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Up-and-coming Chinese EV maker NIO handed over the keys to the first EL6 driver in Europe. The new electric SUV is expected to play a significant role in NIO’s overseas expansion.

The NIO EL6, known as the ES6 in China, has officially arrived in Europe. NIO renamed the electric SUV after a legal dispute with Audi, claiming the name is too similar to its gas-powered S6.

NIO launched the second-generation ES6 (EL6 in Europe) in May. The new ES6 is 4,854 mm (191″) long, 1,995 mm (78″) wide, and 1,703 mm (67″) tall. At that, NIO’s electric SUV is slightly bigger than the Tesla Model Y, which measures 187″ long, 76″ wide, and 64″ tall.

Despite only launching a few months ago, NIO is already seeing significant results from the electric SUV.

The ES6 has been the automaker’s top-selling model since launching as its least expensive SUV. Many see the ES6 as NIO’s most important model. The trend has continued with the new ES6, based on NIO’s NT 2.0 EV platform.

NIO-first-EL6-Europe
NIO new ES6 (Source: NIO)

NIO delivers first EL6 electric SUV in Europe

After launching in May, the second-gen ES6 set a new YTD order intake record with nearly 30,000 pre-orders in three days. Then, in July, it broke the company’s monthly sales record with over 10,000 models delivered.

Now, the ES6 – or EL6, I should say – is arriving in Europe. NIO handed over the keys to the first EL6 driver in Europe on Tuesday. NIO evangelist Cláudio Afonso shared a picture from the event on social media with the caption, “The lucky couple! First NIO EL6 in Europe is now in safe hands.”

NIO-ET5-Touring
NIO ET5T electric station wagon (Source: NIO)

NIO also launched the ET5 Touring (ET5T), its first electric station wagon designed explicitly for Europe. The station wagon EV is expected to compete with premium German automakers on their home turf, like Porsche and BMW.

The EV maker kicked off ET5 sedan deliveries in Europe earlier this month as it continues its overseas expansion.

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Fresh TSLA lawsuits, V2X options, and the USAF is blowing up Cybertrucks

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Fresh TSLA lawsuits, V2X options, and the USAF is blowing up Cybertrucks

Elon wants the US military to start buying Tesla Cybertrucks – and now they are! The Air Force has ordered two Cybertruck testers for target practice to determine how easy they are to blow up, while Jo makes up a whole new conspiracy theory on today’s explosive episode of Quick Charge!

Today’s episode is brought to you by retrospec—makers of sleek, powerful e-bikes and outdoor gear built for everyday adventure. Electrek listeners can get 10% off their next ride until August 14 with the exclusive code ELECTREK10 only at retrospec.com.

An it doesn’t stop there. We’ve also got exciting new home battery backup and V2X options for Tesla owners, and one Texas EV driver that decided to conquer the Texas floodwaters by harnessing the awesome combined powers of electrons and stupidity (it’s pretty awesome).

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

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New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (most weeks, anyway). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.


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Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer looks dead as more execs leave for competing startup

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Tesla's Dojo supercomputer looks dead as more execs leave for competing startup

Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer project is reportedly over. Bloomberg reports that CEO Elon Musk is killing the project after a mass exodus of talent from the Dojo team to a competing startup.

Dojo was the name of Tesla’s in-house AI chip development to create supercomputers to train its AI models for self-driving.

Tesla hired a bunch of top chip architects and tried to develop better AI accelerator chips to rely less on companies like NVIDIA, AMD, and others.

It has been running into delays for years.

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We previously reported on significant setbacks. In 2018, Jim Keller, the famed chip architect who was first hired to lead Tesla’s chip-making effort, left the company.

Ganesh Venkataramanan succeeded him, but he left Tesla in 2023.

For the last few years, Peter Bannon, who worked with Keller for years, has been leading Tesla’s chip-making programs, but he is now reportedly also leaving the automaker.

Bloomberg reports that Musk has “ordered the effort to be shut down.”:

Peter Bannon, who was heading up Dojo, is leaving and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has ordered the effort to be shut down, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. The team has lost about 20 workers recently to newly formed DensityAI, and remaining Dojo workers are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, the people said.

DensityAI is a new startup currently in stealth mode, founded by several former Tesla employees, including Venkataramanan.

It reportedly plans to build chips for AI data centers and robots, much like the Dojo program.

The company recently hired 20 former Tesla employees who worked on Dojo.

While the program appeared to be lagging behind for years as Tesla increasingly bought more compute power from NVIDIA, Musk has been claiming progress.

The CEO said in June:

Tesla Dojo AI training computer making progress. We start bringing Dojo 2 online later this year. It takes three major iterations for a new technology to be great. Dojo 2 is good, but Dojo 3 will be great.

During Tesla’s quarterly conference call in late July, the CEO claimed that Dojo 2 will be “operating at scale sometime next year.”

Electrek’s Take

It’s unclear whether the report is accurate or if it’s an extrapolation from the talent exodus to Elon killing Dojo, or if Elon was lying just a few weeks ago.

Alternatively, this development may be so recent that Elon went from being confident in Dojo a few weeks ago to disbanding the team working on it now.

Either way, I think it’s clear that the project has been lagging, and Tesla has been extremely dependent on chip suppliers rather than making its own.

I think Dojo being likely dead is not a big loss for Tesla.

When it comes to chip making, developing its own inference compute for onboard “AI computers” was always the more important project.

TSMC is set to produce Tesla’s new AI5 chip, which is coming soon, and we have recently learned that Samsung will be manufacturing its AI6 chip.

I think the bigger concern from this report is that it’s the latest example of an ongoing exodus of talent at Tesla.

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Block shares pop 11% on full-year guidance boost

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Block shares pop 11% on full-year guidance boost

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chief executive officer of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., listens during the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida, on Friday, June 4, 2021.

Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Block shares jumped in extended trading on Thursday after the fintech company increased its forecast for the year.

Here is how the company did, compared to analysts’ consensus estimates from LSEG.

  • Earnings per share: 62 cents adjusted vs. 69 cents expected

Block doesn’t report a revenue figure, but said gross profit rose 14% from a year earlier to $2.54 billion, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.46 billion for the quarter. Gross payment volume increased 10% to $64.25 billion.

Block raised its guidance for full-year gross profit to $10.17 billion, representing 14% growth from a year earlier. In its prior earnings report, Block said gross profit for the year would come in at $9.96 billion.

The company expects full-year adjusted operating income of $2.03 billion, or a 20% margin. For the third quarter, the company expects gross profit to grow 16% from a year ago to $2.6 billion, with an operating margin of 18%.

Square payment volume in the quarter grew 10% from a year earlier.

Block faces growing competition from rivals such as Toast and Fiserv‘s Clover, though its Square business still gained share during the quarter in areas such as retail and food and beverage.

Block shares were down 10% this year as of Thursday’s close, while the Nasdaq is up 10%. Last month, Block was added to the S&P 500.

CNBC’s Robert Hum contributed to this report.

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This was actually one of Block's better quarters, says Mizuho's Dan Dolev as stock climbs on Q2 miss

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