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Recharge Wrap-up: Formula E car swap video, Lyft adds carpooling, new Tesla book

Curious to see how the Formula E car swap goes down? During each hour-long race (or ePrix, as the series calls them), drivers have to make a pit stop to switch cars as the battery runs down. Of course, they want to do it as quickly as possible. It's kind of a tricky dance extricating oneself from the cockpit of one car and slipping into the seat of another facing the opposite direction. See the maneuver in the video below and read more at Jalopnik. A new report forecasts that the CNG and LPG vehicle market will be worth nearly $5.2 billion by 2019. The report cites fluctuating gasoline and diesel prices, and the relatively low prices of these alternative fuels, for their growing popularity. The report also breaks down the popularity of natural gas and propane vehicles in different parts up the world. In the Asia-Pacific region, China is the largest consumer. In Europe, CNG thrives in Italy, while LPG is most popular in Turkey and Poland. Meanwhile, CNG remains a tough sell in America, while South America has a healthy market. Learn more in the press release below or at Markets and Markets. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are testing trucks connected to overhead electric wires to reduce emissions and improve air quality. The eHighway, as the project is called, will cost $13.5 million and will use battery electric and hybrid trucks to move cargo around the ports along a one-mile stretch of wires. The trucks, made by Siemens and Volvo, also have the ability to disconnect from the wires and drive under their own power. See more in the video below or read more at ABC7. Lyft is introducing its own carpooling feature to its car-hailing app. Yesterday, we reported that its competitor Uber is testing UberPool, and Lyft is now doing something similar to encourage people to share rides. Lyft Line offers discounted rides, and matches passengers who are going to nearby destinations around the same time. Lyft Line offers passengers a guaranteed price before they accept the ride. Lyft is launching the carpooling service in San Francisco, and hopes to expand it from there. Read the in-depth article at The New York Times. A new book is available called Tesla Motors: How Elon Musk and Company Made Electric Cars Cool, and Sparked the Next Tech Revolution. Written by Charles Morris, senior editor of Charged, it chronicles the history of the famed electric automaker, its achievements in business and technology and the people responsible for Tesla's success.

Tesla gigafactory will source materials from North America to keep things green

It's one thing for the Big 3 to get tires and engine parts from cities along the US Rust Belt. It's another thing altogether, though, for Tesla Motors to source far more esoteric materials like graphite, cobalt and lithium from Canada and the northern US. But that's what the California-based company has in mind, and it's all in the name of environmental friendliness and cost, Bloomberg News says. Tesla is looking to bring its raw-material sourcing to this side of the Pond by the time it opens its massive gigafactory that may produce as many as 500,000 vehicles annually, Bloomberg says, citing Tesla spokeswoman Liz Jarvis-Shean. And while the raw-material price may be higher (and driven up further with the additional demand from Tesla), those costs may be offset by the fact that there will be far less transportation and logistics involved. "When all costs are considered, it should be cheaper to source most materials from as nearby as possible" - Tesla's Liz Jarvis-Shean "Transportation impacts are very significant on the heaviest raw materials if they need to be moved from halfway around the world," Jarvis-Shean wrote in an e-mail to AutoblogGreen, adding that there will be additional cost savings from reduced shipping time and less transit-related working capital requirements. "In the long term, when all costs are considered, it should be cheaper to source most materials from as nearby as possible." There are geopolitical issues as well. For instance, China is shutting down some of its graphite mines because of pollution issues, while much of the world's cobalt comes from war-torn Congo, though Tesla says it gets its cobalt from the Philippines. Most of the graphite in Tesla's Model S is of the synthetic variety from Japan and Europe. Of course, Tesla's still trying to figure out where to put its gigafactory, and has said it will be in one of four states: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico or Texas. The factory will cost an estimated $5 billion and may support 6,500 jobs, so state governments are already starting to campaign to be the automaker's future production home. Regardless, Jarvis-Shean estimated that the sheer economies of scale from the gigafactory will reduce battery-pack costs per kilowatt hour for the company's "mass market" model (sometimes referred to as the Model E) by 30 percent after a full year of production.

Tesla hires Hacker Princess Kristin Paget away from Apple

Might it be that one of Apple Computer's software-security gurus wasn't quite, ahem, secure enough to resist the pull of Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk? Kristin Paget, who held the illustrious title of "Hacker Princess" at Cupertino, CA-based Apple, starts working for nearby Tesla this week, Re/code says. Paget would only say on her Twitter feed that the gig was "something security-related" and added that she "shouldn't say too much." Paget would only say that the gig was "something security-related." Paget joined Apple in 2012 after spending time with Microsoft, where she was responsible for security in the Vista operating system. Paget was also known within the Silicon Valley cognoscenti for her instructions on how to build a fake cell tower that could intercept cellphone calls. Tesla's headquarters in Fremont are just 25 miles from Apple's, but the poaching is far more than merely geographic. Tesla has always been big on technological advancements and has been steadily making over-the-air software upgrades to the Model S. Most recently, Musk and Tesla Chief Technology Officer Straubel toured Western Europe, talkind to Tesla owners and followers. They said the company was on the cusp of releasing Version 6.0 of the Model S software, which includes more suspension control as well as real-time traffic data. We wonder what features Paget will bring to Version 7. Featured Gallery Tesla Model S: Quick Spin View 33 Photos News Source: Re/code via Pulse2Image Credit: Copyright 2014 AOL Green Tesla Electric microsoft security software