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Akerson calls for GM tech to stymie Tesla

Electric vehicle maker Tesla has had some good days lately as sales of the Model S have exceeded expectations as much as the company's profits, thanks in no small part to innovative thinking that has resulted in mass sales of ZEV credits to other manufacturers, free charging stations, 90-second battery swaps and manufacturer-owned dealerships. All of this has the attention of General Motors, who views Tesla as a disruptive force to the auto industry and as a threat to the 104-year-old automaker.
Case in point: GM recognizes that Tesla must be doing something right if it can sell more of its $69,900 Model S sedans than the $39,145 Volt. So what is GM doing about it? Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson assigned a small team to study Tesla so the company won't be caught off guard in the future. In an interview with Bloomberg, Steve Girsky, GM vice chairman, said, "History is littered with big companies that ignored innovation that was coming their way because you didn't know where you could be disrupted."
GM was one of those big companies at one point, and it hasn't quite broken that mold. It has struggled to move on from the old, inefficient practices of its past, leading Akerson to chide employees at a recent conference in Houston because so many in-house patents had failed to be commercialized and implemented in GM designs. This, of course, resulted in a huge research-and-development budget that was wasteful. But Akerson knows that GM must rely on innovation and a tight focus on technologies that customers want if it is to be profitable and survive in the long term.

Superchargers power Tesla Model S EVs for over 8M miles [UPDATE]

Ahead of the company's press conference at the Detroit Auto Show tomorrow, Tesla is talking up its Supercharger network with some impressive numbers. Tesla's Alexis Georgeson told AutoblogGreen that Tesla Model S EVs have driven more than eight million miles on Supercharger fill-ups. That's the equivalent of 33-and-a-half trips to the moon and back. We can see how quickly the free Superchargers are getting popular by comparing this milestone to where we were four short months ago. At the end of September, after the Superchargers had been installed for a year, Tesla drivers had hit 3.2 million miles. The rapid increase since then is due mostly to there simply being a lot more chargers being available now. Tesla representatives told us that there are over 70 Supercharger stations in the world today (58 in North America and 14 in Europe) and that six were installed in the past week. Georgeson didn't have numbers on hand to say which stations were the most popular or other details, but did say that it's safe to assume that the Supercharger in Lusk, WY (pictured), part of a sweeping 'S' shape from Los Angeles through the northern US and on to Chicago and the East Coast, is not the most frequently visited. The next target for expansion is finishing the Boston-to-Miami corridor, which means putting in more Superchargers in North Florida and South Carolina. At CES last week, the Supercharger network won our AOL Technology of the Year award. *UPDATE: Tesla just let us know that 8 million is a little premature. The current number is actually closer to 7.5 million, but the total should crest the 8-million mark soon.

Consumer Reports scores Tesla Model S 99 out of 100 [w/video]

Consumer Reports is awfully fond of the Tesla Model S. The EV managed to pull down an impressive score of 99 out of 100 in the organization's evaluation, besting the Porsche Panamera Hybrid by a full 16 points. CR calls the battery-operated sedan "the most practical electric car we've ever tested" thanks to its 200 mile range and blistering 5.6-second dash to 60 miles per hour. Testers also had praise for the vehicle's excellent handling characteristics and clever packaging, but found issue with the large touch screen mounted in the center of the dash. According to CR, the screen requires too much time looking down and away from the road.
The publication also called out the car for skipping the spare tire, compressor and run flat tires, but those issues weren't enough to keep the machine from earning a top nod. You can head over to Consumer Reports to read the full review for yourself, and be sure to check out the video below for a better picture of the machine's highlights, including some EV drifting (even CR likes to have some fun).