The Westly Group, however, is doing something right. The venture capital firm has closed a $160 million fund to invest in up-and-coming clean/green tech startups.

Former California state controller and chief financial officer Steve Westly founded The Westly Group in 2008 to accelerate innovation in clean energy. While many investors have seen little returns on investments in this sector, and funding in this space declined significantly in 2012, the Westly Group has fared well. Investments in Tesla Motors, biofuel company Amyris, and China Recycling Energy Corp have all gone public, and Westly sees this area growing in the future.

“We are more bullish than ever on clean tech,” said Westly in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News. “Costs are going down, revenues are going up, and we’re seeing better business models. People have gotten smarter. And corporate investors are replacing pension funds and university endowments — they understand how large this market.”

Electric vehicles and biofuel aside, the Westly Group has invested in startups that have a more broad interpretation of clean tech. For example, portfolio company Revolution Foods provides healthy meals to charter schools and school districts and is currently active in 12 states and 500 schools.

While clean tech has struggled a bit in recent years, major venture capital firms and corporations are still interested in it. Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Draper Fisher Jurveston, and companies like General Electric and Siemens are actively investing, and companies like Google are taking big steps to become more energy efficient.

Furthermore, during his recent state of the union address, President Barack Obama emphasized the need to drive new research and technology in this market to decrease reliance on foreign countries and fossil fuels, address climate change, and create jobs.

Clean tech has plenty of room for innovation and growth, and with this latest fund, The Westly Group stands to benefit when green tech becomes cool again.  The fund has 50 investors; the three largest are corporate investors Citi, the German utility E. ON, and the SK Group of Korea. The Westly Group previously raised a $127 milion in 2009 and paid back its limited partners, who invested $50 million of their own money.

Photo Credit: rocknroll_guitar/Flickr

Although the car maker has enthusiastic supporters and goodwill for pushing forward electric vehicle technology, investors have clearly cooled on Tesla Motors, with its stock closing down 8.7 percent today.

Telsa has been in the news recently mostly because its CEO Elon Musk had been in a nasty back-and-forth with the New York Times over a review of one of its cars. Musk pulled the log data from reviewer John Broder’s trip and used that data to make people question Broder’s integrity. Eventually, the New York Times’ public editor questioned Broder’s judgment and note-taking, leaving Musk mostly satisfied.

But the company’s investors don’t seem to care much about drama — they care about the hard numbers. Yesterday, Telsa reported a loss for its fourth quarter of $0.65 per share, which was a larger than analysts expected. It reported revenue of about $306 million, which was a little higher than analysts expected. Clearly, the huge loss was more important than the slight revenue bump.

Telsa also said that it only delivered 2,400 Model S vehicles in the fourth quarter, which isn’t that great. The car maker countered that by saying it expects to deliver around 20,000 Model S cars in 2013 and 4,500 deliveries specifically in the first quarter of 2013.

Check Tesla’s stock performance today in the chart below.

TSLA data by YCharts

Tesla photo via Flickr

If you’re going to fib about your experiences test driving a car, it’s probably best to make sure your entire trip isn’t being logged first.

Earlier this week, New York Times writer John Broder detailed his experiences driving Tesla’s Model S, a car he wasn’t crazy about. Tesla CEO Elon Musk wasn’t pleased with the story, which he said didn’t mesh with information the company collected during the test drive as well as reports from just about every other journalist (not to mention Motor Trends).

Now, Musk and Tesla are striking back with the most powerful tool of all: cold, hard data.

In a post on the Tesla Motors blog yesterday, Musk took apart Broder’s claims one by one, using maps, charts, and other bits of visualized data the company collected to back up his case.

Here are a few examples:

• In his story, Broder says his car ran out of juice mid-trip, forcing him to call a flatbed truck for rescue. That’s all lies, says Musk, who pointed to data that said that Broder’s test car never ran out of energy at any point.
• Musk also notes Broder’s erratic and often inane charging behavior, which the Tesla CEO says was an “obvious violation of common sense.”
• Broder wrote that he set his test car’s cruise control to 54 mph during the trip, but Tesla’s data says that never happened.

Musk says that the company started paying closer attention to media test drives after a 2008 snafu with the BBC car show Top Gear, which Tesla claimed misrepresented its experiences with the Model S. (Musk took the show to court for libel but lost the case in 2011.)

“While the vast majority of journalists are honest, some believe the facts shouldn’t get in the way of a salacious story,” Musk said. “When the facts didn’t suit his opinion, he simply changed the facts,” referring to Broder.

The whole rebuttal post is worth reading, if only so you can get an idea of just how much data Tesla logs when it drops keys in the hands of journalists.

Updated 2/12/2013

If you get into a dispute over facts, it always helps to have a nice, clean, data trail.

Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk is unhappy enough with a recent New York Times review of his company’s new electric Model S sedan that he says he’ll publish the car’s digital log of the reviewer’s actual drive — which, he says, differs substantially from the account in the Times.

“We will publish the actual logs on the car and it is crystal clear,” Musk said in an interview with Bloomberg West earlier today (see video below).

The Times reviewer, John M. Broder, took a Model S for a 200-mile drive along I-95 recently, starting in Newark, Del. and ending up in Milford, Conn. That’s well within the 300-mile range that Tesla claims its car’s weighty lithium-ion batteries are capable of.

But Broder barely made it. He coasted in to the charging station in Milford with barely any power left. The car had shut off the heater to conserve energy and he drove as conservatively as possible most of the way.

Talk about range anxiety.

But Musk claims Broder failed to mention how much he was punching the accelerator early in the ride, a move that Tesla warns its customers will drain the battery faster. Also, Musk says Broder took a detour through Manhattan. And he didn’t fully charge the car before departing.

“If you do all those three things, which we were clear should not be done and obviously common sense suggests should not be done, then you will not be able to go as far,” Musk said. “If you did not fill a gasoline car’s gas tank far enough, then went on a detour and ran out of gas, you should not be surprised if that occurs.”

Musk hasn’t actually published the logs yet. But his threat might worry ordinary buyers of the car, too. If he can pull the location and driving profile of a reviewer’s car, could he do it for anyone’s?

Musk seems to recognize the potential fallout, and tried to assuage those concerns in the same interview.

“We are very sensitive to privacy, so these logs are only turned on with the explicit permission of the customer and a signature. For media drives we turn on logging, which tells us the position, speed, what someone is doing with the car in terms of charging.”

In other words: Model S reviewers, you better be honest. Tesla is watching you.

Added 2/12/2013: The New York Times has responded to Musk’s claims with a very detailed explanation by Broder.

Top photo: Tesla Motors

In a story about a wearable “iWatch,” New York Times writer Nick Bilton wrote that Apple’s Steve Jobs wanted his company to pursue making a new car. It’s just a one-liner in the story that mentions other possible products coming from the world’s most valuable technology company.

The Apple car isn’t such a crazy idea, considering that Google is in the midst of creating self-driving cars. Apple is also considering making Bilton wrote, “In a meeting in his office before he died, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former chief executive, told John Markoff of The New York Times that if he had more energy, he would have liked to take on Detroit with an Apple car.”

The iCar has been talked about before, including Apple board member Mickey Drexler. But it’s interesting to see that Jobs would consider such a product to be his dying wish for Apple to pursue. Jobs evidently never began the work on designing the car. But cars really be part of the “mobile lifestyle” that has begun to take over consumer behavior when it comes to technology gadgets.

I for one would love to see a technology company’s take on how to get around, Jetsons-style, in the future. Tesla’s Model S sedan features a 17-inch touchscreen that seems a lot like an iPad in your vehicle. If you had an iPad there instead, you could get access to many more apps. But it would have to be filtered through a driver safety restriction, which wouldn’t allow you to run apps that would be dangerous to watch during driving, like YouTube videos.

Of course, it’s now Tim Cook’s call on whether Apple should branch out into making a car. But with Tesla making electric cars, it already seems like the car industry has its disruptor. Now if Apple could make better electric car batteries….

Apple Car image via blakespot/Flickr

To put it mildly, the Tesla Model S has been a resounding success.

The New York Times has called the all-electric luxury sport sedan a game-changer, comparable to the Model T Ford. It’s won virtually every 2012 “Car of the Year” honor, including the only unanimous Motor Trend award in the magazine’s 65-year history.

Tesla Motors has a waiting list of nearly 20,000 eager buyers. Its production line is now humming at full capacity. And the 3,000-odd customers who’ve taken delivery of their cars are, for the most part, ecstatic.

But nobody’s perfect.

In fact, it would be something of a miracle if there weren’t at least a few teething troubles from a revolutionary, clean-sheet-of-paper design, built by a fledgling startup company, relying heavily on software, and assembled on a brand-new production line.

The Tesla Model S, too, has had its share of glitches, quirks, and peccadilloes.

In an ordinary car, these minor blips would likely pass unnoticed. But the Model S is no ordinary car.

Under a microscope since the prototype was revealed four years ago, the car has attracted a devoted clique of fanatical followers who pore over every scrap of Model S minutia.

(Count me as one of them; my 2013 Model S, with the 60-kilowatt-hour battery pack, is now due to arrive in just a couple of weeks.)

Here, in any case, are some of the handful of blemishes sighted on the otherwise happy face of the Tesla Model S, as recounted by owners on Tesla Motors’ own online forum.

* Self-opening door locks. Several owners report having returned to their supposedly locked cars to find them unlocked, with one door slightly ajar. This has occurred both after manual remote locking with the key fob, and in the “walkaway” auto-lock mode, where the car locks itself when the key fob recedes to a certain distance.

* Sticking sunroof. Owners have reported difficulties opening the sunroof, which is controlled entirely from the touch screen.

* Software glitches. Model S software update 4.1 was designed partly to offer a “sleep” mode to reduce power consumption when shut down.  But it has proven prone to bugs, with numerous reports of unpredictable glitches with the panoramic roof, door handles, locking, wipers, displays, and controls. (In fact, the two problems listed above are likely software problems, not mechanical.)

Rebooting seems to resolve many of these malfunctions, but for a few owners, rebooting has become almost a daily occurrence.

Laments one owner on the Tesla on-line forum, “You shouldn’t have to look to the east, raise your right hand, do the hokey-pokey, and tap the screen randomly to make something work!!!”

Responded another owner, wearily, “You obviously have no experience with software. The hokey-pokey is a basic required user skill.”

Tesla is currently remotely downloading Model S software version 4.2, to cars in the field. It eliminates the sleep mode that apparently caused most of the problems. “Reduced power sleep mode remains a high priority for future software releases,” says Tesla.

* Fogged windshields.  Numerous owners have reported poor defogger/defroster action in cold or humid conditions. Tesla has already come up with a new vent design, and expects to have retrofit kits available  at its service centers soon. Estimated installation time is less than an hour.

* Balky charge port doors. Owners report that the doors, disguised as part of the left taillight, occasionally don’t open or close properly, and sometimes  pop open repeatedly. One poor fellow had his charge cord jam in the socket, immobilizing the car. He had to be rescued by a Tesla service rep.

* Substandard Floor Mats. Even top-of-the-line Model S cars come with no mats for the back seats, and cheap, low-quality mats in the front footwells.  “They are the crappiest ever,” complains one owner. If you want nicer ones, Tesla will sell you “premium” mats for the front and rear footwells for $400.

* No regenerative braking in the cold.  The recent Midwest cold snap has revealed an odd characteristic of the Model S: In subfreezing temperatures, the regenerative braking doesn’t kick in until the car has been driven 10 or 15 miles.

This is apparently because Tesla engineers don’t want a cold battery to receive the sudden charge that occurs when a Model S driver suddenly backs off the throttle, or descends a steep hill. So the regen is automatically disabled or limited until the battery warms up.

This has proven disconcerting to a few owners who weren’t expecting it. “I was caught off guard by this over the weekend,” commented one owner on the Tesla forum.  “It’s not hard to adjust to, but with something as important as braking, the car should stop in a consistent, predictable way.”

“It’s a wart on what is otherwise a superior, consistent driving experience,” commented another. And, oddly, the Chevy Volt suffers no such quirk. Its regenerative braking functions consistently in all temperatures. Do Chevy engineers know something that Tesla’s don’t? Or vice versa?

A few Model S owners have suffered more than one of these problems.

One unfortunate buyer who took delivery in late December–when Tesla was rushing to deliver as many cars as possible before year’s end–reported multiple problems with his car’s paint, GPS system, body trim, and door handles.

“I am so frustrated with all of these problems,” he wrote recently on the Tesla forum. “Had I known about this before I made a final order I never would’ve purchased this car. I wish I could take this car back to them now. Be forewarned.”

But the vast majority of Model S owners aren’t suffering any problems, or seem far more willing to cut Tesla some slack and give the company time to work out the few bugs.

One of them summed it up this way: “The car is just too awesome to whine about little problems that will (eventually) be taken care of.”

David Noland is a Tesla Model S reservation holder and freelance writer who lives north of New York City.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners. Follow GreenCarReports on Facebook and Twitter.

Two years ago this weekend, Jeff Kaffee (pictured above) took possession of his keys and became the very first person in the U.S. to buy a Chevrolet Volt.

Since then, the retired pilot from Parsippany, New Jersey, has put almost 12,000 miles on his range-extended electric car–using just 26.1 gallons of gasoline while doing so.

That works out to a lifetime average of about 460 mpg, since most of those miles were covered on grid electricity.

That’s lower than the average distance covered by most cars, but Kaffee notes that he spends up to half the year in Florida and can fly free–so he does few long-distance road trips.

Generally speaking, Kaffee says most of his daily travels fall within the electric range of his 2011 Volt.

He pegs that at 38 to 40 miles in the summer, and 30 to 35 miles in colder months, but notes that owners of 2013 Volts have reported higher ranges due to the slightly larger battery pack.

No bugs at all

The most unexpected facet of his Volt, he admitted, was that it has had no bugs or service issues at all.

“For such a new kind of car,” he said, “I expected that I’d be in the dealer every month or two for something or other.”

But aside from a faulty tire-pressure sensor, replaced under warranty, he’s had no need to ask the dealer to look at or fix anything.

If he could change one thing about his Chevy Volt, Kaffee said, it would be to add 2 or 3 inches of legroom to the rear seat.

He knew he was buying a four-seat car, so that wasn’t an issue, but the rear seats are just a little tighter than he and his friends would prefer.

Few charging stations

Kaffee says he mostly plugs in his Volt at home, and doesn’t make any effort to locate or seek out public charging stations.

He said that he’s seen charging stations here and there on his travels–he mentioned six or eight at the PepsiCo headquarters in Purchase, New York–but isn’t a member of ChargePoint or any other network of stations.

His only disappointment with the Volt, he said, was that public charging infrastructure on the East Coast is relatively less developed than in other regions, particularly the West Coast.

He recalled driving down the coast in Oregon, seeing multiple charging stations every 25 or 30 miles.

Environment and energy security

What led Jeff Kaffee, a 20-year military pilot before entering commercial aviation, to buy his first Chevrolet since the 1970s?

“Two things, really,” he said. “First, using less gasoline is simply better for the environment–that’s why I bought my first Prius.”

“But second, I want to help reduce this country’s oil consumption,” he continued.

“I was thrilled with the 45 mpg that Prius gave me, but the Volt is everything that car was and a lot more–better driving, and with more overall range.”

Soon, plug-in to replace hybrid

The other car in the Kaffee family is a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid, which routinely gives his wife 37 mpg.

That’s the same real-world fuel economy that the Volt delivers when running in range-extending mode.

Because the two cars are equally efficient in gasoline mode, he said, when they do take a rare road trip, the couple takes the Camry–because it’s bigger.

When the family Camry’s time is up, will Kaffee replace it with a second plug-in car?

“Oh, absolutely!” he laughed. “There’s no question. I’ve been looking at the Ford [Fusion Energi] plug-in–and I’d love a Tesla Model S, but a $100,000 car isn’t in my budget.”

So, two years to the week after the first mass-produced plug-in cars went on public sale, chalk up Jeff Kaffee as one more convert in the expanding group of electric-car owners.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Much publicity, high hopes, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been devoted to the Better Place electric-car service.

Now, with an apparent dearth of Israeli customers to sign on the dotted line, the company is turning over its management.

The latest defection is deputy CEO Moshe Kaplinsky. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported his resignation last Thursday.

Kaplinksy had run Better Place Israel since 2008, and was promoted just last month to deputy CEO of the entire Better Place company.

In an e-mail to employees, he said he had been considering the move for a long time.

Charismatic founder Shai Agassi resigned in early October; he was replaced by Evan Thornley, previously CEO of Better Place Australia.

At the time, Idan Ofer, chairman of the Better Place board, said, ”We owe Shai our gratitude for turning his powerful vision into a reality.”

Minimal sales

Source: Better Place

Diagram showing the battery-swapping process used by Better Place

While executive turnover is often a given at venture-funded startups, Better Place’s core problem stems from its inability to convince Israelis to sign up for its service.

As of the end of October, just 490 cars had been sold after several months of marketing–making its target of 4,000 customers by next June a stretch goal at very best.

Local press reports said that many Israeli drivers, doing the math, concluded that even the least expensive Better Place plan provided more miles than they were likely to use–and cost more than an equivalent gasoline car.

In September, the company launched a new, less costly plan that includes only 7,500 miles a year.

Other potential customers reportedly express skepticism and reluctance to be the first on the block to try the service.

“I don’t want to be the sucker, the freier,” said airline employee Moshe Kretzo, 60, as quoted in Time magazine. The word also translates to “chump.”

Packages of miles

The startup electric-car service vows to reinvent the way drivers pay for transportation.

It offers annual packages of miles for a set price–similar to mobile-phone plans–and includes both electric recharging and battery swapping as part of the package.

According to Haaretz, 38 of the planned 45 battery-swap stations have now been built in Israel.

Israeli drivers have to buy the Renault Fluence ZE electric sedan separately.

(Those drivers include our correspondent, Brian of London, who has covered his Better Place purchase and experiences here, here,here, here, here, and here.)

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Tesla Motors may only make a few hundred cars a quarter, but that’s not preventing it from taking Motor Trend’s highest honors.

The Model S has been named Motor Trend’s 2013 car of the year  – the first electric car to get the nod in the magazine’s 64-year history.

Praise for the car was, in a word, effusive.

“It drives like a sports car, eager and agile and instantly responsive. But it’s also as smoothly effortless as a Rolls-Royce, can carry almost as much stuff as a Chevy Equinox, and is more efficient than a Toyota Prius,” Motor Trend said.

While Motor Trend praised the Model S’s design, engineering, and energy efficiency, the magazine was most impressed that the car exists at all. “The mere fact the Tesla Model S exists at all is a testament to innovation and entrepreneurship, the very qualities that once made the American automobile industry the largest, richest, and most powerful in the world,” the magazine said.

And things can only get better for Tesla Motors from here. During its quarterly earnings report earlier this month, the company said it had reached a turning point in production that will allow it to transition from being a small-scale car maker to a large-scale manufacturer. That’s a big deal, as it pushes cars like the Model S closer towards the mainstream (assuming that $90,000 price tag comes down, anyway).

But for Motor Trend, Tesla Motor’s electric car is in a pretty good spot where it is. ”At its core, the Tesla Model S is simply a damned good car you happen to plug in to refuel,” the magazine said.

Tesla Motors has reached a “fundamental turning point,” the company said in its quarterly earnings statement today, transitioning from a small-volume maker of boutique electric cars to a mass-production company capable of building and selling 20,000 or more electric cars per year.

That’s an optimistic statement, to say the least. If Tesla reaches its 2013 production target, it’ll be two orders of magnitude larger than the company’s third-quarter production: It made just shy of 350 Model S sedans and sold about 250 of them last quarter. It also sold 68 of its Roadster sportscars. Total automobile sales produced gross revenues of about $50 million.

While that number is small (and implies a wallet-flattening average sales price of $200,000 per car), the production was concentrated in the last couple weeks of the quarter, when Tesla says it reached a peak of 200 cars built per week. If it can maintain that rate, it will be able to produce 10,000 cars per year, which it says is the number it needs to become cash-flow positive, assuming it sells those sedans for the expected price of $57,400 and up. If you want to buy a Model S today, however, it’s much more expensive: $95,400, according to a Reuters report.

Tesla has spent much of the past year retooling its main factory in Fremont, Calif., the former NUMMI plant owned by Toyota, a slow and capital-intensive process, assisted by a $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy and a $222 million follow-on offering. (The company initially went public in 2010.) It has also run into competitive trouble, with other automakers filing multiple suits claiming that its manufacturer-owned showrooms are contrary to U.S. law.

Tesla is confident it can reach a production rate of 400 cars per week next month. In other words, in 30 days it will be producing more cars in one week than it did in all of the last quarter. Financial analysis website Seeking Alpha, backed up by a Morgan Stanley report, seems to be confident of Tesla’s ability to deliver on its promises and recommends buying the stock.

That rapid ramp-up is key to the company’s success. In three more months, Tesla will deliver another quarterly report, and then we’ll learn whether its optimism is justified or just an empty promise.

Top photo: Elon Musk watches robot arms in the Tesla factory. Credit: jurvetson via photopin

Tesla Motors is facing a formidable opponent it may not have sufficiently appreciated: the auto dealers of America, and their state associations.

Tesla, you may remember, is selling its electric cars online, not through franchised, independently owned dealers, and delivering them directly to buyers from the factory.

In doing so, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has removed the two parts of car shopping that customers clearly hate most: haggling and buying.

Its Tesla Stores, it says, are simply educational showrooms where no cars are actually sold.

Dealer groups–who view the approach as a dire threat–do not believe this, and they are both changing state laws and suing Tesla to prevent the company from opening its stores.

By the beginning of this month, Tesla faced lawsuits in four states over its stores.

Conciliatory, polite

Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk weighed in, posting what was for him a relatively polite, conciliatory response to those challenges on the company website.

“In many respects,” he wrote, “it would be easier to pursue the traditional franchise dealership model,” which would save Tesla money and broaden its distribution much more quickly.

The problem, he argued, is that any conventional dealer has a fundamental conflict in explaining the advantages of battery electric cars when they rely on gasoline vehicles for the bulk of their sales and profits.

The 2012 Tesla Model S is so different from any other car, he said, that consumers require a great deal of education before they can even start to think about buying.

That’s what the Tesla Stores do, he wrote: let the public learn about the Model S from product specialists–who are not on commission–and, critically, about electric cars in general.

“Their goal and the sole metric of their success is to have you enjoy the experience of visiting so much that you look forward to returning again,” Musk said.

Contrary to spirit of the law?

He acknowledged existing state laws and pledged that Tesla follows them. “We do not seek to change those rules,” he wrote, “and we have taken great care not to act in a manner contrary to those rules.”

In respect to two lawsuits filed against the company, he said Tesla believes they are “starkly contrary to the spirit and the letter of the law.”

Musk noted that they were filed in one case by a Fisker dealer, and in the other, by “an auto group that has repeatedly demanded that it be granted a Tesla franchise.”

He also noted that U.S.-style franchise laws do not exist elsewhere in the world, and described Tesla’s plans for service facilities in some detail.

Laws in 48 states

Source: Photo courtesy GreenCarReports

An early version of the Tesla Model S.

In 48 states, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), franchise laws forbid or severely restrict the ability of automakers to sell vehicles directly to the public.

The specific wording of those laws varies from state to state, but most are based on the rationale that letting big automakers sell cars to customers would stifle competition.

And there’s some history–from half a century ago–that supports the notion that franchised auto dealers may face unfair competition from factory stores selling the same cars.

Tesla Motors, of course, doesn’t have a single franchised dealer.

It has only factory showrooms, and the only way to purchase a Tesla Model S is to order it online.

[UPDATE: NADA upped the ante. It said in an e-mailed statement it was seeking a meeting with the startup automaker to explore "serious concerns about Tesla's intentions."

Its chairman William Underriner told reporters the dealers' group "has 'a whole mess of lawyers in Washington' who work on state franchise laws," which presumably NADA could deploy in every state where Tesla has or seeks to open a store or service facility.]

Changing Colorado law

But dealers insist that Tesla’s showroom workers are part of the sales process, even though they can’t take money for cars.

They view that as a violation of state laws, and are fighting the company on several fronts.

In Colorado, for instance, the state dealer association got a bill passed in 2010 that amended the laws governing dealer operations and their business arrangements with automakers.

The bill, which was signed on March 22, 2010 and took effect immediately, prohibited Tesla from opening any further stores in the state.

As the association wrote in its 2010 End of Session Report:

An existing provision in Colorado law already prevented a manufacturer from operating a dealership so long as they were not [sic] franchised dealerships. This statue [sic] narrows provision [sic] so a manufacturer that has any dealerships in Colorado, whether franchised or not, is prohibited from operating a dealership.

A Tesla Store in Colorado had opened in 2009, spurred in part by interest in a then-active $42,000 tax credit for the purchase of a Tesla Roadster.

Asked for comment on the 2010 Colorado legislation, Tesla spokeswoman Shanna Hendriks said only:

Tesla’s business model was developed in the best interests of consumers and the advancement of electric vehicle technology. In doing so, we have worked closely with regulators to operate within compliance of all current state and municipal laws.

That’s as close to a “no comment” as you’ll get. Tesla currently has just one Colorado facility, in Lone Tree, south of Denver.

Dealerships: the best way to protect buyers

Source: Tesla

A Tesla Roadster

Two weeks ago, Tim Jackson, president of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, spoke at length with Green Car Reports on dealers’ reasons for opposing the Tesla model and fighting its stores.

It’s really, he explained, all about protecting consumers. He offered three different reasons for the group’s action.

First, he said, independent dealerships usually continue in business to provide service even if an auto company or brand shuts down the supply of new cars.

If Tesla were to fail, he pointed out, it would close all its company-owned stores and service facilities, leaving Tesla owners without recourse.

Owners of Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Hummers, Saabs, Daewoos, Isuzus, and other vanished makes got varying access to service and parts through independent dealerships long after they disappeared from the market, he maintained.

Second, the dealers feel–as Musk acknowledged in his letter–that Tesla could spend its money much more wisely than on building its own stores.

Imagine, Jackson suggested, what Tesla could do if it applied the money it’s now spending on stores and service centers to its product development plans instead.

And third, he argued, all auto dealers will be hurt if Tesla fails.

If that were to happen, and consumers were left high and dry without a place to have their Tesla cars serviced, he said, it would do great damage to the good reputation of all auto dealers.

Jackson acknowledged that most car buyers have no idea automakers are legally forbidden from selling cars to them directly.

He reiterated the association’s position that the public is best protected by having independently owned dealerships, rather than direct sales by carmakers.

Like Apple, like Tesla

The model for the Tesla Stores is none other than Apple’s outrageously successful chain of retail shops. In fact, both companies’ stores have been designed by the same man, George Blankenship.

“The [traditional] model is that [carmakers] do a bunch of research, hold a bunch of focus groups, and they decide that this is a car we should build,” Blankenship said at the July opening of the Portland store.

“They design that car, they engineer it and manufacture it, and then they sell it to some dealer who then tries to sell it.”

“That’s just not how we’re doing it.”

Meanwhile, Tesla has said it had already logged more than 1 million visitors in its various stores by mid-July.

And the company is moving forward with plans to open 10 more stores in high-end locations by the end of this year.

Heading into January, Musk wrote, Tesla will have 19 stores, three galleries, and 26 service centers in the U.S.–including service centers in cities where it has no showrooms.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Top photo: Elon Musk, by jurvetson via photopin

Have $500,000 to burn? We’ll Mercedes-Benz has an electric car to sell you.

The carmaker is taking the wraps off the production model of its super-fast, super-expensive SLS AMG Electric Drive, an electric car with specifications that make it sound like anything but battery-run.

For starters, the Electric Drive comes equipped with four motors, which together give the car a max horsepower of 750, a higher power output than that of the car’s gas-powered counterpart. Surprisingly, despite this power, the car’s batteries can still be charged in three hours.

Mercedes-Benz expects the car to go on sale next June for the aforementioned wallet-busting $500,000. That’s no small change and confirms Toyota’s claims that electric cars still aren’t ready for primetime for most consumers.

“The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge,” Toyota vice chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada said on Monday. Uchiyamada’s comments came as Toyota announcedit was nixing the launch of its eQ electric car.

Still, despite Toyota’s apprehensions, it’s clear there’s still a lot of momentum behind electric cars, at least from Mercedes-Benz.

Photo: Mercededes-Benz

We’ve been subjected to a spate of dire headlines today covering Toyota’s statement that it’s killing plans for its eQ two-seat urban electric-car program.

Reuters reported, “Toyota drops plans for widespread sales of electric car,” which is at least an accurate headline.

Some seem to take a “sky is falling” tone, which we don’t feel is the case.

Most of the stories focus on Toyota management’s view that battery technology isn’t ready, the market for pure electrics isn’t there, and hybrids are a much better bet.

Those are all debatable points, but as Reuters gently points out, Toyota has always “taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars” than Nissan, General Motors, and other companies.

Another way of saying that might be to note that Toyota bet the company’s future technology direction on parallel hybrids almost 20 years ago, and has reaped the benefits of what was likely a very expensive R&D program.

Toyota has sold well over half of all the hybrids on the planet, and its 50-mpg Prius Liftback is the most fuel-efficient gasoline car sold in the U.S. market that doesn’t have a plug.

But as any auto journalist will confirm, Toyota executives and engineers relentlessly argue that parallel hybrids are the best way to meet the broad array of consumer needs.

They also frequently contend that plugging into the grid often isn’t as ecologically sounds as it seems. (That’s a whole different article we won’t get into here.)

Toyota has worked on its own electric-car batteries for quite some time, but it hasn’t had very good luck thus far.

The company admitted in 2010 that it had bet on the wrong lithium-ion cell chemistry, ending up turning to an outside cell supplier for the lithium-ion battery pack of its 2012 Prius Plug-In Hybrid.

And its first and only battery-electric vehicle was to be the eQ, an electric version of the tiny Scion iQ two-seat urban car. The company showed several prototypes of the car as the FT-EV and FT-EV II in 2009, and FT-EV III last year.

A two-seater with a projected range of no more than 50 or 60 miles: Does that sound like a winning electric-car strategy to you?

Toyota is left with just one all-electric car, the 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV, whose powertrain is entirely designed by Tesla Motors.

That was quite an impressive car to drive, but it’s strictly a “compliance car” to let the company meet zero-emission vehicle requirements imposed by the powerful California Air Resources Board.

So now Toyota will sell just 2,600 RAV4 EVs over three years, and only 100 eQs.

Not the sign of a company that believes in battery electric vehicles, for sure.

But Toyota has never believed in battery-electric vehicles, and it’s been unable to develop one–unlike Nissan, General Motors, Ford, and others.

The sales of plug-in cars, while likely to double this year, have undoubtedly been slower than the most optimistic projections.

But frankly, Toyota canceling its battery-electric car program is roughly akin to General Motors deciding not to offer a plug-in Two-Mode Hybrid system in the Cadillac SRX because it didn’t perform well enough.

Few people knew either car was coming, and not a lot of people would have cared if it did.

We think the eQ wouldn’t have been an appealing car in the U.S., even to electric-car fans. In that light, we think Toyota made a smart decision.

It’s just not the end of the world we seem to be reading about.

Related articles

• Toyota kills electric car plans, says ‘capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs’ (venturebeat.com)
• No Toyota EV Minicar For Now (elonmusktesla.wordpress.com)

It all began with a late-night tweet two weeks ago by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.

In it, he announced that Tesla would unveil its much-discussed Supercharger network of dedicated quick-charging stations — only usable to 2012 Tesla Model S drivers — on September 24.

Well, today’s the day. And this evening, the world can watch to learn details of a device that, Musk says, “will feel like alien spaceships landed at highway rest stops.”

OK, then.

Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] plans to reveal not only the looks and details of the Supercharger but also its deployment plans in a webcast tonight from an event that starts at 7:30 Pacific (10:30 p.m. Eastern).

Starting at 8 p.m. Pacific (11 p.m. Eastern), you can watch a webcast of the Supercharger event online.

Tesla calls tonight’s event, to be held at the company’s Design Studio in Hawthorne, Calif., not an unveiling or a launch but a “Premiere.”

The announcement, we note, appears to have caught Tesla’s communications staff slightly off guard. Rumor has it they first learned of today’s date via Musk’s tweet.

The need for quick charging has to do with the large lithium-ion battery packs of the Model S variants. The 85-kilowatt-hour pack would take 12 hours or more to recharge fully using a conventional 240-Volt, Level 2 charging station.

Thus far, here’s what we know about the Supercharger:

• The 90-kilowatt charging station is said to add as much as 150 miles of range to a Model S in half an hour.
• The unique charging connector on the 2012 Tesla Model S accepts both Level 2 AC charging and Supercharger DC quick-charging over the same set of pins.
• Last year, Tesla confirmed it would build a Supercharger corridor between the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.

For more beyond that, tune in to tonight’s event.

If past events, including the first public showing of the Model S prototype and the unveiling of the Model X crossover concept early this year, are any indication, the event will follow a set format.

It will have questionable lighting for photography, hordes of fans and reporters crowded into roped-off areas, and a lot of tired-looking Tesla employees applauding enthusiastically.

Again, the URL for the webcast is: http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

We’ll provide a rundown of the details and the event later in the week.

Originally published on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners.

Japanese automaker Toyota has killed plans for a widespread launch of its second all-electric car, the eQ, citing a drastic misreading of the market and capabilities of electric vehicles.

Electric cars are becoming more ubiquitous with the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and Ford Focus Electric all attracting headlines for breaking ground. However, Toyota could now be casting doubt on the viability of these vehicles.

In 2010, Toyota said it would sell several thousand of its battery-powered eQ when it officially launched the new model. Now it plans to sell just 100 eQ vehicles in the U.S. and Japan.

“Two years later, there are many difficulties,” Toyota’s vice chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada told reporters Monday. “The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge.”

Toyota will launch just a single all-electric vehicle in the U.S., a new RAV4 that was developed with Tesla Motors. The company thinks it will sell 2,600 of the new RAV4 during the next three years.

The company will instead refocus efforts on its successful hybrid cars. Toyota said it plans to have 21 new hybrid gas-electric models that are similar in nature to the popular Prius ready to go by 2015.

Electric car charging via Alison Hancock/Shutterstock

Well, that didn’t take long, did it?

It’s not unusual to see rare and exclusive cars pre-sold to buyers before cars are delivered. The practice has been going on for decades, every time the latest supercar hits the streets.

We didn’t expect to see a 2012 Tesla Model S sold so soon, though, and with a Buy It Now price on the eBay auction of $145,000, the seller stands to make a healthy little profit should they find a buyer.

The model being sold is one of the thousand limited edition Signature models, and the buyer will get the actual car, rather than a reservation slot — something Tesla will not allow.

With Signature Red paint, a white leather interior and the 85 kWh, EPA-rated 265-mile battery pack — as well as other Signature edition features — the car will certainly be to a high specification.

It also features an upgraded tech package, Dolby 7.1 premium sound system, and other Model S amenities.

The car is already being built, and is set to be delivered on October 14. The auction itself runs until 10:18 PDT on September 20, provided someone doesn’t pay the full price–over $47,000 more than MSRP–to end the auction early.

So why is the car for sale so soon? The seller doesn’t say, but it’s not beyond possibility that they were banking on pre-selling it all along, hoping to make a tidy little profit in the process from someone wishing to jump the queue.

It also has us wondering: How long until more Model S Signature editions appear on the market? And what price would you pay to get behind the wheel?

Hat tip to Martin at eCars.bg

Photo source: Tesla Motors

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners.

Talk to any independent auto-repair mechanic, and you’ll learn that the single most important item that keeps a shop in business is brakes.

But hybrids and electric cars use their friction brakes far less aggressively than regular cars.

That’s because when the driver presses the pedal, some or all of the slowing comes from engaging an electric motor that acts as a generator to turn the car’s momentum into electricity that recharges the battery pack.

So what happens as hybrids and electrics grow more popular over the years and decades to come?

Enter Joe Ferrer, owner of BS&F Auto Parts in the Bronx, New York. He’s the star of “Hard Parts: South Bronx,” a show based on the day-to-day life of his busy store.

Ferrer says that brakes are easily 35 to 40 percent of his total business. Replacing rotors, calipers, and pads keeps his shop humming.

But on hybrids, brake jobs aren’t needed every 15,000 miles as they are on conventional cars–more like 45,000 miles, he says.

“That will have a tremendous impact on my business,” he worries. “It’s an area where parts stores and shops make a lot of money.”

And he worries that the complex power electronics and computerized control systems of electric and hybrid cars mean they’ll only be serviceable by dealerships, not independent shops.

“If we go all electric,” he says, “it’ll be a catastrophe for me.”

Over the course of a long chat with Ferrer, he admitted that such a change wasn’t likely to happen overnight.

And we noted that even the most optimistic analyses project that by 2020–eight years from now–hybrids and plug-in cars will only total perhaps 10 or 15 million vehicles, out of more than 1 billion vehicles on the planet.

In other words, there’s a very long tail of older vehicles that will continue to need servicing. And because cars are better built and longer-lasting now, they may have a longer service life than those built in the Eighties, when Ferrer first got into the business.

It’s true, however, that one selling point of battery-electric cars is how little service and repair they need.

Or as one owner crisply summarizes it, “Yep, wiper blades and tires, that’s it.”

That doesn’t apply to plug-in hybrids, though. While they too use regenerative braking, they still carry engines, which will need exhaust systems, accessory-drive belts, spark plugs, and so forth.

But over time, Ferrer probably does have a point: Continuing system integration, more electronics, and improved quality mean that independent shops may have less opportunity to do the run-of-the-mill repairs that have kept them in business for a century.

What do you think? Should Ferrer worry, or is it the next generation of auto mechanics who may not be able to open their own shops?

Leave us your thoughts in the Comments below.

And if you want more of Joe Ferrer, you can watch “Hard Parts” on Speed TV (Tuesdays at 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific).

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners. Photos: GreenCarReports.com.

Tesla likes to do things its own way.

So while the company still refuses to report sales in the usual manner–at the end of every month like every other automaker–it does release bits and pieces of data on its corporate publicity site.

On Thursday, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] said that since June 22, when it started deliveries of its 2012 Model S, it has built 50 cars.

Of those, 29 are destined for customer deliveries–it says more than 12,200 buyers have put down deposits for the all-electric sport sedan–and 21 will go to Tesla stores for display.

Tesla is now building 10 cars a week, and company spokesperson Christina Ra told the San Francisco Chronicle that it intends to build 50 more in the next two to three weeks.

Production of the 2012 Tesla Model S will accelerate thereafter, and the company is standing by its goal of 5,000 deliveries of the car during calendar 2012–with 10,000 or more next year.

Collectively, those first 50 cars have already covered almost 40,000 miles, two-thirds of that distance during short test drives offered to depositors on the company’s “Get Amped” drive program.

The first Model S sedans to be built are all Signature Series cars with the largest 85-kilowatt-hour battery pack, which is rated by the EPA at 265 miles of range.

The lengthy post Thursday on the company’s site also detailed a few minor specifications changes that it attributed to the need for maintaining high production quality levels.

VP George Blankenship noted that Tesla had temporarily deleted both the lighted vanity mirrors and the rear-seat reading lights from early Model S cars in order to maintain acceptable quality.

Wires remain in place for the rear-seat overhead lights, but the company said that it would be a while before it provides the lighted vanity mirrors due to concerns over the quality of parts provided.

This post originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Photo credit: Tesla Motors

It may not be long before electric car owners on America’s Pacific coast can drive all the way from Canada to Mexico using quick-charge stations.

Thanks to Oregon’s new ‘electric highway,’ it’s now possible to charge an electric car every 25 miles down a 200-mile stretch of Interstate 5.

That, says an NBC News video, makes it the longest stretch of electric highway in the country.

It’s set to improve even further, as the state has funding for another 35 quick-charge stations. That’ll make things pretty easy for the state’s current 1,200 electric cars, and means that even if one station is occupied, you won’t have to search too long to find another.

The Oregon stations join a long string already in place in California, and a number of level 2 and fast charge stations in Washington, too.

It’s all part of a larger plan to create the West Coast Electric Highway, which would allow electric vehicle drivers to travel the length of Interstate 5 from Canada through Washington, Oregon and California, right to the Mexican border.

That would make an otherwise time-consuming journey little more difficult than it would be in a regular combustion engined car–and likely encourage a wider market for electric vehicles down the West coast.

This article originally appeared on Green Car Reports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Photo credit: Justin Pickard/Flickr

Those in the market for a new car may want to give Nissan’s fully electric-powered vehicle, the Leaf, another look after the company’s latest announcement.

The company said that its Japanese customers will now start receiving Leaf-based EV Power Stations with the capability of powering a home for a couple of days — that’s on top of its ability to keep your car charged for travel of up to 100 miles.

The new EV Power Station can supply 6kWh of energy to a home, which should keep it running for about two days, depending on usage. The new Power Station also features the ability to charge your Leaf vehicle faster, hitting an 80 percent full charge in four hours. That’s about half the time it takes to charge the car using one of the current Power Stations.

The new Power Station costs about 480,000 yen ($6,000) on top of the cost of the vehicle ($35,000). That may seem like a lot, but if your home is routinely knocked off the power grid, having a backup generator might be a nice convenience. (And if it was solar-powered, Zombie apocalypse survivalist types could justify the extra cost.) No word on when these new Power Stations will be available in the U.S.

Check out the video from Nissan below for more details.

Source: DigiInfo TV via Engadget

Car buyers are notoriously fond of focusing only on the purchase price of new vehicles, without much thinking about the total cost of ownership.

For electric cars that may cost twice or more what a similar-size gasoline vehicle does, that’s a problem.

Still, two separate pieces of evidence begin to make a compelling case for the huge running-cost advantages of plug-ins.

They’ll prove useful in conversations over the next few years, as friends, relatives, and neighbors question electric-car buyers about their new vehicles: why they did it, how much hassle it may be to plug in, and–of course–how much it cost.

Gasoline vs. electricity price in $/gallon equivalent, under 3 scenarios (by Max Baumhefner)

First is a post entitled Buck-a-Gallon Gas for Life?

Author Max Baumhefner, a Natural Resources Defense Council staffer, simply plots the equivalent cost of gasoline and electricity under different oil-price scenarios.

Gasoline is high, higher, or very much higher; electricity stays cheap regardless of what happens to oil prices.

Even more compelling is a chart (at top) from the Edison Electric Institute, showing the volatility of gasoline prices and the minimal variation in electric costs over the same period.

In other words, plugging in your electric car to recharge it is the equivalent of paying a dollar a gallon for gasoline–forever.

Second is State of Charge, a study issued last month by the Union of Concerned Scientists on a variety of electric vehicle issues. (We’ll cover more of that study later on.)

It found that electric-car owners in 50 of the largest U.S. cities who cover 11,000 miles a year will save from $750 to $1,200 annually compared to traveling the same distance by buying gasoline at $3.50 a gallon.

While most early electric car buyers have other reasons than saving money, the running-cost advantage has to be better explained if plug-in cars are to reach a broader audience.

And while payback may still be hard to achieve, the lure of “buck-a-gallon gasoline forever” or “$1,200 a year in your pocket” may be enough to get fence-sitters more interested in plug-in cars.

Whereupon they may go for test drives, and discover one of the benefits that automakers (inexplicably) haven’t focused on: Electric cars are simply nicer to drive.

What do you think? How would you make the case that electric cars can save someone money?

Leave us your thoughts in the comments below.

This article originally appeared on Green Car Reports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

“We have built 400 watt per kilogram batteries, which have been considered the holy grail of electric cars,” said Envia’s chief executive Atul Kapadia said in an interview with VentureBeat, ”This is a milestone that many car companies have wanted to reach.”

To understand the cost of charging and using an electric car battery, you have to understand how we pay for electricity. Power utilities charge by kilowatt-hour, which is 1000 kilowatts of power used every 60 minutes. The industry standard for electric car batteries has hovered between 110 and 140 watt-hours/kilogram, costing between $250 and $350 per kilowatt-hour to operate.

Envia’s new battery clocks in at 400 watt-hours/kilogram, meaning more energy is stored per kilogram in the battery, making it more energy-efficient. The new battery will cost $125 per kilowatt-hour, according to the company. Because Envia’s battery has a higher energy density, it can also travel farther on a charge. The company boasts a 300 mile range with the new battery, higher than previous batteries which delivered 80-100 mile ranges.

Cheaper electric cars on the horizon

Electric cars having begun to gain traction, in large part thanks to Tesla’s electric offerings and GM’s Chevy Volt. However, Tesla’s Model S and Model X cars are still a bit out of the general public’s price range, costing around $50,000. The Chevy Volt, with a $31,000 price tag, is more accessible, but to gain mass appeal the cost still needs to be slashed.

Envia’s lower cost battery will give GM the chance to lower the cost of the Volt, making it more available to the general car buying public. In addition, other car companies could use the technology to create economically viable cars that could compete with gasoline-powered economy models.

General Motors hasn’t revealed any details on how it may use this technology, or if its done anything already. But being a major stakeholder in Envia, I can only imagine its got something planned.

A few more hurdles to overcome

Electric cars may be the wave of the future, but the technology still has a way to go. For one, you need to charge your car to power it, which can mean higher utility costs and the need to install special charging outlets. Tesla recently came under fire over reports that you could “brick” its cars by letting its battery complete discharge. And while Tesla refuted the claims, it did raise some concerns over whether electric vehicle technology is full ready for mainstream use.

Technology issues aside, electric cars haven’t reached a covetable status among mainstream Americans, who typically want full-featured powerful cars. Though the general population may not be fully on board with electric cars just yet, at least “they cost too much” won’t be a valid excuse for much longer.

If you own a Tesla and want to turn your shiniest toy into a useless brick, all you have to do is park it.

As soon as the battery is fully discharged, you have a useless, albeit pricey, hunk of metal on your hands, and Tesla will charge you $40,000 to get it up and running again — almost as much as the full cost of a new Tesla Model S.

UPDATE: Tesla has responded to the matter with a boilerplate statement, which we’ve included in full below.

Occasional blogger Michael DeGusta is on the waiting list for a Tesla Model X. In doing research on the cars, he found that if any Tesla car’s battery is fully drained, the owner will be unable to recharge it or even push it. The owner will eventually have to pay the aforementioned $40,000 to get a new battery from Tesla.

The battery can be fully drained simply by parking the vehicle too long without charging it because of the vehicles’ always-on systems running quietly in the background and using minuscule amounts of power over the hours and days. For a Tesla Roadster, this can happen over the course of 11 weeks, less if the battery is not fully charged when the car is parked.

“Either these issues will be resolved by the time it’s ready, Tesla will be gone by then, or I’ll most likely give up my spot and get a refund,” he wrote this morning on his blog.

DeGusta found five examples of bricked Tesla Roadsters so far, all of which were related to him by a Tesla service manager. In one case, a customer shipped his Roadster to Japan, where incompatible voltages and dwindling time quickly reduced him to a brick with no real options for economically advisable reanimation.

The kicker is that the owner’s warranty is voided in these scenarios due to the owner’s “failure to maintain the Battery at a proper charge level at all times.” Normal insurance policies don’t cover this situation, and payment plans are not available, DeGusta was told.

Mostly, though, DeGusta was perturbed that Tesla isn’t emphasizing the risks of battery drainage to prospective owners. On its website for the Model S, for example, the company states, “The Tesla battery is optimized for nightly charging… The Model S battery will not lose a significant amount of charge when parked for long periods of time.

“For example, Model S owners can park at the airport for extended vacations without plugging in.”

Unless you park it on a less-than-fully-charged battery then go on a month-long honeymoon or hiking expedition or missions trip, to counter Tesla’s example with a few rather common ones we can think of off the top of our heads. That kind of scenario might leave the hapless owner with a bricked car and little recourse.

Here’s Tesla’s statement, which was sent to VentureBeat via email; we’re still prodding the company for more information and specifics:

All automobiles require some level of owner care. For example, combustion vehicles require regular oil changes or the engine will be destroyed. Electric vehicles should be plugged in and charging when not in use for maximum performance. All batteries are subject to damage if the charge is kept at zero for long periods of time. However, Tesla avoids this problem in virtually all instances with numerous counter-measures. Tesla batteries can remain unplugged for weeks (even months), without reaching zero state of charge. Owners of Roadster 2.0 and all subsequent Tesla products can request that their vehicle alert Tesla if SOC (state of charge) falls to a low level. All Tesla vehicles emit various visual and audible warnings if the battery pack falls below 5 percent SOC. Tesla provides extensive maintenance recommendations as part of the customer experience.

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 but add its own spin to the form: the Model X features funky rear doors, dubbed “Falcon Wings,” that flip up and allow you to easily step into the car.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that the Falcon Wings are the largest rear door openings found in a passenger car, CNet reports.

Tesla expects the Model X to retail close to the Model S’ price, which starts at $49,000. The company will offer the same battery options as the Model S as well, which ranges from 160 mile to 300 mile configurations. The Model X will get around 10 to 12 percent less range than the Model S, due to its added weight.

The Model X features a full third-row of seating (accessible by sliding the middle row forward), allowing it to hold up to seven passengers and their cargo. Tesla will also offer an all-wheel drive option, a first for the company, in addition to the base rear-wheel model. Thanks to the Model X’s electric drivetrain, the car can intelligently tweak the torque of every wheel to easily adapt to changing driving situations.

Tesla plans to begin production of the Model X in late 2013, with deliveries starting in 2014.

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 Jan. 1, Fisker spokesperson Roger Ormisher told VentureBeat.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, the issue is with all Karma models produced between July 1 and Nov. 3. The battery units, which are produced by A123 Systems, were positioned incorrectly, making it possible for the battery compartment to interfere with the hose clamps, resulting in a leak from the coolant hoses. If the coolant leaks into the battery compartment, the battery could short out and cause a fire. No owners reported any issues related to the battery before the recall.

While the number of vehicles affected may not seem high for a car recall (GM issued a recall for 4,296 vehicles the following day), it is actually a good chunk of all the Karmas that have been produced so far. The Karma only began shipping over the summer, after two years of delays and a disappointing EPA rating. Fisker plans on ramping-up production to between 10,000 and 12,000 Karma vehicles in 2012, slightly down from its earlier goal of 15,000 a year. Currently, it is producing 25 cars a day.

“What was interesting for us was how quickly we did this recall,” said Ormisher. “It can take weeks to get a recall in place and we did it in less than 48 hours.” The company acted immediately after discovering the issue, and had already called all retailers and started the process of replacing batteries when the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report went out.

It’s been a bumpy year for the electric-car startup. In October, the company missed manufacturing goals for its next vehicle, the plug-in extended-range dubbed Project Nina, and had to delay plans for production. The Karma is produced in Finland, but the Nina will be manufactured in a revamped GM plan in Wilmington, Delaware. Ormisher says there’s already a pre-production model of the Nina, and the company plans to start production on the car at the end of 2012.

Fisker Automotive has raised over $760 million in private equity financing so far, and has received $529 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the government’s green jobs initiative. Only $169 million of the U.S. loan money has gone toward production of the Fisker Karma.

via GigaOm

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 amount of money — orders of magnitude more than the software startups Silicon Valley venture capitalists like to fund.

And if the cash runs out at any point, the company will die.

Over the last week, we interviewed former CEO Paul Wilbur and former marketing VP Marques McCammon, who were there to the very end. We also spoke at length with company founder Steve Fambro, who resigned his seat on the Aptera board of directors early this year. He had been replaced by Wilbur as CEO in September 2008. From those interviews and other research, we’ve compiled this inside chronology of the events that led to the end of Aptera.

Not just a single car

Aptera 2e development prototype at company offices in Vista, California.

Through several hours of conversations, a few themes emerged from the Aptera story as recounted by Wilbur and McCammon.

The pair speak highly of the entire workforce, all of them now looking for jobs.

It is clear that the car designed by founders Fambro and Wilbur was not the car Aptera ended up developing. In fact, it created a longer, larger version of the Aptera 2e three-wheeler to comply with the 738 separate Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards covering cars that may legally be sold.

After it became clear that funding a three-wheeler wasn’t going to be possible, the company switched gears in January and threw all its design resources into creating the 4e, a four-seat, four-wheeled car using the same plastic composite body shell construction as the original three-wheelers.

Coming very close?

Both Wilbur and McCammon believe the company came very close to surviving — and suggest that years of discussions with the Department of Energy over its advanced technology vehicle manufacturing (ATVM) loan program ultimately took too long, dooming Aptera to run out of cash.

That $25 billion DoE program offered low-interest loans to automakers and parts companies that would use the money to retool existing plants to build advanced-technology vehicles with fuel efficiency at least 25 percent higher than vehicles they replaced.

Here’s the chronology of the startup:

• 2006: Founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony start Aptera to build an ultra-efficient three-wheel electric car (to be registered as a motorcycle)
• Sep 2008: Paul Wilbur is hired as CEO, replacing Fambro
• Dec 2008: DoE rejects Aptera’s ATVM loan application within three days because three-wheelers are not defined as cars
• Jun 2009: Tesla receives $365 million of low-interest loans under the Department of Energy’s ATVM program
• Sep 2009: Fisker too is awarded $529 million in loans under the ATVM program
• Oct 2009: Three-wheeled vehicles are defined as cars for the purposes of the ATVM program
• Jan 2010: Aptera resubmits application to DoE for loans to build both the 2e and a new four-wheeled, four-seat vehicle
• Late 2010: DoE assessment of 2e portion of business plan indicates it cannot pay back capital costs under DoE’s sales projections (a fraction of Aptera’s own numbers)
• Jan 2011: Aptera shifts all development efforts to the 4e, a four-door, four-seat electric sedan that it believes has a better shot at getting DoE funding
• Sep 2011: DoE issues a conditional commitment letter for $150 million of loans to loaning Aptera–IF the company raises $80 million privately
• Nov 2011: DoE turns down ATVM loan application submitted by Next Autoworks (nee VVC) for its low-cost plastic-bodied basic economy car design
• Nov-Dec 2011: Investors spooked by the Next Autoworks denial refuse Aptera’s requests for further operating funds
• Dec 2, 2011: Aptera Motors shuts down

So if you believe Wilbur, Aptera simply ran out of time amidst a loss of confidence by its investors.

Doing the right thing

Aptera 4e

Surely the political controversy around half a billion dollars of DoE loans to failed solar-panel maker Solyndra didn’t help. There was also a small kerfuffle over the low 20-mpg EPA gas-mileage rating for the 2012 Fisker Karma range-extended electric luxury sport sedan, now finally on the market–and partly funded with DoE loans.

With a presidential election year coming up, Wilbur says, “the [ATVM] program could go away completely.” No big-name investor stepped up to carry Aptera, in the way that Next Autoworks had famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins to lead its funding.

So, Wilbur says, “We wanted to do the right thing for our employees,” closing the company while there was still enough cash to pay them a small amount of severance.

“Bright shiny object disease”

In the end, Wilbur says, if he had it to do over again, he would avoid what he termed the “bright shiny object disease” of DoE loans. He spent three of his three and a half years at the company pursuing Energy Department loan funding, logging time in Washington, D.C., in endless meetings with government officials and lobbyists.

Because Tesla and Fisker got loans, “we listened to that too much,” Wilbur admits. “We should have raised the money ourselves rather than relying on the DoE.”

Aptera 2e development prototype at company offices in Vista, California.

There’s a broader question, of course: Was a three-wheeled two-seater that looked like a Cessna cabin on wheels ever going to sell the 20,000 per year that its executives touted?

All three men pointed to the 5,000 Californians who placed a deposit of $500 to get on the list for an Aptera 2e when the car went into production.

Conversion rates are notoriously tricky to estimate (they’re always less than 100 percent, but by how much?). Whether more than a few thousand souls would be brave enough to drive such a radical device will likely never now be answered.

Car or three-wheeled motorcycle?

Aptera 2e

And clearly the vision for a three-wheeled electric motorcycle that Fambro discusses at length in last week’s Transport Evolved interview was not shared by the executive team brought in during late 2008.

The car that those 5,000 investors put down deposits for was Fambro’s concept, although he does not feel that the final design–two years ago, it was leaked on the day we drove an earlier 2e prototype–stayed true to his original vision.

Nonetheless, the ATVM program is one that’s meant to allow companies to bootstrap technology to get more efficient vehicles into the hands of many, many drivers more quickly.

$5.9 billion to Ford

That’s why Ford has been the single largest recipient of loans thus far, getting a whopping $5.9 billion to roll out its EcoBoost line of smaller, more efficient gasoline engines across its entire model range–as it’s now doing.

Those are hundreds of thousands, soon to be millions, of engines–against tens of thousands of Apteras.

Lingering questions about the collapse:

Paul Wilbur, Aptera Motors CEO, 2008-2011

Many more questions remain about Aptera’s collapse, and they’ll no doubt be endlessly debated. We have partial answers to a few.

Does the DoE Conditional Letter of Commitment really exist?  Both Wilbur and McCammon assert–emphatically, even angrily–that it does. McCammon provided to GreenCarReports a scan of a cover sheet for such a document, dated September 13, 2011. GreenCarReports has not, however, seen the actual letter, which McCammon offered to show to a reporter in person.

He also provided a heavily redacted e-mail–which he stated was from a DoE official, although it cannot be confirmed from the scan–that refers to “a letter…addressing the status of Aptera’s application,” and is dated October 19, 2011.

Presuming that the DoE did issue a conditional commitment letter–it has refused to comment on Aptera–it’s worth noting that Aptera executives claim it required the company to raise $80 million of matching funds to obtain the DoE low-interest loans. And its executives were unable to do that.

What happened to all the deposits?  Wilbur claims the majority of the deposits have been returned–starting last August–though “they’re having a hard time finding” some depositors. On the other hand, at least one GreenCarReports commenter has yet to receive a deposit back and is not having calls or e-mails returned by either the company or its liquidators.

Did Aptera take 2e deposits even after it knew it was dropping development of the car?  Wilbur says that although the website didn’t drop its offer to take deposits until June, the company disabled the back end in January so no deposits could actually be accepted. If any potential Aptera buyers were able to put down a deposit on a 2e after January, that would contradict the ex-CEO’s claim.

This article by John Voelcker originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

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 models.

The Ford Transit Connect Electric van was chosen as the 2010 Truck of the Year and has been used in delivery fleets of such companies as AT&T, FedEx, Post Norway, and DHL, among others. The partnership with Azure Dynamics has been critical to the production of the electrification of Transit Connect, because the company makes the Force Drive powertrain for the vehicle.

The wagon will have a maximum range of between 55 and 80 miles, depending on how loaded the vehicle is. The vehicle is aimed at businesses more than individual, says GreenCarReports, which is different than the van, because it will have a second row of adjustable seating.

Although no price has been disclosed, GreenCarReports is reporting that the Ford Transit Connect Electric Wagon is expected to qualify for the same electric vehicle credits as the cargo-carrying van upon which is was based.

via CNET

A Bloomberg story from Friday highlights a third fire involving a Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car–only 7,500 or so of which are on the roads today.

NHTSA side-impact test

The latest case occurred in June in a Chevy Volt that had been crash-tested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The car was subjected to a side-impact “pole test,” which not only destroyed the car but cracked the battery pack housed in the center tunnel and under the rear seat. Then, as per the standard test procedure, the car was put on a rotisserie and rotated 90 degrees every five minutes to test for any fluid leakage. Coolant leaked out of the battery pack, though the electric components stayed put.

Fully three weeks later, the wrecked Volt caught fire in an open storage yard in Wisconsin, with the flames ultimately spreading to surrounding cars. After news of the fire, both Chevrolet and the NHTSA independently replicated the crash test and subsequent vehicle rotation procedure. In neither case could they reproduce the conditions under which the battery pack ignited.

Electric vehicles not “at greater risk” of fire

Months later, the NHTSA doesn’t appear to view the fire as terribly alarming. It has given the Volt a five-star safety rating, and the IIHS designated the Volt a Top Safety Pick as well. “Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe the Volt or other electric vehicles are at a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles,” the agency said in a statement today. “In fact, all vehicles — both electric and gasoline-powered — have some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash.”

Nonetheless, novelty and lack of public knowledge is likely to make any conflagration noteworthy if there’s an electric car nearby.

Salvage yards, tow-truck operators

The immediate concern, the agency noted, was to ensure that first responders, tow-truck operators, salvage yards, and even dealerships that handle wrecked electric cars understand what must be done to ensure safety. GM has been training first responders how to approach crashes involving electric cars for more than a year, since before the 2011 Volt went on sale last December.

It is also developing procedures for all parties on how to remove lithium-ion battery packs from wrecked Volts to alleviate any potential of long-term fire risk.

Garage fires, with Volts inside

The two previous fires with Chevy Volts involved were in Mooresville, North Carolina, just last week, and in Barkhamsted, Connecticut, last April. Both occurred in garages that happened to house Chevrolet Volts. In the Mooresville case, a Volt was charging in the garage at the time of the fire–leading local electric utility Duke Energy, in a surfeit of caution, to advise electric-car owners not to plug in their cars to charge until the cause of the blaze had been established.

No conclusion has yet been drawn by local fire officials, but GM sources–none of whom would go on record–seem confident that the Volt will not be deemed to have been a cause of the blaze.

As for the Connecticut blaze, the fire marshal’s report concluded the Volt that was parked in the garage had nothing to do with the cause of the fire. It was sitting next to a Suzukiconverted by the home’s owner to a battery electric vehicle.

Keeping an eye out

With electric cars slowing spreading into the market, manufacturers and regulators alike will be keeping a very close eye on any fires with electric cars nearby. The NHTSA’s statement concludes, “As manufacturers continue to develop vehicles of any kind — electric, gasoline, or diesel – it is critical that they take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of drivers and first responders both during and after a crash.”

Given that there are 250,000 or more fires in gasoline vehicles every year, the sample base seems too low to draw any useful conclusions about electric cars and fires thus far.

For everyone’s sake, let’s hope it stays that way.

This post by John Voelcker originally appeared in GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

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• 28 electric car makers that are ready to rule the streets (venturebeat.com)
• First look at the new Tesla Model S Beta electric car (venturebeat.com)
• GM slashes Volt slashes price tag (venturebeat.com)
• Volt cruises into North Carolina and South Carolina (venturebeat.com)
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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 miles they drive.

This battery-swapping technology is not yet available commercially, though in 2010 in Tokyo, Better Place ran a pilot program with electrified taxis running on swappable batteries. Better Place founder and CEO Shai Agassi joked that the taxi’s batteries lasted longer than the drivers’ bladders, after only one cab ran out of juice during the program.

“We’ve worked hard over the past four years to engineer and build a technology solution that competes with oil-based transportation,” said Agassi in a statement. “We are entering the next phase of growth for our company where we prove that our solution works, that it’s in demand, and that it scales, as we begin to push into new markets and attract new investors and new partners. I believe that our investors should be applauded for having the vision to finance the future of transportation.”

Better Place has partnered with local governments in Denmark and Israel to build a charging infrastructure to support its brand of electric cars. The company is also rolling out city-wide charging initiatives in Toronto, Hawaii and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Better Place will provide commercial charging infrastructure for electric car owners of all models, and is in the final testing phases to choose the Renault Fluence Z.E. (Zero Emissions) as its vehicle of choice.

Today’s investment in Better Place raises the company’s total to $750 million, with previous investors Israel Corp., HSBC Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Ofer Group and Maniv Energy Capital also joining the round.

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 uploading a video soon.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the Model S is already sold out for 2012, thanks to 6,500 pre-orders. And after spending some time with the vehicle in person, it’s easy to see why. This car is dead sexy, with all the features to make gadget boy or girl’s heart melt. Yet unlike the earlier Tesla Roadster, it’s actually got room for your friends and family.

With seating for seven (five full-sized adults and two kids in the back), it’s not a vehicle to park in your living room and admire. This is a moving sculpture that expects to be driven.

It handles the hill roads of Palo Alto with the power of a rally car, and the grace of prancing gazelle.  Best of all, it’s muscle you can feel good about. The electric engine is releasing zero emissions as it burns down the road.

What else makes the Model S Beta special? This prototype is in its final stages before the car goes into production, and the Model S will be Tesla’s first mass-produced vehicle. Starting at $49,000, the Model S is the follow-up to the company’s first car, the Tesla Roadster. It will be available in a 160-, 230- or 300-mile range option, and the company says it can charge using any regular electrical outlet.

The Model S Beta has a 17-inch connected touchscreen, developed in-house, that’s equipped with 3G wireless for easy navigation, web and media access, and the ability to run applications.

What we saw was still early, but the Tesla team sees cars as the new app marketplace. That means you can expect someone in the near future to be creating a customized, steampunk-styled interface for someone’s Model S control panel. Even without apps, this giant, luminous screen is responsible for all car functions, and the only physical buttons on the car’s console are the federally-mandated “hazard” blinker, and another button to pop open the glove box. Everything else, from driving directions, to air conditioning, is controlled with the touch screen.

Suffice it to say, no detail was overlooked on the driving experience, the interior or the techy goodness.

We’ll have a full-length video of our test drive and lots more photos coming soon. Stay tuned!

Related articles

• Tesla begins assembling beta Model S electric car models (venturebeat.com)
• Secret Tesla video? Model S sedan, Roadster shown on the road together (venturebeat.com)
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• Tesla Motors inks $100M deal with Toyota (venturebeat.com)