Tesla and India Negotiating Over New Gigafactory Location!
In today’s post, Tesla expands their Virtual Power Plant, India lobbies for their own GigaFactory, Powerwall helps mobile hospitals in Ukraine, SpaceX sets a new standard, Giga Shanghai is getting back up to speed and Tesla works on making charging easier for users. So let’s get going.
India Pressures Tesla for GigaFactory
The Indian government is adding more fuel to rumors that Tesla might select the country as a new GigaFactory location this year.
On May 2nd, India’s Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said Tesla would receive great benefits if it manufactured vehicles in the country. Which reinforces his government’s stance that they do not want to see Chinese made Tesla’s imported to India, they want to see Tesla manufacturing come to them.
The transport minister said, quote, “If Elon Musk is ready to manufacture in India, then there is no problem. Come to India, start manufacturing. India is a large market. They can export from India.”
I don’t know about you, but this sounds like an active negotiation to me.
So far, the Indians have been using taxes as a powerful tool to manipulate Tesla’s product delivery into the country. The government has been placing an import tariff of 110% on vehicles with customs value above 40,000 dollars. One hundred and 10% tax. Obviously, Tesla considers this tariff “prohibitive” to zero-emission vehicles. Tesla requested the Indian government standardize its taxation on electric cars to 40%, regardless of customs value. In addition, they also asked the government to withdraw its social welfare surcharge of an additional 10% percent on electric vehicles.
The Indian government basically came back to say, ‘no, if you don’t want to pay taxes, then just build the cars in India.’
The government did previously make a halfway offer in February that seemed more open to considering Tesla’s request for import tax cuts. According to a person familiar with the matter, the government was willing to reduce import taxes if Tesla agreed to purchase 500 million dollars worth of automotive components from India.
Obviously, one of the key aspects of Giga Shanghai production is they operate on a local supply chain for maximum efficiency, so it’s very unlikely that they would incorporate new parts made in India to vehicle production.
As for the idea of a Tesla GigaFactory in India, Elon Musk has stated that the company would need to test the demand in the country first through imports. However, importing vehicles that incur heavy taxes might not provide Tesla with accurate data about demand in the country, obviously, because the price is being jacked up more than double.
So, there’s very clearly some back and forth going on here, and the Indians don’t seem very willing to give up any ground until they get what they want, which is Giga India.
Tesla Expands Australian Virtual Power Plant
Tesla energy is continuing to grow their presence in South Africa, with a new, ‘Virtual Power Plant’ network coming online.
Australia is the place where Tesla’s Energy division got their start back in 2017, when Tesla CEO Elon Musk committed to helping the people of South Australia with their abysmal power grid. The South Australian government was looking for any solution that could help keep reliable power flowing through the remote province, and Tesla stepped up with the Hornsdale Power Reserve, also known as Tesla’s ‘Big Battery’.
Soon after that, in 2018, Elon promised ongoing support to the people of South Australia, who were getting wrecked by high electricity costs for an unreliable grid. Musk committed to installing solar panel arrays and Powerwall batteries in over 50,000 homes with support from the Australian government - many of these will be provided free of charge to low income families who were struggling to keep the lights on.
The added benefit of having a critical mass of Powerwalls operating in the same place is the opportunity to create what Tesla calls a ‘Virtual Power Plant.’
The idea works by coordinating the discharge of all Powerwalls on a network so that their stored energy hits the grid all at once. This way, the grid can be supported during periods of peak demands or outages - even for homes that don’t yet have a Powerwall installed. At key moments, the virtual power plant could provide as much capacity as a large gas turbine or coal fired power plant.
How it works in practice is that folks who opt into the Virtual Power Plant get paid subsidies and credits for time they’re generating power for the grid, which is then used to offset peak power usage costs when they need to pull power from the grid in return.
Needless to say, this decentralized Big Battery is doing well, and Tesla’s announced that they’re expanding their VPP program to New South Wales, South-East Queensland, and the Australian Capital Territory; allowing Powerwall owners to opt in to this large, virtual energy support system.
And given that current users are seeing energy bills around 20% less than they would have without the Virtual Power Plant, it’s really not surprising we’re seeing the program spread. It’s likely only a matter of time until the system is adopted across Australia.
Powerwall Keeps Lights On in Ukraine Mobile Clinics
Tesla’s Powerwall batteries that were sent to Ukraine at the height of the conflict are being put to important use as cities are slowly retaken from Russian forces.
Since earlier in March, Tesla has been sending tech supplies to the besieged nation; including Starlink terminals, solar panels and Powerwalls to store energy. The Ukrainian resistance has been using this tech to stay in communication with each other, and keep electricity flowing in critical locations. Even being used as a mobile power source, thanks to instructional videos provided by Tesla engineers. Typically a Powerwall would require a trained electrician to get up and running, but Tesla provided the Ukrainians a quick hack to get it operational without even removing the product from its box.
But now, in two Northern towns recently taken back from Russian troops, the Powerwalls are being put to a new and critical use: keeping two “ambulant clinics” up and running - these are pop-up medical centers operating out of the back of large trucks.
The towns of Irpin and Borodyanka are both relatively near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, and were both hit very hard by Russian artillery. Most of their residential buildings are in ruins; making the job of getting aid to the people living there all the more difficult. Both towns were retaken in late March and early April as Russian forces retreated, leaving residents with no support and no power.
The ambulant clinics are part of the first wave of cleanup and support operations, and are kept completely and reliably powered by a combination of solar panels and Tesla Powerwall battery packs. The 13 kilowatt hour batteries are absolutely crucial to keep these wandering clinics up and running while they search for survivors and treat wounded people.
SpaceX Breaks Booster Record
SpaceX continues to set a new standard for sustainable rocket launches, as the company broke its previous booster reusability record by 6 days and 2 hours.
On April the 29th, Falcon 9 booster B1062 lifted off the Launch Complex 40 pad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to deliver a batch of 53 Starlink satellites - just 21 days and 6 hours after an identical launch with the same booster.
The previous record was held by Falcon 9 Booster B1060 when - back in 2021 - the rocket delivered a Turkish comms satellite and some Starlinks only 27 days and 4 hours apart.
SpaceX reported that the refurbishing of B1062 actually took just 9 days, which indicates that actual turnaround can be much shorter once procedures and inspection processes get streamlined.
Space X holds the top 19 records for orbital rocket turnarounds. The next closest competitor - Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster, which isn’t even orbital, takes about 59 days to get ready for a new launch. NASA’s previous record for the Space Shuttle refurbishing was about 54 days back in its prime - and is the 20th record-holder for fastest orbital turnaround.
Giga Shanghai Nearly Back to Full Force
According to Chinese officials in the Shanghai Economics and Information Technology Commission, Tesla’s Giga Shanghai has resumed over 80% of their pre-lockdown production capacity.
According to Chan’s “Whitelist” of companies that are authorized to resume work, reopening priority in Shanghai is being given to automobile manufacturing, equipment manufacturing, and biomedicine sector.
Two weeks ago, Tesla welcomed about 8,000 workers back into the factory to resume work in a closed loop system, where they would have to live inside the factory, and have no contact with the outside world. Pretty brutal, but it has worked so far. By April 22nd, Elon Musk commented that Giga Shanghai was “coming back with a vengeance.”
New Charging Options Coming to Tesla Drivers
Tesla have been doing some experimenting with the charging options for their vehicles, some good and some not quite so well received.
Obviously, last week we had the cablegate story, where Tesla decided to discontinue the free mobile charging cable with every Tesla vehicle delivery. Elon said that according to statistics, very few people ever used it, so they were going to save some money and resources by making it a paid option for $400. That didn’t go over so well, and Elon was forced to come back with an offer at $200 for the mobile charger - this is the slow charge cable that plugs into any regular wall outlet and can trickle charge the car with about 3 miles of range per hour.
The best option for home charging is the Tesla Wall Connector, which is what Elon Musk recommends to buy, and it looks like Tesla has come through with a new low price for the unit. The configurator web page for ordering a vehicle has now been updated with a section for Charging Options, so customers can easily attach a charger to their vehicle order. We see the Mobile Connector listed at $200, but not arriving until August or even October - I’m willing to bet this is the real reason Tesla wanted to stop including them with every car, if vehicle deliveries are being held up by a shortage of cables, then that is a very big problem and needs to get fixed somehow.
We also get the easy option for Wall Connector, which is available and listed for just 400 dollars, which is actually a price reduction. Over the past two years, the price of a Tesla Wall Charger has fluctuated between $500 - $550 USD - so this is literally the ONE Tesla product that has not become more expensive! Unfortunately the cost of the electrician that you’ll need to install the thing has probably gone through the roof, so…
In other charging news, we’ve finally spotted the official Tesla CCS charging adapter in action, and it is pulling over 200 kilowatts of power from generic, EV fast charging stations.
Since Tesla was basically the first company to implement electric vehicle fast charging stations, they invented their own connection port for the SuperCharger network. Unfortunately, when the rest of the industry caught up, they did so with a new, standardized charging system called CCS. It’s a clunky, horrible thing to use, but literally every electric car that isn’t a North American Tesla comes with a CCS port. And therefore, every charging station that isn’t a Tesla SuperCharger has a CCS cable, meaning you can’t just roll up to one and plug in a Tesla without an adapter. Maybe you have a ton of Superchargers where you live, but many of us do not, and it sucks. So, the only option was to use some janky, third party adapter to charge the car and hopefully not burst into flames in the process.
Tesla has started to fill this gap by creating their own, proprietary CCS adapter in 2020, but for whatever reason, it’s only been available in South Korea. For the equivalent of about $250 USD, the adapter was rated for just 150 kilowatts of charging potential. It was possible to buy one from the Korean website, but it required some weird, mail forwarding scheme.
Anyway, now we have new images of a Tesla CCS adapter charging a Model Y at 205 kilowatts - far exceeding the old maximum capacity, which leads us to believe that this is a new version of the adapter. And we can assume, hopefully, that Tesla did not revamp this product only to continue selling it exclusively to South Korea. It just wouldn’t make sense.
So, new Tesla official CCS fast charging adapter, coming soon.
