Tesla has been promising a special event to celebrate the opening of its battery factory in Nevada for a while now. Attending the event was even part of the prizes of Tesla’s second round of the Model S owner referral program. Now it finally has a date: July 29th. The company sent out the invitations to the top Model S referrers last night. expand full story

Earlier this week, Tesla confirmed having closed its recent secondary offering with $1.7 billion in net proceeds to finance its Model 3 production program, but part of the offering was also a significant set of transactions in order for Elon Musk to exercise 5,503,972 stock options and then sell 2,782,670 shares to pay taxes.

In a SEC filing issued last night, Tesla confirmed that Musk sold the shares at $213.22 for a total of just over $593 million. After the transaction, Musk’s stake in Tesla stands at 31,100,644 shares worth just over $7 billion. expand full story

German newspaper Handelsblatt, which has often produced reliable insider reports on the German auto industry, now cites insider sources saying that Volkswagen is about to present to its board of directors a plan to build a ‘multi-billion euro battery factory’.

The publication suggests that the plan is likely to be approved.

The battery cell supply chain is close to the number one priority of any automaker looking to manufacture electric vehicles in high volume. Ever since the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, VW has been under pressure to introduce more electric vehicles to its lineup and earlier this year, it announced plans to introduce 20 new electric vehicles through the group’s brands by the end of the decade. expand full story

A new study from Green Street Advisors and first reported by CNBC shows that total tenant sales in 24 malls with a Tesla store are on average $105 higher per square foot than in malls were Tesla has no retail presence. The study concludes that the effect is not only due to Tesla’s own high average of sales per square foot, but that the automaker is also driving overall mall sales. expand full story

During the Model 3 unveiling event in March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made an important announcement curcial to the success of the Model 3: the expansion of its two networks of charging stations. He said that Tesla will double the number of Superchargers to 7,000 units and quadruple the number of Destination chargers to 15,000 units within the next 2 years.

We reported last month that the company already started expanding the Supercharger with permits or started construction at 11 new locations (~90 new Superchargers) since the unveiling event. Now Tesla announced an expansion in Canada with 5 new locations – all in eastern Canada. expand full story

A Tesla Model S driver published a video of his car crashing into a van while on Autopilot which acts as a great PSA to remind Tesla drivers not to always rely on the Autopilot and be ready to take control at all time. In this particular case, the video shows quite clearly what went wrong and the data could actually be useful to Tesla to help prevent the event from happening again. expand full story

The PSA group, which includes the French automotive brands Peugeot, Citroën and DS, announced this week 2 new electric vehicle platforms on which the company will build 4 new all-electric vehicles and 7 new plug-in hybrids by 2021. The company says that the first models will hit the market in 2019 expand full story

Just a week ago, Tesla (TSLA) announced a new public stock offering to raise between $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion – depending on the underwriters exercising their option to purchase additional shares – in order to finance its ambitious Model 3 production program.

In a SEC filing today, Tesla confirmed having closed the offering and that the net proceeds were “approximately $1.7 billion, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses.” expand full story

If you can handle watching a Tesla Model X getting ripped apart, Brock Archer and Advanced Extrication have an interesting video for you to better understand the Model X’s unique structure and its Falcon Wing doors. expand full story

Earlier this month, we reported on the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and the DMV holding hearings to decide whether or not to allow Tesla to get a second dealership license in order to operate another store in the state without having to go through a third-party franchise dealerships.

Now we learn that the DMC ruled against Tesla obtaining a second dealership license last week, which results in the automaker’s latest store in Charlotte having to operate as a ‘gallery’. expand full story

Earlier this year, design and engineering firm Italdesign unveiled its latest creation: GTZero. We missed the original release, but as the company is letting more info on the concept, I think it’s worth taking a look.

The concept is designed on two different platforms: all-electric and plug-in hybrid. We will get into the electric platform, but first of, let’s take a look at the stunning design.

I know electric car enthusiasts are not really waiting for other entries in luxury segments, but it’s not like EVs represent anything close to a significant percentage of the luxury vehicles on the market and therefore, any new entrant is good for the industry. As a Gran Turismo, the GTZero’s design goes a long way in helping electric vehicles dissociate themselves from the ‘weird-mobile’ look some automakers have been pushing.  expand full story

Faraday Future barely broke down on its $1 billion electric vehicle factory in Nevada, yet it is now reportedly in negotiation to acquire lands in Vallejo, California, in order to build another production facility. As if we needed more links between the electric vehicle startup and Tesla, it looks like both companies are now aiming to each have factories in the Bay Area (Vallejo for FF and Fremont for Tesla) and Nevada (North Las Vegas for FF and Sparks for Tesla) – something unusual for car companies. expand full story

It’s a well-known fact at this point that Tesla has a very unusual way to communicate new information for an automaker. The company shares more news through Elon Musk’s Twitter account than with press releases and this latest instance is a perfect example. expand full story

Today the company released new data related to its Autopilot program and is now reporting “~100 million miles” driven with Autopilot active. The figure includes Autosteer and/or Traffic -Aware Cruise Control – the Autopilot’s main convenience features. expand full story

Elon Musk once said that Tesla’s fleet of vehicles is ‘zombie apocalypse proof’ because the Supercharger network is connected to solar power installations, so even if the grid goes down , you’d be able to travel.

Sadly only a few Supercharger locations are now equipped with solar panels and energy storage systems as the company decided to focus on increasing the number of stations to support its growing fleet. expand full story

This morning a reader brought to our attention that the Tesla.fr domain, which is not owned by Tesla but is a premium domain in France, was redirecting traffic to the BMW i3 page of the German automaker’s French website. expand full story

Airbus has a wholly-owned subsidiary called APWorks, which is set up to develop additive manufacturing techniques – especially metallic 3D printing – for the supply chains of Airbus’ main businesses. From time to time, the company releases independent products developed through their manufacturing work for Airbus.

The latest of such product is particularly interesting to us at Electrek: a 3D printed all-electric motorcycle. expand full story

In a surprising turn of event last month, several BMW executives in the automaker’s electric vehicle leadership, also known as the BMW ‘i’ brand, left the German automaker to join a newly formed Chinese EV startup, Future Mobility Corp, backed by Tencent Holdings.

Now Electrek has learned that two Tesla executive joined the BMW leadership at Future Mobility. expand full story

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is scheduled to speak at the Code Conference next week. The Code Conference is an exclusive event for “top industry influencers” to gather and have in-depth conversations about “the current and future impact of digital technology on our lives.” expand full story

While daily commuters could relatively soon be able to fall asleep in their car and wake up at their destination, currently there’s no commercially available autonomous driving system that allow so little control over a vehicle – even Tesla’s fairly advanced semi autonomous system: the Autopilot.

Yet it doesn’t stop people from abusing the technology as evidenced by a Tesla Model S driver caught on camera while apparently sleeping at the wheel. expand full story