By Lennon Cihak
There are rumors that Apple CarPlay will soon support gas payment directly from the CarPlay interface. According MacRumorsthe feature was first mentioned during a dev session at WWDC earlier this month.
“Pre-entering payment credentials into the iPhone app will allow users to activate a pump and quickly purchase fuel directly from the CarPlay UI,” writes MacRumors.
Gas company HF Sinclair will jump on board with this new technology.
“We are excited about the prospect of consumers being able to walk into a Sinclair station and purchase fuel from their vehicle’s navigation screen,” said Jack Barger, HF Sinclair’s senior vice president of marketing. Reuters.
With the appearance of many electric vehicle chargers such as ChargePoint and Electrify America, Tesla should consider adding a way to pay for third-party chargers directly from the vehicle.
Tesla owners already have the luxury of easy payment at Superchargers because their payment information is stored in their Tesla Account.
This feature could save consumers a lot of time and hassle. In its current form, the only way to use a specific charging station, say ChargePoint, is to download its app, create an account, enter your payment details, and get started.
But this approach is not quite ideal because if you are in an area that has no cellular reception/internet connection, you will not be able to create an account to charge your vehicle.
If Tesla worked with other charging companies, like ChargePoint, Volta, and Electrify America, there could be seamless integration for charging infrastructure.
Ideally, this integration should be easy to use. For example, I should be able to search my vehicle for a non-Tesla charging location, add it as a destination so that Tesla preconditions the battery before arriving, and upon arrival informs you at which stall you are going to charge. If there is a wait, it will inform you of the waiting time and estimate the cost of this charging stop.
By Kevin Armstrong
Tesla’s used-car division is transforming the way people buy vehicles, and they’re not using “inflatable tube men waving wacky inflatable arms” to do it. Tesla Director of Sales and Delivery Operations Jimmy Douglas said Electrek that it doesn’t need the attention-grabbing inflatables to beat the online used-car giants.
Tesla apparently came across a brilliant plan to sell its used cars. In 2019, the electric vehicle pioneer announced that it would not allow people who rented their Model 3 to resell them afterwards; instead, the vehicle must be returned to the dealer. The original plan was to upgrade these previously beloved cars to become the RoboTaxi. The RoboTaxi program, a fully autonomous vehicle that would support the ride-sharing industry, is still in development, so now Tesla has thousands of cars returning to the field.
The timing couldn’t be more ideal. The demand for electric vehicles has never been higher. However, some potential buyers are offended by the stickers when buying electric vehicles, including the biggest name in the business. A simple solution is to buy used. Used vehicle sales exceeded 40 million in the United States alone in 2021, compared to 15 million new vehicles.
Nonetheless, there’s still the long-held stereotype of the sleazy used-car salesman pushing a shiny lemon at unsuspecting buyers. This is certainly not the case with Tesla. Instead, used car sales work similarly to the new car buying experience.
Douglas told Electrek, “Most people don’t realize that Tesla runs its own nationwide vertically integrated online used car retailer. It’s as big as some publicly traded used car retailers you’ve no doubt heard of, despite the lack of Super Bowl ads. We can only assume he’s referring to Carvana, which debuted its Over Sharing Mom ad during the 2022 Super Bowl. The used car business is valued at $4.69 billion.
Tesla does not have a line item indicating the value of its used car division. This section of the business falls under Services and Others; on the most recent SEC filing, that number is $1.4 billion.
While that’s not Carvana’s value, it’s still a big change, especially since Tesla recently blocked tenants from selling one of its products at the end of term. This means an endless supply of used cars will be returned to the dealership.
In addition, the company is preparing for the growth of this division. A recently posted post at Tesla reads: “Would you like to be part of a team transforming the way people buy a car?” Douglas hires Associate Director of Used Car Quality. The post continues: “As a leader in Tesla’s used car business, you are responsible for developing the refurbishment process and managing day-to-day refurbishment operations.
Maybe the used car division will get more respect in the future at Tesla and not lumped into the “other” category. This category has increased by 50% since last year. At this rate, used cars deserve a line of their own.
By Kevin Armstrong
Tesla wants everyone on its payroll to participate and help with a frantic end-of-quarter push. An internal email leaked to Electrek says employees, even those not in sales and delivery, should help get as many vehicles out as possible. The email says there are “a very large number of vehicles” and management is requesting further assistance.
This surge should come as no surprise after a disappointing second quarter. The company delivered 18% fewer vehicles compared to the previous reference period. Tesla delivered 254,695 against 310,048 three months earlier. The drop ended a two-year streak in which the company continued to break its delivery record. The drop in numbers was not due to outages at Tesla, but to COVID-related closures at its Gigafactory in Shanghai, China.
Nevertheless, Tesla is keen to right the ship immediately. This quarter, like no other before, saw significant competition enter the EV space and challenge the king of the industry. As a result, Tesla wants nothing more than to get back on track with another record delivery of its highly sought-after vehicles.
According to Electrek, the company-wide email read: We will deliver a very large number of vehicles to eagerly awaiting customers during the final days of the third quarter. To ensure that we can satisfy as many customers as possible, the delivery team is requesting additional assistance with key delivery execution tasks.
For weeks, Tesla’s careers page has listed dozens of seasonal advisor positions. The posts say these positions are “critical quarter-end support, operating alongside our sales and delivery team to execute record delivery results.” The work was expected to take two to three weeks.
Analysts expect Tesla to get back on track and deliver more than 310,000 cars this quarter. In fact, one analyst went much further than that. Trip Chowdhry with Global Equities Research has publicly stated that it expects the automaker to exceed 500,000 deliveries in the fourth quarter. Additionally, he estimates that the production time of a Tesla has decreased by 10%, and he notes other factors like the Semi coming online and the increased capacity of factories around the world.
Tesla is expected to release its quarterly results in mid-October.
