[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2nfd7HrJ60]
In case you are wondering, that Yugo-looking EV is called the Buddy EV. The Norwegian electric vehicle’s range is 25-60 km (16 to 37 miles) via a 13 kW motor, and has a max speed of 80 km/hr (50 mph) while under 100 inches long.
No wonder the Tesla is doing so well in Norway.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk stopped by the Bloomberg office to discuss TSLA stock valuation and other fun stuff this week. Of course the question of the recent Fire, which the NHTSB recently ruled was not a defect nor compliance issue, came up and Musk reiterated his stance.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmQb94EF1UY&start=1750]
Elon Musk takes fuel cells down in his talk in Germany this week. Perhaps more importantly, he revealed that the Model S would be running a Chrome Browser and eventually an Android emulator in its 17-inch touch display.
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After the now infamous fire and subsequent explanation, Tesla has made a small addition to its homepage. A ‘First Responders‘ link at the bottom takes folks to a special page with information for those dealing with Tesla in emergency situations. there is some helpful stuff down there in PDF form that wouldn’t hurt to print out and put in your Tesla glove box.
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A curved section that fell off a semi-trailer was recovered from the roadway near where the accident occurred and, according to the road crew that was on the scene, appears to be the culprit. The geometry of the object caused a powerful lever action as it went under the car, punching upward and impaling the Model S with a peak force on the order of 25 tons. Only a force of this magnitude would be strong enough to punch a 3 inch diameter hole through the quarter inch armor plate protecting the base of the vehicle.
Interesting that this is written by Elon Musk (with some help likely) and he actually turns the tables at the end:
The nationwide driving statistics make this very clear: there are 150,000 car fires per year according to the National Fire Protection Association, and Americans drive about 3 trillion miles per year according to the Department of Transportation. That equates to 1 vehicle fire for every 20 million miles driven, compared to 1 fire in over 100 million miles for Tesla. This means you are 5 times more likely to experience a fire in a conventional gasoline car than a Tesla! For consumers concerned about fire risk, there should be absolutely zero doubt that it is safer to power a car with a battery than a large tank of highly flammable liquid.— Elon
The post also includes an email from the driver – who is also an investor – who can’t wait to get behind another Tesla shortly (a loaner is on the way).
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[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/380451200782462976]
[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/380454034659753984]
[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/380459687050608640]
After plans for Autonomous driving were revealed this week via Tesla’s job site, Musk went on the offensive saying that yes they were working on a program and the team reports directly to him.
This is a stark (get it?) change from a previous stance where Musk said Tesla was taking a more wait and see approach. Perhaps Google’s plans to build their own car spurred him on?
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Tesla owners should be receiving a pretty huge over the air update in the coming days which will enable a bunch of new functionality in the car. A Flickr user has updated the release notes. The biggie here is Wifi which allows the Tesla to connect to either a stationary wifi access point or tether to a mobile phone that may have a better signal than the HSPA network the Tesla attaches itself to.
Other new features include: Tow Mode, which allows you to put your car in neutral (wonder if this works in automatic car washes?), Auto screen clearing mode and accessing radio presets from the steering wheel.
Model S owners will also see improvements in Maps, Creep mode performance, additional driver profiles and another biggie: Improved power management when not in use.
The last one is huge because the Model S burns about 5 miles of charge per day in sleep mode, otherwise known as “Vampire mode”. Taking off a chunk of that will help it last a long time in storage without a recharge and stop the useless power drain.
