Daily Technology News

High-profile electric car company Tesla Motors has a bit of a money problem, but CEO Elon Musk says he has a plan.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Musk said he expects to raise more than $20 million in the next week to bolster its cash reserves and make the company cash-flow positive.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk in a Roadster

(Credit: Tesla Motors)

The company had been seeking to raise $100 million but failed, Musk told Reuters.

“We didn’t raise the $100 million but we still need to raise some money to get to cash flow positive,” Musk said. “We actually probably only need on the order of $20 million to do that. We’re going to raise more than that, but we only need about $20 million.”

The luxury car upstart, maker of the $109,000 Tesla Roadster sports car, is going through a rough patch.

Two weeks ago, Musk replaced the previous CEO and announced that it would have to delay introduction of its second car, the Model S, which will be a luxury all-electric sedan.

In an employee meeting, Musk shared the company’s finances, which indicated that Tesla has about $9 million in cash.

The disclosure of that low cash position for an auto maker apparently prompted one employee to e-mail a variety of blogs and say that Tesla is at risk of not fulfilling orders for the Roadster.

Musk, who become wealthy after selling PayPal to eBay, said that he will personally ensure that all Roadsters on order will be delivered. So far, 60 customers have received them, out of more than 1,000 orders.

To finance construction of its corporate headquarters and Model S manufacturing plant, Tesla intends to secure government-backed loans worth $200 million.

VentureBeat speculated that current investors have grown cautious about putting more money into Tesla and that the company could be a takeover target by Ford.

Quick! Find the button for the air conditioner without looking.

(Credit: www.xcar.com.cn)

Spy photos of the Panamera–Porsche’s upcoming wagon, for lack of a better term–have been leaking all over the Web for some time now. Only recently have we been able to see the vehicle’s interior.

We expected the typical German button-heavy interface. Just one look at the Cayenne’s interior and you’ll see that Porsche isn’t afraid to slap a bunch of buttons on the dash. However, these somewhat blurry spy shots show that perhaps an intervention is required to curb Porsche’s button addiction.

A quick eyeball count shows a whopping 44 buttons and switches on the center console alone! Add the 11 buttons for the roof console and a touch screen to the equation, and you’ve got a recipe for interface overload. Adding insult to injury, there appear to be blanks to allow Porsche engineers to add even more buttons at a later date.

Oddly, the steering wheel is devoid of buttons, save the thumb switches for the transmission’s manual mode. Some basic stereo or hands-free calling controls would be nice, but this is most likely a prototype, so perhaps they’re still to come.

The icing on the cake of the Panamera’s odd interior has to be the key fob, which is shaped like the vehicle itself.

The keyfob is shaped like the Panamera itself, in case you forget what you’re driving.

(Credit: www.xcar.com.cn)

Of course, the interface could have been worse. At least Porsche has gotten rid of the full numeric keypad in favor of what we hope is Bluetooth integration. But with all of the advances in voice-command technology and touch-screen interface design, it’s disappointing to see a vehicle of Porsche’s stature and price with such a complicated interface. We’re interested in seeing your thoughts in the comments below.

How to best recycle electronics is a problem I’ve had to deal with more than a few times at CNET. I have to be honest, during busy work cycles, the garbage bin has looked very appealing as an easy out when an obsolete laptop or graphics card needs discarding.

Luckily for me, and my relatively weak will, more companies are starting to provide support for consumers that want to dispose of their old electronics with a clear conscience. On Thursday, Panasonic announced that it is creating a nationwide program designed to provide consumers “convenient and easy” recycling of Panasonic branded TVs and other consumer electronics from the company.

The program will roll out in 10 states with more than 160 drop-off locations on November 1, 2008. Consumers seeking to dispose of their Panasonic branded equipment can do so free of charge. During the next three years, Panasonic plans to expand the program to all 50 states.

According to Panasonic, promoting employee and public awareness of environmental responsibility is one central element of its worldwide environmental initiatives. The company also pledges to reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by 300,000 tons by 2010 and to introduce products that are easier to recycle and increasingly more energy efficient.

Additional details on the program’s expansion will be announced in January.

Click to view the 2008 SEMA Show preview.

(Credit: Toyo Tires)

All automotive shows are fraught with spectacle and glitz, but the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, a city that was arguably built on spectacle, has to rank amongst the flashiest. What sets SEMA apart from other car shows is the emphasis on aftermarket parts, accessories, and modifications. You won’t see many new models unveiled at SEMA, but you will see current and future models modified almost beyond recognition.

Many automakers have put their hottest rides in the hands of custom shops with orders to created the wildest rides imaginable. Here’s a sneak peak of what you can expect from to see in Las Vegas next week.

View the 2008 SEMA Show preview.

Did you know there’s some leeway on when a refrigerator must run its automatic defrost cycle?

Well, apparently, there is, and it could help ease the stress on local energy grids during peak hours, according to GE Consumer & Industrial.

Currently, GE refrigerators’ automatic defrost modes are prompted by factors like door openings. But, the company says, it could build refrigerators that delay that cycle until a local electrical grid signals it’s a good off-peak time to suck down more electricity.

Refrigerators are not the only appliances that could be programmed to wait for convenient times to run.

GE is testing a whole range of what it calls “Energy Management-Enabled Appliances” with the Louisville Gas and Electric Co. in Louisville, Ky., the company announced Wednesday. It includes ranges, washers and dryers, dishwashers, and microwaves.

The appliances are equipped with a “Smart Meter” that communicates with the local power utility, and then times itself to run during off-peak periods. Consumers are still given a choice to override the program if they want to use a particular appliance during peak hours.

The program seeks to address the nationwide problem of peak energy demand, in which electrical grids are overburdened by a consumer surge in use. It’s a problem power utilities are concerned about given the rise in electric plug-in vehicles.

GE estimates that there are currently about 3,000 utilities in the U.S. Many of them are considering their energy storage options, and some are considering moving to a tiered-pricing system to encourage off-peak electricity usage. Appliances that help consumers avoid peak hours could help them save money, according to GE.

But there’s a catch. In order for the appliances to work, the electrical grid they operate on must communicate with the machine’s “Smart Meter.”

That means utilities would have to be onboard with a standardized system that allows household appliances to communicate with their grids.

(Credit: Sony Pictures)

With Question of Sport Quantum of Solace just days away from release, Crave’s car nerds have been clamoring to discover which new motors Jimmy Bond gets to pootle about in. We were sat here expecting to see an Aston Martin or a BMW, but surprisingly, the first car to gain prominence from the new flick is a Ford Ka.

WTF? Has MI6 been affected by the credit crunch? Not exactly–it turns out the Ka belongs to new Bond girl Camille, played by the delightful Miss Olga Kurylenko.

Apparently she uses it as a runabout, but in true Bond style, it’s not long before the Ka becomes embroiled in an action-packed chase scene. In one sequence, someone–possibly 007 himself–can be seen diving out of the door just before it zooms off, possibly crashing into a low-flying helicopter.

Before you start moaning about it being a Ka, remember Roger Moore was seen driving a Citroen 2CV in For Your Eyes Only, and in Live and Let Die, Bond even got away in a knackered old bus. At least the new Ka uses Ford’s Kinetic design–which means it has fancy trapezoidal headlights and is wedge-shaped to give the impression it’s in motion, even when it’s standing still.

You can have a look at what sort of tech might be in the Ka by checking out our video review of its big brother, the Focus, here. Alternatively, ogle Olga (and the Ka) by hitting the Continue button. When you’re done, take a cold shower and watch some B-roll of the movie by clicking this link.

(Via Crave UK)

You know all those hoax e-mails that arrive in your in box saying that you’ve won a lottery? You don’t click on them, obviously, but many people do, enough to prompt Microsoft and Yahoo to form a coalition to warn consumers about the scam.

Microsoft, Yahoo, Western Union, and The African Development Bank are partnering to educate Internet users about the dangers of falling prey to the fake lottery winner e-mails.

In such scams, victims are told that they have won a lottery, often in a foreign country, and are then asked to provide their personal and financial information to claim the winnings. In the current economic downturn, the fear is that desperate people will be more likely to take the bait.

The announcement of the coalition, made at the 6th German Anti Spam Summit in Wiesbaden, Germany, coincided with the release of Microsoft-commissioned research on lottery scams in Europe.

Of 4,930 people surveyed, 113 people reported losing money to an Internet fraudster in the last year. Twenty-seven percent of Internet users surveyed predicted they would become a victim of a lottery scam and more than half said lottery scam e-mails scared them off from buying things online.

The JCW Mini is the fastest Cooper that money can buy and, as it turns out, it is pretty economical as well.

(Credit: BMW/Mini USA)

Just last week, we were able to best the Honda Fit’s claimed 33 highway mpg to achieve just a bit more than 40 combined mpg (and that was with lead-footed me behind the wheel for about a quarter of a tank). Now, the Fit is a fairly economically tuned car, but how would we have handled a less docile vehicle? U.K. magazine Auto Express entered a John Cooper Works Mini–the hottest, fastest Mini Cooper available–in a MPG Marathon. How did they fair?

Surprisingly for a turbocharged hot-hatch with enough moxie to sprint from 0-60mph in only 6.5 seconds, the JCW Mini was able to also achieve 50 mpg-plus fuel economy with a journalist behind the wheel and camera gear in the rear. That’s 25 percent more than the maker’s claimed 40.9mpg combined figure.

You’d think that it would take some pretty extreme hypermiling techniques to achieve such high fuel economy, but you’d be mistaken.

For the first of their two-day trek, they utilized hypermiling techniques, such as short shifting and freewheeling down hills, to achieve a peak of 54.7 mpg. On the second day, they merely drove conservatively and maintained the speed limit, ending up with a two day average of 50.2 mpg.

Check out Auto Express for more information about the 50 mpg Mini.

The relative ease at which we at Car Tech and the blokes at Auto Express smashed the manufacturer’s claimed fuel economy has gotten me wondering what kind of mpg I could get out of our bare bones Chevy Aveo car audio test vehicle. Be sure to share your suggestions for other potentially underrated mpg champs in the comments.

A home wind turbine already installed at 250 sites in Scotland is now being sold across the pond.

Cascade Engineering said Monday the Swift wind turbine, for homes and other buildings, is available in the U.S. and Canada.

(Credit: Cascade Engineering)

The Swift tries to set itself apart from existing small wind turbines with a design that reduces noise. Also, the turbine can be attached to a home, rather than to a free-standing pole or tower.

Like other wind turbines, the Swift has blades that turn and power a generator. But rather than the typical three blades, the Swift has five and a ring that goes around them. That “outer diffuser” ring cuts the noise level to 35 decibels and reduces vibration, according to the company.

The turbine, with a 7-foot diameter, also has two fins to direct the turbine to face the wind. It can turn 360 degrees and shut down if the wind is too high.

It can generate 1.5 kilowatts with 14 mile-per-hour wind and about 2,000 kilowatt-hours over a year, the company said. U.S. households typically consume between 6,500 and 10,000 kilowatt-hours in a year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

At a cost of $10,000 installed, it’s a bit lower than the typical per-watt cost of solar electric panels. But state rebates, the cost of electricity, and the wind or solar resource make a big difference on the actual up-front cost. Cascade estimates the payback on the upfront cost can be as low as three years but that it varies widely

(Credit: Cascade Engineering)

Small wind recently benefited from the extension of renewable energy tax credits, which gives consumers a $1,000 tax credit for residential systems and $4,000 for commercial buildings.

Cascade, which is based in Grand Rapids, Mich., has installed 9 Swift turbines in the U.S. and has a backlog of 25 orders, according to Jessica Lehti, the company’s senior product marketing manager.

The mix of customers is spit in half between residential and commercial customers. Even with the economic downturn, the company expects that it can sell to customers who purchase renewable energy products for both economic and environmental reasons.

Cascade, which specializes in plastics, has partnered with the Scotland-based Renewable Devices, which originally designed the Swift. Cascade is selling the product in the U.S.

The company says the turbine is best suited for places with average winds and needs to be placed two feet above the roofline.

OnOne Software has announced version 6 of its Genuine Fractals software for expanding images up to mammoth sizes.

These new features include texture presets that more rapidly tune the resizing algorithm, batch processing so bulk operations can be run in the background, tiling to split images up into pieces for printing on smaller printers, a gallery wrap feature to help when printed images are mounted on thick frames, and the ability to work with Adobe Systems’ Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 and with Apple Aperture 2.1.

The Standard and Professional editions cost $159.95 and $299.95, respectively. In the Professional Edition but missing from the Standard is the Lightroom and Aperture support, the ability to resize CMYK images, and gallery wrap. When used as a Photoshop CS4 plug-in, only the 32-bit version of Adobe’s software is supported.

Also at the PhotoPlus Expo, the company also announced PhotoTools 2 in $159.95 Standard and $259.95 Professional editions will go on sale in January. With the new version, the company said, it’s now easier to find the right choice among the 300 effects and adjustments; changes can be previewed before they’re applied, preset adjustments can be saved, loaded, and shared; and masking features to apply changes only to a portion of an image. The Professional Edition includes a variety of photo effects and presets and also works with Aperture 2.1 and Lightroom 2.

The company also announced the $499.95 Plug-In Suite 4.5, which combines Genuine Fractals 6 Professional Edition, PhotoTools 2 Professional Edition, Mask Pro 4.1, PhotoTune 2.2, PhotoFrame 4 Professional Edition, and FocalPoint 1.0. That bundle will be available in January, the company said.

(Via PhotoshopSupport.com.)