Tesla Model S: Elon Musk’s sedan tries to take electric cars mainstream – The Verge

Tesla Model S P100D review: the ultimate status symbol of California cool

2017-09-08T11:33:23-04:00

From the driver's seat of a flaming-red Tesla Model S, a young teenage boy sends a text message: "Gotta charge my car see you in the AM." It's a scene from the family-friendly movie Disconnected, in which the Tesla Model S plays a starring role.

The lead character Shawn, played by Bridger Zadina, makes an eight-hour journey from Los Angeles up to Santa Cruz. Shawn, who is too young to have a driver's license, steals the car from parents' garage in an act of rebellion and desperate teenage desire: he needed an escape route to reach his crush. There's a scene that depicts his journey, window-down, wind whipping, as the gigantic 17-inch Tesla …

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Tesla loses fight with dealers to sell its cars in Texas

2015-05-31T15:13:47-04:00

Tesla doesn't just make unique cars - it has a pretty unique way of selling them, too. The company handles sales directly, meaning there are no dealerships. And as you might expect, powerful auto dealers across the United States are not a fan of that business model. Unfortunately for CEO Elon Musk, it appears he's just lost a political battle in Texas over the right to sell Teslas there.

The Texas State Legislature has failed to vote on two separate bills that would have allowed the electric car company to sell its cars directly to customers. The bills were designed to bypass an older, dealer-backed law on the books that prohibits manufactu …

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This is Tesla’s D: an all-wheel-drive Model S with eyes on the road

2014-10-09T22:42:07-04:00

It's a typically warm fall night in Los Angeles, and just after sunset Elon Musk takes the wraps off "the D." This isn't a lewd joke much of the internet imagined: it's the company's new dual-motor, all-wheel-drive version of its Model S sedan, one that promises faster acceleration, and better performance in inclement weather - one of the S' biggest weaknesses. And as Musk would like everybody to know, it's fast. Really fast.

"We're able to improve everything about the car," Musk says after summoning the car's chassis from beneath the stage while thumping music flows out over a large crowd of people who have spent the past hour sipping free …

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Car thief becomes first person to die in a Tesla Model S crash

2014-07-10T17:14:02-04:00

Elon Musk can no longer say that no one's ever died in a Tesla automobile crash. But few people will be pointing fingers at the electric car maker for this senseless tragedy. Earlier this month, 26-year-old Joshua Slot managed to successfully ride off with a Model S he'd stolen from a Tesla service center in Los Angeles, but police quickly spotted the luxury vehicle and gave chase. According to Park Labrea News, the high-speed pursuit was eventually called off after officers were involved in a fender bender of their own, leaving the police department strained for resources and without any feasible way of catching up to Slot. Reports claim he …

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Tesla could resume sales in New Jersey with new zero emissions bill

2014-06-05T20:20:19-04:00

A new bill that passed New Jersey state assembly today could allow Tesla to resume sales there, just two months after a statewide ban went into effect. The state Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee today approved A3216, a bill that lets companies sell their zero-emission cars directly to consumers with certain strings attached. Those include limiting the number of dealerships to four, as well as offering one or more service facilities to make repairs, reports The Star-Ledger.

Sales of Tesla vehicles were banned in the state beginning April 1st, following a decision from the state's Motor Vehicle Commission that prevented direct to consumer …

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Tesla adds titanium shield to Model S to prevent battery fires in accidents

2014-03-28T10:08:32-04:00

Last year, a few of Tesla's Model S vehicles caught on fire following accidents - a situation that caused a bit of embarrassing public backlash for Elon Musk and his company. Despite the fact that Musk has steadfastly defended the safety of his vehicle, the company has announced a fix for the cause of the reported fires. In a post on Medium, Musk details a new titanium shield and aluminum deflector plates that protect the underbody of the vehicle - all cars produced after March 6th will have this new safety system in place, and existing vehicles can have it added free of charge.

"There is no safer car on the road than a Tesla."

This should fi …

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Tesla announces plans to build battery-producing ‘Gigafactory’ in the US by 2017

2014-02-26T17:49:03-05:00

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Being able to produce massive batteries is a core part of Tesla's electric car business, and the company has just announced plans to get even better at that. The company just announced plans to build a "Gigafactory," a US-based facility that'll focus on manufacturing lithium ion batteries - and Tesla's plans for this factory are highly ambitious. By 2020 Tesla says it hopes its Gigafactory will produce as many batteries as were produced worldwide in 2013.

To meet that goal, Tesla will be partnering with other battery-manufacturing partners in an effort to improve the economics of scale and reduce costs - the company says after one year of o …

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Tesla connects US coast-to-coast supercharger network

2014-01-27T09:04:33-05:00

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Electric car maker Tesla has connected the eastern and western portions of their supercharger network, allowing for the first coast-to-coast road trips that rely entirely on the newer, faster model of charger. The company says roughly 80 percent of the supercharger network is now complete, with both coastal legs and much of Texas fully covered. The official announcement came from Tesla Monday morning, but according to the charging network Plugshare, the first supercharger-powered coast-to-coast trip was completed Saturday night.

The coast-to-coast connection marks a new milestone for Tesla, which has used the ambitious new network to combat …

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NHTSA tells Tesla there’s no such thing as a 5.4-star crash rating

2013-11-23T03:33:01-05:00

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In August, Tesla Motors announced that its Model S electric vehicle had received the highest safety rating in the United States, achieving "a new combined record of 5.4 stars" based on crash test data. There's only one problem with that: the US National Highway Transportation Safety Adminstration, which conducts those tests, doesn't give ratings over five stars - period. So today, the NHTSA is attempting to set the record straight, revising its advertising guidelines to forbid automakers from stating that a car received a higher score.

The new advertising guidelines actually don't explicitly mention Tesla, and they're really not solely targ …

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Tesla calls for federal safety investigation of Model S fires

2013-11-19T10:36:32-05:00

via cdn3.sbnation.com

Tesla has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to investigate recent fires in two of its Model S electric cars. In a blog post, company CEO Elon Musk writes that while he believes the Model S is incredibly safe - any safer car, he writes "would have to possess mystical powers of healing" - Tesla is taking several actions to address the fires, including initiating an NHTSA investigation to determine if a recall is needed. Though the investigation could find defects in the Model S, Musk hopes that the NHTSA will clear his car of fault, potentially heading off the perception that electric vehicles are less safe than …

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