For years, we've heard criticisms about Tesla's fit and finish, but now Sandy Munro - CEO of a Detroit-area consultancy that tears apart and studies automobiles - has seen a new Model 3 up close. His thoughts: "I can't imagine how they released this."

I let a Tesla drive me up the highway from Sydney to the Hunter Valley and I was absolutely shitting myself.

I've always wanted to drive a Tesla. Silent electric motors, instant torque and autonomous driving capabilities? Sign me up. As luck would have it, during my Christmas vacation spent at my partner's parent's home, I was able to drive their Tesla Model S for a week. The experience was, in a word, magical -- primarily because of the differences between a Tesla and a traditional automobile.

Earlier this month Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launched Falcon Heavy, the company's most powerful rocket yet. Inside was a red Tesla Roadster sports car with built-in cameras for capturing what it sees as well as a copy of Isaac Asimov's science fiction book series Foundation, and a plane engraved with 6,000 SpaceX employee names. The car's destination: Mars.

Traditional electricity generation has been built around large plants that create large volumes of power that are distributed over transmission and distribution networks to consumers. Even most of the large renewable generation assets work in the same way, although they use sustainable sources like the sun or wind rather that carbon-based sources that leave us with emissions and other problems.

The idea of a Virtual Power Plant changes that. Elon Musk and the Premier of South Australia are redefining the nature of power generation and distribution.

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It’s just over one month since the Hornsdale power reserve was officially opened in South Australia. The excitement surrounding the project has generated acres of media interest, both locally and abroad.

The aspect that has generated the most interest is the battery’s rapid response time in smoothing out several major energy outages that have occurred since it was installed. Indeed, the battery is outperforming expectations - and the model is set to be emulated in Victoria.

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As reported by Bloomberg, and again by Electrek, Tesla is in the running to build yet another of its giant battery Powerpacks, this time in an attempt to bolster Queensland's power station output.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk reminds us of Marvin from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. In addition to being a perpetually miserable robot from outer space (citation needed), he also has a brain the size of a planet. But how did he get so gosh-darned smart?

DNA and upbringing probably had a lot to do with it - but so did reading the right books at the right age. Here are five books that Musk reckons everybody should read; from weighty science-fiction to breezy business tomes. Best of all, they're all mentally accessible to the average person.

Former GM executive Bob Lutz returned to Tesla-sceptic mode last week and said that the company is doomed. This isn’t the first time Lutz — who retired from General Motors after also working for Ford, Chrysler, and BMW — has foretold Tesla’s demise. Unfortunately for Musk, he presents some compelling points

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Designer Franz von Holzhausen had an impressive resume before joining Tesla. But the combination of his frustration with the traditional auto industry and Elon Musk’s distinctive ideas about how to solve problems has taken his work to a new level. He’s followed an unlikely path to becoming the most influential car designer of his generation.

In the race to adopt electric vehicles, Australia is sputtering along in the slow lane. Rather than growing, Australian sales of electric cars are actually in decline. In 2016 they represented just 0.02 per cent of new car sales – even lower than in 2013.

Contrast that with Norway, the country with the highest levels of electric car adoption. Almost 30 per cent of new cars sold there in 2016 were electric.

Video: Earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to offer his help to rebuild Puerto Rico's power grid, damaged by Hurricane Maria. True to his word, the company provided a solar panel and battery storage array to Hospital del Niño, a children's hospital in San Juan.

Autonomous cars are in the headlines every day these days, with several manufacturers working to have such vehicles hit the road in the next five years.

I was fortunate enough to recently drive a top-of-the-range Tesla for a trip from Sydney to Orange in the central west of NSW. I tested the Autopilot feature thoroughly over the 520km return journey and found the experience unnerving at first — then comforting.

In the 2015 biography, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance shares the story of how Musk stopped working with his long-time executive assistant in early 2014.

According to Vance, the assistant, Mary Beth Brown, asked Musk for a significant raise after she’d been working with him for 12 years. In response, Musk told Brown to take two weeks off, during which he would assume her responsibilities and see if she was really critical to his success.

Elon Musk’s plans for the coming decade are nothing short of ambitious. Among other things, Tesla‘s CEO has promised to dramatically increase car production, launch several completely new cars, and conquer self-driving vehicles by 2020. Here’s a closer look at what exactly Musk has promised Tesla will accomplish during the next few years.

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