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Tesla attempting LA-NY Guinness record using Superchargers

Right now, two Tesla Model S EVs are crossing the US from Los Angeles to New York, hoping to be a big deal. Sure, a father-daughter team already claim they've made the cross-country drive, but this time, it's an official Tesla event and the company has its eyes on a Guinness World Record prize. The drivers left the Tesla design studio in Hawthorne, Los Angeles at midnight last night, and the plan is to use the company's just-completed Supercharger network to achieve the "lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the United States." We didn't know that was a category, either. Tesla now has over 70 Supercharger stations in the US and all of them are free-to-use for Model S drivers, which is why you can follow along on this record attempt via Twitter using the #DriveFree tag. As of early this morning, the teams made it to the Supercharger station in Kingman, AZ and posted this sunrise pic. We wish them safe travels – they will soon reach the snowy northern parts of the country since the current Supercharger route will take them through the upper Midwest on the way to the East Coast.

How to get incredibly accurate information on your EV's charging power

One would think that paying about $300 to receive a bit of bad news about electric-vehicle charging would be counterproductive. But the fine folks at Teslarati believe that truth is beauty, and they're willing to pay a little extra for the straight dope. There are always losses when taking power from the grid and shoving it into an EV's battery pack. The question is how big are these losses. Teslarati calculated digital read-outs from the dashboard of their Tesla Model S all-electric sedan and found that Tesla builds in about a nine percent efficiency loss when it comes to recharging the car. But the blog thought the Tesla couldn't know exactly what was transpiring between the wall and the battery, so it footed the bill for about $300 to install a digital submetering unit from EKM Metering. With a little calculation, Teslarati was able to figure out after a couple of recharging rounds that the efficiency loss per recharge was closer to 15 percent than nine percent. That means that, instead of paying about 48 cents on the dollar relative to filling up an economy car (factoring in the AAA average price of $3.66 per gallon), Tesla owners are paying about 52 cents on the dollar. Not much compared to paying upwards towards $100,000 for the vehicle itself, but, hey, every cent counts, right? Get all of the details here. Featured Gallery Tesla Model S View 10 Photos News Source: Teslarati Green Tesla Electric recharging

Ludacris' Restored Acura Legend Presented at SEMA | Autoblog Minute

As Acura prepared for the 2015 SEMA show, the trade show for automotive aftermarket professionals and enthusiasts, they had a chance to take on a unique project: Restoring a damaged ?93 Acura Legend owned by Ludacris. Autoblog's Eddie Sabatini reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute, with an original interview with Ludacris. Acura Tesla Autonomous Vehicles Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video Acura Legend ludicrous mode legend