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.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vwJ-12xOfU]
A typical car-guy-review of the Tesla Model S
It is interesting to see tech pubs who don’t often, if ever, review cars get behind the wheel of a Tesla Model S.
Ars Technica is no different concluding that it does in fact ‘have a soul’, but stop short of calling it the ‘Jesus car’ that the guys above did.
The Model S doesn’t smell like oil, it doesn’t drink gasoline, and it doesn’t howl when you stomp on it. But even though it lacks a beating mechanical internal combustion heart, it absolutely, positively, most definitely does have a soul. The Model S is a young car without the proud racing history of companies like Porsche or Ferrari, but it’s still an incredibly powerful New World statement that squarely challenges the Old.
In the few days I had the loaner Model S, I gave rides to most of my friends—along with a few of my friends’ kids. The responses were identical, young and old. The slide-out door handles drew gasps from 10-year-olds and jaded thirtysomethings alike; the enormous touchscreen made all eyes pop; the gut-rearranging torque drew gleeful screams of “OHHH YEAAAAAAAAAAH” out of every single person that sat in the cabin.
As for the driving experience—well, you forget about all of the neat electronics and the touchscreen and the battery and the network of Superchargers when you slip behind the wheel because the Model S is not just a great electric car. It’s a great car, period. That’s the highest praise I can give; Tesla Motors has succeeded in making an excellent automobile that also happens to be the best electric car money can buy.
More interesting to me was their description of a Supercharger visit, which I haven’t heard discussed too often:
Supercharging
The Supercharger bypasses the car’s chargers and feeds DC directly into the battery—prodigious amounts of DC, in fact. Once connected, the Supercharger began dumping about 300 volts at 300 amps into our car. After a minute or two, the car started making all kinds of loud noises—fans came on that I’d never heard before. The battery is liquid-cooled, and it’s easy to see how moving this much power would produce significant heat.
Enlarge / During supercharging, the car takes on a LOT of juice very quickly.
Lee Hutchinson
We headed to the restaurant next door to grab lunch while the car charged; when we came back 45 minutes later, 180 miles had been added onto the car’s range. The charging rate starts very high, adding 100 miles of range very quickly so that long-distance drivers can charge quickly and move on to the next Supercharger station. After the first huge dump of electricity, the charging rate tapers off—by the end of the charge, the car was drawing energy at 400 volts and 20 amps. (This helps preserve the life of the battery, since dumping juice into it quickly will degrade the battery pack much faster than a slower charge.)
If I’m not mistaken, that’s a Google driverless car parked out in front of Tesla’s Fremont Factory.
Sure, you’d like to think that Tesla was going to adopt Google’s driverless car technology and pop it in their cars but the reality is that Tesla is going to build its own “Auto-pilot”. Plus, if the tech was being demoed, it would probably be done at their design offices or an unmarked location rather than the place where cars are assembled.
That said, Elon Musk and Google CEO Larry Page speak highly of one another and are considered friends.
More likely Google is just mapping the area or perhaps at best preparing to give us a Streetview tour of the plant. Expand Expanding Close
As of this morning, Tesla owners can now drive from Vancouver, Canada into Mexico along the West Coast I5 using only Superchargers. The Northern California and Oregon stations have opened up today according to the official Tesla Supercharger Map. Compare with yesterday’s map below:
In an effort to spur lackluster sales of electric cars, California, New York and six other states said on Thursday that they would work jointly to adopt a range of measures, including encouraging more charging stations and changing building codes, to make it easier to own an electric car.
The goal, they said, was to achieve sales of at least 3.3 million vehicles that did not have any emissions by 2025.
The states, which represent more than a quarter of the national car market, said they would seek to develop charging stations that all took the same form of payment, simplify rules for installing chargers and set building codes and other regulations to require the stations at workplaces, multifamily residences and at other places.
The NHTSAruled today that the Tesla fire wasn’t outside the range of normal events…
“After reviewing all available data, the NHTSA has not found evidence at this time that would indicate the recent battery fire involving a Tesla Model S was the result of a vehicle safety defect or noncompliance with federal safety standards,” the agency said in a statement.
This is the 9860 Brook Road, Glen Allen, VA 23059 Supercharger that opened up this week (via carrerascott) These keep getting bigger and bigger! Click to enlarge
It appears that Tesla has snagged a high profile hire away from Apple, Inc. Doug Field who spent the past 5 and a half years at Apple as a Product Design and Development Leader in building Macs has made the decision to move over to the High Tech auto company. Field isn’t entirely new to the auto game. “Until Tesla came along, I had never seriously considered leaving Apple,” said Field. “I started my career with the goal of creating incredible cars, but ultimately left the auto industry in search of fast-paced, exciting engineering challenges elsewhere. As the first high tech auto company in modern history, Tesla is at last an opportunity for me and many others to pursue the dream of building the best cars in the world—while being part of one of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley.”
Before Apple, Field spent 9 years as the VP Design & Engineering; CTO at Segway where he reported to visionary Dean Kamen. Before that he spent time at DEKA Research & Development Corp., Johnson & Johnson Medical Inc. and got his education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Purdue.
“Doug has demonstrated the leadership and technical talent to develop and deliver outstanding products, including what are widely considered the best computers in the world,” said Elon Musk, Tesla co-founder and CEO. “Tesla’s future depends on engineers who can create the most innovative, technologically advanced vehicles in the world. Doug’s experience in both consumer electronics and traditional automotive makes him an important addition to our leadership team.”
TESLA HIRES APPLE VP DOUG FIELD TO LEAD VEHICLE PROGRAMS
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013
PALO ALTO, Calif.– Tesla Motors has hired Doug Field to be its Vice President of Vehicle Programs, responsible for driving development of new vehicles. Doug is an accomplished leader and engineer of innovative, high-technology products, most recently serving as Vice President of Mac Hardware Engineering at Apple. Doug led the development of many new products at Apple including the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac. Doug began his career as an engineer at Ford Motor Company.
“Doug has demonstrated the leadership and technical talent to develop and deliver outstanding products, including what are widely considered the best computers in the world,” said Elon Musk, Tesla co-founder and CEO. “Tesla’s future depends on engineers who can create the most innovative, technologically advanced vehicles in the world. Doug’s experience in both consumer electronics and traditional automotive makes him an important addition to our leadership team.”
“Until Tesla came along, I had never seriously considered leaving Apple,” said Field. “I started my career with the goal of creating incredible cars, but ultimately left the auto industry in search of fast-paced, exciting engineering challenges elsewhere. As the first high tech auto company in modern history, Tesla is at last an opportunity for me and many others to pursue the dream of building the best cars in the world—while being part of one of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley.”
Doug has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BS in Mechanical Engineering with highest distinction from Purdue.
ABOUT TESLA
Tesla Motors’ (NASDAQ: TSLA) goal is to accelerate the world’s transition to electric mobility with a full range of increasingly affordable electric cars. California-based Tesla designs and manufactures EVs, as well as EV powertrain components for industry partners. Tesla has delivered over 15,000 electric vehicles to customers in 31 countries.
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.
CNAutoNews reports
