tesla

A crowdfunding effort to build a museum to honor scientist Nikola Tesla has surpassed its $850,000 goal by more than $35,000 -- with more than a month to go in the funding drive.

Announced last week by The Oatmeal, aka Matthew Inman, the goal is to build a museum to honor the achievements of Tesla, the inventor and electrical engineer credited with making early strides in wireless communications. The funds will be used to buy land in Shoreham, N.Y., on which Tesla's last laboratory stood.

The land is listed for sale at $1.6 million, but … Read more

Internal combustion cars dominated the last century, but led to pollution and unpleasant foreign entanglements due to oil imports. Electric cars solve both of these problems through much greater efficiency and the multitude of means by which electricity is generated. The cars reviewed here look to be the first generation of the kind of vehicle that will dominate the new century. All of them are pricey compared with gasoline-fueled equivalents, but they cost considerably less for both electricity and maintenance. … Read more

Short on revenue but a beat on profit -- bottom line: Wall Street liked what it heard from Tesla about its second quarter.

The luxury electric car maker posted a non-GAAP loss of $93 million, or $0.89 per share, 3 cents better than Wall Street expected, on $27 million in sales during the second quarter. The consensus revenue estimate was $30.9 million.

The loss was slightly better than expectations, though the sales figure came in light as analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of 93 cents a share on revenue of $30.7 million. Tesla also … Read more

Steve Jurvetson says electric vehicles are undoubtedly the cars of the future. Not too surprising, given that his VC firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, was an early investor in electric vehicle company Tesla Motors. But to really get an idea of how passionate he is about EVs, you have to hear the story about how he wound up getting the keys to the new Model S -- beating out even Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Musk had been dodging Jurvetson's numerous requests to put down a deposit on the car, saying that reservations for the vehicle couldn't be taken until … Read more

Tesla's model ramp-up is looking rapid indeed, as Franz von Holzhausen, the electric vehicle maker's chief designer, talked to British publication Autocar of a new model planned for 2015 to compete with the BMW 3-series. Tesla's Model S, the first car it built from the ground up, began deliveries to customers just last month. Tesla also showed off a new concept, the Model X crossover, earlier this year, which enters production at the end of 2013.

Von Holzhausen said Tesla would target a price of $30,000 for the BMW 3 competitor, and would experiment with more-radical … Read more

Few countries can boast as vibrant an auto industry as the United States of America. Our Henry Ford revolutionized how cars are built, while quite a few other start-ups participated in the early days of this industry. For decades, the industry was dominated by the Big 3: Ford, Chrysler, and GM. Now, of course, the story is a bit more complicated, with U.S. companies building some cars abroad and some foreign companies running plants here, employing thousands. But this selection of cars represents the most historic United States marques, and one all-American newcomer.… Read more

FREMONT, Calif.--Lined up before me were 10 examples of the Model S, newly off the production line, the result of years of investment and development. This silent herd awaited a group of journalists eager to finally get their hands on the wheel and foot on the accelerator. We were here to see if Tesla had fulfilled its promise of building an electric car that could compete with those from likes of Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz.

Certainly from the exterior, the car looked desirable. Although it's billed as a sedan, a hatch sat between the Model S' big rear … Read more

Friday, June 22, is a big day for Tesla, and possibly a landmark for the automotive industry as well. It marks the first deliveries of the all-electric Tesla Model S to customers.

With a range of more than 250 miles for the top-end models, the Model S comes out as the most practical electric car yet. Given its range and luxury sedan packaging, it is likely to become a daily driver for its owners, who will also benefit from the fact that the car costs about a tenth to run as a gasoline-engine car.

Tesla will hold an event at … Read more

Ahead of the first customer deliveries of the Tesla Model S electric car on Friday, Nvidia issued a press release detailing the use of its Tegra Visual Computing Module (VCM) in the car's dashboard. The use of the Tegra processor to not only run the graphics on the car's 17-inch LCD, but also power the 3D digital instrument cluster accentuates the cutting-edge technology embodied in the Model S.

The Model S will use two of the Nvidia VCMs, one for the infotainment system and one for the instrument cluster. The former includes all the processing needed to generate … Read more