Hasta La Gadget!

I can’t honestly say that I recall the Tesla Model S being an Internet connected vehicle. The Model S is apparently connected to the Internet while in operation. At least that’s the idea given by company CEO Elon Musk as he shows off a feature of the Model S to Bloomberg that I’ve never seen. Musk promises the vehicle will play any song you ask for at any time.

You might think that your Ford will play any song in your playlist, assuming your Ford is equipped with Sync. The catch with the Ford system and the other systems on other vehicles is that you have to have the music stored on the cars internal drive or on your iPod or other device attached the infotainment system. According to Musk, the Model S will reach out onto the Internet and get any song available without you having to connect an iPod.

Musk doesn’t go into details of how the system works other than saying the car goes on the Internet and finds the music. That means it’s unclear whether the car has its own internal Internet connection, or if it’s connecting to a Wi-Fi connection inside the building, or if it’s connecting to the Internet via a smartphone. One thing that is impressive about the system is that it appears to be very fast.

The delay between asking for song and the song being retrieved and played appears to be no longer than the delay on other systems finding a specific track on your iPod playlist. This is a really cool feature, it’s too bad you have to spend hundred thousand dollars on a car to get it.

[via Bloomberg]

Elon Musk shows off “any song, any time” Easter Egg in Tesla’s Model S is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’re one Elon Musk, you’re probably ready for just about anything to take the place of the only story dominating the Tesla tagline for the past few weeks. Of course, a $90 million net loss isn’t the ideal story to overtake the Model S kerfuffle, but hey — at least the company’s aiming to pull in a profit next quarter. In a bid to keep investors focused on the positive, the automaker’s Q4 2012 shareholder letter notes that Tesla is officially predicting its first quarterly profit in Q1 2013, sliding up from “late 2013.”

For the quarter that just wrapped, the firm saw revenues of $306 million (a 500 percent increase sequentially from the $50.1 million seen in Q3 2012), and it ended the year with $221 million in total cash after having made the first quarterly principal payment of $12.7 million to repay the loan to the U.S. Department of Energy. Tesla also plans to deliver some 20,000 Model S vehicles in 2013, with around 4,500 of those happening in Q1. Europeans and Asians can expect their deliveries in “summer” / “late this year” (respectively), with the first Model X deliveries to occur in early 2014. Musk also told investors that it plans to “spend significantly less on capital expenditures” in 2013 compared to 2012, helping to (hopefully) generate “slightly positive net income on a non-GAAP basis” in Q1 2013.

Filed under: Transportation

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Source: Tesla

It would appear that the New York Times has decided to speak up in regards to their recent review of the Tesla Model S electric vehicle, having been the subject of some major scrutiny a the hands of no less than Elon Musk, the car company’s CEO. One of the larger stories of last week was that according to the Model S’ own in-vehicle logs, the editor responsible for the review of the vehicle didn’t follow the plans and suggestions made by the Tesla review crew – nor did he refrain from driving donuts through a parking lot. Now the New York Times is speaking up through editor Margaret Sullivan.

While it was New York Times reviewer John Broder that did the review of the vehicle, not Margaret Sullivan, it’s Sullivan who is tasked with a bit of cleanup here at the start of the second week of this PR massacre. In a rather lovely response to the situation made in the form of a Public Editor article on the web, Sullivan explains the lengths to which she (and the New York Times) went to figure out the best course of action in the situation. In other words: she speaks about what she did to figure out who was wrong, if someone was wrong, and what to do about it.

As it turns out, after having “read hundreds of emails and reader comments” on the situation, having talks with her brother (a “physician, car aficionado and Tesla fan”), Broder, Musk, two “key” Tesla employees, the tow-truck driver charged with picking up the vehicle after Broder’s review (and his dispatcher), other NYT journalists, and more, Sullivan found there to be a problem with precision and judgement. Sullivan notes specifically that Broder, in his review, didn’t use good judgement from start to finish.

It wasn’t that Broder “hoped the drive would end badly”, but instead that he didn’t precisely follow the rules, so to speak. Having not had a proper overnight charge the night before charging the vehicle in Norwich, Connecticut, for example, and keeping rather “casual and imprecise notes” through the drive, allowed Broder to be criticized heavily. Musk too, Sullivan found, made some rather “damaging (and sometimes quite misleading)” comments using these logs as they compared to the digitally recorded driving logs (as shown in the link earlier in this post).

The end result – or what could be expected to be the end result, if not final chapter in this particular saga – is Musk tweeting a simple acknowledgement of the article. “Appreciate thoughtful @Sullivew article” it stated, “Faith in @nytimes restored.” Sound alright to you? Have a peek at the timeline below regarding the extended saga to see more details throughout.

[via Engadget]

Tesla gets NYT apology for Model S review: Musk approves is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The dust-up over the New York Times‘ Tesla Model S review may have left no real winners, but that doesn’t preclude at least trying to reach the truth. According to the newspaper’s Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, the final answer rests where it often does: in between the two extremes. Following interviews with driver John Broder, Tesla staff and others involved in the tale, the scrutineer believes the review was conducted honestly, but that improper decisions and less-than-precise notes led to the charging woes and accusations of deception that characterized the drive. Broder should have topped up the way the company recommends, but wasn’t planning on dragging anyone through the mud, Sullivan says. Whatever you think of her verdict, it’s enough for Tesla founder Elon Musk to relax — he’s already saying that the inspection “restored” his trust in the Old Gray Lady’s integrity. About the only demand we have left is to get enough Supercharger stations that there’s never a repeat incident.

Filed under: Transportation

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Source: New York Times, Elon Musk (Twitter)

You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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