The Motley Fool organization is generally pretty smart, but they’ve often written crazy things about electric cars. The latest is to equate Tesla Motors with Amazon.com, driving me to utter WTF’s. The two companies couldn’t be more different. Tesla Motors makes one main product (the Tesla Model S) and some…
Last week US Secretary of State John Kerry went to Indonesia and called Climate Change “perhaps the worlds most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” I’m happy that someone in his position has said such a thing, especially following President Obama’s declaration in January that Climate Change is not debatable, it’s…
The protesters in Ukraine have succeeded in ejecting Yanukovych from Kyiv (Kiev), with protesters taking control of the government buildings and the Parliament voting unanimously to remove Yanukovych from power. At the same time he has fled to Russia-friendly eastern half of the country, Kharkiv, where an assembly of regional…
The popular uprising in Ukraine has resulted in ex-President Yanukovych fleeing the capitol on Saturday, apparently retreating to the safety of Kharkiv, a city in Russia-friendly Eastern Ukraine. While it’s extremely historically significant that a popular uprising has overthrown a Russia-backed government, the events also illustrate a global power struggle…
Tesla Motors today released results for Q3 2013 showing they exceeded sales estimates by a big margin, but as a business they’re still running at a loss (on a GAAP basis). Tesla’s management is taking pains to show both non-GAAP and GAAP financial results, the only ones that count, hence…
This morning’s news tells us that the Ukranian government has begun an attack on protesters camped out in the Maidan, or Independence Square, known now as the Euromaidan. Reports say that over 25 have been killed including several police officers. The fighting follows several months where protesters have taken over…
In North America, Japan and Europe, a little standards battle over fast charging connectors and protocols is brewing between the car makers. The Japanese carmakers are pushing CHAdeMO, the European and North American carmakers settled on the SAE Combined Charging System (a.k.a. Frankenplug), and Tesla is going it’s own way…
There hasn’t been a lot of news about Fracking protests in Romania, but what we’re interested in anyway is the higher level issues. Is the development of shale gas using hydraulic fracturing a good idea environmentally, economically, etc, and is it contributing to the destabilization of democracy in countries like…
For years we’ve had electric powered racing, whether it’s drag racing (NEDRA and the like), go-karts, motorcycles (TTXGP and the like) or cars (Formula E, Formula Lightning, etc). Electrically powered racers ran in separate classes, and often separate events, because while electric race vehicles might be fast enough they didn’t…
Darvill Racing has announced (on Friday) a historic agreement in which they will be the first electrically powered motorcycle racing team to compete directly against gasoline powered bikes in a regular road race. They’ll be competing in the “Southern 100 Road Races” which is an ACU/FIM sanctioned event held on…
California Gov. Jerry Brown recently declared California to be in a state of Water Emergency. Why? We are having great weather this “winter” with clear skies and warm temperatures – looking out the front window of the house where we live, and it looks summer. Normally California gets a lot…
Jeremiah Johnson on the Brutus V2 Rocket Brutus Electric Motorcycles and Bell Custom Cycles announced today they’re entering the 92nd Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and that they’ve signed Jeremiah Johnson as the rider. Brutus manufactures a small line of motorcycles that includes cruiser and cafe racer style bikes. For…
