Tesla Semi Has Been Busy. Is Being Shown Around to Company Buyers.

Tesla shows off electric semi truck prototype at private event for big customer PepsiCo

As we reported yesterday, a Tesla Semi prototype showed up in Dallas this wee k and now we learn it was for a private event for big customer PepsiCo. A redditor crashed the event and reported back on what happened with some pictures of the vehicle.

From article, (It appears that the Tesla Semi prototype that has been going around the US over the last few weeks might be touring Tesla’s top customers who placed orders for the electric truck.

It was first spotted in St-Louis where it visited Anheuser-Busch, the brewer behind Budweiser who also ordered 40 Tesla Semi trucks last year, and now it went to PepsiCo in Plano, Texas – just outside of Dallas.

Last year, PepsiCo placed one of the biggest orders for Tesla Semi: 100 electric trucks to add to their fleet.

Like with Anheuser-Busch last week, Tesla apparently held a private event for the company to see the electric truck prototype up close.

PepsiCo employee said that the 100 trucks they ordered is “a drop in the bucket” of how many they want to order.

When PepsiCo placed its order last year, Mike O‘Connell, the senior director of North American supply chain for PepsiCo subsidiary Frito-Lay, said that the company, which operates over 10,000 trucks, is currently analyzing what routes are best suited for 

Tesla’s electric trucks in North America but he sees “a wide range of uses for lighter loads like snacks or shorter shipments of heavier beverages.”

At the unveiling event last month, Tesla unveiled two electric truck options with 300 and 500 miles of range.

After Tesla revealed the pricing of its electric semi trucks last month, we learned that the regular production versions for the 300-mile and 500-mile range versions will be $150,000 and $180,000 respectively, while the company is also listing a ‘Founders Series’ version for $200,000.

It means that PepsiCo’s order alone is worth between $15 million and $20 million, but like most of the companies who ordered trucks from Tesla so far, they are just testing the water.

If the economics that Tesla announced at the event turned out to be accurate for the production version next year, they could quickly start to convert their whole fleets to take advantage of the cost of operation, which could apparently make the vehicle pay for itself in about 2 years.)

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Lithium-Silicon Battery Technology is Being Tested, now, in Real World Devices and Should be Available Commercially in 2 years. It will Increase the Amount of Energy Stored by 20-40% in Cell Phones and 10% to 15% in Electric Cars Above Projected Increases from Today's Lithium-Graphite Cells.

Silicon anodes to boost lithium-ion battery capacity within a few years

The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. The performance of those cells improves at about 7 percent a year, give or take: Either the same cell costs 7 percent less after a year, or a carmaker gets 7 percent more energy capacity for the same price.

From article, (The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells.

 new developments were summarized Sunday by The Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required). What was pure laboratory research five years ago is now moving closer to production.

The "secret sauce" is the use of anodes made from silicon, rather than the graphite (essentially crystalline carbon) used almost across the board in today's cells.

 Of the two electrodes in every cell, the anode is the one that discharges lithium ions that travel through the electrolyte and are absorbed into the cathode. Charging the cell reverses the process.

Theoretically, silicon could absorb and hold many times the number of lithium ions that carbon can, but limiting that process to prevent destruction of the anode is just one of the many technical challenges to making such cells practical.

Today's graphite anodes blend small amounts of silicon into the carbon to boost range, but most likely 10 percent or less.

The Wall Street Journal piece focuses on several startup companies that claim to be close to production-ready cells with anodes largely made from silicon. Among them are Angstron Materials , Enovix, Enevate, and Sila Nanotechnologies.

Using nanoparticles to ensure the cells have plenty of space for lithium ions to be absorbed without swelling or shattering the anode, those makers claim capacity increases of 20 to 40 percent over the best comparable graphite-anode cells.

Now being tested around the world by dozens of potential customers, these so-called lithium-silicon cells will appear first in small versions used in high-end consumer electronics devices.

The timeline there is expected to be roughly two years, likely meaning early 2020.

But using them in electric cars will require far more durability and stress testing, to ensure they will last not just the two or three years required for a mobile phone but over a vehicle life of 10 to 15 years.

BMW has said it will use cells from Sila Nanotechnologies in a plug-in electric vehicle by 2023. The German luxury maker plans to spend €200 million ($246 million) to establish and staff its own battery-research center for future plug-in vehicles planned throughout the 2020s.

BMW, for example, expects a battery capacity boost of 10 to 15 percent above the increases projected from today's lithium-graphite cells, a company spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

As well as reducing the cost of batteries, the greater energy density will allow either longer-range batteries in the same form factor or smaller batteries, giving vehicle designers even greater flexibility to shape and position battery packs for the electric cars of 2025 and beyond.)

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3,700 MW of Wind Power to be Developed on the New Mexico, Texas, border. Could create 600 construction jobs and $154 Million in Tax Revenue.

New Mexico regulators OK massive wind farms near Texas

New Mexico regulators on Wednesday approved a $1.6 billion plan that calls for building two massive wind farms along the Texas-New Mexico border. The unanimous vote by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission marks one of the key steps needed for Xcel Energy to move forward with its...

From article, (New Mexico regulators on Wednesday approved a $1.6 billion plan that calls for building two massive wind farms along the Texas-New Mexico border.

The unanimous vote by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission marks one of the key steps needed for Xcel Energy to move forward with its plans. Texas regulators are expected to act on the proposal in the coming weeks.

Xcel Energy says the proposed wind farms would take advantage of what has become the least expensive generating resource in the region to reduce fuel costs and ultimately save customers money on their monthly bills.

The project is part of major investment the company is making in wind energy across its entire service area. Xcel Energy plans to grow its wind portfolio by more than 50 percent by the end of 2021 by adding a dozen new wind farms in seven states. That would add nearly 3,700 megawatts of new wind capacity to its system.

 Xcel's plans call for adding wind farms near Portales, New Mexico, and in Hale County, Texas, and purchasing more wind power from facilities owned by NextEra Energy Resources. Xcel estimates all three efforts would result in enough electricity to serve more than 440,000 homes.

The two wind farms also are expected to be a boon for state government finances. Aside from roughly 600 construction jobs and a few dozen permanent positions, Xcel Energy estimates the two farms could generate $154 million in additional tax revenue for state and local governments.)

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Elon Musk is Worth 2.6 billion Compensation Package! Let's face it. Elon Musk is the Go To Person on Electric Cars. He has turned Tesla into the Mercedes of Electric Car Companies.

Tesla Investors Head to the Polls on Musk's $2.6 Billion Pay Plan

Is Elon Musk worth a $2.6 billion compensation package? Tesla Inc.'s shareholders will answer that question Wednesday, as the board seeks their approval to give Chief Executive Officer Musk an unprecedented 10-figure award of stock options. The package-arguably the largest-ever of its kind-underscores the company's outsize ambitions and how intimately connected its future success is to Musk.

From article, (Votes on the compensation plan will be cast at a special shareholder meeting in Fremont, California, at 9 a.m. local time. The board needs support from investors holding a majority of the shares—not counting those owned by Musk and his brother Kimbal, who’s a Tesla director—to make the award. Proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co. have urged investors to vote against the package, while large shareholders Baillie Gifford & Co. and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. have signaled they're likely to support it.

 Under the proposed terms, Musk would earn one-12th of the options every time Tesla hits a pair of goals: one tied to its market value and the other linked to either revenue or earnings excluding certain charges. For Musk to get all the options, Tesla would have to become worth $650 billion—more than Facebook Inc.—and produce more revenue than Procter & Gamble Co.

Tesla has said in regulatory filings that Musk’s award could yield him more than $50 billion if all goals are achieved. That’s an astronomical sum, compared to what other U.S. executives make. Still, Musk will reap gains only if shareholders do, too. Some large investors have said the package aligns with their interests, signaling they don’t mind if Musk gets wealthier, as long as they also see big returns.

It’s unlikely Tesla could hit the top market value threshold of $650 billion solely by selling electric cars. As a result, the award indicates that Musk has other ideas for the company, including transforming energy storage through utility-grade applications and the kinds of future-of-mobility plans outlined in his Master Plan, Part Deux.

Musk is also the CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and has embarked on several other projects of late, including tunnel digger Boring Co. and a brain-computer interface startup called Neuralink. That’s led to concerns he’s looking to lessen his involvement with Tesla. But the new award binds him to the company for a decade, requiring him to remain either CEO or executive chairman and chief product 

The big award aside, Tesla’s board has said Musk won’t receive any other compensation to underscore that he’ll win only if shareholders do, too. The company is required by California state law to pay him a minimum-wage salary that adds up to roughly $37,000 per year, but Musk has never accepted it.)

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