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There's no need to worry: the departure of two Tesla executives was a planned transition that happened sooner than expected, company Chief Executive Elon Musk said today on an early morning investor call.

News that Peter Rawlinson, Tesla's vice president and chief engineer, and Nick Swanson, who supervised vehicle and chassis engineering, left the electric-car startup before the launch of the Model S sent the stock price plummeting almost 20 percent on Friday. Musk assured conference call listeners that Tesla wasn't trying to "dump news into the weekend." Rather, he said, he had made the … Read more

Besides selling electric cars, Tesla Motors is doing something that hasn't been done in the U.S. in a long, long time: a new American car company is starting production at a new U.S. manufacturing plant.

That is indeed an extremely rare event in the U.S. these days, as a Tesla representative pointed out to me at CES. Especially in California which, for much of the last century, was a manufacturing base for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. (See list of past U.S. auto factories.)

That Tesla factory, by the way, is the former NUMMI assembly … Read more

Green Car Journal announced five finalists for the publication's annual Green Car Vision Award. The award recognizes innovations in fuel efficiency, low emissions, alternative fuels, or electric power.

To be considered for the Green Car Vision Award, vehicles must be in demonstration on public highways today or nearing commercialization but not yet widely available to consumers, Green Car Journal said in a press release.

The five finalists include the BMW i3, the Cadillac ELR, the Ford's C-MAX Energi, the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell, and the Tesla Model S.

The 2012 Green Car Vision Award winner will be announced at … Read more

Fifteen years is a pretty good life span for many pets. Tamagotchi is celebrating the birth of its digital critters with a limited-edition anniversary model.

In case you missed the Tamagotchi craze, they are little egg-shaped gadgets with small screens that house electronic pets. Each one starts from an egg, and has to be fed, cleaned up after, and disciplined as it goes through its virtual lifecycle.

Bandai's Tamagotchi spawned the sale of 78 million units and taught a lot of kids about the virtual joys, tribulations, and sorrows of digital parenthood.

Tamagotchi may be 105 in dog years, but it has learned a few new tricks along the way. The Tamagotchi iD L 15th Anniversary Model features a full-color screen with new characters and games.… Read more

You may not be a Lego master model builder, but if you're in San Francisco this weekend, you could help one make a giant Santa Yoda.

Starting Friday, the public is invited to visit San Francisco's Union Square and lend a hand as Lego's master model builders take thousands of the iconic bricks and shape them into a 12-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide Santa Yoda.

The event, which is partly a fundraiser for the Bay Area Boys & Girls Club, is also partly about promoting the Monday launch of the new Santa Yoda Web site (which will have no content … Read more

Apple surprised many when it introduced quad-core processors into its MacBook line for the first time in February. But a Commodore 64 packing quad-core?

For the uninitiated, the Commodore 64 Keyboard PC was introduced back in 1982 packing a MOS Technology 6510 1MHz (yes, that's one megahertz) chip running the Commodore kernal accessed via BASIC commands.

That model competed with the Apple II and Atari computers.

Well, a lot has changed in 30 years. After resurrecting the Commodore name in April of 2010, the company came out with an Intel Atom-based design in April of this year. That's … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--You may not know CAD, but if you've got a computer, you can now start creating 3D models.

That's the idea behind 123D Catch and 123D Make, two new free software applications that Autodesk is planning on releasing on Monday. The two programs join the company's existing iPad app, 123D Sculpt, as part of a family of tools that are intended to give just about anyone the ability not just to make their own 3D designs, but also to get them produced as real, physical models.

Autodesk unveiled the two new applications at a press event … Read more

Ever wanted to give your old 2D pictures or photos that extra oomph? How about adding an extra dimension to that dusty two-axis plane?

3Defy Modeler is an interactive Web app that allows users to transform their photos into three-dimensional objects for free. Built by a team of passionate engineers, designers and 3D enthusiasts, 3Defy provides a a relatively basic set of tools to alter two dimensional images. Powered by Adobe Flash Player 11's 3D technology, users can turn various objects in their images into separate layers. Each layer can be exaggerated by users using 3Defy'… Read more

Wayne gets a ride in Tesla's newest electric car, BMW comes up with a new hybrid, Antuan races in Forza Motorsport 4, and Hyundai preps a mad Veloster for SEMA.

• Tesla Model S Beta 1: A glimpse of the future from the passenger seat

• Kia plans to introduce small EV by year end

• BMW unveils the 5-series hybrid

• Forza Motorsport 4 is a digital playground for car lovers (hands-on)

• Nissan building Juke-R super crossover*