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Electrify Expo is an all-electrified auto show like the old days

In late July, Autoblog swung by Washington, D.C. to check out the Electrify Expo. Now in its third year of nationwide shows, the Electrify Expo calls itself “North America's largest electric vehicle festival filled with over 1 million square feet of the world's top electric brands.” At every stop, visitors can find out about, crawl around in, drive and ride just about any personal conveyance that uses a battery for propulsion. Truth be told, when the show's PR team reached out to us with an invite, we only considered going after finding out about an area showcasing battery-electric tuner cars. EV tuning is undoubtedly going to be huge—eventually—which got us curious about these early days. We figured weÂ’d brave whatever the rest of the expo was to find out whatÂ’s the equivalent of nitrous for a Tesla. See, the EV event scene is still such that one never knows if theyÂ’ll show up to a mix of science and county fairs with a few cars on display just for truth in advertising, or if theyÂ’ll show up to a parking lot with 26 cars, 10 of them locked, 10 of them homemade, and 6 guarded by promotional hires desperate to tap all your identifying info a tablet before dispensing dubious and superficial information. Which is to say, we didnÂ’t expect much. And that makes us chuffed to report: Electrify Expo is great. We hadnÂ’t been strolling the lot outside the old RFK Stadium for five minutes before thinking, “This feels like an old-school auto show!” The exclamation to that point came from a group of four who cut me off to reach the C40 Recharge in the Volvo booth, one of them exclaiming as if he were the group expert and as if his friends were deaf, “THATÂ’S THE LEAST EXPENSIVE ONE! AND ITÂ’S BEEEE-YOUUUUU-TI-FULLLLLL!” I wasnÂ’t there to judge, I was there for the enthusiasm. Automakers had built small, simple, open booths, parked cars in them, then provided visitors the kind of interactions that will do the most good for anyone wondering about or interested in an EV. We only saw two cars that were off limits, the new Volkswagen ID.Buzz and the Ford F-100 Eluminator. Volvo wouldnÂ’t let me get an espresso from their chic little trailer, either, unless I visited the EX90 Experience trailer first. Otherwise, it was a free-for-all. Tesla had a large booth full of cars. BMW had two i7s open for everyone to sit in, next to the Ford booth with that Eluminator and an unlocked Mustang Mach-E GT and F-150 Lightning showing their cooler-chest-frunk trick.

Tesla not bought with Bitcoin currency after all?

The story we posted about a dealership accepting Bitcoins as payment for a Tesla Model S is reportedly only partially true. Lamborghini Newport Beach instead used BitPay to exchange the electronic currency for US dollars before completing the sale, according to "Squawk on the Street" on CNBC.
"We found out that by using a little program that Bitcoin uses, which is actually BitPay, we would have received US dollars," Pietro Frigerio, general manager of the dealership, says in the interview. "It's like if you come into the dealership and you want to buy a Lamborghini using gold bars, we would not accept it. So you'd go out, exchange it, and you'd come back to us. That was how it worked [with the Tesla and the Bitcoins]."
Frigerio says that the dealership doesn't accept Bitcoin as a currency and only accepts US dollars as payment for its vehicles. That said, we wouldn't be surprised if using BitPay to turn Bitcoins into US dollars for the used Model S purchase was actually easier than going through a more traditional financial establishment. Head over to CNBC to check out the "Squawk on the Street" interview with more details.

'King of Lemon Laws' Vince Megna files suit against Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors is already busy in the courts, filing a suit in New Jersey last week to appeal the direct-sales ban of its automobiles in that state. But now it's going to have to deal with the self-described "King of Lemon Laws," Vince Megna, in Wisconsin. Now that we think about it, this showdown was quite inevitable. In a video that is obviously part one of who knows how many (view it below), Menga sets up his argument against Tesla because the Model S of a client won't start. Then, he picks up a cardboard George Clooney hitchhiker and goes off to file suit in Milwaukee County Courthouse with an assistant with duct tape on her mouth and "WTF" on her shirt. Subtle, Megna is not. If that cardboard celebrity bit seems familiar to you, then perhaps you're thinking about the Justin Bieber standup that Megna used in his lemon lawsuit over the Fisker Karma. In fact, Megna is famous in the auto industry for fighting against automakers that he says make shoddy products. In this case, he claims Tesla sold a faulty Model S to a doctor in Franklin, WI. This doctor, Robert Montgomery, got his 2013 Signature Performance Model S in March 2013, and the car has been in the shop for more than 30 days since then. He has asked for his money back, but the automaker has apparently not responded. The nearest shop is in Chicago, so the car gets to ride in a flatbed back and forth, as you can see in the video below. Plus, of course, Megna's one-sided conversation with a fake George Clooney. Tesla told AutoblogGreen it does not comment on pending litigation. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.