Tesla is building an electric motor R&D group in Greece to tap into strong local electrical engineering talent

February 25, 2018 By administrator

Tesla’s engineering and design teams are primarily based in the US and especially in California, but the company has been expanding internationally over the last few years with teams in the UK and Germany.

Now we learn that the automaker is also building a small research and development office in Athens, Greece to develop new electric motor technologies.

Several reports came out of Greece over the last few weeks about rumors of Tesla establishing a local presence in the country.

The nature of the company’s presence was never clear since Greece is a market that Tesla has yet to officially enter.

We reached out to the company for a comment on the situation and a spokesperson confirmed that Tesla is establishing a local research and development office:

“Tesla is building a small research and development office in Athens, which will be comprised of a highly-qualified engineering team. This team will focus solely on limited research and development activities to accelerate electric motor technology development through close collaboration with our team in the US.”

Three of Tesla’s top electric motor designers, Principal Motor Designer Konstantinos Laskaris, Motor Design Engineer Konstantinos Bourchas, and Staff Motor Design Engineer Vasilis Papanikolaou, all came out of the National Technical University of Athens.

The company wants to tap even more into this local electrical engineering talent with an office in the Greek capital.

The Tesla spokesperson added:

“Greece has strong electric motor engineering talent and technical universities, offering tailored programs and specialized skills for electric motor technology.”

The team will be relatively small – starting with just 10 engineers.

Electrek’s Take

That’s an interesting development and probably a good move by Tesla. The three engineers mentioned above moved to Palo Alto to work on Tesla’s electric motors, but that can be a hard sale for some people and a local office offers an easier alternative.

The emphasis on electric motor development is also interesting as Tesla is rapidly becoming a large manufacturer of electric drive units and other power electronics.

JB Straubel, Tesla’s Chief Technology Officer, himself an expert in energy conversion, has previously stated that he sees power electronics as one of Tesla’s main advantages in the industry.

The company has already received a lot of praise for its Model S/Model X drive units, but Tesla also built powertrains for several other vehicles like the electric versions of the Toyota Rav4, the Smart, and Mercedes B-class, and they have designed a brand new drive unit for the Model 3, which will also be used in the Tesla Semi.

Village in Armenia May Be Tesla’s Next Powerpack Location

December 31, 2017 By administrator

By Armen Hareyan

You may have heard about Tesla’s Powerpack stations if you have read what Tesla was doing in Puerto Rico. These are utility and business energy storage units that help to store energy. Let’s say you have a solar station and produce excess amount of energy. You need something like Powerpack to store your extra energy. That’s what Tesla and Armenia are negotiating about and here is where the first pilot project will be built in Armenia.

The village of Ddmashen, near Lake Sevan in Armenia, may be the site of Tesla’s new operations, constructing utility and business energy storage units to store Armenia’s excess solar energy.

Two days ago, Armenian Premier Minister Mr. Karen Karapetyan gave an exclusive interview to B4 Business for Business, in which he revealed that the country is negotiating with Tesla to invest in Armenia’s solar sector. The construction of the first solar power plant in Armenia was of great importance for the investor club projects. Being unique in its kind, it became a stimulus, and six months later new solar stations appeared in Armenia.

Armenia, Tesla and Energy Accumulation
“One important fact is that, in parallel with the increase in energy produced by solar stations in Armenia, there is a need to accumulate that electricity. Otherwise we have to produce energy and lose it because we do not have the opportunity to consume all that energy at a given moment. And this is the next project of the investor club, which is currently being discussed with TESLA, along with other products. We are also trying to build accumulative stations. The first pilot project will be built in Ddmashen, building up to 15 megawatt galvanic accumulator stations. Its initial cost is 15-17 million US dollars. These four projects are already underway, they are at the stage of designing, drafting documents.

Projects Underway?
It is really not clear if the discussions with Tesla are just discussions or those projects are underway. It it also not clear if the projects, which are underway, are different projects, or those, which are being discussed with Tesla. What I gather from this interview, is that Armenia and Tesla are testing a pilot project int he village of Ddmashen, in the Gegharkunik Province of Armenia.

Mr. Karapetyan also added that if they succeed in implementing this latest project, it will essentially change Armenia’s energy security. “Though, in terms of energy security, our country is far more secure than the majority of European states, the development of solar energy would have a limit if we did not solve the problem of accumulating and storing that energy as there is a problem of the use of reactive power,” said Karapetyan

Therefore, if all goes well, soon we may hear more about Tesla’s operations in Armenia. Two months ago, in October of 2017 Tesla unveiled ‘first of many solar+storage projects’ at hospital in Puerto Rico, reports Electrek. Looks like now Tesla may test them in Armenia through the pilot project in the village of Ddmashen, the image of which you see in this story.

Tesla launches world’s biggest battery in Australia

December 1, 2017 By administrator

It is three times larger than the next biggest lithium-ion battery and can power up to 30,000 homes. Elon Musk has said it is “just the beginning.”

Tesla activated the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery in Australia on Friday, an achievement Tesla CEO Elon Musk had previously promised would be “just the beginning.”

The roughly football pitch-sized 100-megawatt battery is more than three times larger than the next largest site in Mira Loma, California.

The company says it draws on power delivered from a nearby windfarm and has the capacity to power 30,000 homes for up to an hour during blackouts.

The battery is located some 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of South Australia’s capital Adelaide and will also be used to boost electricity supply in the state during peak demand periods.

“South Australia is now leading the world in dispatchable renewable energy, delivered to homes and businesses 24/7,” State Premier Jay Weatherill said after the launch’s announcement.

Musk keeps his promise

Tesla worked with French renewable energy company Neoen to build the farm in little over over 60 days after the companies had signed a contract with South Australia.

Musk had promised to build the site within 100 days of signing or give the battery to the state government for free.

Neither side has disclosed how much the government paid for the battery.

Australia’s dirty power

South Australia’s decision to build the battery farm is part of a larger $510-million Australian dollar (€325 million/$385 million) plan to make the state independent of Australia’s national power grid.

The battery and the plan, which was announced in March, have been controversial. Opponents have derided Tesla’s battery as a “Hollywood solution” to the state’s energy supply problems.

South Australia gets over 40 percent of its electricity from wind and solar power, but it has struggled to provide electricity during windless periods of peak demand.

Australia is a major exporter of liquid natural gas and coal. It uses coal to power much of its national electricity grid, making it one of the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita basis.

amp/ng (AP, Reuters)

Tesla batteries to power entire homes out soon – Elon Musk

February 13, 2015 By administrator

Elon Musk

Tesla Motors says its ambitious plan to produce battery packs strong enough to power houses will be reality within six months. The promise comes as the company revealed lower-than-expected sales figures for Model S vehicles.

“We are going to unveil the Tesla home battery, the consumer battery that would be for use in people’s houses or businesses fairly soon,” company’s CEO Elon Musk said during the latest earnings call, adding that the design stage of the product is over.

The new type of battery is likely to be unveiled in the next “month or two,” Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel stated, adding that the idea is “really great” and “I’m really excited about it,” without further elaborating on the details of the desig

The idea was mentioned last year as well, when Musk said he had something planned that would be placed in people’s homes and not their cars.

“We are trying to figure out what would be a cool stationary [battery] pack,” Musk said. “Some will be like the Model S pack: something flat, 5 inches off the wall, wall-mounted, with a beautiful cover, an integrated bi-directional inverter, and plug and play.”

The announcement came amid a somber sales outlook for the automaker, with latest figures falling short of predictions. Tesla shipped just 9,834 Model S vehicles in the fourth quarter, falling short of 11,200 total, which the company projected to deliver. Overall, Tesla assembled nearly 12,000 cars during the quarter.

Following the news, firm’s shares dropped 4.6 percent on Thursday, with Tesla posting $0.13 loss per share versus the expected profit of $0.32 per share in the fourth quarter.

Earlier in December, Musk tried to attract Chinese auto buyers to boost sales by announcing a trade-in program that would give shoppers a discount on a $100,000 Tesla car if they brought in their old car.