Tesla no longer guarantees your electric car’s resale value

Tesla introduced its Resale Value Guarantee in 2013, when buying an upscale electric car was a riskier prospect. What if your Model S was worth less than a tried-and-true German sedan? However, the market has clearly grown up since then… and Tesla is changing accordingly. The automaker tells The Verge that it has discontinued the program for any new car bought after July 1st. The move will reduce interest rates “as low as possible” and sweeten leases and loans, a spokesperson says. You’re still protected if you bought a car under the guarantee, but any relative latecomers will just have to trust that the used EV market will work in their favor.

Maintaining the program was potentially very expensive. Tesla promised that you’d get at least 50 percent of the base price as well as 43 percent of the options pricing. That wasn’t a huge hit to the bottom line when the company was selling a relatively small number of luxury cars (Elon Musk even backed it with his own money), but it could cut much deeper when Tesla starts selling hundreds of thousands of Model 3s.

Look at it this way, though: while the move is unfortunate if you liked the idea of your car maintaining a high minimum worth, it’s also a sign that the EV market is growing up. Tesla has enough demand that it can ditch the guarantee without worrying that sales will drop off a cliff. And with these kinds of volumes, resale value might not be an issue in the first place. There’s clearly an audience for these vehicles, so you shouldn’t have to lower your asking price just to attract a buyer.

Source: The Verge

Tesla unveils its less pricey crossover Model X 60D

While much pricier than its upcoming $35,000 Model 3 sedans, Tesla’s Model X crossovers fit the bill for electric car enthusiasts that need a little more space. That dream is a little easier to achieve with the new $74,000 Model X 60D, which doesn’t go quite as far as the old baseline X 75D but costs $9,000 less.

The new model’s 60kwh battery gives it an EPA-estimated 200-mile range, which is 37 miles less than its bigger cousin. Otherwise it performs just like the 75D with a top speed of 130 mph and acceleration of 0-60 in 6.0 seconds. Given that Tesla has recently announced slightly cheaper car models that limits battery capacity behind a costly software update, the company could be doing the same and introducing the 60D as a code-crippled version of its longer-range predecessor, wonders Autoblog. Regardless, you can order the newest Model X on Tesla’s site and get it by September.

Source: Autoblog

DNC, RNC streaming options include Twitch and Bing

The US’ big political parties are seemingly determined to outdo each other in terms of ways to watch their conventions online. To start, the Democratic Party has unveiled livestreaming plans that will let you watch its National Convention on seemingly every modern platform under the Sun. On top of Twitter and its own site, the party will stream through Bing, YouTube and… Twitch. That’s right — you can witness an important part of the electoral process in between League of Legends and Overwatch viewing sessions. The convention will also be live on Amazon’s Fire TV, the Apple TV, Roku players and your Xbox, in case you’d rather see the nominations on a big screen.

The Republican Party hasn’t announced similarly broad plans so far — we’ve asked Twitch about what it’s doing — but you shouldn’t be hurting for convention viewing choices on that front, either. You’ll get livestreaming through the Republican National Convention website, Bing, YouTube (including Fox News) and the RNC’s own mobile app. The one certainty: the days of having to sit down in front of the TV are long gone, regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum.

Source: 2016 DNCC (PR Newswire), Bing Blogs

Nissan announces a suite of auto-drive features

Nissan is getting in on the semi-autonomous driving function game, having launched a suite of them on Wednesday. Unlike Tesla’s automated options, Nissan made sure to stress they’re intended only to assist rather than outright replace drivers.

The ProPilot suite is capable of driving a vehicle on a single-lane motorway as well as navigate congestion if required, but it’s only meant to help drivers get through these obstacles rather than taking over completely.

There’s a special button on the steering wheel that will activate ProPilot, which helps maintain a safe distance from a car in front of you without requiring any input from the driver as far as the steering, acceleration or brakes go. Drivers’ hands must be kept on the wheel the entire time, and the wheel is released there’s an alarm that goes off after 10 seconds.

The first vehicle to include these options will be a special Serena minivan that goes on sale in Japan as of next month. There are plans in the future to implement the ProPilot suite in Qashqai SUV crossovers in the future as well as to roll out the feature in the US and China over the next few months.

This news comes hot on the tail of a recent crash involving a Tesla vehicle’s autopilot feature, but Nissan has declined to comment specifically on that event. The company plans to introduce autonomous multiple-lane driving by 2018 and other additional functions for urban driving.

Via: Reuters

‘Pokémon Go’ to Feature Retailer-Sponsored Locations

Niantic Labs, the developer behind the hit augmented reality game Pokémon Go, today hinted to the Financial Times that it plans to allow retailers and other companies to introduce sponsored locations in the future as a way to monetize the app.

Real world locations in Pokémon Go serve as “Pokéstops” for collecting in-game items and power-ups including “Pokéballs” or as “gyms” for battling the pokémon of other players. Right now, Pokéstops and gyms are largely located at notable landmarks like parks and statues, but may expand to encompass retailer-sponsored locations.

Niantic Labs’ previous app, Ingress, featured similar branded portals purchased by retailers like Jamba Juice and Zipcar. Advertisers who purchased portals through Niantic Labs paid on a “cost per visit” basis, and a similar tactic could be used in Pokémon Go.

John Hanke, chief executive of Niantic, which developed Pokémon Go in partnership with the Japanese games group, said “sponsored locations” would provide a new revenue stream, in addition to in-app purchases of power-ups and virtual items. […]

Alongside in-app payments, “there is a second component to our business model at Niantic, which is this concept of sponsored locations”, Mr Hanke said, where companies “pay us to be locations within the virtual game board — the premise being that it is an inducement that drives foot traffic”.

Niantic CEO John Hanke declined to tell Financial Times about any sponsorship deals already in the works for Pokémon Go, but code within the app discovered this morning suggests a deal may have been established with McDonald’s. McDonald’s imagery is included in the app and the McDonald’s name is listed in the app’s code.

Image via Gizmodo
Pokémon Go has become a global phenomenon since its launch last week, earning an estimated $1.6 million in daily revenue with more than 7.5 million downloads in the United States. The app received its first update yesterday, fixing a number of bugs and changing Google permissions that sparked privacy concerns.

Tag: Pokémon GO
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