2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range Awd on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Non-union Tesla now owns former Fremont UAW Hall

As a growing business, it's hardly surprising that Tesla desires to own more land around its Fremont, CA, factory, but the electric carmaker's latest property purchase is just a little ironic. Tesla's assembly workers might not be unionized (at least not yet), but their employer now owns the former United Auto Workers union hall in Fremont, CA, just down the street from the plant. According to public records uncovered by the San Francisco Business Times, the company recently bought the property for an undisclosed sum. The UAW was reportedly asking $4.26 million for the nearly four-acre plot, including the 16,470-square-foot building. About 1.3 acres of the land is still undeveloped. According to the San Francisco Business Times, this appears to be Tesla's first land purchase in the area since it bought 35 acres from the Union Pacific Railroad in 2013, which included a test track left over from the NUMMI plant. However, the company has been leasing more property near its Fremont base recently. Autoblog has reached out to Tesla to learn what its plans are for the land. We'll update this story if we hear back. News Source: San Francisco Business Times Image Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Green Plants/Manufacturing UAW/Unions Tesla Green Automakers Electric Sedan California nummi fremont

Lexus says it's not worried about LS sales decline in face of S-Class, Model S

The Lexus LS is old. Sure, it received a refresh for model year 2013, but it hasn't had a clean-sheet redesign since George W. Bush was in office. It's the oldest vehicle in its segment, debuting in 2007, a full year before the current-gen BMW 7 Series, two years before the Hyundai Equus and Jaguar XJ and three years before the Audi A8.
This is particularly troubling as buyers flock to the heavily redesigned Mercedes-Benz S-Class, which debuted late last year, and the all-electric Tesla Model S. Despite this move, though, Lexus is (worryingly in our minds) not at all concerned.
"We don't feel it's a problem with the car," Brian Smith, VP of marketing for Lexus, told Wards Auto. "Many of the buyers in that segment want what's new and they're trying it."

Elon Musk raises the stakes for Tesla Motors

Falling gas prices, production delays and weakened demand in a key market would send shudders through the CEOs of most automakers. None of those problems could dent the enthusiasm Tesla Motors CEO and co-founder Elon Musk has for a vision of an electric-car future. In a rare appearance Tuesday on the home turf of the Big Three automakers in Detroit, Musk said those factors wouldn't hinder Tesla Motors' growth over the next five to ten years. In fact, he revised the company's sales projections upwards, even as he said Tesla may not turn a profit for five more years. Previously, Musk had said he wanted the company to sell 500,000 vehicles by 2020. In more than an hour's worth of wide-ranging remarks at the Automotive News World Congress, he said, "I think we'll try to aim to do more cars than that. I think we'll continue past that. We probably should get to a few million cars by 2025. We could probably get to a few million cars per year." Spate Of Recent Complications Not that Tesla Motors' rise to prominence through a global economic recession hasn't already defied conventional wisdom, but the upward figures came despite recent complications that will only make that sort of sales climb more difficult. Gas prices fell to a national average of $2.11 per gallon Tuesday, and many automakers fret this plunge will make the sale of electric vehicles far more difficult. "I don't think it will affect the S or X," Musk said Tuesday. Production of the Model X – an all-electric crossover that features gullwing doors that would give Tesla Motors an immediate entrant in the fastest-growing vehicle segment – has been delayed for two years while the Fremont, CA-based company focused its limited production capabilities on its Model S and worked on complications with the X. "It's been two steps forward, one step back," Musk said. "Really, it was important to me that the doors were not just a gimmick, but a fundamental improvement to the functionality of the cars." Another hurdle for Tesla: Musk said Tuesday that sales had weakened in China during the fourth quarter of 2014. Exact sales figures were not known because Tesla does not release them, but Musk said growth slowed because customers there had overestimated the difficulty in installing and maintaining charging equipment; he said the "miscommunication" had been corrected and that the company has already seen an uptick in sales.