Items tagged with electric
Tesla has just made it official that its much-anticipated Gigafactory will have its grand opening on July 29th. The company itself hasn't issued a public statement on this event, but invites have already been sent out to Tesla owners and others in Tesla's good graces. To say that those who get invited by Tesla is an exclusive club would be an understatement. To qualify for the invite, a person had to act as a referrer to at least five others who ultimately ended up purchasing a Model S. Think being able to purchase a Model S is a luxury? Imagine being able to convince five (or more) friends to snatch one up, too! Tesla's Gigafactory 1 should help reduce the cost of its vehicle batteries...
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Holy smokes, Harley-Davidson is going green! No, we're not talking about a Lime Green motorcycle or anything to do with paint jobs, but a brand new hog that runs on electricity instead of gasoline! To kick off the initiative, which HD is calling "Project LiveWire," the iconic motorcycle maker is taking 22 electric bikes on a tour across the U.S. next week to both promote the new rides and gauge the public's reaction. Early indications are positive. A visit over to project.harley-davidson.com yields an error message that reads, "Due to the overwhelming response, we are experiencing a slight technical delay." Hardly surprising when you stop and think about the significance of this movement combined...
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Despite having risen to popularity only a few years ago, it's become increasingly clear that electric vehicles are the future. Versus gas-powered vehicles, electric ones are safer on the environment (this is oft-debated, however), are generally cleaner, and are also less-expensive to refuel. Who wouldn't love to rid the need to hit-up a gas station? That latter point does lead us to one downside of electric vehicles: The need to find charging stations. The risk of running out of power while on-the-road and being nowhere near a charge station is real, and it requires close attention to your power use and also advanced planning. The risk is greatly minimized with gas-powered...
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Electric vehicles may not be in the exact same playing field as USB drives, mainboards and SSDs, but there's still something whiz-bang-y about 'em that makes us drool. With Chevy's Volt inching towards production and a couple of other all-electric vehicles already leaking out to the wealthy, where are we common folk expected to fulfill our own fantasies of driving around on the open road without using a drop of fuel? JARI, we guess.The Japan Automobile Research Institute has developed and revealed the C·ta, which is being described as a "lightweight three-seater electric vehicle whose body is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). " There's no doubt that there is some question over...
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Hammacher Schlemmer has a wide, wide variety of wares. It carries everything from cups to 3D webcams, so it's no surprise to hear that it also carries electric skateboards that even Marty McFly would be jealous of. The newest gizmo to grace the company's electronic storefront is the 19-MPH Skateboard, which is exactly what you'd think: a motorized skateboard that travels at up to 19 mph. The board is powered by a 36-Volt battery and it hosts a 600-watt motor; it's capable of hitting its top speed in just 4 seconds, and it can supposedly head up hills and over terrain without issue. Both acceleration and braking are handled via a remote wireless trigger, and the battery provides a range of up...
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We were pretty moved by DOW Chemical's recent "Human Element" campaign, and we're delighted to see yet another major American corporation going above and beyond the call of duty in order to better our planet. Ford, along with its utility partners, have announced that they are testing out one of the industry's first vehicle-to-electric grid communications and control systems, which enables electric vehicles to interface with the grid for optimal recharging. Put simply, this new approach enables the vehicle operator to program when to recharge the vehicle, for how long and at what utility rate. In other words, an operator could choose to charge only during off-peak hours when electricity is cheaper,...
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Ken Brill at Forbes does a little arithmetic to examine the true cost of running a server, and the numbers are a bit of a surprise. Since we're in the midst of something of a boom in data center construction, shouldn't someone be figuring out what they really cost before they buy a bunch of servers and roll out the plans? Because of the weird way accounting departments compartmentalize costs, server farms might seem awfully cheap. Until you plug it all in, of course.Data-center building depreciation is often carried separately from data-center mechanical and electrical equipment. Utility bills often go to a centralized energy function. Site operation costs for technicians, security staff, power...
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Perhaps it is just a coincidence that we're starting to hear a lot more about electric cars these days now that gas prices have hit record highs. Coincidence or not, automobiles that offer alternatives to traditional fossil-fuel-based, internal combustion engines are gearing up to hit the streets. The latest entrant to this quickly growing field is U.K.-based, Lightning Car Company, which debuted its Electric Lightning GT today at the British Motor Show in London. Similar to the all-electric, high-performance Tesla Roadster that is now available the Electric Lightning GT will also be a high-performance vehicle--and carry a similar, high-performance price tag. News.com reports that the Electric...
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As the price of gas continues to rise, fewer folks are buying automobiles--especially gas-guzzlers like trucks and SUVs. Throw in a limping economy, record job losses, and a crippled housing market, and it's amazing anyone drives anywhere other than to work and the grocery store. There's also the growing environmentally conscious crowd who is concerned over the impact emissions from internal combustion engines have on global climate change. Short of everyone switching to bicycles as their primary means of transportation, what are cash-strapped, eco-friendly people to do? Philadelphia steel wholesaler Barry D. Bernsten thinks he has the answer: electric cars. Credit: BG Automotive...
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What's new is old again, it seems. Security researchers are warning consumers to be cautious about using items like freebie flash drives that are given out as souvenirs at trade shows and similar events. There are recent reports of malware being loaded onto removable storage devices like USB flash drives, and even digital picture frames.In mid-December, Kaspersky Lab senior virus analyst Aleks Gostev penned a blog post describing his experience with an infectious Compact Flash card for his digital camera. "We've already written more than once about viruses and worms which spread via removable storage media by launching automatically from autorun.inf," he said. "A number of users have also...
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Just in case you didn't catch the fresh link at the top of the page on your first visit here today, we’re writing to let you know that we’ve just posted a new article here at HotHardware in which we evaluate the features, installation, and performance of Ultra’s ChillTec Thermo-Electric CPU Cooler. The ChillTec is a bit more than an oversized aftermarket cooler. This unit marries two technologies into a single package, teaming a heat-pipe tower-type cooler with a peltier and an oversized fan to offer extreme cooling potential. To help facilitate use of its features, Ultra also integrates an external module that's programmed to control the cooler's functions and report on the current health...
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The Ultra ChillTec Thermo-Electric CPU Cooler is a bit more than an oversized aftermarket cooler. This unit marries two technologies into a single package, teaming a heat-pipe type cooler with a peltier and an oversized fan to offer extreme cooling potential. To help facilitate its features properly, Ultra also integrates an external control module that's programmed to control the cooler's functions and report on the current health of the CPU. Based on its relatively unique design and a rather hefty pricepoint, we were eager to delve into the design and performance of the Ultra ChillTec Thermo-Electric CPU cooler. Our goal is to see how well the unit performs compared to stock cooling...
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In a report charmingly called "The Ampere Strikes Back," Britain's Energy Saving Trust has predicted that electronic gear will consume nearly half of the total electricity used by the typical household by the year 2020, surpassing the traditionally big electricity eaters in the home: kitchen appliances and lighting. The most striking number might be that in 2020, televisions on standby will consume 1.4 percent of all domestic electricity. Despite attempts by some manufacturers to make more energy-efficient products, some digital radios still use four times as much power as analogue sets, the report says. The growth of single person households --...
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Blockbuster video has thrown their considerable weight behind the Blu-Ray format by deciding to offer only that format in its video rental stores. They offered high definition discs in both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray format as a test in 250 of their outlets, and consumers opted for the Blu-ray more than 70 percent of the time. The release of Sony's Blu-ray-enabled PlayStation 3 games console was also a factor in the decision, said Blockbuster senior vice president of merchandising Matthew Smith. Smith's comments comes after Microsoft conceded that the Xbox 360 games console may eventually support Blu-ray. While Blockbuster is following market trends, its backing of Blu-ray as...
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