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For Tesla, the energy-storage company, the magic is in batteries

Tesla Motors Chief Elon Musk has always been a big-picture guy, and the company's chief technology officer appears to be following suit. JB Straubel, who was a keynote speaker at the Joint Venture Silicon Valley symposium near the automaker's Northern California home base recently, says the company is just as much an energy-storage company as a car maker. And he said the rate of battery-technology improvement shows no signs of slowing down, according to Green Tech Media. Straubel estimated that battery performance has improved about 40 percent during the five years between the debuts of the Tesla Roadster and the Model S. Additionally, battery density has doubled during the past decade and continues to ramp up fairly steeply. He noted that further near-term improvements will come not from the size and shape of the cell, but from improved cathode and anode materials. Those energy improvements won't just help the cars. Tesla uses a two-megawatt-hour battery pack to supply as much as 10 percent of the peak energy used at the company's factory in Fremont, CA, and will double the size of that battery-powered energy capacity within the next few months, Straubel says. Automakers like Tesla and Nissan are licking their proverbial chops at the prospect of substantially improved battery performance paired with declining battery costs as more and more lithium-ion battery packs get produced. Late last year, Navigant Research estimated that lithium-ion battery costs would fall by almost two-thirds by 2020, down to a low $180 per kilowatt hour. That should make electrified powertrains price-competitive with conventional vehicles, as electric vehicles could then command a price premium as low as $2,000 compared to their gas-powered brethren.

Tesla Model S P85D makes old women swear like sailors

The Tesla Model S P85D, in its explosive insane mode, affects different people in different ways. Some will react to its shock-and-awe acceleration in exhilerated-yet-PG astonishment, while others express their amazement with slightly less couth. Today, we share a couple of reaction videos filled mostly with examples of the latter. When Brooks Weisblat is not filming his new all-wheel-drive electric car embarrassing Dodge Challenger Hellcats on the drag strip, he is apparently turning his camera on his friends as he takes them for rides in his battery-powered sedan. As the accelerator hits the floor, mouths open wide and the air turns sailor-blue as his victims crudely enunciate their amazement. It doesn't matter if they're a woman of a certain age or massively-muscled he-man, the astonishment is cursedly palpable. Likewise, Raphael Colantonio, when not acting as a video game director or musician, relishes imbuing his friends with expletives and giggles, courtesy of his car. You can watch a safe-for-work version of Brooks' video above, or see the unedited NSFW footage from both of these Tesla owners below. Enjoy! This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

The Price Is Right plays One Away with Tesla Model S

When it comes to game shows, The Price Is Right is about as mainstream as American TV gets, beaming lust for fancy new prizes into millions of homes every day. Recently, the show held its annual Dream Car Week, which this year included a Tesla Model S along with a Porsche Cayenne, a Land Rover Range Rover Sport, a Maserati Quattroporte and an Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
The contestant invited to come on down an take a crack at the bright-red Model S was Vanessa Ansoorian, who told host Drew Carey that she had originally promised her brother a car if she won one, but once she saw what it was, she began rethinking her stance. Of course, before being able to drive away with the electric car, she needed to win the game, which in this case was One Away. That means that she got a string of numbers - 6-8-4-1-1 - and needed to move each digit up or down one to find the car's price. Can you get it? We won't give away the right answer, or if she won the car, but we look forward to your guesses in the comments below, where you can also watch the tense video clip.
In 2010, The Price Is Right also offered up a Tesla (in that case, a Roadster) on Earth Day. You can see how that attempt went here.