Someday electric sports cars like the e-WOLF here will be THE guaranteed way to pick up robotic prostitutes along the superhighway. [Autoblog via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Parker also electrified the London Underground, built trams in Birmingham and Liverpool, and invented a smokeless fuel called coalite. But his car didn't catch on because of the success and convenience of cars based on the internal combustion engine, so he turned his interest to public electrical transportation instead. [Daily Mail]

The current distance record, a 275-mile run completed by a Solectria Sunrise, is technically longer than the Tesla's 241-mile achievement. But the Tesla's battery showed about 38 miles worth of juice left in the battery, which, if verified, would top the Solectria's record. The Tesla roadster bested a modified Porsche 911 and several of Mitsubishi's new crop of electric vehicles.

We should note that the Tesla was driven by a company staffer, who surely knows every trick to getting the best mileage out of the Roadster. The course consists of windy mountain roads in addition to standard highway driving, so the average speed was only about 28 mph, with a high of about 56 mph. Still, a nearly 280-mile range is a serious achievement for an electric car in production. [Reg Hardware]

The Model S's touchscreen wasn't fully functional during the demo (the car's first with press), so internet browsing and presumably GPS weren't working. But we do know the touchscreen will control entertainment as well as navigation, and that it'll offer haptic feedback, probably rumbling a little bit when touched. The car should be priced around $50,000. [TechCrunch]

The 2-seat Frost was created by Norsk designed Anders Gloslie as a concept proposal for Th!nk, an electric car company from his country. The cracks in its surface hides the lighting system, while the rear includes massive fans for adjusting the temperature of the electric engine and the interior, as well as sensors that send precise information about weather conditions to the cockpit's screens. [Think Frost via Dvice]

Built by Systematica, the PRT system will help keep Masdar (a planned city in Abu Dhabi) completely car-free. The vehicles travel at speeds of roughly 7 meters per second, with the longest routes planned for about 2.5km, and will be located two stories beneath street level. Riders will pay about the same price they'd normally drop on an equivalent taxi ride.

Morgantown, West Virginia has the the only PRT system in place right now, built in 1975 when the cost of the technology was many times higher. An equivalent system to the Masdar one (though to a much smaller degree) is currently under construction at Heathrow airport in London. [Treehugger via Dvice]

Tesla basically "unlocked" the prices of their electric vehicle options, forcing customers to re-select or lose their spot in line. All-in-all, the price of a fully loaded Roadster has increased by the aforementioned $9,300—so it is either pony up or deal with a car equipped with less features.

According to Tesla, the reason behind the price increase was to make the car's margins appear healthy to the next round of investors, and in order to do that, making the move now was unavoidable. With all of the negativity surrounding the company, you would think that investors and customers would shy away—but according to the company not one of the 600 people on the delivery list have requested a refund so far. [Saxton via Jalopnik]

Nikkei explains that following their first operating loss in 70 years, Toyota wants to make an aggressive move in the market with a solar car. But to make it work with current solar efficiency, some of the car's energy comes from solar panels on the vehicle, but some of the energy also comes from solar panels on one's house. (Does that imply it'll plug in to the wall as well, sans solar?)

According to the report, Toyota also hopes to release a real 100% solar car (not needing the house part) in the future. And we hope so, just to watch all those haughty Prius owners be usurped. [AP via Jalopnik]

The car charges in under 3 hours using a 240 volt [fixed...Jalop had it wrong, and I neglected to fact check at 3am, but good catch people!] power source at 50 amps. I like the yellow trim. [Jalopnik Review]

CEO Elon 'Manly' Musk says the company either needs federal backing or capital market backing, which will take a year or two to recover from the current mess. They've just sold their 100th $109,000 Roadster this past week to that guy who Oprah leaned on during the Obama acceptance speech. Yeah, that guy. You get an electric roadster! You get an electric roadster! You get an electric roadster! You get an electric roadster! [Detroit News]

Granted, most of these 'stations' will just be small, designated sockets clamped on to existing lines at homes, businesses and parking lots, and the battery swap stations will essentially trade your batteries the same way that Ace Hardware does your propane tanks. But even if the technology is kind of trivial, the fact remains that a significant part of Australia's population will soon have a ubiquitous infrastructure for electric cars.

The Australian government is currently encouraging domestic automakers to answer the anticipated demand for electric vehicles, because, well, there are about two right now. There is, however, a suspicious aspect to this plan: the government is suggesting cell phone-like contracts as a method of charging for the juice, which sounds like about as good an idea as Kangaroo Jack IV. [AP via Slashdot]

Then again, the economy is bad and Tesla isn't exactly raking in piles of cash. We understand downsizing if it keeps the business afloat. But sometimes it's not what you say but how you say it. Tesla fired notified the employees their office was closing down through a cryptic post on their blog, and fired them two days later in person.

There will also be some headcount reduction due to consolidation of operations. In anticipation of moving vehicle engineering to our new HQ in San Jose, we are ramping down and will close our Rochester Hills office near Detroit. Good communication, tightly knit engineering and a common company culture are of paramount importance as Tesla grows.

Many Detroit employees, failing to read between the lines, went to work and logged into their computers only to find themselves fired.

Keep it classy, Tesla!

UPDATE: Tesla writes to say that the employees weren't fired, but were only notified that their office was closing by the blog post. It stands to reason that if you don't have an office to work in anymore, there's a good chance that your job is also in questionable standing. They also admit that the blog post announcing the closing of the detroit office was a mistake. Best of luck to the company that's helping to bring back the EV. [jalopnik]

The old specs and pricing for the ironically named Dream Car were about $60,000 in supplies, and that not-so-good 80-mile range mentioned above. Today, the numbers have increased remarkably, with the Dream Car now costing about $8,000 in materials and a mass production model checking in somewhere between $16,000 and $24,000 (depending on government alternative fuel incentives). A single 3.5 hour charge give the car a 240 mile-range for about $5 in electricity costs.

Here's the car in action, looking like something out of Mos Eisley:

And here's the Christmas Tree-shaped car lit up like a Christmas tree and looking like a low-flying UFO:

[TreeHugger]

According to Henrik Fisker, head of the company, by fake engine sounds it means real, gruff, user-selectable engine sounds. One will apparently sound ''like something between a Formula One car and a jet plane," which should certainly be enough to keep unwary pedestrians leaping for the sidewalk as you roar toward them.

Let's hope there's a silent option and that not many morons buy it. [Jalopnik]