Every year, for a week in August, the glitz and glam of the automotive elite descend upon the streets of Monterey, California,

Traditionally, Pebble Beach has been an opportunity for the rich and famous to see and be seen among a sea of automotive exotica. These days things are a bit different. The exotic cars are still there, but it's also developed into another auto show for manufacturers to exhibit their latest and greatest.

On Thursday, Audi did just that with the introduction of its new PB18 e-tron concept sports car. It's a futuristic technology demonstrator created especially for Pebble Beach. In fact, the "PB" in its name stands for Pebble Beach.

Audi The rest of its name is in reference to Audi's all-conquering R18 e-tron Le Mans prototype race cars.

The PB18's stand out feature is a driver's pod complete with integrated pedals, steering wheel, controls, that can be slid laterally inside the cabin. When on a race track, the driver's compartment can be positioned in the center of the cockpit like that of an open-wheel race car.

"We want to offer the driver an experience that is otherwise available only in a racing car like the Audi R18," Audi Design Loft boss Gael Buzyn said in a statement. "That's why we developed the interior around the ideal driver's position in the center."

Audi However, the compartment can also be slid to the side to create a traditional road car setup that also allows for a passenger thanks to an integrated seat mounted low in the cabin.

As with every Audi to carry the e-tron moniker, the PB18 e-tron is all electric. The Audi concept is powered by a trio of electric motors — one up front and two in the back. The motors send roughly 200 horsepower to the front wheels and a whopping 600 hp to the rear. Thus creating a virtual quattro all-wheel-drive system.

Working together, the motors develop 670 hp that can be temporarily boosted to 764 hp. Sadly, you can't simply add up the output of the front and rear motors.

Audi According to Audi, 0-62 mph can happen in about two seconds.

The PB18 e-tron is equipped with a 95 kWh liquid-cooled, solid-state battery that, Audi claims, can be fully recharged in 15 minutes. The pack also gives the PB18 a range of more than 310 miles on a single charge.

Fire crews in Fremont, California, responded to a fire that erupted near the Tesla factory on Thursday afternoon.

The Fremont Fire Department said the flames started in a cardboard pile around 8:20 p.m. ET, on the southern end of Tesla's property, igniting some grass and an unidentified building. It has since been contained.

Aerial video from local news outlets showed firefighters dousing the flames with water. Another video showed a building engulfed in flames. A Tesla spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

This story is developing. Updates to come.

It's official: Apple has given a series order to "Foundation," a TV drama based on the 1951 Isaac Asimov novel of the same name, as Variety reports.

The show itself comes with a pedigree, with David S. Goyer (of "The Dark Knight" screenwriting fame) and Josh Friedman (creator of "Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles") at the helm as showrunners. It's the latest high-profile project for Apple's still-nascent plans to take on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon in original TV programming.

The novel, and its two direct sequels, hold an important place in the science fiction canon. To make a very long, generations-spanning story short, that trilogy deals with the titular Foundation — a scientific think tank founded by "psychohistorian" Hari Seldon to preserve the collective knowledge of humanity through a centuries-long dark age following the collapse of a 12,000-year-old intergalactic civilization.

The ideas put forward by Asimov in "Foundation" have stood the test of time. Indeed, no less than Elon Musk has said that "Foundation" is one of his favorites, and reflects his fears for the future of human civilization and why it's so important for humanity to push out to Mars and beyond.

In 2013, Musk told the Guardian:

"The lessons of history would suggest that civilizations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far — the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China.

"We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. There could be some series of events that cause that technology level to decline.

"Given that this is the first time in 4.5 billion years where it's been possible for humanity to extend life beyond Earth, it seems like we'd be wise to act while the window was open and not count on the fact it will be open a long time."

Indeed, it seems that Musk's admiration for the novels hasn't faded over time, either.

Earlier this year, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket famously launched Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space, with a space-suited dummy in the driver's seat and David Bowie on the stereo. Less well-known is that it carried a quartz-based data storage device loaded with the "Foundation" trilogy; a testament to the message of the novels.

It's not currently known when the series will premiere, or the details of Apple's TV streaming service. However, it's been acquiring the rights to several properties for TV series, most recently those of a New York Times article on climate change.

Facebook is trying to repair its image after its chain of scandals — and it has brought in a veteran marketer to help.

On Thursday, the Silicon Valley social network announced that it has hired Antonio Lucio to be its new chief marketing officer. Lucio was previously the CMO of computer firm HP, and served in the same role at Visa and Pepsi before that. He fills a role left vacant when Gary Briggs left Facebook in January 2018.

In a post on Facebook, chief product officer Chris Cox welcomed Lucio aboard.

"Facebook's story is at an inflection point," Cox wrote. "We have never faced bigger challenges, and we have never had more opportunities to have a positive impact on the world — in our families, our friendships, our communities, and our democracy — by improving our products at their core, and then by telling the story outside that we all know to be true inside."

Facebook hasn't had a great year, it's fair to say. It's been battered by successive crises, from the spread of Russian propaganda to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to the ongoing furors over the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation on the service.

The company's executives have found themselves on the defensive, and the company has tried to signal contrition to its users with ad campaigns declaring that "fake news is not your friend." One of Lucio's challenges, then, will be to try and repair its ailing image with the public.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also posted about Lucio's hire, writing:

"Antonio has a lot of experience leading marketing for major brands like HP and Visa - and he's been recognized for both his talents and commitment to diversity. Now he'll help us share Facebook's story with the world. Every day people use our apps to connect with family and friends and make a difference in their communities. It's what motivates me and our teams - and I'm excited to see how Antonio brings our mission to life."

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Hailstorms can be terrifying and expensive. Suddenly, balls of ice start falling out of the sky with enough force to smash cars and vineyards, causing serious injury or death to anyone unlucky enough to be caught outside.

An attempt to control these storms is causing controversy, despite questions about whether it's possible to prevent hail in the first place.

A Volkswagen plant in Puebla, Mexico, has incurred the wrath of nearby farmers who say that by firing "hail cannons," which blast shockwaves into the sky to theoretically prevent hail from forming, the automaker is causing a drought.

The AFP reports that farmers believe the cannons have prevented any precipitation from falling since May, during the rainy season. The farmers are now seeking almost $3.7 million in compensation for at least 5,000 acres of affected crops.

When the cannons are fired, "the sky literally clears and it simply doesn't rain," Gerardo Perez, a farmer leading protests, told AFP.

In response, Volkswagen reportedly has said it will install mesh netting to protect the cars, and turn off the mechanism that causes the cannons to auto-fire under certain weather conditions.

"Once the anti-hail nets are installed in the yards, they will be used as the main measure for the protection of vehicles, while the devices will serve as a secondary tool and will only be used in manual mode," a VW spokesperson told the Financial Times.

But even manual use is unacceptable, local environmental official Rafael Ramirez told AFP.

"The company can take other measures to protect its cars, but people here can't live off anything but their land," he said.

A 1901 image of a hail cannon meeting.Plumandon/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Shooting hail out of the sky

According to the FT, the German automaker installed the cannons earlier this year.

Even though these particular hail cannons are new, the idea of preventing hail by preemptively shooting it out of the sky first is not.

According to a 1965 paper by the Royal Meteorological Society, Herodotus and Caesar made note of the fact that barbarian tribes tried to shoot arrows at oncoming storms. In parts of Europe, guns were used to shoot at storms, until Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa prohibited the practice in 1750 — apparently, it was a source of complaints by neighbors of the storm shooters, who were upset about the way the weather changed as a result. (History repeats itself.)

By 1896, new types of hail-cannons had been designed, according to a paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (and spotted in a history of hail cannons published in Atlas Obscura).

These cannons were like mortars, firing large and loud smoke rings — the idea being that smoke particles might stop hail from forming. When these first cannons, designed by a winemaker, were tested during storms, it didn't hail. The idea caught on, with winemakers throughout Europe trying to get a hold of the devices to protect valuable crops. There were 2,000 cannons operating in Italy by 1899.

Storms would approach, cannons would be fired. Sometimes, it wouldn't hail and cannons were praised. Other times, hail would fall, with the failure chalked up to operator error. Within a few years, these smoke cannons fell out of favor. No one could tell if they did anything.

Shutterstock/Paolo Gallo

Blasting ice with soundwaves

Instead of using smoke or projectiles, modern hail cannons — like those used at the Puebla Volkswagen plant — rely on loud shockwaves, fired repeatedly every few seconds as a storm approaches.

As one New Zealand hail cannon manufacturer explains it, they fire a burst of explosive gas inside the cannon to generate the shockwave.

"This shockwave, clearly audible as a large whistling sound, then travels at the speed of sound into & through the cloud formations above, disrupting the growth phase of the hailstones," the manufacturer wrote.

Winemakers and auto manufacturers make use of the cannons to try to protect their valuable goods. In 2007, a California NPR station reported that winemakers were using the cannons to try to prevent hail formation. In 2005, CNN reported that a Nissan plant in Mississippi upset neighbors by repeatedly blasting the loud cannons to break up hail.

But still, no one knows if the cannons actually work.

"Scientists say there is no way to prove if these cannons really work, but farmers say it is cheaper to try the cannons than to buy hail insurance," reported NPR, in that story.

"There's no evidence that they actually do anything," meteorologist Harold Brooks of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Severe Storms Laboratory told Automotive News in 2005. "It may be possible. But if they really do something, they're doing it through some unknown science that we don't know about."

Skeptics have also pointed out that like hail cannons, thunder produces loud shockwaves — but hail shows up anyway.

Modifying weather isn't theoretically impossible, but it has proven to be unpredictable and difficult to control.

It's unclear whether the VW cannons in Mexico can prevent hail or cause drought. Either way, it sounds like mesh netting to protect the cars might be a safer option.

After initially losing out to Sony, Nikon has hopped aboard the mirrorless camera bandwagon.

The camera company just showed off the two newest additions to its high-end camera lineup — the Z6 and the Z6, part of the new Z series of mirrorless cameras.

One of the hottest trends in the camera industry right now, although they come at a high price point. The Z6 starts at $1,999, and the Z7 starts at $3,999, plus the cost of any additional lenses, and they will be released this fall. The Z7 is the flagship model, with a higher resolution and more available focus points.

Though the prices are a bit steep, and mirrorless might seem like a meaningless buzzword, the new cameras do have some notable improvements over existing technology.

Mirrorless cameras don't use the traditional, mirrored viewfinder design found in most cameras to date. Instead, they use an electronic viewfinder or a live-view screen on the back. This allows for a reduced size and overall simpler design — which means you can get a full-frame camera in a much smaller package.

Nikon's new mirrorless lineup will be competing with Sony, which has dominated the mirrorless DSLR market for years.

. Paired up against Sony's Alpha a7R III mirrorless camera, Nikon's Z7 boasts slightly more megapixels (45.7 to Sony's 42), but has continuous shooting of 9 frames per second compared to the a7R III's 10 frames. The Z7 also features a slightly lower ISO speed of 64, when the a7R bottoms out at 100. However, Sony beats Nikon in price — the Alpha a7R III starts at around $2,800, while the Z7 starts at $3,400.

A bartender performs tricks at Nikon's unveiling of the Z series cameras in Manhattan on August 23, 2018. Image taken with Nikon Z7, 50mm lens. Captured with a pre-production model. Sean Wolfe/Business Insider

With the new series comes a new mounting system for lenses, however. After years of utilizing the popular F mount design, Nikon has developed the Z mount for these new mirrorless cameras. The Z mount lenses differ in look from the traditional F mount Nikon lenses you're probably used to seeing. However, with the additional ($250) FTZ lens adapter, you can use the old F mount lenses on the new lens system.

Two Z mount lenses will be available upon launch — a 24-70mm f/4 kit lens, and a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Nikon has plans to release additional lenses in the future.

The Nikon Z series sits on display at Nikon's Manhattan event on August 23, 2018. Sean Wolfe/Business Insider

The Z series will have some improvements over previous lineups, as well. The mirrorless format allows for silent shooting — meaning no distracting shutter sound, if desired. They'll also have in-camera vibration reduction, which compensates for shaky hands, which is a first for Nikon cameras with interchangeable lenses.

Additional specs include a 3.2-inch tilting touchscreen, 4K video recording at 30 frames-per-second, 1080p video recording at 60 frames-per-second, and built-in wifi and bluetooth capabilities.

View the Z6's full specs here, and the Z7's full specs here.

Given our coverage of the video game industry, we've had behind closed door discussions with game developers who claim that [Apple] and [Google's] commission structure is unfair and that they may take a more public role in pushing back against the business model," the analysts wrote in a note.

"We've also heard directly from the CEO of a major game publisher that 'Apple is a monopoly' that is taking way too big of a cut. As [Google] and [Apple] continue to add more services and directly compete with app developers, we suspect some of these voices from the music, video, game business, and others may become louder."

In other words: Games companies are privately griping inside the industry about the problem, and more and more are thinking about finally going public with their concerns — a radical move that could inflame the debate around the appropriateness of Apple and Google's fees to a level not seen in years. (Outside of the games industry, Netflix is now also experimenting with a way to avoid app store fees.)

Google and Apple did not respond to Business insider's request for comment.

There are limits to what games companies can do short-term, of course. For consumers, the process of side-stepping Google's Play Store to get apps is technical, and requires users to change settings on their phone, potentially compromising their security — something users would arguably be less inclined to do for anything other than the megahit that is "Fortnite."

And on Apple's iOS such a maneuver simply isn't possible: The operating system is locked down, with no way in for developers other than the App Store. It's Apple's way, or the highway.

But a very public display of displeasure could still put pressure on Google and Apple to make concessions, in an era of extreme sensitivity around tech companies' public images amid increased dissatisfaction with the industry from regulators, lawmakers, and the general public.

If app publishers do win concessions, it could be an absolute bonanza for games companies.

Macquarie calculates that King, a mobile games publisher owned by Activision Blizzard, would see a 12% boost to its EBIT (a measure of profitability) in 2020 if the fees were cut to 15%. EA's 2021 EBIT would surge 8%. And Zynga's 2020 EBIT would soar 53%.

These are multi-billion dollar companies — meaning there's a whole lot of money potentially up for grabs. But Facebook and Google are unlikely to give up easily either; they risk losing billions of dollars from a reduction in fees.

It's too early to say which way this will play out, but it sounds like the issue is drawing towards a crisis point — and the tech giants have a lot to lose.

Elon Musk once called Apple the "Tesla graveyard."

"We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard.' If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding," Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt in 2015.

These days, it seems like there is an increasing number of headstones popping up in Cupertino, California.

CNBC reports that Apple is on a hiring spree, poaching "scores" of ex-Tesla employees for a variety of projects, citing better pay at the iPhone giant.

A Tesla spokesperson seemed to say that was the reason for the attrition, too, in a statement to CNBC:

"We wish them well. Tesla is the hard path. We have 100 times less money than Apple, so of course they can afford to pay more. We are in extremely difficult battles against entrenched auto companies that make 100 times more cars than we did last year, so of course this is very hard work."

LinkedIn shows 46 people who jumped from the carmaker to Apple so far this year, and there are more that haven't updated their profile.

One person who hasn't updated his profile is Doug Field, a high-powered executive who oversaw engineering for the Tesla Model 3. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year he planned to take a "six-week sabbatical."

In August, it came out that he took a job at Apple, returning to the company he had worked before Tesla. Field is said to now be working on Project Titan, Apple's car project. Apple has a team of at least hundreds working on autonomous vehicles, with test vehicles driving on California streets today.

But not all the new Tesla hires are working on Project Titan at Apple. Others are working on software, displays, and batteries, according to CNBC.

Tesla has had a tumultuous year, with near-daily controversies, and the stock options that Tesla employees receive may be less desirable given the stock's volatile price — at least compared to Apple, which became the first company to be valued over $1 trillion earlier this month.

Read the entire report over at CNBC.

Intuit's executive suite will get a major shake up at the end of the year.

Intuit CEO Brad Smith will step down from his role in December after 11 years in the job, the company announced Thursday.

"I never wanted to be that athlete who loses half a step or can't complete the pass," Smith, who is 54, told Fortune ahead of the announcement. "I wanted to step down when I was still in my learning zone and still had gas in the tank."

Sasan Goodarzi will take over as CEO at the start of 2019. Intuit

On January 1, 2019, Smith will pass the torch to Sasan Goodarzi, senior vice president and general manager of the small business and self-employed group —a rapidly growing segment which includes QuickBooks.

Goodarzi first joined the company in 2004, and has since led the financial institutions division as well as the TurboTax division.

"Sasan is better prepared to be CEO than I was 11 years ago," Smith, who will stay at the company as executive chairman of the board, told Fortune.

Smith, a West Virginia native who rose through the ranks at Intuit to become CEO, leaves with an impressive record. Under Smith's decade-plus tenure at the top, Intuit's annual revenue has doubled to nearly $6 billion and the company's stock has increased roughly 600%.

Wall Street didn't take well to the news. Intuit — which includes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint and Turbo — fell 4% on Thursday following the announcement, which corresponded with strong Q4 2018 earnings.

Intuit's Chief Technology Officer Tayloe Stansbury will also step down on January 1. He is replaced by Marianna Tessel, a former VMware and Docker engineer who joined Intuit in 2017 as chief product development officer for Goodarzi's division.

During Intuit's recently completed fiscal fourth quarter, revenue Revenue increased 17% for the quarter adjusted earnings per share were up 60%.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has almost every feature you could want in an Android phone. With specs like a 6.4-inch super AMOLED display, S Pen, dual-aperture camera, 128GB of storage, 6 GB of RAM and more, the $1,000 price tag is much more justified for the Note 9 than the iPhone X. Business Insider tech reporters Antonio Villas-Boas and Avery Hartmans share their thoughts on Samsung's latest premium phone. Following is a transcript of the video.

Avery Hartmans: I've been really impressed by the Galaxy Note 9 so far. My favorite Android phone is the Google Pixel 2. But I've been really impressed with it for a couple different reasons. I think it's a really powerful phone. If this was your only device, you didn't have a laptop, you didn't have a tablet, you just had this, you would be totally fine.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I mean the combination of the large screen and the stylus as well, it just lets me like feel more comfortable doing things on the phone that I would normally save for like a computer or a laptop. So talking about the screen, this is a Samsung screen. Which means it's the best in the business.

Avery Hartmans: I never really understood the need to have a huge OLED display, I was like, ah, mine's fine, I don't need it, until I started to use this. And I was like, wow, this screen is amazing. Watching videos on this thing is unreal. I didn't really mind the top and bottom bezel, I thought that that was fine. I was glad that Samsung did not include a notch on this phone.

Antonio Villas-Boas: In terms of the size of the phone, it's a big phone obviously. It's not for everyone, right? But yeah, it's not a one-handed phone.

Avery Hartmans: But I thought that it was relatively easy to use. It's not unmanageable for people with smaller hands, I think.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I'm actually on the Note 9 and its massive screen, I'm actually using the Android multitasking thing and I was like, wow, like I'm watching a YouTube video while talking to people. And I was like, wow, this is working. And I got an S Pen and it's like, wow, this works really well. It's doing two things at once. I'm doing two things at once.

Avery Hartmans: Do you find yourself using the Bixby button and do you find yourself using Bixby at all?

Antonio Villas-Boas: I find myself accidentally pressing the Bixby button while I'm watching a YouTube video and being frustrated that the Bixby button is there.

Avery Hartmans: What about the camera?

Antonio Villas-Boas: Yeah, I tried it against the Google Pixel 2. And I was really impressed. I think this phone actually, like, competes with the Pixel 2. It's actually the closest competitor to the Pixel 2's camera.

Avery Hartmans: Two of the really standout features of this camera, in my opinion, are the zoom, which I was really impressed by. It's really nice to have when you do need it. And this is like the best zoom that I've seen on a recent smartphone. The other thing that I think is really cool is the dual-aperture. And I notice that when you were taking photos in low light, that it really was, it blew away the competition.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Yeah, right?

Avery Hartmans: Kind of the initial thought that I had about this phone was, it could suit two types of people really well. One of them is, you know, a person who has a really crazy job, is kind of on the road a lot and needs a lot of, a really powerful phone. Needs like, a lot of battery life, you know, a lot of storage space. But it would also be really good for someone who wants this to be like, their whole world. Samsung updated the stylus a little bit this year. And it can now act as a remote. So there's a button on the stylus, you can press it. And it will take a photo from a distance, it can put you through a PowerPoint presentation. And I think that's really cool.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I think it's cool. I don't know how many people will use it. I don't think it's like, oh my God, buy this phone because of this feature, kind of thing, you know?

Avery Hartmans: What about the storage?

Antonio Villas-Boas: The base model comes with, I think there's 128 gigabytes. And then it can go up to 512 gigabytes inside this phone which is more than my MacBook Pro has. And then if you want, you can add another 512 gigabytes of storage through the microSD slot.

Avery Hartmans: That's a total of a terabyte of storage.

Antonio Villas-Boas: That's one terabyte of storage. That's more than most computers come with.

Avery Hartmans: So one of the really cool features of the Galaxy Note 9 is this thing that Samsung calls DeX, which allows you to use the phone as a computer basically.

Antonio Villas-Boas: DeX does look pretty cool. Samsung presented this little dongle that you connect into the phone's USB-C plug and then you can connect it to HDMI, to a monitor. And you basically have a desktop operating system. It kind of looks like Windows, maybe a little bit. I haven't tried it yet. I think it could be cool. As you'd expect, you know, it's a high-end Android phone. It comes with USB-C. It also comes with a fast charger too. Headphone jack. Headphone jack. Please. It does have some bloatware. But honestly, it's really not that bad. One thing it came with which I don't like at all is the Facebook app. And I can't delete it from this phone. I guess one thing I'm not a fan of, is the price tag. A thousand dollars. I still think a four-figure price tag for a smartphone is a little much. But I think it makes a lot more sense on the Galaxy Note 9 than it does for the iPhone X. It has more functionality. You can do more on it and more with it.

Avery Hartmans: Right. I think spending a thousand dollars on this is much more justified. I think that it makes me feel much more productive. I think I can get a lot more done at once. If I was ready to switch away from an iPhone, I would strongly consider this. Before I was only - Pixel was the only other option that I would consider. Now, this is in the running. I would give it a chance.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Great phone. Fully recommend it. Would buy if I had more money.

Avery Hartmans: Sort of on par with I would say like Siri.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Um hm. Yeah, not better, not worse. Yeah, it's not like a compliment, but it's not like an insult either. Or is it, I don't know.

The San Francisco Bay Area as a whole may be a huge metropolitan region, but Silicon Valley can often seem like a small town.

"Small Fry," the new biography by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, illustrates that point.

Brennan-Jobs is the daughter of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. After spending her early years with her mother, artist Chrisann Brennan, Brennan-Jobs went to live with her famous father as a teenager.

While in high school, Brennan-Jobs got into journalism and became the editor-in-chief of her school's newspaper. Her journalism teacher, who was also her mentor, was Esther Wojcicki.

If that last name sounds familiar, it's because it should. That's because she's the mother of Susan and Anne Wojcicki.

Susan Wojcicki, of course, is the CEO of YouTube, and it was in her garage that Larry Page and Sergey Brin first got Google up and running. Anne Wojcicki is the CEO of genomics company 23andMe, and was once married to Brin.

To be sure, Esther Wojcicki is notable in her own right. She's a well-respected educator who has taught journalism at Palo Alto High School for more than two decades and founded the school's Media Arts Center.

In an interview with The New York Times, Wojcicki praised her former student's new book.

"The dialogue that she had in there between her and Steve was just exactly right," Wojcicki said. "The book is a gift to all of us."

The photo of Esther Wojcicki is used under a Creative Commons license.

Tesla

UBS has published the final lap of its complete teardown and analysis of a Tesla Model 3 to compare it to the competition.

Despite winning the first two laps — powertrain and electronics — the bank said Elon Musk’s newest sedan came in last place behind the Chevy Bolt and BMW i3 when it came to build quality.

"Our teardown experts noted numerous Model 3 quality issues including inconsistent gaps & flushness throughout the car, missing bolts, loose tolerances, and uneven & misaligned spot welds," the team of analysts led by Colin Langan wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

"The car scored 'below average' on the fit & finish quality audit which looked at >1, 500 gap measurements," UBS' Colin Langan wrote in the note to clients. "The team also found the body-wind noise was 'borderline acceptable.'"

"The results confirm media reports of quality issues & are disappointing for a $49k car," UBS said.

They won't be easy fixes, either, UBS added, especially when it comes to the structural issues creating excess noise.

After speaking to manufacturing experts and former Tesla employees, the bank said "many of the issues have to do with the basics of stamping out frame parts or the attachment thereof, which requires extensive retooling investment and shutdown time to fix."

This verdict comes at a time when Tesla is racing to build enough cars to become profitable. The company built an entire assembly line in a tent next to its main plant in Fremont, California, as it ramped to build 5,000 cars per week at the end of June. Documents seen by Business Insider showed roughly 4,300 of those required significant work to fix production issues.

UBS' findings reaffirmed what 12 Tesla owners have told Business Insider over the past 12 months. The customers have reported problems before, during, and after receiving their vehicles, including delayed deliveries, broken door handles, and internal computer systems crashing and leaving their cars inoperable. Accounts of early, persistent problems — some that become apparent within days of delivery — contrast with the high customer-satisfaction scores Tesla's vehicles have received from independent surveys.

"Beyond the build quality issues, the serviceability of the Tesla Model 3 comes into question as well," UBS said. "Many aspects of the vehicle are inaccessible to even experienced mechanics and the containment of the battery pack makes fixes complex and expensive.

"In general, the car has fewer components, which are often more advanced than previous generations, but each component is more complex, expensive, and harder to service or replace."

Tesla has pushed back against UBS' claims, telling Business Insider after the initial publication of this article that it will fully refund customers who are unhappy with their vehicles. 

"Our customer satisfaction scores for Model 3 quality have averaged about 90% since January, with steady improvement through the year, even as the number of cars delivered has rapidly multiplied," a spokesperson said in an email. "Tesla customers never have to worry because if they are unhappy with their car when they receive it, they can either give it back for a full refund, allow us to address any issues, or ask for an entirely new Tesla.

"As of April 2018, the standard deviation of all gaps and offsets across the entire car had already improved by nearly 40% on average, with particular gap improvements visible in the area of the trunk, rear lamps and rear quarter panel. Today, Model 3 panel gaps are competitive with Audi, BMW, and Mercedes models, but in the spirit of relentless improvement, we are working to make them even tighter. Our goal is to produce a perfect car for every customer."

With two leading laps and a hiccup under its belt, UBS said it would name an overall winner of the electric-car race in a coming note.

You can read about the first two tests here:

LONDON — Cryptocurrency Dash is seeing a surge in new merchant sign-ups and wallet downloads in Venezuela as hyperinflation in the country runs wild.

Venezuela is forecast to see inflation of as much as 1,000,000% this year, with locals needing stacks and stacks of cash just to buy food. Socialist President Nicolas Maduro last weekend announced a series of measures aimed at stabilizing the economy, including devaluing the bolivar by 95% and pegging it to the state-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro.

However, another, non-state backed cryptocurrency is apparently catching on: Dash.

"We are seeing tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country each month," Ryan Taylor, the CEO of the Dash Core Group, told Business Insider. "Earlier this year, Venezuela became our number two market even ahead of China and Russia, which are of course huge into cryptocurrency right now."

The BBC reported on Wednesday that Venezuela is "a paralyzed country" after the economic changes over the weekend. Cash withdrawals are being restricted and there is confusion over how exactly the new system works.

Venezuelans are turning to cryptocurrencies as a way to store value as the Venezuelan bolivar's exchange rate spirals out of control.

A Dash billboard in Venezuela. Ryan Taylor/Dash Core Group

Dash is an open source cryptocurrency created in 2014. It has low fees and near-instant transactions. Dash is currently the 14th largest cryptocurrency in the world, according to CoinMarketCap.com, with just over $1 billion-worth in circulation.

The Dash Core Group, which Taylor heads, is owned by the payment network that Dash runs on. The Core Group services the network and its funding comes from mining fees that are generated by the network.

As well as wallet downloads, which consumers need to hold and spend Dash, Taylor said the cryptocurrency is seeing strong adoption with merchants too.

"It took them a long time to get the first 50, first 100 [retailers]," Taylor, who is based in Arizona, told Business Insider on a call last week. "But at the beginning of July the number was around 400, and we're already at 800. We're at this point signing up more than 200 a month."

Brand names including Subway and Calvin Klein have signed up to accept Dash in Venezuela, Taylor said.

"Effectively, even if I accept a credit card, three days later when the funds hit my account, it's worth significantly less in Venezuela than when the authorization went through," he told BI. "This is a problem that cryptocurrency can solve. Our instant transactions can solve it and the relative stability of our cryptocurrency is better than their fiat currency."

Responding to questions over email this week, Taylor said adoption in Venezuela has accelerated even faster after Maduro's latest economic plans were announced.

He said: "We've seen 94 new Venezuelan merchants added to DiscoverDash.com since last week, which is about double the normal rate of about 50 merchants per week [over] the last couple of months.

"We have seen the number of Dash-accepting merchant sign-ups accelerate throughout the crisis. I believe that trend will continue."

DiscoverDash.com lists local businesses worldwide that accept Dash. 5 of the 6 newest merchant signups on the website were located in Venezuela when BI checked on Tuesday afternoon.

The characteristics of Dash make it suited to act as a cash or debit card replacement. Dash's transaction fees are in pennies, rather than running into dollars as bitcoin's fees have been known to do. Confirmation times are also in the seconds, versus slower payment processing times for other cryptocurrencies.

However, perhaps the most crucial reason why Dash has caught on in Venezuela is that the Core Group can finance projects on the ground.

Most cryptocurrencies are completely open source, with no central funding or body backing the network or the currency. Dash, on the other hand, has the Core Group which helps to run the network and looks after some new funds generated by the currency's underlying code.

Dash generates new cryptocurrency when transactions are confirmed on the network. Most of the new cryptocurrency is paid to the people who confirm transactions, incentivizing them to do this job of confirming them. But around 10% of this newly generated cryptocurrency goes into "treasury" — a pot of money that the Core Group gives to projects and ideas looking to support and encourage Dash adoption.

"A lot of community members came forward with proposals to do education, hold workshops, open an office where users can come in and sit in a small group setting and get help setting up a wallet," Taylor said.

The Dash Core Group has so far invested around $1 million in Venezuela, funding everything from billboards to sales reps.

Taylor added that Dash is also seeing strong adoption in other countries with similar dynamics to Venezuela.

"Venezuela is unique, it's the only country in the world with what can be called hyperinflation," he said. "But there are other high inflation countries. We're seeing this with Turkey right now. Ukraine, Argentina, these are countries with very high inflation rates with of 20-30% or something. 20-30% we think is enough to get people to try something new.

"We're going to try and be successful first in Venezuela before branching out to try this in other countries," he concluded.

Azealia Banks demanded that Elon Musk return her phone. Getty

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Wednesday.

1. Facebook says Iran-backed accounts pretended to be news organizations to spread misinformation and to launch cyber attacks. Facebook says it removed 652 Pages and accounts on its services that it linked to Iran, as well as numerous Russia-linked accounts involved in inauthentic behavior.

2. Y Combinator, a startup program that's harder to get into than Harvard, accepted all 15,000 applicants into Startup School after a major screwup. After initially informing some startups that they had been mistakenly accepted, it then did a U-turn and said all applicants had been accepted to its online course for entrepreneurs.

3. Tim Cook donated nearly $5 million worth of Apple shares to charity. Cook has donated 23,215 Apple shares to an unspecified charity, according to an SEC filing on Tuesday.

4. Rapper Azealia Banks is demanding Elon Musk return her phone in an ongoing saga between the pair. Banks suggested in a now-deleted Instagram post that Musk's attorney had seized her phone.

5. Amazon removed one of the best features from Amazon Prime, and Twitch users are furious. Amazon's incredibly popular Prime service is losing a major benefit: ad-free Twitch viewing.

6. Slack raised a whopping $427 million to become a $7.1 billion company. Slack, the popular work chat app, has raised $427 million in venture capital at a valuation of more than $7 billion, according to a news release.

7. It looks as if Elon Musk has deleted his Instagram account. The Tesla CEO's Instagram account has vanished amid accusations from the rapper Azealia Banks.

8. Facebook apologized to right-wing group PragerU after being accused of censoring its videos. Facebook said the removal of the videos was a mistake, but PragerU seemed unconvinced, claiming the removal was an act of deliberate censorship.

9. Uber appointed a new chief financial officer as it inches towards an IPO. Uber announced on Tuesday that it had appointed Nelson J. Chai, formerly of Merrill Lynch and CIT Group.

10. Israel won't renew a $27 million contract with Microsoft because it says switching to the cloud subscription model will double the price. The Israeli government announced on Tuesday that it will not renew its desktop software contract with Microsoft.

Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings.

The dating app Toffee, which was widely criticised as eltist as it connects only those who went to private school, is expanding.

The app launched in the UK on Apple in April, and will be coming to Android in September. A Toffee press release stated that it now has 10,000 monthly active users in the UK.

Toffee is also coming to Australia in November, which offers a big market at 35% of Australians are privately educated, compared to 8% of Brits. It also stated that it plans a wider roll-out to other English-speaking countries over the next 12 months.

Many have criticised the app for what is seen as blatant classism and elitism, although Toffee argues it is simply filling a niche, comparing itself to the way that J-Swipe caters for the Jewish market.

"It's disgustingly elitist," said one of a number of millennials The Independent spoke to last year. "I feel like private school kids have their own closed social circle of private school friends and acquaintances in real life anyway (those who would be the type to use such an app that is) so what would they need an app for?"

It is part of a trend of self-consciously elite dating apps, such as The Inner Circle which limits its usership to "successful, attractive people," and is seen as the European equivalent to the US app The League.

The app itself a waiting list, and it is not yet clear how people are vetted on whether they attended private school. When we looked at the app there was nowhere to input any card details, so the fee which was touted when it launched in April seems yet to appear. Business Insider has contacted Toffee for clarification.

A big announcement by JPMorgan on Tuesday could precipitate the next chapter of a price-war that's long been underway on Wall Street.

JPMorgan unveiled a new stock trading application that would offer in some cases zero-commission stock trades in an interview with CNBC. Vanguard Group also said on Tuesday it would offer a platform of free ETF trading, following Fidelity which announced earlier in August that it was rolling out a zero-fee index fund.

And now market experts expect the news could bring the cost of trading sharply lower, accelerating a trend that's been in the works since discount brokers came online decades ago.

"It is another piece of evidence that we are going to zero," Devin Ryan, an analyst at JMP Securities, said in an interview with Business Insider.

Ryan said the news would force the hand of other brokerage firms to act soon to preserve their own market share.

"The question is how does the industry react," he added. "We are going to see them invest in pricing. They're going to act a little sooner than they might have."

JPMorgan is following a similar model to Amazon Prime. Free two-day shipping to customers may act as a loss leader to Amazon, but the company is betting this perk will encourage shoppers to buy more on the site. In the same vein, JPMorgan is offering free trading services to Chase users with the hopes that it'll incentivize them to do other, higher margin business with the bank.

Shares of online brokerages such as Charles Schwab and E-Trade dropped on Tuesday, showing the risk that JPMorgan's plan poses to the already cut-throat brokerage price war.

These firms are already bringing down their costs to fend off upstart firms such as Robinhood, which pioneered zero-commission stock trading for its 4 million users.

"Free is the new cheap," wrote Bernstein quant and macro specialist Ethan Brodie in a note to clients.

A TDAmeritrade spokesperson told Business Insider it is "very well positioned to compete and win in a low-cost environment. However, the competitive environment will likely continue to shift, and we will remain nimble."

A spokesman for Schwab did not specifically refer to price compression, saying in a statement that the firm would "continue to aggressively lead the way in improving how people invest and manage their wealth."

TDAmeritrade charges $6.95 per trade, whereas Schwab charges $4.95.

Ryan said it's a matter of when these firms charge zero for trading, not if. Ultimately, that will translate into a world in which brokerage firms and startups alike will have to adjust their business models to offer other high touch services to clients from which they can profit. Ryan specifically said they might venture into financial advice.

"The world is evolving and finance firms will have to offer more holistic services," he said.

Mike Sha, the CEO of digital wealth management firm SigFig, said that the end of the broker price-wars may end with only a few casualties. Sha's thesis is that there are enough under-invested Americans for startups and existing brokers to survive.

"I actually think what is going to happen in this industry is a rising tides lifts more ships situation," he said.

Bitcoin is the "digital gold" — at least, that's what its fervent advocates claim.

They argue that the buzzy digital currency is the 21st century's answer to precious metals, and may one day replace gold as a major store of value for investors.

But is bitcoin likely to actually replace real gold in mainstream investors' eyes any time soon? According to Morningstar Equity Research analyst Kristoffer Inton, the answer is a resounding no.

In a recent research note for investors, the analyst laid out five criteria that gold, as a "safe-haven investment," fulfills — and that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would also need to succeed at in order to be considered as an investment on a par with (or superior to) the shiny precious metal.

Notably, these criteria don't include volatility — something investors want to avoid at all costs for safe-haven investments. Bitcoin is, infamously, prone to extreme bouts of volatility. In the space of under a year, its price has skyrocketed from around $4,000 to almost $20,000, before falling back to around $6,500 today.

So what are they? The five areas are liquidity, functional purpose, scarcity of supply, future demand certainty, and permanence.

Gold successfully ticks the box on every one of these criteria, while bitcoin only manages two (at a push), Inton argues.

Morningstar Equity Research

First up, liquidity. An investment vehicle needs to be traded regularly, and bitcoin is remarkably illiquid, as crypto investors hoard (or "hodl") their digital coins. "Current levels of trading see daily volume of roughly 0.5% of all existing bitcoins," Inton wrote. "Gold averages more than 5 times as much volume, with nearly 3% of all existing gold being regularly traded."

Next: As well as being a universally recognised store of value, gold actually has a functional purpose— from its utilization in computer circuit boards to ornamental jewellery and teeth replacements. Bitcoin's only purpose is as a currency and store of value — and right now, it's only rarely accepted for actual purchases (rather than speculative trades).

Bitcoin does, however, have scarcity of supply, a necessary component for retaining value. There will only ever be a maximum of 21 million bitcoins in existence, a rule written into its code from day one.

Is there future demand certainty for bitcoin? That's a very big unknown. The digital currency has been around for less than a decade, in a period of significant technological and political upheaval; even if cryptocurrencies catch on in the mainstream, there's no guarantee bitcoin will be one of the ultimate winners. In contrast, gold has been universally accepted as valuable for more than 5,000 years of human history — it's a pretty safe bet for investors that it won't have totally devalued a year from now.

Lastly, there's permanence— the question of whether the given investment resource itself degrades over time. Gold is a precious metal that doesn't tarnish; bitcoin, too, won't rot or deteriorate. (Though if people stop widely using bitcoin, the network will degrade in quality and could eventually disappear altogether; gold would continue to exist even if it ceased to be used as an investment vehicle tomorrow.)