Tesla Motors today unveiled its latest addition, the Model S sedan, to its line of electric vehicles. The Model S is its first push to make electric vehicles more affordable. The sedan will ship for $50,000 in late 2011.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk explains the Model S’s three level of removable battery packs, which will propel the electric vehicles 300 mi, 150 mi …. depending on the pack installed. Musk also boasted about the battery packs impressive 45 minute charge time.

[Jason Calacanis]

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1. Tesla Model S Electric Car Test Drive Video
2. New Tesla Model S To Come With 440V Fast Charger Capabilities
3. Elon Musk CEO Of Tesla Motors Talks About The Companies Survival In A Hard Economy

Chris Fenton is on the beading edge of Eco Tech, with his homebrew DIY laptop built in a wooden case. While his laptop can’t compete with the latest Dells laptops, it is on par with the with computing power of a late 1980’s.

SPECs: a whopping 256 kilobytes total memory, 16k of RAM, Picaxe 28X-1 Microcontroller, 24 x 8 serial character display, in a Beautiful, hand/laser crafted wooden case.

[ChrisFenton]

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More great research coming out of MIT, scientists have found a way of improving the charging speed of Lithium Ion batteries.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) report in Nature today that they devised a way for lithium ions in a battery to zip in and out about 100 times faster than previously demonstrated. “We took a basically great material called lithium iron phosphate [LiFePO4] and we tried to improve it further,”

“In an attempt to pick up the pace, the M.I.T. researchers coated the lithium iron phosphate material with an ion conductor, which in this case was a layer of glasslike lithium phosphate. Sure enough, the charge-carrying ions traveled much faster from their storage medium; a prototype battery the scientists built completely charged in about 10 to 20 seconds.” [Scientific American]

Think about it, being able to stop at a charging station with my electric car and have it topped off in under a minute.

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Tesla’s yet to be released Model S electric sports sedan will have the capability to charge via a 440 volt fast charger. The new chargers will greatly improve recharging time of the on board batteries.

The more important question is the market will see the proliferation of fast-charging stations. There are no public 440-volt fast charging stations. ECOtality, a clean-electric transportation and technology company, has implemented 5100 of these stations in 13 airports across the country, but none is public, said Colin Read, marketing directory for ECOtality.

While no specific charging time was mentioned, the Tesla roadster features a 220 volt charger which can fully charge the batteries in 3.5 hours.

[CarTech]

Related posts:

1. Electric Car: Tesla Model S Unveiled Today
2. Lithium Ion Battery Technology Moving Forward
3. Tesla Model S Electric Car Test Drive Video