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 Electrekin 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.
Electrek has learned that Tesla this month quietly hired high-profile microprocessor engineer Jim Keller as Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering. Tesla today confirmed the news and sent us the following statement:
Jim Keller is joining Tesla as Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering. Jim will bring together the best internal and external hardware technologies to develop the safest, most advanced autopilot systems in the world.
Keller left chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices(AMD) late last year after leading the team developing the upcoming Zen processor architecture for the past three years. Before that he had a very high-profile role at Apple…
(Update: A Tesla Spokesperson called this report “wrong” and that only 1 of the vehicles would be announced in March. Tesla is indeed working on [at least] 2 different Model 3 platform vehicles which we reported previously. Here’s something they were able to verify.)
I decided to hold off on publishing this info until I saw Tesla’s Hong Kong presentation this week, which included two cars under wraps (pictured above). Yes, obviously, the artwork is simply a Model X and Model S under digital covers, but the fact that there are two cars to be unveiled adds a little more credence to what I’ve heard.
My source believes that the plan around Christmas of last year was to launch at least two vehicles or configurations at the same time, but obviously things could change. Also, Tesla could have two projects happening simultaneously to contain/isolate leaks.
Without even trying out (not available in US yet) a Gogoro scooter I love the idea. It is a 2-wheeled vehicle that runs on two Lithium battery packs which contain the same Panasonic 18650 batteries that line the bottom of the Tesla Model S and X. While a Model S contains about 7,000 of these to hit about 70-90kWh, the Gogoro’s battery packs are only 1.3kWh each (so around 100+batteries/ea) and can be exchanged in a charging bay. The 2.6kWh, according to Gogoro’s specs will take the good looking scooter about 60 miles at 60mph (0-31 in 4.2secs). While solid specs, that’s not at all what makes Gogoro a gamechanger…
(Thanks to Zac Hall for images and video and checking out the back seats/CarPlay)
I have two electric cars at home – a plug-in Prius and a base model 2013 Tesla Model S. Yesterday, I drove the car that felt like their natural offspring: the compact crossover Chevy Bolt… Expand Expanding Close
With the Paris climate talks taking place this week, I thought it fitting to share an idea I came up with a few years ago while visiting the French capital. ‘Moulin Eiffel’ is taking the 130-year old Eiffel Tower, the iconic symbol of Paris, and outfitting it with a vertical axis wind turbine. The idea is that the tower seen around the whole world would genuinely (not BS) become energy neutral and a symbol for a sustainable energy future.
I had originally considered the option of placing a traditional “windmill” on top of the tower like you increasingly see in farms around the world, but with all of the equipment located up there already plus factoring changing wind patterns and the all important aesthetics, the vertical model works the best. This is how: Expand Expanding Close
According to Reuters, Tesla issued a voluntary recall for all of its Model S sedans on Friday. The cause of the recall appears to be a seatbelt assembly.
Nov 20 (Reuters) – Tesla Motors Inc said Friday it is recalling all 90,000 Model S sedans produced to check for a possible defect in the front seat belt assemblies.
The cost of the worldwide recall will be “immaterial,” the company said. The problem was discovered after a single report to the company in early November of a seatbelt assembly breaking when a customer in the front passenger seat of a Model S on the road in Europe turned to talk with passengers in the rear seat.
TSLA’s share price is dipping 5 points or 2.5% currently as a result. Expand Expanding Close
A new source with connections at Tesla’s design group has informed me that late stage tweaking of the Model 3 is being done with an eye towards extreme minimization of wind resistance. The Model 3, which of course is the renamed Model E, is scheduled to be shown off for the first time publicly in March of 2016. The mass market Tesla is expected to be a smaller sedan/crossover platform that resembles the BMW 3 series in size. The range of the vehicle is expected to start at 200 miles and go up from there with various size batteries and drivetrains. The majority of Tesla employees are now working on this car.
What I’m hearing internally is that CEO Elon Musk is intensely driving the engineering designers to deliver a design with a drag coefficient lower than .20 which would make it the lowest of any mass production car in the world and close to extreme vehicles like GM’s EV1 and Volkswagen’s XL1 (pictured above), – both cars that have flat rear wheel covers… Expand Expanding Close
A Tesla owner in the Netherlands pushed his/her Tesla Autopilot well beyond what anyone should do on a public roadway. It appears that they engaged the autopilot and then jumped in the back seat and began filming. This is obviously extremely dangerous, untested and a poor way to test a feature. From the video you can see the red light beeping and it appears that the vehicle is holding the to 83km/h speed.
On the other hand, it is good to see that the autopilot seems to be handling itself ok – which bodes well for the FUTURE or when someone loses consciousness behind the wheel.
There’s a big reckoning happening in the solar inverter space right now. SolarEdge, an Israeli startup that we’ve profiled previously just announced bigger than expected earnings, sending their SEDG stock price up 5 points or a whopping 30% in today’s trading… Expand Expanding Close
A Tesla driver (note reflection of Model S screen in video) says that Autopilot saved him from a head on collision with a turning motorist on a dark rainy night in Seattle. Reddit user Jhall118 took to the forum to discuss what happened in the video below… Expand Expanding Close
These are obviously going to become more common in the coming weeks and months but as it stands now, this is quite a sight. All of the early Founder/Signature models are P90D with Ludicrous on board.
Yesterday Apple CEO Tim Cook was at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference for an interview and he talked about the company’s take on innovation in the car industry:
“When I look at the automobile, what I see is that software becomes an increasingly important part of the car of the future. You see that autonomous driving becomes much more important. It seems like there will be massive change in that industry. We want people to have an iPhone experience in their car. We look at a lot of things. Our model is to reduce that list to a few. We will see what we do in the future. I do think that industry is at an inflection point for massive change, not just evolutionary change.”
Stephen Colbert, on his popular Late Nite television show, discussed the Tesla V7 software update and the ability of the car to “drive itself”. Colbert noted driving his Tesla into Manhattan and how the autopilot would improve that. Additionally he noted that a lot of billionaires are working on self driving cars including Google’s founders and guests Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk of course and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.
The spot was a great one for Tesla, shining a light on its ability to upgrade cars through software and putting a very positive and funny spin on autonomous driving. Watch the video clip on Youtube below: Expand Expanding Close
We test drove the Model S Autopilot a year ago (above) with Tesla VP of Engineering Doug Field. Today, the final v7 product is hitting cars and the first reviews of the final product are hitting YouTube. We’ll keep updating as more reviews hit the web. Head below for those videos. Expand Expanding Close
Fred did some excellent work sorting out the Model X pricing but I was surprised to hear that I’d be able to buy a Model X for $75K before incentives and $65K with…next year. But how does Tesla get to the $75K price point without going against CEO Elon Musk’s “Model S +$5000” pricing scheme? After all a Model S 70D is currently listed at $75,000. Expand Expanding Close
I have to say, as an EV enthusiast, these new ads from Chevy leave an incredibly bad taste in my mouth. Yes, the Prius’s NiCad batteries are older technology –and frankly as a Prius Plug-in owner there are plenty of vectors for attack on its battery system – but the Prius STILL gets better mileage than the Volt once the battery is used up, and the Volt’s battery ain’t that big. If I were making the Volt ad and I felt the need to attach the Prius, I’d point out that it is almost impossible to drive electric only with it where the Volt only uses gas on long trips.
Chevrolet’s global chief marketing officer, Tim Mahoney, said those ads have been extremely effective in helping improve Chevrolet’s brand image. Mahoney said Chevrolet’s “shattering perceptions” ads have bumped consumers’ favorable opinion of the brand by 3 percent.
The Leaf ad traps the focus group between floors in dead elevators, leaving them stranded there to emphasize the frustration of being stuck, a major concern for drivers of battery powered cars such as the Leaf. The Prius attack ads points out the car’s engineering is yester-tech.
The Internet ads will be cut down and broadcast on TV, Mahoney said. Volt ads will stress three things: The car’s 53-mile all-electric range, its technology and a combined gasoline and electric driving range of more than 400 miles. Most drivers, Mahoney said, will go between 1,000 and 1,500 miles between tanks of gasoline.
“We’re going to go head-to-head with Leaf and Prius,” Mahoney said. “The ads allow Chevrolet to talk in one way and they allow Chevrolet’s personality to come through. We’re going to be taking more risks,” he said.
In the below commercial, Chevy compares the Leaf’s 80 miles (guess they didn’t hear about the 100+ mile version that will be available in many places before the 2016 Volt) to the Volt’s 400+ with gas. I get it – but why not play up the bits about being electric? Expand Expanding Close
As images of the Tesla Model X are rolling off the assembly line, we are seeing a number of improvements to the car over prototypes that have been publicly shown. One such improvement was revealed in a video showing the front trunk or ‘Frunk’ of the Model X. Compare the size of the Frunk in the shipping model above to a Prototype shown off by CEO Elon Musk last year.
Another image of the Model X Frunk, straight on the assembly line, is below. Expand Expanding Close
Although India probably isn’t a large market for Tesla’s luxury Model S/X and even the $35,000 Model 3 will be a tough sale for normal Indians, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the company’s Fremont car plant does have some immediate ramifications. According to the Indian Foreign ministry, Musk gave the PM a tour of the plant and paid particular attention to the Tesla Powerwall which the CEO noted could, when used in conjunction with Solar, help India’s rural communities bypass the electric grid.
‘Wild’ may be an exaggeration but at the Tesla plant in Fremont, a spy caught a prototype Model X opening and closing (video below) its Falcon Wing doors . The spies seemed to be concerned about the door closing mechanism, and many of the mules we’ve seen have had partially opened doors, but it is unlikely that this is the final design/spec.
In any case, we’ll be live on the Model X launch on the 29th, come back and join us! Expand Expanding Close
Tesla (and Space X CEO, Solar City Chairman) CEO Elon Musk made some important remarks yesterday at the “Business for Tomorrow” summit at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy yesterday. While the translations and the moderation/questions at the end are frustrating, Musk’s comments at the beginning are poignant.
On Refugees:
“Today’s refugee problem is perhaps a small indication of what the future will be like if we do not take action with respect to climate change. Today, the challenge is in terms of millions of people, but in the future, based on what the scientific consensus is, the problem will be in the hundreds of millions and much more severe.”
On taking action:
I think it’s very important that we take action today to recognize that we are making a very significant change to the chemical constituency of the atmosphere and oceans. One that is almost impossible to reverse…
And where you could really feel some emotion:
If you go 20, 30, 50 years in the future, what do you say to your kids or your grandkids? It’s almost, like, scientists have all said that these bad things are going to happen, it’s, like 97 percent… So, to say to your kids or grandkids, like, ‘Did nobody tell you?’
No, everyone was telling us. ‘
So why didn’t you do anything?’ What’s the answer?
…I think it’s very important that we do something.
Chargepoint, one of the leaders in the commercial EV charging market, this week announced a new line of home chargers that are available at Amazon.com. The lineup starts at $499 for an indoor (garage) with a 16A/240V which can add 12 miles per hour of charge. This is a little over double the speed of 110V 15A plugs that go into regular 110V outlets.
Outdoor charging, hard/plug wiring, cord length and double speed 32A all raise the price in $50-$100 increments where a 32A Outdoor with a 25-foot wire cost $799.
A quick look at Amazon’s best seller list (cached to the right) shows that a few days in, Chargepoint dominates EV charger sales at the online retailing giant.
Chargepoint also offers an attractive design (which I got to review at CES at the beginning of the year), integration with Nest and other home automation platforms and software updates over Wifi which will bring new functionality in the future.
At a starting price of $499, however, there are some better deals on the market and particularly at Amazon especially if you are looking at straight W/$.
One of my favorite chargers (and the only other in Amazon’s top 10) is the Electric Motor Werks Juicebox 40A/10KW with 24′ cable for $499 shipped. This is more powerful than Chargepoint’s by a significant margin (40A vs. 32A) and equivalent to Tesla’s home charger and gets outstanding 4.5/5 star reviews from Amazon’s customers. It is so small that it can be taken off its bracket and used as a Travel charger anywhere there is a NEMA 14-50 plug… Expand Expanding Close
SolarEdge announced a significant upgrade to their smart inverter line this today called “HD-Wave” which will have a profound impact on the solar industry. Further followup from SolarEdge yields a nice (HDWave PDF) Deck as well outlining some of the bigger upgrades.
In short, SolarEdge has done for the inverter (a critical piece of the solar ecosystem which turns DC powered Solar/Wind/hydro electricity into AC which is used by homes and long poweline distance travel) what flat panels did for the TV just a decade or so ago. The new technology uses 16 times fewer magnets, smaller thin film capacitors and much less cooling to yield a 99% efficient power transformation. That not only makes solar installs less expensive, more productive and easier, it makes Tesla’s Powerwall a whole lot smaller… Expand Expanding Close
(Thanks to 
screenshot from the video below
There’s a big reckoning happening in the solar inverter space right now. SolarEdge, an Israeli startup that 
A Tesla driver (note reflection of Model S screen in video) says that Autopilot 
A 
