Archinect - News

Tesla’s EV-charging drive-in concept is under construction in Los Angeles

2024-01-17T18:44:00-05:00

Construction on Tesla's new Stantec-designed drive-in diner and electric vehicle charging concept is making progress in Los Angeles, as the local NBC station reports.

The project, which wasn’t approved until last April, is currently taking shape at 7001 W Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. Once it is completed, the retro-inspired dining space and rest area will offer drivers 32 total electric charging stations while serving classic American roadside fare wrapped in a two-story and 9,300-square-foot faux Streamline Moderne package.

Elon Musk developed the idea after thinking out loud on his Twitter account in 2018. Tesla says the station will operate on a 24-hour capacity once it opens later in the fall.

Previously on Archinect: Tesla's diner & drive-in theater supercharger station concept gets approved for West Hollywood

The development is significant as other fast food chains across the country are preparing their own EV charging station plans, according to Axios. A two-scre...

Tesla's diner & drive-in theater supercharger station concept gets approved for West Hollywood

2023-08-28T15:14:00-04:00

Tesla’s retro-inspired supercharging diner & drive-in movie theater concept will begin construction soon after the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety recently approved a planning permit for the company’s first Stantec-led design at 7001 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, Teslarati reports.

The previously announced plan calls for a two-story, 9,300-square-foot structure with bars and an outdoor restaurant seating area. The structure will have two "drive-in" screens, which play movies of approximately 30 minutes in length, and capacity for 29 total charging stations. Tesla says it will operate the station on a 24-hour capacity.

CEO Elon Musk earlier this month described its design as "Grease meets The Jetsons with Supercharging" before promising its realization by the end of this year. Only technical drawings from the permitting application have been made official, leading some to offer their own speculative renderings via social media. A model of the structure was ...

Tesla is pushing to build a new drive-in diner, theatre, and supercharging station in Hollywood

2022-06-10T15:53:00-04:00

As reported by Electrek in May 2022, Tesla has moved its previously-announced plans for a supercharging station featuring a diner and drive-in movie theater from a vacant lot in the city of Santa Monica to the current location of a Shakey's Pizza franchise on 7001 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, CA.

The two-story structure will feature multiple bars and outdoor restaurant seating in addition to amphitheater-style seating overlooking its dual screens and field of 29 charging stations.

The movies are said to be approximately 30 minutes in length, roughly equal to the amount of time required by the Level 3 supercharging process, which is done with greater alacrity than the 8 to 20-hour at-home Level 1 and 2 versions. Permits are still waiting to be approved allowing the station (but not the theater) to operate 24 hours a day. Some have speculated it will carry a “retro” midcentury aesthetic reminiscent of the great Standard Oil stations documented by Ed Ruscha in the early 1960s....

Master-planned community set to rise near Austin Tesla factory

2022-01-03T13:53:00-05:00

Austin can’t get enough of Tesla, it seems. Developers of a master-planned community near the electric vehicle factory under construction submitted plans for 300 new apartments and 200 single-family homes to the city this month, according to the Austin Business Journal.

Canadian company Brookfield Residential Properties wants to build the homes on vacant land in a 3,200-acre planned community in Southeast Austin called Easton Park. Brookfield is partnering with Houston-based Hines investment group on the project, and civil engineering firm Consort submitted the plans for the new apartments.

Previously on Archinect: Plans for Tesla's $1.1 billion Cybertruck plant advance

As reported by The Real Deal, real estate data firm Zonda ranks Easton Park the fourth most active area for construction in Austin. It is set to have 12,000 new homes in the next eight to ten years.

Plans for Tesla's $1.1 billion Cybertruck plant advance

2020-10-08T12:48:00-04:00

While no contractors have been officially announced for the project, Tesla procurement manager Jessica Munoz told the Community Impact Newspaper that two general contractors have been selected but not yet named. The firm also is looking for subcontractors for various jobs including site logistics, painting, flooring, fireproofing, interior finishing, plumbing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and electrical projects.

In July, Tesla announced the purchase of a site near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to build its largest electric car assembly plant, dubbed "Giga Texas." The ambitious opening date has reportedly been set to May 1, 2021.

2,100-acre Tesla Cybertruck factory to be built outside Austin

2020-07-30T19:20:00-04:00

The new factory will build Tesla’s upcoming Cybertruck pickup and will be a second U.S. manufacturing site for the Model Y small SUV, largely for distribution to the East Coast.

According to AP News, the factory will be built on 2,100 acres near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, making it the company's largest auto assembly plant. The plant will be approximately 4 million square feet and has already begun construction.

Lars Büro creates Tesla Cybertruck-inspired CYBUNKER

2019-12-17T13:25:00-05:00

Inspired by the recently unveiled Tesla Cybertruck, Lars Büro has imagined a Cybunker, "a modular architecture that can be deployed as a hi-tech depot, an ADU, or an off-grid residence." Made with a rigid steel "monocoque" structure, the aerodynamic module is able to withstand grueling environmental conditions.

The photovoltaic-covered roof gives the Cybunker self-sustaining capability in remote locations or as a complimentary system for on-grid residences. The depot is designed to carry a variety of equipment and vehicles, including oversized trucks. With a 1,800 square-foot interior, the Cybunker allows flexible programming. "Cybunker can be customized to serve limitless functions, including an apartment, shelter, storage, or other commercial uses," Lars Büro writes of the project.

Tesla launches new construction company in China

2019-10-03T13:45:00-04:00

...Tesla Inc has registered a construction company in China, a business registration filing shows, the latest sign Tesla is pushing ahead with its plans in the world’s biggest auto market.

According to China's National Enterprise Information Publicity System, the new construction unit has opened with a registered capital of $1 million and a scope that includes architectural design, construction, and building materials, Reuters reports.

The purpose of the construction company isn't clear, but with Tesla's recent erection of manufacturing facilities in Shanghai, one could deduce that their future building operations may be better off "in-house."

Tech companies are taking over L.A.

2019-07-19T16:16:00-04:00

The Los Angeles office market has been on the upswing since 2013 and showed no sign of stalling in the second quarter as tech and entertainment firms continue to expand into new space. Developers are responding to the demand by building new offices that are often rented long before they are completed, which was unusual during previous real estate cycles when tenants typically waited to see finished buildings before making commitments.

The tech industry's expansion into the Los Angeles office market continues unabated, The Los Angeles Times reports.

In recent months, Los Angeles has grown to become home to the third-largest tech workforce on the west coast, with San Francisco and Seattle still far in the lead. The expansion, according to The Los Angeles Times, is putting pressure on the city's office market, even as a collection of new office developments and expansions come online.

In 2011, for example, Google moved into the Frank Gehry-designed Binoculars Building in L.A.'s Venice neighborhood.

Tesla and SolarCity's merger doesn't appear to have a bright future

2019-05-22T09:34:00-04:00

Tesla’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity is looking worse and worse. And its $1 billion solar gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, which the state built, subsidized, and equipped for SolarCity, seems to be primarily operating as a Panasonic plant. [...] In the more than two years since Tesla acquired SolarCity, its overall solar installations have plummeted by more than 76%.

In 2016 Tesla purchased SolarCity for $2.6 billion. Much criticism and backlash had been pivoted towards Elon Musk's decision to acquire the company due to his own personal ties with the company and its co-founders. Although ambitious, much like most of Musk's ideas for an ideal world, the Solar Roof line hasn't made much progress with getting production up and running. With production competitors from the East, the goal to provide rooftop shingles embedded with solar cells appears to be a flop.

Musk holding solar rooftop shingle. Image © Tesla

"The overwhelming majority of the solar cells produced at the facility are now being sold overseas rather than being used in Tesla’s “Solar Roof” photovoltaic product, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday, [...] A Tesla spokesperson told Reuters it’s “actively installing” the Solar Roof product in eight states but declined to discuss its purchases from Panasonic or provide overall installation numbers."

...

New Tesla patent seeks to improve the look of its solar roof tiles

2019-01-24T13:56:00-05:00

As noted in a recently published patent application, Tesla is developing a system that would allow the company to improve the aesthetics of the solar shingles even further. [...] Tesla notes that in prior art BIPV roofing systems, the active solar portions of a roofing module end up being visibly different in appearance compared to inactive parts of the roof.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduced the glass solar tiles as part of the automaker's growing range of energy products back in October 2016.

Let's get technical: image from Tesla's patent application to improve the aesthetic performance of its solar roof tiles.

"Various embodiments provide a new and improved approach to manufacturing solar tiles as a roofing surface," explains the summary of the recently filed Tesla patent application. "Some aspects have improved aesthetics that reduce the visual differences between solar and non-solar portions of the roof and between active solar portions and other portions of a roof tile." Read the full document here.

Dear Elon Musk: keep your hands off our public infrastructure!

2017-12-28T16:18:00-05:00

Recently, Elon Musk shared his perceptions during a tech industry conference that public transit is both inconvenient and dangerous. “It’s a pain in the ass,” he said. “That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.”

Elon Musk has had his sights set on various ways of 'disrupting' America's public transportation system for some time now. Most notably, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been experimenting with the idea of creating underground tunnels for a Hyperloop system that he swears cities are giving the go ahead on despite some public skepticism.

However, after recent comments were made, many of those who have spent years working on public transport are criticizing Musk for stepping out of his lane. As an extremely wealthy person who keeps expressing a strong distaste for the public, Musk may not be the best person to tackle public infrastructure projects that millions of those less fortunate depend on.

How solar battery storage will affect microgrids and off-grid living

2017-08-14T17:32:00-04:00

In March, Tesla cut the ribbon on this groundbreaking grid-scale battery installation, a key test of the viability of energy storage in making renewable energy a more reliable part of the grid. With 50,000 solar panels and 272 batteries, the combined solar-and-storage plant provides enough energy to power 4,500 homes for four hours. If Tesla can help keep Kauai solar-powered around the clock with its batteries, then it can apply what it has learned elsewhere in the country, and around the world

In her Longreads/Grist piece, author Amelia Urry explains the changing nature of solar power challenges that off-grid dwellers as well as smaller, geographically isolated microgrids face now that battery storage on an industrial scale is becoming more lucrative.

The article tells the story of a young couple struggling to live off the grid on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, when at the same time, the local utility cooperative switches on its brand-new bank of Tesla batteries to store the abundant solar power it generates during daytime but couldn't offer during peak times in the early morning and late evening hours: "It’s not about getting off the grid. It’s about building a better one."

Tesla's 'Tiny House' goes on roadshow to promote its solar tech

2017-08-14T14:19:00-04:00

Tesla revealed today that it created what it calls the ‘Tesla Tiny House’ to feature its energy products, like solar panels and Powerwall. The company is bringing the house on tour using a Model X “to educate the public on how to generate, store and use renewable energy for their home.” The tiny house contains a Tesla mobile design studio and configurator to help home owners configure a solar plus energy storage system for their home.

Needless to add that the Tesla Tiny House itself gains all its electricity via a solar installation on the tiny roof.

The exhibition tour is limited to four major Australian cities for now, but the economic gain could be far from tiny — as the world's leader in capita penetration of rooftop solar installations (15% of households / 1.5 million households), Australia is a highly lucrative market for Tesla even though it hasn't started selling solar panels there.

IKEA starts selling home battery storage with its solar panels

2017-08-03T14:18:00-04:00

Ikea is now offering solar panels and home batteries to its customers in the UK. The Scandinavian furniture chain is partnering with solar firm Solarcentury for the venture, with prices for solar battery storage starting at £3,000 (about $3,970 USD). The home batteries are designed to work with existing solar panels, or as part of a new combined home solar panel / battery storage system that Ikea is selling.

The Swedish furniture retail giant first starting solar panels in the UK back in 2013 to grow on a (then) heavily subsidized green energy market but ceased sales in 2015 when the British government announced its plans of cutting solar subsidies by up to 90%. Just a few months later, IKEA returned with a new lineup of home solar panels, this time partnering up with the firm SolarCentury.

"An average solar home in the UK will typically consume around 40% of all the solar electricity generated, or even less if they are regularly out during the day," IKEA explains in a new statement. "The remaining 60% of unused solar electricity is sent back to the National Grid, at a loss compared to its value. This means that homeowners currently lose out on making further cost savings. By adding Solar Battery Storage, unused solar electricity can be stored and used at a later time, meaning the amount of solar electricity an average home can use doubles to 80%."

With the launch of its Solar Battery S...

Elon Musk confirms Boring Tunnels are for Hyperloop

2017-05-22T17:10:00-04:00

Since the company’s introduction, many (including Futurism) have speculated that the tunnels’ true purpose was to work in tandem with the Hyperloop. This is the real clincher here. It seems like The Boring Company isn’t just going to be for cars. “The electric skate can transport automobiles, goods, and/or people. And if one adds a vacuum shell, it is now a Hyperloop Pod which can travel at 600+ miles per hour,” the site explains.

Back in December, the business magnate Elon Musk tweeted his frustration of being stuck in LA traffic along with a half-joking suggestion of building a tunnel to fix his gridlocked woes.

Well as it turns out, this simple musing has become a full-blown startup. The Boring Company, it is called, hopes to build a series of underground tunnels that will save Angelenos from such "soul-destroying traffic." The company has already found a way to dig tunnels at a much more cost effective and efficient rate and is now revealing the tunnel's potential to work in tandem with the Hyperloop.

Boring: how serious is Elon Musk about his latest traffic-solving venture?

2016-12-23T14:20:00-05:00

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has a pretty good sense of humor, but sometimes we can't tell when he's just joking or mulling his next big idea. For example, on Saturday Musk took to Twitter to say out loud what every traffic-plagued Los Angeles resident is silently screaming inside: The city is a gridlocked hellscape. "Traffic is driving me nuts," wrote Musk. But he didn't stop there. He also raised the idea of boring through obstacles to alleviate traffic woes.

"It would be easy to toss this off as random talk from an eccentric auto and space mogul, but Musk's last "random idea," the Hyperloop, has spawned a number of startups and millions in funding. So when Musk not only says that boring through things would be a good idea to ease traffic, but that he plans to do it himself, it's time to start paying attention."

Say goodbye to clunky solar panels, and hello to Tesla's sleek new glass solar roof tiles

2016-10-31T15:09:00-04:00

While solar panels have been subsidized in many cities for a while now, the blocky, rectangular panels aren’t heavily implemented in part because they tend to appear as, well, an addition, rather than a constitutive element of home design. That's about to change, as Tesla has announced a (potentially) revolutionary new intervention in the development of self-powered homes.

At a press event at Universal Studios, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a line of glass, photovoltaic cell-embedded roof tiles. And they look strikingly like old-fashioned roof tiles, coming in a four distinct styles: “Textured Glass Tile”, “Tuscan Glass Tile”, “Smooth Glass Tile” and “Slate Glass Tile”. From above, the glass is transparent to the sun. From street-level, the solar cells aren’t visible.

Tesla states that the tiles will cost less than traditional roofing when energy savings are factored in. Manufactured out of durable, long-lasting tempered glass, the roof tiles will “last longer than the house”, Musk ass...

Tesla's 5.8 million square foot "Gigafactory" to open in 2017

2016-07-27T13:38:00-04:00

Sixty-five hundred people and a sizable compliment of robots will work in the enormous, solar-panel topped, rail-adjacent Gigafactory when it opens in 2017, a structure which is described as a "joint venture" between Tesla, Panasonic and other supply partners. In this case, the drive to inexpensively produce lithium-ion batteries has created the need for the colossal structure.

As Wired notes:

The assembly lines will do everything from make the individual cells—cylinders a bit bigger than an AA battery—to assembling the immense packs that power a Model S or store energy in someone’s garage. Tesla doesn’t disclose its costs, but says doing it all in-house will drive down the cost of a battery by 30 percent.

Tesla in the news:

Tesla Model S driver suffers fatal crash while using autopilot, in first known death involving an autonomous vehicle

2016-07-01T13:37:00-04:00

On May 7, 2016, Joshua Brown, 40, of Williston, Florida was heading down the highway in his Tesla Model S, using the car’s autopilot mode, when he fatally collided with a tractor trailer. The truck took a left-turn in front of his vehicle, and according to a news release issued by Tesla, “Neither autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor-trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied.”

A Navy veteran and owner of a technology consulting firm, Brown had used the autopilot mode before, even going so far as to record videos of himself riding in the car under its guidance.

The tragic death is also a historic one, as the first known fatality involving an autonomous vehicle. Federal regulators have opened up an investigation into Brown’s death at a time when car companies, technology firms, and legislators are all scrambling towards the seemingly inevitable future of ubiquitous autonomous vehicles.

Tesla maintains that their autopilot mode is still very...

Elon Musk thinks Tesla could be worth $1 trillion – if it buys SolarCity

2016-06-22T19:31:00-04:00

SolarCity's solar panels with Tesla's electric vehicles and stationary storage batteries was "what the world needs, the ultimate solution" to a sustainable-energy future. "As a combined automotive and power storage and power generation company, the potential is there for Tesla to be a trillion-dollar market cap company," [Musk] added. [...] Musk said costs for both companies would go down significantly after the merger, but he did not give specifics.

Elon Musk already sits on the board and owns 22% of the Buffalo-based SolarCity, "the leading installer of residential solar panels" in the US. Musk is convinced that the merger is a no-brainer, but according to Reuters, analysts aren't so smitten with the prospect.

"While we don't doubt that some customers who are interested in electric vehicles and storage products are also interested in going solar, we don't necessarily buy that there is a meaningful cross-sell opportunity – especially currently," RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spak told Reuters.

Another analyst, Brian Johnson of Barclays, doesn't have a rosy view either: "While no doubt the Tesla bulls will hail the combination as visionary, we believe the assumption of another $2.6 billion of debt to fold in a solar company with limited synergies and uncertain growth/cash prospects only reinforces our negative view of Tesla."

A press release issued by the Tesla Team yesterday noted how partnering with SolarCity would produce "...

What are the ethics of self-driving cars?

2016-05-19T12:45:00-04:00

Philosopher Jason Millar claims to have originated the idea of the ethically challenged self-driving car in a 2014 paper on robotics... In the “The Tunnel Problem,” Millar’s driverless car (let’s call her Porsche again) is fast approaching a narrow tunnel, the entrance of which is blocked by a child who has fallen in the roadway. The car can either kill the kid or hit the wall of the tunnel, killing the driver (who is really just a passenger).

"Millar insists programmers need to build such scenarios into their code. I imagine them writing something like this:

if (kid_in_tunnel > 16) {
    kill kid_in_tunnel;
lp “We are sorry for your loss.”;
}
  else {
    kill ass_in_Porsche;
lp “Serves you right, schmucko.”;
}"

For more on the fast-approaching world of self-driving automobiles, check out these links:

Is Tesla having its "iPhone moment" with the launch of the Model 3?

2016-04-13T12:50:00-04:00

On March 31, [Elon Musk's] Tesla Motors unveiled its long-promised Model 3, a $35,000 electric car that will go 215 miles per charge. The market response suggests to some the potential as a category killer, not just in electric vehicles, but mainstream cars in general: in the week since, more than 325,000 Model 3s have been pre-ordered by people putting down $1,000 per reservation, the company said April 7. Even deep Tesla skeptics call this demand unprecedented.

For more on the auto industry and car culture:

Lake Flato Architects splits reservation cost for Tesla Model 3 with employees

2016-03-23T12:39:00-04:00

San Antonio-based Architecture firm Lake Flato announced that it took upon itself to offer to its employees the opportunity split the $1,000 cost of the reservation deposit for the Tesla Model 3. "As our Teslas and TSLA have been very good to us for the last 3+ years, we felt that it would be a great time to contribute more broadly to the adoption of sustainable transport." -Lake Flato Partner

Health care, a decent salary, and a pretty good deal on one of the globe's most environmentally friendly (and svelte-looking) automobiles: Lake Flato Architects is setting itself apart in the benefits department by offering to go in on the deposit for a new Tesla with its employees. No word on who's called shotgun yet.

What else is happening with Tesla? Well, all of this:

Wired takes a look inside Tesla's car factory of the future

2016-01-12T18:45:00-05:00

"Robots hate litter," reads a health and safety sign. "Please don't give them any more reasons to overthrow mankind." It's also fair to say that naming your robots makes the whole process of constructing cars vaguely ridiculous. "Wolverine and Iceman lift the cars to tramline two," our tour guide informs us with the zeal of a true believer, adding, as he did after virtually every sentence, that this is 'kind of amazing'.

Multitasking Musk: the busy life of Elon Musk

2015-12-16T13:35:00-05:00

Elon Musk has plenty of other ideas. If anyone asks and he has a moment to explain, he'll talk distractedly of as-yet-unrealized concepts—a vertical takeoff-and-landing supersonic electric jet for long-distance travel; an entirely new form of transport that he's named the Hyperloop... He is a man with the rare problem of having more ideas for how to radically change our world than the time to realize them. Still, you do what you can. And so this Monday evening, his mind is on space suits.

Related:

A look inside Tesla's growing Gigafactory: "It will blow your mind."

2015-11-19T13:24:00-05:00

Musk had warned me that the scale of the place would be overwhelming. "It will blow your mind. You see it in person and then realize, Fuck, this is big." He was right. It was impossible not to feel awestruck by the sprawling, 71-foot-tall structure stretched out, miragelike, before me as I drove into a shallow canyon. [...] When the Gigafactory is finished, it will be only slightly smaller than Boeing’s Everett, Washington, plant, which is the world’s largest building by volume.

Dawn of the self-driving car: testing out Tesla's autopilot function

2015-10-21T18:48:00-04:00

Using cruise control, you can set the [Tesla] to a particular speed and it will accelerate and turn within a lane in a straight line. It will dodge cars attempting to swerve into your lane, objects that it can see, pedestrians or fellow drivers simply trying to swerve into you because you’re an obnoxious prick with a Tesla blasting Party Rock Anthem. [...] It can’t, however, direct you along every street...

Did Tesla almost go bankrupt without anyone noticing?

2015-05-05T19:39:00-04:00

Can a high-profile company led by a celebrity CEO come within two weeks of bankruptcy without anyone noticing? In early 2013, ...Tesla Motors came so close to running out of cash that its brash leader, Elon Musk, approached Google about buying the company, according to a new Musk biography. A surge in sales of the company’s pricey Model S sedan staved off disaster. Musk broke off the Google talks, no longer needing a white knight. And no one outside the two companies knew about it.

Tesla Announces Plans to Build $5 Billion Battery 'Gigafactory'

2014-02-27T15:05:00-05:00

The Palo Alto, Calif., company outlined plans for a factory that would employ up to 6,500 people and cover as many as 1,000 acres, including solar and wind farms to supply its power needs. It is evaluating sites in Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, Tesla said in a regulatory filing. The proposed 10 million-square-foot facility would make the powerful and pricey lithium-ion batteries that power its Model S and future vehicles.

On its Tesla Blog, the company claims that "by the end of the first year of volume production of our mass market vehicle, we expect the Gigafactory will have driven down the per kWh cost of our battery pack by more than 30 percent."

Is the electric car not so dead after all?

See some slides from the 'Gigafactory' presentation below or click here for the full document.