July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Electric car company Tesla just unveiled a new financing plan today so that people interested in getting one of its Model S vehicles can essentially turn the car back over to the dealership after three years of payments.

“We want to combine the best parts of ownership and leasing,” Tesla founder (and real-life Tony Stark) Elon Musk said in a press conference. “We want to make the car more broadly affordable for people.”

Tesla outlines all the federal and state tax credits offered to someone who buys an electric vehicle (between $7,500 to $15,000), which is enough to cover the 10 percent down payment on a Model S. Musk said monthly payments, after factoring in fuel savings costs and other maintenance, will be about $500 or less. The financing plan basically offers you the chance to sign up for a 5- to 7-year loan, with the option to get out of the deal after the first three years.

How can this be? Well, Tesla will buy back the car, which Musk asserts will increase or retain its value. Musk even went as far as telling people he’d sink his own money into this plan to ensure customers could walk away with no additional costs after three years.

“It’s a great peace of mind play, and if the claims match the reality, then this is completely different from any other financing model in the industry,” said JD Rucker of KPA Automotive. “In essence, you’re buying half the car much in the way a lease works but still gaining the benefits of ownership. They’re banking on low mileage, and I’m sure there’s fine print but it sounds like a ‘best of both worlds’ financing concept.”

But the average eligible driver still has a few hoops to overcome before it can truly make this beneficial to your wallet.

First of all the monthly payments factor in fuel, so the true monthly cost could be another $200 to $300 per month depending on your driving habits. Musk also noted emissions tests and such as other costs you would get to avoid paying with a Model S (like oil changes). Also, this is still a loan that banks must approve you for, so people with bad credit will still have a hard time. And there’s the matter of running out of fuel before you can get back to a charging station to think of, which could net you a handful of towing bills.

Still, if you’re interested in buying an electric car, this could sweeten the deal, Rucker told me.

“Only Tesla could pull this off,” Rucker said. added, noting that the niche market for people looking for electric cars combined with Musk’s panache make this possible. “It will definitely get prudent people in the right situation looking at Tesla.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Pandora announced a new agreement today that will put its streaming music service into automobile maker Chrysler’s line of vehicles, it announced today at the 2012 Consumer Electronic Show.

While Pandora usually gives a lot of attention to expanding its profile on mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets), it’s trying to enter your car, as VentureBeat reported nearly a year ago. That makes perfect sense for two main reasons: Regular AM/FM “free” radio isn’t that great anymore, and playing music in your car goes together like chocolate and peanut butter.

The deal with Chrysler is one of over a 1,000 partnerships Pandora has made to make its service available on other platforms. Pandora already has agreements with the top 19 automotive brands in the U.S, and its music service is now available in 85 different vehicle models and through 175 automotive aftermarket devices (aka stereo systems installed after the car was purchased.)

We’ve listed some other usage statistics Pandora released below:

• Listener hours for Pandora during the month of December 2012 were 1.39 billion, an increase of 54 percent from 906 million during the same period last year.
• Share of total U.S. radio listening for Pandora in December 2012 was 7.19 percent, an increase from 4.71 percent during the same period last year.
• Active listeners were 67.1 million at the end of December 2012, an increase of 41 period from 47.6 million during the same period last year.
• Pandora is now available on over 85 vehicle models, 175 automotive aftermarket devices and 760 consumer electronic devices.

Google said the accident, in which a Google-owned Toyota Prius rear-ended another Prius, happened when a driver — rather than the car’s computer — was in control. The accident, which happened earlier this week, occurred not far from Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.

“Safety is our top priority,” a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat. “One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car.”

The accident itself was thankfully just a fender bender, as seen in the photo above.

Last October, Google engineer Sebastian Thrun nonchalantly announced on the company’s blog that it had developed the technology to let cars drive themselves. Google also told us its self-driving cars have now traveled “160,000 miles autonomously without incident.”

If it can be confirmed by a third party that Google’s self-driving Prius was in fact wrecked by a human, maybe Google should just let the computer drive in the future.

A video of a Google self-driving car can be found below:

Photo via Jalopnik.