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41 Insane Facts About Tesla Motors

by MarquisNarvaez4 Posted on October 1, 2016

It can sometimes feel like 21st century history is being written by a handful of entrepreneurs and their organizations: chances are that generations to come will talk of Elon Musk in the same way that we rememberHenry Ford, who famously said “The remains of the old must be decently laid away; the path of the new prepared. That is the different between revolution and progress”. Both are visionaries who have changed the way we think about vehicle manufacture and performance, and each has embraced the spirit of their time and applied it to their business and engineering strategies. But while Ford is by now an established historical figure, Musk is still living out his story.

The entrepreneursdual background in economics and physics, combined with a canny eye for the zeitgeist, has provided the right chemistry to cook up his $12.1 billion fortune. And while Paypal is long behind him and space tourism plays a big part in his future plans, Musks Tesla Motors concern remains very much in the present. The manufacturers first half-decade ended in failure, with thescrapping of their flagship Roadster vehicle but Musk and his organization have never lost faith in the inevitability of the dominance of electric cars. With a staff of 14,000 and a market value of $33.5 billion from which Musk draws a salary of just a dollar a year Teslas wedge of the industry has grown to reflect the vision of its iconic boss.

Of course, bubbles have burst before, and weve seen many a hubristic entrepreneur wade too deep into a river of their own hype; but like Ford before him, Musks success and his potential rests on his informed vision of not just how the world will look tomorrow or next year, but in ten, twenty, fifty years time. Teslas lithium-ion battery Gigafactory, for example, will be powered by 100% renewable energy remarkable, considering it will be the second largest building in the world. Such scale, vision and conscientiousness is why Tesla is a major, major company to keep an eye on and you can begin by checking out some of the startling facts and figures in this smart new infographic.

This post originally appeared on Jennings Motor Group.

Photo Credit: Herman Caroan/Flickr

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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41 Insane Facts About Tesla Motors

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Energy-Saving Technologies You Should Adopt

by CarmellE15 Posted on August 9, 2016

When it comes to saving energy, many people think investing in solar power or buying an electric car are the only options. But conserving doesn’t have to be so expensive. There are numerous ways you can adopt energy-saving technologies. Between smartphones and smart appliances, you can start saving dollars and energy all at the same time. Here are a few ways to do this:

Refrigerator

Today’s smart refrigerators are more than appliances that keep food fresh. They are also energy-efficient and come with computerized touch screens that help you keep track of what’s inside, what you need to replace or buy, and help you find recipes online. The Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator is rated one of the best smart refrigerators on the market.

While they aren’t cheap, your savings in the long run come from not wasting as much food since keeping track of it all is that much simpler. You can pair some devices with the touch screen allowing you to make phone calls without even picking up your phone. Pair up your smartphone or tablet to access your refrigerator even when you aren’t home. How’s that for convenience?

Washer/Dryer

Smart washers and dryers allow you to connect to your appliances when you aren’t home. You can activate their options through an app on your smartphone or tablet, and track how much energy they are using. You can start a load of laundry when you are out and about, and you can sign up to receive notifications on its progress. These appliances also allow you to keep track of maintenance and repairs.

Range

Cut down on the amount of time you spend in the kitchen with a new smart range. Some of the newer models allow you to download an app to your smartphone or tablet and send recipes straight to the stove automatically setting the temperature and cooking time. You can also monitor a food’s cooking time and progress. This same app also lets users monitor their food’s cooking progress. Smart ranges cut back on cooking time by using infrared cooking. Perfect for the home cook who prepares several meals a day.

Nest Thermostat and Smoke Alarm

A Nest Learning Thermostat learns your heating and air preferences allowing you to save the time of programming it yourself. This can also save you money over time. The company also makes carbon monoxide alarms and smoke detectors that will alert you through your smartphone when the batteries are running low, as well as when there is a pending emergency.

Quick Charge Technology

You can change the way you charge your smartphone or tablet with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 Technology. Devices with Snapdragon mobile processors can receive the energy-efficient, “lightning-fast” charging. This technology decreases the amount of time you spend connected to a charging cable. Select devices equipped with this technology include LG G5, HTC 10, and Lenovo ZUK Z2 Pro, to name a few

Power Adapter

Energy savings don’t always need to come by installing or doing something big. In fact, there are quite a few things you can do on a smaller scale. Charging and powering up your electronic devices can use a considerable amount of home energy.

However, companies such as Belkin offer solutions. Instead of continuously charging, these types of adapters can be set to for 30 minutes, three hours, or six hours. Once the time is up, they automatically shut off. This reduces standby power.

Saving energy doesn’t only mean installing solar panels on your roof or buying an electric car. There are many other ways people can go green. Whether you install a learning thermostat, invest in a smart appliance or find easy ways to save power with your every-day electronics, there are several energy-saving technologies that you should adopt.

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Jessica Oaks

Jessica Oaks is Associate Editor for Freshly Techy and a freelance technology writer.You can find her at the intersection of technology and sustainability.

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Energy-Saving Technologies You Should Adopt – August 9, 2016
Ecofriendly Elixir: How To Save Water By Drinking Alcohol – December 28, 2015
5 Brands Big On Saving Water – November 11, 2015

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Energy-Saving Technologies You Should Adopt

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Water Out of the Tailpipe: A New Class of Electric Car Gains Traction

by Myrna Posted on July 21, 2016

In California, state subsidies for hydrogen filling stations are encouraging clean-energy advocates to try fuel-cell vehicles. Read More:   Water Out of the Tailpipe: A New Class of Electric Car Gains Traction ; ; ;

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Water Out of the Tailpipe: A New Class of Electric Car Gains Traction

Posted in alo, cannabis, eco-friendly, FF, For Dummies, G & F, GE, global climate change, LAI, Monterey, ONA, organic, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Water Out of the Tailpipe: A New Class of Electric Car Gains Traction

California Might Close Its Last Nuclear Plant

by RolandLohman Posted on June 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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California’s biggest electric utility announced a plan on Tuesday to shut down the state’s last remaining nuclear power plant within the next decade. The plant, Diablo Canyon, has been controversial for decades and resurfaced in the news over the last few months as Pacific Gas & Electric approached a deadline to renew, or not, the plant’s operating license.

“California’s new energy policies will significantly reduce the need for Diablo Canyon’s electricity output,” PG&E said in a statement, pointing to the state’s massive gains in energy efficiency and renewable energy from solar and wind.

The most significant part of the plan is that it promises to replace Diablo Canyon with a “cost-effective, greenhouse gas free portfolio of energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage.” As I reported in February, some environmentalists were concerned that closing the plant could actually increase the state’s carbon footprint, if it were replaced by natural gas plants, as has happened elsewhere in the country when nuclear plants were shut down:

As the global campaign against climate change has gathered steam in recent years, old controversies surrounding nuclear energy have been re-ignited. For all their supposed faults—radioactive waste, links to the Cold War arms race, the specter of a catastrophic meltdown—nuclear plants have the benefit of producing huge amounts of electricity with zero greenhouse gas emissions…

A recent analysis by the International Energy Agency found that in order for the world to meet the global warming limit enshrined in the Paris climate agreement in December, nuclear’s share of global energy production will need to grow from around 11 percent in 2013 to 16 percent by 2030. (The share from coal, meanwhile, needs to shrink from 41 percent to 19 percent, and wind needs to grow from 3 percent to 11 percent.)

Michael Shellenberger, a leading voice in California’s pro-nuclear movement, estimated in February that closing Diablo Canyon “would not only shave off one-fifth of the state’s zero-carbon energy, but potentially increase the state’s emissions by an amount equivalent to putting 2 million cars on the road per year.” But that estimate presupposed that the plant would be replaced by natural gas. The plan announced today—assuming it’s actually feasible—appears to remedy that concern.

In any case, the plant won’t be closing overnight. Over the next few years we should be able to watch an interesting case testing whether it’s possible to take nuclear power offline without worsening climate change.

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California Might Close Its Last Nuclear Plant

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Considering An Electric Car? 7 Questions To Answer First

by DemetriaAunger6 Posted on June 20, 2016

Electric cars are growing in popularity, and we’re not complaining. These swift and silent green machines emit less pollution and have lower operating costs than their conventional counterparts. So how do you know if you’re ready to ditch the pump and plug in your very own electric car? Ask yourself these seven questions first to find out.

Electric car exploration

1) What are the overall benefits of electric cars?

Before deciding if an electric car may fit your lifestyle, it helps to first understand how much of an impact driving electric cars can actually have on the planet and on your wallet. Image Credit: andrea lehmkuhl / Shutterstock

Before deciding if an electric car may fit your lifestyle, it helps to first understand how much of an impact driving electric cars can actually have on the planet and on your wallet.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, electric cars can help reduce emissions, and they can also help increase energy security by reducing our dependence on imported fuel. In addition, while purchase prices for hybrids and electric cars are often higher than conventional cars, owners can see an overall savings in fuel costs, maintenance costs, and tax credits. Indeed, there was a time when electric cars were sold at significant price premiums relative to comparable internal-combustion models. However, in recent years that situation has shown signs of change, and electric cars are now more affordably priced. Furthermore, pretty much all electric cars (except for those made by Tesla) are deeply discounted on the used market.

According to InsideEVs, an industry site that tracks the latest news and trends for electric vehicles, electric car sales in the first four months of 2016 have shown an increase year over year. This suggests electric car sales growth is once again gathering momentum, so it seems our love for these emissions-free marvels of modern technology is only getting stronger.

2) What’s your daily mileage?

Mileage is a consideration when choosing an electric vehicle, because you have to keep in mind how much ground you can cover in between charges. You may have a reasonably short trip to and from work, but if your lifestyle involves running lots of errands, your daily mileage could greatly exceed your commute. If you’re a parent who has to take kids to school and soccer practice, for example, you could wind up putting a significant number of miles on your car each day. The good news is that electric cars have made tremendous strides in recent years with the range they offer.

According to EPA estimates, the 2016 Tesla Model S has a range of up to 265 miles, while the more modestly priced Chevrolet Spark EV will travel for up to 100 miles between charges. Still, keep in mind the 476 miles of range you’ll get with a gas-powered Toyota Camry.

Take a look at the number of miles you travel each day and decide if your driving pattern fits within the range restrictions posed by electric cars.

3) Do you take lots of long road trips?

While in years past, going on a long road trip in an electric car might not have been an option, these days public electric charging stations put road trips back on the map.

Just know that your trip won’t be all that spontaneous: You’ll need to plan your route carefully and determine the stations you’ll visit along the way, as well as account for the time it takes to charge.
Level 2 (220-volt) stations – which are more prevalent – will still generally take three to four hours to charge.
A number of websites, including this electric car charger station locator from the U.S. Department of Energy, offer tools to help you plot your stops.

4) Do you have easy access to a charger?

Access to your charge source, whether public on installed in-home, is a big consideration when it comes to electric car ownership. Image Credit: Matej Kastelic / Shutterstock

Some electric cars can take as long as several hours to charge, but you can reduce the charging time by 50 percent or more by installing a home charger. This adds tremendous convenience to electric car ownership. Just keep in mind that if you rent your home, a home charger may not be an option. Before you buy, talk to your landlord about getting permission for a charger and how the electricity bill should be handled.

5) How’s the weather?

While frigid temperatures will result in a diminishment of range between charges, electric cars work just fine in cold weather. The electric car fleet management company Fleet Carma took a look at trips made in the Nissan Leaf in cold weather and found that the car’s range drops from 80 miles to 50-60 miles when it’s driven in icy conditions. However, it’s worth noting that gas-powered models also suffer a drop in fuel efficiency of up to 20 percent when the mercury plummets, due to factors such as cold engine oil.

6) What’s the terrain like?

Electric cars do best in the flatlands. Mountainous terrain is not a deal breaker for electric cars: Just note that this terrain will tax the cars and diminish their range, so it’s something to consider if you spend lots of time driving in the hills.

7) Is electricity expensive in your neck of the woods?

If you live in a region with expensive electricity, an electric car will be more costly to own. Still, this doesn’t mean you should rule these vehicles out. Electric cars tend to have a low cost of ownership due to the fact that they require less maintenance and repair. You won’t be taking your electric car in for an oil change anytime soon, for example. If you’re discouraged by steep electricity rates in your region, take the time to compare the total cost of ownership of an electric car with that of a gas-powered vehicle before making a final decision.

If you’re one of the fortunate car shoppers whose lifestyle supports electric car ownership, take a moment to celebrate. These whisper-quiet wonders of automotive wizardry afford you the opportunity to glide efficiently into the future.

About the Author

Warren Clarke is a consumer advice writer for CARFAX who prides himself on offering helpful advice regarding car shopping, car buying and car ownership.

Feature image credit: GlennV / Shutterstock

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U.S. coal use is down in nearly every state

by TinaDelong Posted on April 29, 2016

U.S. coal use is down in nearly every state

By on Apr 29, 2016 11:23 amShare

On Thursday, the Energy Information Administration added a new brushstroke to the portrait of King Coal in decline. In every state that doesn’t end in “-aska”, coal consumption in the electric power sector dropped between 2007 and 2015.

Overall, the United States saw a 29-percent decline in coal use for electricity generation over this time period. The map below shows the percent change in states’ power-sector coal consumption since 2007. Darker colors indicate larger percentage cuts:

The new EIA data confirms what many in the struggling coal sector already know. Earlier this month, Peabody Energy became the fourth major U.S. coal company to file for bankruptcy this year. You can blame (or thank) plummeting renewable energy prices, cheap natural gas, and regulatory pressures.

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U.S. coal use is down in nearly every state

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More than 100 years of car evolution could reveal where the industry is going next

by CelindaHolt Posted on April 6, 2016

More than 100 years of car evolution could reveal where the industry is going next

By on 6 Apr 2016 6:05 pmcommentsShare

Unless you’re a couple of crusty old white guys, the future of cars is looking pretty bright. Affordable electric cars are about to hit the market, self-driving cars are practicing their not-hitting-people skills, sleek 3D-printed cars are becoming a thing. And in a world that desperately needs to be more efficient and rely less on fossil fuels, this is all promising news.

But predicting the future of technology is always hard and often leads to egg-covered faces and tarnished reputations. The former chair of IBM, for example, once famously said that “there is a world market for maybe five computers.” And boy does that guy have about a billion eggs on his face right now.

Fortunately, a new (yet to be peer-reviewed) study on arXiv.org offers a way to predict where our technologies are going by first looking at where they’ve been. The study, led by researchers at UCLA, presents an evolutionary model for technology, and with the automobile as a case study, suggests that “electric and hybrid cars may be experiencing the early stages of a radiation event, with dramatic diversification expected in the next three to four decades.”

The model includes data on 3,575 cars made by 172 manufacturers between 1896 and 2014. It considers each car model a distinct species whose first and last years of production mark its origin and extinction, respectively. It thus offers a rate of “species” origination and extinction over time, allowing the researchers to analyze the effects of outside factors like GDP, oil prices, and market competition on the size and diversity of species types.

Not surprisingly, they found declines in origination in 1933, during the Great Depression. They also found declining extinction rates in 1935, again corresponding to the Great Depression, and in 1960, when the “Big Three” automakers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) hit their peak.

More surprising was that the model showed that the rate of new species hitting the market had decreased fourfold between 1980 and 2014 and that extinction rates slightly outpaced origination rates during that time, meaning the market has gotten less diverse. At the same time, the average lifespan of models increased.

This happened, the researchers speculate, because certain designs began to dominate, and experimenting with new ones became too costly. The resulting market consolidation increased brand loyalty, stabilized cost of production, and made for safe investing. And it showed that market competition is more strongly correlated with species diversity than other factors like GDP or the price of oil.

Which brings us back to today. Electric vehicles haven’t gone through the decades of evolution that gas-powered cars have, which is perhaps why a relatively new brand like Tesla can come in with its shaky production schedules and unsteady financial standing and shake up the market. And in the coming decades, according to this research, we can expect more competitors to join Tesla’s Model 3 and GM’s Chevy Bolt before the market ultimately settles on dependable models and creativity in the industry declines once again.

By that point, though, we’ll surely be in the midst of a flying car diversity boom. That’s one tech prediction that will never die, no matter how many times it’s blown up in people’s faces.

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Composer Noveller’s Otherworldly Soundscapes

by FionaCosta Posted on January 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Noveller
Glacial Glow and No Dreams
Fire

Courtesy of Fire Records

Anyone who was transfixed by the otherworldly beauty of Noveller’s liquid ambient soundscapes on the immersive 2015 album Fantastic Planet will want to check out the reissues of her two previous efforts. The equally spellbinding Glacial Glow (2011) and No Dreams (2013) find Noveller, aka Sarah Lipstate, subjecting her electric guitars through a host of sound-altering effects, creating intriguing noise suggesting strings, synths, full orchestras and primal rumblings from the subconscious. The mood flows gradually from pastoral to anxious and back, impermanence being the point. Just when you start to get comfortable, everything shifts, creating a sense of heightened alertness that’s both exhilarating and unsettling.

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Composer Noveller’s Otherworldly Soundscapes

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Tesla Meets the Real World, and the Real World Wins

by AlbertaKavanagh Posted on October 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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OK, that’s enough about the poor. Let’s move on to stuff that upper-middle-class folks care about. Consumer Reports has been raving about Tesla electric cars for a while—so good it broke their rating system, scoring 103 out of 100!—and I’ve been wondering all that time what would happen after a couple of years when they started getting reliability data. Today I found out:

Consumer Reports withdrew its recommendation for the Tesla Model S — a car the magazine previously raved about — because of poor reliability for the sporty electric sedan….Consumer Reports surveyed 1,400 Model S owners “who chronicled an array of detailed and complicated maladies” with the drivetrain, power equipment, charging equipment and giant iPad-like center console. They also complained about body and sunroof squeaks, rattles and leaks.

“As the older vehicles are getting up on miles, we are seeing some where the electric motor needs to be replaced and the onboard charging system won’t charge the battery,” said Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports’ director of automotive testing. “On the newer vehicles, we are seeing problems such as the sunroof not operating properly. Door handles continue to be an issue.”

Ouch. Tesla stock, unsurprisingly, took a big tumble. But here’s an interesting question for you. I figure that there are probably fewer owners of the Tesla S who are moderately annoyed than there are people who are completely panicked because they rely on RushCard for all their money and can’t get to it. However, the former are rich and the latter are poor. Which story do you think will get faster and more sustained attention?

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Tesla Meets the Real World, and the Real World Wins

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Hackers can now mess with our infrastructure. Thanks, internet

by AntonieCastles Posted on October 15, 2015

Hackers can now mess with our infrastructure. Thanks, internet

By on 15 Oct 2015commentsShare

In case you missed it, we made a video about the Internet of Things this week. It involves jelly fish and nerve nets and egg trays (oh my!), so you should really check it out, but if you don’t have the three minutes and 25 seconds, here’s the gist: The Internet of Things is the more than 1.3 billion (and growing) gadgets and sensors currently connected to the internet. These “things” can help us regulate water and energy use, route trains and cars, control internal heating systems, even keep track of the contents of our refrigerators. Basically, the IoT is a very powerful tool for sustainability.

But where there’s an internet-connected device, there’s a hacker waiting to mess with it (OK — maybe not in your fridge), which means the more we connect our infrastructure and resources to the internet, the more vulnerable we and the environment will be to cyber attacks. And according to the The New York Times, it’s already time to start worrying:

The phrase “cyber-Pearl Harbor” first appeared in the 1990s. For the last 20 years, policy makers have predicted catastrophic situations in which hackers blow up oil pipelines, contaminate the water supply, open the nation’s floodgates and send airplanes on collision courses by hacking air traffic control systems.

“They could, for example, derail passenger trains or, even more dangerous, derail trains loaded with lethal chemicals,” former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned in 2012. “They could contaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country.”

Here are some numbers that will freak you out, from the Times:

150 — the number of times that foreign hackers have infiltrated the Department of Energy’s networks in the past four years
163,228 — the number of cyber attacks against industrial control systems that occurred in January 2013, according to Dell Security
675,186 — the number of cyber attacks against industrial control systems that occurred in January 2014, according to Dell Security (most of these were in the U.S., Britain, and Finland)
1,000 — the number of energy companies across Europe and North America targeted in an attack that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was investigating last year
60 — the percent of pipeline operators in North America whose critical information was accessed by CHinese hackers in an attack on Schneider Electric
50,000 — the number of computers and servers at South Korean banks and media companies that North Korean hackers “knocked out” for several days
90 — the number of minutes that computers at various U.S. airports went down yesterday (the Department of Homeland Security has yet to say what caused the outage)

Fortunately, countries with the most advanced hacking capabilities like China, Russia, Israel, and Britain are unlikely to launch any serious attacks against the U.S., the Times reports. That’s because either: a.) They’re our allies, so attacking us would be super uncool; or b.) they realize that throwing down the cyber gauntlet with the U.S. would be trés unwise (USA! USA! USA!).

But as former head of the NSA Michael V. Hayden told the Times, the “renegade, lower-tier nation-states that have nothing to lose” — Iran, North Korea, and Islamic militant groups, for example — are cause for concern. These groups may not have the capabilities to do serious damage yet, but they’re working on it.

In 2012, U.S. intelligence officials reported that Iranian hackers attacked Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, replacing data on its computers with images of a burning American flag. In that incident, and another Iranian attack, this time against Qatari oil company RasGas, hackers tried to infiltrate oil production systems but never made it past corporate servers, the Times reports.

More recently, hackers attacked a German steel mill, causing serious damage to a blast furnace. And just last week, hackers with the Washington State National Guard showed that they could infiltrate the Snohomish County Public Utility District computer system in just 22 minutes.

So as cool as the Internet of Things is, it’s important that we don’t get ahead of ourselves here. Cybersecurity has to be a top priority, right above making your smart fridge compliment your hair every morning. I mean, we all remember the great Sony hack of 2014, right? That was a big deal, but it was mostly just an internet dump of corporate gossip. Imagine what will happen when hackers start going after our water supply and electrical grid. Shit’s gonna get real, and the aftermath will be way less fun to talk about in the grocery store checkout line.

Source:

Online Attacks on Infrastructure Are Increasing at a Worrying Pace

, The New York Times.

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