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Is BMW the only real competition to Tesla Motors?

Tesla Motors chief Elon Musk probably isn't losing a ton of sleep over the new plug-in efforts by the makers of the "Ultimate Driving Machine," but maybe he should. That's what the Motley Fool is saying, presenting the case that the California company's real competition will come from BMW. What about the plug-in efforts of General Motors or Ford? Musk can hit the snooze, Motley Fool says. Unlike automakers that are "jamming battery packs into the existing vehicle design," BMW has built its i3 battery-electric and i8 plug-in hybrid supercar from the ground up. Like Tesla, BMW puts its battery packs into the floor of its vehicles. Most importantly, the i3 - and especially the i8 - are real performers. While the i8 is about 40-percent more expensive than the Tesla, it matches the Model S's 0-60 mile per hour acceleration times and handily beats its top speed figures. Tesla sold about 6,900 vehicles during the last three months of 2013 and BMW had more than 10,000 i3 orders on the books by late November and the first year's allotment of i8s is already sold out. The German automaker has what the Fool calls an "outside chance" of selling more plug-in vehicles than Tesla by next year, but Tesla is gearing up its gigafactory to get ready to sell a half-million EVs in 2020, so the race is most certainly on. You can read more over on the Fool.

Ludacris' Restored Acura Legend Presented at SEMA | Autoblog Minute

As Acura prepared for the 2015 SEMA show, the trade show for automotive aftermarket professionals and enthusiasts, they had a chance to take on a unique project: Restoring a damaged ?93 Acura Legend owned by Ludacris. Autoblog's Eddie Sabatini reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute, with an original interview with Ludacris. Acura Tesla Autonomous Vehicles Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video Acura Legend ludicrous mode legend

FTC officials question 'bad policy' that stops Tesla's direct sales

It looks like Elon Musk has a new group of allies over at the Federal Trade Commission. Writing on the FTC blog, three high-level FTC officials came out against the "protectionist" network of laws in the US that govern automotive dealers and prevent, in some cases, Tesla Motors from selling its cars directly to customers. They called the rules, "bad policy for a number of reasons." They write: [The legal] protections expanded until in many states they included outright bans on the sale of new cars by anyone other than a dealer-specifically, an auto manufacturer. Instead of "protecting," these state laws became "protectionist," perpetuating one way of selling cars-the independent car dealer. The post is not a call to arms, but more of a position statement co-authored by Andy Gavil (director of the Office of Policy Planning), Debbie Feinstein (director of the Bureau of Competition), and Marty Gaynor (director of the Bureau of Economics). "The collective [cost] impact of [the state-by-state battles] is one of the major concerns here. [Tesla is] just trying to sell their cars" – Andy Gavin Gavil told AutoblogGreen that the main goal was to bring attention to the issue, which the post has certainly done. There are so many of state fights going on, he said, that this was a way to reach a lot of people at once. "We've been watching this for months," he said. "It's very clearly a state-by-state battle. We are concerned about Tesla litigating state-by-state. The collective [cost] impact of that is one of the major concerns here. They're just trying to sell their cars. The way the industry is reacting shows that it's about more than that." Gavil wouldn't go so far as to say that there should be new national rules – it's up to Congress to do that, he said - but he has also been looking at the taxi industry and the upstarts like Lyft and Uber. The competition angle sometimes doesn't get the attention it deserves, he said. "If there's a more open debate about it, that can only be a good thing." One of the groups opposed to Tesla's direct sales is the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), which represents 16,000 new car and truck dealerships with about 32,000 domestic and international franchises.