RNP-Automotive

Tesla late on Tuesday hosted a Battery Day event in Palo Alto, California, where CEO Elon Musk laid out many of the company’s future plans.

In the near term is the introduction of the new Model S Plaid which will cost $141,070 and can already be ordered on Tesla’s website. It’s due in late 2021 with over 1,100 horsepower, a range of more than 520 miles, a top speed of 200 mph, and 0-60 and quarter-mile times in less than 2.0 and 9.0 seconds respectively. Those figures are all superior to those promised by Lucid for its range-topping Air Dream Edition.

Looking further outward, Tesla will completely redesign its battery cells and take over some production duty from current supplier Panasonic whose shortage of cells in the past have slowed production at Tesla. Tesla’s new cell design, referred to as “4680” cells, promises five times the energy, six times

NBA superstar Michael Jordan and current NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin announced Monday plans to field their own team in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series, with up-and-coming driver Bubba Wallace already signed on a multi-year contract.

Jordan is the current owner of NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and will be majority owner of the new NASCAR team which will field a single car. He and Hamlin purchased the charter from Germain Racing.

Hamlin has long been connected to Jordan through a sponsorship deal involving the Jordan Brand shoe line, and the two have been close friends for several years after first meeting at an NBA game.

“Growing up in North Carolina, my parents would take my brothers, sisters and me to races, and I’ve been a NASCAR fan my whole life,” Jordan said in a statement. “The opportunity to own my own racing team in partnership with my friend, Denny Hamlin, and to

Nikola, a startup working on battery- and hydrogen-electric trucks, announced Sunday that its executive chairman and founder, Trevor Milton, has stepped down.

The company also named current board member and previous General Motors vice chairman Stephen Girsky as its new chairman, effective immediately.

The moves come just days after it was reported that both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission were probing Nikola over allegations of fraud brought up by investment company Hindenburg Research earlier in September.

Hindenburg Research, which called Nikola an “intricate fraud” in a report published Sept. 10, has gone as far as to claim Milton falsely claimed to have proprietary technology, and that the company used mockups in its promotional videos instead of functioning vehicles.

Milton owns 20% of Nikola whose share price at one point valued the company higher than Ford. This is despite Nikola never having delivered an