Issue 20  June 28th 2016

At first, the Model S Fuller was expected to be racing up the hill was thought to be heavily modified with a new smaller battery pack, but as it turns out, the vehicle is almost stock in terms of performance and the main modification was to strip the interior and replace it with a cage.

Fuller and his team beat the production electric vehicle record by a full minute with the Model S. They placed 65th in total and among the top 5 in the overall leaderboard, 3 vehicles were in the ‘electric-modified’ category.

The Pikes Peak track measures 12.42 miles (19.99 km) with over 156 turns, climbing 4,720 ft (1,440 m) from the start at Mile 7 on Pikes Peak Highway, to the finish at 14,110 ft (4,300 m), on grades averaging 7.2%.

To get the battery pack through the strain of dragging the 4,000 lbs (~800 lbs lighter than stock) vehicle up the hill, the team had to resign to unconventional methods to cool the battery, like giving it an ice bath."

Deepak Mital, a Tesla Model S owner, is building an autonomous charger for his car similar to the ‘metal snake’ charger prototype Tesla unveiled last year. The engineer released two videos of his concept and while it looks rough, it seems to be doing the job.

Tesla has been working on a solution to electric vehicle charging for when the auto industry will be transitioning to self-driving cars. If a robot is driving the vehicle, a robot should also be charging the vehicle.

A new research report from Lux Research looked into the projected growth of the battery sector for electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs) and concluded that the market will rise to $10 Billion in 2020 with six large carmakers led by Tesla accounting for 90% of the demand.

The research paper looked at both the demand from automakers and supply from battery manufacturers. Chris Robinson, Lux Research Associate and lead author of the report, sees  Panasonic keeping its lead with 46% market share, thanks to its Gigafactory deal with Tesla and the demand for the Model 3, followed by BYD, LG Chem, NEC, Samsung SDI and others.

Robinson added: “Plug-in adoption is ultimately being fueled by rapidly decreasing battery costs and the success of early EVs such as Tesla’s Model S and Nissan’s Leaf, which has forced a number of other OEMs to make more serious commitments to developing plug-in vehicles,”

Tesla is in talks with a major gas station and convenience store chain that could vastly expand the EV-maker's network of charging stations — and reduce the likelihood of its customers getting stranded someplace on an hours-long drive. Tesla declined to comment on the negotiations with Sheetz, but acknowledged in a statement that it is actively courting gas stations, hotels and restaurants in its bid to install high-speed electric chargers across the country.

One of the obstacles to increasing America’s use of renewable energy is that the nation’s grid doesn’t store energy. It produces just enough to meet consumer demand at any given moment, but solar panels and wind turbines can’t spin up whenever someone flicks a light switch the way a coal- or gas-fired power can. So engineers are investigating ways to hold onto the energy they produce for use when needed, from rock-filled trains on hills to giant hydroelectric projects, to Tesla’s “Powerwall” batteries.

There’s a clear business case here: Musk says he can expand the market for solar panels by offering them to people who are already considering buying an electric car, and vice versa. He didn’t offer figures on how many Tesla customers were interested in strapping solar panels onto their roofs, but said he’d be shocked if they weren’t. In other words, Tesla wants to offer the whole fossil fuel-free frittata. Forget “well to wheels.” Tesla’s talking generation to acceleration.