Elon Musk
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Electric-car startup Tesla Motors attracts huge interest, lots of controversy, and truly passionate customers and followers. For a company that's been around only a little more than 10 years, it's got a lot of history. Now, a video from Bloomberg Business distills that history down into a mere two minutes and 20 seconds. DON'T MISS: Tesla Not Disruptive, Future Is Tiny Electric 'Golf Carts': Harvard Scholar Starting with the company's founding by two men who are not current CEO Elon Musk, the narrative moves briskly and factually through key points. The first car put on sale by the fledging...
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California Test Track For Elon Musk's Hyperloop To Be Built
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies acquires land for a test track.
Stephen Edelstein -
Tesla Energy: What We Learned About Powerwall Demand On Q1 Results Call
The quarterly earnings calls held by Tesla Motors are always a chance to hear CEO Elon Musk describe the Silicon Valley carmaker's operations and outlooks. But last week's call was a first: The bulk of the questions by financial analysts weren't about the company's electric cars. Rather than...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Model X, Model 3, Gigafactory: What We Learned On Q1 Results Call
The quarterly earnings call held Wednesday afternoon by Tesla Motors is always a chance to hear how CEO Elon Musk views the operations of his carmaking company. But the call following release of the first-quarter 2015 results was a little different. Roughly two-thirds of the allotted time was spent...
John Voelcker -
Has Elon Musk Cut Tesla's 2015 Electric-Car Guidance A Bit, Maybe?
After the New York financial markets close this afternoon, Tesla Motors will release its first-quarter financial results and its quarterly letter to shareholders. The company announced last month, just after the close of the quarter, that it had delivered 10,030 Model S electric cars. DON'T MISS...
John Voelcker -
Tesla's Big Bet: Batteries For Energy Storage A 'Major New Product'
Tomorrow night, if its strong hints are accurate, Tesla Motors will announce that it plans to offer lithium-ion battery packs for home and business energy storage. Such storage comes at a cost on top of that of the photovoltaic solar panels that generate the energy. But the promise is that such...
John Voelcker -
Electric-car maker Tesla Motors has done many remarkable things in its short decade of existence--including a few the auto industry viewed as impossible. But the company has never managed to get a car into volume production on the date it first announced. That applied to its Roadster, the Model S sedan, and the Model X electric SUV. DON'T MISS: Tesla Model 3, Next Electric Car: Roundup Of What We Know Now (Jun 2013) Last week, news emerged that the "alpha prototype" for the company's third-generation product, the 200-mile, $35,000 Model 3 sedan, has not yet been built. When that car--then...
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Tesla Website, Twitter Account, Musk Twitter Briefly Hacked
Electric-car maker Tesla sits in the heart of Silicon Valley, a place where software security is--or should be--a constant focus of attention. Still, corporate websites present a juicy and visible target for hackers worldwide. For a brief period Saturday afternoon, hackers appear to have taken over...
John Voelcker -
New Toyota Film Appropriates Musk 'BS' Comment On Hydrogen For Its Title
Toyota launches a series of videos on renewable hydrogen.
Stephen Edelstein -
Tesla Had A Deal To Sell Itself To Google Til Musk Walked Away
Like any startup company, Tesla Motors has had crises where the electric-car maker came very close to financial collapse. One was in 2008, when its Roadster model was late in delivery and its two-speed transmission proved unable to handle the car's power. But a second crisis developed in late 2012...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Motors Releases Quarterly Sales: 10,030 Cars Sold Globally Jan-Mar
Tesla Motors started deliveries of its all-electric Roadster more than six years ago. Since then, the Silicon Valley electric-car maker has released its sales data in various ways at various times, usually only during quarterly earnings reports. Today, the company announced that it would provide...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Navigation Update Echoes Better Place System Of 3 Years Ago
It was another typically hyperbolic statement from Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk. A simple tweet on a Sunday afternoon claimed that Tesla was “About to end range anxiety ... via [over-the-air] software update. Affects entire Model S fleet.” As usual, the media erupted with wild speculation...
Brian of London -
Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased us Model S owners with a tweet promising to “end range anxiety.” In a press conference this morning, Musk revealed the goods: an over-the-air firmware update that, while not increasing the range of the car, will at least set the driver’s mind at ease about how far he can really go before the juice runs out. Firmware version 6.2 is now in Beta testing and, according to Musk, will be sent out to the Model S fleet at large in about ten days. DON'T MISS: Tesla Supercharger Network Growth Surges Over Last 14 Months Range Assurance The...
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Tesla Model S Double-Pedal Behavior Still Inconsistent: A Safety Plea To Elon Musk
Last summer, I wrote an article patting Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk on the back for being so responsive to Model S electric-car owners. Of whom I am one. But in 2015? Not so much. I ended that article with a plea to Musk for a safety upgrade on the Model S: a firmware change to cut off power to the...
David Noland -
Tesla Battery Swapping: Useful Service Or Minimal Effort For Extra Income?
Tesla Motors has been opening its Supercharger DC fast-charging stations at a dizzying pace lately, with 175 U.S. sites operating, and almost two dozen more either in construction or permitted. Globally that total is almost 400 sites, which likely represents more than 2,000 separate outlets. But...
John Voelcker -
Tesla To Offer Batteries To Consumers For Home Energy Storage
It was just a couple of sentences during Wednesday's 2014 earnings call by Tesla Motors executives. But in it, CEO Elon Musk apparently revealed a new line of business for the company: selling or leasing lithium-ion battery packs for home energy storage. DON'T MISS: In 10 Years, Electric Cars Make...
John Voelcker -
About That (One) Tesla Battery Swapping Station: An Update
Eighteen months ago, in the kind of flashy, highly-publicized event it's so good at, Tesla Motors said it would launch battery swapping for its Model S electric car. CEO Elon Musk presided over a demonstration in which the underfloor battery pack of a Model S was apparently removed and replaced in...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Transparency On Orders, Sales, Production Fades: Do Owners, Investors Care?
On February 11, electric-car maker Tesla Motors will release its 2014 earnings and hold a conference call for financial analysts to discuss them. If recent patterns hold, the company won't disclose a number of the important operating metrics that reveal how well it's doing. In fact, over the last...
John Voelcker -
Toyota's public attack on electric cars shows no signs of letting up. Its first sallies were two ads from its Lexus luxury brand slamming electric cars for range anxiety. Now, a Toyota executive has all but sneered at Tesla Motors for putting "all its eggs in one basket" by making only battery-electric cars. DON'T MISS: Lexus CT 200h Hybrid Ad Slams Electric BMW i3: Gloves Come Off Toyota's senior vice president for U.S. operations, Bob Carter, apparently made the comments ad hoc during a presentation last week at the J.D. Power Automotive Summit in San Francisco. The comments were reported...
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Could Elon Musk's Hyperloop Crack The Texas Tesla Sales Ban?
How Elon Musk's planned Hyperloop test track could become a bargaining chip in the game of direct sales.
Stephen Edelstein -
Tesla Roadster 3.0: 70-kWh Battery, Aero Kit, New Tires, For 400-Mile Range
Tesla Motors announced today that it has prototyped a "Roadster 3.0" package, which Roadster owners will be able to purchase in the future to update the battery pack, aerodynamics, and tires of their 2008-2012 Tesla Roadster electric sports cars. Taken together, the updates are expected to boost...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Roadster Battery Upgrade Details: Coming This Week, Musk Says
Say what you will about Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk, he's one of the very few global automaker CEOs who personally responds to owner questions via Twitter. And he's at it again, promising late Friday afternoon that details will be coming this week on the promised battery upgrade for the...
John Voelcker -
BMW: No Interest In Tesla Cooperation, Musk Was Posturing For PR
Regardless of recent comments by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, BMW says it has no plans for a partnership with the electric-car maker.
Stephen Edelstein -
Tesla, BMW Chat Over Possible Partnership, Elon Musk Says
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his company is talking to BMW about a partnership on charging stations, batteries, and lightweight materials.
Stephen Edelstein