China is quickly living up to its copycat reputation in the smart car space, with the latest word that Tencent will enter the business in a tie-up with Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant Foxconn. That pair are following Google into the area, but they certainly aren’t the first Chinese to mimic the world’s largest Internet company. That distinction would probably go to Chinese Internet search leader Baidu, which last year announced its own smart car initiative that was also back in the headlines this week as CEO Robin Li discussed the plan. Yet another similar initiative is also in the headlines today, as online video sensation LeTV discussed its own plans to show off its first smart car at the Shanghai auto show next month. This kind of copycatting and bandwagon mentality has become all too common among China’s Internet companies, who all worry about getting left behind by the competition. More
Tag Index / Showing 1 - 7 of 7 results for “electric vehicles”
Energy & Green Tech Manufacturing
Panasonic Will Help Tesla Crank Out the Gigawatt-hours, but Where?
Tesla Motors and Panasonic confirmed this morning that they will cooperate on the construction of a large-scale lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant in the U.S. Five states in the running to host the $5 billion Gigafactory expect an announcement of its location after the market closes today. Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas are the hopefuls to house the facility, which is expected to comprise up to 10 million square feet over 1,000 acres. More
Tesla Supercharges Cross-Country Treks
Searching for a fun vacation idea this spring break that’s pretty darned cool and eco-friendly to boot? You could take a cue from Elon Musk, who’s spending his spring break driving cross-country with his kids in his Tesla Model S, going from Los Angeles to New York and stopping along the way at Tesla’s newly unveiled Supercharger stations to recharge. The Supercharger network, announced Sunday, is a string of more than 70 ultra-fast, free-to-use charging stations that span much of both coasts, stretch from Los Angeles to New York via the upper Midwest, and shoot off into eastern Texas. More
Ford’s Farley Wants P2P Sharing and Electric Cars for Urban Mobility
As the urban population soars, city streets are growing increasingly traffic-clogged and difficult to navigate, impeding our ease of transit and, more critically, harming our environment. At our Techonomy 2013 conference, we talked to Jim Farley, EVP of global marketing at Ford, about the car industry and using shared ownership to tackle urban mobility. While business-to-consumer models (think Zipcar) have thus far dominated the shared-ownership market, they have struggled to succeed financially. Farley believes a peer-to-peer system of sharing vehicles is more promising. Electrifying the car industry, he added, will be an important part of developing this peer-to-peer system, enabling us to be more economical, more efficient, and kinder to our Earth. More
Energy & Green Tech Global Tech
Tesla Hits China Speed Bump, BYD Turns Around
A couple of interesting news bits are coming from the new energy vehicle sector, including a potential roadblock into the China market for up-and-coming U.S. player Tesla and new results from struggling domestic electric car maker BYD that look encouraging but not too exciting. The main common theme in this latest news is that new energy vehicle makers continue to hold out hopes for the China market, banking on strong government policies to boost the market, even though progress has been slow so far. More
Energy & Green Tech Manufacturing
Techonomy Detroit in the News: Was Tim Draper Wrong About Detroit’s Electric Car Future?
At Techonomy Detroit last week, venture capitalist Tim Draper had some harsh words for the local crowd. Detroit automakers have lost the electric-car battle to Tesla Motors, he said, and the only hope for the Big Three is to make something as innovative as a flying car. But Todd Woody at Forbes says Draper was wrong: “The electric car battle has only begun and if the objective is to win the war against fossil fuels then Tesla needs Detroit, Tokyo and Munich to join forces and sell as many cars as possible." More
Energy & Green Tech Techonomy Events
Conservation Camps Founder on How Tech Is Changing Life in Nepal
In this short talk from Techonomy 2011 in Tuscon, Ariz., Anil Chitrakar, founder of Conservation Camps for Children, gives four examples of how technology and social incentives are changing the lives of Nepalese. More
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