It appears two things are at the top of Carlos Ghosns’ mind about the Nissan Leaf: China, and cost reduction. At appearances in Portugal and Japan recently, Ghosn talked about his intention for Nissan to take a leadership role in the Chinese electric car market, following the pattern which let…
That wiley Elon Musk and his obtuse tweets have caused a stir of attention today. The tweet said there’d be a big announcement on Thursday (now apparently changed until next Tuesday) in which Elon would be putting his money where his mouth is. And I don’t think he’s talking about…
Tesla’s stock price popped today after an obtuse Elon Musk tweet promised a big announcement and implied a bigger investment in the company. Elon Musk’s obtuse tweets have gone to the next level with a promise, on Monday, of a big announcement on Thursday. The tweet gives us less to…
Now that Tesla Motors is producing the Model S, that car has passed from the realm of hype to reality. It means we can now start judging the Model S and Tesla Motors based on the actual results rather than on what we hope they’ll be building in the future. …
After about six years of leading Fisker Automotive, Henrik Fisker has resigned amid financial problems and an impending sale of the company to Chinese automakers. What leads a company founder to leave his company while it is under fire? We don’t know for sure, but it is clear that the…
Tesla Motors’ management expects to immediately shift from massive losses while preparing for Model S sales, to immediately become profitable due to Model S sales. On Thursday, Tesla Motors released their fiscal year 2012 SEC filing, after having to delay that report after accountants discovered errors in presenting financial results…
As expected, Team Mugen Shinden is returning to the Isle of Man TT ZERO for 2013. The announcement is scant on details, but promises a significant performance increase over the 2012 bike. Considering that for their initial outing the team took second place to MotoCzysz, I’d say it’s clear that…
Project Better Place is turning out to be not-so-great a place to be, unless you’re working in the Israeli or Denmark operations. On Wednesday (today) Feb 6, 2012, the company announced that in order to better focus on the Israel and Denmark operations, they would stop all work on projects…
We’ve been patiently, or not so patiently, waiting for Tesla Motors to announce Q4 2012 sales figures. A lot is riding on those sales figures (see Tesla Motors will either fly high or crash in 2013 depending on Model S sales) in that the fate of Tesla Motors hangs in the…
Several good milestones were reached in the world of Tesla Motors. The first expansion of the Supercharger network began with construction of stations on the East Coast. That’s a good milestone, however the company seems to be behind original projections for the network in California. That the lawsuit from the…
Some recent news about Renault and Better Place Australia is reinforcing my kooky theory that Renault is distancing itself from Better Place. Specifically, several news reports are circulating that Renault is indefinitely delaying the Australian launch of the Fluence Z.E. sedan. Why? Better Place has yet to build the required…
Recently Coda Automotive laid off 50 employees, some of them senior, in what they called a “rightsizing” effort. At the same time the company has sold very few cars since launching production of their electric car in March 2012. Coda hasn’t released sales figures, but a recall operation last summer…
The following is my inaugural “week in review” posting covering weekly events in the adoption of electrified vehicles. It occurred to me this morning that I’m tracking the news about electrified vehicles anyway, why not create a weekly posting summarizing events from the week just finished. The goal will be…
Electric car startup manufacturer Coda Automotive has laid off 50 people, 15% of the staff, for what a spokesperson describes as “rightsizing”. Electric car startup manufacturer, Coda Automotive, had a layoff on Friday, according to reports published on Tuesday and verified by email from a Coda spokesperson. The layoff was…
The Project Better Place model was always interesting, but I was never confident that the company would work out. The service the company offers, fast battery exchange for electric cars, offers electric car drivers a convenience similar to what gasoline car drivers enjoy at the ubiquitous gasoline stations. A fast…
