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.
The backlash from reservation holders, some from as far back as 2018, was alarming. In polls we and others took, a significant majority of reservation holders dropped their reservations. Most of the rest were waiting to see what Rivian did. Just two days later, we have an answer…
We’ve heard for a while now that Tesla would be implementing an app store system to allow third parties to build functionality into the TeslaOS. Today we were tipped to an impressive rendering of what such an app store would look like, and it almost seems real.
In a wide-ranging AMA on Reddit today, VW CEO Herbert Diess provided answers to a ton of questions from the Reddit community, some of which were news to us. Importantly, he clarified Volkswagen’s position on Autonomy and ID.4 charging update timelines while waxing eloquent on a low-price VW EV and everyone’s favorite, the Microbus.
Kia flew us out to wine and “winding road” country to test the new EV6, which is coming a bit late to the US, as it’s been out for a while in its native Korea and Europe already. So that means I’ve had months to digest the information about the car, its characteristics, and its place in the industry. But nothing beats a test drive through the mountains with fellow EV nerd and former Electrek writer Brad Berman to get to know a car intimately.
Ford’s versatile E-Transit 126-mile electric sprinter/cargo/van platform began production from its Kansas City, Missouri plant. Deliveries begin in a few weeks. I drove it, but drive impressions have to wait.
Ford is super high on its own supply of Telematics software but equally high on its new Salesforce partnership for software and services.
I came to California to drive a Ford F-150 Lightning and I got two awesome days in Sonoma meeting Francis Ford Coppola, chatting with some great Ford engineers/execs, drinking some amazing wine, and driving an electric sprinter van (not in that order).
We learned a lot this week as Ford flew us out to Sonoma, CA, and took us to some winery businesses that would soon be using not only electric Ford Pro vehicles but would also be using its telematics software stack to manage everything about them.
GM CEO Mary Barra took the wraps off the 2024 Chevy Silverado EV today at CES, and Chevy truck fans are likely to love what they see. The rest of us? We’re pretty split here on our takes of the 2024 Chevy Silverado…
Wallbox (WBX), the Barcelona, Spain-based charger maker, announced its second generation Quasar 2 bidirectional charger at CES this week, two years after the original Quasar won our best of CES 2020. The upgrades are many for this new charger, which we consider to be one of the most important new technologies in the EV ecosystem.
This pickup truck has everything – faster than most sports cars, a roomy interior with lots of storage and extras, and it can go off-road where no other production vehicle can go. It’s the first time electrification has hit the off-road pickup in a meaningful way, and it proves why electric is king both on-road and off.
As Ford’s CEO Jim Farley took to Twitter to announce a three times increase in Mustang Mach-E production, the company also alerted dealers that modest price increases and new packages would be coming for 2022 models. The California Route 1 edition also got a meaningful range bump.
Meanwhile, the company delayed a much anticipated Explorer EV and its Lincoln cousin…
For Electrek‘s first drive of the Grand Turismo Sport (GTS), Porsche brought us out to Willow Springs race track in the high desert, northeast of Los Angeles. The cars it gave us were stock models with nothing you can’t option at a Porsche dealer. Our basic instructions were to try and follow the professional drivers ahead of us and listen for instructions— and that was pretty much it.
Serial 1 provided a Mosh CTY review bike to me so I could commute from my hotel in downtown Los Angeles a mile or so south to the Los Angeles Auto Show this week.
But I used it to attend the USC Football game a few miles to the south, dinners/events in various parts of the city, and just generally get around instead of Uber or renting a car.
Five new Porsche models will be unveiled in Los Angeles, but of course, we’re only interested in the two Taycan EV variants that will be a highlight of Porsche’s growing electric portfolio. Will we finally see the Taycan GTS models we’ve all been jonesing for?
I’ve been using the Geotab (formerly Fleetcarma) SmartCharge rewards program for almost five years as a way to save money on EV charging during my electric utility’s (New York’s ConEdison) off-peak time periods. I save at least 10 cents per kilowatt hour of charge, which makes my EV charging nearly free. And since I get most of my electricity from a big solar panel on my roof, I’m probably even making a few bucks for driving an EV.
This month, Geotab announced a much easier way to connect to Teslas, making the onboarding process a breeze and the program even more of a no brainer.
It looks like today’s the first day of deliveries for the refreshed Model X at a very small event where a handful of vehicles were delivered to new customers. Let’s take a peek inside!
GM announced today that they would reveal the full “Silverado E” at CES 2022 on January 5 in Las Vegas where CEO Mary Barra will deliver the keynote. But they did give us some tidbits in a live Q&A earlier today…
I am stunned by the specs here. We are talking about a best-case scenario for an all-electric pickup truck. It looks like these guys have really figured out how to take advantage of an electric powertrain to get some great performance in a pickup truck package.
Fast-forward three years, including a pandemic and almost a year delay, and we’re finally able to take one for a serious drive.
True to its (latest) word, Tesla released the “Button” late Friday/early Saturday, though it went from “opting in to Full Self Driving Beta” to “requesting access to Full Self Driving”. The caveats don’t stop there.
VW invited Electrek to their Chattanooga factory location to check out the new AWD ID.4, which ups the electric SUV from around 200 to 300 horsepower with a front-wheel-drive motor. Even better, next year, North American units of the ID.4 will be built locally at the huge VW factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which we got to see first hand…
Mercedes is rolling a variety of new products out at IAA 2021 in Munich this week and one we weren’t quite expecting is the EQG concept which would put Mercedes on the path of electrifying its G-series off-road lineup.
