Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other company officials have talked about building a Gigafactory to manufacture batteries and electric vehicles in China for the past 3 years and while they have been several reports of finalized plans, they have all been shut down.

A new one came this week after a report in the Southern Metropolis Daily, citing multiple sources, claimed that Tesla had struck a deal to build a factory without a joint-venture in China’s Guangdong province. The company denied the report, but without necessarily denying that a factory is coming to China. expand full story

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a rare and welcomed reference to the next generation Roadster last month after the upcoming vehicle was surprisingly left out of Musk’s product plan last year. He confirmed that the vehicle is still planned, but “a few years away”.

In the meantime, designers are attempting to envision what the vehicle could look like based on the original Tesla Roadster and the automaker’s evolving design language. Today, we might be looking at the most impressive one yet. expand full story

The attention around Tesla’s solar products is mostly focused on its solar roof tiles, but those address only a new segment in the market – the new roof segment. Tesla is also trying to innovate for homeowners who don’t need a new roof, but who still want to generate their own solar energy.

This weekend, Tesla updated the ‘Energy’ section of its website to unveil new pictures – see above and below – of a new exclusive solar panel made by Panasonic. Electrek has also learned some details about this new product that will apparently shape the future of the company’s offering in the residential solar industry. expand full story

The first sightings of Tesla Model 3 release candidates on public roads started this week after the Elon Musk released the first official images last month.

We had so far only seen a black vehicle, but it looks like Tesla is expanding its fleet for testing on public roads with a new blue prototype. expand full story

In this week’s top stories: Our 2017 Hyundai IONIQ EV review, a Tesla Model 3 release candidate breaks cover as Solar breaks 50% in California, Chevy Bolt EV delivery data, and much more.

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Last year, Tesla made the acquisition of the German engineering group Grohmann Engineering in order to create ‘Tesla Advanced Automation Germany’. The transaction closed in January, but we now learn that things haven’t been going smoothly since then.

Tesla co-founder and Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel visited the headquarters earlier this month to announce that the company’s founder left just a few weeks after the deal was made official.

Furthermore, the company announced this week that it will drop all other clients, among them are several major automakers, in order to focus on Tesla’s needs for the Model 3, which is apparently worrying the workforce. expand full story

According to the EIA, California solar power has been driving wholesale electricity rates towards – and sometimes below – $0/MWh – and on March 11th total solar power production broke 50% of demand. The increase in utility-scale solar power , which grew 50% in the state in 2016, is quickly changing the landscape. Recently we saw California solar + wind hit a record high at 49.2%, with all renewable energy above 56%.

In March, during the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., system average hourly prices were frequently at or below $0 per megawatthour (MWh). In contrast, average hourly prices in March 2013–15 during this time of day ranged from $14/MWh to $45/MWh.

This type of event has happened in other places – Germany gets the headlines often. It is expected that there will be so much solar power this spring and summer (plus large amounts of hydroelectric power) that curtailment will need to occur on solar assets.

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Geely, China’s automotive giant, appears to want to get the most out of its acquisition of Sweden’s Volvo. After using some of the automaker’s engineering and manufacturing talent to set up Chinese operations, the company launched a new global brand, Lynk & Co, to produce hybrid and electric vehicles using Volvo’s own Compact Modular Architecture, on which the Swedish brand plans to launch its own first long-range EV by the end of the decade.

This week, we get a look at Lynk & Co second concept, which apparently has been unveiled early and ahead of the specs. expand full story

After releasing a new sketch pad Easter Egg last week and with actual Easter coming up next week, Elon Musk is teasing a new feature to allow a “one touch access to all discovered Tesla Easter eggs”. expand full story