Founder, Publisher, and Editorial Director of the 925, LLC publications.
Seth Weintraub is an award-winning engineer, journalist, and publisher who won back-to-back Neal Awards from 2007–2010 during his three-plus years covering Apple and Google at IDG’s Computerworld.
From 2010-2011, Weintraub covered all things Google for Fortune Magazine, amassing an impressive rolodex of Google contacts and a love for Silicon Valley tech culture.
It turns out that his hobby – the 9to5Mac news site – was always his favorite, and in 2011, he went full time adding his Fortune Google followers to 9to5Google, in addition to adding the style and commerce component of 9to5Toys gear and deals site. In 2013, Weintraub bought one of Tesla’s first Model S EVs off of the assembly line, which began his love affair with electric vehicles and green energy — this, in turn, became Electrek in 2014. To cover the burgeoning world of drones and UAVs led by China’s DJI, DroneDJ was born in 2018, and then more recently, Connectthewatts and SpaceExplored were launched to cover connected fitness and space.
From 1997-2007, Weintraub was a Global IT director and Web Developer for a number of companies, with stints at multimedia and branding agencies in Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong, Madrid, and London before becoming a publisher/writer.
Seth received a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California with a minor in Multimedia and Creative Technology in 1997. In 2004, he received a Master’s from NYU’s Tisch School of the Art’s ITP program.
Weintraub is a licensed single-engine private pilot and a certified open-water scuba diver, and he spent over a year backpacking to 60 cities in 23 countries. Whatever free time exists is now guaranteed to his wonderful girlfriend, Alana, and two amazing sons.
More: About.me. BI 2014 profile.
Tips: seth@925.co, or llsethj on Threads/BlueSky or link at top of page.
Tesla may not have a solid delivery date for when it’s delivering its full-sized second generation Roadsters (currently 2021-ish), but the company today began selling a $250 1:18 scale model made from the same 3D CAD data as the real car. It is so detailed that we might be able to learn some new things about the full sized car here… like, look at that hatchback for instance…
The 2020 EPA estimated ranges are out for both the Tesla Model 3 and Hyundai IONIQ, and we have a new champion of efficiency. Hint: It’s not the car that looks like a glorified Prius, it’s the full-featured sedan with a snappy 0-60 time…
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You’ve heard the news: Chevy updated the Bolt EV with 259 miles of range. I loved the original Bolt EV so much I leased the first one so I could get my hands on it in early 2017 and have been driving it for almost 3 years on and off. My wife and I currently split time between the Bolt and our Tesla Model 3. So I was excited to see what Chevy had done in the time since and wow…
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The Evelo Aurora Hub-Drive really surprised me with its usability. I’m a little spoiled because I own a “bike-shop ebike” that I ride to work daily. Because of that, I’m often disappointed in the quality of $2,000-and-under ebikes. Components, weight, and workmanship are often sacrificed to get to those low prices. But that’s not the case here…
The Juiced Scorpion, one of our favorite, lust-worthy ebikes just went on sale at 9 am eastern time and we thought you should know about it – particularly since I’ve been riding an “almost feature complete” prototype around town for the past week. The Scorpion, which is a full suspension electric moped/ebike hybrid with awesome retro styling and monster 13-19 Ah 52V battery, starts at a nutty $1299+$99 shipping but will go up in price very soon. Juiced are only offering a limited number of each configuration at this price. Frankly, I don’t know how they got the price so low but after putting it through its paces, I can say without reservation, it is the real deal…
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Yesterday’s Porsche Taycan launch should have been a monumental event for the EV industry. The top performance carmaker in the world unveiled its new flagship automobile and it is fully electric. Porsche has tons of orders, is putting its marketing might behind it and frankly, it is a damn fine automobile. Send us one… to test!
However, moments after the vehicle launched you could already hear the grumbling from Tesla fans and spec junkies. Porsche’s flagship sports car doesn’t even match Tesla’s luxury sedan in important metrics like acceleration, top speed, and range even though it can only be had at a steep price premium.
Porsche actually built a 2-speed transmission and still couldn’t beat the top speed or acceleration of a Tesla sedan and the range isn’t even close?
If Porsche can’t match Tesla’s sedan specs in a sports car with limited interior space, then what hope do other carmakers have?
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Mercedes was kind enough to invite Electrek out to their Stuttgart headquarters in Southern Germany to show off their growing portfolio of electric vehicles. Mercedes currently offers the eActros semi truck, newly announced EQV electric van, and of course their EQC crossover. We learned quite a bit…
Renault’s new 52 kWh, 100 kW Zoe was announced in June with the additional 50 kW of DC charging, but we got the rare opportunity to check one out at Renault’s Paris HQ this week. What we saw was an impressive and important vehicle that will fit into many more Europeans’ lives.
We want to thank Nissan for inviting us out and putting us up for their Formula E event in Brooklyn for the second straight year. The three-day event is filled with information on not only their Formula E docket but also on general mobility.
On consumer cars, they didn’t have much to say on the record, but we’re out here reading the body language and on our way to some information…
There’s finally an electric Range Rover and of course, we wanted to see how electric the P400e PHEV really is. We also wanted to find out, did Land Rover bring its fun off-road heritage to this electrified variant?
Update: Apple has confirmed to Axios that it has acquired Drive.ai. In the process, it has hired dozens of self-driving engineers, most of which will work on engineering and product design.
According to a new report from the San Francisco Chronicle, Apple has hired a “handful” of hardware and software engineers from self-driving car startup Drive.ai – which is planning to close its doors later this week.
I’ve spent the last month with the Gazelle CityZen T9 Class 1 electric bike with Bosch Performance powertrain and in-tube battery but it only took my wife a few seconds to realize this bike was for her. Let me explain…
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In college in Southern California, I would skateboard between classes. It saved a few minutes of commute and was fun on the manicured streets and smooth sidewalks in and around USC. But even as big a fan of micro mobility, I haven’t since seen skateboarding as a commuter tool, even with the powerful new longboards from Boosted and others. Roads and seasons in New York are just too terrible. But last month, Boosted gave me their $999 Boosted Mini X in an attempt to change my mind…
As the Tesla Model 3 and its recent 250kW software update rolls out across Europe, drivers are now testing the cars at not only Tesla charging stations but also 3rd party CCS combo stations. In one test which was uploaded to YouTube, the charging rate of the Tesla Model 3 is put up against the Audi e-tron, an EV not only with a fast 150kW charging speed but the ability to keep that charging rate over a long part of the session.
These are the two fastest charging production vehicles and now we have a head to head between them at the same station.
TSLA stock is down again market trading this morning with the market. We’re wrapping up the morning stock price news with another bull analyst turning bearish on delivery numbers, China tariff risk and trade war backlash and a floor number.
Update: And there’s the delivery numbers email.
This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla launching CCS adapter and tow hitch in Europe, Autopilot and summon videos, its AI lead in Autopilot, Kia Niro review and more.
Ever since it was announced, Kia’s Niro EV has been an interesting proposition. Fred did a fantastic one day first look at the Niro earlier this year, but I wanted to spend some more quality time with it and throw in my family for “extreme” testing.
Our Tesla Model X lease is ending soon and my wife is looking for a replacement that rides high, has good range, and is all-electric. Obviously the Model Y makes a lot of sense for us, but it won’t be ready until late next year and figuring “Elon Time”, ramp up, and first dibs to Californians, it will probably be well into 2021 before these are rolling out en masse.
A recent trip to the Bay Area to visit relatives provided a good week-plus opportunity to test the Kia Niro EV with the whole family and without a 240V home charger…
Tesla this morning filed a registration statement to raise capital through the issuance of convertible notes worth up to $1.55B and a TSLA share sale of up to $739M.
The amount of the bond new capital is very close to the loss in cash position over the first quarter which saw the auto and energy products maker’s cash holdings drop to $2.2B.
Vintage Electric Bikes out of San Jose California is a boutique e-bike firm that specializes in great looking retro e-bikes that go surprisingly fast. This week I got to demo their whole lineup from their Cafe 750W pedal assist commuter to their Tracker which looks and feels like a small 3kW motorcycle and took me up a mountain at over 30 mph.
There’s so much to like about these bikes…
One of the most important categories of ebikes is the low-cost, entry-level sector. What I call the eBigBox models. Obviously, not everyone can’t afford a $7500 Riese and Muller and frankly a lot of people are skeptical on how much they will use and enjoy an ebike. So even if they can afford a few thousand dollars for an ebike, they might not want to put it all down on a category they aren’t sure about.
Last year we found a very low-priced (under $600 at Amazon) bike made by Ancheer. Overall, it made some good compromises to get down to the $600 price point but I had some issues with the build quality, the power of the motor, lack of display on the controller and size of the battery. This year a new low-cost Amazon ebike from Rattan seems to have answered many of my concerns.
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In a conference call with journalists and analysts today after the $35,000 car and store closure announcement, Elon Musk gave a quick rundown on Tesla’s current financial situation. It wasn’t great news, but it was mostly expected.
Tesla today, along with the $35,000 Model 3 and other goodies, announced it would be taking Autopilot to the next level, this year…
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It turns out Honda Urban EV that was revealed at the Geneva Motor Show two years ago to our loving eyes was a prototype of a prototype. Today we’re graced with the next stage in Honda’s retro urban EV prototype evolution, the Honda E prototype, which will be displayed at the Geneva Auto Show…
Electric pickup truck startup Rivian is reportedly attracting interest from GM and Amazon for a massive round of funding to help bring its vehicles to market.