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.
We’ve already reported some new cars seeing the 5.0 software but the OTA is still in hiatus. A well placed source close to Tesla told me that regular Model S customers wouldn’t see the 5.0 or 5.1 update. They would likely get a much more thoroughly tested 5.2 or 5.3 update.
Musk said the update would calculate least time to destination and even factor such things as windspeed gathered from the Internet as well as temperature and elevation. The Maps updates according to the 5.0 screenshots:
Here are some other screenshots of the 5.0 update captured earlier:
Some good news for prospective German Tesla Customers. CEO Elon Musk announced today that Tesla would be tuning cars for German roads, meaning that they would have higher top speeds. “I was just driving the Model S on the Autobahn, on one of the unrestricted sections. It was a lot of fun,” said Musk. “But for Buyers of the Model S, we’ll offer a free, optional high-speed tuning.”
Lucky Germans will also have more Superchargers per capita than anywhere else in the world as well as slightly higher powered ones which is important because of the high drain at high speeds. Below, a map of what roads will be covered by Superchargers by the end of next year:
It seems that BMW went out of its way to make this thing look and act weird. If the Pontiac Aztek look doesn’t turn you off, the ‘Joystick for picking driving program’ should.
We shouldn’t be so critical overall, it does appear to be a nice drive and a great option for people who want to go full electric. Also this review is thorough.
BMW also posted a video of the production of the i3 earlier this week. Notably, it takes half the time as a similar-sized 3 series.
CNAutoNews reports that a 24 year old in Dongyang city of east China’s Zhejiang province has purchased the first Tesla in Mainland China. He purchased it through Hong Kong
The 24-year-Old, who runs a Small Luxury Car Rental Business, is the first Model S owner in Mainland China, reported Qianjiang Evening News , a Zhejiang-based Daily newspaper. The electric sedan was shipped to Dongyang from Hong Kong, according to the newspaper. Tesla Motors Inc. Has not opened a store in mainland China. Since there is no store in mainland China to provide battery swaps and other service for the electric sedan, he doesn’t expect to drive it for long distances. “I bought it mainly for fun,” the buyer reportedly said.
Great find from @mgillet onTwitter. This appears to be a Tesla dashboard at the headquarters showing significant growth in charging over the past few months. More importantly, we some highly anticipated charging stations ‘coming soon’. Probably most exciting for Tesla is the Oregon and northern California stations that will close the I5 corridor meaning the West Coast will be covered. Also two stations on the California/Arizona border will allow trips to/from Phoenix and LA/San Diego.
You’ll notice that two stations, one in Colorado and one in Texas, are lit up even though Tesla hasn’t pushed to the Supercharger Station website Map, below.
Texans will get two more Supercharger stations in Eastern Texas linking them to Arkansas and Louisiana. East coasters will get a couple in Northern New Jersey as well as Virginia and North Carolina allowing folks in Vermont/New Hampshire to travel to the Carolinas and vice versa.
Some fun facts:
Fremont (Tesla Factory) and Hawthorn in SoCal seem to be far and away the busiest Superchargers with Gilroy coming in third over the last 30 days.
Unsurprisingly, most people put 20-40kWh into their Teslas during a stop.
1576 cars visited superchargers in the last week
Almost 4 million miles have been charged at Supercharging stations…
That equates to 14,000 MWh…
Which has saved nearly 160,000 gallons of gas.
Compare with the current map as of today, 10/21/2013:
Now that the company is bankrupt, rumors are swirling that Richard Li won a bidding war and bought the company outright
Richard Li, the second son of Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing, recently acquired US-based Fisker Automotive, with the aim of integrating the automobile business with information technology, reports Guangzhou’s 21st Century Business Herald.
Li was the only non-automaker bidder interested in the US company, but his background in the telecommunications business and his ability to develop the sector by manufacturing smart vehicles helped him beat out competitors. The younger Li is of the view that an integration of software and hardware will become a future trend in the IT sector and in the mobile services arena in particular.
It is hard not to like this idea: You replace your rear bike wheel with this special FlyKly wheel which houses a motor, a controller, and some batteries. You set the speed with a smartphone or Pebble app.
On the downside, you are also replacing your rear gear sprockets and shifting mechanism and it doesn’t seem like you can have too much control with a smartphone for changing speeds while biking.
Estimates look like the product will hit production late next year.
I’m living proof the Model S is the safest car ever made!
Yesterday I was in a terrible car accident with my beloved Model S. I was hit by a driver who was talking on her cell phone and blew a red light. I got slammed at full speed while passing through an intersection. I was luck enough to walk away with no broken bones while the person who hit me left in an ambulance. I can tell you with absolute certainty, my model S protected me where other cars would have failed. This recent story of the car being unsafe due to a battery fire is ridiculous. My car did not so much as smoke, and not a drop of liquid was released. This is the safest car on the road hands down, and for me, I can say honestly say it saved my life. Thank you Elon..
What’s interesting to me is that, just like the Tesla fire victim, this accident survivor couldn’t be happier with the Tesla and is immediately getting a new one.
Being shown filling up is not exactly good PR for BMW who’ve already shown off the full sized carbon-fiber i8 in promos. This would be one of the first public sightings. If you aren’t familiar with how the i8 works, it has an interesting 131 hp front electric engine and a rear 231HP engine that sends it hurdling forward with a 4.4 0-60.
Think further to go further. The intelligent plug-in hybrid system in the BMW i8 combines the benefits of an electric motor and a petrol engine into an extraordinary driving experience: highest efficiency and maximum dynamics are simultaneously possible. The electric drive, a powerful 96 kW (131 hp), is located on the front axle. The rear axle is driven by an authoritative BMW TwinPower Turbo 1.5-litre three-cylinder petrol engine with 170 kW (231 hp) of peak performance and up to 320 Nm of torque; combined with the electrical boost of the hybrid system, it guarantees typical BMW driving pleasure.
Together the pair accelerates the BMW i8 from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.4 seconds*. And this with an enormous saving in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, as it uses just 2.5* l per 100 km and emits 59 g/km*.
Although I’m not a fan of the 131 EV engine (matches $19K Chevy Spark!) I do like the look of this thing!
As predicted, Tesla did showcase its Model X SUV-Crossover at its Palo Alto Store today and it differed in a few ways from what we’d seen before.
Perhaps most noticeably, the virtual side rear view windows which worked as cameras (pictured from Tesla’s web page, above) were replaced by Tesla Model S-lookalikes (below). That could indicate that Tesla isn’t going to get government clearance to do away with the side rear view mirrors. Or perhaps Tesla hasn’t yet gotten clearance and needed to put something legal on the road. The cameras were intended to reduce drag that would likely be lost with the added height of the Model X.
Next, the steering wheel appears to have replaced the hardware buttons on the model S with iPod nano like 2-inch touch screens (these aren’t necessarily new, they have been in the Tesla Model X webpage for months). I have mixed emotions about this. The obvious advantage is that Tesla can change what’s on the screen giving them more UI control (especially good when global markets are considered). On the other hand, the steering wheel buttons are the one hardware button on the Model S that you can actually feel and navigate without your eyes, something that is key when driving a car.
Two pictures of the new display steering wheel and the website:
The big question: Can you really fit 7 adults in this thing comfortably? Tesla hasn’t changed the wheelbase nor the overall length of the vehicle so how do they make more room? From the first glance, it appears that those back seats aren’t going to have a lot of legroom.
For kids, this is fine, but saying that 7 normal sized adults can fit in this thing seems a little bit of a …stretch. I really like the ‘jump seat’ model in the Model S which puts 2 kids rear facing seats in the back while leaving plenty of legroom for the now middle compartment. This model seems to compromise the middle compartment to give room for forward facing rear seats.
Finally, no one saw that mystery app icon (far right, below) on the Model X website did they? It looks like a download option but I’m still not sure what this is for.
The Model X is supposed to go on sale in about one year with similar cost and configurations as the Model S. Expand Expanding Close
Technology Review looks at the differences between Porsche’s new Panamera S Plug in ‘E-Hybrid’ and the Tesla Model S. The main difference is obviously that the Porsche uses both gas and electric powertrains while the Tesla is pure electric (fun fact: the original Model S designs were gas hybrids).
Both cars weigh about the same and have the same horsepower but the Porsche uses an order of magnitude smaller batteries yielding only a 30 or so mile range on electric only. The rest of the weight is an internal combustion engine, drivetrain, fuel tank and everything else that comes along with it.
Also the Panamera S electric motor is under 100HP so if you want to achieve the high speeds (Porsche claims 5.2 0-60 vs Tesla’s 4.2), you are going to be burning lots of petrol.
The new Porsche isn’t quite as responsive—or spacious—as the Tesla Model S that it’s meant to compete with…Aside from the Porsche’s acceleration, two other things stood out during my test drive. The first is that the Porsche feels far more cluttered and cramped than the Model S. The transmission and electric motor run between the front seats. The large number of buttons and dials contrasts sharply with the relatively simple interior of the Model S, which uses a 17-inch touch screen in place of buttons.
Check the video below for the space issues. Particularly the boot which is miniscule vs. the Model S trunk which fits 2 children and jump seats plus the extra ‘frunk’.
On the flip side, the gas and electric combined give the Panamera S a range of almost 600 miles (compared to the Model S’s 265) but at that point you no longer have an electric car. One thing I did like (and wish was an option on Plug-in Priuses:
The second is that Porsche has found a useful way to give feedback to the driver through the accelerator pedal. The gas engine is designed to switch on if you accelerate more than a certain amount. As you depress the accelerator, it gets slightly harder to push just before the gas engine kicks in, signaling that it’s about to come on. That makes it easy to stay in all-electric mode if you want to.
Good on Porsche for making this car, which will certainly serve as a gateway for petrol heads. However, as the review mentioned a few times, it is no comparison to the Model S.
Introduced with pricing today and shipments in January, the $75,000 ($68K after Fed Tax Cred) car will have almost identical specs as the Chevy Volt in 35 miles in EV mode and 300miles on gas. That’s actually worse than the Volt’s upgraded 40 EV miles – probably due to the slightly higher performing engine on the Caddy. It even appears to have the same T-shaped battery going through the middle of the car as the Volt which makes it barely capable of seating of 4 people. Trunk space is listed at a comical 10.5 cubic feet which is about a third of the Tesla Model Sbefore you consider the “Frunk”.
The ELR is a two door which probably lends itself better to the 2+2 seating that the 4-door Volt has currently.
As for performance gains, there is no listed horsepower but the 295 lb-ft compares favorably to the 273 lb-ft. torque listed or the Volt. But, as a sad comparison, the sub-$20,000 Chevy Spark 100% electric vehicle produces 400lb-ft of torque so that $75K Caddy is likely going to get smoked by a $20K hatchback with over twice the amount of EV battery made by the same company.
I’m in full agreement with Ed Kim, vice president of industry analysis at AutoPacific Inc., who on Friday tweeted: “A Volt with a Cadillac body and badge for Tesla Model S money? Is GM on crack?”
A Volt with a Cadillac body and badge for Tesla Model S money? Is GM on crack? http://t.co/jBGKLjN1mj
The Volt is a great car but GM isn’t going to have any kind of success taking it into the Tesla price category without significantly upgrading the batteries and motor and bringing some more innovation to the table. This is embarrassing.
You don’t capitalize that ‘X’ by accident. Tesla’s Model X is a crossover/SUV built on the Model S frame with more headroom, gull falcon wing doors in the rear and room for 7 or 8 adults.
Tesla pushed the rollout of the X back to focus on meeting Model S supply but the product is due next year and can be reserved for $5000-$40,000.
Update: We’ve heard that the invite to the store says: “Come by to experience Model S and to see the Model X Design Prototype on display all weekend.”
CNAutoNews reports
