Tesla’s new Model X is the electric car of your dreams

Electric car maker Tesla unveiled its latest electric vehicle last night, the Model X, a cross-over that offers more space than the company’s Model S sedan and original sporty Roadster.

For those waiting for a semi-affordable electric car that offers plenty of space, power, and versatility, the Model X looks to be the best option yet.

Like other cross-over vehicles, the Model X sits somewhere between a sedan and a SUV. But Tesla couldn’t help … Continue Reading

Electric-car maker Fisker recalling Karmas due to battery issue

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has issued a recall for 239 of its Karma vehicles, fewer than 50 of which have been sold to customers. The $96,000 luxury electric sedans have an issue with a hose clip in their battery units that could result in a coolant leak and possibly a fire.

All Karma owners have already been contacted by Fisker, and the company aims to have all the batteries replaced in customer cars before … Continue Reading

Why electric-car startup Aptera collapsed, a complete chronology

It’s not the best photo, but it means a lot to the 19 people in it.

Posed in front of a mirrored glass office building under a colorful logo, they are the final employees of the now-defunct electric-car startup Aptera Motors on the last day of its existence, Friday, December 2, 2011.

If there’s one lesson to be learned from the closing of Aptera, it may be this: Starting a car company takes a huge … Continue Reading

Ford lifts the curtain on five-seater Connect Electric station wagon

Ford Motor Company yesterday announced the release of a five-seater electric station wagon developed in partnership with commercial vehicle company Azure Dynamics, according to CNET.

Based on Ford’s Transit Connect van, the five-seater Ford Transit Connect Electric Wagon will be available for sale in North America by early 2012. The announcement comes just in time for the Los Angeles Auto Show, where vehicle makers debut futuristic concept cars as well as new and exciting production … Continue Reading

Better Place raises another $200 million for electric cars and charging network

Electric vehicle infrastructure startup Better Place has raised $200 million of Series C financing from a consortium of investors including GE Capital and UBS, the company announced today.

Better Place is working with Nissan/Renault on the production of electric cars with swappable batteries that can be charged at home, or taken to battery-swapping stations where fresh batteries are inserted within minutes. Vehicle owners will rent the batteries from Better Place, and pay only for the … Continue Reading

First look at the new Tesla Model S Beta electric car

Electric car-maker Tesla’s second vehicle, the Model S, won’t be available until next summer, but the company is taking a version of its new electric sedan out for a little publicity spin with a North American tour.

VentureBeat was among the very first to take the new Tesla Model S Beta for an early test drive, and we can report that it’s a beast. We’ve got photos from our plant visit below, and we’ll be … Continue Reading

The DeLorean going back into production for 2013 with an electric motor

Contrary to Doc Brown’s famous lines in Back to the Future II, the next version of the DeLorean still needs roads  — but it doesn’t need gasoline.

The DMC Delorean, the iconic time-traveling car with gull-winged doors that was made popular due to the 80′s Back to the Future film Trilogy, is scheduled to go back into production 2013 with a new electric motor, reports Digital Trends.

Texas-based motor company is teaming up with … Continue Reading

Tesla’s sporty Model S will accelerate faster than a Porsche 911 Carrera

We already know a lot about the all-electric 2012 Tesla Model S sedan — but at a press event ahead of yesterday’s exclusive VIP event at the former Toyota NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla was making a faster Model S for those with a sporty side.

Cutting the brisk 0-60 time of the standard Model S from 5.6 seconds to under 4.5 seconds, the sportier version features the same … Continue Reading

Elon Musk on starting small, blowing up education and reaching the stars in 3 years (video)

Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk was the final keynote speaker at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 conference in San Francisco this week. He’s a longtime entrepreneur and one of the co-founders of PayPal, along with Max Levchin and Peter Thiel.

Musk told entrepreneurs at the conference to start smaller companies with lower capital costs instead of jumping straight into a large market (watch the video below). The ante for a car company, for example, is … Continue Reading

Week in review: Steve Perlman’s DIDO tech could fix wireless woes

Here’s our roundup of the week’s top tech business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Steve Perlman’s white paper explains “impossible” wireless tech — People have called Steve Perlman’s new wireless technology impossible.

New signs suggest Diablo 3 release date coming soon — World of Warcraft and Diablo developer Blizzard Entertainment added a box-art image for a Diablo 3 beta last weekend — a sign that the company … Continue Reading

Ferrari Shows Biggest CO2 Cut Amongst Supercar Brands, But Is There More To The Numbers?

Governments around the world are bowing to public pressure to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases their respective countries produce, and more often than not, the first sector they look at is the auto industry. Here in the U.S. the government has imposed a tough 34.1 mpg fleet-wide fuel economy standard for 2016, while in Europe the government wants to put a limit on CO2 levels — something that could have disastrous effects for niche … Continue Reading

Ultracapacitor maker Ioxus raises $21M

Capacitor maker Ioxus announced today that it has raised $21 million to ramp up development and production of ultracapacitors — a nascent battery space that could more useful than traditional batteries in electric cars.

Ultracapacitors can reach a much higher charge and discharge rate when compared to typical batteries. They also have longer lifetimes that last several hundreds of thousands of charge cycles when compared to normal batteries. But they do not carry as much … Continue Reading

Plug-In Hybrid MPGs: Is Parallel or Range-Extended Better?

These are exciting times to be a car shopper, as the choices in every possible category just keep getting better and more fuel-efficient.

The options for ecologically sensitive  buyers have taken a major step forward with the introduction of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the imminent arrival of the 2011 Fisker Karma.

Both of these cars are range-extended electric cars, whose wheels are turned solely by one or more electric motors. (There’s a minor exception … Continue Reading

BMW Hires Lead Electric-Car Engineer From Chevy Volt Team

Not so long ago, the notion of luxury German brand BMW hiring an engineer from General Motors might have been a stretch. The company prefers to promote engineers from within its Munich engineering headquarters.

But reports that Frank Weber, the lead engineer of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt team, has been hired by BMW demonstrate how radically times have changed.

BMW was arguably the automaker of scale least knowledgeable about electric cars as recently as five … Continue Reading

Leaf start-up glitch leaves electric vehicle drivers, Nissan stranded

Nissan is facing yet another setback with its electric-powered vehicle, the Leaf. Today, the carmaker acknowledged reports of the Leaf failing to start due to problems with its air conditioning unit.

The Leaf is an ambitious electric vehicles with a low (by electric vehicle standards) price tag — still a hefty $33,000 — designed to attract more casual drivers to the electric car market. But Nissan has faced significant setbacks in deploying the car in … Continue Reading

Late-stage investments dominate cleantech sector in Q1

Investments in clean technology startups rose 13 percent in the first quarter this year in North America, Europe, China and India — to $2.57 billion from $2.28 billion in the first quarter of 2010 across 159 companies — according to a report by Cleantech Group.

Investors poured the most money into late-stage ventures that accounted for $2.39 billion of the investments in the first quarter this year. More than half of the deals were late-stage … Continue Reading

Handbags at dawn: Tesla sues TopGear for libel

TopGear is a wildly popular motoring show made by the BBC. An episode in 2008 showed the show’s host Jeremy Clarkson test driving electric car maker Tesla‘s roadster.

Telsa is now sueing the BBC for libel and malicious falsehood over this episode, which you can see below. The company claims that Clarkson falsely claimed that the car ran out of charge after 55 miles and the brakes were not functional. The BBC says that it … Continue Reading

Would you pay $845K for this hybrid Porsche?

It’s official: the plug-in hybrid Porsche 918 Spyder is available for order at $845,000, not including shipping and taxes. Deliveries begin November 2013, and Porsche only plans to build 918 of these supercars.

The 918 Spyder has 718 horsepower on tap and a fuel economy of more than 78 mpg based on the European combined driving cycle. The design is derived from the Carrera GT as well as the Porsche 917 and RS Spyder race … Continue Reading