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25 May, 2023

Ford to use Tesla Superchargers

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Ford strikes deal with Tesla to allow its electric vehicle owners to gain access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers in North America in early 2024. This makes Ford the first major automaker to embrace Tesla’s proprietary charging standard and gives the company access to the biggest network of high-speed Superchargers in the United States. Tesla will provide an adapter to Ford EVs fitted with the Combined Charging System (CCS), giving them port access to Tesla’s V3 Superchargers. Ford will equip future EVs with Tesla’s own charging standard, removing the need for an adapter for direct access to Tesla Superchargers, starting in 2025. Pricing will be “competitive”. On Twitter Spaces, Musk tells Ford CEO Jim Farley:

The idea is that we don’t want the Tesla supercharger network to be like a walled garden. We want it to be something that is supportive of electrification and sustainable transport in general.

Farley:

We love the locations, we love the reliability, your routing software, the ease of use of the connector, the reliability of it. Tesla storms through the [Japanese bullet] train station like 300 kilometers per hour Shinkansen. We’re learning a lot.

Farley said earlier at a Morgan Stanley forum that:

[O]n the infrastructure side, I think it’s room for some collaboration between the auto companies, which is totally unnatural for us….the first step is to work together in a way we haven’t, probably with the new EV brands and the traditional old companies…. It seems totally ridiculous that we have an infrastructure problem, and we can’t even agree on what plug to use. I think the first step is to work together in a way we haven’t, probably with the new EV brands and the traditional auto companies. I think you’ll see Ford do that just because that’s what kind of company we are.

23 May, 2023

Starlink announces in-motion use

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Starlink announces that its satellite broadband service can be used on vehicles and whilst in motion, with a tweet showing the antenna on an RV driving through the desert. The company is offering 220 Mbps download, starting at £247/month with a one-time hardware fee of £2,410. The company says School buses in Cocononino Country, Arizona are among the first to use the service, enabling students who ride the bus an hour to and from school each day to stay connected and complete their homework. Musk shares the announcement, adding:

And works almost everywhere on Earth with global roaming enabled!

12 May, 2023

China orders Tesla recall

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Chinese safety regulators order Tesla to recall 1.1 million vehicles because drivers aren’t able to select the regenerative braking system and there is a lack of warning when they press hard on the accelerator pedal. The State Administration for Market Regulation (a Chinese government organ) says these issues:

may increase the probability of mistakenly stepping on the accelerator pedal for a long time, which may increase the risk of collision and pose a safety hazard.

The recall involves imported Model S, X and 3 models as well as the Chinese-made Models Y and 3. The models were produced between January 12, 2019 and April 24, 2023, though it isn’t clear whether those dates apply only to the Chinese-made vehicles. Tesla will fix the problem with an online software update.

29 Apr, 2023

Musk: Publishers can charge Twitter users for article views

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Musk announces that Twitter will allow media publishers to charge users for access to their content with just one click. The exact percentage of each transaction that will go to Twitter and the conditions for media publishers have not yet been disclosed. Musk claims that this will be beneficial for both media organisations and the public.

Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click. This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article. Should be a major win-win for both media orgs & the public.

23 Apr, 2023

Dead celebrities get Twitter blue checks

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Twitter adds blue checks to the accounts of numerous dead celebrities, including some that have been inactive for years. Paul Walker, Kobe Bryant, Anthony Bourdain, Chadwick Bosman and Norm Macdonald are among the celebrities whose accounts have been “verified” posthumously. Whether this is another “trolling” stunt by Musk remains unclear.

20 Apr, 2023

Twitter removes blue ticks from non-paying users

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 Twitter removes blue ticks from as many as 300,000 accounts, including journalists, athletes and public figures, who have not paid a monthly fee to get one. High-profile users who lost their blue ticks include Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump. A Twitter Blue subscription costs $8 a month for individuals to a starting price of $1,000 monthly to verify an organization, plus $50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account.

Tesla cuts Model Y, Model 3 prices

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Tesla cuts US prices for Model Y Long Range and Performance models by $3,000 each and the price of the Model 3 Rear-wheel Drive by $2,000 to $39,990, the sixth time it has lowered US prices this year. Tesla has cut prices of its base Model 3 by 11% so far this year and its base Model Y by 20% — moves that come as the United States, its largest market, prepares to introduce tougher standards that will limit EV tax credits.

18 Apr, 2023

Musk announces Starship blowtorch

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Following Musk’s tweet about a “Mini Starship with flame,” SpaceX announces the pre-sale of a collectable, Starship-themed blowtorch. The $175 burner has a safety lock as well as a windproof, adjustable flame and is being marketed for things like melting cheese and lighting candles. As one advert puts it:

It’s collectible. It’s functional. And it burns, burns, burns. The Starship Torch.

13 Apr, 2023

Musk: Subscriptions replacing Super Follows on Twitter

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Musk says content creators on Twitter will now make money through Subscriptions rather than Super Follows.

Apply to offer your followers subscriptions of any material, from longform text to hours long video! Just tap on “Monetization” in settings.

But, the subscription program appears mostly unchanged from Super Follows, which Twitter originally introduced as a way for creators to charge for exclusive tweets. Creators can charge $2.99, $4.99 or $9.99 a month, with exclusive content including subscriber-only chats in Twitter Spaces and special badges for subscribers.

Musk also says Twitter will help promote creators’ content (he does not elaborate on how) and will not take a cut of the revenue for “the next 12 months.” Instead, creators will get all that remains after app store and payment processing fees: about 70 percent of their earnings from mobile and 92 percent from web-based subscriptions.

28 Mar, 2023

Musk: Twitter For You tab, polls to be restricted to verified users

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Musk announces that from April 15th only Twitter verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations and polls. Musk says this change is to stop ‘advanced AI bot swarms taking over’.

Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations. The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.

When some users question the decision, he says:

My prediction is that this will be the only platform you can trust

26 Mar, 2023

Marked down Tesla vehicles spark China price war

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Tesla marks down its prices, causing a price war in China, by selling vehicles there for as much as 50% less than what they cost in Europe and the United States. The Tesla Model 3 sedan and the Model Y crossover are both manufactured at a plant just outside Shanghai. The massive markdown is forcing rival vehicle manufacturers to slash prices also, in an effort to maintain sales.

2 Feb, 2023

Twitter to end free API access

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In a series of tweets, the Twitter Developer account says the company will discontinue offering free access to the Twitter API (version 1.1 and v2) starting February 9 and will launch a paid version, as it looks for more avenues to monetize the platform. It did not immediately say how much it plans to charge for API usage.

Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us,” Twitter Dev account said Thursday. “Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week.

1 Feb, 2023

Musk locks his Twitter account

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Musk makes his Twitter account private – only visible to his followers – after hearing reports from users that posts on private accounts were getting more reach than public accounts. Normally, an account would see less engagement when going private as doing this blocks users from being able to retweet posts. When a Twitter user showed that, of two similar tweets posted in the same five-minute period, the one posted when the account was locked received five times as many likes, Musk replies:

Wow, this is extremely concerning

Followed by:

Made my account private until tomorrow morning to test whether you see my private tweets more than my public ones

Some users questioned why Musk was doing this test, when he owns the platform.

31 Jan, 2023

Musk: Expendable Starship is ‘an option’

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Musk says SpaceX could eventually develop an expendable version of its next-generation Starship rocket.

Starship is designed to launch up to 150 tons (330,000 lbs) to low Earth orbit while still recovering the orbital ship and suborbital booster for reuse (by comaprison, the Saturn V rocket could lift 118 tons). Musk says the reusable ship may be turned aoround in hours, enabling multiple flights a day, lowering the price of each launch. However, in early 2023, SpaceX updated the Starship section of its website, revealing that an expendable version of the rocket will be able to launch up to 250 metric tons (~550,000 lbs) to low Earth orbit in a single launch.

StarshipSpaceX’s Starbase factory is already building multiple intentionally-expendable Starships. Ship 26 and Ship 27 feature no thermal protection, have no heat shield tiles, and will not be fitted with flaps, making them impossible to recover or reuse. They will be used to test other crucial Starship technologies like orbital refilling and cryogenic fluid management. The first few Starship Moon landers may also be functionally expendable.

21 Jan, 2023

Musk: Twitter to launch ad-free subscription tier

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Musk says Twitter is planning an advertising-free version of its subscription product. Increasing subscription revenue is a key part of the social media platform’s business plan under his ownership.

There will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads.

18 Dec, 2022

Twitter removes phone type from Tweets

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Musk reacts to Twitter removing the ability to see which device a tweet comes from [Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Android].

Hallelujah!!

2 Dec, 2022

Musk delivers first Tesla Semi truck to Pepsi

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At an event at Tesla’s Nevada plant, Musk delivers the first Tesla Semi to Pepsi. Musk says the battery-powered, long-haul truck will reduce highway emissions, outperform existing diesel models on power and safety and spin-off a fast-charging technology Tesla will use in its upcoming Cybertruck pickup. Musk did not announce pricing for the Semi, provide details on variants of the truck it had initially projected or supply a forecast for deliveries to PepsiCo or other customers.

Musk said the Semi has been doing test runs between Tesla’s Sparks, Nevada factory and its plant in Fremont, California. Tesla said it had completed a 500-mile drive on a single charge, with the Semi and cargo weighing in at 81,000 pounds in total.

Tesla said it would use the Semi to ship parts to its plant in Fremont, California. Musk has said Tesla would aim to produce 50,000 of the trucks in 2024. PepsiCo ordered 100 trucks in 2017.

If you’re a trucker and you want the most badass rig on the road, this is it…This thing has crazy power relative to a diesel truck. Basically it’s like an elephant moving like a cheetah.

Tesla Semi Delivery Event

1 Dec, 2022

Musk: Neuralink human trials to begin in six months

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At an event at Neuralink HQ, Musk says he expects the wireless brain chip developed by Neuralink to begin human clinical trials in six months, after the company missed earlier timelines he had set. Musk says the first two human applications of the dvice will be in restoring vision and enabling movement of muscles in people who cannot do so

Even if someone has never had vision, ever, like they were born blind, we believe we can still restore vision

Musk says human trials will progress slowly, and that he plans to get one of the chips himself.

We want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device into a human. The progress at first, particularly as it applies to humans, will seem perhaps agonizingly slow, but we are doing all of the things to bring it to scale in parallel. So, in theory, progress should be exponential.

Neuralink Show and Tell, Fall 2022

25 Nov, 2022

Twitter to launch blue, gold and grey verification ticks

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Musk says Twitter verification will return on Friday next week with colour-coded categories for individuals, government accounts and companies.

Sorry for the delay, we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week. Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates. Painful, but necessary.

All verified individual humans will have same blue check, as boundary of what constitutes “notable” is otherwise too subjective. Individuals can have secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org. Longer explanation next week.

24 Nov, 2022

Musk offers ‘amnesty’ to suspended accounts

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After a poll that Musk ran, asking users if Twitter should offer a ‘general amnesty’ to suspended accounts, provided they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam, ends in yes, Musk says Twitter will restore accounts from the end of November.  Musk does not give details on how the amnesty process would be carried out.

The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.

More than 3.1m Twitter users responded to the poll, with 72.4% of them voting “Yes”. Mask has already reactivated some accounts, inculding Kanye West, Donald Trump and influencer Andrew Tate.