December 26th, 2020 | by Guest Contributor
The five co-founders of Tesla — Marc Tarpenning, Martin Eberhard, Elon Musk, JB Straubel, and Ian Wright — were certainly greenies, and the environmental value of EVs was one of their prime motivators. However, they were also rocket scientists and sports car connoisseurs, and they were well aware of another exciting advantage of electric powertrains
December 25th, 2020 | by Guest Contributor
It sometimes happens that a symbolic event marking the end of one era neatly coincides with an event that ushers in the next, although no one notices the concurrence at the time. In late 2003, a brief renaissance of electric vehicles came to an ignominious end, as GM rounded up and smashed its EV1 electric cars. Just a few weeks later, three Silicon Valley entrepreneurs sat down for a fateful lunch
November 6th, 2020 | by Zachary Shahan
The past 12 years of Tesla's growth and development has been a sight to see, and it's been a terrific story to cover closely since 2012. This past week was the 10 year anniversary of Tesla buying its Fremont factory from Toyota and GM. Tesla cofounder and CEO Elon Musk recently reflected on the company's growth since then and memories of that period, which feels like a lifetime ago
November 4th, 2020 | by Johnna Crider
Stanford Energy recently hosted its StorageX International Symposium Industrial Panel virtually. The panel included top battery experts, such as JB Straubel, one of the co-founders at Tesla who left after years as CTO to start Redwood Materials; Celina Mikolajczak of Panasonic; and Heiko Urtel of
October 13th, 2020 | by Johnna Crider
Autoblog has reported that Tesla cofounder and longtime CTO J.B. Straubel has big plans for the battery industry. We already knew that, but we have some new perspective from the recent reporting
September 18th, 2020 | by Steve Hanley
Redwood Materials, the battery and e-waste recycling company started by JB Straubel, has secured a major investment from Amazon's Climate
September 9th, 2020 | by Steve Hanley
Redwood Materials has a plan to recycle lithium ion batteries so their component materials can be used to make new batteries at lower cost.
September 4th, 2020 | by Steve Hanley
There is battery news aplenty today involving disordered rock salt, transition metal oxides, and an IPO for QuantumScape.
September 1st, 2020 | by Guest Contributor
Failure is good. Or rather, it can be good if you react to it the right way, using the knowledge you gain to make your next attempt at the goal more effective. As Thomas Edison put it, “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found ten thousand ways that don’t work.”
June 19th, 2020 | by Guest Contributor
It’s hard to think of a vehicle that’s simpler in its design than a skateboard. However, this very simplicity may be the reason that this humble conveyance is providing the inspiration for the most technologically advanced vehicles ever devised
February 10th, 2020 | by Guest Contributor
Considering how much major automakers are struggling to develop their own commercially viable EVs and catch up with Tesla, it’s ironic that several of these brands did produce EVs back in the 1990s, but cancelled those models, leaving the field wide open for the California upstart
November 12th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
What was the media writing about Tesla 5 years ago? What was CleanTechnica writing about Tesla 5 years ago? How does all of this compare to Tesla headlines today
August 11th, 2019 | by Winter Wilson
In this episode of our CleanTech Talk podcast interview series, Zach Shahan sits down with Nancy Pfund, founder and Managing Partner of DBL Partners. They discuss Nancy’s journey from policy and politics to business and impact investing, especially her work in the clean technology sector with companies like Tesla, SolarCity, and ZOLA Electric
August 4th, 2019 | by Winter Wilson
In this episode of our CleanTech Talk podcast interview series, Zach Shahan sits down with Mark Z. Jacobson, professor at Stanford University and co-founder of The Solutions Project, to discuss Mark’s work to bring together important players from science, business, culture, and community behind his vision of 100% renewable energy for 100% of people. They also talk about the early days of Tesla and some of Mark's special history and connections
July 25th, 2019 | by Matt Pressman
To recap the second quarter, Tesla issued its shareholder letter and held its quarterly conference call with Wall Street analysts. The news, as always, is a mixed bag. While improving over its $702M loss in Q1, Tesla still missed Wall Street's expectations, posting a Q2 loss of $408M. Traders can expect a bumpy ride in the short term. That said, there were some highlights worth considering for those long-term TSLA investors
June 14th, 2019 | by Paul Fosse
As reported here and here, there was a lot of information presented at the 2019 Tesla annual shareholder meeting. And although there were a lot of small details covered and hints given about the future, there wasn't any earth-shattering news. In my summary, I noted they didn't "let the cat out of the bag." But I didn't really know what the cat was, so I didn't comment
July 28th, 2018 | by Matt Pressman
With so much emphasis on the Model 3, the question on many people's mind is, "Will Tesla's solar efforts finally begin to gain traction?" According to USA Today, "The company is going to double down on selling solar through its 110 U.S. Tesla stores, which it has reconfigured in past months to ensure that Powerwall is on prominent display and in-house solar experts, some of whom worked Home Depot aisles for Tesla, are at the ready."
