwall would’ve been very beneficial as it would have allowed me to not have to increase the power load to ensure the Powerwall kept charging properly, as the power would’ve likely been split between them. If and when Tesla sells Powerwalls without requiring solar with it, this is an option I’ll be investigating for sure, as long as it isn’t cost-prohibitive. I’m uncertain if you can mix and match a Gen 3 Powerwall with a Gen 2 under a SolarEdge inverter.

Not having the HVAC, while unpleasant, wasn’t a huge deal. After a hurricane clears out of an area, you’re generally left with a lot of cold air, so we just opened the windows for a bit. Having EV chargers was also a non-issue because we didn’t drive anywhere, and the cars only lost about 2-3% charge, mostly from me opening the Tesla app and accidentally waking up the cars while trying to scroll to the Solar card.

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