Talk:Tesla, Inc./Archive 1

Please Read

If you have remarks about the car, best to put them in the article on the car; this article is on the company.

Model S Base Price Needs Updating - No longer speculative

The Tesla website lists the Model S base price at $49,900 USD, and they're taking $5,000 reservation payments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.53.220.164 (talk) 07:02, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

$465 Million from Federal Advanced Technology Vehicle Production Program

June 23, 2009 - Tesla received $465 million from the federal government to retool factories for production of electric vehicles. There is extensive detail to be covered.

Problems at Tesla

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9849410-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.230.23.191 (talk) 17:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Restructuring

I tried to restructure this by putting in some sections. Things I wish were a little better:

• The section on the roadster may be getting a little too big, since there's already a page on it. But I think the specs on the car go towards explaining the company's business model.
• English vs American usage is a bit of a problem here since we have Lotus, an English company, and Tesla, an American company. I'm staying with American style as per the original version and since this is about an American car. I tried to avoid constructions that sound odd on the other continent but I'm not sure I succeeded.

--Steve Pucci | talk 15:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Michael Marks

If you click on his name in the article, you'll find he's long been dead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.208.110.210 (talk) 06:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Tesla Motors Marketing?

This reads to me as a staged bit of company hype until I see footage of a real vehicle and some third party confirmation of the putative statistics. This whole thing reads like a marketing ploy with Wikipedia furnishing the advertising medium. --User:69.7.41.230

Seat-of-the-pants acceleration statistics have been reported on by several independent press reporters; see for instance this LA Times article by Dan Neil (including video) and this Forbes article by Elizabeth Corcoran. YouTube has even more video. While independent test track information has not yet been published, this is to be expected as common practice for automobile companies during development of a new vehicle. It is unusual, however, for Tesla to allow so many reporters to ride in their 3rd gen evaluation prototypes (development vehicles). The reported efficiency of 133 Wh/km, while quite good, is very much in line with other electric vehicles. Similarly, reports of the energy (56kWh) and power (220kW) content of the li-ion pack are well within the range of other li-ion battery packs. How might we improve the article to sound less like a "marketing ploy"? --Mwarren us 05:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the article reads like an advertisment, the Models section especially, and as asuch I will add an advert warning to the section until the advert feel is gone. Passionless (talk) 22:44, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

That single comment is 3.5 years old and is no longer relevant. The article has gone through multiple revisions by multiple editors since that time. Ng.j (talk) 23:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

These revisions evidently did nothing to solve the adverts, you should know you have been editing this page for over 3.5 years.Passionless (talk) 23:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Solar mileage offset calculation

"Tesla plans to offer home roof mounted solar-photovoltaic systems through Solar City that will offset power used by the home charger, allowing 50 miles (80 kilometers) of travel without burdening the power grid, and thus making the package "energy positive" for a driver whose average daily mileage is less than that."

It's unclear to this reader how the author arrives at his calculation of 50 miles per charge. It all depends on the consumption of energy at home and the size of the solar panel system...the vehicle can be entirely supplied by solar. Also, charging during nighttime off peak hours does not present a burden to the electrical grid. This evens out the power consumption by making use of excess generation at night. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.71.228 (talk • contribs) 01:06, Feb 6, 2007 (UTC)

I think the idea is that the solar system provided through Solar City will be sized to provide, on average, enough energy in one day to power the Tesla Roadster for 50 miles (assuming the 200 Wh/mile figure quoted at Tesla Roadster#Performance, that would be 10 kWh/day). It would thus offset the energy pulled out of the home system by the roadster, by putting that much energy back in, assuming you don't go over the nominal 50 miles in an average day of driving. As you point out, staying under this constraint would make the system net positive to the owner in terms of dollars, and net positive to the electrical grid's "burden", because energy is typically cheaper when being taken out than when it is replaced. --Steve Pucci | talk 14:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

AC Propulsion

While we at Tesla Motors are generally impressed with the caliber of information provided on our company and vehicles here on Wikipedia, there are a couple of minor areas that warrant clarification. For this reason, I have made a few edits to the Wikipedia entry as they relate to the Tesla Roadster and our partners/component suppliers for this vehicle.

I modified the language to say: "Tesla Motors licensed AC Propulsion's Reductive Charging(tm) patent, which integrates the charging electronics into the inverter in a way that reduces mass and complexity. Tesla has designed and builds its own power electronics, motor, and other drivetrain components that incorporate this licensed technology from AC Propulsion."

This more accurately characterizes the relationship between Tesla Motors and AC Propulsion.

-- David Vespremi - Director of Public Relations, Tesla Motors

Advice from a car lover

Hey there, Tesla people! Love your vehicle. Wish I could afford it.

You asked if there were a way to make it sound less like hype/marketing?

Well, first of all, keep in mind the article should be encyclopedic. It should present a neutral point of view (NPOV) and cite sources. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

Keep in mind that this it is very difficult to write about yourself in a totally neutral manner, so extreme care should be taken to ensure a NPOV. Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

This is not to say you can't edit articles about your own company - just that you must be very careful, because it's difficult to see without rose-colored glasses.

In addition, the wikipedia policies and guidelines may prove to be helpful: Wikipedia:List of policies Wikipedia:List of guidelines

And oh, yeah, it may be helpful to create your own wikipedia account, so that you can keep track of everything you've done and to ease communication. Having an account also allows you to easily sign an article with four tildes: ~~~~ becomes CobraA1 07:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

David Vespremi is the only contributor that seems to work for Tesla Motors and his contribution was quite small. The same basic changes were also made in the Tesla Roadster article and I added a citation needed tag where appropriate. Are there specific paragraphs that lack NPOV or where more citation might help? Mwarren us 07:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC) (not affiliated with Tesla Motors)

Mwarren and I seem to have contributed the most to the article, at least lately, and I do not work for Tesla, as much as I would love to.
--Ng.j 21:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't work for Tesla either.--Steve Pucci | talk 21:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Hybrids... or NO? etc.

The article states at the beginning that these are electric vehicles (with same wikipedia link attached). When you go to that electric vehicle link, you'll find that definition includes hybrids. Shouldn't we make it more clear whether or not these Tesla vehicles are hybrids or not?

That also leads me to this sentence found later in the article: "... Transmission fluid and coolant changes will be required as for gasoline-engine cars. ..."

That's confusing... is this saying that the Tesla's WILL require trans fluid & coolant changes or NO? If I knew if this was a hybrid or not in the first place, I guess I could deduce it.

These cars are NOT hybrids, right? They are purely electric cars, no gasoline right? The article just isn't perfectly clear on these questions. I mean, I think one can "deduce" these things, mostly... but... why should one have to go through the effort?... it should be clearer within the article in the first place.

Thanks for your time. Cowicide 18:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Lotus Chassis and Lotus Assembly

I have made a minor revision to correct a reference to the Roadster using a modified Lotus Elise chassis. This is inaccurate, as the chassis is not sourced from Lotus. In addition, I corrected a reference to the assembly being done by Lotus. Assembly includes both Lotus and Tesla employees as Tesla maintains an office at Lotus' factory in Hethel with dedicated employees on site there.

-- David Vespremi, Director of Communications at Tesla Motors

Misnumbered references

Hi- I don't know how to change reference numbers, but the references in this article are misnumbered. There are two reference #5s and two #1s in the text.

Keep up the good work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.16.242 (talk) 04:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not a bug, that's a feature. (I.e. reference [1] pops up in the text agains because the same reference link is used at both places in the article.) - Marcika (talk) 14:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Move of production from Thailand and sales in europe

I added the move of production from Thailand and the future sales in europe with 250 cars of 2009 model on offer here. Anyone knows if any service centers are planned in europe? RGDS Alexmcfire —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexmcfire (talk • contribs)

I would imagine with the establishment of a sales office in Europe that some sort of service center is in the works.... and Tesla has already taken some orders for European sales as well. It would seem borderline insane to have to ship the cars to New York City or even California just to "get a tune-up" and perform routine maintenance. So far I haven't seen anything "official" in terms of where they might be located, but it would be reasonable to presume that they would be near major population centers.... aka London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, etc. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

link cleanup

I removed the following links from the external links section. Some of them might be appropriate for inline references, so I'll list them here:

• Distribution plan for the new Electric Car, Martin Eberhard speaks at Stanford
• Tesla Motors: Affordable Electric Cars are Coming
• Tesla Roadster: The Electric Car that Redefines "Power" (Part 1)
• Tesla Roadster: New Power to the People (Part 2)
• Plug in Cars In Business, Radio 4, September 2006
• Channel 4 news story (contains speculative material and rumors)
• The Guardian newspaper on the Tesla Roadster
• Green Vehicle News on the Tesla Roadster
• Tesla Roadster review by L.A. Times' Pulitzer-winning auto critic Dan Neil
• USF MBA Podcast, Jan 28th, 2007 Audio presentation by Tesla's Co-Founder & CEO
• Green Dream: The Electric Tesla Roadster An October 2007 update from Newsweek.com
• Video interview of Elon Musk by Zadi Diaz of EPIC FU, weekly web show that covers online pop culture (June 17, 2008)

tedder (talk) 20:54, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Some reworking of the layout

Leave any feedback here, I reorganized allot, so if anyone has any issue with it let me know TrevorLSciAct (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Have not heard,Tesla Motors making cars in U.K. I beleive last update

Hello, intrested in Nikola tesla(1856-19430 Founded Tesla rememberance day /Global Energy Independence day on teslaBirthadte jul 10th see google, www.teslasociety.com. Last I heard Tesla motors was making cars in U.K. now? A still viable Auto company ? Thanks! (Dr. Edson Andre' Johnson)Andreisme (talk) 20:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Links to Lotus

In the recalls section, Lotus is mentioned by the text, "Lotus," but is not a hyperlink to Lotus Cars, which it should. MadConan (talk) 12:52, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

How much cost to fuel a Tesla car ????

That information is not clear and I think it's really interesting for the people reading the article. We can see a lot of information about performance, technical, etc. However, the article don't cover this topic, which I think it's extremely interesting for the consumer.

I suggest to add a table comparing how much cost a "load" (for a Tesla car) vs "fuel" (for a normal car), in the following fashion:

Comparison between a Tesla car and a Normal car, both traveling X number of miles

Car X (for example a Lotus car) Tesla car model x (the Tesla model subject of the comparison) Price per gallon / Total price Price per hour of charge / Total price

The idea is to compare how much cost a deposit of a normal car to travel X number of miles versus the price per hour of electricity load that a Tesla car needs to travel that number of miles.

Of course, the electricity rates and price per gallon or liter of fuel depends on every country. I suggest the United States as a model to compare these data. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.31.180.91 (talk) 06:54, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

The naive answer is to multiply the electricity cost by the Roadster's efficiency rating of 28 kW·h⁄100 mi. For example, if electricity costs $0.10⁄kW·h, then a 100 mile drive will cost

$0.10⁄kW·h * 28 kW·h⁄100 mi * 100 mi = $2.80

or $0.028⁄mile for electricity.

Unfortunately, a simple example like this tends to create more controversy than it resolves in the form of "but what about XXX ?!?" questions. The Tesla Roadster discussion page talked about this a couple of years ago and decided to simply point folks to the Electric car#Comparison with internal combustion engine vehicles section so that folks could learn how to make their own comparison using their personal set of cost variables (driving style, electric rate, geography, battery pack aging, insurance, interest rates, maintenance, gasoline price, depreciation, tax benefits, electric generation, gasoline refining, and so on). A total cost of ownership example might be appropriate for WikiHow, but it's too difficult to find consensus in just one encyclopedic article. —sn‾uǝɹɹɐʍɯ (talk) 00:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Lawsuits

Merge Fisker lawsuit from Tesla Model S into this article? I'd like to move the description of the lawsuit with Fisker out of the Model S article and into the lawsuits section here. Comments? Thanks! —sn‾uǝɹɹɐʍɯ (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

No mention of the Tesla BlueStar?

The article is orphaned, and I would think it should be mentioned in this article. --192.77.126.50 (talk) 10:20, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

It was, but someone edited it out. I have put it back in, as it is a critical aspect of Tesla′s long-term corporate strategy.Ng.j (talk) 07:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

plane crash

three engineers died in a plane crash on Feb 17, 2010 shortly after taking off in E. Palo Alto. 99.66.145.201 (talk) 20:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Did this have any significant impact on the corporation? If not, while it is sad, it should not be included per WP:NOTNEWS. Alanraywiki (talk) 00:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Nikola Tesla's ethnicity

Re: recent attempts to mention that Nikola Tesla is Serbian. His ethnicity is irrelevant to this article. Would it make any difference if he was Serbian, Austrian, American or Martian? Nikola Tesla was great at electricity - and that's all that matters. Readers can follow the link if they want to know more about the man.  Stepho  (talk) 13:52, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

How is it irrelevant? Can you elaborate further? --UrbanVillager (talk) 02:41, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

More to the point, how is it relevant? 'Tesla Motors' is an American company producing cars primarily for the American market. It was named after an expert in the electrical field (pun not intended) who did most of his famous work in America and became a naturalised US citizen. But the company could equally well have been named after Maxwell, Faraday, Franklin or Edison (British and American electrical pioneers) and their ethnicity would not make the slightest difference to the article. Any readers who wants to know more about the man can follow the link and find out all about him.

Notice to editors on both sides of the argument. Since we are in the beginnings of an edit war, please do not edit the article about this point - the continual back and forth edits make it hard to make sense of other changes. Instead, make your arguments here. When we have a consensus, then (and only then) should the article be updated. Cheers.  Stepho  (talk) 09:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Your arguments make sence only from the viewpoint of a pioneer of the post-national modernia of the brave new world. Hiding Nikola's ethnicity is convenient only to those who are, in fact, ashamed of it. Thus, it stays in the article! --UrbanVillager (talk) 19:37, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you need some knowledge of my background. I'm Australian. I spent considerable time working in China and married a Chinese wife. I have worked well with Chinese, Brits, Canadians, Latvians, Croations, Poles, Russians, Lithuanians, Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, Indians, Sri-Lankans, Malaysians, Filipinos and many more. Each is proud of their heritage but each recognises that other people are also equally proud of their own heritage too. I have travelled well and love experiencing other cultures. I've watched mainland China trying to merge all it ethnic groups into a single lump and have not liked it. I've watched Australia become a mini clone of the US and have not liked it. Thus, your first sentence can not be treated seriously. For your second sentence, I am not contesting whether he is Serbian or not. I only say that it should be on his own article because his origin doesn't affect this article. You haven't shown how his ethnicity affects this page or the company. Did the company choose that name because they have some ties to Serbia? Did they particular wish to be related to Serbia? Or was it simply because he was an electrical genious that is famous in the same country that the company is in? Since you are trying to add the information about his ethnicity, the onus is on you to provide a reason for it to stay? Cheers.

The ethnicity is irrelevant to the car company. The automobile company was named for Tesla because of his vocation, and that is what should noted. There does not appear to be any reason to keep the ethnicity. Alanraywiki (talk) 22:22, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Anyone's personal experiences are irrelevant as arguments on Wikipedia. Nobody has shown that the addition of Tesla's ethnicity, one word, is to the detriment of the article, and rather, such fury over the mention of Tesla's ethnicity shows that there are some shadow feelings towards Nikola's people, something not uncommon in the Western world. --UrbanVillager (talk) 19:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Given the list of people that I have happily worked with, you may want to reconsider calling me a racist. But you haven't answered, why his ethnicity is important to this article? Does it make a difference to how the company runs? Was his name chosen because the company founders had some affiliation with Serbia? You must give a reason.  Stepho  (talk) 23:13, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

You're missing the point. I'm not saying the company has anything to do with Serbia, I'm saying that Tesla was a Serb. And in that paragraph, we're talking about Tesla, not this company. I stand by my previous comments. --UrbanVillager (talk) 21:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you want the ethnicity of every other person mentioned in the article added? Why just Tesla? Alanraywiki (talk) 21:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Because the company was named after Tesla. Duh. --UrbanVillager (talk) 18:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, we have agreed that the company has nothing to do with Serbia. Now back to the original question (which you have never answered) - how does Tesla the man's ethnicity affect the company? Would it have made any difference if he was from another culture?  Stepho  (talk) 22:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

How does describing that Tesla was a physicist affect the company? It doesn't. It doesn't matter whether the person, animal or object has anything to do with the company named after it, just like Jaguar Cars have nothing to do with the jaguar animal. The point is that in that paragraph, we're talking about Nikola Tesla, not Tesla company, and Nikola's important trait was that he was Serbian:

There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled, the most exciting thought would be that it is a deed of a Serb

— Nikola Tesla

--UrbanVillager (talk) 18:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Tesla was not a physicist, he was an electrical engineer (and an excellent one at that). The company makes electric cars, so it makes sense to name it after a famous electrical engineer - i.e. there is a direct relationship.  Stepho  (talk) 22:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Hm, that's odd, considering this article mentions that Tesla was a physicist. And yet, you're not arguing that the "physicist" bit should be removed. You rather focus on the "Serbian" word. Seems your real motives have been revealed. --UrbanVillager (talk) 20:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This discussion appears to be at an impasse. I will set up a request for comment. Alanraywiki (talk) 19:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea.  Stepho  (talk) 22:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Should the adjective Serb be used to describe Tesla?

A discussion has been held on the talk page where one editor feels it is important to put the ethnicity of the person for whom the company is named, while others feel the ethnicity is irrelevant in this article. Alanraywiki (talk) 19:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The ethnicity is completely irrelevant so far as the company itself is concerned, where Nikola Tesla didn't play a role in terms of its founding. Tesla is involved so far as the inventor of the AC electric motor that Tesla Motors is using in their automobiles. So why is the ethnicity so fundamentally important to this article? To the best of my knowledge nobody even remotely related to Nikola Tesla is even associated with Tesla Motors either as an investor or as an employee, not even a cousin's roommate's sister-in-law or something more tenuous than even that. Tesla Motors was founded by a couple of Americans and a South African in California. Is there something more that needs to be said about the ethnicity of those involved? --Robert Horning (talk) 20:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

No need to mention Tesla's ethnicity. The first thing that comes to mind at the mention of Tesla Motors is the ingenuity of Silicon Valley (other than green technology) which is rightly captured in the lead. Zuggernaut (talk) 19:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Ethnicity is irrelevant. I tend to slightly agree with those saying so. I would only add one other point. Nikola Tesla lived a great deal of his life in the USA. As such, the user wishing to add in Tesla's ethnicity might see that there is also an ambiguity, based on his reasoning, as to whether Tesla should be described as the "Serbian physicist" or the "American physicist". Better to just avoid any such ambiguities altogether and not include any such mention in the article. Readers can easily click on the link to Tesla's bio wikipage and learn more about the man regarding these unimportant facts.Chhe (talk) 04:23, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant I don't think it contributes anything to the article, even if his ethnicity is clear (as Chhe correctly states, it is not). The disambiguation page doesn't list his nationality. I think the only qualifiers used with his name should be related to his profession 'engineer', ect.--hacky (talk) 04:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Consensus is that ethnicity is irrelevant Ng.j (talk) 07:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Disputed

I am disputing a number of the factual assertions made in this article. Elon Musk is talked about so much here that it makes me wonder if I'm reading the article about Tesla Motors ar the bio about Musk. Furthermore, he's repeatedly referred to as the "founder of Tesla Motors"; Tesla was founded by Eberhard and Tarpenning. Musk was just an initial investor who took a direct interest in his investment. Using the logic that Musk was a founder because he invested money would follow that Bill Gates would also be a founder of every company he ever invested in. I have added one fact tag, but this article needs more than I could ever insert in a timely manner. It's more like a hagiography of Musk than anything. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Someone undid all of my edits telling to read the Lawsuits section. Ok, so Musk is a "co-founder". That still doesn't address the fact that this article is basically an Elon Musk hagiography, that it needs additional references for verification, and needs a great deal of work to make it conform to NPOV. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the problems you are asserting here, especially in a broad and non-specific manner. The "co-founder" issue is factually accurate, although it is useful to point out that Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning were the ones that I consider more of the proper co-founders. Elon Musk wanted to simply have an electric vehicle prototype, but while talking over lunch they decided to go into the serial production business of building automobiles. So yeah, Elon Musk as the co-founder in this sense is correct as it was Eberhard and Straubel who did the engineering, but Musk provided the initial financing and contacts for additional financing later on. Elon Musk also has an engineering background, so he was also involved somewhat in the technical decisions even though he wasn't involved with the day to day decisions to run the company until after the resignation of Martin Eberhard. Elon Musk was around when the name "Tesla Motors" was coined and when the office was opened... so does that make him a co-founder? If you are insisting upon sources for this, I'll try to dig them up. Some of this can be found on the Tesla blogs, and there is some additional information on Martin Eberhard's blog (which can only be accessed now from archive.org).

Beyond that, what are the specific "multiple issues" that you have here, and let's see if we can get them addressed?

BTW, I do think there has been some astroturfing on the part of Elon Musk since the big corporate shakeup to position himself as a co-founder and to take credit for that term more than the term justifies, but the use of that term is in many secondary publications outside of Wikipedia and something that I don't think you can reliably remove without some significant explanation and perhaps some original research too. The secondary sources seem to back up the current version of this article and Wikipedia is not the proper forum for trying to correct this issue. Complaining to some of the various editors of auto magazines who write about Tesla Motors that Elon Musk is not properly a co-founder, or write a blog yourself about the issue and attempt to spread the idea among Tesla fans might be a much better way to deal with the issue. If you want to write an NPOV and factually correct with proper sources paragraph or two about the founding of Tesla Motors that goes into the true role which Elon Musk had with founding the company, it certainly would be a useful addition to this article. Engaging in an edit war is not the proper way to handle this issue. Finding a quote from Elon Musk prior to 2008 that shows him acknowledging that he is not a co-founder would help too... something I think you would have a hard time trying to find. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any further issue with calling Musk a co-founder, since that title is verifiable by reliable sources (this was my own oversight). The issue I have is with the number of times his name is mentioned in this article. I haven't done an exact word count, but again and again, I see "Co-founder Elon Musk", "CEO Elon Musk", "Elon Musk" "Founder and cheif designer Elon Musk"... The current article gives readers the impression that Tesla = Elon Musk, that he basically designed and constructed the car himself, that all these other people associated with the company were just his minions or people who got kicked out "after he took over and rescued the company from disaster" (my emphasis). In short, the article seems to be a victim of an astroturfing campaign (as you say), some sort of revisionism to make it look like Musk overwhelmingly created Tesla out of empty space mostly by himself. This is probably due to the fact that the media seems to focus on him quite a bit, and those are probably because of deliberate PR campaigns. As the article currently stands, it should be retitled "Elon Musk and Tesla", since the company Tesla Motors is primarily presented here as it relates to Musk. I realize Musk is the public face of Tesla and he's one of the more important people associated with the company, but this article should be more about the company, rather than about how it relates to their CEO. Our article should be more about the company, less about the PR presented by the company in order to promote itself in conjunction with their popular CEO. In short, perhaps WP:UNDUE is an appropriate guideline for me to link. Most of the problems can be fixed with editing. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Some of this may be due to the way it has been written, in a rather piecemeal fashion too. I've had this on my watchlist for several years, and done a few tweaks and pokes at the content from time to time but nothing serious. The article has certainly evolved over time mainly from press releases and news making events about the company. That perhaps is the reason for this emphasis on Elon Musk, as he certainly has been the focus of most of those news articles and often the spokesman for the company as well. This has been particularly true since the rollout of the Roadster as it went into production.

Discounting the pictures where Elon Musk is clearly identifiable in the images and the corporate information sidebar where is role is clearly proper and not undue, the two sections where I think the most work ought to be concentrated is the History section and the Lawsuits. In terms of the Lawsuits, I don't know how else to really simplify that as it really did center around Elon Musk and his relationship to the company.

Basically, I would agree to a major overhaul of the history section simply to make it flow as a narrative and to perhaps put some structure to that section. I also feel that your concerns about the overuse of the name "Elon Musk" would be dealt with through rewriting that sections, which to me in addition to that undue influence also seems short and choppy with what appears to be bad grammar and poor literary structure as well. Try to read it out loud to see what I mean if you disagree. If you want to be pro-active rather than a critic, would you have a suggestion for what kind of "outline" you think would be useful in terms of doing a re-write of that whole section? I'd be willing to poke through that outline and give a couple of other suggestions, and perhaps some other editors familiar with Tesla Motors might be interested in helping too. The raw content with reliable sources is huge that could apply here, so we have a lot to pick and choose through that can make this section much closer to something you'd find in a featured article. --Robert Horning (talk) 20:19, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I have been following the company for several years and it is clear that Elon Musk was not merely an investor but a founder. I added a citation to a blog that Martin Eberhard wrote about Musk's early and deep involvement with the design -- from Musk's insistence on carbon fiber body panels to his design of the headlights and powertrain components. Eberhard stated plainly in the lawsuit settlement that Musk was a co-founder of the company. I also added a paragraph about the second recall after Robert's suggestion on this breaking bit of news. Thanks, Robert. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rexmontaigne (talk • contribs) 21:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps it can be improved simply by a thorough edit and a revamp of the history section. As time allows I'll start working on something in userspace that we can discuss. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

2nd Roadster Recall

This is breaking news as it were and I don't have the time to put it into this article, but I think it would be appropriate. More sources may be found on this topic, I'm pretty sure:

Tesla Motors Recalling Roadster over Fire Concerns (Oct 8th, 2010)

-- Robert Horning (talk) 21:13, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Models section clean-up

Alright, so one complaint I have on this article is the length given to the Tesla Roadster, Tesla Roadster Sport, and to a lesser degree the Model S. As all these vehicles have there own page, that this page is suppose to be about the company more than each product, and as the page is easily long enough to deem splitting, I suggest we reduce the size of these sections to less than 10 lines and 1 photo. (Roadster has over 50 lines and 3 photos). This reduction will not only filter out the less important information (eg. "The Roadster will also be one of almost 1,000 cars featured in the upcoming PlayStation 3 racing simulation game, Gran Turismo 5."), but also remove quasi-advertising (Improved interior sound reduction including new front fender liner material make the cabin even quieter). Let me know if your fine with this/suggestions/want to work together (looking at you User:Ng.j) Passionless (talk) 03:43, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, what I said about the intro being too short was based on this:Wikipedia:Lead section#Length. So 3-4 paragraphs is suppose to be appropriate, though fixing the intro should wait until the article contents are settled.Passionless (talk) 03:47, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree in principle with what you are proposing. Specific model information should be on their individual pages, and the information here should be a condensed highlight. It should be a rewrite, rather than pruning though. Glad you are seeking consensus before making large changes. I'd like to see what others have to say. Ng.j (talk) 04:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Well I started, I removed some of the least important stuff first, there's still more to be done, but I will slow down so you have time to remark on my changes. Also, I doubt there will be much consensus past us as usually only important articles get more than two people at any specific time caring enough to read the discussion and add input. Passionless (talk) 07:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I can tell you that I do not agree with this edit. When someone walks by and pumps a couple of million dollars into a company, and it's sourced, then it's probably relevant. Drmies (talk) 20:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I know its relevant, thats why I left it to say that he was the chief investor, if you want to add the exact dollar term you can. I'm not really sure what else there was in that edit that follows your complaint,Passionless (talk) 05:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Factory article

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles#NUMMI and Tesla Factory about the scope of the Tesla Factory article.  Stepho  (talk) 06:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Logo

Would anyone like to upload the company logo? I'm pretty new to Wikipedia (editing, anyway), so I'll leave it to a seasoned and experienced person. This is what it should be:

Tesla Red Flag —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.108.18 (talk) 06:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Number of vehicles sold to date

The article does not mention the number of vehicles sold to date. Can someone provide this information? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.166.155.113 (talk) 04:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

File:Tesla Motors logo.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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$ vs US$

John asked me about this on my talk page yesterday but I was otherwise occupied to answer him straight away. Probably better here anyway. It is a US company but sales have started in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore (all of which use different $ currencies) and has also expanded operations to Europe. To my mind, this makes the use of the unadorned '$' to be ambiguous - especially to readers in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. No mention of Canada was made but I would also be very surprised if sales were not made there in Canadian dollars. Also consider that Toyota has bought a significant part of the company, which adds to the international flavour.  Stepho  talk  02:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

All good points. I think the United States entry in the infobox and linking $ the first time the currency is mentioned, cover this adequately enough for our readers to understand which dollar is being discussed. --John (talk) 07:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I would disagree with the above, although adding "USD" after values where the number is ambiguous would be useful... or note other currencies being used if those values are being quoted. I seriously don't think that anybody would mistaken the values in this article as being anything other than U.S. Dollars given the context of the article. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Robert, you didn't say which of us you disagree with. I've done business in Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada and the US. It's not always obvious which currency is being used in contracts between countries, overseas sales, newspaper reports on foreign events, etc and getting the currency right can make an eight-fold difference. Regardless, I'm happy enough with John's rewrite, which mentioned USD near the top.  Stepho  talk  22:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Currently the only?

-"It is currently the only automaker building and selling a zero-emission sports car, the Tesla Roadster, in serial production (as opposed to prototype or evaluation series production)". Is this still true? What about the Fisker Karma? Mamalujo (talk) 18:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

That is a pretty recent change. Provide a source verifying that Fisker is producing something too. Then again, you can change the wording of the article, which is the point of making this a wiki as sometimes stuff like this does change. When it was written, it was a true statement of fact even if that "fact" has changed. Considering that the Roadster is being phased out of production, I would think claiming Tesla as even having a production vehicle at the moment would be in question. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Comments and suggestions

1. I think that after Model S, all the other cars should be grouped into a separate category. They are not quite 100% Tesla cars and show be listed under another section that could be called "Collaborations" or something similar.

2. This article says "Tesla was founded in San Carlos, California, a city in the region known as Silicon Valley." The article on Silicon Valley says "Geographically, the Silicon Valley encompasses all of the Santa Clara Valley including the city of San Jose (and adjacent communities), the southern Peninsula, and the southern East Bay." I live in Silicon Valley and I am pretty sure San Carlos is not part of it.

3. "Starting in late 2007, Daimler and Tesla Motors began working closely to integrate Tesla’s lithium-ion battery packs and charging electronics into the first 1,000 units of Daimler’s electric smart car."

I assume the word "smart" should be capitalized. I think the issue here is the brand called "Smart".

ICE77 (talk) 03:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Top gear court case

The following has been added and reverted a few times: "Tesla has lost the major part of the lawsuit, other claims have yet to be decided. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/19/top-gear-not-libel-tesla"

Why is this controversial? It seems like simply keeping up-to-date with the results of the court case, as reported by a major newspaper. No opinion has been expressed, except possibly by Greg in a revision comment in the history, which does not form part of the article.  Stepho  talk  14:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Classification EV or EVM?

Would tesla be classified as an EV or EMV? The manufacturing process divulges the fact that they have specialized electro-magnetic motors and equipment. I think maybe its an Electro-magnetic hybrid vehicle. If it were an electric vehicle it wouldn't have a magnetized motor that recharges or spins via magnetic links. The motor would just have magnetic senses for alignment like any ordinary electric motor. Murriemir 24 January 2012

Every electric vehicle must use an electric motors. Every electric motor uses electro-magnetic fields. This includes even the exotic, impractical drives such as linear motors, mass drivers and ion thrusters. There is no distinction between EV and EMV.  Stepho  talk  00:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. This is fundamental physics, not some sekrit device they have created. Greglocock (talk) 01:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Products section

Under products, I do not think that Model X should not be listed, as it is not in production yet. The company does have reservations for it though. It will be almost a year for deliveries to begin. Should Model X be removed?

Well, it is certainly not a current product as far as manufacturing goes. But it is, apparently (per sources) an existing product as far as product orders go. So it is fair to cover it in the article, as long as sources are provided to support all claims. But we should not indicate that it is (yet) in production; only that orders are being taken for a model that has been disclosed at auto show events, is late in design, and is early in production line fit out, etc. in the factory. Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Inadequate battery supply in the battery production market

Should this sort of information possibly be reflected in the article Tesla Considers Building The World's Biggest Lithium-Ion Battery Factory? Seems that it is adversely affecting 4Q2013 production of Tesla's. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:13, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said that more details will be coming out in April. Not much at all is known right now other than he wants to build the worlds largest battery cell factory that can recycle batteries, vastly increase production of the 18650 cells, and that "numerous companies will work together on the project" so I'm not sure how that would be included. It may be necessary to wait until the end of the quarter, when the details are supposed to be released. He said the company is in the final stages of choosing a location. Right now it would likely be more speculation than anything. Sevrandy (talk) 03:42, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Chargers

The article says they 'build electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain components', but don't they also build their own chargers. Or does some other company provide them? The Super Chargers seem to be Level 3 chargers, and are supposed to be free for Tesla owners, but did they build and design them themselves? (Floppydog66 (talk) 09:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC))

Tesla Motors has funded, designed, and installed all the current SuperChargers. I am not sure who manufactures them. They are DC fast chargers which run at up to 120kW in the USA. So yes, they are L3 chargers. Otherwise they would be EVSE units, not chargers. Sevrandy (talk) 03:57, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Number of employees

We have references giving different numbers of employees:

1. 2,000+ http://www.teslamotors.com/about 'Employees: 2,000+'
2. 2,964 http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?FilingID=9144882-11733-102700&type=sect&dcn=0001193125-13-096241 'As of December 31, 2012, we had approximately 2,964 full-time employees'
3. 6000 http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/2895786596x0x720221/5647bed2-1c27-4b40-abd3-dd11f8bc474e/Investor%20Presentation%20-%20Jan%202014.pdf page 5 'Employees: ≈6,000'

Thoughts?  Stepho  talk  22:40, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, it should be cleaned up. And it is a great illustration of why bare URLs are so bad when used a references instead of {{full}} citations, leading to {{linkrot}}. Assuming the various numbers were correct at the time these various sources were referenced in the article, it is also a great illustration of why encylopedic prose should often have a {{when}} question answered in the prose. The second of the two examples does this; so assuming the citation is made to be a full citation, then that employee count might be a useful addition to the History section of the article, showing growth over time. Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:13, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The third link is to a presentation which says January 2014 on page 1. But I find it hard to see a jump from 3000 employees to 6000 empoylees in one year. Not impossible during a time of great expansion but would still a mighty jump. And it does gel with the first link to the official webiste which says 2000+. Possibly the official website hasn't been updated for a while. Possibly one is counting full-time factory staff only and the other is counting part-time staff and dealer staff as well.  Stepho  talk  00:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Your thought makes some sense. Certainly Tesla has found it necessary to rather significantly increase their marketing and sales force to open all the company-owned Tesla stores, and folks to support the raplidly growing Supercharger network. But in any case, we just need to find good reliable sources and get the article written consistently with those sources, both for the historical claims, and for the current company employment. N2e (talk) 01:04, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I really would not be surprised. Tesla Motors expanded to numerous countries last year, increased production, opened many new service centers and stores, greatly increased SuperCharger construction speeds (although I would assume contractors do a lot of that), and is likely increasing their workforce to design more vehicles and to add more manpower to the Model S, X, and Gen 3 work groups. The Gen 3 is only a year or so away from a prototype model, according to Elon Musk. I'm honestly not surprised Tesla Motors doubled their workforce since the end of 2012. They have expanded a lot. Sevrandy (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

N2e, I do not know anything about the citations. In fact, today was the first time I actually cited something on this site. Is there a guide you could refer me to, perhaps..? Sevrandy (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Sure, glad to help. The two places I would recommend you start with are Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners and Wikipedia:Citing sources. That should help you get off on the right foot.

After you read those, and see how you might use that info in adding a source or two, I would be happy to help you learn how to source better. You might either ask me to review a couple of your attempts at sourcing, or alternatively, you could, for example, find me a good reliable source, preferably a secondary source like a newspaper or magazine or journal article (and its URL), and I could write a good citation for you in the particular article you mention to show you how. Cheers. N2e (talk) 05:37, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Would you mind reading my "Business Strategy" topic (below) and tell me what you think of that source? Thanks for your reply Sevrandy (talk) 01:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I added one more citation today and noticed someone added quite a few more (perhaps you did that?). I haven't had the chance to look at the link you provided yet, I actually spent too much time working on the section as it is. Ill have more time later this week (perhaps tomorrow) to read up on citations. Thanks for your help Sevrandy (talk) 02:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Business Strategy

I haven't really made major edits before, I actually never cited a source before (hope I did it right, is the "ref name" required?). I plan to add some more to the Business Strategy section and fix it up tomorrow (going to bed now). I will try to make it more "Wikipedia proper." What are your recommendations? Please tell me what you think about how to improve the section so I can try to find my mistakes, how to improve it more, and what your ideas are.

For source citations, the ref name is not required. But is often quite helpful to future editors. With a ref name added (e.g., <ref name=foobar>{{cite news ... </ref>), that same source may be used to support some other statement in another part of the article by simply adding <ref name=foobar/> where one wants the cite to appear. N2e (talk) 12:10, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Some things I think I need to do: include more sources, make it flow better, split it into two or more paragraphs, and add more details. I am very familiar with Tesla Motors and EVs, so I need to make sure I cite sources where needed, even though I know much of this without looking it up. I was wondering, would the Tesla Motors locations page be a good source to cite for the number of states with store/gallery locations? Or would I even need to cite that? That is what I checked for the current store locations number.

Yes, you are correct. If we as Wikipedia editors just add encyclopedic statements out of what we "know" in our particular heads, that is termed original research, and the encyclopedia would be a poor one indeed if it depended on the head knowledge of the random writers on the internet. Cheers. N2e (talk) 12:10, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Please let me know of any thoughts you have on the section, thanks Sevrandy (talk) 03:39, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I did some more editing, created paragraphs, and tried to make it better. Perhaps the proposed laws would be a good addition? Many states have had laws proposed designed to limit or even block Tesla's operations in the the respective states. I have plenty of sources I could easily cite. I actually went to the state house hearing on the bill designed to block Tesla in my state.

Great. I did some subsequent editing to the Business model section, and fixed some issues that had been there before your edits. N2e (talk) 12:36, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I think "Business strategy" should be renamed "Sales Strategy." I also believe that a new "Business Strategy" section should be created, which outlines the actual business strategy of the company (start with a high end, low production car to show what is possible, then build a mid production, high end car to pay for R&D and bring in capital, then produce a mass production mid grade car that takes advantage of the lower costs of manufacturing because the company is already producing cars. This is the basic outline of their business strategy). The SuperCharger network SHOULD be included under business strategy. While this is not article worthy, the question has actually been asked by the media before: does Tesla Motors want to be the GM of electric cars, or the Exxon of electric car charging? Regardless, SuperChargers are very important to the Tesla business model. They are designed to eliminate range anxiety and create a car capable of cross-country travel on par with an ICEV. It gives Tesla Motors a competitive edge over the competition, something no other automaker will have when they offer vehicles with competitive range.

I would like to do the above. Rename the current "Business strategy" to "Sales Strategy," create a new "Business Strategy," describe the plan, then devote a paragraph to the Super Chargers under the "Business Strategy" heading. After this, I hope to update some older information on other parts of the article, improve the "Technology" section, and check some of the sources.

Please let me know of your thoughts, I probably won't do this until Tuesday or Thursday. Thanks for your help Sevrandy (talk) 02:01, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you are generally on the right track. I did not have time to review your second set of edits. But generally, in Wikipedia, being Bold is encouraged: make the edits you think are warranted. If other editors have an issue, they should then simply Revert your edit and enter into a Discussion on the Talk page.

In the meantime, for major edits to an article, it can also be quite wise to discuss them on the Talk page in advance, and see if you can get buy-in from the other editors who frequent that page. If you want to take this approach, and really get the feedback prior to your edits, I might suggest you consider allowing a bit longer amount of time to pass from your proposal to your edits. I've seen a week often used; then, if no discussion or objection has surfaced, the editor just notes something to that effect of "Seeing no comment/objection, I just went ahead and made the change." on the Talk page below where they put the original proposal. YMMV, but that's what I've often see work quite well. Cheers. N2e (talk) 12:36, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was consensus to merge and when the car is actually named and details are given, a new article could be created for it

---

The BlueStar article is too short and there are not enough details for this concept vehicle yet. It does not even have an official name (except for the code name), it is only a concept vehicle that is not even finished and shown to the public yet. BlueStar should not have its own page until it has an official name and more details (I would assume it would be in 2015). Currently, the article is only one paragraph and cannot really be expanded, but the details could be merged into this article. Most of the known details seem to already be in this article, so it is also kind of redundant. It would be updated more frequently on this page anyway. When the car is actually named and details are given, a new article could be created for it. Sevrandy (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

On the Tesla Motors page, BlueStar can be under "Future models" or under its on heading, in that area. Sevrandy (talk) 19:16, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support merge. A separate article can be recreated when enough content is available and if the car becomes a reality.--Mariordo (talk) 23:41, 5 January 2014 (UTC) Mariordo

• I support the merger. I agree with Mariordo's solution. Place it under "Future models" and create the article when there is enough information, or indeed if it becomes a reality.--Gg53000 (talk) 12:28, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

• I'm going to OPPOSE the proposed merger. Rationale: the Tesla BlueStar article is sourced with over a dozen sources, which seem to show both notability and verifiability as a proposed electric automobile. Wikipedia standards being what they are, that is more than sufficient for an independent and separate article in the WP article space. Heck, we have articles on garage bands with nary a source, and they are very hard to successfully AfD if they have even two sources from a local newspaper; so Tesla BlueStar makes the WP cut. Moreover, the existing article contains too much material to merge into the Tesla Motors article without undue emphasis in that broader article. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:39, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• I support the merge too. Yes, there are shorter articles in wikipedia about garage bands. The difference here is, that this relates to full fledged article that's mentioning BlueStar project as part of their future portfolio. This separate article is just few lines richer. As Gg53000 said, when the project will near it's production there will be more information available and the the article could be worth of a separate article. Aasami 09:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support, an unfinished project is not notable enough in itself, regardless of how many sources is backing up the speculations. Cecil Huber (talk) 23:51, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Model E

A model e section should be added as there are rumors for this car to be for "everyone" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.194.202.66 (talk) 04:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

We need solid, reliable references, not rumours.  Stepho  talk  05:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Elon Musk calls it the Model E at 8.18 in the youtube video https://plus.google.com/117039636053462680924/posts

Oops, wrong url. it should have been http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR1HEA_2erc — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.236.231 (talk) 02:28, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I did not review the youtube link given; but I do recall sometime in the past year or two where Musk joked about a model E, and did so in the context of the auto industry folks potentially putting the various Tesla model designators together, as if the letters were an anagram. So it is possible that is merely a joke, for some publicity, etc. Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:17, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I heard Elon Musk call the Gen 3 the Model E in an interview about the Gen 3 vehicle. I wouldn't call it the Model E yet, he may have called it that because the reporter interviewing him did, and it is a fairly common name for it at this point. We still do not know what the final vehicle's name will be and we should continue to call it the BlueStar/Gen 3 until then, which are both official names for it, at the time being. Sevrandy (talk) 03:54, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Tesla abandons Model E trademark:

http://insideevs.com/tesla-gen-iii-longer-tesla-model-e/

Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2014 (UTC) . Updated: 7 May to indicate trademark abandoned

Think you misread the article. It's just abandoned the name, not the future vehicle! Warren (talk) 16:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah the trademark was abondoned, which is what I meant.   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:24, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Fire incidents

The fire incidents section is getting too long (and it is missing the fire related to the wall chargers and subsequent recall) and causing undue balance with other topics and issues presented in the article. I believe there is no need to keep adding each incident in this section because they are discussed in detailed at "Plug-in electric vehicle fire incidents#Tesla_Model_S." Also, because of the nature of each incident is different and for the sake of NPOV it is difficult to keep the entry for each incident short. Eventually, if we continue to add each incident, there may be enough material for creating a separate article just for Tesla's fire incidents. Shall we remove the detailed entries and just keep a brief introductory paragraph? Any comments.--Mariordo (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you distracted by the blonde POTD, or the fast car? The blue pill or the red pill?Allen750 (talk) 15:32, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

As this is a company article and not about a specific model, a much briefer and tighter edit is needed to cover issues relevant to the company itself (such as impact on share value...). Especially as it seems to closely mirror the article Mariordo mentions above. Warren (talk) 15:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

All our Patent Are Belong to you

CEO Mr. Musk said: "All our Patent Are Belong to you" If you look at the US Patent- and Trademark Office - Patent Ownership- database http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat (tesla motors as Assignor name) it seems all the tesla patents belong since years Midland Loan Services Inc. or PNC Bank. Conveyance:Security agreement. Can anybody explain that? Excuse my english,i am German.--92.229.152.1 (talk) 20:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Why past tense?

Especially in the Supercharger section, so much of the text is written in the past tense, giving the impression that the plans discussed were abandoned or heavily revised. Suggest change of instances of 'were' to 'is planned'.

This seems to be an effort to future proof the article. Do we want to have to change this to future tense now and then change it to past once it is completed? I couldn't find clear guidelines on this from Wikimedia. 50.198.221.241 (talk) 16:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Just now I skimmed the article (with special attention to the Supercharger section) and I can't see anything wrong with the tense. Could you highlight a few of the sentences that are causing you trouble?  Stepho  talk  21:19, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Supercharger article

I feel that this topic needs a supercharger article, so I've written up a draft here. This will use content from some existing articles, and I'll add some new content soon. Any help is appreciated. Epicgenius (talk) 23:51, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

NIKOLA TESLA REMEMERANCE DAY JAN.7TH,2015

The namesake of the Tesla car Nikola Tesla91856-1943) will be rememebred Jan.7th 2015 the 72nd anniversary of the great inventors death Jan.7th,1943! Also, in 1990 mentioned on the talk radio show Billy goodmans Whats happening show KVEG that a giid name for an eleletric car woukd be TESLA!! Anyways reneber the great inventor Nikola Tesla jan.7th2015 Thanks Dr.Edson Andre' Johnson D.d. (See Global Energy indeppendence Day founded by me Jul.10th 2005v Jul.10th was teslas birthday date!````` — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.184.0.241 (talk) 19:28, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Breakout Model 3 into its own article?

When should the Model 3 get its own article? As we get closer to its release it would seem to me that the amount of information on it would warrant it having its own article. --EncycloComp (talk) 20:43, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Still not much info out there... The X isn't even launched yet... so no rush as it will just be full of conjecture. Release before 2017 unlikely from Tesla's own sources. Warren (talk) 21:39, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Number of supercharger stations

There was a reference to http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2014/01/16/tesla-sales-blow-past-competitors-but-with-success-comes-scrutiny/ (which on 16 Jan 2014 said "With 65 chargers in the U.S., 14 in Europe, and plans to expand it to China, ..."). A couple of days ago the WP article text said "As of mid May 2014, there are 90 stations operating in the United States and 16 in Europe and 3 in China." And the newly modified text says "As of Juney 2014, there are 98 stations operating in the United States, 23 in Europe and 3 in China."

Guys, just updating the numbers isn't good enough - you must provide a reference that supports the new numbers. Otherwise we have to go back to the last known numbers that have a reference.  Stepho  talk  05:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree 100%. I consider it irresponsible to just change the numbers without having a reference. After all, to change the numbers the info had to come from somewhere. Dropping in a bare URL ref takes almost no time. While it s certainly better to have a fully filled in citation it is vastly better to have something as a reference than nothing.

While my edit summary states that I was undoing the change to "Juney", I actually cleaned it up and provided a reference. The reference is a primary source which is not preferred, but is acceptable for strictly factual data.

Darin-0, while we are talking about your edit it is not my intent to single it, or you, out. I know that sometimes we are in a hurry, and crap happens (e.g. maybe your system crashed or something). At least for me, your edit was just the one that happened to trigger the frustration of having to deal with this type of thing on a regular basis across many articles. — Makyen (talk) 17:03, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Agree with above: supercharger station numbers should only be updated with a source. N2e (talk) 18:43, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I just updated the supercharger station numbers: 280 by 17 December 2014. The source is this one: <ref name=jalop20141217>, by Lavrinc (What Will Tesla And Elon Musk Over Promise Next?) in Jalopnik. That source also includes an updated breakdown by continent/major market, but I did go to that level of detail, choosing to leave a higher-level encyclopedic statement about growth in 2013 adn 2014. N2e (talk) 18:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I updated the nuber of supercharging stations using the official Tesla website for the total number of stations and the the unofficial supercharger map website for a breakdown by region, since the offical Tesla website no longer provides the breakdown. Is there any problem with using these sources to keep the numbers on Wikipedia current? Lucien504 (talk) 23:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Financials

I see that somebody has removed the latest quarterly results from the article, claiming a historical record would be more useful (not arguing with that)

What would people like to see?

date	net profit ($M)
mar 2015	waiting
dec 2014	-108
sep 2014	-75
jun 2014	-62
mar 2014	-50
Example	Example
sep 2013	-38
Example	Example
Example	Example
Example	Example
Example	Example
Example	Example
Example	Example
Example	Example
Example	Example

sources http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TSLA+Income+Statement http://ir.teslamotors.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-14-403635&CIK=1318605

Greglocock (talk) 01:50, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

My view is to think about what we would be interested in reading in say 5 years time. Quarterly results tend to be very much a WP:recentism thing. Much better to have yearly results only. Quarterly results are only important for recent events (don't care in 5 years time), seasonal events (doesn't apply here) and unusual events (better to call it out in the main text rather than flood the table).  Stepho  talk  03:57, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm with Stepho. Reading any other article I don't find quarterly financials useful. Why would it be different here? Leave them out imo. MartinezMD (talk) 12:42, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi have you got any other example of low tech startups in their first few years which quote financials? Thanks Greglocock (talk) 02:54, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

OK how about

year end	Net profit (M$)	Gross profit ($M)	Revenue ($M)
2015
2014	-294	882	3198
2013	-74	456	2013
2012	-396	30	413
2011
2010

-Agree with yearly results, table looks OK. Financials are a cornerstone in business development, and as such should be available for common knowledge. TGCP (talk) 19:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Many sources recently quoted the primary source conference call; transcribed in 15 pages here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 TGCP (talk) 17:14, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Dealership section - status and map

The article is 160kB; well over the 100kB suggested limit. Parts could be trimmed, and sections could be spawned, such as the Dealership section.

Incomplete list of US states for Tesla sales

I tried making a map with more details than http://www.mojomotors.com/blog/where-can-tesla-sell-cars/ : but conditions vary from state to state. It will take more work from more editors to improve on the map from Mojo. This is Wikipedia, so we should have sources for each condition. I tried importing https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States,_administrative_divisions_-_XY.svg into InkScape, but got errors. I used OpenOffice Draw to degroup and color, but could not export to .svg and Wikimedia will not import .odg.

I suggest 4 colors; green, light green, orange, red.

Green - Fully permissive state: California, Florida, NY

light green - Some store restrictions: GA [1] , NJ [2] , MAss [3] , Maryland [4] , NC , NH [5]

Orange - Gallery only: Texas

Red - No boutique allowed: Michigan [6] [7] , WV [8]

White - Not yet investigated: rest

Please contribute with sources and colors for states. TGCP (talk) 22:12, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Disruption - pass the sick bag, Alice

While I'm sure Tesla's marketing people are pleased with the disruption section, it doesn't seem encyclopedic or balanced and does not even attempt to assess the claims made. Anybody else think the same way or am I just a meanie? Greglocock (talk) 03:23, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree. I'm a big supporter of Tesla , but that section definitely needs some major editing. Much closer to a corporate brochure than an encyclopedia as written. ThomasAndrewNimmo (talk) 05:13, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I think Tesla have done a lot of good stuff, but:-

advanced power electronics - what does this mean? it's an electric car, it won't just have bits of fusewire and nails for an electric circuit. woo disruptive. I suspect the power electronics in a Prius are more complex, for example.

Cd=0.24 - check out the EV1. woo disruptive.

various bits of metal - side intrusion bars. All modern cars have them. The Lunar module doesn't

capabilities updated without changing hardware. Also known as flashing the EEPROM, been around since oo, 1988, 27 of your Earth years woo disruptive.

aerospace-grade bolts. OFFS, you pick up a catalog, you choose a grade of bolt. The cylinder head bolt on your car is probably stronger.woo disruptive.

Tesla may well be disruptive in the future, but at the moment it is not profitable at building cars, and has yet to make good on many pronouncements (which given Musk's enthusiasm in interviews is not surprising)

First passenger car made in North America with aluminium body and chassis- should be easy enough to check

Very rigid safety cage- not that rigidity in a safety cage is necessarily a great thing, but put up or shut up

Greglocock (talk) 10:41, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

After having tried to make sense of a few lines of this subsection in the article, I have become convinced that the above given issues are valid and that this Tesla Motors sales pitch is unsalvageable.

I suggest we reduce it to a single sentence, without a section header. Lklundin (talk) 05:41, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Founders

I removed the founder Elon Musk, as he was not around when the company was founded. This seems to be legally settled years ago by Elon, after injection money, and the change was reverted. I believe we should reflect facts and not just legal decisions. You are a founder or you aren't. There's no way to become a founder of a company if you weren't before, no matter what amount of money you are about to pay. Well, I sem to see it like that.

Any of you have ideas how to behave here? Wesko (talk)wesko — Preceding undated comment added 11:16, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Sales figure

The vertical axis currently incorrectly states cumulative sales, but should be quartely deliveries (not cumulative). This is highly misleading as the figure implies 1487 sales in the second quarter (an order of magnitude off from the 11 thousand vehicles that were actually delivered). bericht 2015-09-20

Moved to end as per standard practice TGCP (talk) 10:02, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Model Y

Here is the deleted tweet about Model Y [9]. Not sure such a blip is notable; secret plans come and go. A more expensive and popular Crossover_(automobile) version of Model 3 however is likely as it is the platform that costs money, the rest is more easy to develop. As soon as a more official statement is made, it should be included. TGCP (talk) 10:35, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

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Musk talk in Hong Kong

Musk talked a few days ago in Hong Kong at the StartmeupHK Venture Forum - Elon Musk on Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Talks for all of the first part is on Tesla, electric cars, happenings in China re Tesla, etc. May be helpful to someone in improving this article. Or not. Here is the link to the video of the interview, some 40 minutes long (but he later gets to talking SpaceX, rockets, Mars architecture, etc., so all of that is not Tesla/EVs). Also mentions "quite likely we'll do a truck..." (not sure I've heard that Tesla/Musk idea previously.) Cheers. N2e (talk) 15:36, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Tesla, the new Ford

Tesla is called the new Ford, as maker of all-electric cars. This could be included in the article. http://indigest.biz/2013/05/is-tesla-the-new-ford-or-gm/ . --147.84.145.193 (talk) 14:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

One article does not make a paradigm. We could also call Tesla the new Tucker (hopefully more successful) or call Musk the new Steve Jobs.  Stepho  talk  01:31, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Luxury brand or not

We've been going back and forth between being a luxury brand or not. Rather than turn it into an edit war, let's discuss it here.

I believe that Tesla is not a luxury brand. Granted that it's current crop of cars are a bit on the pricey side. However, Musk has always said that he wants electric cars to be in the hands of the common man and that they need to start with expensive cars in order to fund the development of the cheaper, mass-market cars to come later.  Stepho  talk  22:16, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Luxury vehicle is not a strict definition, but we should report facts as they are now. The Roadster was not luxury, the 3 may or may not be. But the S and X surely are, and as Tesla produces no other cars these years, it is safe to say that they produce luxury cars. If and when that fact changes, we can add "ordinary" or whatever to their portfolio, as we have added household energy packs. TGCP (talk) 22:36, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Testla is going to produce Tesla Model C (city car), not luxury. --147.84.145.193 (talk) 14:22, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can't find any official references to the Model C and the unofficial ones are just contradictory speculation.  Stepho  talk  02:58, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

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Create a separate page for the Model 3

The section on the Model 3 should be split off into a separate page like the Model S and Model X, especially with the official unveiling next week. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.166.87.213 (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Go for it. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:00, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Tesla 3

Tesla 3 redirects here. Could we please move it to redirect to Tesla Model 3. 78.146.137.190 (talk) 23:29, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

 Fixed  Stepho  talk  00:40, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Rethinking of Classification

When analysing the current classifactions, Tesla should be set to higher Importance level namely:

• WikiProject Automobiles/Assessment: Tesla has now an international portfolio, should be set to High
• WikiProject Companies/Assessment: Tesla is now on Place 700 in the Fortune 500 list, therefore should be set to High also
• WikiProject California/Assessment: Tesla is a well known worldwide acting company and is associated with California all over the world. Should be also set to high

DG1NFO (talk) 12:11, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

As much as I like Tesla and what it is doing, I think it's importance is not as high as what you believe. 'Mid' seems about right.  Stepho  talk  22:56, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Summon

Something would be said about Tesla Summon from the phone, within autonomous driving features. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.222.58.186 (talk) 10:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Model C - AutoBild

AutoBild is reporting that Tesla Motors will launch a subcompact city EV called the Tesla Model C in 2018. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.222.185.120 (talk) 10:04, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

From the first reference, "We however are going to go with a pretty strong “not gonna happen” on that piece of speculation." The references show artist renderings based on speculation and none of them offer facts. As an encyclopaedia of facts, speculation does not belong on Wikipedia.  Stepho  talk  21:32, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Another reference: the own Elon Musk says the company is preparing Gen 4. . Speculation is Tesla Model M, an electric Motorbike.[10]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.84.145.193 (talk) 13:26, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

From your reference, "you’ll hear Musk imply, without expressly stating, that Tesla is plotting a Gen 4 Tesla that everyone can afford. Model 3, he acknowledges, leaves about half the population unable to swing the price." So, we have a reference that speculates on what Musk implied - double the number of guesses!  Stepho  talk  01:34, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Employee count

Tesla employees

Employees since 2008

I think the number of employees is a notable aspect of a company, at least when that number changes drastically. Here are two points in time, please add more :

By January 2014, this number had grown to 6,000 employees. By December 31, 2015, this number had grown to 13,058 employees. TGCP (talk) 07:40, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Big increases in employee numbers is normal for a manufacturing startup. In time it flattens out again, so I wouldn't put it as a table. No problem if it is mentioned in the history section as plain text.  Stepho  talk  09:04, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

The point is to quantify and show that the company is actually in a state of change, it is not constant like most other auto manufacturers. This aspect is barely shown in the article. The Overview says 3,000 in 2012. At least 3 numbers should be used to show long-term growth - but which ones? TGCP (talk) 10:41, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

July 2016 Model X crash

1. http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2016/07/05/southfield-art-gallery-owner-survives-tesla-crash/86712884/
2. http://www.wsj.com/articles/second-tesla-crash-under-review-by-u-s-auto-safety-regulators-1467838788

There was a crash of a Model X in the US on 1 July 2016 - thankfully non-fatal. It's not clear if the Autopilot mode was to blame or not but there is an ongoing, low key investigation.  Stepho  talk  02:27, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Do we talk about every non-fatal crash in the Ford Motor Company or Toyota articles too? I didn't think so. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:29, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Happy Tenth anniversaryTesla motors!

Hi! If I rmeber correctly Juky 2006(am writing Juky 12th,2016) The first tesla cars were being sold TEN YEARS AGO Happy Anniversary! Iam an avuid Nikola Tesla Fan.In 2005 Set up and it was recoganised in Los Angeles and other areas. GLOBAL ENERGY INDEPENDENCE DAY ON JULY 10TH 2005 JULY 10TH WAS THE BIRTHDATE OF THE GREAT INVENTOR,NIKOLA TESLA NAMESAKE OF TESLA MOTORS,This Juky 10th 2016 was the 160th BIrTHDAY OF NIKOLA TESLA! SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY TESLA AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TESLA MOTORS TOO! Dr. Edson Andre' Johnson D.D.ULC<64.134.238.126 (talk) 19:53, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

teslamotors.com now redirects to tesla.com

We should have any links on the page now use tesla.com instead of teslamotors.com. Ergzay (talk) 16:29, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Model X drives owner to hospital

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/05/man-says-tesla-autopilot-saved-his-life-by-driving-him-to-the-hospital.html  Stepho  talk  01:07, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Large article - spawn?

This article has grown very large and have become difficult to overview and manage. If there are no objections, I think we should move content to at least two new articles (keeping summary) : Tesla US dealership disputes and Tesla Supercharger network. Possibly Tesla facilities. TGCP (talk) 20:38, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. I would also move the history section into its own article. The individual models need their contents drastically cut down to only 1 or 2 paragraphs each as they are currently trying to duplicate an entire article for each model (especially the Model S).  Stepho  talk  06:51, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

There's a rather poor Tesla station that could be rewritten to accommodate superchargers and the network -- 65.94.171.217 (talk) 07:00, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Agree about History and Station. It will be a complex job to wrestle it into its own, but let's give it a go. It will take some editing from several editors, I can't do a good job alone. TGCP (talk) 07:47, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Dealership done. Your fresh eyes should see more adjustments to make. I am not happy about the title, as it could be understood as Tesla having a dispute with its own dealers. The title suggested in comment seems too long. TGCP (talk) 22:11, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Moved 9k from revision https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tesla_Motors&oldid=733335381 to Tesla station, which could be split later as there is little overlap between Charger and Swap. The anchor could also be moved. I suggest Cars, and Crashes and fires as the next sections to be whittled down, but this job is even more difficult. I hope someone will do it, otherwise I might do it crudely after a few months. TGCP (talk) 15:34, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

• Agree on moving some detail off; but Disagree on moving the history section. Wikipedia is not a newspaper for current events, so an encyclopedic description of the overall history of the company from founding to current is appropriate for the article.

Certainly can use a good copyedit, top to bottom, and that would allow sections to better summarize only at a high-level that information which is in other articles: e.g,, Roadster, Model S, Model X, Model 3, Supercharger network, etc. N2e (talk) 21:39, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by Disagree on History? It has already been done, with the two daughter articles. Should the current section contain more or less than now? TGCP (talk) 22:52, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I meant disagree on moving the entire History section out of this article. Looks like you have not done that.

Having said that, I think it needs a good copyedit. It does not need to be longer than it is now; could even profitably be shorter. But it should be comprehensive re the history of the company. For example, the headings seem odd; as obviously there is history after those headings that is quite key. Perhaps summarize some key material from that which was moved? ... while tightening up a bit what is currently there? For example, this isn't history: "As of January 29, 2016, Musk owns about 28.9 million Tesla shares, which equates to about 22% of the company", it is current "news" and Wikipedia is not a newspaper. If it were "History" it would have some reference to how this looked for Musk over time, and were the data to be assembled, or thought about very long, we'd probably all conclude that would be way too much data on Musk personally for a Tesla Motors article; so in my view, perhaps just delete that. Could go in the Musk article if editors there are into that sort of stuff. Just my 2 cents. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it could be trimmed, so go ahead (actually, I called for help above) - the balance will be difficult due to the complexity. Company ownership is generally notable, and even has a place in the infobox in many company articles. Musk's ownership is a notable part as largest shareholder, given the amount of times he is mentioned in all Tesla articles, as well as media. It may be better suited in Overview. It is not News, it's just a stale update which could use a refresh. TGCP (talk) 07:28, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Tesla Autopilot - when to spawn ?

The Autopilot is common to the Model S, X and 3, and at some point a separate article should be made. I recently made a crude move of the common content to prepare for version 8, was that too early? TGCP (talk) 06:51, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

You are right, Autopilot is a common feature and is notable enough therefore should have its own article. Do you want to create the article or would you like someone else create it? --Frmorrison (talk) 14:23, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I re-created the article that you already started and fixed it up a bit. --Frmorrison (talk) 15:19, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Tesla Model S does not self drive.

This line: "and, of any kind of vehicle being driven by itself,"

Should be removed, revised, or sourced. Tesla Model S is incapable of autonomy and at no time is it allowed to drive itself with a person onboard. It's misleading and implies autonomous self-driving capabilities. I would ask that the person who wrote it or reverted back to it provide a source for this claim that it was at the time of the accident being driven, or is even capable of being driven, "by itself", with a person onboard.

BrianRamzFanz (talk) 19:38, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

It's a complex discussion which perhaps should rely on reliable sources instead of being argued here. Thousands of S (and maybe a few others) move on public roads daily without input from the driver for many miles and minutes - and is legally allowed to do so. What the driver is doing in the meantime is a separate question. It's a matter of definition whether that is called "by itself", "autonomous", "monitored operation" or some other vague words. TGCP (talk) 20:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

All the reliable sources say it was in self-driving mode when the accident happens, and BrianRamzFanz, you are confusing autonomous driving, there are four or five levels by official definition of NHTSA and SAE, check the corresponding section in autonomous car. The Model S is between level 2 and 3, as explained and supported by reliable sources in the Tesla Model S article, see section about Autopilot. Level 3 requires the driver attention. So please stop removing content supported by reliable sources and consistent with the technical definition of autonomous vehicles.--Mariordo (talk) 21:45, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

No sources say it was in self-driving mode because it has no such mode. Please reference Tesla or any expert that claims it was in self-driving mode or refrain from using that inaccurate phrase.

It has autopilot mode and autopilot only assists the driver if the driver makes a mistake, so, by default, the car is not driving itself. It's not a gray area. Tesla, her representatives, and industry experts all say it is not capable of self-driving and, therefore, could not possibly be "driving itself".

"Tesla says that before Autopilot can be used, drivers have to acknowledge that the system is an "assist feature" that requires a driver to keep both hands on the wheel at all times. Drivers are told they need to "maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle" while using the system, and they have to be prepared to take over at any time."

Please stop using well defined terms improperly to insinuate it was a self-driving car. It is not. It has driver assist features only and must have a human driver. "maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle" speaks for itself. The car is NEVER driving itself. If you insist that it is, please use citations of Tesla using the term "self-driving mode" in reference to the Tesla Model 5.

BrianRamzFanz (talk) 22:57, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Brian, you said "No sources say it was in self-driving mode". A minute of using Google found plenty from reliable sources. Eg. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tesla-fatal-crash-investigation.html?_r=0 . This is not to say that the reporting was accurate, just that is a common expression that is being used by the media.

As usual, the problem lies in the definition of self-driving. It could mean anything from an old 1980s style cruise control (maintain current speed), to the adaptive cruise control on the Volvo V70 I drove around Europe last month, to lane keeping on the Model S, right up to Google's cars (the car chooses the route and expects no driver input except for choice of destination, autonomous car level 5).

To me (subjectively), the term self-driving strongly hints at the car being fully in control and not expecting driver input at all. However, in Joshua Brown's case, he had effectively given control to the car even though the car should not have been used in that manner and was operating outside of the intended situations that it was meant for. I think it important that the article should reflect that Mr Brown was (unwisely) letting the car do the thinking. Since the terms "self-driving" and "being driven by itself" don't fully apply in this case, perhaps an alternative expression we could use is "the first known fatal accident ... of any vehicle under autonomous or semi-autonomous control". The car was definitely under semi-autonomous control with adaptive cruise control and lane keeping.  Stepho  talk  06:43, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Saying that "at no time is it allowed to drive itself with a person onboard" is incorrect. The car can be summoned, in which case no driver or occupant need be on board but it works equally well with a person on board. For functions such as parking, the driver cannot keep hands on the steering wheel or use pedals or it will abort the parking process. When semi-autonomous features are used, Tesla is in no position to allow or disallow anything relevant. That would be up to regulatory authorities. In the US, the State of NY requires operators to have at least one hand on the steering wheel at all times. Other US states have no such requirement. Thus drivers are allowed to use the car hands free, and the car will operate for extended periods without driver interaction. It's correct to say that the car, in its current release, is not designed for hands free use in semi-autonomous mode. Tesla does not recommend that the car be used hands free in such circumstances and explicitly warns drivers to keep their hands on the wheel. However, this is an encyclopedic article, and it's a matter of stating what the car can or cannot do rather than advocating what a driver should or should not do. It's fair to say that Tesla doesn't claim that the car is autonomous and does not call it self driving, but that's a different point. Hagrinas (talk) 18:39, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Sales numbers are confusing.

The "Production and sales" numbers are confusing, and the note doesn't quite clear matters up. Production isn't broken down by model (can it be?), but sales are, and there are some cars "in transit". Are these cars produced in that quarter but not delivered? Are cars counted as sold when they're ordered, so sold cars may not even be produced? grendel|khan 20:55, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Edit request - Market section of Lithium-ion_battery

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lithium-ion_battery&action=edit&section=13 could use some editing from someone familiar with current Li-ion cell market share and the gigafactory. --Elvey^(t•c) 17:58, 23 September 2016 (UTC)