Tesla App Outage Causes Owners To Lose Access To Car Features

Tesla experienced a server downtime for its mobile phone app earlier today. The outage, which lasted several hours, left owners from across the globe unable to connect to their cars – losing access to certain features offered exclusively via the app.

Motoring website Electrek notes that the downtime coincidentally came shortly after the automaker rolled out an update to its application, although it is undetermined if this was actually the root cause of the problem. Company CEO Elon Musk later revealed in a tweet that the outage may have been caused by an “accidental increase of network traffic verbosity”. Concurrently, he also apologised and noted that the company will take measures to ensure that such problems will not happen again.

Naturally, the app outage also resulted in a flurry of complaints coming from owners worldwide. As mentioned earlier, users are locked away from accessing advanced features such as vehicle summoning, remote unlocking and activation, and interior climate controls.

Some owners even reported to have been left stranded due to their inability to unlock or start their cars via the Tesla app, which is likely an exaggeration. While it does offer the aforementioned abilities, users can still unlock and start their vehicles with their phones through an active Bluetooth connection, provided that they did not log out from the app. Alternatively, this issue can also be bypassed if the owner is carrying the car’s keycard or keyfob along with them.

Thankfully for the owners, their first world-related woes had been resolved by the company, albeit a couple of hours later. Aside from Musk’s reply in Twitter, Tesla itself has yet to issue an official statement regarding the matter.

Elon Musk Claims New RDNA2-Powered Tesla Infotainment System On Par With PlayStation 5

Elon Musk, Bitcoin aficionado and CEO of Tesla, recently held the launch for his company’s latest car, the Model S Plaid. As you’d expect, the electric vehicle is loaded with the latest state-of-the-art technology on the current market, the most important piece of technology for us perhaps being its new and improved infotainment system.

Specifically, the Model S Plaid’s infotainment system is powered by AMD’s Navi 23, a GPU that was initially rumoured to make its debut with the parent company’s alleged Radeon RX 6600 GPU series. To that end, the launch marked the first time the GPU’s power was being demonstrated and during a non-AMD keynote to boot.

Details of Navi 23 is still scarce but from what we know, the GPU is expected to have up to 2048 Stream Processors and support up to 8GB GDDR6 graphic memory on both the RX 6600XT and RX 6600. As for its performance, Musk went as far as to say his car’s infotainment system was as powerful as a Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5).

That wasn’t an empty boast either; putting his money where his mouth is, Musk gave a live demonstration of his car’s Navi 23-powered infotainment system running Cyberpunk 2077 with the console’s 17-inch display as the output and at its maximum resolution of 2200 x 1300 pixels.

XPeng vs Tesla

Chinese automaker XPeng is betting that driving assistance features and other tech will be the key to winning new customers. WSJ travels to its research and development lab to see how its rivalry with Tesla could reshape how we drive. 

Elon Musk’s Tesla Reverses Decision To Accept Vehicle Purchases By Bitcoin

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced by tweet that the company will not be accepting payment for its vehicles by bitcoin (at least for now), reversing a high-profile company policy announced in March.

Musk, a prominent crypocurrency enthusiast, further tweeted, “To be clear, I strongly believe in crypto, but it can’t drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal.” Bitcoin mining has often been criticised for its staggeringly high energy costs, which in turn generate more carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.

Musk himself tweeted a chart of bitcoin’s electricity consumption:

Many have highlighted the billionaire entrepreneur’s apparently contradictory support for both environmental causes and cryptocurrency. One recent study warned that the immense scale of bitcoin mining in China could cause the country to miss its carbon emission reduction goals.

As of April last year, over 70% of the world’s bitcoin mining took place in China. While the country boasts cheaper electricity rates, it’s also known to be reliant on coal power.

Despite warnings about bitcoin’s impact on the environment, Tesla went ahead and bought US$1.5 billion (~RM6.2 billion) worth of bitcoin in February. The following month, it announced it would begin accepting payment for cars made with bitcoin. It’s unclear why Musk (and Tesla management in general) changed their minds now.

Tesla said that it would use bitcoin for transactions “as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.” Earlier this week, Musk celebrated SpaceX’s involvement in a mission to the moon that is fully funded with dogecoin, another cryptocurrency.

Tesla Informs Regulator That Level 5 Autonomous Driving Unachievable By Year-End

Tesla Inc told a California regulator that it may not achieve full self-driving technology or level 5 autonomous driving by the end of year, according to a memo by the US state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). As pointed out by Reuters, the memo was released by legal transparency group PlainSite, which obtained it under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The brand’s cars can be equipped with an optional Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, which grants limited vehicle autonomy to those who subscribed to include the addon. Naturally, the feature is usually endorsed by company CEO Elon Musk on Twitter, who even claimed during an earnings conference call in January that he is “highly confident the car will be able to drive itself with reliability in excess of human [interaction] this year.”

However, several accidents involving Tesla-branded cars have been recorded in the US as of late, with numbers totalling up to 20 cases – some being fatal. The most recent traffic collision was an unspecified Tesla vehicle which crashed into an overturned truck on a highway in California – killing the EV’s driver. Federal highway safety regulators and the state’s highway patrol are currently investigating the cause of the crash, with some speculation that the Tesla’s FSD software may be the one to blame.

The California DMV noted in the memo that Musk’s claims of Tesla cars’ self-driving capability on Twitter are extrapolated. It confirmed this after a conference call with Tesla representatives including the company’s autopilot engineer CJ Moore, who explained that its vehicles could only achieve Level 2 (L2) autonomy at this current time.

For those unfamiliar, L2 autonomy only handles partial tasks such as acceleration, steering and braking, but will still require the driver’s full attention. This can is often used to assist drivers when driving down highways at regulated speeds – think of it as somewhat of a more advanced version of cruise control. Level 2 is not capable of getting you from your point of origin to your destination automatically.

“Tesla indicated that they are still firmly in L2,” California DMV said in the memo. “As Tesla is aware, the public’s misunderstanding about the limits of the technology and its misuse can have tragic consequences.”

Another crash in late April which involved a 2019 Tesla Model S and killed two onboard individuals was first thought to have been caused by the car’s Autopilot system. Police noted that both individuals were seated in the front passenger seat and in the back of the vehicle, with no one seemingly driving the vehicle. Musk himself refuted this on Twitter, revealing that recovered data logs from the crashed vehicle indicated that the Autopilot system was not enabled and the owner did not include FSD in their purchase.

Regardless, as noted by the California DMV, the term “self-driving” or “autonomous driving” itself is capable of causing harm. This is especially when the feature is often associated with the potential capabilities of Level 5 autonomy which does not require any human supervision whatsoever. That, however, is merely a proposed technology milestone that has not been fully achieved by any manufacturer just yet, and may take several more years before it becomes a reality.

Tesla sold bitcoin for $101m profit

 Tesla reported first-quarter results on Monday, including a record quarterly net profit of $438 million on a GAAP basis.

As usual, those profits were buoyed by sales of environmental regulatory credits. But in a new wrinkle this quarter, the company’s sales of bitcoin during the quarter also contributed $101 million toward the bottom line.

In February, Tesla made waves when it announced a $1.5 billion purchase of bitcoin and said it may continue investing in cryptocurrency more broadly.

On Monday, Tesla’s shareholder update revealed that sales of bitcoin made a $101 million “positive impact” to the company’s profitability during the period ending March 31, 2021.

On the company’s cash flows statement for Q1 (page 26), it recorded $1.5 billion in purchases of “digital assets,” as well as $272 million in proceeds from sales of digital assets during the quarter.

Elsewhere (page 5), the company says its profitability was helped from a sale of bitcoin which contributed a $101 million “positive impact, net of impairments, in ‘Restructuring and Other.’” This shows up as a $101 million reduction in operating expenses on the company’s Statement of Operations (page 24).

This suggests that the company quickly flipped some of its big bitcoin purchase for a gain of $101 million, as bitcoin prices rose during the quarter.

As CFO Zachary Kirkhorn said during the earnings call, “Elon and I were looking or a place to store cash” that wasn’t immediately being used to get returns. But they had a need to be able to access their cash quickly too.

“Bitcoin has proved to be a good decision. A good place to put some of our cash that’s not being used for daily operations…and be able to get some return on that.” Kirkhorn added that while they were pleased with the liquidity of the bitcoin market, “It is our intent to hold long-term.”

Tesla does accept bitcoin payments from customers now.

But apart from that, it’s not clear how investments in and use of cryptocurrency serve the mission of Elon Musk’s electric vehicle and energy storage business. The stated mission of Tesla has long been to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

Vicki Bryan, founder of the bond investment research firm Bond Angle, wrote in an e-mail to CNBC:

“Bitcoin is not fungible or logically advantageous as currency, arguably not safer for the owner vs cash in transactions, and inexcusably damaging to the environment.”

Tesla had historically racked up around $1.6 billion in regulatory energy credits, primarily zero emission vehicle credits, Bryan notes. Credit sales helped Tesla to report more than four consecutive quarters of profitability, qualifying Tesla for addition to the S&P 500 index.

With Tesla’s bitcoin purchases, Bryan says, Tesla is adding a volatile asset with limited reported visibility to financial statements which “already conceal vital clarity of key operations and financial conditions.”

Elon Musk Says That Tesla Cars Are Now Payable By Bitcoin

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced by a tweet that the company is now accepting vehicle purchases made with Bitcoin. On social media, the maverick entrepreneur has long been a passionate promoter of cryptocurrencies.

Accordingly, he declared that Bitcoin paid to Tesla would be retained as is and not converted to (traditional) fiat currency. When it comes to processing payments, he said “Tesla is using only internal and open source software, and operates Bitcoin nodes directly.”

Right now, only Tesla’s US customers are allowed to pay with the aforementioned cryptocurrency. Musk also noted that the (Bitcoin) payment option would be expanded outside the US sometime later this year. However, he didn’t provide further details.

Last month, Tesla bought US$1.5 billion (~RM6.2 billion) worth of bitcoin and indicated then that it planned to accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its cars. Now, unsurprisingly, the former’s fortunes may be irrevocably entwined with the latter.

According to CNBC, over the last 12 months, Tesla share prices rose from about US$100 (~RM413) to over US$600 (~RM2,478), while bitcoin jumped from about US$7,000 (~RM28,907) to over US$55,000 (~RM227,123).

In another Tesla-related news, Musk recently denied claims that cameras on Tesla cars were used to spy on the Chinese government. He said the company would “get shut down” if it used cars that way.

Hackers Gain Access To 150,000 Security Cameras, Including At Tesla Premises

A hacker collective has obtained access to live feeds of 150,000 surveillance cameras installed at businesses including Tesla and website security company Cloudflare, Bloomberg and Reuters reported. This stunning breach of security also affected jails, hospitals, police departments, and schools.

All the victims were customers of a Silicon Valley startup called Verkada, which sells security cameras and provides users with remote viewing through the cloud. That last bit appears to have backfired badly – a fact made worse by how easily the hackers pulled off their heist.

Tillie Kottmann, one of the hackers, told Bloomberg that they found the username and password of a Verkada “Super Admin” account lying exposed on the Internet. Using that account, they were able to view the camera feeds of all of the company’s customers.

Among camera footage provided by Kottmann, Bloomberg said it saw inside a Tesla warehouse in Shanghai, a hospital in Florida, and a police station in Massachusetts. Since learning of the intrusion, Verkada has disabled all internal administrator accounts.

Kottmann told Bloomberg that the hack “exposes just how broadly we’re being surveilled, and how little care is put into at least securing the platforms used to do so, pursuing nothing but profit.”

Funnily enough, easy access to video feeds may have been the point.

Reuters noted that Verkada CEO Filip Kaliszan once said the company intentionally made it easy for many organisational users to view live video and share it when necessary – for example, with emergency responders.

As always, this seems to be a case of technological utility butting heads against security and privacy. What’s the right balance? We doubt there are easy answers.

Tesla Is Officially Back In Singapore Once Again; Model 3 Price Starts From SGD 113,000

After a botched attempt to enter the country a few years ago which has led to this tweet by Elon Musk, Tesla has once again brought its electric vehicles (EV) to Singapore. It has joined the likes of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Macau as the official markets for Tesla in Asia.

At this moment, only Model 3 is available for purchase through Tesla Singapore’s official website which apparently takes around 12 to 14 weeks to be delivered. Without a Certificate of Entitlement (COE), the Standard Range Plus model which has a rear-wheel drive motor, 0-100 km/h acceleration rate of 5.6 seconds, 225 km/h top speed, and an estimated range of 448 km is priced from SGD 112,845 (~RM 344,433) onwards.

For the Performance model which has a dual motor and all-wheel drive capability alongside a longer travel range of 567 km, it starts at SGD 154,815 (~RM 472,522). Equipped with 20-inch Uberturbine wheels, lowered suspension, performance brakes, carbon fibre spoiler, aluminium alloy pedals, and access to Track Mode, this particular variant also offers higher top speed at 261 km/h and much faster acceleration rate of 3.3 seconds.

Tesla also provides the self-driving option for the Model 3 although customers need to fork out an additional SGD 11,500 (~RM 35,100) to install the self-driving computer into their car. Once enabled, customers can have their Model 3 change lane and park automatically as well as summon the car to come to them.

While the price tag can be deemed as premium, some have pointed out that the Singaporean pricing for Model 3 is quite competitive. To put things into perspective, here is how much a Toyota Camry costs in Singapore:

Tesla re-entry into the Singaporean market is yet another interesting chapter for the South East Asian’s EV industry. Recently, the Indonesian government has invited Elon Musk to utilise the country’s massive nickel reserve for battery production and the Thai government has also revealed its intention to boost the production of EV over there.

Given that these three countries are our closest neighbours, Malaysia may feel the heat in some way or another. However, we doubt that Tesla is going to set up shop in Malaysia until our government finally makes up its mind and come out with a clear policy for the EV industry.

Tesla Raises Price Of Bitcoin With US$1.5 Billion Investment And Car Payments

Bitcoin saw its value spike exponentially very recently and believe it or not, it’s actually all thanks to Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk. The man behind the brand’s electric car and portable flamethrower said he had invested close to US$1.5 billion (~RM6.11 billion) into the cryptocurrency, while also announcing that his company would also begin accepting digital coin as payment for his company’s cars.

Musk’s investment raised the value of Bitcoin from an average of RM150000, to a new sitting average of nearly RM180000. As for the reason why, Musk says that he made the choice after weighing on his investment over the past week while carefully watching the events that unfolded with GameStop and Wall Street.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the value of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have seen a rally since last year. Bitcoin, in particular, went from an average value of RM45000 in the middle of last year to its current six-digit average value of RM180000 per coin, while Ethereum has more than tripled in its value and is currently tiptoeing on the RM7000 barrier.

On another note, Bitcoin and Ethereum aren’t the only cryptocoins Musk is openly endorsing. Last week, the man gave a shoutout to Dogecoin – an altcoin that was primarily created as a satirical currency in response to the surge of interest in cryptocurrency back in 2013 – after its value doubled from US$0.04 (~RM0.16) to US$0.08 (~RM0.33).

Bitcoin and Tesla have gotten the Fed’s attention 230 views

THE Federal Reserve isn’t happy about the pervasive talk of asset bubbles.

Consider Tesla Inc, for instance. From my Bloomberg opinion colleague John Authers: “The risks far outweigh the potential rewards.

The more we see of such crazy behaviour, the more we should prepare to take evasive action against a true investment bubble.”

Or cryptocurrencies, from Scott Minerd, chief investment officer with Guggenheim Investments: “Bitcoin’s parabolic rise is unsustainable in the near term.”

More broadly, Bank of America Corp’s checklist of signals that historically indicate an impending bear market correction in risk assets is starting to fill up.

Now, the central bank hasn’t said directly that it’s worried about the surging price of Tesla shares and bitcoin, and it likely never will.

But the undertone from last week’s round of speakers could be interpreted as an early sign that the the Fed’s third mandate beyond maximum employment and stable prices – financial stability – is starting to weigh on some policy makers heading into 2021 as the stock market gets compared to a lucky slot machine.

It’s one of the only explanations I can come up with for why Fed officials would bring up reducing their asset purchases – and possibly sooner than investors were expecting – when the US labour market lost 140,000 jobs in December and the central bank’s preferred measure of inflation is around 1.4%.

While I doubt any sort of tapering will happen this year, and this is largely just getting traders comfortable with that word, it’s possible that policy makers are now considering what sort of risks might be emerging from expectations that US Treasury yields will be near record lows indefinitely.

The most impressive element of last week’s rally in stocks was probably that it happened in the face of benchmark 10-year Treasury yields rising by more than 20 basis points, to 1.12%.

The S&P 500 Index wobbled on Monday as yields climbed past 1.13% but remained relatively resilient considering the sharp drop in bitcoin and Tesla. While it’s foolish to predict an exact level at which financial markets would find equilibrium, a simple chart of the past five years would suggest a move in 10-year yields to the pre-2020 record low of 1.32% would serve as an interesting test of stock-market strength.

That’s not far off from the S&P 500’s dividend yield at this point.

Typical thinking

The typical thinking among bond traders just a short time ago was that the Fed would step in to halt a sustained move higher in yields. As recently as a month ago, many expected the central bank to alter its asset purchases and buy more longer-dated Treasuries. Not only does that seem to be off the table, but, as minutes of the December meeting showed last week, there’s a serious effort to think about how best to scale back asset purchases.

Here’s Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker on tapering: “I could see, potentially, that occurring at the very end of 2021 or early 2022. But it is all going to depend on the course of the economy, which will depend on the course of the virus, ” Harker said Thursday while answering questions after a speech at a virtual event.

“It could cause disruption in the markets if we try to do it too soon, ” he said. “So, I have many degrees of caution on this, to just be steady as she goes until we start to really see the economy healing.”

And Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic: “In our statement, we said we wanted to make significant progress towards the goal. I don’t think we necessarily have to get to the goal, ” Bostic said in a televised interview with Fox Business recorded Wednesday and broadcast Thursday. “I’m definitely open to the possibility that we may pull it back sooner than people expect.”

And Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan: While the pandemic will likely be a drag on the economy “for a good part of 2021, ” once the recovery is established and a large part of the population is vaccinated, Fed officials should start to consider “when we can start tapering, ” Kaplan said. “There will be a point at which it’ll be much healthier for the economy and for the markets to be weaning off some of these extraordinary measures, ” he added.

Taper talk

And Chicago Fed President Charles Evans: “It could be the case that things are going a lot better, and we do end up doing some type of tapering” in late 2021 or early 2022, he tells reporters on a conference call.

That is a lot of taper talk all of a sudden. Perhaps it’s because Democrats swept the Georgia elections, raising the likelihood that more fiscal aid will turbocharge the economy faster than if Congress were divided. Either way, both because of government stimulus and the prospect of the Fed paring back asset purchases, Bank of America’s Mark Cabana has warned of “upside risks” to the bank’s year-end forecast for 10-year Treasury yields of 1.5%. JPMorgan Chase & Co analysts raised their forecast to 1.45% from 1.3%.Cutting through some of the noise, the most crucial guidance last week came from Fed vice chair Richard Clarida, who stated: “My economic outlook is consistent with us keeping the current pace of purchases throughout the remainder of the year.” While he said that could change, “it could be quite some time before we would think about tapering the pace of our purchases.”

It feels as if that horse is already out of the barn. Even if thinking about tapering doesn’t lead to any imminent action, the tilt toward scaling back asset purchases, even modestly, calls into question one of the strongest pillars of the rally in risky assets over the past several months. And while it’s true that previous cases of the Fed winding down its quantitative easing programs have had the counterintuitive impact of lowering Treasury yields, there’s no guarantee that will happen again if fiscal policy is as accommodative as it might be.The Fed wants to foster a strong labour market and inflation reliably above 2% so that it can eventually operate away from the zero lower bound of interest rates. It remains an open question whether it can make that happen and just how long that will take coming out of a global pandemic.

But on the way to reaching those goals, there’s a level of rampant speculation in asset prices that even the Fed will seek to stymie, whether in bitcoin or Tesla, the ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund or special-purpose acquisition companies. Central bankers’ taper talk last week might have been the first shot across the bow.

India's answer to Tesla! Spotted on road

India’s very own 'Tesla', Prevaig Extinction is said to enter the mass production next year. However, it was recently spotted on the roads of Delhi. Take a look at the images here.

If you have been a loyal follower of the e-mobility startup scene, you must have known Pravaig Dynamics – a startup company that has the ambition to produce premium electric sedan to rival Tesla. The company’s first model, the Pravaig Extinction MK1 has been recently spotted on the public road in Delhi. It seems that this car has a long distance to go to fulfil the Pravaig’s ambitious claim. The Pravaig Extinction MK1 has been spotted on Delhi's public roads. The prototype was seen being driven at a low speed of 20 kmph.

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From the look of it, the Pravaig Extinction MK1 prototype gets quite a quirky styling that makes it look rather a toy car. It is neither elegant enough compared with Tesla cars nor sporty enough to compete with the likes of Mercedes. However, the company has said that the design of the electric 4-door sedan is still evolving. Let’s hold our judgment until the production-ready version of the Pravaig Extinction MK1 enters the market in November next year.

pravaig extinction mk1 front angle

As claimed by the startup automotive company, the production-spec version of the Extinction MK1 has a claimed range of 504 km thanks to its 96 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. The electric motor of the car can deliver 200 HP of power, powering the car to do the 0 – 100 kmph acceleration in 5.4 seconds and hit the top speed of 196 kmph

New Boombox Feature Allow Tesla Owners To Change Their Car Horn Audio; Fart Sounds Included

Tesla recently released a new software update for some of its cars, which includes a new mode known as Boombox. Basically, this new feature enables owners to fully customise their car horn audio to output holiday jingles or wackier sounds such as a goat’s bleat, applause, “La Cucaracha” and even fart noises.

If the preset sound bytes are not in line with what car owners are looking for, the company has included the ability for users to upload up to five custom audio tracks via USB. Tesla added that besides the car horn, Boombox also allows for setting custom audio when driving the car or when it arrives to the owner via the Summon feature. Last but not least, the mode enables users to hook up their car’s sound system to their favourite media player, and fully convert the vehicle into an actual boombox.

As a bonus, the update also included additional improvements to the Emissions Testing Mode in Tesla cars. Despite featuring a fancy name, the mode is pretty much a prank feature that lets owners assign fart noises to various seats in the car as well as substitute the turn signal noise into fart sounds. The latest version of the mode now allows owners to use their vehicle’s external speakers to, well, make fart noises.

Speaking of which, the update is only available to certain Tesla car models – specifically ones that include external pedestrian speakers installed. It is worth noting that all vehicles from the company that are manufactured after 1 September 2019 already have this feature installed in order to comply with the rules set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the US. This requires all electric and hybrid vehicles to emit a sound at up to 30kph in order to keep pedestrians aware of the car’s presence.