Chelsea has been an advocate for EVs since she worked with General Motors in the 1990s on the EV1 program. In a column on Wired she explains despite Tesla's claims, the Model S is still not a no compromises car but that it also doesn't matter. By putting so much emphasis on its "ability" to do road trips, they take away from what it and other electrics can do so well.  Definitely worth a read. 

Paraphrasing the old line about statistics, "tell me which side of the argument you are on and I'll give you the data to prove you are right". If there is one thing I learned by analyzing test data during my engineering years, it can easily get skewed if you aren't careful with the sensors. 

Doing engineering work the sensors were checked and calibrated on a regular basis to ensure that they were providing accurate readings. Factors such as temperature, age, vibration and more can throw off the readings. In a production car, you don't have this calibration capability and the sensors used generally don't have the same level of precision. The readings you get from the production sensors must be taken with a big chunk of salt. There are algorithms built in to cross check sensors and calculate correction factors, but they work comparatively slowly to avoid sudden fluctuations. 

As a result, changes in temperature for example can throw off things like the model that estimates battery state of charge or even wheel speed calculations as the tire pressure changes.

In self-reporting as writer John Broder did, you can also encounter some errors. Mix these factors together and take things out of context as Musk does repeatedly and you can get the appearance of a lie when there is none. Any competent engineer would spend time pouring over the data and reports and correlating everything so it lined up properly and told the true story. Musk seems to have used the data selectively to bite  back at Broder.

The bottom line would appear to be that Broder did not do everything possible to avoid running out of electrons, but he did appear to follow the directions of +Tesla Motors personnel as much as possible. The Model S is a remarkable piece of engineering but it is far from perfect.

The reality is that for the foreseeable future EV drivers must do more planning than those used to driving internal combustion vehicles even in a Model S with the biggest battery. Even with an ICE you can still run out of gas or diesel if you aren't careful but the results are generally less dire than needing a flatbed. Oh and cold weather will have a major impact on battery performance. 

If you want to put your content online and keep it there as an archive, it's best to have your own site or blog that you control. If you use something like Posterous, Tumblr or other free services they can shut down at any time for any reason and there is nothing you can do about. 

Even here on G+, I still maintain my 9-year-old WordPress blog and use +Daniel Treadwell's excellent plug-in to pull in all my posts and comments. From there I can backup, share and control it. If you have your own site, you can still share content to other services like G+, Twitter and Facebook.   

Reshared post from +Ford Racing

Two classic Cobra Jet images celebrating the debut of the 1968 Cobra Jet Mustang at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona CA

Super-capacitors are just one of the many hoped for silver bullets to make electric vehicles a viable mainstream option for consumers. The reason everyone wants capacitors is their ability to absorb energy rapidly without degrading the way batteries do. An ideal capacitor energy storage would have huge capacity that could be replenished in just minutes the way we fill a fuel tank today. 

Unfortunately large capacitors have remained both stubbornly expensive and short on total energy storage capacity. Mazda may well have the best near term application for capacitors in its oddly-named i-ELOOP system. Like the brake energy recuperation systems that have become common in Europe in recent years, i-ELOOP let's the alternator mostly coast when then vehicle is cruising or accelerating to minimize the parasitic load on the engine. 

Once the driver releases the accelerator, the alternator switches modes to charge the battery while absorbing kinetic energy from the vehicle as it slows. Previous systems have relied on larger capacity advanced glass matt batteries like those typically used on cars with automatic start stop. Even these AGM batteries have limits on how fast they can absorb energy. Since the braking periods of the vehicle tend to be limited in duration, the total energy recovered is reduced. 

Using a capacitor as the energy sink potentially allows more of the available energy to be absorbed in less time optimizing the system. I'll be curious to see how much of a real world benefit drivers of the Mazda6 get with this system.