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If you need me to explain why you should spend 1:26 watching a man wielding an iron guitar in a Faraday suit playing Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" on MIDI-compatible Tesla coils, you are in the wrong place, pal. ArcAttack is performing a Tesla Coil version of Iron Man by Black Sabbath. The Guitar Player is using an iron guitar in a faraday cage ArcAttack testing out the world's first lighting-proof MIDI guitar in their warehouse in Austin, Texas. The MIDI signal from the guitar is routed through a fiber optic cable to control the Tesla coils. Update: From the comments,...

Surprisingly, there is a better --not well known-- energy efficient lighting solution than LED for roads, factories, and the like. Interestingly, Tesla invented it! It's called induction lighting. From the latest issue of Distributed Energy magazine... "While it’s more expensive than traditional lighting, it is cheaper than LED. However, it has other benefits, such as long life, due to electrode-less technology. Because there are no parts inside the lamp, it lasts “forever,” which Shelton equates to 100,000 hours or roughly 20 years if left on around the clock. LED is an adequate source light, Shelton explains, but it dissipates quickly—induction...

Beginning in 2012, common light bulbs sold in the U.S. will typically use about 25% to 80% less energy. Many bulbs meet these new standards, including incandescents, CFLs, and LEDs, and are already available for purchase today. The newer bulbs provide a wide range of choices in color and brightness, and many of them will last much longer than traditional light bulbs. The lighting standards, which phase in from 2012-2014, do not ban incandescent or any specific bulb type; they say that bulbs need to use about 25% less energy. The bipartisan Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA...

When Tesla’s application was before DOE loan managers in 2009, there were many indications it was not even in need of the loan. Tesla’s private investors included Google co-founders Sergey Brin & Larry Page, former eBay President Jeff Skoll, Hyatt heir Nick Pritzker, and VC firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Capricorn Management, and the Bay Area Equity Fund (managed by JPMorgan Chase). In May 2009, Daimler Chrysler took a stake in Tesla for a reported $50 million. Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments reportedly bought 40% of Daimler’s investment.

The "green" loan scandal grows to include yet another seemingly hopeless company. The resignation of Jonathan Silver, the U.S Energy Department’s top loan officer, over the Solyndra scandal may be the tip of the iceberg. He supervised a much larger DOE loan program that suffers from the same problems as Solyndra: over the last 18 months, the Department has awarded more than $9 billion in below-market loans to auto companies under its Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program. The most troubling transaction: a $465 million loan to California’s Tesla Motors. Tesla received a loan rate of 1.6% from DOE...

Electric carmaker Tesla got gearheads buzzing this weekend with its announcement of a tweak to its Model S luxury sedan to give it super speed. The souped up version will go 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds and get about 320 miles per charge. Green Car Reports has more on the specs: The sportier version features the same 85 kilowatt-hour, 300 miles-per-charge battery pack found in the 2012 Model S Signature series. “That’s quicker than a [Porsche] 911 [Carrera],” joked [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk. “Not bad for an electric luxury sedan.” In fact, it’s better than some of the gas-powered cars...

A group of gear heads from Croatia has produced a car designed to show that “electric vehicle” doesn’t have to mean “something my granola-eating neighbor drives.” Rimac Automobil, named for its founder, Mate Rimac, unveiled the Concept_One at the International Auto Show in Frankfurt. Designed as a sleek sports car it is powered entirely by batteries, and can, the company says, hit 62 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds, and reach a limit of 190 mph. The batteries carry 92 kilowatt-hours, or enough to power an average American home for three days -- or drive the car 372 miles, enough...

If you want to find out what happened with Solyndra you have to follow the money. I did. The half billion dollars of taxpayer dough that is probably lost in Sol came from the Federal Financing Bank (“FFB”). It’s worth a look at this bank to see what else is going on. FFB is a bank that is owned and controlled by the US Treasury. The chairman of the Board is the TSec. (Tim Geithner). With the (big) exception of the Post Office all of the loans at FFB are guaranteed by government agencies. Technically speaking, FFB has no risks...

Tesla Motors, makers of the first electric car that can travel more than 200 miles between charges, got its $465 million loan guarantee from the government Tuesday. Tesla has been banking on the guarantee for more than two years. The guarantee essentially insures the San Carlos-based company can borrow the money from financial partners to build a factory to produce for Tesla’s next-generation sedan, the Model S. The sedan will sell for around $45,000, that’s with a $7,500 tax credit from the government, and is about half the price of its first production vehicle, the high-end Tesla Roadster. Tesla had...

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev.—The giant Burning Man art festival, in its official manifesto, calls on attendees to exhibit "radical self-reliance" as they camp and frolic on the dry lakebed here for a week every year. Burning Man's mantra is so compelling that some 50,000 participants have gathered in this rustic setting for the 25th annual rite. But some bourgeois Burners are calling upon more than spiritual vibes to tap their inner self. They've got hired help. ... Elsewhere on the desert grounds, Burners wear bikini tops, leather chaps, stilts, goggles—and sometimes nothing at all. They rely on canned food for...

Electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc says it plans to raise up to $US214.3 million ($A203.2 million) by selling common stock, partly to fund development of a crossover vehicle as it seeks to expand its offerings beyond its Roadster sports car. The news sent shares up nearly seven per cent in afternoon trading. Tesla plans to sell 5.3 million shares to the public, and up to 795,000 more to the underwriter, at $US26 each, according to a regulatory filing. That would raise up to $US158.5 million ($A150.29 million). The $US26 price is a three per cent discount to Tuesday's closing...

Contact Information: Media Contact: Mary Simms, (415) 947-4270, simms.mary@epa.gov High Bay Area Gas Prices, Environmental Concerns Spur Greener Vehicles SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld will hold a press conference to discuss a major fuel economy announcement at 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25 at Tesla Headquarters in Palo Alto. WHO: EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld and Diarmuid O’Connell – Tesla’s VP of Corporate Development WHAT: Fuel Economy Announcement WHEN: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 12::45 p.m. WHERE: Tesla Motors, 3500 Deer Creek Road, Palo Alto, CA 94022 Enter into the main parking lot. Visitor...

Let's examine what man knows today about weather control.
 "Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was born in Croatia. He emigrated to the United States in 1884, worked for a short time for Thomas Edison, and became a naturalized American citizen. A pioneer in high-tension electricity, he made discoveries and inventions of great value to the development of radio transmission and in the field of electricity. He invented the alternating current (AC) system by which electricity can be transported through wires of thousands of miles, then sent into industrial plants to operate machinery, and into homes to provide light, heat and energy." (Newswatch...

President Obama called out Capitol Hill’s “climate change deniers” Wednesday night at a Democratic fundraiser in California. Obama, speaking at a San Francisco event for donors, called rising gasoline prices an economic drain on drivers and said curbing oil reliance is a “national security imperative.” “And then there’s the environmental aspect of it. There are climate change deniers in Congress and when the economy gets tough, sometimes environmental issues drop from people’s radar screens,” Obama continued, speaking at the home of Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff. “But I don’t think there’s any doubt that unless we are able to move forward...

When the White House announced the federal government would loan $465 million to Tesla, a California start-up company with plans to develop an all-electric sedan, President Obama called it an "historic opportunity to ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America." The loan also represented a lucrative opportunity for Steve Westly, a major investor in the car company who had raised more than $500,000 for the president's campaign. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy lent more than half a billion dollars to companies backed by Westly's California venture capital firm. In 2010, the...

Call Tegra for infotainment Nvidia’s Tegra chips have managed to find their way to a somewhat unlikely customer, California-based car maker Tesla Motors. Tesla’s new Model S, the company’s first sedan, will feature an infotainment system based on Nvidia’s SoC. The system will feature a 17-inch touchscreen in the center console and it will incorporate infotainment, navigation. It appears that a secondary 12.3-inch screen will serve as an-all digital instrument cluster and it will deliver vehicle info. The smug will love it. Nikola Tesla would have probably been proud to see his name on such a geeky car, but we...

Smoke and “possible fire” behind a headlamp led Tesla Motors to recall a third of the 1,300 electric sportscars it has sold so far... So far, Tesla has sold about 1,300 of the expensive Roadsters, which cost $109,000 a piece. This recall affects 439 cars.

When the NUMMI auto plant in Fremont shut down in April, many pronounced it dead -- a triple victim of the recession, sliding auto sales and General Motors' bankruptcy. But NUMMI is about to be reborn. Electric-carmaker Tesla Motors, which stunned the world when it announced plans to purchase the plant in May, officially takes ownership Oct. 1. Already, many Tesla employees call the plant the "Tesla Factory." Forty people regularly work out of a Tesla office that's been set up on the parking lot -- taking breaks under three red patio umbrellas similar to those at the company's Palo...

This collage of license plates came from a March gathering of Tesla Roadster owners...

A research company in New Hampshire recently announced the patent of their bladeless wind turbine, which is based on a patent issued to Nikola Tesla in 1913. The Fuller Wind Turbine developed by Solar Aero has only one rotating part, the turbine-driveshaft. The entire assembly is contained inside a housing, so that this turbine offers several advantages versus blade-style (primarily horizontal-axis type) turbines. With a screened inlet and outlet, this turbine does not present a danger to wildlife such as bats and birds. To an outside observer, the only movement visible is the entire turbine housing as it adjusts to...

Investors who bought Tesla Motors Inc.’s initial public stock offering last week thought they had a hot one. They did -- for a day and a half. But it has been all downhill since. Shares of the electric sports car maker plunged for a third straight session Tuesday as investors bailed out, pushing the stock below the IPO price of $17. Palo Alto-based Tesla closed down $3.09, or 16.1%, to $16.11. Despite the high hurdles facing the company’s bid to become commercially successful, the hype surrounding the IPO -- the first for an American carmaker since Ford Motor’s offering in...

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk seems to have it all. The electric-car entrepreneur is the toast of Silicon Valley, Sacramento, and Tokyo after unveiling a plan to revive Toyota’s shuttered NUMMI plant last week. And deal-hungry Wall Street bankers are angling to take his company public. He’s even a Hollywood star, with a cameo in the hit Iron Man 2 movie, said to be based on his life story. The one thing he doesn’t have, by his own admission, is money. “About four months ago, I ran out of cash,” he wrote in a court filing dated Feb. 23, reviewed...

In a deal expected to create hundreds of jobs, Tesla Motors announced today that it is teaming up with Toyota to build its all-electric Model S sedan at the recently shuttered NUMMI plant in Fremont. Under the agreement, Toyota will invest $50 million in Tesla, which will acquire the NUMMI plant and begin production of Teslas's Model S sedan in 2012. The deal is expected to create more than 1,000 new jobs The joint venture was unveiled by Tesla's CEO Elon Musk at a 5 p.m. news conference with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been eager to highlight job creation....

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- The three people killed on board a small plane that went down in a Northern California neighborhood were all employees of Tesla Motors Inc. The twin-engine Cessna 310 crashed in a residential area of East Palo Alto on Wednesday morning after hitting some power lines. It had just taken off from Palo Alto Airport in heavy fog.

Tesla Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday finalized a landmark $465 million loan agreement that will allow the electric car maker to build a power train manufacturing plant in Palo Alto. The agreement also paves the way for Tesla Motors to build a facility in Southern California where it will manufacture its upcoming all-electric Model S sedan. It is only the second loan agreement the Department of Energy has signed with an "advanced technology vehicle manufacturer" under a program created in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The federal agency first reached a $5.9 billion...

His Name Is Branding Magic; Thomas Edison Is 'So 20th Century' Decades after he died penniless, Nikola Tesla is elbowing aside his old adversary Thomas Edison in the pantheon of geek gods. When California engineers wanted to brand their new $100,000 electric sports car, one name stood out: Tesla. When circuit designers at microchip producer Nvidia Corp. in 2007 launched a new line of advanced processors, they called them Tesla. And when videogame writers at Capcom Entertainment in Silicon Valley needed a character who could understand alien spaceships for their new Dark Void saga, they found him in Nikola Tesla....

Russian scientists are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that the high-energy beam fired into the upper heavens from the United States High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) radar facility in Ramfjordmoen, Norway this past month has resulted in a “catastrophic puncturing” of our Plant’s thermosphere thus allowing into the troposphere an “unimpeded thermal inversion” of the exosphere, which is the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere. To the West’s firing of this ‘quantum’ high-energy beam we had previously reported on in our December 10, 2009 report titled “Attack On Gods ‘Heaven’ Lights Up Norwegian Sky”. To how catastrophic for...

Electric carmaker plans to keep gallery in Boulder. Nate Hukill was not in the market for a new car -- he said Tuesday he's not even really a "car person." But on his way back from lunch ... Now Hukill's owned his high-performance, all-electric, thunder-gray Tesla Roadster for three weeks. ... which has a $100,000 price tag. But it was the $42,000 tax credit offered by the state of Colorado that really sealed the deal. Embarrassingly, the tax incentive was so shocking... Within 30 seconds, he was hooked. The incredibly liberal tax incentive...

Shameless Croats Her name is Danijela Tesla, she is 18-years-old and lives in Smederevo, Serbian town near Belgrade. She is the youngest descendant of the “man who invented 20th century�, Serbian-born American immigrant Nikola Tesla. Ever since the world’s greatest inventor — also regarded as “the greatest genius� that ever lived — closed his eyes in New York hotel on 7 January 1943, Tesla’s name and revolutionary inventions have been the subject of vicious contention between the governments, state officials and institutions, nations and corporations. Recently, Walt Disney studio which wants to create a Tesla character for one sequence of...

I'm not in the position for making any huge investments, and this might be in the category of just plain ignorant, but I figure this proposal might at least prompt some interesting discussion, and if its plausible, someone should do it: The Tesla gets about 220 miles per charge. Great... if you're going somewhere less than four hours away. But if the S-class (a $50,000 "family car") is going to be someone's main car, they're certainly going to want to take longer trips with it. The problem is the car takes 8 hours to charge with 110 volts. By doubling...

Auroral experiments make glowing plasma patch.Natural aurorae light up the northern skies.Chris Madeley / Science Photo Library An experiment that fires powerful radio waves into the sky has created a patch of 'artificial ionosphere', mimicking the uppermost portion of Earth's atmosphere. The research has not only caused glowing dots to appear around these patches — it could also provide a new way to bounce radio signals around the globe.The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), near Gakona, Alaska, has spent nearly two decades using radio waves to probe Earth's magnetic field and ionosphere. One of the most obvious results...

The graph below is one of transistor count, not die size. Inevitably, on the same manufacturing process, a significantly higher transistor count translates into a larger die size. But for the purposes of this article, all I need to show you is a representation of transistor count. See that big circle on the right? That's Fermi. NVIDIA's next-generation architecture.NVIDIA astonished us with GT200 tipping the scales at 1.4 billion transistors. Fermi is more than twice that at 3 billion. And literally, that's what Fermi is - more than twice a GT200.At the high level the specs are simple. Fermi has...

Electronics such as phones and laptops may start shedding their power cords within a year. Wireless electricity may soon make tangled power cords a thing of the past. That's the prediction of Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity, a company that's able to power light bulbs using wireless electricity that travels several feet from a power socket. WiTricity's version of wireless electricity -- which converts power into a magnetic field and sends it sailing through the air at a particular frequency -- still needs to be refined a bit, he said, but should be commercially available soon. Giler, whose company is...

Palo Alto, CA – The City of Palo Alto and Tesla Motors announced today that Tesla will develop and manufacture electric vehicle components in a renovated building in the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto. Tesla, the only automaker that is already producing and selling highway-capable electric vehicles, will lease an approximately 350,000-square-foot building on a 23-acre parcel at 3500 Deer Creek Road. The facility will supply all-electric powertrain solutions to Tesla Motors vehicles and other automakers, greatly accelerating the availability of mass-market EVs. The world's premier EV manufacturer will also move its corporate headquarters from San Carlos to the...

In a series of articles published from 1902-1904, Ida Tarbell attacked Standard Oil, the leading US supplier of kerosene lamp fuel. The centerpiece of Ms. Tarbell's criticism was that the company had engaged in predatory pricing by continually lowering its prices. Her readers must have asked themselves, "How is that a bad thing? Am I supposed to be outraged that the amount I pay for lamp oil has fallen?" Although company cofounder John Rockefeller had retired from actively managing Standard Oil in 1896, Ms. Tarbell vilified him in her articles, even criticizing his elderly appearance. Populist US president Theodore Roosevelt...

The push for conversion to plug-in electric cars will do nothing to stop carbon emissions, a report by the GAO warns, throwing cold water on a push by Democrats to get more plug-ins on the road. In fact, the problem could be made worse as demand goes up at coal-fired electrical plants. Plus, the need for batteries may just have the US changing the dictators to which we’re chained, as IBD reports...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another..."If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

Upstart electric car maker Tesla Motors will get a $465 million loan under a $25 billion program set up during the Bush administration as an offset to higher fuel standards. The program is aimed at helping automakers retool to produce more fuel-efficient or electric vehicles. Congress was slow to actually fund the program, however, so this week's announcement involves the first loans. Tesla, which already makes an electric roadster, remains dwarfed by the competition. Ford will get $5.9 billion from the same program, and Nissan snagged $1.6 billion.

Once again, the federal government is handing billions of dollars to auto companies. The last round of loans raised the question of whether General Motors and Chrysler could shake off their creaky ways and survive to pay the money back. The question this time: Can Tesla Motors become enough like one of those old car companies? The latest round of handouts is coming from U.S. Energy Dept. funds to boost development of greener vehicles. The department issued $8 billion in loans on June 23, granting Ford Motor (F) $6 billion, Nissan Motor (NSANY) $1.6 billion, and tiny electric-car startup Tesla...

Cultivating the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles, the Obama administration said Tuesday it would lend $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Co. and about $2.1 billion to Nissan Motor Co. and Tesla Motors Inc. in a government-industry partnership to build green cars. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the three automakers would be the first beneficiaries of a $25 billion fund to develop fuel-efficient vehicles. The loans to Ford will help the company upgrade factories in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio to produce 13 fuel-efficient vehicles. Nissan (NSANY) will receive loans of $1.6 billion to retool its plant in Smyrna, Tenn.,...

The Energy Department said Tuesday it would lend $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Co. and provide about $2.1 billion in loans to Nissan Motor Co. and Tesla Motors Inc., making the three automakers the first beneficiaries of a $25 billion fund to develop fuel-efficient vehicles.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Energy Department is expected to announce Tuesday it is lending money to the Ford Motor Co. and two other automakers from a $25 billion fund to develop fuel-efficient vehicles.

Speaking at the Wired Live conference in New York today, Elon Musk told the crowd that we should all be paying $10 at the pump for a gallon of gas. The low price we're currently spoiled with doesn't factor in "the true cost of gasoline at the pump," said the Tesla CEO (via CNET), "since nobody's explicitly paying for the CO2 capacity of the oceans and atmospheres, it's getting consumed. We will pay for it down the road, but we are sort of ignoring it for now." Nevermind that $10 gas would absolutely devastate our economy, Musk wants it so...

From the what-a-world department: Daimler AG's $50 million investment in Tesla Motors this week means the San Carlos electric car maker is worth roughly half the value of the world's largest auto manufacturer, General Motors Corp. With one roadster on the market and one sedan in prototype, Tesla, thanks to Daimler's 9 percent stake, is valued at $550 million. GM sold 8.35 million vehicles worldwide in 2008; its market value as of Thursday was $1.17 billion, based on the closing stock price of $1.92. "It's sort of amusing," remarked Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard.

German automotive giant Daimler has invested in electric-car company Tesla Motors and plans to use Tesla's battery packs in its Smart electric car due later this year. At a Tuesday press conference held at the Daimler museum in Stuttgart, Germany, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Daimler management board member Thomas Weber said the contract between the two companies calls for joint collaboration on the Smart electric car and future models.

In 1901, Nikola Tesla began work on a global system of giant towers meant to relay through the air not only news, stock reports and even pictures but also, unbeknown to investors such as J. Pierpont Morgan, free electricity for one and all.....

President Obama revealed what he might think we should be driving when he visited Tesla Motors , a firm building electric cars in San Carlos, California, while on his Tonight Show trip to the Coast. Unlike political rhetoric read from a teleprompter, cars are real. You can touch them and drive them and determine whether or not they're good, bad or indifferent. And the reality is that electric cars don't match the performance of conventional vehicles you're driving now. There's one major shortcoming, which manufacturers never seem to cover in detail, illuminated in a March 26 Silicon Valley Mercury News...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on a short list of celebrities who ordered the super-sleek, $109,000 Tesla Roadster when the San Carlos-based electric-car maker took its first round of orders awhile back. But now it looks as if the governor wants a refund. The gossip Web site Valleywag reported last week that Schwarzenegger for months has been quietly trying to return the sports car. The reason? The car, built on a Lotus frame, is a little too cramped for the former bodybuilder. An aide to the governor was aware of the report but said he couldn't get hold of Schwarzenegger on...

LOS ANGELES — Tesla Motors on Thursday unveiled its Model S, an all-electric sedan it hails as the beginning of a generation of fossil-fuel-free cars and a profitable company But before that happens, the company must find the money to build the vehicle. Tesla is pinning its hopes on Washington and a $450 million government loan. The company expects to hear from the Energy Department this year. “We are highly confident that Tesla will be selected, and it will occur this year,” said Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, after displaying the car to customers, analysts and reporters in a...

When Tesla Motors launched its all-electric Roadster sports car, celebrities lined up to order one — including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now we hear he's been trying to return it for months. Like Detroit, cash-strapped Tesla is currently a supplicant to the government, counting on money earmarked for alternative energy to carry it through its trying times. In other words, a good time to have a political celebrity in their corner, right? Alas, no. Schwarzenegger frequently cited Tesla as an example of California's nascent green industries in speeches in previous years, and appeared with Tesla CEO Elon Musk at various events....