Seth Weintraub

Tesla’s Mountain View Supercharger has always been a little different from the rest.  Not only is it located at the world-famous Computer History Museum – where Tesla sometimes holds events, but until recently, it was also running an experiment utilizing propylene-glycol-cooled supercharging cables…
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Elon Musk’s highly anticipated “Master Plan Part 2” is chock full of interesting new, but vague details on Tesla’s plans but probably one of the most exciting is the new SUV and pickup consumer vehicles included… 
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Screenshot via supercharge.info

I recently complained about the inability to drive a Tesla direct from New York City up the Hudson River and to Montreal directly to the EV29 show, without going around Lake Champlain into Vermont. In the month since I complained, Tesla has opened up a Supercharger in Plattsburgh, NY near the Canadian border and it looks like another is being readied (image below via sheltz32tt) north of Albany in Queensbury near affluent Sarasota Springs. Now, I can move on to complaining about lighting up route 80 from New York to Cleveland thru Pennsylvania…

Tesla is also bolstering its Superchargers north of the border, today announcing another location in the heart of Montreal (Place Vertu Shopping Centre 3131 Cote Vertu Boulevard Montréal H4R 1Y8) and another in Magog (Carrefour Sante Globale 2381 Rue Principale Ouest Magog J1X 0J4) that will help Tesla owners in the Northeast US get to and from Quebec City.
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We’ve been hearing much about the upcoming v8.0 software update coming to the Tesla’s Model S and X line. Our sources have the beta but we’re now seeing screenshots posted to forums for the 1st time.

From the above shot, you can see the new look of the icons on the top row. Gone are colors and

Compare to the original top row:

and the 7.0 update top row:

What’s more interesting is the Media player app, shown below:

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It appears that after almost 4 years of sales, Tesla is finally beginning to be able to meet demand for its high-end luxury cars. Battery production is ramping up at the Gigafactory and elsewhere, the Fremont car factory is firing on all cylinders (so to speak!), and Tesla’s sales, service, and Supercharger networks are all growing at scale across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

At this point, it would make a lot of sense for Tesla to create a car rental agency subsidiary. Here’s why:
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Hyperloop may not be coming to California anytime soon but that doesn’t mean other global municipalities aren’t investigating the super-fast, vacuum tube transportation system. This week, Hyperloop-One announced that it was in talks with Moscow-based Summa Group, a Russian port, telecom and oil business headed by mysterious billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov, to explore building the transportation system that is expected to eventually surpass the speed of sound.

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At EV29 in Montreal today, BMW announced a stationary battery storage system not unlike the Tesla Powerwall that can expand with older BMW i3 22 kWh or 33kWh batteries as they become available to power the home. In the press shot above, it looks like the “2nd life” batteries were literally ripped out of the bottom of an i3 as opposed to Tesla’s slightly more elegant Powerwall packaging approach. The idea is that as these i3 car batteries lose a certain percentage of their charge/discharge capability over the years, they can be pulled out and put on a garage wall and keep the average American house, which uses 15-30kWh/day, lit up for a long time and indefinitely with solar panels recharging during the day…
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NASA today unveiled plans to spend the next decade working on electric planes under the ‘X-57’ moniker. The X-Plane program has traditionally been used by NASA to further aviation so this is a big deal more than just a pet project or some 3D renders.

petrol version

The plane which is also called ‘Maxwell’ to honor James Clerk Maxwell, the 19th century Scottish physicist who did groundbreaking work in electromagnetism, will be based on the Italian Tecnam P2006T, a very efficient 4 seat light aircraft (pictured above). NASA will do away with the wing and petrol engines and replace them with a super-efficient thinner wing and 14 electric motors. The smaller 12 motors will only be used for takeoffs and what we can probably assume is regen during landings. The larger 2 engines on the end of the wings will propel the plane during cruising which is expected to be a solid 175mph. The Tecnam has retractable wheels and a 1500-foot take off distance which should make it a good base for an EV makeover.

There are a lot of things to unpack here…
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As expected, Tesla announced a new Model S 60 today with a starting price point of $66,000 before Federal Tax in the US, under $60K after the $7500 tax credit.  But Tesla really didn’t release a new car today – the company released a new software configuration and pricing model. That small change will let the automaker sell a lot more cars…
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I’ve been forming my big picture opinion of the 2017 Chevy Volt over the past week and journaling the experience in a set of diary posts (1, 2, 3-4). It has definitely been a journey from my initial impressions to becoming extremely comfortable with the car in a matter of days.

Overwhelmingly, the 2017 Volt is a fantastic car that will fit into many people’s lives and probably be one of the most functional mass-market electric cars for the next 3 years. The numbers don’t lie – Volt sales are up while some EV competitors are down.

I say 3 years because I believe that is how long, give or take, it will take electric infrastructure in the US to be as convenient as gas – at which point it will become more convenient. Sure, almost every house, building and structure has an electrical outlet which can charge on level 1 or 2 (and the 2017 Volt does both levels of AC charging), meaning you wake up every morning with a full 53 mile “tank” of electricity. But to finally close the convenience gap of gasoline and frankly beyond, pure electric cars need to be outfitted with high power DC chargers and long range batteries — both of which the Volt lacks.

As a pure electric car owner, there are still a bunch of ski resorts in Vermont I can’t go to with my long range ‘200 mile’ electric car. To travel to my parents’ house in Ohio from New York, I need to avoid the straight shot Interstate 80 and dip down almost to Maryland to stay on the Supercharger route. Even going to an EV show in Montreal next month will require me to go 2-3 hours out of my way to stay charged up.

Don’t get me wrong. We’re close, but we’re not there yet with electric infrastructure. The case is being made but there are still many obstacles outside of the $1 Trillion dollar Oil industry.  For one, currently three different DC fast charging standards exist (Tesla, SAE and Chademo) so there’s work needed to either consolidate or build (more) adapters. DC charging will also speed up over the next few years. Teslas can currently charge at 135kW while most other EVs top out at 50kW. That means most DC charging “fill ups” will take at least 30 minutes.  But Tesla wants to take that down to 5-10 minutes by the time the Model 3 is released and has all but abandoned its under 90 second battery swap plan.

I’m currently willing to make these route/time sacrifices because I love EVs, clean air and my Tesla, but I don’t think mainstream users are OK with going hundreds of miles/several hours out of the way to make a medium-long trip electrically for the next few years.

That’s where the 2017 Volt fits in.
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The fine folks at GM have given us a shiny new (OK, 500 miles) electric blue 2017 Chevy Volt to test drive for the next week. I’m keeping a diary of my experiences every day here and will wrap up the week with my conclusions. Catch up on Day 1, Day 2
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The fine folks at GM have given us a shiny new (OK, 500 miles) electric blue 2017 Chevy Volt to test drive for the next week. I’m keeping a diary of my experiences every day here and will wrap up the week with my conclusions. Catch up on Day 1 or Day 3-4.

Day 2:

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2017 Electric Blue Chevrolet Volt

The fine folks at GM have given us a shiny new (OK, 500 miles) electric blue 2017 Chevy Volt to test drive for the next week. I’m keeping a diary of my experiences every day here and will wrap up the week with my conclusions. (Day 2, Day 3-4, Conclusion/Wrapup)

Day 1, Delivery and Setup
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As far as presidential candidates are concerned, it’s hard to find one with scarier implications for the planet than Donald Trump. As Politico points out, the presumptive Republican Presidential Candidate has called global warming “a total hoax,” “BS” and “pseudoscience.”

But that’s just the candidate trying to win the Republican endorsement for president. As a businessman with properties on the coasts, Trump takes a decidedly different tack…
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On today’s Tesla earnings call, CEO Elon Musk addressed the concerns of the Model X quality control by noting that he was now working at a desk at the end of the Model X assembly line and was spending so much time there that he had a sleeping bag there – and that he used it quite frequently…
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Tesla’s Facebook account now has the keeping it 100 emoji (💯).  While the emoji means “To Keep Or Stay Truthful Or Staying The Same” most folks are seeing it as a hint that Tesla is about to release its much anticipated 100kWh battery option.

We had heard some false reports that the battery was going to launch with the Model S update but if this is it it seems like it would have been delayed, possibly by certification or safety inspections or just plain old development/scarcity.

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Aerovironment is a company with a long history of innovation. I first encountered the company in the 90s in undergraduate Aerospace Engineering when the Southern California company took part in USC’s engineering and internship program. At the time, founder Paul McCready and Co were working on human powered flight and then solar powered flight, which required radical battery and charging systems.

Since then, the company moved on to building drones for governments (boo!) and working on innovation in the electric car space (yay!).  AeroVironment was a big part of the Sunraycer and Impact/EV1 project with GM in the late 80s and 90s and now powers the charging solutions with a number of automobiles through its EV Solutions subsidiary.

Their main consumer product is the TurboCord Dual, a tiny combination Level 1/2 charger that can be plugged into a normal 110V outlet or with the included adapter, 240V NEMA 6-20 outlet and charge a vehicle at three times the speed.  How well does it do? I’ve been using one as my main on board charger with vehicles ranging from the Plug in Prius to the Tesla Model S since the beginning of the year…
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Update: The screenshot above is no longer available and the base price was updated to $83,000

Tesla today opened its Model X configurator a day after CEO Elon Musk had planned for yesterday. The Model X Recall probably delayed plans slightly.

Besides the configurator, it appears at 1st glance that the Model X will get a new 75kWh battery option (though initially there is some confusion on the website, see above).
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We first reported that the Model S was expected to get a facelift at the end of last year.  Since then, we’ve received information from sources on exactly what that would look like. The TL;DR is that the front end will look more like a Model X, minor appearance changes will happen to the rear lights, seats will be vented like the Model X. But there’s more…
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Today, I updated much of my lawn equipment to electric and not just because it is better for the environment – there are tons of reasons well, 11 listed below, to make the move. Until recently, electric lawnmowers, chainsaws, edgers, snowblowers, etc weren’t’ as powerful as their gas counterparts. However, with Greenworks and others making the jump to 80V products, the high end of electric lawn tools now compete well on power with standard gasoline-powered competitors.

I have Greenworks products (40V Mower/chainsaw, corded snowblower) that work well, but I’ve not tried or used the 80V products I purchased today.  These are way more hardcore:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLVZPjIRRZk

So if they are roughly equivalent to the power of gas, and often cheaper, what other advantages can you expect to see?
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