tesla

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

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

• Kia plans to introduce small EV by year end

• BMW unveils the 5-series hybrid

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

• Nissan building Juke-R super crossover*

At events over this last weekend and the following Monday, Tesla gave its customers and a group of journalists an opportunity to see the beta of its Model S, the new electric sedan it intends to put into production early next year.… Read more

The excitement surrounding Tesla's Model S sedan is palpable, and in an attempt to stir up even more demand for the vehicle, the company Saturday night flung open its doors to show off its upcoming car.

At the event, Tesla let those who preordered the vehicle take a tour of the company's facilities and ride around in a prototype. In addition, according to Reuters, which was at the event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk asked attendees to promote the car to friends to help build more demand.

Tesla has a lot riding on the Model S. Unlike the Roadster, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--In 20 years, a majority of new cars will be electric and the world's single largest source of energy will be solar power, Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder Elon Musk said today.

Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference here, the 40-year-old billionaire co-founder of PayPal shared his vision of the future, and also gave the room full of would-be entrepreneurs some sobering advice about what they should expect when trying to get companies off the ground.

"Expect it to be difficult," Musk said. "A friend phrased it well: 'Starting a company is like eating glass … Read more

Tesla has released yet another preview video of its upcoming Model S electric sedan. This time, rather than a single Model S blasting down a back road, a trio of camouflaged Alpha sedans have a go at a track to collect data for the Beta sedan, which is the next step in the Model S' development. Normally one of the coolest parts of checking out a track testing video is hearing the roar of the engine, but the Model S is all electric and all silent, so you'll have to make due with the sound of wooshing wind and … Read more

Toyota Motor will build its first electric vehicle produced outside Japan in the Canadian province of Ontario as part of a multimillion-dollar public-private project announced in July.

The automaker will build the vehicle--an electric version of the RAV4 SUV--at its plant in Woodstock, Ontario, the Canadian government said in a release today.

Toyota plans to invest as much as C$545 million ($558 million) in the overall project. Known as Operation Green Light, the plan includes upgrades at other Toyota plants in Ontario, the country's industrial heartland.

The Canadian government will chip in C$70.84 million toward C$… Read more

Too busy to keep up with the tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Thursday, August 4.

• A security researcher at Black Hat says it possible to hack laptop batteries using malicious software. While old versions of MacBook Pro have batteries that are replaceable, the newer laptops like the MacBook Air do not. The researcher didn't try this but says it's possible to overheat a battery and start a fire by sending commands to the battery controller.

• Ahead of budget and schedule, Tesla announces plans to show off its Model X electric … Read more

Tesla Motors is getting the hang of this electric car thing, and plans to debut the alpha version of the Model X crossover way ahead of schedule, according to an article in VentureBeat.

During its quarterly investor call, CEO Elon Musk reportedly told listeners that the company will unveil the alpha version of the seven-seater electric SUV sometime in mid-December, which is in half the time than the company planned, and about one-third of what it budgeted. But don't add the Model X to your holiday wish list yet--the crossover isn't expected to go into production until 2013. When it does, Tesla expects to produce only 15,000 units per year of the SUV when it ramps up production in 2014.

The Model X is the third electric vehicle that Tesla is producing. The SUV is designed as a 5+2, and uses the same power train as the Model S sedan, which will also seat up to seven. Tesla recently began assembling the Beta version of the Model S electric sedan and, according to VentureBeat, expects to reveal it in October. … Read more

Tesla's Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and Model S Program Director Jerome Guillen announced on the company's blog that they've begun working on Beta versions of the Model S sedan.

Tesla is breaking up the vehicle's development into two stages: Alpha and Beta. Earlier this year Tesla revealed the Alpha version of the electric sedan. In a recent blog post on the company's Web site, von Holzhausen and Guillen said that they've begun assembling the Beta versions of the vehicle to help them prepare for the preproduction of the vehicle that is expected to … Read more