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Recharge Wrap-up: Telsa seeks to open new Texas Gallery, Gigafactory boosting NV real estate

Tesla's Gigafactory battery production facility is helping to create a real estate boom near its building site outside of Reno, NV. Land that stood vacant for years is being snatched up by developers eager to make a buck in what is appearing to become a new hub of high-tech industry. Much of the money influx seems to be coming from investors outside of the area. New apartment complexes are going up, and the usual six months of real estate inventory has been shrunken to about 2.6 months. Read more at Teslarati. Tesla is seeking approval for a limited-service showroom - or "Gallery" - in San Antonio, TX. The area's News 4 discovered the proposal in a schedule for the San Antonia planning commission. Texas laws don't allow Tesla to sell directly to consumers, so the gallery would offer the public a chance to see the car in person, but not take a test drive or get pricing information. The Tesla Gallery could be a foothold for Tesla in the San Antonio area, which, according to Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, would be a positive addition to the city and its future. Judge Wolff says that Tesla moving in "shows that San Antonio is up with technology, blends with other efforts that we're doing with solar power." Read more at ValueWalk. Kansas City Power & Light Company (KCP&L) will install over 1,000 ChargePoint EV charging stations in the greater Kansas City area. This will be the largest charging installation by a utility company in America. Drivers will be able to use these stations, which will be built by the end of this summer, for free for the first two years. The first 15 stations will be fast chargers provided by Nissan. KCP&L expects the charging network to help drive down electricity costs for customers in general. "People generally charge their cars at non-peak periods when KCP&L's electrical grid is being underutilized," says Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Energy Economist Ashok Gupta. "By stimulating electric vehicle adoption with their Clean Charge Network, what KCP&L is doing is encouraging people to use the electrical grid more efficiently and drive down the cost of electricity for everyone." Read more in the press release below. KCP&L BECOMES ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE LEADER WITH GROUNDBREAKING ANNOUNCEMENT KCP&L's Clean Charge Network will be the largest utility electric vehicle charging station installation in the country KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Jan.

Investigators Find No Defect Trend With Tesla Motors' Model S

Federal safety investigators said Friday they have found no apparent defect trends in the Tesla Model S, an electric luxury car that has its share of fans and critics. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed a four-month investigation into whether the car's batteries were at heightened risk for underbody strikes and subsequent fires. Even though no defect trend was found, Tesla Motors said in a written statement it would further protect the bottom of its cars with a reinforced underbody shield. The California-based automaker started adding the shields on March 6 and will retrofit older models free of charge. It will also increase the ground clearance of new cars. "This fix should eliminate the potential of a battery-pack fire under all but the most extreme circumstances," said Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book. Although there are more than 194,000 car fires in the United States every year, NHTSA investigators began a preliminary investigation into potential trouble on Nov. 15, 2013 following two Model S fires, one in Tennessee and one in Washington. No one was injured or killed in either fire. Roadway debris punctured the battery pack near the front of the compartments in both cases, damaging the batteries' lithium ion cells that then began "thermal runaway" events. The opposite ends of the debris had dug into the pavement and jutted upward. Tesla called this a "piking effect." The company said it has conducted 152 vehicle level tests, and that the new shields prevented any damage or penetration of the new shields. The first is a rounded, hollow aluminum bar that's followed by a titanium plate. The third layer of protection is made of solid aluminum. (There's video of the new plates in action on the Tesla Motors website). "We have tried every worst-case debris impact we can think of, including hardened steel structures set in the ideal position for a piking event," Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk wrote on the company's blog," essentially equivalent to driving a car at highway speed, into a steel spear braced on the tarmac." Approximately 15,805 vehicles are eligible for the upgrades, which NHTSA says should reduce the frequency of underbody strikes and subsequent fire risks. But the agency did note that the closing of the investigation did not necessarily constitute a finding that a defect does not exist. "The agency reserves the right to take further action if warranted by new circumstances," it said.

Recharge Wrap-up: Pikes Peak Honda CR-Z, Tesla's liquid-cooled cable

Honda will race a CR-Z hybrid in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The car will use Electric SH-AWD, which probably means it will be using electric motors to power the rear wheels. Whether the Pikes Peak CR-Z uses the same powertrain as the upcoming Acura NSX or the 3.5-liter V6 with three-motor hybrid system used in the Acura RLX Sport Hybrid is still unclear. The car will also use Acura's Precision All-Wheel Steering (P-AWS) system. The CR-Z will be piloted by Tetsuya Yamano. Read more at Hybrid Cars, or, if you read Japanese, at Response. Tesla has introduced a thinner, liquid-cooled Supercharger cable. While the convenience of not having to "wrestle a good-sized snake into the car," as Elon Musk calls it in a shareholder speech, is wonderful, it could also allow for faster charging in the future. The liquid-cooled charging cable "also has the potential for increased power of the Supercharger long-term," says Musk. A cable able to withstand larger loads could mean shorter stops when it's time for a charge. Tesla has installed the first next-generation cable at the Mountain View Supercharger. Read more at Charged EVs. Smart is offering its Twinamic automatic dual-clutch transmission on more models in Europe. In addition to the 71-horsepower Smart Fortwo, the DCT will now be available in the 90-horsepower Fortwo and the 71-horsepower Forfour. In the Fortwo, the Twinamic DCT adds ˆ1,275 (about $1,437) to the price over the manual transmission, and is an extra ˆ1,425 (about $1,606) in the Forfour. The option of steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters as part of the Sport package makes driving the efficient microcar even more fun. Deliveries of the newly equipped vehicles begin at the end of July. Read more in the press release below. smart extends twinamic range for fortwo and forfour: Even more models with automatic transmission Stuttgart. Following in the footsteps of the smart fortwo with 52 kW/71 hp, the smart fortwo with 66 kW/90 hp and the smart forfour with 52 kW/71 hp are now also available with fully automatic twinamic dual clutch transmission. This costs an extra 1275 euros compared to the versions with 5-speed manual transmission (forfour: 1425 euros). This means that both model series now offer a choice between no fewer than nine engine/transmission combinations. Delivery of the new models will begin at the end of July 2015.