Xiaomi has announced that it will start deliveries of its first electric vehicle (EV) this month – its first ever foray into the competitive automotive industry.
The car’s price is expected to be announced on March 28.
The Chinese technology giant says it has 59 stores in 29 cities around the country to take orders.
It comes as a price war intensifies between firms like BYD and Tesla in China, the world’s biggest car market.
At the unveiling of the Speed Ultra 7 (SU7) in 2023, Xiaomi’s chief executive Lei Jun said the company aims to become one of the top five car makers in the world.
China’s fifth-largest smartphone maker has said it will invest $10 billion in its vehicles business over the next 10 years.
Lei Jun said the SU7 was “super electric motor” technology which is capable of accelerating faster than some Tesla and Porsche EVs.
Xiaomi is also hoping that the car’s shared operating system with its phones and other devices will appeal to existing customers.
Image source: Xiaomi
It is one of the few new prospective entrants to the China’s electric car market to gain approval from authorities as officials try to curb a flood of new players.
The SU7 will be made by a unit of state-owned car manufacturer BAIC Group at a plant in Beijing that can produce as many as 200,000 vehicles a year.
The launch of Xiaomi Automobile comes as a price war in China’s EV market has been intensifying.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has cut the cost of its cars in China by thousands of dollars in recent months as local rivals like BYD have slashed its prices.
Xiaomi shares jumped by more 10% in Hong Kong after today’s announcement.
A Delaware judge has annulled a $55.8 billion pay deal awarded to Elon Musk in 2018 by Tesla.
The lawsuit was filed by a shareholder who argued that it was an overpayment.
Judge Kathaleen McCormick called the compensation “an unfathomable sum” that was not fair to shareholders and said the process leading to the package being approved was “deeply flawed”.
She ruled the contract should be canceled.
The pay deal, decided back in 2018, was the biggest ever in US corporate history, helping to make Elon Musk the richest person in the world. Bloomberg and Forbes estimated his net worth to be between $198 billion and $220 billion, in November 2023.
Tesla’s package tied Elon Musk’s compensation to performance targets, such as Tesla’s share price and profitability. He does not receive a salary.
However, Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta launched legal action calling for the award to be rescinded, arguing the tycoon had been overpaid.
Following years of legal argument, a week-long trial commenced in November 2022 where Tesla directors argued the huge pay award was designed to ensure that Elon Musk, one of the world’s most dynamic entrepreneurs continued to dedicate his attention to the company.
In her 201-page ruling released on January 30, Judge McCormick said that Tesla directors had been “swept up by the rhetoric” surrounding Elon Musk’s “superstar appeal”.
Moreover, Elon Musk had “extensive ties” with the Tesla officials tasked with negotiating the pay award. She cited his 15-year relationship with the compensation committee chair, Ira Ehrenpreis.
Elon Musk also had business relations with another compensation committee member Antonio Gracia dating back more than 20 years, the judge said.
Image source Twitter
Following the release of the ruling, Greg Varallo, an attorney for the Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta, said it was a “good day for the good guys,” in an email reported by the Reuters news agency.
In a post on X, Elon Musk said: “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware”.
“I recommend incorporating in Nevada or Texas if you prefer shareholders to decide matters”, he added. He then posted a poll asking his followers whether or not Tesla should “change its state of incorporation to Texas, home of its physical headquarters”.
The judge’s ruling can be appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court.
Shares in Tesla were down by around 2.5% in extended New York trade. They have lost more than 20% of their value so far this year.
As well as being the chief executive and a major shareholder of Tesla, Elon Musk also owns several other companies including the social media platform X, the rocket company SpaceX, and the brain chip firm Neuralink.
After selling a large chunk of his stake in Tesla to buy X, Elon Musk currently owns about 13% of the electric carmaker but has recently said he wants a bigger stake in the company.
Tesla has overtaken Volkswagen as the world’s second most valuable automaker, after a dramatic rise in share price pushed its market value to more than $100 billion.
The milestone sets the stage for Tesla’s chief Elon Musk to collect billions
in pay tied to hitting that target.
The company’s share price has more than doubled since October, when it
reported a rare quarterly profit.
Tesla shares rose 4% on January 22, making its valuation second only to
Toyota.
Although Tesla has some way to go to catch up with Toyota, the Japanese car
making giant has a stock market valuation of more than $230 billion.
Some analysts say the rise in price reflects Tesla’s performance in recent
months, during which it has opened a factory in Shanghai and met its production
goals.
In January, Tesla said it had delivered more than 367,500 cars in 2019 – up
50% from 2018. Investors expect the new factory to act as a springboard that
will allow it to capture more of the Chinese market.
Despite the increase, Tesla’s sales remain small compared to those of its
competitors.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen delivered almost 11 million vehicles in 2019, while Toyota
sold more than 9 million in the first 11 months of 2019.
Tesla has also never made an annual profit and it is facing investigations
after complaints about battery fires and unexpected acceleration.
Elon Musk’s company is due to report its latest quarterly results to
investors this month.
If Tesla sustains the $100 billion valuation, it could unlock the first
piece of a $2.6 billion compensation package for Elon Musk.
The plans calls for Elon Musk to receive payouts in shares over 10 years,
with the first award contingent on the company reaching $100 billion in market
capitalization and sustaining that value over both a month, and six-month
average.
Tesla also had to reach $20 billion in revenue and earn $1.5 billion, after
adjusting for items like taxes – thresholds the carmaker reached in 2018.
Tesla was valued at about $55 billion when the pay deal was approved.
The battery would prevent a repeat of a notorious incident last year where the entire South Australia lost power, Jay Weatherill said.
Elon Musk has described it as three times more powerful than the world’s next biggest battery.
The idea began when Elon Musk was asked on Twitter if he was serious about helping to resolve South Australia’s electricity woes.
Tesla boss said he was – adding that if the battery wasn’t built within 100 days, South Australia would receive it for free.
The countdown began on September 30 after a plan was approved by the state government and regulators. Tesla finished the battery in about 60 days.
Located near Jamestown, about 125 miles north of Adelaide, the battery is connected to a wind farm run by French energy company Neoen.
When fully charged, the battery can power up to 30,000 homes for an hour. However, it will mostly be used to support and stabilize existing electricity supplies.
The mega-battery is comprised of a grid system that runs on the same technology that powers Tesla’s cars.
In a statement, Tesla said the completion of the battery “shows that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible”.
The state of South Australia will install the world’s biggest lithium ion battery in a “historic” deal with electric car company Tesla and energy company Neoen.
According to Premier Jay Weatherill, the battery will protect South Australia from the kind of energy crisis which famously blacked out the state.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed a much-publicized promise to build the battery within 100 days, or do it for free.
The 100-megawatt (129 megawatt-hour) battery should be ready this year.
Elon Musk said in Adelaide on July 7: “There is certainly some risk, because this will be largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin.”
According to South Australia’s government, the Tesla-built battery, paired with a Neoen wind farm, will operate around the clock and be capable of providing additional power during emergencies.
“It will completely transform the way in which renewable energy is stored, and also stabilize the South Australian network as well as putting downward pressure on prices,” Premier Jay Weatherill said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that his company will unveil an electric articulated truck in September 2017.
Additionally, the Tesla CEO said an electric pick-up truck would be shown off in around 18-24 months.
In 2016, Elon Musk expressed the company’s desire to branch out beyond cars.
However, analysts are concerned Tesla will not meet demand for its current projects.
Image source Flickr
The Model 3, a more mid-market car compared to what Tesla currently offers, has 400,000 pre-orders – vastly more than the company can manufacture in a year. The Model 3 is due to go into production later this year.
However, despite this hurdle, investors seem confident that Elon Musk will meet his ambitious promises – Tesla’s surging stock price saw it briefly become the most valuable car maker in the US on April 10.
Speaking about the truck, Elon Musk said his team had done an “amazing job” and the vehicle would be “seriously next level”.
In a string of tweets sent out on April 13, Elon Musk also said that the next version of its roadster sports car will be a convertible.
The first death potentially caused by self-driving technology is now being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The driver of a Tesla car died in Florida in May after colliding with a truck.
Under scrutiny is Tesla’s Autopilot feature, which automatically changes lanes and reacts to traffic.
In a statement, Tesla said it appeared the Model S car was unable to recognize “the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky” that had driven across the car’s path.
Tesla said the crash was a “tragic loss”.
The collision led to the death of Tesla driver Joshua Brown, 40. The driver of the truck, which was pulling a trailer, was unhurt.
Phot Wikipedia
A video on YouTube, which appears to have been posted by Joshua Brown, shows a dashboard camera recording of a previous incident, with the car steering to avoid a truck in the next lane.
He wrote: “Tesla Model S autopilot saved the car autonomously from a side collision from a boom lift truck.
“Hands down the best car I have ever owned and use it to its full extent. It has done many, many amazing things, but this was one of the more interesting things caught on the dashcam.”
On June 30, Tesla stressed that cars being controlled by Autopilot had travelled 130 million safe miles to date.
Tesla said in a statement: “The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S.”
“Had the Model S impacted the front or rear of the trailer, even at high speed, its advanced crash safety system would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents.”
The NHTSA will look at whether the Autopilot function performed as expected, or was at fault.
Such investigations can sometimes lead to a recall. Should that be the case, it is likely Tesla would put out an “over-the-air” update to its cars, rather than having to physically take the vehicles back.
However, the incident could be a serious blow to the reputation of autonomous technology at a time when regulators across the world are considering how to safely introduce it on public roads.
Tesla’s shares dropped by 3% after the government said it would investigate the crash.
The Autopilot function was introduced by Tesla in October 2016. In a conference call, the company’s enigmatic chief executive Elon Musk urged caution in using the technology.
“The driver cannot abdicate responsibility,” he said.
In June 30 statement, Tesla said: “It is important to note that Tesla disables Autopilot by default and requires explicit acknowledgement that the system is new technology and still in a public beta phase before it can be enabled.
“The system also makes frequent checks to ensure that the driver’s hands remain on the wheel and provides visual and audible alerts if hands-on is not detected.
“It then gradually slows down the car until hands-on is detected again.”
In its statement, the NHTSA stressed: “The opening of the Preliminary Evaluation should not be construed as a finding that the Office of Defects Investigation believes there is either a presence or absence of a defect in the subject vehicles.”
Back in 2012, Google managed to successfully lobby the state of Nevada to allow driverless cars to take to the roads. Ever since, we’ve watched in wonder as the Google car successfully navigated more than a million miles, all by itself.
This image provided by Google shows a very early version of Google’s prototype self-driving car. The two-seater won’t be sold publicly, but Google on Tuesday, May 27, 2014 said it hopes by this time next year, 100 prototypes will be on public roads. (AP Photo/Google)
It’s all been made possible by recent advances in artificial intelligence. It was once thought that making a driverless car would be impossible because it is not possible to program a computer to deal with every possible eventuality on the road.
But now the science of artificial intelligence has moved on substantially. Robots now have the capacity to learn without having to be preprogrammed. Instead, they learn a bit like you and I. Just like us a computer can now receive information from the physical world and interpret in a useful way. In a way, it can really “see.”
Google call this technology deep learning. It’s what allowed IBM’s computer Watson to beat the best players in the world at Jeopardy! back in 2011. And it’s what’s allowing the Google car to navigate the roads of Nevada today.
Each time the car goes out, it builds up a bigger picture of how the road works. Being a computer, it’s then able to remember millions of specific patterns out there in the real world. Nobody programmed all those patterns into the car. It just learned, like we do, that patterns can be generalized.
For us, this is a piece of cake. For computers, this is a quantum leap. It means that they can predict when dangers might be about the arise on the road and take the necessary action to prevent them from happening.
It’s essential we use this technology given the sheer number of car accidents on our roads. In America alone some fifty thousand people die each year, and hundreds of thousands of others are injured.
Then, consider the knock-on effects of all that carnage. Millions of dollars of investment in people, wasted. Billions of dollars of insurance paid out just to replace car wrecks. Thousands of businesses disrupted by unforeseen rises in their insurance premiums.
The autonomous car has the potential to solve these problems, and it’s all based on one of the highest technologies out there. Companies like Tesla are already selling consumer cars with some elements of autonomy. Tesla’s model S, for example, will drive you down the highway without you having to lift a finger.
We’re not quite at the stage where the cars can do it all themselves, though. Manufacturers still have to figure out how to make the cars work when it’s dark and when roads don’t have sidelines. But the road testing that’s been done so far is promising, and the number of naysayers is dwindling.
It’s quite incredible that 10 years ago the idea that we might have the first fully autonomous car by 2020 was far-fetched. Now, though, it seems like a certainty. The technology is virtually proven. All that it needs is one final push and we can finally rid ourselves of the endless carnage on our roads.
Porsche has unveiled its plans to build an all-electric car aimed at challenging Tesla’s dominance of the battery-powered sports car market.
The German automaker said it would create more than 1,000 jobs via a €700 million investment in new facilities and assembly line.
Porsche’s Mission E, revealed as a concept car earlier this year, is due to go on sale by 2019.
The four-door car’s range will be 310 miles, and hit 62mph in 3.5 seconds.
This pitches the Mission E – a name unlikely to stay once the launch date nears – against Tesla’s powerful Model S.
Porsche is owned by Volkswagen Group, currently embroiled in Dieselgate scandal, which has said it would invest in a range of all-electric and hybrid vehicles across its brands over the next few years.
Dr. Oliver Blume, chairman of Porsche’s executive board said putting Mission E into full development was the “beginning of a new chapter in the history of the sports car”.
Porsche said the car would be charged via an 800-volt unit specially developed for the vehicle, which is twice as powerful as today’s quick-charge system.
The lithium-ion batteries integrated within the vehicle floor will have enough power for 80% of its mileage range after 15 minutes charging, Porsche said in a statement. The vehicle can optionally be “refueled” wirelessly by induction via a coil set into a garage floor.
The four-seat car features energy storage technology derived from the Le Mans-winning Porsche 919 Hybrid race car.
The €700 Mission E investment was part of a €1 billion spending plan on new facilities announced by Porsche on December 4.
The electric car fans saw and rode a prototype of Tesla Model S at the Tesla Motors factory in Fremont, California, on October 1.
The persons who pre-ordered Tesla Model S electric car tried Tesla Motors’ first full-size electric sedan and had the tour of the factory.
Faster Tesla Model S goes from a standstill to 60 miles (96.56 km) in 4.5 seconds.
The 2012 production run of the Model S is sold out and the company intends to start delivering to customers next year.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a co-founder of PayPal, made a plea for support, he said lots of people had viewed the electric cars as fantastic unicorns.
“The oil companies said electric cars can’t work, but the truth is, they don’t want them to work. But here it is. They would say this car is the equivalent of a unicorn. Well, tonight you had the opportunity to ride a unicorn,” he said.
Musk announced Tesla was working on a faster Model S. It goes from zero to 60 miles (96.56 km) per hour in 4.5 seconds. This is two-tenths of a second quicker than the 2011 Porsche 911 Carrera with a manual transmission. However, with Porsche’s quick-shifting PDK automatic the car matches the Tesla at 4.5 seconds.
Versions of the 911 (Carrera S, GT3, Turbo) could easily outrun the Tesla Model S. Yet the big sedan will be able to run with the Porsche, Chevrolet Corvette, Audi R8 and other sports cars. It would also establish electric power as a performance feature, not just a gasoline-saving one, even the basic Model S is quick at 5.6 seconds from zero to 60.
Tesla Model S will come with three battery offerings, 160 miles (257.5 km), 230 miles (370.15 km) or 300 miles (482.8 km) on a full charge.
Base Tesla Model S will cost around $57,400, before a $7,500 federal tax credit and other rebates.
The large touchscreen of Tesla Model S hosts most of the infotainment controls.
Tesla wants to be more than a niche brand that sells only the expensive Roadster sports car. Roadster sports car has a base price of $109,000, and most of them are sold at $140,000.
Tesla Model X sports utility prototype will be unveiled in December and is due out in late 2013.
Tesla, based in Palo Alto, California, has around 1,400 workers. It held an initial public offering of stock in June 2010. Among its private backers are Draper Fisher Jurvetson, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google founders. Tesla won a $465 million loan guarantee in 2009 from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Other carmakers were inspired by Tesla Model S. Detroit works on its own electric vehicles. General Motors started selling its hybrid Chevrolet Volt last year. Anaheim, California-based Fisker Automotive, recently started delivery of its luxury hybrid Karma.
The company will phase out the Tesla Roadster in January 2012, to focus on the Tesla Model S.
Elon Musk introduces Tesla Model S (video)
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Tesla Model S drive: interior view (video)
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