A quick reminder on the timeline for the Tesla Motors affordable mass production electric car. I’ve seen a few news articles the last couple days suggesting the “cheaper” Tesla electric car will “debut” in 2015. Article titles like “Tesla’s More Affordable Model E May Hit the Road in 2015” are…
Current laws across the U.S. prevent car companies from selling cars directly to the public. Instead the laws are formulated to require independent car dealerships, each of which must have a used car lot and car service center and other requirements that end up with the modern car dealership as…
It’s time for an status update on Tesla Motors’ battle to win the ability to openly sell cars across the U.S. While there has been a major setback (New Jersey) there are some interesting bright spots, coincidentally in states where Tesla is thinking to open the Gigafactory. Namely – as…
Last year the thing we all feared occurred – Electric cars, catching fire, blowing up even, the battery packs clearly on fire, spread all over international news. This was something to be feared because it might spook the buying public into thinking electric cars are dangerous. Tesla Motors, fortunately, were…
Beginning last summer, Tesla Motors CEO began making it clear that manufacturing a few hundred thousand electric cars per year (as Tesla plans to begin doing starting in 2017) would swamp the total lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity in the world. It’s a simple bit of math – By 2017, Tesla…
Tesla Motors’ is having trouble selling the Model S in various US States laws because of laws requiring that cars can only be sold through franchised dealerships. Events this week made the trouble even more obvious when NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s administration (apparently) went back on a promise made to…
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…
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…
General Motors is such a contradiction. On the one hand they create a beautiful car like the EV1, then on the other hand they crushed it in favor of selling Hummers (via the Hummer Tax Credit). On the one hand they’re building the Chevy Volt, selling quite a few of…
Nearly two years ago, Envia Systems wow’d the electric car world claiming to have developed lithium-ion battery technology that would slash battery pack costs, while giving a huge boost in energy density. Ever since, GM’s CEO Dan Akerson talked about how GM would be building a 200+ mile range affordable…
Tesla Motors is getting ready to nearly double its production capacity. The company is buying new manufacturing equipment worth up to $415 million, for its factory in Fremont, that will bump capacity from 21,000 cars a year to 35,000 cars a year. Tesla is expanding sales to Europe, China, Japan…
According to a Bloomberg News piece diving deep into how Mary Barra came to replace Dan Akerson as CEO of General Motors, we learn that GM is planning to introduce a 200+ mile range plug-in hybrid electric car (electric car with range extender) by 2016, that will cost about $30,000. …
Tesla Motors is the poster child for the whole project of electric car adoption. They make what may be the best car ever, the Tesla Model S, whose sales are growing to the point where it has a significant market share in luxury car sales. But if Tesla were to…
The Volkswagen e-UP Volkswagen is reiterating at the LA Auto Show their goal to become a leader in e-mobility by 2018 by offering a full range of technologically refined, reliable, and affordable cars with alternative powertrains. That this comes just a few days after Audi, a member of the VW…
Could Nissan be getting ready to offer multiple battery pack capacity options on the Nissan Leaf? According to a report on PlugInCars.com, that’s exactly the case, though it’s not clear WHEN this will occur. Reportedly, Pierre Loing, Nissan’s Vice President of Product and Advanced Planning and Strategy, said that Nissan…
