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Ohio Senate strips anti-Tesla amendment from bill

Tesla's strategy to sell cars, such as the Model S, through manufacturer-owned retail stores has rubbed traditional franchise auto dealerships the wrong way. The battle between Tesla and the Ohio Auto Dealers Association heated up quickly over the past week because a proposed amendment to an Ohio road-maintenance worker safety bill (Senate Bill 137) threatened to ban Tesla stores in Ohio. The automaker asked for help from its supporters to fight the amendment, and on Tuesday all 12 members of the Ohio senate passed the bill without it, Transport Evolved reports.
After the vote, Tesla sent out an e-mail to its supporters thanking them for their help, which you can read below:
Dear Tesla Advocate,

Tesla's 'D' Adds All-Wheel Drive, Safety Features

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk unveiled a new version of the luxury electric car maker's Model S sedan that includes all-wheel drive and self-driving "auto pilot" features. The open-to-the-public event Thursday night included free alcohol and test rides on an airport tarmac. With more than 1,000 Tesla fans in the audience, Musk explained that the current Model S is a rear-wheel-drive car with one motor, but a new version will have two motors - one powering the front wheels and one powering the rear wheels. All-wheel drive helps grip slippery roads and is standard on many luxury sedans. Analysts have said Tesla needed it to boost sales in the Northeast and Midwest, as well as Europe. The company sold 13,850 cars in the U.S. this year through September, down 3 percent from a year ago, according to Autodata Corp. Unlike all-wheel-drive systems on gas-powered cars, Tesla's system improves speed, acceleration and mileage by optimizing which motor is used, Musk said. The dual motor version of the P85 performance sedan will have a top speed of 155 mph, compared with the current 130 mph. It will accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds, akin to exotic sports cars. "This car is nuts. It's like taking off from a carrier deck," Musk said at the municipal airport near Los Angeles where another of Musk's companies - the commercial rocket firm SpaceX - is based. The crowd obliged with cheers and applause. Tesla is also significantly upgrading its safety features through a combination of radar, image-recognition cameras and sonar. The Model S will right itself if it wanders from its lane and brake automatically if it is about to hit something. Those features are offered on luxury competitors, as well as mainstream brands such as Ford, Hyundai and Toyota. But Tesla is going a step further. Its new system will move the car over a lane when the driver uses the turn signal. It will also use cameras to read speed limit signs and decelerate accordingly. Volvo has a system that reads signs and alerts drivers if they are over the limit but does not change the speed. Musk said "auto pilot" does not mean the car could drive itself - as he put it, a driver cannot "safely fall asleep." Pulling together all the driver-assist features impressed Brian A. Johnson, an analyst with Barclay's. "It's a year ahead of the timeframe I was expecting," he said.

Tesla Model S successfully hacked by Zhejiang University team

The $10,000 prize for successfully hacking a Tesla Model S has been claimed. A team from Zhejiang University in China claimed victory at the Symposium on Security for Asia Network (SyScan360) event in Beijing by exploiting a "flow design flaw," whatever that means, to gain access to vital systems including the door locks, horn and window controls, while the vehicle was moving.
The group that was able to hack a Tesla reported its findings to the electric car automaker, so this security breach will hopefully be fixed in short order. The event was welcomed by Tesla, which said it "[supported] the idea of providing an environment in which responsible security researchers can help identify potential vulnerabilities."
Last year, potential security pitfalls of high-tech electric and hybrid cars came to light when the US Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (better known as DARPA) successfully hacked into hybrids from Ford and Toyota. Questions about the security of the Tesla Model S have been raised before. If you're wondering why all this might be such a big deal, we suggest you watch this.