Technology, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 14, 2011

Best Buy Aims to Sell Americans on Electric Cars

WASHINGTON D.C. – This could be the future of electric cars: choosing a vehicle at the local Best Buy and then getting a personal visit from the electronic retailer's Geek Squad to prep for installation of the home charging station. It's no far-fetched fantasy. A Best Buy representative voiced such...

Apr 11, 2012

Electric Cars to Tell Power Grid When to Charge Them

Owners of electric and hybrid cars just want plug in and charge up without thinking, but growing numbers of such vehicles could overload the aging U.S. power grid. A new project looks to stave off trouble by testing how cars and power grids can talk to figure out the best...

Jun 27, 2012

Edison's Electric Car Battery Gets a Makeover

Thomas Edison didn't just have telegraphs and light bulbs on his mind — the U.S. innovator marketed an electric car battery in the early 20th century. The same nickel-iron battery technology could soon make its return as a fast-charging power source for the 21st century. The modern makeover of Edison's...

Aug 23, 2012

Green Tech Test Town Shows Electric Cars Sap Grid

One green tech test bed neighborhood in Texas is now offering up its first insights to the researchers monitoring it. It turns out that people tend to plug in their electric cars at the same time they turn on everything else electronic in their houses. If more people own electric...

Feb 14, 2013

Tesla Publishes Vehicle Log from Harsh NYT Model S Review

Tesla Motor's founder, Elon Musk published a blog post Thursday responding to the harsh review of the company's new Model S sedan published in the New York Times last Friday. After reprimanding the New York Times and reviewer John Broder via Twitter yesterday, Musk elaborated on his reasons for calling...

Sep 10, 2013

Why Crash Test Dummies Prefer Electric Vehicles (Op-Ed)

Josh Goldman is a policy analyst for clean vehicles at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) where he leads legislative and regulatory campaigns to reduce U.S. oil consumption. This article was adapted from a post to the UCS blog the Equation. Goldman contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed...

Sep 23, 2013

How Tesla Motors Builds One of the World's Safest Cars [Video]

FREMONT, Calif.—Tesla Motors builds one of the world's safest cars out of cheap, lightweight metal in a factory it practically stole from General Motors and Toyota. That's one of the most important ways the electric car company reduced the price of an electric vehicle (EV) from a carbon-fiber Roadster above...

Sep 30, 2013

Record Electric Vehicle Sales Could Have Climate Impact (Op-Ed)

Don Anair is research and deputy director for the Clean Vehicles program at UCS. Heis an engineer with expertise on diesel, hybrid and battery electric vehicles and related policies. This article is adapted from a post to the UCS blog The Equation. Anair contributed this article to Live Science's Expert...

Dec 9, 2013

Far Out! Tesla's Model S Is 1st Car Purchased with Bitcoin

The future is here, folks. An electric car was recently purchased in California using only Bitcoins, the ultramodern, digital-only currency that is quickly taking hold among businesses and consumers. A Tesla Model S was sold for an undisclosed Bitcoin price by Lamborghini Newport Beach in Costa Mesa, Calif., reported the...

Jun 12, 2014

Free for All: Tesla Motors Makes Electric Car Patents Open Source

In a bold move, Tesla Motors is making all the patents for the company's electric car technology free and available for anyone to use. In a blog entry posted today (June 12), Tesla founder and chief operating officer Elon Musk said the decision to share the company's patents was made...

Sep 5, 2014

Tesla Motors to Build Battery 'Gigafactory' in Nevada

Tesla Motors is building a new factory in Nevada to produce batteries for its electric cars, the company announced Thursday (Sept. 4). The state has been selected as the official site for Tesla's futuristic-sounding Gigafactory, according to Elon Musk, chairman and CEO of the Palo Alto, California-based Tesla Motors. The...

Sep 12, 2014

World's First Electric Car Race Kicks Off This Weekend

The world of car racing is about to go green. The first-ever racing series featuring only electric cars will begin this weekend in China. On Saturday (Sept. 13), sleekly designed electric vehicles will zoom around a 2.14-mile (3.4 kilometers) course in Beijing that will take the cars past the city's...

Oct 8, 2014

What Will Tesla Motors Reveal Thursday?

Tesla Motors is set to make a big announcement tomorrow (Oct. 9), after more than a week of speculation about the electric car company's next move, sparked by a mysterious tweet from CEO Elon Musk. On Oct. 1, Musk wrote in a post on Twitter that it was time to...

Oct 9, 2014

Tesla Motors Announces All-Wheel Drive Model S & New Safety Tech

After more than a week of anticipation, Tesla Motors finally revealed the D — and it doesn't stand for driverless, as had been widely rumored. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's electric car company will now offer all-wheel-drive versions of the Tesla Model S, including one high-end option that can accelerate from...

Oct 16, 2014

Is Car Hacking the Next Big Security Threat?

It may seem convenient to have a hands-free phone built into your car, or to have a GPS system in your vehicle, but as automobiles incorporate more navigation and wireless communication technologies, could these super-connected cars become increasingly vulnerable to hackers? Actually, the idea of hacking cars isn't all that...