On a newly-launched Medium publication, Ford Motors announces a new effort at electrified vehicles, and teases us with a “Mustang-inspired fully electric performance utility” vehicle with a 300 mile electric range. That’s a lot to swallow at once, so lets break it apart. Ford has launched a new Medium publication, Live Electric,…
The yearly REFUEL electric car racing event is sort of in the news today. Jaguar issued a press release about the Jaguar i-Pace. While saying the car will appear at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, August 24 – 26, Jaguar said an i-Pace driven…
Is Elon Musk going insane? Or has Elon Musk started believing his own press releases? Those suggestions come from two different news articles analyzing the fallout from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s suggestion to take Tesla private, and his subsequent interview with the NY Times in which he admitted this year…
In 2012 the Obama Administration achieved a major win, with the full endorsement of the automobile industry, to require tighter fuel efficiency standards. The new CAFE Standards would reduce fuel consumption, reducing air pollution, and saving the US Economy zillions of dollars a year in fuel expenditures. Given the friendliness…
If you “own” something but cannot “repair” it, do you really own the thing? The legal concept is the Right to Repair, that we all should have the right to fix or even upgrade the widgets we buy. Unfortunately many technology companies put up roadblocks in the way of the…
While we try to focus on energy and transportation issues on LongTailPipe, the current USA political climate under the President Trump administration has us nervously watching political news. One issue affecting the project of eliminating fossil fuel consumption is the EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt. Coming from an oil state (Oklahoma),…
Sunday was the 10th annual REFUEL Race at Laguna Seca International Raceway – a chance for electric car or motorcycle drivers/riders to test their stuff on a world-class race track. While it’s a low-key track day event run by a local racing instruction school, the REFUEL race has seen a…
Tesla could be in a world of hurt from the brewing trade war with China, suggests a NBC News report. The Trump Administration is launching a trade war against the rest of the world (more or less), where China is a primary target, a move which is upsetting business plans that…
In 2013 the overall Motorcycle record at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb was smashed by a Lightning Motorcycles LS-218 prototype electric motorcycle electric motorcycle ridden Carlin Dunne. That same year the overall record was smashed by a gasoline powered car driven by Sebastien Loeb, overshadowing the breaking of the…
The layoffs recently announced for Tesla is especially focusing on residential sales through what had been Solar City outposts in Home Depot stores. Solar City had famously sold its systems through both direct sales and through sales partners stationed in Home Depot stores. According to reports, Tesla will close about…
Last March an Uber self-driving car undergoing testing in Tempe Arizona struck and killed a pedestrian. Previously we had been told the “test driver” in the Uber autonomous car was monitoring output from the on-board monitoring system. Video of the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, shows that she was inattentive, spending most of…
Tesla may be rushing too quickly with the autopilot feature, or else not doing a good-enough job of educating Tesla car owners on safe use of Tesla’s autopilot. In light of several crashes while autopilot was engaged, and reports by Tesla car owners of several modes where autopilot clearly does…
Layoffs are hard on a company, and Tesla Motors is going through a fairly large (9%) layoff. The “survivors” are often left with a kind of survivors guilt, and missing former colleagues, and can easily be demoralized. Those who are laid off must look for their next step in life,…
March’s pedestrian fatality from an Uber self-driving car can be blamed on Uber’s faulty software, an inattentive operator, and an inattentive pedestrian, according to an initial NTSB report into the fatality. There’s blame to go around, and perhaps it is Uber’s software that is most to blame? I don’t understand…
Last week the US Department of Energy announced a $68 million package of “available funding for early-stage research of advanced vehicle technologies that will enable more affordable mobility, strengthen domestic energy security, and enhance U.S. economic growth.” The advanced technologies in this case are about low-cobalt battery designs, and more importantly…
