Tesla gets 500+ Model S bookings in first week
Apr 3, 2009 Auto Tech, Green Technologies, Social Initiatives, Startups
A week after unveiling the all electric Model S sedan, Tesla says that 520 customers have shelled out $5,000 each for reserving the car which is scheduled to be on roads in 2011.
The base price for the Model S, which will be available starting in 2010, is $57400, before a federal tax credit of $7,500 in US, a bargain compared to the Roadster’s $105000 price tag. A limited edition of the Model S is also available for a $40,000 reservation fee.
The base Model S will do 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds (compared to the Roadster’s 3.9 seconds) and has an electronically limited top speed of 130 mph. The car will be available with a variety of battery options with upto 300 miles per charge.
No April Fools’ joke this: Google shares its data center details
Apr 2, 2009 Green Architecture, Green Technologies
Google operates perhaps the largest number of data centers today. Their energy efficiency is critical for the company, as it directly relates to the costs of running them. Efficiency is important not just because improving it cuts power consumption costs, but also because inefficiencies typically produce waste heat that requires yet more expense in cooling.
Google data centers have long been known to be amongst the most efficient, but their designs were secret. But finally, everyone got a peek at them at the recently held “Data Center Efficiency Summit”, where the company discussed the innards of one of its data centers and custom web servers — all in a bid to promote energy efficiency.
The data centers have 1AAA shipping containers, sporting 1106 custom built servers each. Interestingly, each of the servers has its own 12-volt UPS. This pushes energy efficiency to 99.9% , as opposed to a standard centralized UPS setup which at best would only score 95%!
Tags: data centers, Google, PUC, servers