Tesla wins bid to build world’s largest lithium-ion battery in South Australia

An artist’s impression of the Tesla Powerpack, which will be built in Australia | Tesla

Tesla has just won a big deal in South Australia that comes with big stakes. The Australian state just awarded the electric car firm the bid to install the world’s largest lithium-ion battery that will be used to store wind energy from French company Neoen’s Hornsdale Wind Farm, which is located outside of Jamestown, South Australia. Tesla CEO Elon Musk proclaimed that they will build the 100-megawatt battery within 100 days or else they’ll do it for free. Musk acknowledges the risk that comes with the project, though. He says, “There is certainly some risk, because this will be the largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin. The next biggest battery in the world is 30 megawatts.”

South Australia has been dealing with blackouts since September last year and this project hopes to bring in additional power that the state can use during emergencies. The battery, together with the wind farm, will be working around the clock to make sure this happens. Tesla expects to finish the project by December this year. If they won’t be able to meet its deadlines, Tesla might be on the hook for US$50 million or more in installation costs.

Source: BBC + The Verge

Elon Musk: Tesla to start production of Model 3 this week

After passing all regulatory requirements for its production, the Tesla Model 3 will enter production by July 7^th, Friday, according to CEO Elon Musk. The first 30 customers will be getting their new Teslas during a handover party on July 28^th. Afterwards production of the most affordable Tesla to date will ramp up from 100 cars in August, to over 1,500 in September, and then to 20,000 per month by the end of the year. Tesla is also expected to dramatically increase production next year as it aims to produce 500,000 units annually. The Model 3 has over 400,000 pre-orders already so there are a lot of vehicles that need to be done. The clamor for it is understandable with the Model 3’s starting price at US$35,000 (around CA$45,000), which puts it a good $70,000 or so off the other Tesla models.

Source: The Verge

This is what a Tesla car ‘sees’ as it drives your car

Tesla plans to equip all its new cars with the technology needed for these vehicles to be self-driving cars. Now, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweets a demonstration video of how that’ll work and what these vehicles “see” when it’s out on the road. The video shows a passenger in the driver’s seat (because of the law) but the car itself is doing all the driving. You can see the car navigate through traffic and stop lights before it parks itself at its destination. The video shows the car’s interiors, car’s left rear, medium range, and right rear cameras, too.

You see a variety of color boxes and lines in the video. Colored boxes for “in path objects” are for things like road lights, objects, and road signs. It also highlights people, other vehicles, and other hazards that human drivers might take into consideration when driving. According to Tesla, its new cars will come with onboard computers that carry “40 times the computing power of the previous generation” so it can process vision, sonar, and radar imagery that the car takes in.

Source: The Verge

Microsoft announces partnership with OpenAI as part of commitment to democratizing AI

Microsoft just announced a new partnership with OpenAI as part of their commitment to democratizing AI and making it accessible to everyone. The partnership is focused on making significant contributions to advance the field of AI, while also furthering a mutual goal of using AI to tackle some of the world’s most challenging problems.

In order to help advance their research and create new tools and technologies that are only possible with the cloud, OpenAI chose Microsoft Azure as their primary cloud platform, tapping into Microsoft’s deep learning research and ongoing commitment to AI, along with Azure’s support for open source technologies.

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