A few days ago Daimler announced it had sold its entire stake in Tesla Motors, and now Toyota has sold “some” of its Tesla stake. That’s Tesla’s two major corporate backers, both the Daimler and Toyota investments were critical to Tesla’s survival to this point, exiting their relationships with Tesla…
Last April I suggested an agreement between Tesla Motors and New York State was in effect a capitulation by Tesla, and that the company had lost its argument over its preferred model of selling cars directly to customers. The ebb-and-flow of events since have made it unclear whether that’s indeed…
In the electric car field we’re worried about public perception of electric car safety. Despite the fact there’s over 200,000 gasoline car fires per year in the U.S. alone, causing hundreds of fatalities and property damage costs, there is inordinately outsized attention paid to the very small number of electric…
At the intersection of smart grid services, on-site renewable energy generation, on-site grid energy storage, and electric cars, is the new energy energy model. I’ve recently written a few posts about the stone age energy model, where we burn things to create heat, motion or light. Most cars, trucks, etc…
Today Lockheed-Martin announced new Fusion Reactor technology which could shift humanity’s energy supply from the stone-age mentality to the modern energy paradigm. Some of my recent postings have drawn a distinction between the old energy paradigm, that I’ve called the stone age energy mindset (burning things to get light, heat…
According to several sources today, Tesla Motors is going ahead with their robotic battery exchange technology and will deploy one battery swap station somewhere between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The service will launch by December 2014, and no I don’t know anything more than that. The news came first…
Yesterday Tesla Motors unveiled the ‘D’, the Dual Drive version of the Tesla Model S. The fully tricked out Model S P85D will set you back a minimum of $120,000, and be the fastest 4 door sedan ever built. Raw acceleration is demonstrated by the video below, and the spec…
Tonight, Tesla Motors unveiled the “D” (and something else) before a crowd at their facility in Hawthorne – the same facility where the phallic Supercharger pylon is located. Last week Elon Musk slyly hinted it was time to unveil the D, but didn’t say much else. I’m glad to say…
Chevy Sonic possibly the base of a Chevy EV in 2017 The 200 mile range electric car from General Motors, badged with a Chevrolet brand, is possibly going to be announced in January at the Detroit Auto Show. Chevy Volt fans are clinging to this idea while sales of that…
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has made another of his obtuse tweets, suggesting something will be announced next week – something to do with the letter D – and something else. Good, thank you for sharing that you’re learning the alphabet? A bit over two years ago Elon tweeted about…
Zero Motorcycles announced today specifications and pricing for their 2015 lineup of electric motorcycles. The Scotts Valley, CA, based company has been building electric motorcycles since 2006, and its’ market leadership is demonstrated through multiple models addressing both off-road and on-road motorcycling. The improvements for the 2015 model year are…
I’ve recently written a few blog posts about the Blink Network and its problems. The other day I posted a not-so-well-thought-out survey of questions about Blink, and other charging networks. The results weren’t very conclusive because of the small number of responses, but did agree with the widely held belief…
Tesla Motors has been criticized for not including any kind of driver assist features in the Model S. Driver Assist features are commonplace among not only luxury cars, but regular cars, now. Some of them take care of tasks like parallel parking, while others help the driver do so safely.…
Because electric car battery packs are expensive, some in the industry think the pack should be leased separately from the car. Doing so would reduce the price of an electric car, making it more affordable, speeding up electric car adoption. That was the value proposition offered by Better Place, for…
The question of whether Blink is gouging its customers, or not, raises a set of questions in my mind. Is that really what Blink is doing? Do the majority of EV drivers really think Blink is gouging them? What about the other charging networks? Maybe what I’m seeing is just…
