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In hindsight, Musk wouldn't use Lotus for Tesla Roadster

The world will be a different place after Elon Musk builds a time traveling device (don't ask us how we know that will happen). For one thing, the Tesla Roadster of the rewritten future will not have been built using the chassis of the Lotus Elise. Also, verb tenses will be becoming even more confusing and, possibly, awkward. "We ended up changing most of the damn car" – Elon Musk We know about the not-using-the-Lotus thing because the Tesla Motors CEO said as much yesterday at the World Energy Innovation Forum at the Tesla Factory in Fremont. The two-day event, which also offers Model S test rides and a factory tour for attendees, featured a fireside chat with the electric automaker's CEO and Ira Ehrenpreis. During the discussion, Musk revealed that if he had to do it over again, he would have built the Roadster from the ground up instead of using the Lotus Elise chassis. "We ended up changing most of the damn car, so we thought later, why did we do that," he said. Another problem with the original idea for the car was the drivetrain. At first, Tesla had meant to use the motor and other propulsive bits from AC Propulsion, only to find that powertrain didn't work well in a commercial application. Instead Tesla only licensed the reductive charging patent, which allowed some integration of the inverter and charger. Besides knocking Tesla's own early efforts, the outspoken entrepreneur took a couple swings at other technologies with quotable quotes such as: "The internal combustion engine is a ridiculous thing!" and "Current lithium ion technology is better than theoretical fuel cell limits. So, game over. Why bother with fuel cells?" Looks like there are some things Musk is not interested in going back in time and changing.

Panasonic has an idea to be Tesla's one and only gigafactory partner

Samsung? Who's Samsung? That's what Panasonic is asking as the electronics conglomerate makes it clear it is looking to secure its position in Tesla Motors' plans to build a huge car-battery factory over the next three years. Panasonic is now saying it expects to be the only battery manufacturer partner for Tesla's so-called gigafactory, Reuters says, citing comments from Panasonic senior executive Yoshio Ito. Ito says his company has been in talks with Tesla about its construction plans, and while Samsung started supplying Tesla's batteries last year, Panasonic, which makes Tesla's lithium-ion cells, is looking for solo billing once the $5-billion factory goes live in 2017. All Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said so far is that he expects Panasonic to be the main partner in the gigafactory. Tesla, when contacted by AutoblogGreen, declined to comment on Ito's comments. Last fall, Panasonic and Tesla reached an agreement in which Panasonic would increase its supply of battery cells to Tesla by a factor of 10 within the next three years, and Panasonic says its already doubled its battery-production investment this year largely because of the California automaker. That said, Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga said in March that there was significant risk involved in any investment in the gigafactory and hadn't committed to any investment as of that time. So Ito's comments may merely be a negotiation ploy. Tesla is looking for partners to shoulder about $3 billion of the $5 billion gigafactory cost. Earlier this month, Lux Research estimated that Panasonic has a 39-percent global market share for plug-in and hybrid batteries. NEC has 27 percent and LG Chem has nine percent.

Has Tesla's fire chilled the battery car market?

The nascent battery-car market just might be short-circuiting.
If this year is average, about 194,000 vehicles will catch fire before the ball drops in Times Square. And, for the moment at least, just one of them will have been a Tesla Model S. Of course, it didn't help that a passerby happened to catch that blaze in the Seattle suburbs earlier this month, quickly posting the video on YouTube (you can watch it yourself below).