Silicon Valley

Few automakers have built a buzz around their products like Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA]. Like many other electric cars, Roadster and Model S owners and fans are a tight-knit community too, and a two-day users conference in July will bring even more owners together. Called Teslive, Silicon Beat...

In the last few weeks, it's almost become a cliche: drivers in Silicon Valley say they see as many Tesla Model S electric luxury sedans on the roads as they do Nissan Leafs or Chevrolet Volts. With a likely total production of perhaps 6,000 cars thus far, the Model S is outnumbered on U.S. roads by...

While we're nearing 100,000 plug-in electric cars on U.S. roads, they're not evenly distributed--and the largest group of them is in California. This has led to occasional congestion at charging stations, and now it turns out that happens at workplaces too. Venture-funded startup Nest Labs, a media...

For a century, we've gotten almost all our gasoline and diesel fuel from petrochemicals. Now Silicon Valley startup Solazyme [NSDQ:SZYM] is testing diesel fuel derived from refining renewable oils--produced by specialized algae--in two Volkswagen turbodiesel models. Since July 2012, the VW Passat...

Yes, there's a big imbroglio going on right now over an article in The New York Times, followed by some tweets (1, 2, and 3) from Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk contradicting it. We're ignoring that, for the moment. Instead, we're bringing you an idea that made us chuckle. That idea is that the Tesla...

Google’s head offices in Mountain View, California has just got some new neighbors, but unlike most of the other companies in the fabled silicon valley it isn’t a fresh-faced venture-funded software or green tech startup firm. It’s an automaker. Moving into offices just over the...

We don’t hear “death of Detroit” stories as often now as we did a year ago. When GM and Chrysler plunged into bankruptcy and the entire U.S. industry laid off tens of thousands of workers in one year, the effects on an already battered Detroit region were dire. And they led to a...

Cars with electric drive motors are now midway through their second decade, and ideas from hybrids and electric cars are starting to filter back into mainstream gasoline vehicles. Ford, for one, adapted several ideas from its hybrid vehicles to reduce the fuel consumption of its 2011 Explorer...

Competition is heating up in the electric car sector, and the next few years will be a challenging testing ground for startups looking to gain a foothold among consumers as more and more major automakers launch electric and hybrid cars. Some startups have lofty ambitions. Electric car startup Coda...

Urban taxi service may be the equal of any proving-ground torture test. Taxis are driven hard, up to 20 hours a day, and must handle both bad roads and bad drivers. Those that survive without falling apart should do fine in civilian duty. Which is why Better Place chose Tokyo to test out its...

When it comes to electric vehicle (EV) development, even auto giants like Toyota and Daimler are partnering up with smaller specialist firms--in this case Tesla--to benefit from technology sharing and other synergies in their quest to become leaders in the field. So it should come as no surprise...