Month: September 2014
Today I went to the Drive Electric Week event at XXX Rootbeer in Issaquah, Washington. It was a great event, with lots of different electric vehicles – including a few Tesla Roadsters – and Model S. While there I met Steven Lough, President Emeritus of the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association. Steven told me about this video of him test driving a Tesla Roadster in a parking lot here in Bellevue (it looks like the old K-Mart lot which is now home to LA Fitness and Walmart). Fun video, I haven’t yet had the pleasure of driving a Tesla Roadster, but the video reminds me of Kids Having Fun in a Tesla.
The Model S navigation system will be a lot smarter. Navigation will now provide route suggestions based on real-time traffic and calculate estimated travel times accordingly. It will also update dynamically as traffic conditions change throughout your trip. This feature will also take into account traffic data shared by other Tesla vehicles on the road.
Navigation isn’t particularly useful when commuting between home and work because most of us usually know the way. But if traffic has an effect on a typical route, it’s helpful to know in advance. Now, Model S will monitor traffic before you even start your weekday commute and alert you with a pop-up message on the 17-inch touchscreen when a faster route is available.
Model S will synch with your smartphone to bring you a large in-car view of your daily schedule. If you’ve already set locations for particular events, you don’t have to worry about re-entering the details into your car’s navigation system. Instead, you can just tap on the event in your calendar to bring up route directions.
You will have the ability to start your Model S using only your smartphone. This function, which is particularly useful if you forget your key fob, will be accessible through the Tesla mobile app and requires you to input your password for each use.
If you regularly drive on roads or driveways that require higher than normal clearance, your Model S will remember where you previously selected high ride heights and automatically adjust the air suspension at those locations. This feature will be especially handy for people who have steep driveways. (Model S must be equipped with air suspension for this function to work.)
You can now make your Model S nickname official. The car’s name will appear in the Tesla mobile app and in the About Your Tesla section on the touchscreen. I’m still not sure what I will call my Model S when I get it, but am thinking ‘Manifestation’ or simply “Joe Tesla”.
A new power management option will put Model S into energy saving mode at night to help maximize available energy. There’ll also be an option that allows the Tesla mobile app to always connect immediately to the car, while still saving power.
- Elon Musk: Bloomberg Risk Takers (2011, 52m, Moreflicks**)
Available on Netflix US and Netflix Canada. Netflix UK Workaround* below
SEARCH LINK (select 52 minutes long video) - National Geographic Megafactories: Tesla (45m) Great documentary. Very good production quality.
SEARCH LINK (select 44,45 or 46 minutes long video) - Revenge of the Electric Car (2011, 1h 29m, Moreflicks**)
Available on Netflix US, Canada, Norway. Netflix UK Workaround* below.
SEARCH LINK (select 89 minutes long video)
- Official Tesla Model S walkthrough video, 27m, LINK
- Official Tesla Model S touch screen video, 31m, LINK
- Mike Anthony interviews four Model S owners, LINK
- Bjørn Nyland videos LINK
- CNET videos LINK
- 2012: http://www.teslamotors.com/2012shareholdermeeting
- 2013: http://www.teslamotors.com/2013shareholdermeeting
- 2014: http://www.teslamotors.com/2014shareholdermeeting
- Elon Musk, Model X Reveal, 9 Feb 2012, LINK
- Fireside Chat With Elon Musk, Pando Monthly, 12 Jul 2012, 1h 3m, LINK
- 2013 MotorTrend Car Of The Year, 12 Nov 2012, 20m, LINK
- Elon Musk, TED Talks, Feb 2013, 21m, LINK1, LINK2
- Elon Musk and Dr Steven Chu, 2013 ARPA-E Summit, 26 Feb 2013, 34m, LINK
- A Conversation with Elon Musk, Khan Academy, 17 Apr 2013, 48m, LINK
- Interview with Elon and Kimbal Musk, Milken Institute, 29 Apr 2013, 50m, LINK
- 2013 Teslive Event, 15 Jul 2013, 59m, LINK
- Elon Musk Dutch TV Interview, 20 Aug 2013, 26m, SEARCH LINK (select 26 minutes long video)
- Elon Musk Interview, Stanford GSB 2013, 2 Oct 2013, 53m, LINK
- Elon Musk NYTimes DealBook Interview, 12 Nov 2013, 24m, LINK
- Elon Musk Interview, LA World Affairs Council, 18 Nov 2013, 46m LINK
- Elon Musk Interview, Dell World 2013, 12 Dec 2013, 45m, LINK
- Elon Musk, Townhall meeting in Amsterdam, 2 Feb 2014, 56m, LINK
- Elon Musk, California Public Utilities Commission, 27 Feb 2014, 1h 53m, LINK
- Elon Musk, TV Interview in China, 22 Apr 2014, 23m, SEARCH LINK (select 23 minutes long video)
- Elon Musk, 2014 Export-Import Bank Conference, 25 Apr 2014, 28m, LINK
- CNBC’s number 1 disruptor Elon Musk, 17 Jun 2014, 21m, LINK
- Gigafactory Announcement, 4 Sep 2014, 25m, LINK
- Elon Musk, Japan Deliveries, 8 Sep 2014, 31m, LINK
Batteries
- About Tesla, Nissan, Volt batteries by Professor Jeff Dahn, 1h 13m, LINK
- Roadster interview, LINK
- Electric cars presentation, LINK
- 2014 Energy Storage Symposium Keynote, LINK
- 2013 GCEP Symposium, LINK
- 2013 Energy@Stanford, LINK
- Model S first deliveries, 22 Jun 2012, LINK
- Stanford Seminar by Dave Duff from Telsa Motors, 13 Nov 2012, 1h 17m, LINK
- Franz von Holzhausen (Tesla Motors Chief Designer), Interview, 15 Nov 2013, LINK
- Marc Tarpenning (Tesla Motors co-founder), Tesla Motors History, 5 Mar 2014, 1h 43m, LINK
- Bloomberg News, Tesla v. Dealerships, 17 Apr 2014, 48m, LINK
- Data management at Tesla factory using Tableau software, 2 Jun 2014, 51m, LINK
Content Indirectly Related To Tesla
- Radio Program About NUMMI Factory (61 minutes)
This is a sad story about Toyota and GM’s Nummi Factory. Today that building is Tesla’s Fremont Factory where they build the cars. Tesla bought it from Toyota. It had a capacity of 500.000 cars per year. Elon Musk said in the future Tesla will restore the factory to its former capacity.
In September 2014 during his Japan trip Elon said they have a lot of things to learn from Toyota. This radio program provides some background on why Elon said that. It gives a glance into a fascinating piece of history where two companies with very different cultures, Toyota and GM collided with each other. Maybe it also gives us some clues where Tesla could go and what kind of company they could become.
Click on the small arrow under the picture. There is a 23 second radio advert before it starts.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/NUMMI - Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006, 92m, Documentary, Moreflicks**)
Elon Musk talked about this documentary many times (link). He said when GM made the EV1 he thought they would continue with EV2, EV3. But when they crushed the EV1 that’s when he knew electric cars wouldn’t succeed without a new car company. In other interviews Elon said his motivation is to take a sad thing and change it into a positive. This documentary gives us an idea on the background why Tesla Motors was started.
SEARCH LINK (select 92 minutes long video)
- Sign up to Netflix UK on www.netflix.com
- In Google Chrome, download the extension ZenMate from here:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/zenmate
- When you install ZenMate it asks you for your email. This is not important. If you want you can enter a bogus email and make up a password. You won’t need these later.
- In Chrome on top right click on the green ZenMate icon and make sure location is US and it says ON.
- Go to netflix.com and sign in with your Netflix UK login details.
Love to see Tesla being shared with children and the world. Check out this short video from a Tesla Motors Model S owner:
Tesla Spec from Rob Perez on Vimeo.
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Photo of Jacqueline Kennedy in a Tesla Model S. I sent a framed large photo of this to Elon Musk and never heard a word. |