Tesla Motors is racing to let you know it isn’t sitting idling on its coast to coast U.S. success. Elon Musk told the European press a little more about what is happening with the company.
During his tour on the old continent, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk announced a few things that should bring a smile to Model S electric vehicle (EV) lovers. The company is building close to a Supercharger station a day and is eager to let everyone know it is continuing to develop the Model X, the next SUV car based on the Model S platform.
The Model S matures.
Although we can’t wait to see what Saleen will do with an electric Model S, the real news is what Tesla Motors is concocting with their own platform. If you’ve ever wondered what Tesla could do to make its Model S even better, then you’ll be happy to know that the much-anticipated all-wheel drive version will happen. We believe this should happen around the time the Model X will be made available, probably end of this year or early 2015. Apparently, the seats in the newer Model S will receive an upgrade next year that will improve and already quite comfortable ride.
Higher energy density batteries!
EV naysayers definitely have it hard these days. Tesla announced it is working on an energy denser battery, which will be offered as an option on the newer Model S and X. This also means the 200 mile range, $30,000 EV they promised us years ago is getting closer. In typical enthusiastic Elon Musk fashion, the CEO announced its new “Giga factory” should knock off up to one-third of the current battery price and deliver an overall impressive 30 GWh production capacity.
Software update.
One of the particularity of EVs is that they have more in common with your computer than your run of the mill gasoline car. A Model S is a rolling computer platform sporting beefy graphic processor units (GPU) from Nvidea to power its wide infotainment system display. Existing Model S owners will soon be able to update their car to the new 6.0 software in a few weeks. We’ve been told that some of the upgrades finally include real-time traffic data, as well as bring back suspension and ride-height adjustment settings, something we believe was lost with the last update.
As far as the U.S. is concerned, we know Tesla finished its cost to cost Supercharging network, and is now building more at the rate of five per week.
The company outlined a comprehensive list of product developments as well as its general progress. We’re always happy to see Tesla Motors succeeding where others have only dreamed to tread. But one question still remains, who is the real competition to Tesla Motors in the automotive industry anyway?
