Monthly Archives: April 2016

Reserving a Tesla Model 3

April 20, 2016Blog, Electric Cars, Model 3, TeslaTrevor Larkum

3 April 2016: I love driving my Renault ZOE, even after two and a half years and forty thousand miles. However I am interested and excited by the electric car developments coming from other manufacturers – particularly Tesla.

The Tesla stand in the Touchwood shopping centre, Solihull (Image: T. Larkum)

I’ve been following the travails of Tesla, and stocking up on their shares, since early 2012. I knew that the Roadster and Model S/X were not suitable for our family, not just in terms of excessive price, but also size. However the long promised Model 3 seemed like it could fit the bill.

When I learned a few months back that there would be a reservation list for the Model 3 and that it would open on 31^st March, I marked the date in my calendar. Come the day before, last Wednesday, I rang the nearest Tesla showroom, in Solihull. I asked about reservations and understood that I just needed to call the next day from 8am.

However multiple calls first thing the next day only got as far as an answerphone. Later in the morning I got a call back from a Tesla representative to say that reservations were only being taken in store ahead of the official time of the launch (the next day in the UK).

Registering for my Tesla Model 3 (Image: T. Larkum)

To cut the story short, I was soon in the car and heading out from the Fuel Included office in Milton Keynes towards Solihull. I met up with a friend at Northampton and by mid-afternoon we were hunting for the Tesla showroom. Unlike the large out-of-town Tesla building I had previously visited in Weybridge, it turned out to be a small gallery shop in the local Touchwood shopping centre. In fact, the shop itself is still being refitted so the outlet is currently just a stand in the middle of one of the centre ‘boulevards’.

Tesla Model 3 (Image: Green Car Reports)

The reservation process itself was simple – I entered my contact details, then payment details, into a web browser, clicked a button, and an acknowledgement came up a moment later to say I had a reservation for a Model 3. That was it; a few minutes later we were heading home, having become two of the couple of hundred thousand new Tesla customers.

US Update: Report from the Tesla Model 3 trenches: lines, camaraderie, deposits

Too many plug-in cars being sold

April 19, 2016Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesTrevor Larkum

As sales of electric and hybrid vehicles rise by a third over 2015, the government may review the plug-in grant that incentivises buyers

The government may review its plug-in vehicle grant for Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEVS) due to the high uptake of cars that qualify for the scheme.

Figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show a total of 3352 ULEV vehicles have been registered so far this year – a rise of 37.2% compared with 2015.

It has been reported that more than 11,000 applications for grants were received in February alone, prompting speculation that the government could change its plug-in grant scheme.

While the government has already pledged to continue offering the grant until 2018, a review of the service is planned for next year. A Department for Transport spokesman told Autocar that the government was

“constantly monitoring the market for changes. If the new tier system shows a large change in sales we may need to look at it to ensure the £400 million pot of taxpayer’s money is spent in the right way.”

How to start a business in an industry that doesn’t exist

April 18, 2016Charging, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, POD PointTrevor Larkum

New technology is not just disrupting existing industries, it’s creating entirely new ones. Today we speak with Erik Fairbairn, the man behind POD Point, the UK’s leading provider of electric car charging points…

Fairbairn founded POD Point in 2009, two years before electric vehicles were even on the market. Since then it has shipped more than 20,000 chargepoints to over 15 counties – charging 10 million miles of electric vehicle driving in the process. In 2014, and then again in 2015, POD Point turned to crowdfunding, where it raised a total of £3.7 million and the company has recently been featured in the Tech Track 100.

Freshly created sectors such as this present CEOs, like Fairbairn, with handfuls of risk, opportunity and challenges. So what advice would he give to start-ups trying to make their mark in such unexplored territory?

What challenges have you faced in getting POD Point up and running?

We launched POD Point in 2009. Unfortunately there weren’t any electric cars available then; in fact the first widely available electric car, the Nissan Leaf, didn’t arrive until 2011. It was then another three years until electric vehicles started to take off.

As you can imagine, selling electric vehicle charge points into a market which had no electric cars was quite a challenge!

Of course today the electric vehicle (EV) seems like a forgone conclusion, but back in 2009 it was quite a wild statement to suggest 85 per cent of us would all be driving EVs within 20 years. This meant that persuading people to join the POD Point team was immensely difficult. We were asking staff to take quite a risk on what was a rather outlandish prediction about the imminent arrival of the electric car!

Renault Z.E 15: simply revolutionary

[Includes some nice ZOE footage] Renault is at the forefront of the electric automotive sector and is helping to foster the move towards more sustainable racing. Renault participation in Formula E is a boost for the development of the electric range of road-going vehicles. Renault’s commitment to the sport has equally portrayed its readiness to apply the technological progress to all-electric vehicles in general, boost engine performance and improve battery autonomy.

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

Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk just killed the petrol car

April 16, 2016Electric Cars, Model 3, Opinion, Sales, TeslaTrevor Larkum

“Adios gas-powered cars.”

[4 April 2016] That was the reaction of Barclays analyst Brian Johnston over the weekend to news that Tesla Motors had received orders for nearly 200,000 of its Model 3 electric vehicle in less than two days.

By nightfall on Saturday, that order tally had jumped to 276,000. That’s more than $US280 million in zero-cost capital to Tesla, from the $US1,000, $A1,500 and €1,000 deposits, and total orders for more than $A13 billion of electric vehicles.

It is – by a long shot – the fastest growing customer order book in the history of the automobile industry. And for a car that will not even enter production for 18 months, and has a price tag of $US35,000.

Barclay’s Johnston says the huge order numbers – more than the monthly sales of General Motors – suggests the tide is turning away from the internal combustion engine. Other analysts agreed.

“Tesla has changed the game again,”

said Andrea James, an analyst with Dougherty & Co. Alliance Bernstein’s Mark Jones also called it a “game changer”, and so too did Evercore ISI analyst George Galliers.

“To us the vehicle is ‘the game changer’ and will likely play a critical role in Elon Musk’s desire to expedite the auto industry’s transition from internal combustion engine to electric,”

Galliers wrote in a client’s note.

It’s hard not to agree with Johnston and the other analysts. There could have been no greater demonstration of the latent demand for electric vehicles than the response to the Model 3.

This is not just a Tesla thing, as alluring as the brand might be. It is a sign, noted Johnston and the other analysts, that the days of the internal combustion engine are numbered. Some say it may be over by 2025.

Musk has not played a lone hand in this. The German automaker VW managed to kill the future of the diesel car when it was forced to admit that its emissions claims were completely bogus – a development that forced it and other car makers to throw all their efforts into electric vehicles.

Study Confirms World’s Coastal Cities Unsavable If We Don’t Slash Carbon Pollution

April 15, 2016Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentTrevor Larkum

A new study confirms what leading climate scientists have warned about for many years now: Only very aggressive climate action can save the world’s coastal cities from inundation by century’s end.

South Florida and "Miami Island" in 2100 after 5 feet of sea level rise (via Climate Central). — South Florida and “Miami Island” in 2100 after 5 feet of sea level rise (via Climate Central).

We still could limit sea level rise to two feet this century if we keep total warming below 2°C, according to analysis using these new findings. Otherwise, we should be anticipating five to six feet of sea level rise by 2100 — which would generate hundreds of millions of refugees. That isn’t even the worst-case scenario.

This latest research from the journal Nature underscores that what the nation and the world do in the next decade or two will determine whether or not cities like Miami, Boston, New York, or New Orleans have any plausible chance to survive by 2100.

The study, “Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise,” analyzes “new processes in the 3-dimensional ice sheet model.” It makes use of mechanisms involving the impact of warming oceans on the unstable Antarctic ice sheet “that were previously known but never incorporated in a model like this before.” It then tests its findings “against past episodes of high sea-levels and ice retreat.”

The researchers dramatically raise the likely contribution to sea level rise we will see from the disintegration of the Antarctic ice sheet, which, as we reported two years ago, has already begun. The “authors find that Antarctica has the potential to contribute greater than 1 meter (39 inches) of sea-level rise by the year 2100, and greater than 15 meters (49 feet) by 2500 if atmospheric emissions continue unabated.”

VW e-Golf Business Lease from £273 per month

April 14, 2016Blog, e-Golf, Electric Cars, VolkswagenTrevor Larkum

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