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Late Thursday, the glitzy electric car company Tesla Motors, run by billionaire Elon Musk, ceased to be just a car company. As was widely expected, Tesla announced that it is offering a home battery product, which people can use to store energy from their solar panels or to backstop their homes against blackouts, and also larger scale versions that could perform similar roles for companies or even parts of the grid. For homeowners, the Tesla Powerwall will have a power capacity of either 10 kilowatt hours or 7 kilowatt hours, at a cost of either $ 3,500 or $ 3,000....

Never lacking daring ideas, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is determined to jolt the electricity market. The CEO of electric car maker Tesla Motors hopes to park hundreds of millions of large, solar panel-connected batteries in homes and businesses so the world can disconnect from power plants—and he can profit. On Thursday night, before an adoring crowd and a party-like atmosphere, Musk unveiled how he intends to do it. Musk took the stage at Tesla's design studio near Los Angeles International Airport, an audience of drink-toting enthusiasts cheering him on, in a scene fitting for an audacious dreamer renowned for pursuing...

Chief executive Elon Musk announced the firm would build batteries that store solar energy and serve as a back-up system for consumers during blackouts. The device would allow consumers to get off a power grid or bring energy to remote areas that are not on a grid. Tesla plans to start shipping the units to installers in the US by this summer. In a highly anticipated event near Los Angeles, Mr Musk said the move could help change the "entire energy infrastructure of the world". "Tesla Energy is a critical step in this mission to enable zero emission power generation,"...

Tesla’s announcement last week about creating a new line of batteries for use by businesses, consumers, and the electrical grid at large is a game-changer for the industry. Currently, when individuals or companies need back-up power, they usually rely on generators. Effective battery storage for large amounts of energy would be a game changer in that it would enable a separation of generation and use of energy produced through clean fuels like solar and wind power. The big problem with solar and wind right now is that the energy is only useful when it is actually produced and, because a...

The Tesla Gigafactories Are Coming. Can Global Lithium Supply Keep Up? Many investors are dreaming of the growth that Tesla Motors' Gigafactory could unlock, but is there enough global lithium to enable the growth in the first place?   Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson (left), shown here on the roof of the Gigafactory with Tesla CTO JB Straubel (right), has invested in Elon Musk through SpaceX and Tesla. Image source: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr.Five hundred thousand electric vehicles per year, a steady supply of household energy storage devices to be coupled with residential solar, and a doubling of global lithium ion battery production...

Tesla shares (TSLA) are getting a charge from a Bloomberg report that the company will unveil a home battery and a large-scale utility battery, at an event at its Hawthorne design studio next week. Bloomberg got a hold of an email from Tesla’s investor-relations chief saying the company will explain the benefits of Tesla’s solutions compared to battery options in the past. There has been speculation that Tesla will look to challenge the traditional utility power grid with home and utility batteries, and a research note from Deutsche Bank says Tesla could be at the forefront of an energy storage...

Tesla has just introduced a new entry level car, but before you fire up your laptop to order one, you should know it's even more expensive than Tesla's current starter vehicle. The car it announced on Wednesday is called the Tesla Model S 70D and it'll start at $75,000, although buyers are eligible for a federal tax credit that brings the price down to $67,500. The Model S starts at $70,000.

Jake Pultorak chuckles at the mention of “range anxiety,” the fear among some electric vehicle owners that their car's battery will run out of juice before the driver can find a charger. “I had that as a gas-car driver, but the anxiety was over how much I had to pay to get where I was going,” said Pultorak, 44, of Franklin Park, who has owned an all-electric Tesla Model S for about two years. Worries at the gas pumps have diminished over the past nine months as the global crash in oil prices brought the cost of gasoline to its...

While Tesla Motors continues to fight it out on a state level with dealership groups—most recently gaining ground in Georgia but getting shut out in West Virginia—one thing is for sure about the automaker's product: The Tesla Model S is, again and by far, the most-loved vehicle in the U.S. The Tesla Model S, according to the market-research firm Strategic Vision, boasts figures of ‘love’ from their overall vehicle experience that handily top those for much-loved sports-car models like the Porsche Boxster and 911. A whopping 92 percent of owners of the Model S summed their experience in the top...

Electric carmaker Tesla announced Friday it delivered a "record" number of vehicles in the first quarter, as it began more timely reporting of sales figures. The California firm started by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk said it sold 10,030 cars in the first three months of 2015. "This was a new company record for the most cars delivered in a quarter and represents a 55 percent increase over the first quarter last year," the company said in a statement. Going forward, Tesla said it would publish the number of new car deliveries within three days of quarter end. "We have decided...

Author provides inside look at Argonne National Laboratory’s efforts to build a ‘super battery’ By Laura Alessio March 27, 2015 So secretive were efforts to create the first self-sustained nuclear reaction in 1942 that physicist Enrico Fermi and his Manhattan Project team quietly toiled beneath the stands of Stagg Field and communicated with each other in code.That breakthrough ushered in the nuclear age, but also led to the creation of the country’s first national lab, Argonne National Laboratory. Some 70 years later, with 20 countries racing to achieve another world-changing scientific shift—to design and build a better rechargeable “super battery”—Argonne...

Another name for electric cars is "coal-powered cars." That doesn't sit well with those who want to demonstrate their green bona fides by driving a plug-in vehicle. But it is in many cases accurate. Anyone who begs to differ can take up the argument with Chris Kennedy, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto. He told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that, depending on the province, an electric car can produce more carbon dioxide than a gasoline-powered car.

Last year, New Jersey’s state legislature told Tesla its selling style wasn’t welcome. But now, Elon Musk’s electric car company is back in the Garden State’s good graces. On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill that allows Tesla to sell cars directly to consumers, Bloomberg reported. The move is part of a bill that overhauls the state’s automobile franchise laws. Under the new law, Tesla has to meet some criteria, such as maintaining a service center in New Jersey where the electric vehicles can be fixed. ... But Texas lawmakers have refused to let the company sell directly to...

<p>RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Electric-car maker Tesla Motors is denying reports that construction has been delayed on its gigafactory about 15 miles east of Reno.</p> <p>The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, in an online job posting, says the project has been delayed.</p>

The European edition of The Wall Street Journal has said in an editorial that Tesla Motors should stop accepting federal and state subsidies. “Last year Tesla made a roughly $150 million killing from selling ZEV credits. That’s up from $130 million in 2013, $32 million in 2012, and $3 million in 2011. All told in 2014 Tesla sold about $216 million in credits,” the newspaper said. It goes on to say, Capitalism needs visionaries, but its reputation suffers when companies worth billions soak middle-class taxpayers for profits. Turn off the taxpayer tap, Mr Musk. It would earn you more friends...

Meet the fast-charging, affordable ‘future’ car that Elon Musk hates By Drew Harwell February 25 at 8:00 AM The Toyota that runs on hydrogen fuel cells(3:23) Toyota's Mirai will be one of the first mass-market cars to run on hydrogen fuel cells, which convert compressed hydrogen gas to electricity, leaving water vapor as the only exhaust. (Toyota) Toyota this week officially rolled out what it's betting will mark "a turning point" in automotive history — a sleek, affordable, eco-friendly "future" car that can drive for 300 miles, takes less than five minutes to charge and comes with three years of free fuel.It's everything haters of gas-guzzling...

China’s electric car boom: should Tesla Motors worry? by  Levi Tillemann February 19, 2015, 7:00 AM EST   Up until recently, China has been an underperforming electric vehicle market, while Tesla has been an over-achieving electric vehicle company.Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has threatened to fire key executives from his China team after weak sales of the automaker’s luxury electric cars. And last week, the company’s chief marketing officer in China resigned. Although the media widely covered the management shakeup, the press has largely ignored the context: a massive boom in China’s market for electric cars. For after years of...

War makes strange bedfellows. Over the past decade, the Koch Brothers have become a major political force, funneling money from their family company into organizations that support conservative politicians and causes--including the denial of climate change. So Charles and David Koch wouldn't seem like enthusiastic supporters of electric-car maker Tesla Motors. Yet the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity is one of 10 signatories on a letter sent to U.S. governors and legislators urging them to support Tesla's direct-sales business model.

... Based on 84 data points from the 85-kWh version of the Model S and six from 60-kWh cars, the study concludes that the Model S will retain about 94 percent of its capacity after 50,000 miles, with losses thereafter shrinking to about 1 percent per 30,000 miles. That means that after 100,000 miles, the typical Model S is projected to retain about 92 percent of its battery capacity and range.

Most of the debate over the building of the nation's first bullet train, in California, has focused on the economics of such a monumental undertaking and its projected $68-billion first-phase price tag. Largely ignored amid the excitement over the railway's recent official groundbreaking is the physical impact and design challenges that cities will need to grapple with as they prepare for high-speed rail. California should look to rail systems across Europe to fully understand the challenge of building a transportation hub that connects to the community. To make the most of California's once-in-a-lifetime chance at building a thriving transportation network,...