Tesla News
-
Last weekend, Tesla released more details about its up-coming 2012 Model S all-electric luxury sedan at an exclusive reservation-holder and media Model S event in Fremont, California. While some of the new information -- like the sub-4.5 second 0-60 time of the new Model S Sport variant -- got us excited, we remain less enthusiastic about Tesla’s new proprietary charging connector, designed by Tesla exclusively for the Model S. But should Tesla have gone to great lengths to design a new, compact charge port and plug, or should it have chosen to support existing infrastructure? And will...
-
2012 Tesla Model S: Photo GalleryThis week's most discussed car may well be the 2012 Tesla Model S. And that's by design. Startup electric-car company Tesla Motors opened its Fremont, California, factory for the last three days to let a select list of customers, reservation holders, and journalists from around the world see...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Now Trading Higher Than Ford, GM, VW After 2012 Model S LaunchIt may not be delivering its much-anticipated 2012 Model S Sedan to the its first customer until the middle of next year, but Californian electric automaker Tesla [NASDAQ: TSLA] is now trading higher than many of its traditional gasoline rivals on the NASDAQ exchange. At a high-point of $24.95 so...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2012 Tesla Model S: First Ride ReportOn Saturday, exactly one year after it took ownership of the former Toyota NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, Tesla Motors [NASDAQ:TSLA] held a series of test-drives aimed to show off the latest Model S Betas to the press and Model S reservation holders. We’ve already told you about some...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
BREAKING: Tesla Making Faster 2012 Model S, 0-60 In Under 4.5 SecondsWe already know a lot about the all-electric 2012 Tesla Model S sedan -- but at a press event ahead of tonight’s exclusive VIP event at the former Toyota NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, Tesla [NASDAQ:TSLA] CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla was making a faster Model S for those with a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2012 Tesla Model S Electric Sedan: What Do You Want To Know?This Saturday, we’ll be heading to the California factory where Tesla Motors plans to build its much-anticipated 2012 Model S electric sports sedan. While we’re there, we’ll be given a full tour of the former NUMMI factory in Fremont, California. where the Model S will be...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Of every 10 companies started by entrepreneurs, half or more fail. Some are sold for the parts or the people, a couple of lucky ones may be bought by larger companies, and only the very lucky ones survive as independent companies over the long term. Tesla: Apple or Altair? For every Apple, in other words, there are hundreds of companies that have vanished from the computer business, from Altair, Altos, Amdahl, and Apollo to Wang, Xerox, and Zeos. Every venture capitalist knows this, and the most successful VCs hope to have a home run and a base hit out of every 10 companies they fund. The...
-
Tesla Promotes DOE Loans, Asks For More MoneyElectric automaker Tesla Motors posted a blog post on its website earlier this week detailing how the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program had helped it expand and prepare not just one but many electric cars for the market. The blog post was designed...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Betting Tesla's Elon Musk $1 Million, Dan Neil Hopes To LoseElon Musk, CEO of electric-car startup Tesla Motors, sometimes says things that later prove not to be quite true. In that, he's like many entrepreneurs, who spend a portion of their time persuading the unconvinced and painting pictures of the rosy future, despite inconvenient facts that may...
John Voelcker -
Dear Floridians: Golf Carts Are NOT Electric CarsElectric car enthusiasts have struggled for years with "golf cart" jibes and only recently with cars like the 2011 Tesla Roadster and 2012 Nissan Leaf has the "ugly and slow" image started to disappear. In Florida, there's a different problem - people who believe their golf carts are actual cars...
Antony Ingram -
Got An Electric Car? How About Pre-Paying For Its Next Battery Pack?We’ve all heard the shock stories -- generally from media outlets which haven’t fully researched the topic -- saying that the battery pack in your electric car will only last a few years and then cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars to replace. We think its unlikely that most...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric Supercars: The New Breed Of Fast And SexyForget the Jaguar C-X75 or BMW i8 range-extenders. When it comes to the greenest supercars around, pure-electric drivetrains are a must. Whether its single motors, dual motors, or one in each wheel, electric cars offer enthusiasts a whole new level of performance, and capabilities never seen...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Remember the story of One Red Paperclip? The guy from Vancouver, Canada who traded a single red paperclip to a full-size house in just 14 trade ups? Now fellow Canadian Martin Provost, trying to trade his way from a $30 Camera to a Tesla Roadster, has just got his first ride in the $109,000 electric rocket. But his hour of fun last week wasn’t because he had successfully traded something in exchange for the sexy sports car. It was because he managed to bag a test drive when Tesla Motors visited Ottawa to provide test drives to potential buyers. That test-drive might be as close Provost...
-
Green Car People: Who Buys Electric And Plug-In Vehicles?Once upon a time, people who bought (or built) electric vehicles were often science-minded, forward-thinking, eco-conscious drivers who sometimes had a hippie past. Times have changed. Today, there are several motivations for buying a car that plugs into the electric grid to recharge its battery...
John Voelcker -
Secret Tesla Video? Model S Sedan, Roadster Shown On The Road TogetherTesla Motors has now released a few videos (here and here) of the all-electric 2012 Model S sports sedan it plans to launch next year. But we haven't yet seen one showing the Model S driving together with the equally all-electric 2011 Tesla Roadster. That's what the video below shows. According to...
John Voelcker -
Discuss: Tesla's Elon Musk Is The New Steve Jobs (Merrill Analyst Says)Will the auto industry change more in the next decade than it has in the past century? We think that's hyperbole. There will be big changes, including the arrival of electric cars in volume, but to say the cars of 2020 will be as different from today's as the cars of today were from those in 1911...
John Voelcker -
Curious Tire-Kickers Keep Tesla Busy Even Without Cars to SellDrop by your local Apple retail store, and you’re bound to see it humming with visitors. But while some are there to hand over their hard-earned cash for a new computer or mobile device many more are there to soak up the apple store experience. Most are there just to window shop, dreaming of...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Auto X-Prize Runner Up Clocks Faster Time Than Mini E At Nürburgring (Video)It’s almost a year since the Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize came to a conclusion, but we’ve heard relatively little from its various winners. Until Now. Enter the Finnish team which came runners up in the Alternative (Side by Side) category with the conventionally-styled...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
This much we know already: Tesla Motors will build battery packs and electric drive systems for the upcoming 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV electric crossover. What we didn't know was where that car would be assembled. Would it be the Canadian factory that builds standard gasoline RAV4s for North America, or the cavernous Tesla Motors plant in Fremont, California, where the electric-car startup plans to build its 2012 Model S all-electric luxury sports sedan? Today we learned the answer. Toyota issued a statement saying that the "jointly developed" RAV4 EV would be built in its plant in Woodstock...
-
Nissan Gives First Charging Station To City Visited By Top Gear (BREAKING)If you’ve been following the story of what happened when popular British entertainment show Top Gear took a 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Peugeot iOn (nee Mitsubishi i) for a drive to the rural eastern U.K. city of Lincoln, you’ll know that Nissan wasn’t exactly happy with the way its...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Tesla Releases Trio Test-Track Fun Model S Teaser VideoIf Tesla’s Model S all-electric seven-seat sedan were in high school, it would be the kind of girl every heterosexual boy would lust after and every teenage girl would want to be. At least, that’s certainly the line being taken by Tesla in its latest teasing track-test video, in which...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Top Gear Tests Nissan Leaf, Peugeot iOn: A Fair Assessment?It's the episode electric car enthusiasts have been itching to see- and now the guys at BBC motoring show Top Gear have tested two electric cars to see whether they make any sense for the car buying public. Now we already know that Top Gear hasn't had the greatest history with electric cars. First...
Antony Ingram -
2012 Tesla Model S: 'Blank Slate' With 'Awesome Door Handles'Tesla Motors has a bit of a problem: It needs to keep itself in the public eye between its last electric Roadster and next summer, when its 2012 Model S electric sports sedan is scheduled to arrive. Toward that end, the company has been publishing regular updates on the new car on its blog. The...
John Voelcker -
Do Plug-In Hybrids Matter? #YouTellUsWith some automakers already offering fully-electric cars, do plug-in hybrids matter? #YouTellUs
Joel Feder