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Tesla completes cross-country Supercharger drive in Model S EVs

It wasn't without problems, but Tesla's record-setting electric drive attempt has crossed the finish line. The pair of Tesla Model S EVs that left Los Angeles late last week has made it to New York City using nothing but Supercharger power. Last week, Tesla said the cars would be trying to set a Guinness World Record prize for the "lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the United States." According to Tesla, the Guinness team is now looking at the data to assess if that record was actually set. We don't know how much time was spent charging during the drive, but Tesla said that the two cars each put on 3,464.5 miles and used a total of 1,197.8 kWh. The entire drive took 76.5 hours. Tesla CEO Elon Musk told CBS that the trip was an "important, historic milestone." The weather wasn't exactly forgiving during that time, but the 15-person team made it safely to NYC in the early morning hours yesterday. The biggest problem was when one vehicle broke down near Mitchell, SD. Fortunately for the record attempt, it was not one of the Model S EVs, but one of the gas-powered support vehicles. This hampered the rotation system the drivers had: eight-hour drive shifts, eight-hour navigator shifts, eight-hour sleep shifts in one of two support vans. Tesla quickly bought plane tickets for the drivers left behind, and you can read details about this and more in the official blog posts here. Related Gallery Tesla Supercharger News Source: Tesla Motors, CBS Green Tesla Electric

Recharge Wrap-up: Tesla software suggestions, 'Audi at home' car sharing

Norwegian Tesla buff Bjorn Nyland wants the Tesla community to offer suggestions for the Firmware 7.1 over-the-air update. 7.0 includes a variety of small changes to the interface design, which Nyland discusses in depth in the video above. He offers constructive criticism, especially for things like the placement of certain data within the display. He calls upon other drivers to suggest their own changes and features they'd like to see in future updates. Nyland plans to tweet at Elon Musk once there are enough comments with hopes that Tesla will take the community's suggestions into consideration. See the video above, and read more at Teslarati. A survey of NRG eVgo stations found that drivers use DC fast charging over Level 2 charging by a ratio of 12 to 1. While businesses might prefer to install a Level 2 charger because it is cheaper and could help convince the customer to linger longer while they wait for a charge, this study suggests that DC charging could actually be a better way to attract customers. But the question is how to make DC charging sustainable for businesses with regard to the costs. Read more at Green Car Reports. Audi is launching its vehicle sharing program at luxury residences in San Francisco and Miami this week. Called "Audi at home," the program provides residents with a fleet of Audi vehicles at their disposal at either hourly or daily rates. The cars – the S7, S5 Cabriolet, SQ5, TT Roadster, Q7, and RS5 Cabriolet – are all of the Prestige trim level. Drivers needn't worry about mileage charges, tolls, fuel costs, insurance, or cleaning. Just reserve the car online, and drop it off at the property's valet when finished. Audi at home is launching at the Lumina luxury condos in San Francisco and at the Four Seasons Residences in Miami, with expansion to more cities planned for the future. Read more from Audi. Ballard is partnering with bus manufacturer King Long to build fuel cell buses in China. The two companies will work together to design and deploy the hydrogen-powered buses first in China, then in King Long's global network. "We are delighted to be working with the second largest bus OEM in the world on this important fuel cell bus design and market opportunity," says Ballard President and CEO Randy MacEwen. "Together, we are looking to optimize the design in order to improve performance, while lowering cost.

Tesla Model S has secret menu that shows possible upcoming features

The Telsa Model S may have won just about every automotive award it could last year, but that doesn't mean it's a perfect vehicle. Far from it. Drivers have been asking when the already high-tech vehicle will get somewhat normal features, like adaptive cruise control or blind spot detection. Well, a new video of menus hidden within the giant touch screen in the Model S shows that those two features might be coming soon, along with a lane departure warning. When these options might arrive is anyone's guess, but the video (see it below) shows that the software is at least in the prototype stage. In any case, unless Tesla has installed a bunch of sensors and not told anyone about them, turning these features on will require more than just a software update.
The hidden menu also shows some as-of-yet-unannounced apps in the car's software: an image viewer, a sketch pad, a scheduler/calendar and various test apps.
The way you access these menus, apparently, is by holding down the Tesla logo on the main menu for a few seconds and then entering an access code. We don't know this password and we also don't recommend fooling around in there, since it looks like you might be able to muck things up, but good. We have enough trouble rooting our phones and we're not sure we'd like to take the risk with an $70,000+ electric vehicle. But if someone else wants to do so and post a video online, then we're happy to watch.