Tuesday, 21 April 2015

Monaco Top Marques 2015 : Larte Design and Tesla Model S



You are perfectly entitled to find that the Tesla Model S has a soft design and not very aggressive. Certainly the initial design is very successful, but inject a little more testosterone in the lines would not have been refused by many. The Russians with the comapny Larte Design have what you need with the "Elizabeta".It is in the Top Marques show in Monaco that Larte Design presented for the first time its aesthetic modification program called the Model S Elizabeta. The shapely style of the sedan is very attractive originally but it has nothing really vindictive, which may be surprising compared to incredible performance it offers. 

For the Elizabeta, we can find different appendages in carbon fiber or basalt fiber, just to gain a few pounds, are declined on the sedan 0 emission. Tesla Model S Elizabeta leaving discover its shields, air intakes, reworked grille and side skirts or even diffuser and spoiler.

Larte Design also promises wheels but also made some adjustments to the cockpit. Finally the company also announced
that the interior was also redesigned and equipped with a unique audio system but photos were not unfortunately shown.






Elon Musk nearly sold Tesla to Google in 2013


       This story is excerpted and adapted from Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, due out May 19 from Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins.

On May 8, 2013, Tesla Motors shocked just about everyone by posting its first-ever quarterly profit, reporting higher-than-expected demand for its Model S electric sedan. That moment marked the beginning of a turnaround for Elon Musk’s tumultuous automaker. The next year would see the Model S win most of the automotive industry’s major awards and Tesla’s share price rise roughly fivefold, to more than $200. The 2013 profit announcement was fortuitous. Just weeks before, Tesla had been on the verge of bankruptcy.

Earlier in 2013 the company was struggling to turn preorders of its vehicles into actual sales. As Musk put his staff on crisis footing to save Tesla, he also began negotiating a deal to sell the company to Google through his friend Larry Page, the search giant’s co-founder and chief executive officer, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal. 

Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes and Google spokeswoman Rachel Whetstone declined to comment. “I don’t want to speculate on rumors,” Page said when I asked him if Google had considered buying Tesla, adding that a “car company is pretty far from what Google knows.”
Although Tesla spent several years designing and building its flagship Model S, the car was still missing some features when it went on sale in June 2012. Its safety elements, software, and interior room were better than those of most luxury cars, but it didn’t offer the parking sensors and radar-assisted cruise control of rivals like BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Glitches with the 2012 Model S door handle irked early buyers, as did some aesthetic choices such as the car’s sun visors, which had unsightly seams.

A big part of the problem was a lack of resources, says former Tesla engineer Ali Javidan. “It was either hire a team of 50 people right away to make one of these things happen, or implement things as best and as fast as you could.” Musk chose the latter, Javidan says. Tesla also struggled to get top-rate suppliers to take it seriously, says chief designer Franz von Holzhausen. With the sun visors, he says, “We ended up having to go to a third-rate supplier and then work on fixing the situation after the car had already started shipping.”

Tesla’s first customers were proto-typical early adopters who wanted a computer on wheels. By the end of 2012, many were grumbling about the bugs still to be worked out, and sales slowed to a trickle. “The word of mouth on the car sucked,” Musk says. By Valentine’s Day 2013, Tesla was heading toward a death spiral of missed sales targets and falling shares. The company’s executives had also hidden the severity of the problem from the intensely demanding Musk. When he found out, he pulled staff from every department — engineering, design, finance, HR — into a meeting and ordered them to call people who’d reserved Teslas and close those sales. “If we don’t deliver these cars, we are f---ed,” Musk told the employees, according to a person at the meeting. “So I don’t care what job you were doing. Your new job is delivering cars.”

Read more here 

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

New Tesla product at the end of April!


Elon Musk CEO of Tesla announced a surprise for the end of April.

Elon Musk announced via a tweet an important new Tesla product line, which will be unveiled on April 30!



He published via a tweet today that it won’t be a car. The CEO and co-founder of Tesla promised a new product that will be unveiled in his design studio in Hawthorne. He didn’t specify whether it is a mechanical product, a bicycle,an electric motorcycle, or anew range of innovative products.

After electric cars, Tesla could propose a motorcycle?



LiveWire, the electric motorcycle prototype of Harley Davidson

Various rumors indicate Elon Musk could unveil an electric power motorcycle. Tesla Group already offers two cars, the Model S (with the option P85D) and the Model X. By positioning itself in the world of motorcycles, the group could appeal to a wider audience and a new community. An exceptional motorcycle like the Tesla cars could be proposed in April.

Other rumors suggest that the CEO of Tesla could produce electric batteries for household use that could come equip people who live in remote areas.

All this is based on rumors, so it’s necessary to wait until the end of April…

Monday, 30 March 2015

P85D Update

Already capable of impressive performance, the Tesla S P85D will become even more efficient with a change in its software.


Tesla P85D is now known for its formidable performance. This sedan is already able to beat a BMW M4, and the last P85D 700 horsepower version of the same can be measured by a Lamborghini Aventador and a Ferrari.




 And P85D model will soon be able to further accelerate a little louder: the boss Elon Musk said on twitter that last software update would allow the sedan to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (96 km / h) in 3.1 seconds. It's getting very quick!


Tesla Model S P85D vs Lamborghini Aventador

Can An Electric sedan beat a Lamborghini Aventador on a straight race? Warning, you would be wrong to leave with a priori.
The Lamborghini Aventador is among the best sprinters in the world. With its four-wheel drive and 700 horsepower, it can jump from 0 to 100 km in 2.9 seconds. Only the Nissan GT-R, Porsche 918 Spyder, the Bugatti Veyron, the LaFerrari and P1 are officially better.

While the Tesla S is known for its impressive acceleration capabilities (already seen beating a BMW M4), so you can think it’s slower than the Italian supercar straight.

But here there is a Tesla S P85D pushed to 700 horsepower. Surprising the Italian!











Saturday, 28 March 2015

Tesla P85D VS Ferrari 458 Italia

We saw that the Tesla model S P85D is not exactly a weak electric car. With pure acceleration, it is able to cope with very powerful supercar thanks to its high power electric engines: 700 hp in total. After the BMW M4 last week, the P85D version of the Tesla S faces this time an Italian high performance car: the Ferrari 458 Italia. And yes, this big electric sedan jumped like a supercar.



 

News Tesla: Navigation, Autopilot, Model X

19 of March 24, 2015 Elon Musk announced an embedded system update in the Model S that optimizes paths to avoid the anxiety of break down batteries. Not surprisingly, the press conference involved a software update for Model S. Elon Musk explains that most cars don’t upgrade with time but the Model S "upgrades the night when you sleep.” The CEO of Tesla presented the future developments of the embedded system of the Model S.

Version 6.2.
With this update, called 6.2,  Tesla says that you won’t break down anymore because of battery failure, unless intentionally. Two new features will ensure that: "Range Insurance" and "Trip Planner".
The "Range Insurance" communicates in real time with the superchargers network and is informed in case of default or risk of not having free space. Thus, the driver is well informed when he may not be able to recharge or if he crosses a "white zone" without superchargers.




It must be said that Tesla is beginning to have a dense network of superchargers, including the USA
Note that the calculations performed by "Range Insurance" take into account the landform, the weather and the wind; which makes sense when you consider the impact of these elements on the autonomy of the car.



The "Trip Planner" goes even further: When planning your trip, this tool provides the most optimized journey taking into account the recharge possibilities, use of superchargers network and recharge duration.

He also said that during testing, the brand's engineers were able to travel from San Francisco to Seattle almost without having to touch the car.
In summary, Tesla wants to make life easier for users during long journeys based on sophisticated software coupled with information from its charging network.
Available in ten days, this update also includes significant security enhancements: blind spot warning, side collision warning, automatic emergency braking, etc.


Version 7

During the press conference, Elon Musk has also unveiled version 7 of its software, which should arrive by the end of the year. It will include in particular the "autopilot".


Tesla boss said this feature has to be seen like automatic pilot of a plane: the vehicle will be able to drive alone, but vigilance will be required of the user. Thus, alerts will ask the driver if all goes well when not touch the wheel for a while.


 
The Model X

If Elon Musk has not given many details about the Model X, he still said that these innovations will be present in the Model X. The latter should be presented this summer and Elon Musk assured it will be a car with features "never seen in the automobile industry" so far.