• Tesla’s CEO just got $15 billion added to his name after the confirmed S&P 500 listing.
• Musk is on track to overtake Mark Zuckerbeg, Facebook CEO, as the third richest in the world.
• As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk is now worth $117 billion after the S&P 500 announcement on Monday.
• Tesla will be officially added to the list of S&P 500 components on December 21, 2020.

Elon Musk is now worth $15 billion more after S&P Global’s announcement last Monday of Tesla Inc.’s inclusion into its S&P 500 index. Musk is now closing in on Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg’s position as the third-richest in the world.

Tesla share price was $408.09 at market close on Monday. During the extended trading hours, however, the share price skyrocketed by 14% courtesy of the inclusion’s announcement.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO gained $90 billion in the year thus far; the biggest gain in 2020 amongst 500 listed billionaires. Musk’s current net worth is estimated at $117.5 billion, which should put him ahead of Zuck.

Note that Mark Zuckerberg has an estimated $106-billion net worth.

Musk’s $400-billion clean energy and electric vehicle company, Tesla, is set to be listed in S&P 500 on December 21 and join the ranks of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft as one of the 10 most valuable components of the index.

Tesla met the market-capitalization-weighted index’s requirements, which lists that components must be US-based, be at least $8.2-billion in market capitalization, posted four profitable quarters in succession, have high liquidity and half of the shares are publicly available.

S&P Global failed to disclose which company will lose its spot in the index in favor of Tesla; specifying a separate release regarding this detail.

On a separate note, Musk revealed that he was tested for Covid-19 four times on the same day during the weekend while questioning the reliability of the test due to mixed results.

Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2020

According to the Observer, the compensation plan, created back in 2018, consists of 12 tranches throughout 2028. If these tranches are fully paid out, Musk will be the highest-paid business executive in U.S. history.

The latest 6 month earnings average now stands at $96 billion. Tesla is still maintaining the goal of half a million cars delivered despite the pandemic.

At the same time, Musk is eager for the market to open up. In a tweet early wednesday morning after news of Texas restaurants and other businesses are allowed to reopen on friday, Elon Musk calls for America to reopen:

FREE AMERICA NOW

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2020

Despite the growth in stock, delivery for the Model Y is now set back to 2021. Though, Yahoo News reports that Tesla is expecting to open production for the Model Y in the Fermont factory and Model 3’s at a factory in Shanghai. Tesla also claims that the capacity of the factories are able to exceed 500,000 vehicles.

It is clear to see that Tesla and Elon Musk do not break under pressure and double down on the promise of delivering a half a million cars in the midst of a global pandemic. After a rise in stock and 6 month average, Tesla is unstoppable.

The electric-car company scheduled appointments on Friday to abide by SEC.

“The SEC has been had on this one,” said Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management and a CNBC contributor.

Tesla and CEO Elon Musk decided to appoint a new chairman and two independent board members in September after the SEC accused Musk of tricking investors because of a tweet about taking the company private at $420 a share.

Sonnenfeld called Ellison, the co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle, a “clone” of Musk.

“He’s a genius, knows technology, self-made guy and very articulate. But he’s a pretty angry guy. Hair-trigger sensitivity to criticisms, loves to lash out at analysts,” he said on “Closing Bell”.

In October, Ellison claimed to be close friend with Musk and has defended him against ongoing criticism of his behavior. What stirred the pot even more after that tweet was Musk seeming to be smoking pot on a podcast in September.

Ellison is also a very big investor in Tesla. He owns 3 million shares of its stock, as reported by company spokesperson.

Sonnenfeld said Musk “has brilliantly outmaneuvered” the SEC because he picked somebody who can really very effectively run cover for him and protect him. “This is not a guy who is going to push for vetting the tweets,” he said.

When a Tesla spokesperson was asked to say something about Sonnenfeld’s remarks, they referred to other analyst comments, for example Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives. On Friday, Ivas said that the appointments were a huge step forward.

Ellison “could help channel Musk’s energy and passion into positives going forward thus moving further away from the ‘going private tweetstorm’ from a few months ago, which continues to be a lingering overhang on the name,” Ives wrote in a note to clients.

Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla shares closed 5.6 percent higher on Friday.

Borrow service is one of a few subscription and short-term rental models available today but it’s only for exclusively electric ones where the terms are as short as three months.

The startup of seventeen months lets you have your EV experience by loaning you a home charging station for the duration of your three- to nine-month term and by issuing monthly charging credits for ChargePoint and EVGo stations.

Borrow offers all kinds of different used cars, they range from a college student’s Campus plan to a luxury shopper’s Premier level. Within tiers, the prices differ based on how long the term is. The longer commitment – the lower the payment.

The college student-focused Campus is a Smart car offered between $199 and $299 per month. The City car is a Fiat 500e or Nissan Leaf, from $399 to $499 per month. The Premium is a BMW i3 or Volkswagen e-Golf at $524 to $624 per month. Insurance is not included in those prices. However, you can buy insurance through recommended providers and track premium onto the monthly payment or you can pay for the insurance separately.

The company’s new Platinum category is a Tesla Model S. It will be $1499 monthly and will be rented on a limited basis next year. Availability is not sure because the demand is bigger than supply. Borrow CEO and cofounder Rodrigo de Guzman said that the interest in these models is so high that dealing with Model S clients is basically separate business at this point.

De Guzman has been doing shopping by himself until now, hand-picking each car separately from dealer partners and auctions. As the company scales, he and Borrow CTO and cofounder Jon Alain Guzik will try to partner with Cox Automotive to identify future inventory from auctions through an online interface. “We will buy cars from every source that makes sense. We want to make sure that we buy the right car… in a manner that allows us to get that car to our users in a reasonable amount of time,” De Guzman said.

When it comes to the buying process, it’s not like a typical dealer because you won’t complete a credit application for a lease and you won’t be going for a test drive since there is no Borrow lot. You’ll choose your vehicle by researching it and driving it elsewhere.

You might think it’s unfair for your local Nissan salesperson who took you out on that Leaf, or the BMW guy who told you all the details about i3, and you left their sales floor for Burrow. But that’s not true.

According to URBAN-X managing director Micah Kotch, the company might be doing them a favor. The MINI- and Urban Us-funded urban technology accelerator selected Borrow as one of seven companies in its fifth cohort.

Overall, it’s Borrow that’s allowing the test drive. “They’re getting more people into electric vehicles. A lot of these folks who rent a car for three months or six months or nine months will actually then wind up purchasing,” Kotch said in a phone interview.

In other words, Borrow wants to green the U.S personal vehicle fleet with a sort of experiential marketing with fixed terms. That includes other kinds of products as well, such as Incase backpacks, Prana yoga mats, Washos mobile car washing service credits and Revo sunglasses. The company has 80 brand and marketing partnerships in total.

The idea for business began with another service to lease a sustainable vehicle. What was then Prazo offered app-based two-year leases on Ford C-MAX hybrids through a local dealer.

However, customers wanted shorter terms and cheaper payments. And considering Los Angeles has many tourists, seasonal visitors and relocated employees, it builds a good ground for something non-committal.

De Guzman and Guzik officially launched Borrow in July 2017, helped by funding from local seed-stage VC Mucker Capital. Selection in the fifth URBAN-X class brings in $100,000 of no-strings-attached capital — $50,000 from MINI and $50,000 from Urban Us — and 20 weeks of intensive training and networking. The curriculum includes customer discovery, product development, communication and follow-on fundraising among others topics.

Next plan is to expand on west coast.  Long-term, Borrow wants a role in tech-driven public improvements. “Not only does the electric nature of what we do set us apart but also what we’re going to use that for. How do you take what we’re doing… into how to create better and smarter cities?” De Guzman said.

Just by taking a look at Roadster’s specs, it’s already apparent that this car is made to stand out of the norm. It has three electric motors and is capable of sprinting from 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, while accelerating all the way to its top speed of more than 250 mph. The vehicle has a rather large 200 kWh battery pack which gives it a range of 620 miles per charge. Not many gas-powered cars can even compare to this all-electric supercar.

The Yazuki, a Tesla enthusiast, presented the next-generation Roadster in a teaser which disrupted the supercar industry. The teaser was uploaded on a sharing website Vimeo and the Roadster’s spec likened the vehicle to light because it is powerful and can break through barriers. In the teaser you can see several impressive shots of the Roadster, all of them bringing the attention to its futuristic design.

The real reason for the next-gen Roadster’s disruption is because of its features and price point. Considering that it’s created by Tesla, the vehicle has all the company’s advanced, such as Autopilot and a special mode that optimizes that car for 0-60 launches. What makes all of this really amazing as well is that Tesla is offering to set the starting price for all this performance for $200,000. However, when it comes to more expensive versions, such as the rocket tech-equipped dubbed as “SpaceX package”, are to be released later on.

With $200,000 as starting price, the vehicle will enter the marker at much lower cost than mid-tier supercars such as McLaren 720S and the Ferrari 812 Superfast, both which prices are close to the ~$300,000 range. When it comes to performance, though, the next-gen Roadster meets or even goes over the standards of halo vehicles like the McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, and the Porsche 918 Spyder – all of which have earned their place in the class of the elite hypercar category.

The next-gen Roadster has already started to have its effect on the supercar market. For example, Christian von Koenigsegg gives credits to the Roadster for making his company to create its best vehicle so far. Professional driver Emile Bouret, who took it for a test drive during its unveiling, described the new vehicle as a game-changer – one that introduce us to the new era of high-performance automobiles.

“I love that I live in a world where all these cars exist. You have Koenigseggs and Paganis and Ferraris and Lamborghinis and McLarens and Porsches and Rimacs and Teslas. So, I know there’s a lot of hate out there, but I just don’t understand it. If you’re a car person, wouldn’t you root for everybody? I’m definitely rooting for them because the world will be a better place if that car does get built and it gets on the road because other people are gonna build cars to beat it — and we’re gonna win,” he said.

Watch the next-generation Roadster’s “A Tale of Light” spec in the video below.

An electric car requiring gas?

Surely, this isn’t something that happens every day yet what results will probably make you laugh a bit.

It appears that gas and vehicles are so linked that when one steps into a car, they immediately assume it consumes gas.

However, as it is widely known, there is no a single Tesla vehicle model that runs on gas and Model S definitely runs on electricity.

In any case, truly, there are rather ignorant people out there and we can’t really blame them for it, as the new rush of electric vehicles is still in relative early stages.

In situations like this, all we can do is help which is what happens at the end of the video or, we could be fooled, and this video could be just a set up. Either way, it will give you at least a smirk.

We advise you, if you ever come across an act like this, make sure to act quickly and help out the poor, ignorant fellow.

It actually happened way back on December 31st of 2014 but it’s only been found out now because of the filed lawsuit against Tesla.

John Schneider from Pennsylvania took delivery of his Model S that day and in the lawsuit filed with the court of common pleas, he explains what actually happened while he was driving it back:

“As Schneider drove the Vehicle in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, smoke, and flames began to emit from the rear seat of the vehicle in the vicinity of the VEhicle’s rear battery cells. Schneider immediately stopped and exited the Vehicle and watched as the rear passenger seat continued to burn.”

He also said that you could see the flames from the outside the vehicle and the fire totally destroyed the Model S.

During that time, a few other Tesla vehicles caught on fire in a few very publicized cases and what happened afterwards was pretty intriguing.

Seems like Tesla was on watch for any possible fire ever since Tesla’s manager decided to contact Schneider the same day after the Model S was “throwing some faults with the battery”.

As per the claim, Tesla sent specialists to take the vehicle that day and begin their examination.

During those 5 days, Tesla immediately offered a deal to Schneider to stay silent about his Model S bursting into flames and consequently, they offered to deal with his loan and very soon get him another vehicle with a free extended warranty.

Here’s the agreement that Schneider signed at Tesla’s request:

When Tesla gave Schneider a loaner meanwhile preparing his new vehicle, that’s when things got even more interesting.

Half a month later, the automaker finished its examination concerning the reason for the fire and it claims that the battery pack burst into flames since somebody shot a bullet into it: “Tesla has determined that the cause of the thermal event that occurred in the Vehicle’s battery was a bullet fired into the battery from inside the Vehicle’s passenger cabin.”

On January 21, 2015, Tesla sent an official letter cancelling the first deal officially because of the new finding:

However, Schneider disagreed with Tesla’s cancellation of the deal and that because of the company, he ended up in losses due to his loan on the vehicle that he didn’t even own anymore.

The case was soon resolved in the court, however, no one really knows the details of the final resolution.

Here’s the full lawsuit:

395820873-Schneider-v-Tesla

It’s one crazy story, we have to admit. The situation is quite unimaginable where someone would shoot a bullet towards a battery pack inside the passenger cabin of a car right after taking delivery.

However, Tesla did find the actual bullet and it’s true that the owner said the fire came from the passenger cabin at the level of back seat.

Either way, it’s a good thing to remember when we hear once again about other Tesla fires without any apparent accident. And, statistically, electric vehicles don’t catch on fire more than gas-powered cars.

With that in mind, it’s rather concerning that batteries could have thermal runaway events without anything triggering them. That’s why Tesla even does these sorts of examinations when a vehicle catches on fire without an apparent reason.

However, we can now confirm now that it’s a large container-size energy storage system that Tesla is ready to debut in its upcoming project commissioned by PG&E at the Moss Landing substation.

Tesla’s proposal for the project was obtained and it shows that the company plans to use ‘Megapack’ instead of its usual Powerpack for large utility-scale projects.

It was shown in the document that a Tesla Megapack consists of long 23′-5″ (7.14m) x 5′-3″ (1.60m) battery system, which the company mostly installs back to back with another unit:

The California Public Utilities Commission approved the project last month and with that three other energy storage systems. Apparently, the new energy storage capacity is so important that it will replace three gas power plants.

According to Tesla’s plan, they will deploy 449 Megapacks at the site:

Tesla is listing the project as having a total capacity of 1,200 MWh, so each Megapack has a capacity of 2,673 kWh. That makes it more more than 12 times the capacity of Powerpack 2 in a package that could potentially fit about 8 Powerpacks.

The total capacity of those 449 Megapacks has more capacity than Tesla Energy which was deployed throughout the first 3 years of its operation including all Powerpacks and Powerwalls.

PG&E says that their goal is to bring the energy project online by the end of 2020.

Tesla was asked about using the new Megapack at the Vistra Energy Moss Landing station project and a company spokesperson said that they had no comment.

It’s rather convenient that Tesla would introduce a new giant energy storage product at this giant energy storage project. It could be rather benefical for California.

As for the Megapack, it looks like Tesla achieved a volumetric energy capacity improvement over Powerpack 2. However, there is more to it. Tesla will be able to save a lot of money in installation costs for large projects considering that  a single Megapack is going to be a lot quicker to install than the thousands of Powerpacks it would be replacing.