Elon Musk Irked By Koch Industries Assault On Electric Cars

There may not be a bigger advocate for electric vehicles than Elon Musk.

The Tesla CEO’s line of electric vehicles continues to make strides, and the billionaire even suggested to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) last December to allow Volkswagen to forgo its massive emissions recall in exchange for allowing the automaker to switch to zero-emissions.

So, to say he’s a proponent of electric vehicles surpassing gas-powered cars and SUVs on the road someday would be a huge understatement.

That explains why he publicly responded to a Huffington Post article about Koch Industries reportedly ready to shell out about $10 million dollars per year to increase petroleum-based fuels with a simple but efficient “Sigh” on Twitter early Friday morning.

About an hour later, Musk additionally tweeted: “Worth noting that all gasoline cars are heavily subsidized via oil company tax credits & unpaid public health costs.”

The Huffington Post story revealed that a Koch Industries board member and seasoned Washington energy lobbyist are collaborating to fund a group to promote the advocacy for fossil fuels. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the Kochs’ fortune was largely built on fossil fuels.

The media outlet reported that once the new group is launched — although there doesn’t seem to be a specific time table on a possible date — they’ll push pro-petroleum messages through the media to “make the public aware of all the benefits of petroleum-based transportation fuels,” an industry source requesting anonymity told the Huffington Post.

Needless to say, they’re concerned with the continued growth of electric vehicles, especially given the fact that Koch Industries is still so heavily invested in fuels.

“They’re worried about state and community subsidies,” the source added. “In 20 years, electric vehicles could have a substantial foothold in the U.S. market.”

According to Huff Post, electric vehicles consist of one percent of automobiles in the United States, but that’s expected to increase to as much as five percent in 2025. Likely to add to that number is the government’s involvement, in the form of tax breaks being offered to potential car owners willing to go electric.

Cable companies: The FCC may force us to make your life more difficult

A coaxial cable is displayed for a photograph in front of a Time Warner Cable helmet in Manhattan Beach, California, U.S., on Monday, August 12, 2013. Photographer: Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg
Federal regulators launched an effort Thursday to give consumers more choice in the kinds of set-top boxes that provide them cable programming, a move that could reshape the way millions of Americans experience their television service.

But the cable industry has warned regulators that it will have little choice but to keep requiring monthly set-top box rentals if the federal government moves ahead with its proposal.

As a result, households that want to ditch their set-top boxes could wind up with even more of them, industry officials say. Instead of buying a third-party cable box to replace the one they rent from their TV provider, consumers could be forced to manage multiple devices, various firms have told regulators in meetings and in a regulatory filing.

The gloomy forecasts are aimed at deflating efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to allow outside companies, such as those from the tech industry, to build their own competing cable boxes and apps. Industry officials are attempting to persuade the FCC that its actions will create new costs for cable companies — costs they will not hesitate to pass along to the consumer.

“Consumers will end up paying,” executives from the industry told the agency in a filing last week. They added that “someone will need to develop and pay for new technologies and specifications” that meet the FCC’s requirements.

Regulators haven’t laid out a specific roadmap for the industry; rather, it plans to bring cable companies, tech companies, consumer groups and others together in a bid to hammer out a mutually agreeable standard that would allow new cable boxes to interact with cable content.

Among other objections, cable companies worry that whatever solution the group comes up with — if it finds one — will require substantial changes to their networks.

It would be costly to upgrade individual cable companies’ technology to “somehow work with every potential third party that wants access,” according to an industry official who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss corporate strategies.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler dismissed those concerns Thursday, saying his agency’s proposal does not explicitly require a “multibillion-dollar reengineering of cable systems.”

“It is not forcing cable operators to change the way they do business,” he later told reporters, adding that the standards process will ensure cable companies will not face steep new costs.

The agency voted 3-2 to move forward with the proposal, with its Democratic commissioners voting in favor and Republicans voting against.

At the moment, it is essentially Wheeler’s prediction against the industry’s, because the standard-setting process has yet to take place and could occur over a number of years. But Wheeler’s proposed plan creates financial incentives that would drive cable companies to hurt consumers, industry execs argued to the FCC.

“Each and every company has told me that it would be less expensive to deploy additional boxes in their customers’ homes [than to reengineer their networks],” said Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. “So if the Commission’s proposal is implemented, the American people will probably end up paying for more boxes, not fewer.”

In this scenario, consumers would be unable to take advantage of a cable box built by a third party unless they first connected that box to the proprietary cable box supplied by the TV company.

The cable industry hopes the multiple-box argument, among others, will dissuade the FCC from its current approach. But consumer groups say it isn’t likely to resonate with officials — or with Americans.

“I think we need better proof from them than, ‘The cable company is looking out for you and would hate to raise your prices,'” said Matt Wood, policy director of the advocacy group Free Press. “There’s this notion that “No, no, Grandfather Cable is looking out for you and God forbid we charge you more.'”

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Inside Tesla’s Fremont Electric-Car Plant: How Model S, Model X Are Built (Video)

While the lithium-ion battery “Gigafactory” under construction in Nevada continues to get most of the attention, Tesla’s existing assembly plant in Fremont, California, continues to steadily churn out electric cars.

The company has built the Model S sedan in Fremont since 2012, and is now building the Model X crossover there as well.

And as it continues to build more cars, Tesla seems to be more relaxed about letting video crews into its factory.

DON’T MISS: Here’s What The Tesla Model X Assembly Line Looks Like (Dec 2015)

It recently showed off the Fremont factory’s inner workings to a San Francisco Bay Area CBS television crew.

Even with restricted media access, the factory’s white interior paint and epoxy floors–a personal preference of CEO Elon Musk, apparently–should be familiar to anyone that follows Tesla.

About the only things that aren’t painted white are the red robots, some of which have comic-book names like “Cyclops.”

Tesla Motors – Model S lithium-ion battery pack

It’s likely a somewhat different look than the Fremont plant had under its original owners.

The 5.3 million square-foot building started out as New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI), a collaboration between General Motors and Toyota.

At peak production, it was able to build 500,000 cars a year–mostly compacts like the Pontiac Vibe and Geo Prizim.

ALSO SEE: Old Vs New: 2016 Tesla Model S 90D Compared To Original Version

Tesla builds a much smaller number of cars there now, but it hopes to realize similar volumes eventually.

The company has said it hopes to build 500,000 electric cars per year by 2020.

So if nothing else, it already has a factory that’s up to the job.

Tesla factory, Fremont, California

Tesla acquired the former NUMMI plant in 2010, after both GM and Toyota had ceased building cars there.

GM pulled out in 2009. At the time, it was on the verge of bankruptcy and preparing to shutter Pontiac. The brand’s Vibe was the only GM product still being made in Fremont.

Shortly after GM announced an end to the partnership, Toyota announced that it too would cease building cars in Fremont.

MORE: Tesla Model 3 Unveil On March 31, Deposits Accepted That Day

Tesla subsequently moved in, after briefly considering building a new factory from the ground up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The company is now focusing on ramping up production of the Model X, and preparing to start production of higher-volume Model 3.

The Model 3 is Tesla’s much-discussed $35,000 sedan, which will have a range of 200 miles. Tesla will begin taking orders next month, and production is expected to start next year.

New 4-inch iPhone to run Apple’s A9 chip, ‘iPad Air 3’ to sport A9X – report

By Neil Hughes
Thursday, February 18, 2016, 05:55 am PT (08:55 am ET)

Though they are expected to be priced as mid-range products, Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad updates will run the same latest-generation processors as their flagship counterparts, a new report reveals.

In a cover story profiling Apple’s chipmaking operations, Bloomberg reported that Apple’s new 4-inch iPhone will run the same A9 processor found in the iPhone 6s series, its sources said. In addition, the “iPad Air 3” is expected to be powered by the A9X processor already found in the larger iPad Pro.

If accurate, the information would reveal that the new 4-inch iPhone, rumored to be called the “iPhone 5se” or “iPhone 6c,” will be more powerful than Apple’s current mid-range handset lineup, the iPhone 6 series. Priced starting at $549, the iPhone 6 runs an A8 processor with 1 gigabyte of RAM.

The A9 chip in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, meanwhile, has 2 gigabytes of RAM, allowing app data to remain active in the background for longer. The A9 is more than 50 percent faster than the A8 at multicore operations, and nearly 60 percent faster at single core tasks.

The A9 also includes the M9 motion coprocessor, which allows the iPhone 6s to track pace when running. It also powers the always-on “Hey Siri” functionality that allows users to invoke the voice-driven personal assistant without touching their phone.

If the new 4-inch iPhone gains all of the features of the A9 chip in the iPhone 6s, it’s still unknown how Apple plans to price the device. Earlier rumors had suggested Apple might price it under $500 without a subsidy, but that would undercut the $549 iPhone 6 with a device actually more powerful.

As for the third-generation iPad Air, the A9X processor found in the iPad Pro is a dual-core CPU with a 12-cluster GPU. The beefed-up chip doubles the graphics power of the base A9 processor found in the iPhone 6s series.

The A9X also boasts 4 gigabytes of RAM, doubling the amount of memory in the iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6s. Performance is also aided by a new storage controller that improves both read and write speeds.

Apple is widely expected to announce both the new 4-inch iPhone and iPad Air at a media event on March 15. The devices are rumored to go on sale just three days later, on Friday, March 18.