NVIDIA is one of the most famous and respected video cards manufactures. Rumor has it that the American company is set to sign a partnership with BMW and Tesla Motors for supplying video cars on their next models.

The video cards will be incorporated in the infotainment system, so it will feature more realistic colors and graphics. The new NVIDIA video cars will allow the driver use even more realistic GPS maps and even a gaming platform for the passengers. It seems that BMW and Tesla want to use 17 inch touchscreen monitors for their vehicles.

NVIDIA recently presented their new infotainment system at CES 2011, a system that was incorporated in a BMW 5-Series. The new touchscreen monitors will be able to display a resolution of 1280×600 pixels.

The new infotainment technology developed by NVIDIA is very efficient in terms of energy consumption, so the electric cars manufacturers will be able to use the monitors on their electric vehicles. Tesla Motors will use NVIDIA technology for the electric gauges and for the dashboard controls.

When asked about their partnership with BMW, Dan Vivoli, Senior Vice President at NVIDIA said: “BMW has built their reputation on creating the ultimate driving experience. They are taking that to an entirely new level with NVIDIA GPUs.”

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Tesla Motors received a total of over 3,000 orders for their new Model S, the electric sedan waited to make its official debut in 2012. The customers payed $5,000 in advance.

After they proved everyone that the idea of an electric sports car is possible, Tesla continues their eco-friendly offensive with a new model. We are talking about Tesla Model S, the sedan we already met at the auto shows. The latest product of the Americans is waited to hit the market in 2012, but it looks like there are already lots potential buyers wanting the Model S in their garages.

According to Tesla Motors officials, 3,000 customers already payed in advance $5,000 each ordering the new Model S electric sedan.

Tesla Model S benefits from enough power to sprint from 0 to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds, toping 130 mph. Depending on which version of Model S you choose, you will have an autonomy of 160, 230 or 300 miles.

Tesla Motors doubled their labor force, making massive hirings for building the electric version of Toyota RAV 4 model, but also for building addtional electric motors; 1,500 for Smart and 500 for Mercedes A-Class electric. As well, Tesla can boast about managing to deliver 1,400 units of their Roadster model, globally.

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Tesla unveiled Tesla Roadster Car Art, an electric sports car painted by the artist Laurence Gartel, the parent of the digital art.

Tesla Roadster Car Art was created by the “digital” artist Laurence Gartel. Gartel imagine a “vortex” design for Californian electric sports car, trying to suggest the reunion of the auto world with the world of art.

Tesla Roadster is a BEV sports car produced by Tesla Motors in California. The Roadster is the only highway-capable electric vehicle in serial production and more than 1,200 Roadster units were sold world wide since the first unit left the assembly line in 2008.

Tesla Roadster can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, and the engine is capable of reving over 13,000 rpm, compared to 6,000-7,000 rpm a petrol engine can handle. Another particularity of this electric sporty model is that the acceleration is made linear, the electric engine offering the an asscending torque. The vehicle is assembled in the San Carlos, CA plant and uses the technical platform of the sports model Lotus Elise, with not less than 6,800 lithium-ion cells.

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The Model X project of those from Tesla Motors will receive an investment worth 30 million dollars from Panasonic.

Tesla officials announced that they will introduce an electric SUV in the range: Model X. Although is not the first electric SUV put on sales in the world – the guys from Toyota have the premiere with Toyota RAV4 EV, the model will be the first to be produced in series and sold without any contractual obligations or other restrictions. The guys from Panasonic have decided to invest 30 million dollars to achieve the Model X Project. The investment will focus on the development of electric batteries for that model and for the future Tesla Motors creations.

The guys from Tesla Motors have already a partnership with Toyota, so they will receive the help from both parties to achieve an electric SUV. Some time ago, Tesla Motors have a partnership with Daimler, which gave them special technology in exchange of used propulsion trains used by electric versions of Smart Fortwo . Now, Daimler Corporation has partnered with Renault-Nissan concern, with which it could develop electric vehicles in the future. For now, the concern is limited to mini-class models and to engines for bigger models.

Toyota will present the concept of an electric RAV4 at Los Angeles Auto Show. The concept that will be presented on November 17 is not related so closely with Tesla technology and not represent the X Model from Tesla. In other news, the Panasonic’s investment would help the people from Tesla to solve the financial problems, following rumors that seemed aimed the S model and the mode that Elon Musk has spent the respectively money.

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Tesla Motors chief criticized the way that the Nissan Leaf batteries are cooled. According to Elon Musk, the electric model from Japan will have problems in harsh temperature conditions.

Elon Musk, the Tesla Motors company chief, criticized again the rivals technology. This time, Musk hit the pride of the Nissan – New Leaf – namely, the attack was referring to his batteries. Elon Musk said that Tesla has the first prototype battery more advanced than those used by Nissan Leaf. The Tesla Motors chief believes that the Leaf batteries were designed poorly and these will have problems in extreme temperature regimes.

The Nissan Leaf’s batteries are cooled with air and have a warranty of eight years or 100,000 miles. On the other hand, the guys from Tesla Motors have a more complex cooling system, which is said that it offer a high level of performance. Neither the Japanese from Nissan not leave inferior, they repeatedly saying that the Leaf’s batteries were tested under the most adverse conditions and announced that they will provide performance no matter what happens “outside.”

Elon Musk, the Tesla Motors chief, says that the Leaf cooling battery system is defective. Although his description of the problems that could have this model is rather vague, we can note that the Tesla CEO believes that the Leaf batteries will be not performance at low temperatures and in environments with high ambient temperature they will decouple without appeal.

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Tesla is currently testing the electric versions of Toyota RAV4 and Lexus RX models, following the “green” partnership ended by Americans from Tesla with the giant Japanese.

Toyota, the largest automaker in the world, currently working with Tesla, the pioneer of the electric cars, to give rise to ecological models. The project have in sight the development and testing of the electric version of Toyota RAV4 and Lexus RX models.

Although initially the two sides agreed to develop a set of electrical equipment designed to Corolla, Toyota and Tesla agreed that the two crossovers are more suitable for the battery pack ready by Americans. The deadline for Californians drawn by Japanese giant is late July, which means that we can have official information until August.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said that the electric versions of RAV4 and RX will far exceed the public expectations in terms of performance. The acceleration and the autonomy will be superior to any electric vehicle in this segment.

On the other hand, Akio Toyoda, the Japanese CEO, said that the changing of the current RAV4 and RX is only a first step towards a broad partnership, oriented in towards of development of more efficient electric vehicles.

The electric versions test program of Toyota RAV4 and Lexus RX comes after Toyota bought shares worth $50 million in California automaker.

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Just after a surge of 41 percent before the trade day of IPO shares, Tesla is now seeing a massive fall of share values, that seems to be getting worse day by day. Today, shares of Tesla Motors fell another 16 percent, landing below their initial offering price of $17 each. For example, company head and largest shareholder Elon Musk’s shares are now worth $433 million, a good bit less than their $457 million value after the IPO.

Tesla stock figures

Elon Musks, here talking about how his divorce will not affect Tesla

According to Josef Schuster, the Chicago-based founder of IPOX Capital Management LLC,

“The company is a great concept with relatively weak fundamentals. Markets are weak and in a weak market right now this is hurting the company even more.”

Financial expert Michael Holland explains how this happened:

“They brought this thing into a market that was not rewarding hype,… The stock did get its pop, and now it’s plagued by the reality of the marketplace. The reality of the marketplace is that people aren’t paying for dreams and visions.”

Let’s hope financial aspects or the market won’t force Tesla to stop activity, the competition in the electric supercar segment is already low and that can only affect quality negatively.

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The day before the most anticipated automotive IPO in recent history, the good people  Tesla Motors raised the numbers of shares it will publicly trade by nearly 20 percent, up to $13.3 million, Reuters Report. Is this IPO going to be a decisive step for the Silicon-Valley based electric vehicle maker? Will Tesla Motors jump from a steady but modest 15 vehicles per week standard to international fame, or will the IPO just make the company weaker and choke from biting more than it can chew?

Tesla increases shares on trade eve

This significant  increase in shares gives can be seen as communicating an interest in the start-up of this ordeal that is higher than anyone expected, Tesla themselves. Sure, they got aware of the fact now that they applied this 20% boost, but it’s only one day before the trade day, let’s not forget. As Tesla readies its IPO, the company has decided to increase the number of shares to the above-mentioned number, from the initial 11.1 million figure.

Larry Sonsini, a top lawyer that may be the a ket figure in the IPO for Tesla

This news may also have a side-effect, which will actually be the cause itself. Sounds like non-sense, but think about it: more people will be interested in investing in Tesla now that a major press source tells us of a 20% boost from Tesla the day before yesterday the big trade. Moreover, Larry Sonsini is with Tesla in the board of directors, he seemingly joined them escpecially to help with the IPO. Like Tesla’s Darryl Siry, Sonsini “is the most influential lawyer in the valley and has extraordinary experience with corporate structuring, IPOs, governance, and M&A.

Tesla remains confident that the initial shares will sell in the $14 to $16 range. At that price, Tesla will raise as much as $200 million on its IPO. Pricing for Tesla’s stock should be finalized later this evening and the IPO will kick off first thing Tuesday morning with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on hand for the bell ringing ceremony scheduled at 9:20 AM EST. The stock will trade on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol TSLA.

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Toyota and Tesla will work for production and development of electric vehicles. Thus, Tesla will bring on market Model S in 2012, and Toyota will meet its plan to launch an electric range vehicle on the market until that year.

The Toyota officials have announced a collaboration with the Americans from Tesla to produce electric vehicles. The partnership between the two companies involving the Japanese obligation to buy Tesla shares by 50 million dollars. The guys from Tesla have announced that they will take Nummi plant in Fremont, California, which will be used for Tesla Model S production.

The Tesla Model S production will begin in 2012 and the price of this model should be located at around $49,000. According to first information, the autonomy of Tesla Model S is 300 miles, obtained from a load of 3-5 hours. Elon Musk, Tesla Motors chief, said that will present closely prototypes of production this year.

The NUMMI plant in California produced Toyota Corolla and Tacoma models. This feature is one the largest of this kind in the world and has the capacity to produce 500,000 units per year. With the entry of Tesla Model S production, the number of units will leave the automaker gate of electric vehicles should increase significantly, they will be limited only of the number of the electric batteries which can be obtained.

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What can a room in Palo Alto, California with  governor and superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Toyota CEO Akio Toyodabe all about? A fantastic partnership between the two companies, Toyota and Tesla, on electric vehicle development  that will take place in California. For starters Tesla will take over the recently closed NUMMI factory in Fremont, CA and will start producing the Model S sedan.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Tesla

Toyota will invest $50 million for a private placement of Tesla common stock and the state of California will provide a sales tax abatement to Tesla for capital equipment expenditures to tool up the plant. This state abatement will sum up to around $20 million over the next couple of years of activity, if laws remain mainly unchanged regarding taxes in the auto field.

According to Musk, production of the Model S will bring about 1,000 employees back to the NUMMI plant to produce about 20,000 cars a year at first. But this is only the beginning, future development of the plant, quantity wise and regarding more models, may open around 10,000 jobs for California workers! Gov. Arnold is keeping his word of doing whatever possible for the financial rehabilitation of California. Musk revealed that some employees have already been rehired, but was non-committal on the subject of union representation.

Tesla Model S prototype, first model to benefit fro Toyota+Tesla California deal

This partnership means more however, Tesla will benefit from Toyota know-how and supply lines, while Toyota opens up to new markets and has a stable supplies demand. Add on top of that the publicity benefits for both parties – Toyota first of all, and you got yourself on heal of a deal. Not to mention that all of this is for the future of electric cars.

As always, things have a downside. The The deal for the NUMMI plant leaves Downey, CA in the air, and the mayor of the aforementioned place stated he feels “stabbed in the back by Tesla”. The Toyota deal apparently came together very quickly and Musk acknowledged that he would still like to work with Downey, perhaps for a future Space-X facility.

The Tesla-Toyota deal for EV in California brought no changes, up to now at least, on the release date for the Model S. The actual production only starts as of 2012, but prototypes will be revealed as changes and updates will be, progressively, applied. In former days of glory, the plant in Fremont CA was able to assemble more than 300,00 cars a year, but no official statement on how many Model S plus other possible models will be built.

[ PHOTO GALLERY: Tesla Model S prototype ] :

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