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On September 12-20, 2015, we will celebrate the fifth annual National Drive Electric Week. To many, plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) are a foreign concept wrapped in myth and mystery. Although we’ve made tremendous progress since 2011, with over 310,000 electric vehicles sold, most people have...

Have you ever wanted to get an idea of how long a charge will take? Perhaps you've used the charge rate table from my ancient blog, then added 20% because you're charging at a 208V station instead of 240V, and then added in some extra time because you know the charge rate will taper down as it...

Tesla has a fix for the Roadster 80A charging bug. This will enable Roadsters to charge from unmodified Clipper Creek CS-100 charging stations. The Roadster is still limited to 70A charging, as increasing that limit would presumably require hardware upgrades. Update January 16, 2014 The...

Within a year of release of the Model S, owners began expressing interest in learning more about how the Model S performs over time and miles and how their experience compares to what other owners are observing. As part of my work at Plug In America, I started a Nissan Leaf study 2012 and...

In late 2010, I did a small, informal survey of Roadster owners in the Northwest to get some idea of how our battery packs were holding up. The top-level result was that we were seeing very little degradation, with small variations between packs being a larger effect than capacity loss from use...

Motor Trend has a great review of the Model S and does a great job of explaining the advantages of an electric drive train in terms of responsiveness. World Exclusive! 2012 Tesla Model S Test and Range Verification - Motor Trend

A very positive review of the Model S Sport performance, it does a great job of describing the advantages of an electric drive train and the Model S specifically. World Exclusive! 2012 Tesla Model S Test and Range Verification - Motor Trend

I've written up instructions for updating the OVMS firmware for non-developers. Developers who want to work on the code have to go through a complex procedure to download the source code and install the tools needed to build and update the firmware. It's a lot of work if you're not going to...

On November 13th, Plug In America is hosting our annual gala, Party With the Plug-Ins, at Winery SF on Treasure Island, San Francisco. We'll be celebrating the year’s most exciting innovations in electric cars with test-drives, EV demos, a local hand-crafted wine tasting, raffle prizes, a...

I figured that site owners hosting Tesla HPCs would want to convert them to standard J1772 charging stations eventually, but I was stunned to hear it's happening already. The Tesla HPCs at Davis, Dixon, Fairfield, San Ramone, Vacaville, and Vallejo have already been converted to J1772 plugs...

Update January 20, 2014 As documented below, it is possible to convert a Roadster to J1772 so that it can be charged directly from a standard J1772 charging station. Cathy and I developed a solution that is J1772 compliant (supports the proximity switch), is professionally manufactured, and...

We are about to see a mass deployment of public level 2 SAE J1772 charging stations, over 14,000 from The EV Project alone. This compares to fewer than 100 public Tesla charging stations (240V/70A High Power Connectors, aka HPCs). Over the next 12 months, I expect that the availability of level...

On March 17, six Seattle-area Tesla owners joined the Evergreen Lotus Car Club for a track day at Pacific Grand Prix, the new smaller track next to Pacific Raceways in Kent, WA. The folks at Pacific Grand Prix were excited to have a bunch of Tesla show up. We were treated to unseasonably nice...

I just posted some information on my blog about the Roadster's energy efficiency computed by measuring energy put into the car from charging with an electric meter divided by miles driven and how this compares to the energy and efficiency numbers reported on the Roadster's screens. Here's what...

A year ago, Cathy had this idea that we should drive our Roadster to Puget Sound Energy's Wild Horse Renewable Energy Center to see the wind and solar farm. At the owner drive last month, we met a PSE employee who helped us make that happen. The PSE folks were very supportive of the idea...

We just got back from a drive through rural King County, east of Seattle. We had about a dozen owners and Roadsters plus VP31. It was a blast driving a rainbow string of Roadster through Redmond and out into the country. The weather was gorgeous and we got lucky for a good chunk of the drive...

On the weekend of August 30th, Cathy and I joined DaveD in traveling to San Juan Island to show our Roadsters at the Concours d'Elegance. It was a nice road trip, a well organized event, and a fun experience. We had great weather, were popular with the show attendees, and met Martin Eberhard's...

Yesterday, my wife and I got word that Tesla Motors was contacting owners whose cars were about to go into production because they are introducing new options and unlocking all remaining 2008 model year orders. We knew that VIN 214 had started production and we're 217, so that's us. As it...

Bill Arnett had the opportunity to photograph the drivetrain installation on his Roadster and posted his photos for all to enjoy. Tesla Roadster #55 Drivetrain Installation He wanted to post them, but the new user registration form seems to be broken, and was also broken last week...