The new Flagship Ventures Fund IV L.P. was set at $250 million, but investors exceeded that amount. Investors included all types of organizations from foundations to corporations to individuals, including a few new limited partners that had not contributed to previous funds.

Flagship’s portfolio companies seem to be tackling big, human-scale problems from energy to epidemics, and the firm has seen exits that match that ambition. Some of its more notable exits include Adnexus Therapeutics, which was sold for $430 million to Bristol-Myers Squibb; Morphotek, which was acquired for $325 million by Japanese big pharma company Eisai; and Hypnion, which was bought by Lilly for an undisclosed sum.

“We are quite pleased by the market’s reaction to our fourth fund,” said Flagship CEO and managing partner Noubar Afeyan in a release.

“Despite the difficult environment for fundraising, especially for early-stage venture firms, we received strong support from our prior investors, as well as from several new important limited partners. We believe that the firm’s investment strategy and … history of building valuable, transformative companies are well aligned with the world’s ever increasing reliance on innovation, entrepreneurship and value creation.”

Indeed, VC fundraising had a lackluster year in 2011, according to Dow Jones analysts. On average, a U.S.-based venture capital firm in 2011 was only able to raise around $120 million.

Flagship’s last fund, which launched in pre-economic-meltdown 2007 with a healthy $235 million raise, fed a portfolio of 24 ventures such as Joule Unlimited, which aims to solve the global energy crisis with a biofuel alternative, and Selecta, which produces nanotechnology-powered vaccines.

Counting the new fund, Flagship now manages more than $900 million of early-stage capital and has cultivated a portfolio of more than 65 companies. Also, 25 of those companies came from inside Flagship itself via the firm’s in-house venture creation group, VentureLabs.

In addition to continuing its investment in early-stage companies, Flagship will use part of the new fund to invest in later-stage companies.

Green tech has dominated the conversation around cars, but now it seems these eco-friendly trends are edging into mobile at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, where SolarFocus is debuting its Kindle case. Taiwan-based SolarFocus has other solar-panel products that have USB ports, but its Kindle case might be the most interesting, specific device.

The solar-powered Kindle case fits only the fourth-generation Kindle, but it should be available for the Kindle Touch in the spring. The front part of the case features one long solar panel, which is a bit inelegant. On the inside, there is a pop-up light that can help you read at night or in low-lighting.

SolarFocus says its Kindle case will make the Kindle battery last three times the normal duration, which amounts to three months. But because you can charge solely off the solar charger, you could, in theory, never need to plug it into a wall or computer USB port again.

The SolarFocus solar-powered Kindle case is a 2012 International CES Innovations Design & Engineering Awards Honoree. The device will be available online starting Jan. 15 for $80.

Here are a few other photos of the innovative solar-powered case:

If you couldn’t tell by the avalanche of product news hitting VentureBeat over the past few weeks, the next Consumer Electronics Show is almost upon us. The annual trade show, which has been held in Las Vegas for more than a decade, is where many of the world’s biggest electronics companies debut their new products, announce major news, and desperately try to remind us that they exist.

A flood of news is par for the course at CES (VentureBeat will be covering the event extensively, as we’re sending more writers than ever before), but every year a few major themes emerge that will resonate for the rest of the year. While the value of CES has arguably declined over the past decade — with companies like Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft announcing plenty of products at their own press events throughout the year — the show still provides us an interesting glimpse of what lies ahead.

This year’s trade show is poised to be one of the biggest in years, as the Consumer Electronics Association believes it will draw 149,000 attendees to more than 2,700 exhibitors occupying more than 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space.

Granted, some of the most significant consumer electronics and computing products won’t have a presence at the show at all. Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system, due later in 2012, will likely be the consumer tech product that affects more people than any other. And Apple’s iPad 3 (and rumored iTV) are among the most-anticipated and most-hyped upcoming products. None of these will have any presence at CES 2012. But that still leaves a huge electronics industry full of products, technologies and trends.

Here are our predictions for the CES trends that will make a profound impact on the technology world, both for businesses and consumers, in 2012.

4G networks, round 2

Verizon Wireless’s LTE 4G network was all the rage at last year’s CES, having launched just a month prior, and it marked the arrival of cellular networks that could finally achieve speeds comparable to home broadband connections. While Verizon has had its run of the LTE field for the past year, this year it’ll finally have some competition from AT&T and Sprint.

At CES, AT&T will be showing off its first run of LTE 4G phones, following the launch of its network  back in September. Leading the pack for AT&T will be the Nokia Ace, AKA the Lumia 900, which we think could turn the tide for Windows Phone. AT&T certainly has a lot of catching up to do, and we suspect that the carrier will be making some major announcements regarding aggressive expansion of its network.

Sprint, meanwhile, has said that it will have a major roll out of its LTE network in the middle of 2012, which will be followed by the arrival of LTE phones later in the year. The company was the first to launch a 4G network years ago, but it ran the slower WiMax standard. Now that LTE has proven to be faster and easier to deploy, Sprint has to jump ship from WiMax. We expect Sprint to divulge many more details about its LTE plans at CES.

That leaves T-Mobile, which for the past year has been embroiled in a potential takeover by AT&T. Now that that’s not happening, the carrier will likely move forward with plans to expand its HSPA+ 4G network, which at this point has already reached 42 megabit speeds in nearly 100 cities.

Ultrabooks, the new face of laptops

Last summer’s MacBook Air update proved that super thin ultraportables could finally go toe-to-toe with bulkier laptops. And not surprisingly, PC makers have since tried to replicate the Air’s success with ultrabooks, a term for the ultraportable machines coined by Intel. We’ve already seen some ultrabooks announced by Asus, Acer, HP and Toshiba, but at CES there will be between 30 and 50 new models announced.

Eventually, all laptops will resemble what we’re calling ultrabooks. The laptop industry has long aspired to fit as much power as possible in a tiny package. Ultrabooks are the realization of that dream. It used to be that ultraportable laptops came at a premium, then low-cost (but underpowered) netbooks eventually proved machines didn’t need to be expensive to be very portable. With ultrabooks, you get extreme portability and a decent amount of power at a price not much more expensive than mainstream laptops. Intel researchers say Ultrabooks enable “flow,” or the idea of being able to work in an uniterrupted manner.

Ultrabooks are also the best way for computer manufacturers to combat the rise of tablets. While slates like the Kindle Fire are getting increasingly cheaper, it’s still not as easy to be productive on a tablet (yes, even the iPad), as you can on a full-fledged laptop. At only a few pounds heavier than 10-inch tablets, ultrabooks could be seen as a companion to cheap tablets, and for some consumers they may even erase the need for a tablet altogether.

Mobile chipsets achieve desktop power

Silently powering the smartphone and tablet revolution are mobile chipsets that are powerful, while still being heavily optimized to not eat up too much battery life. Last year saw the rise of dual-core chipsets, including Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor, Nvidia’s Tegra 2, and Apple’s A5 chip.

This year, the race is on for quad-core chipsets that will bring to mobile computing power on par with some desktops. We’re expecting to see plenty of devices featuring quad-core chipsets from many of the above companies at CES. Qualcomm has the new Snapdragon S4, and Nvidia has Tegra 3, both of which will be able to run complex 3D games and high-definition video without a sweat. Qualcomm has one of the keynote speech slots, while Intel and Nvidia have press conferences on Monday.

Intel is finally stepping into the game with its new Atom-based mobile chipset, codenamed Medfield. It may not be initially as powerful as the competing Tegra and Snapdragon platforms, but after sitting out the mobile chipset wars until now, Intel has to start somewhere. The company will reportedly show off its first Medfield-based Android phone, built by LG, at CES.

The consumer cloud takes off

“Cloud” has been a code-word for enterprise for a while, but this year might be a big one for the consumer cloud. When iCloud and iTunes Match were introduced in mid-2011, we had a feeling that consumer-focused cloud technologies were about to start getting hot. Many other tech companies notably follow Apple’s lead, so it’s not hard to imagine other companies cashing in with their own cloud-based media services this year.

At CES, look out for companies showing off ways to connect your home and mobile devices with all sorts of media options. We expect cloud-based music and gaming to really get hammered into consumers heads, especially with connected TVs and mobile apps. Companies such as Verizon, Gaikai, Joyent , and Slacker will all be on CES panels discussing how to move forward with media in the cloud.

One company we expect to leave an impression at CES is Shodogg, which uses the web and cloud power to seamlessly move video content between screens, from TV to phone to computer. Another company that could shine is former DEMO winner WeVideo, which makes video editing in the cloud a reality.

Car tech revs up

As more car manufacturers develop electric engines and green solutions to help with gas mileage, they are also looking at ways to add more communication and media technology to vehicles. This year at CES, companies like Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz and Audi will be showing off mobile apps that interact directly with cars and dashboards that function more like full-fledged computers. CES will also play host to a panel about cars that use short-range vehicle-to-X (V2X) technology that will allow cars to interact with other cars, traffic lights and pedestrians.

Ford specifically will be a big player in this space at CES with the introduction of a cloud-connected concept car that can beam data between cars and sync your schedule and music from home. The company will also show a beta version of its MyFord mobile app, which can find electrical charge points for electric engines and plan efficient routes using MapQuest.

With the ever-increasing demand that technology should help make driving safer, we can also expect that sort of tech getting a spotlight this year. CES will have a number of companies detailing technologies to help with “auto collision avoidance, land drift assistance, parking, speed monitoring, hands-free, text-to-voice, driver drowsiness detection and more.”

The start of a great year

While CES is bastion of consumer technology, there are still plenty of trends that will dominate the year that won’t have much of a showing at the trade show. One of the biggest is Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest operating system that will boldly attempt to unify a tablet and desktop interfaces. From what we’re hearing, Microsoft won’t be announcing much significant Windows 8 news at CES, though you can be sure plenty of other companies will have Windows 8-related news in tow.

Looking beyond CES, there’s plenty to look forward to this year: Tablets that won’t suck; the eventual release of Apple’s completely revamped iPhone (which we’re hoping will prove those iPhone 5 rumors true); and mostly for me, the many surprises that 2012 will bring.

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has issued a recall for 239 of its Karma vehicles, fewer than 50 of which have been sold to customers. The $96,000 luxury electric sedans have an issue with a hose clip in their battery units that could result in a coolant leak and possibly a fire.

All Karma owners have already been contacted by Fisker, and the company aims to have all the batteries replaced in customer cars before Jan. 1, Fisker spokesperson Roger Ormisher told VentureBeat.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, the issue is with all Karma models produced between July 1 and Nov. 3. The battery units, which are produced by A123 Systems, were positioned incorrectly, making it possible for the battery compartment to interfere with the hose clamps, resulting in a leak from the coolant hoses. If the coolant leaks into the battery compartment, the battery could short out and cause a fire. No owners reported any issues related to the battery before the recall.

While the number of vehicles affected may not seem high for a car recall (GM issued a recall for 4,296 vehicles the following day), it is actually a good chunk of all the Karmas that have been produced so far. The Karma only began shipping over the summer, after two years of delays and a disappointing EPA rating. Fisker plans on ramping-up production to between 10,000 and 12,000 Karma vehicles in 2012, slightly down from its earlier goal of 15,000 a year. Currently, it is producing 25 cars a day.

“What was interesting for us was how quickly we did this recall,” said Ormisher. “It can take weeks to get a recall in place and we did it in less than 48 hours.” The company acted immediately after discovering the issue, and had already called all retailers and started the process of replacing batteries when the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report went out.

It’s been a bumpy year for the electric-car startup. In October, the company missed manufacturing goals for its next vehicle, the plug-in extended-range dubbed Project Nina, and had to delay plans for production. The Karma is produced in Finland, but the Nina will be manufactured in a revamped GM plan in Wilmington, Delaware. Ormisher says there’s already a pre-production model of the Nina, and the company plans to start production on the car at the end of 2012.

Fisker Automotive has raised over $760 million in private equity financing so far, and has received $529 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the government’s green jobs initiative. Only $169 million of the U.S. loan money has gone toward production of the Fisker Karma.

via GigaOm

Next month, the largest and most prominent of tech conferences will be occurring in Las Vegas – the Consumer Electronics Show  – and you can be sure, even with new versions of smartphone and tablet apps exclusively for the 2012 event, that reams and reams of paper will be wasted.

(Full disclosure: I run a mobile publishing company, GENWI.)

I was struck by how much paper I saw at last year’s CES: The conference distributed at least 25 different print versions of its magazine. CES 2011 had 140,000 attendees, and let’s assume 30% picked up a copy. There were close to a million copies of printed magazines distributed. This is discounting the 140,000 copies of the conference program guide and maps printed (or that other primitive corporate totem changing hands between individuals – the business card) .

At least CES appears to be moving in something of a right direction: Attendees of CES 2011 were given the option of refusing the official CES booklet, and the show released a free iPhone application called “Follow Me,” which included some material previously restricted to a paper pamphlet, such as floor maps and schedules.

According to The Wall Street Journal, other tech conferences are adopting similar policies: The Web 2.0 Summit and Macworld Expo have been integrating smartphone functionality as well, with similar kinds of apps, as well as the use of Google Calendar. To quote Journal, though, the services offered so far are “not nearly enough.”

Even if you give attendees the option to use apps instead of paper, there is still the matter of all that paper continuing to be generated. And don’t forget that there are lots of CES-type shows for different industries that aren’t so tech-savvy. Let’s assume that there are 100 conferences of a similar size and composition (in various industries) in a given year. The total copies of magazines printed and distributed around these conferences would be approximately 100 million. Let’s also assume that each magazine contains, on average, 25 sheets. That gives you a total of 2.5 billion sheets of paper. One tree produces an estimated 8333.33 sheets of paper. So that’s about 300,000 trees.

If you’re an environmentally conscious techie, what’s the point of driving a Nissan Leaf, or using energy efficient appliances in your home, if you’re contributing to the razing of potentially 300,000 trees when you unthinkingly pick up a guide or magazine at one of these conferences? Consumers and end users are beginning to embrace paperless magazines and other media. Why can’t those of us participating in these B2B activities join them at the same rate of adoption? You don’t have to be a treehugger to see the basic and simple sense behind all this.

What I propose is making all show guides and magazines totally tablet compatible. Don’t even offer the unnecessary and wasteful option of a paper guide or magazine. Conference organizers can very easily put all of the same information within a smartphone or tablet app that they can on bound pieces of paper. In addition, there are things you can do with a tablet app that you simply can’t with old-fashioned paper such as:

1. Provide instantaneous updates that aren’t locked into a publication deadline, providing important information on the go.
2. Provide content that can be more easily shared or reproduced.
3. Integrate features like rich media, video, zooming, etc.

The only good reason for an outdated reliance on printed hard copies is, well, the outdated reliance on printed hard copies itself. Take this example from a May 2011 New York Times article on paperless conferences:

“Apps can also work for medical conferences, where delegates are given large amounts of information. Catherine Foss, executive director of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, said she loaded the equivalent of 183 pages of medical paper abstracts and other research documents onto an app for her biannual conference last year. The society still spent roughly $27,000 to print hard copies because attendees are in the habit of taking the books back to the office for reference [emphasis my own], but Ms. Foss said she expected members to gradually make the transition to a digital format.”

183 pages worth of medical abstracts and research documents! If the Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery can do it, and if our tablet-wielding parents and grandparents can do it, we certainly can. Here’s my challenge to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA): Let’s go as paperless as we can for the 2012 CES and maybe even go completely paperless in time for 2013!

PJ Gurumohan is the co-founder and CEO of GENWI, a cloud-based mobile publishing platform. He holds two patents in wireless technology, has authored several journal articles, routinely speaks at technology conferences, and has held various engineering positions at IBM and US Airways. He holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Arizona State University.

[Rolls of paper image by Kenneth Sponsler/Shutterstock.]

GMZ Energy specializes in renewable and economically viable energy. “We have a solid state material that lets you generate electricity from heat. There are huge amounts of waste heat, and if that can be harnessed it can be used to generate tons of electricity,” GMZ CEO Aaron Bent told VentureBeat.

Essentially, instead of creating electricity from burning fossil fuels, the company uses a renewable thermoelectric (heat-electricic) material to convert heat to electricity using the sun and wasted heat from industrial and automotive sources.

The material, which developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College, works by generating an electrical current from temperature changes. A heat source is placed on one side of the material, creating an electrical current.

GMZ Energy is currently developing its first product for launch in 2012; a solar hot-water collector that will generate electricity for homeowners.

“The funding will be used for two major things; to complete the release of our new product and move in it to production, and to accelerate our other waste heat recovery projects,” said Bent.

GMZ Energy was founded in 2007. GMZ Energy has been funded by BP Alternative Energy, Energy Technology Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mitsui Ventures, I2BF Global Ventures and strategic corporate partners.

Nuclear Plant photo via Shutterstock

While the implosion of solar power company Solyndra has seemingly cast a shadow on the viability of the solar industry, that hasn’t stopped Google from investing $94 million in photovoltaic (generating power through solar radiation) projects in California.

Google says it’s investing the funds in four photovoltaic projects near Sacramento, Calif. which are being built by Recurrent Energy. The investment brings Google’s total clean tech portfolio to over $915 million. At this rate, Google’s clean tech investments will likely reach $1 billion within the next year.

“We’ve already committed to providing funding this year to help more than 10,000 homeowners install solar PV panels on their rooftops,” writes assistant Google treasurer Axel Martinez. “But this investment represents our first investment in the U.S. in larger scale solar PV power plants that generate energy for the grid — instead of on individual rooftop. These projects have a total capacity of 88 MW, equivalent to the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes.”

Google is making the investment together with KKR, which is today forming a new venture for solar projects, SunTap Energy. This will be KKR’s first clean tech investment in the U.S.

Solyndra ended up falling apart because it couldn’t compete with the falling solar panel prices from competitors. The company received a $535 million loan from the Department of Energy, a move that has undergone quite a bit of scrutiny over the past year. The failure of Solyndra is definitely a warning sign for the clean tech community, but hopefully more high-profile investments like Google’s will serve to rekindle excitement in clean tech, and specifically solar power.

Harry Kolar, an engineer with IBM, described harvesting energy from human movements as bodies becoming “an energy-generating machine,” in a blog post about what energy changes may occur in the next five years. In essence, we create energy from many of the little activities we do throughout the day. This includes the simply click of a heel on the ground, jogging and biking. It’s similar to the hamster on the wheel scenario. This time, however, it’s on a much larger, human scale and only takes energy from our regular activities. Kolar explains the energy collection could come from a small device and antenna implanted into the sole of your shoe, measuring each time it comes in contact with the ground, or even simply bends. Similar devices could be implanted on the spokes of bike wheels, or even attached to pipes to catch energy from running water.

“This science — parasitic power collection — pulls and transmits energy created by the slightest movement.” said Kolar in the blog post. “Think about the possibilities.”

Kolar also predicts that we will figure out how to best harness wave and tidal energy. Currently, we have floating energy receptacles, which harvest wave energy, but they are clunky and may have a negative impact on the environment around it. When we think of pollution, we usually think about plastic bags and bottles floating in water, confusing fish into thinking it’s food, and hurting the environment. This is certainly one kind of pollution, but rarely do people consider noise to be pollution. If you’re a person raised in the quiet countryside, trying to fall asleep to car alarms and sirens may feel intrusive. Well, this is the same for fish and marine animals who have to listen to hums and whirrs that exist from man-made machinery.

“My team is working with The Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland to use real-time streaming analytics that monitor the underwater noise and track its potential impact on the marine environment,” said Koler. “That data will be shared across the wave energy industry to help build a clearer picture of how this type of technology can be safely, sustainably used and controlled.”

Others are already taking advantage of this parasitic power collection, with the goal of powering third world countries through soccer. Yes, soccer. Soccket has created a durable soccer ball that when kicked around for only a half hour can power up an LED light for up to three hours. The balls are made specifically for communities with little resources and sometimes rough terrain. The ball replaces kerosene lamps, which according to Soccket are the equivalent of smoking 40 cigarettes a day.

Kinetic energy will play a big role is where we get out energy from, and we’re already starting to develop way of capturing it. It’l be important to keep innovation rolling over the next five years as Kolar believes we’re running out of resources — and quickly.

“With populations growing and electricity demand expected to grow at 2.2 percent per year to 2035 (according to the World Energy Outlook 2010),” Kolar explain, “Our current energy infrastructure is just not enough.”

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Posed in front of a mirrored glass office building under a colorful logo, they are the final employees of the now-defunct electric-car startup Aptera Motors on the last day of its existence, Friday, December 2, 2011.

If there’s one lesson to be learned from the closing of Aptera, it may be this: Starting a car company takes a huge amount of money — orders of magnitude more than the software startups Silicon Valley venture capitalists like to fund.

And if the cash runs out at any point, the company will die.

Over the last week, we interviewed former CEO Paul Wilbur and former marketing VP Marques McCammon, who were there to the very end. We also spoke at length with company founder Steve Fambro, who resigned his seat on the Aptera board of directors early this year. He had been replaced by Wilbur as CEO in September 2008. From those interviews and other research, we’ve compiled this inside chronology of the events that led to the end of Aptera.

Not just a single car

Aptera 2e development prototype at company offices in Vista, California.

Through several hours of conversations, a few themes emerged from the Aptera story as recounted by Wilbur and McCammon.

The pair speak highly of the entire workforce, all of them now looking for jobs.

It is clear that the car designed by founders Fambro and Wilbur was not the car Aptera ended up developing. In fact, it created a longer, larger version of the Aptera 2e three-wheeler to comply with the 738 separate Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards covering cars that may legally be sold.

After it became clear that funding a three-wheeler wasn’t going to be possible, the company switched gears in January and threw all its design resources into creating the 4e, a four-seat, four-wheeled car using the same plastic composite body shell construction as the original three-wheelers.

Coming very close?

Both Wilbur and McCammon believe the company came very close to surviving — and suggest that years of discussions with the Department of Energy over its advanced technology vehicle manufacturing (ATVM) loan program ultimately took too long, dooming Aptera to run out of cash.

That $25 billion DoE program offered low-interest loans to automakers and parts companies that would use the money to retool existing plants to build advanced-technology vehicles with fuel efficiency at least 25 percent higher than vehicles they replaced.

Here’s the chronology of the startup:

• 2006: Founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony start Aptera to build an ultra-efficient three-wheel electric car (to be registered as a motorcycle)
• Sep 2008: Paul Wilbur is hired as CEO, replacing Fambro
• Dec 2008: DoE rejects Aptera’s ATVM loan application within three days because three-wheelers are not defined as cars
• Jun 2009: Tesla receives $365 million of low-interest loans under the Department of Energy’s ATVM program
• Sep 2009: Fisker too is awarded $529 million in loans under the ATVM program
• Oct 2009: Three-wheeled vehicles are defined as cars for the purposes of the ATVM program
• Jan 2010: Aptera resubmits application to DoE for loans to build both the 2e and a new four-wheeled, four-seat vehicle
• Late 2010: DoE assessment of 2e portion of business plan indicates it cannot pay back capital costs under DoE’s sales projections (a fraction of Aptera’s own numbers)
• Jan 2011: Aptera shifts all development efforts to the 4e, a four-door, four-seat electric sedan that it believes has a better shot at getting DoE funding
• Sep 2011: DoE issues a conditional commitment letter for $150 million of loans to loaning Aptera–IF the company raises $80 million privately
• Nov 2011: DoE turns down ATVM loan application submitted by Next Autoworks (nee VVC) for its low-cost plastic-bodied basic economy car design
• Nov-Dec 2011: Investors spooked by the Next Autoworks denial refuse Aptera’s requests for further operating funds
• Dec 2, 2011: Aptera Motors shuts down

So if you believe Wilbur, Aptera simply ran out of time amidst a loss of confidence by its investors.

Doing the right thing

Aptera 4e

Surely the political controversy around half a billion dollars of DoE loans to failed solar-panel maker Solyndra didn’t help. There was also a small kerfuffle over the low 20-mpg EPA gas-mileage rating for the 2012 Fisker Karma range-extended electric luxury sport sedan, now finally on the market–and partly funded with DoE loans.

With a presidential election year coming up, Wilbur says, “the [ATVM] program could go away completely.” No big-name investor stepped up to carry Aptera, in the way that Next Autoworks had famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins to lead its funding.

So, Wilbur says, “We wanted to do the right thing for our employees,” closing the company while there was still enough cash to pay them a small amount of severance.

“Bright shiny object disease”

In the end, Wilbur says, if he had it to do over again, he would avoid what he termed the “bright shiny object disease” of DoE loans. He spent three of his three and a half years at the company pursuing Energy Department loan funding, logging time in Washington, D.C., in endless meetings with government officials and lobbyists.

Because Tesla and Fisker got loans, “we listened to that too much,” Wilbur admits. “We should have raised the money ourselves rather than relying on the DoE.”

Aptera 2e development prototype at company offices in Vista, California.

There’s a broader question, of course: Was a three-wheeled two-seater that looked like a Cessna cabin on wheels ever going to sell the 20,000 per year that its executives touted?

All three men pointed to the 5,000 Californians who placed a deposit of $500 to get on the list for an Aptera 2e when the car went into production.

Conversion rates are notoriously tricky to estimate (they’re always less than 100 percent, but by how much?). Whether more than a few thousand souls would be brave enough to drive such a radical device will likely never now be answered.

Car or three-wheeled motorcycle?

Aptera 2e

And clearly the vision for a three-wheeled electric motorcycle that Fambro discusses at length in last week’s Transport Evolved interview was not shared by the executive team brought in during late 2008.

The car that those 5,000 investors put down deposits for was Fambro’s concept, although he does not feel that the final design–two years ago, it was leaked on the day we drove an earlier 2e prototype–stayed true to his original vision.

Nonetheless, the ATVM program is one that’s meant to allow companies to bootstrap technology to get more efficient vehicles into the hands of many, many drivers more quickly.

$5.9 billion to Ford

That’s why Ford has been the single largest recipient of loans thus far, getting a whopping $5.9 billion to roll out its EcoBoost line of smaller, more efficient gasoline engines across its entire model range–as it’s now doing.

Those are hundreds of thousands, soon to be millions, of engines–against tens of thousands of Apteras.

Lingering questions about the collapse:

Paul Wilbur, Aptera Motors CEO, 2008-2011

Many more questions remain about Aptera’s collapse, and they’ll no doubt be endlessly debated. We have partial answers to a few.

Does the DoE Conditional Letter of Commitment really exist?  Both Wilbur and McCammon assert–emphatically, even angrily–that it does. McCammon provided to GreenCarReports a scan of a cover sheet for such a document, dated September 13, 2011. GreenCarReports has not, however, seen the actual letter, which McCammon offered to show to a reporter in person.

He also provided a heavily redacted e-mail–which he stated was from a DoE official, although it cannot be confirmed from the scan–that refers to “a letter…addressing the status of Aptera’s application,” and is dated October 19, 2011.

Presuming that the DoE did issue a conditional commitment letter–it has refused to comment on Aptera–it’s worth noting that Aptera executives claim it required the company to raise $80 million of matching funds to obtain the DoE low-interest loans. And its executives were unable to do that.

What happened to all the deposits?  Wilbur claims the majority of the deposits have been returned–starting last August–though “they’re having a hard time finding” some depositors. On the other hand, at least one GreenCarReports commenter has yet to receive a deposit back and is not having calls or e-mails returned by either the company or its liquidators.

Did Aptera take 2e deposits even after it knew it was dropping development of the car?  Wilbur says that although the website didn’t drop its offer to take deposits until June, the company disabled the back end in January so no deposits could actually be accepted. If any potential Aptera buyers were able to put down a deposit on a 2e after January, that would contradict the ex-CEO’s claim.

This article by John Voelcker originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

This sponsored message is brought to you by Chevrolet.

Note: The 2012 Chevy Volt has an EPA-estimated 94 MPGe ; 35 city, 40 MPG highway. Actual range varies with conditions.

The Chevy Volt* is unique among electric cars because it runs on two sources of energy. You have an electric source – a battery – that allows you to drive gas-free for an EPA–estimated 35 miles. And there’s also an onboard gas generator that produces electricity so you can go farther. So if you want to drive using only electricity, you can. If you want to drive using electricity and gas, you can do that, too. Hear what one proud Volt owner had to say about how the electric car has reinvented his driving experience.

Meet Billy Bell of Orlando, Florida. One might think he loves his Volt because he’s driven more than 1,600 miles without gassing up. That’s because through regular charging and keeping commutes within the EPA-estimated 35 miles per charge, Volt drivers are able to achieve extraordinarily low gas usage.

But for Bell, it goes beyond just saving on fuel costs. “I feel more connected to my Volt than I have with my previous cars — and not just because my phone is connected to it,” says Bell. He’s referring to the fact that iPhone and Android users can download the OnStar RemoteLink mobile app to check charging status, and even schedule future charging times**. He also likes the feeling of being the first kid on the block with a new toy, so to speak. Bell was the first person at his company to get an electric car. “My studio installed a level 2 charger for me and then made an announcement that anyone else that drove an EV to work would also get a free charger to plug into,” he says. Since charging time is about four hours, it can get done during the work day. “Since then, I’ve had lots of people at work asking me about my car, and my coworkers love to ride to lunch with me.”

Going with the Volt wasn’t a decision that Bell took lightly at first, however, especially since he traded in a Mercedes Roadster to do it. “Most of my friends probably thought I was crazy. But I work in the tech industry and I’ve always been an early adopter. I’ve been wanting an EV for several years now,” he says.

Now that he is an EV owner, Bell has found that being a Volt driver has made him infamous, at least for a little while. “I’d been going to the different charging stations around Orlando, taking pictures of my Volt charging up and then posting them to an album on Facebook called, ‘Yeah, but where can you charge it?’” he explains. One of my photos was taken at the local zoo’s charging station next to two Prius cars. About a week later, he met a new work hire, who saw the Volt model Bell keeps on his desk and asked if he owned one. “Then he asked if I parked at the zoo the previous weekend.” Turns out, the new coworker was one of the Prius owners. “Needless to say, he rode to lunch with me and had a lot of questions about the Volt that day.”

Beyond the perception of others, though, Bell is grateful for what the Volt does for him on a personal level. “Driving the Volt puts a smile on my face every day, and I could never go back to a non-electric car.”

*Volt is available to order at participating dealers. Quantities limited.
**OnStar is standard for three years on the Chevy Volt. Visit onstar.com for coverage map, details and system limitations.

Ticketfly partnered with technology providers Aloompa and Intellitix to make event management smoother at venues, with radio frequency identification (RFID) authentication of tickets and passes, ticket scanning, and box office tools, all of which are available on Android devices and the iPhone.

For attendees, Ticketfly partnered with car sharing service Zimride to help concert-goers find carpools to events right after they have purchased tickets online. Ticketfly is an enterprise technology provider focused on providing end-to-end solutions for music promoters and venues, such as ticketing solutions, email and social marketing tools and analytics.

“Events are inherently social, and we love to facilitate the community-building component,” Ticketfly co-founder Andrew Dreskin told VentureBeat. ”Music festivals are a very interesting and exciting part of the live event landscape in the U.S. You can never pirate the live experience, so people continue to go to music events.”

Dreskin says live festivals have come to the forefront of the music industry in the U.S. with events like the Ultra Music Festival, Bumbershoot and the Treasure Island Music Festival drawing crowds both regionally and nationally. Sometimes crowds come from even further afield.

By partnering with Zimride, Ticketfly is expanding access to events and helping attendees reduce their environmental impact at the same time. ”The ability to marry Zimride’s ridesharing solution with Ticketfly will save fans and venues millions of dollars on transportation costs while creating a new community for fans to meet before and after the show,” said Logan Green, founder and chief executive officer of Zimride in a statement.

Winter is a slow time for the music festivals, so launching its new integrated product now may give Ticketfly and partners a chance to stomp out any bugs before the festival season ramps up again. In April, Coachella will kick off the music festival season followed by Bonnaroo, Sasquatch, Outside Lands and many more. These major music festivals of the spring and summer will allow Ticketfly and its tech collaborators to see how well their technology has worked together. Some Ticketfly partners are currently providing services to festival organizers such for Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, while Ticketfly certainly hopes to do so with its integrated offering.

The fees paid for purchasing tickets represent a $10 billion opportunity, says Dreskin. The face value of all tickets sold worldwide is more than $50 billion. “That’s pretty juicy,” says Dreskin.

Ticketfly is based in San Francisco, and has raised $15 million in funding. The company has 70 employees and has been generating revenue for the past 30 months, said Dreskin.

Image via Christian Holmer/Flickr

GainSpan’s goal is to create incredibly low-power Wi-Fi modules and drivers that are suitable for all kinds of devices, including household appliances. On top of creating hardware, the company also develops embedded Wi-Fi software. The five markets the company said it focuses on are: healthcare and fitness, smart energy, industrial control, commercial/building automation and consumer home.

The new funding round was led by existing investors Sigma Partners, Opus Capital, New Venture Partners and Intel Capital. New investors Hatteras Funds and Mobile Internet Capital participated along with prior investors In-Q-Tel and Camp Ventures.

“Being able to attract such world-class companies is the ultimate seal of approval that we are in the right place at the right time with the right solution,” said Greg Winner, President and CEO of GainSpan, in a statement. “While the debate over what wireless technology works best will continue, it’s hard to argue with powerful financial backers, real customers and proven, innovative products in a hot market.”

San Jose, Calif.-based GainSpan was founded in 2006 and maintains a research and development team in India. With the new funding, the company has raised about $56 million, including a $5 million investment back in November 2010.

eMeter, which is led by Veritas CEO and former Oracle executive Gary Bloom, gathers information from two-way meters. The data then travels to utility companies and allows them to make better business decisions, to understand peaks in demand and to read meters automatically.

Consumers can also use the information to find ways to use less energy and lower their bills.

Collectively, the practice of gathering and disseminating energy usage information for greater efficiency and sustainability is known as the smart grid, and it’s been a focus at Siemens of late.

“The acquisition of eMeter will allow Siemens to expand its reach globally in the energy information and meter data management space,” said Jan Mrosik, CEO of the Smart Grid Division of the Siemens Infrastructure & Cities Sector, in a statement today.

While Siemens has its own energy division, eMeter’s staff and technology will be part of the company’s Smart Grid division within the Infrastructure & Cities Sector. (As an interesting footnote illustrating Siemens’ scope, this sector alone has 87,000 employees worldwide.)

eMeter has taken a total of $68.8 million over six rounds of institutional funding. JP Morgan advised eMeter in the acquisition.

The technology tour will be rolling out in selected cities across the country, showing off the vehicle’s drive train and electric motor, as well as the battery pack, front suspension and rear drive unit.

The idea is to let people get up close and personal with the new car, and experience an electric car not as some luxury toy, but as something they might one day own.

“Tesla stores are designed to let people explore and learn about Tesla’s technology for themselves,” said vice president George Blankenship, in a statement. “You’ll never see a ‘Don’t Touch’ sign in a Tesla store. We want everyone — from kindergartners to grandparents — to come in and see for themselves why driving electric is the future.”

Blankenship was hired by Tesla to design its retail facilities after successfully contributing to the signature look of Apple’s retail stores. He was Apple’s vice president for real estate from 2000 to 2006.

The Tesla Model S Beta is the first mass-market electric car produced  by the company, whose headquarters are in Palo Alto, CA. The first Model S Beta units will be on the streets in 2012, and the company has taken orders for more than 6,500 pre-orders, selling out completely. VentureBeat recently visited the Palo Alto facility, and we got to test ride the new Model S.

What makes the Model S different from the company’s earlier vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, is that it looks like a regular sedan, and is built to seat seven people, five adults and two kids. It’s also priced like a normal car, starting at about $49,000. By contrast, the Tesla Roadster was a two-seater sports car and had a sticker price of $112,000 and up.

Even with a price tag that makes owning Tesla Model S more affordable, don’t expect any Black Friday madness at the Tesla store.

The advantage crystaline solar panels have over thin film (the more popular manufacturing technique) is they rely on optical concentrators which can deliver 30 percent more output from the same amount of surface area. Solaria power modules have a 14 percent efficiency rating, while the most efficient solar panels in ready supply throughout California are rated at 15.64 percent efficiency, according to SROeCo. Solar panel efficiency is calculated by dividing the power output in watts by the surface area of a cell.

Solaria solar modules are built for solar collectors which follow the sun’s movement throughout the day in order to harvest the maximum possible amount of energy.

Previous Solaria investors include Sigma Partners and Moserbaer India. The company raised $65 million in a Series D in September of 2010.

VentureBeat contacted Solaria for a comment on the funding announcement. No one was made available at press time. We will update with any comment.

Renters can now review a space’s potential for productivity with categories such as noise and Wi-Fi strength. There are rankings for “coolness,” which include the overall vibe of the space and the neighborhood. A community category wants to know what your co-workers were like, and if there was a potential for networking. Loosecubes has also added Facebook comments to the profiles of particular spaces, and a feature that will show who the regulars are at a particular location.

“Through shared workspace we’ve seen a lot of really great relationships formed both personally and professionally, co-founder Anthony Marinos told VentureBeat. “Because the vibe is more open, sparks fly.” Marinos says creating community is just as important as helping businesses rent out excess space.

Services such as Getaround (rent out your car) and Airbnb (rent out your home) have helped popularize the idea of collaborative consumption, another term for sharing for profit. There are lots of things in our garages or closets we own but never use, and there’s a good chance someone nearby could use them. With smartphones and social networks it’s easier than ever to connect to a pool of people who can harness the idling capacity of all that stuff. And now office space is no different.

Loosecubes has more than 1,300 listings spread across 534 cities worldwide, and its inventory has increased by 150 percent in the last six months, according to Marinos. Loosecubes’ website now lists an inventory worth more than $50 million, co-founder and chief executive officer Campbell McKellar told VentureBeat. And in New York City, where the company is located, there are more Looscubes locations than Starbucks. Loosecubes recently surpassed rival Regus in the number of office locations it offers. Marinos says that the average number of weekly reservation requests has increased by 600 percent since April.

Loosecubes is ideal for businesses that have extra space and want to make money renting it out. It’s common for new startups to rent desk spaces from a larger company until they get funding, or until they hire more people and outgrow the situation. Generally these arrangements are formal and somewhat longterm. Loosecubes makes it possible for entrepreneurs to rent space only when they need it.

Perhaps best of all, Loosecubes has a sweet portfolio of well-known companies renting out spare office space. As hard as it may be to get your resume in front of the decision makers at today’s hot startups, with Loosecubes you can work alongside Silicon Valley stars such as HotelTonight, Task Rabbit and Rickshaw Bags in San Francisco. In New York, the roster of Loosecubes office spaces includes Weldbilt Studio and the DUMBO Spot, both of which are in Brooklyn.

To date, Loosecubes has raised $1.2 million from Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, and friends and family.

The city of New Orleans today is rolling out the social media red carpet for aspiring entrepreneurs, as applications open for NOLABound, with the hopes of spurring a startup scene in the Crescent City. Think of it as a mini-dose of the TechStars meets The Real World New Orleans.

The NOLABound program will provide travel stipends for 25 individuals interested in starting arts-based businesses, those in the biosciences, digital media, and sustainable industries, to spend five days in the city and share their experiences interacting with the New Orleans entrepreneur community on the NOLABound website. Applications will close on Dec. 16, and the program period runs from Mar. 14-Mar. 18, 2012, which partially overlaps with New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. The experience of the participants will also be filmed as part of a documentary to highlight the growing stature of New Orleans as a entrepreneurial destination.

NOLABound is being overseen by Idea Village, The Downtown Development District of New Orleans, and Greater New Orleans, Inc., and has received money from the U.S. Department of Commerce‘s Economic Development Administration.

New Orleans was hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Region in August of 2005. A slow recovery effort by the federal government and FEMA left the citizens of this dynamic cultural hub scattered to the winds. Prior to the storm New, Orleans was heavily dependent on oil drilling as well tourism and entertainment for its economic livelihood. With NOLAbound, the city is hoping to make a strong case that the so-called Big Easy is place for work and play alike.

“Innovators and entrepreneurs need to consider NOLA for a unique mix of culture and business that is nurturing the startup community here,” said entrepreneur Patrick Comer, who set up his most recent company, Federated Sample, in New Orleans and was quoted in NOLAbound’s press statement. “The rich vein of creativity is unlike anything else I’ve seen, and the system of technology development and angel investor tax credits creates immediate return for both investors and startups.” Federated Sample is a New Orleans-based online market research company that currently employs 22 people, and has received $2.8 million in investment.

[New Orleans musicians image vis ShutterStock]

Based on Ford’s Transit Connect van, the five-seater Ford Transit Connect Electric Wagon will be available for sale in North America by early 2012. The announcement comes just in time for the Los Angeles Auto Show, where vehicle makers debut futuristic concept cars as well as new and exciting production models.

The Ford Transit Connect Electric van was chosen as the 2010 Truck of the Year and has been used in delivery fleets of such companies as AT&T, FedEx, Post Norway, and DHL, among others. The partnership with Azure Dynamics has been critical to the production of the electrification of Transit Connect, because the company makes the Force Drive powertrain for the vehicle.

The wagon will have a maximum range of between 55 and 80 miles, depending on how loaded the vehicle is. The vehicle is aimed at businesses more than individual, says GreenCarReports, which is different than the van, because it will have a second row of adjustable seating.

Although no price has been disclosed, GreenCarReports is reporting that the Ford Transit Connect Electric Wagon is expected to qualify for the same electric vehicle credits as the cargo-carrying van upon which is was based.

via CNET

The two natural gas projects in Texas, in the towns of Sherman and Temple, will generate a total of 1950 megawatts and will be among the cleanest natural gas-fueled power plants in the U.S., according to the firm.

“The closing of our first private equity fund, in this capital market environment, is a validation of the business strategy, market knowledge and industry relationships developed by an executive team that has worked closely together for many years,”  Todd W. Carter, senior partner of Panda Power Funds, said in a release. “We are well positioned to execute our business plan and to take advantage of the significant opportunities we see in the power sector.”

Already $94 million from the fund has been spent on the 20 megawatt Pilesgrove Solar Farm in New Jersey, which is the largest in the Northeast U.S., with more than 71,000 panels and the capacity to power about 5,100 homes, according to NJ.com.

Panda Power Funds was launched in April of 2010 to invest in natural gas and solar power generation facilities and has built energy projects with more than $2.8 billion in financing since the company was started in 1982.

A Bloomberg story from Friday highlights a third fire involving a Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car–only 7,500 or so of which are on the roads today.

NHTSA side-impact test

The latest case occurred in June in a Chevy Volt that had been crash-tested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The car was subjected to a side-impact “pole test,” which not only destroyed the car but cracked the battery pack housed in the center tunnel and under the rear seat. Then, as per the standard test procedure, the car was put on a rotisserie and rotated 90 degrees every five minutes to test for any fluid leakage. Coolant leaked out of the battery pack, though the electric components stayed put.

Fully three weeks later, the wrecked Volt caught fire in an open storage yard in Wisconsin, with the flames ultimately spreading to surrounding cars. After news of the fire, both Chevrolet and the NHTSA independently replicated the crash test and subsequent vehicle rotation procedure. In neither case could they reproduce the conditions under which the battery pack ignited.

Electric vehicles not “at greater risk” of fire

Months later, the NHTSA doesn’t appear to view the fire as terribly alarming. It has given the Volt a five-star safety rating, and the IIHS designated the Volt a Top Safety Pick as well. “Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe the Volt or other electric vehicles are at a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles,” the agency said in a statement today. “In fact, all vehicles — both electric and gasoline-powered — have some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash.”

Nonetheless, novelty and lack of public knowledge is likely to make any conflagration noteworthy if there’s an electric car nearby.

Salvage yards, tow-truck operators

The immediate concern, the agency noted, was to ensure that first responders, tow-truck operators, salvage yards, and even dealerships that handle wrecked electric cars understand what must be done to ensure safety. GM has been training first responders how to approach crashes involving electric cars for more than a year, since before the 2011 Volt went on sale last December.

It is also developing procedures for all parties on how to remove lithium-ion battery packs from wrecked Volts to alleviate any potential of long-term fire risk.

Garage fires, with Volts inside

The two previous fires with Chevy Volts involved were in Mooresville, North Carolina, just last week, and in Barkhamsted, Connecticut, last April. Both occurred in garages that happened to house Chevrolet Volts. In the Mooresville case, a Volt was charging in the garage at the time of the fire–leading local electric utility Duke Energy, in a surfeit of caution, to advise electric-car owners not to plug in their cars to charge until the cause of the blaze had been established.

No conclusion has yet been drawn by local fire officials, but GM sources–none of whom would go on record–seem confident that the Volt will not be deemed to have been a cause of the blaze.

As for the Connecticut blaze, the fire marshal’s report concluded the Volt that was parked in the garage had nothing to do with the cause of the fire. It was sitting next to a Suzukiconverted by the home’s owner to a battery electric vehicle.

Keeping an eye out

With electric cars slowing spreading into the market, manufacturers and regulators alike will be keeping a very close eye on any fires with electric cars nearby. The NHTSA’s statement concludes, “As manufacturers continue to develop vehicles of any kind — electric, gasoline, or diesel – it is critical that they take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of drivers and first responders both during and after a crash.”

Given that there are 250,000 or more fires in gasoline vehicles every year, the sample base seems too low to draw any useful conclusions about electric cars and fires thus far.

For everyone’s sake, let’s hope it stays that way.

This post by John Voelcker originally appeared in GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Related articles

• 28 electric car makers that are ready to rule the streets (venturebeat.com)
• First look at the new Tesla Model S Beta electric car (venturebeat.com)
• GM slashes Volt slashes price tag (venturebeat.com)
• Volt cruises into North Carolina and South Carolina (venturebeat.com)
• GM riles electric car advocates over charger sharing (venturebeat.com)

Better Place is working with Nissan/Renault on the production of electric cars with swappable batteries that can be charged at home, or taken to battery-swapping stations where fresh batteries are inserted within minutes. Vehicle owners will rent the batteries from Better Place, and pay only for the miles they drive.

This battery-swapping technology is not yet available commercially, though in 2010 in Tokyo, Better Place ran a pilot program with electrified taxis running on swappable batteries. Better Place founder and CEO Shai Agassi joked that the taxi’s batteries lasted longer than the drivers’ bladders, after only one cab ran out of juice during the program.

“We’ve worked hard over the past four years to engineer and build a technology solution that competes with oil-based transportation,” said Agassi in a statement. “We are entering the next phase of growth for our company where we prove that our solution works, that it’s in demand, and that it scales, as we begin to push into new markets and attract new investors and new partners. I believe that our investors should be applauded for having the vision to finance the future of transportation.”

Better Place has partnered with local governments in Denmark and Israel to build a charging infrastructure to support its brand of electric cars. The company is also rolling out city-wide charging initiatives in Toronto, Hawaii and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Better Place will provide commercial charging infrastructure for electric car owners of all models, and is in the final testing phases to choose the Renault Fluence Z.E. (Zero Emissions) as its vehicle of choice.

Today’s investment in Better Place raises the company’s total to $750 million, with previous investors Israel Corp., HSBC Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Ofer Group and Maniv Energy Capital also joining the round.

VentureBeat was among the very first to take the new Tesla Model S Beta for an early test drive, and we can report that it’s a beast. We’ve got photos from our plant visit below, and we’ll be uploading a video soon.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the Model S is already sold out for 2012, thanks to 6,500 pre-orders. And after spending some time with the vehicle in person, it’s easy to see why. This car is dead sexy, with all the features to make gadget boy or girl’s heart melt. Yet unlike the earlier Tesla Roadster, it’s actually got room for your friends and family.

With seating for seven (five full-sized adults and two kids in the back), it’s not a vehicle to park in your living room and admire. This is a moving sculpture that expects to be driven.

It handles the hill roads of Palo Alto with the power of a rally car, and the grace of prancing gazelle.  Best of all, it’s muscle you can feel good about. The electric engine is releasing zero emissions as it burns down the road.

What else makes the Model S Beta special? This prototype is in its final stages before the car goes into production, and the Model S will be Tesla’s first mass-produced vehicle. Starting at $49,000, the Model S is the follow-up to the company’s first car, the Tesla Roadster. It will be available in a 160-, 230- or 300-mile range option, and the company says it can charge using any regular electrical outlet.

The Model S Beta has a 17-inch connected touchscreen, developed in-house, that’s equipped with 3G wireless for easy navigation, web and media access, and the ability to run applications.

What we saw was still early, but the Tesla team sees cars as the new app marketplace. That means you can expect someone in the near future to be creating a customized, steampunk-styled interface for someone’s Model S control panel. Even without apps, this giant, luminous screen is responsible for all car functions, and the only physical buttons on the car’s console are the federally-mandated “hazard” blinker, and another button to pop open the glove box. Everything else, from driving directions, to air conditioning, is controlled with the touch screen.

Suffice it to say, no detail was overlooked on the driving experience, the interior or the techy goodness.

We’ll have a full-length video of our test drive and lots more photos coming soon. Stay tuned!

Related articles

• Tesla begins assembling beta Model S electric car models (venturebeat.com)
• Secret Tesla video? Model S sedan, Roadster shown on the road together (venturebeat.com)
• Tesla’s sporty Model S will accelerate faster than a Porsche 911 Carrera (venturebeat.com)
• Tesla Motors inks $100M deal with Toyota (venturebeat.com)

This sponsored message is brought to you by Chevrolet.

The Chevy Volt is getting a lot of attention these days, and if you drive a Volt, you are, too. Volt drivers say they’re constantly getting stopped at grocery stores and cornered in parking lots by curious onlookers wanting to know how the Volt works. Surely, you can relate. What is your Volt story?

Maybe it’s about what it’s like to charge regularly and fill up rarely, the furthest you’ve driven on an electric charge, or perhaps how the Volt has made you competitive with maximizing your efficiency. Now it’s your turn to share how you have achieved these amazing feats and how the Volt has changed your life.

Please send your amazing stories to http://goo.gl/pa1Al and you may be profiled for a feature.

This post is sponsored by Chevrolet. It’s more car than electric.

Pay no attention to the 2 million barrels of fossilized dinosaurs inside this ship, en route to the cars that will incinerate them and spew them into the atmosphere.

Instead, look at the supertanker’s sails! And its solar panels!

That’s right, this is an oil tanker powered by the wind and the sun. Let that sink in for a minute.

Richard Sauter of Sauter Carbon Offset Design released his design for the “solar hybrid supertanker” today. If the ship is ever built, you can bet that some big oil company will be using it to tout its “green” credentials in short order.

Sauter’s certified carbon offset projects are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from super yachts and ships. His design team, Sauter Carbon Offset Design creates ships reducing greenhouse gas emissions down 50-100 percent by using all the technology available.

“Not [using the technology available to us] is allowing boats over this same period of time to put up to 6 billion tons of GHG into the biosphere needlessly,” reads the Sauter Carbon Offset Design website.

As Sauter’s site reads, the International Maritime Organization, Richard Branson and green technology company Wartstila believe a 75 percent reduction in these emissions is a completely realistic goal and Sauter’s team agrees. They have already created a slew of boats and vehicles to that end, but the real gold was tackling the most ironic ship ever: the oil tanker.

The ship is a 330,000 dead weight tonnage (DWT) tanker holding up to 2 million barrels of crude oil and it runs on wind, sun and a sprinkling of its own liquid natural gas. She is considered Post Panamax, or designed for the newly installed large locks on the Panama canal.

Chipping away at the 75 percent starts with the new and improved hull by Mitsubishi. The hull is called a bubble hull and allows for less drag on the ship herself. This drag usually creates friction which must be powered through, and in order to do so, ships consumer more energy. Having this hull in tandem with the new hybrid engine reduces up to 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, well on our way to 75 percent.

The hybrid engine, a Wartsila’s liquified natural gas (LNG) hybrid power system, uses both gas and solar power from the ship’s built-in SunPower Solbian solar panels. She is also outfitted with sails created by DynaWing, which when used in conjunction with the Warstila power system creates 20 megawatts of energy, enough to run the entire ship 10 megawatts below the usually required energy supply.

Another 20-30 percent of emissions are reduced with these sails and the last 15-20 percent are reduced using the solar panels.

The ship overall will cost 15 percent more than the regular price for a plain old, fully-polluting supertanker of the same capacity. There is an big benefit for business people considering the added cost, however.

“A Solar Hybrid Post Panamax VLCC [very large crude carrier] presents us with a  major win-win scenario,” said Sauter in a jargon-filled statement. “For apart from safeguarding the planet, oil companies can look forward to savings of up to 60 million dollars a year on the purchase of fuel.”

That means that at today’s regular prices for these supertankers, Deliverance will not only pay for herself in 4 years, but will save over $1.5 billion over her years in service. In the end, the super tanker will use 110,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, which will save 3 million tons over a 25 year lifespan. That’s great, but when it docks at port and its owners celebrate the good deed of saving the atmosphere so much energy, they will also be able to rejoice in the 2 million barrels of oil it hopefully won’t spill on the way over.

If you’re as excited as VentureBeat executive editor Dylan Tweney is about the supertanker, click here for a full-size rendering of the ship, suitable for making into your desktop wallpaper.

Social network giant Facebook has chosen the northern Swedish town of Lulea as the site of its first data center outside the U.S., reports Reuters.

The data center, which will cost an initial $121 million to build, will be the largest of its kind in Europe. The facility will consist of three server buildings, each with an area of 300,000 square ft.

Despite its remote location (over 600 miles north of Swedish capital Stockholm), Facebook chose Lulea because of its icy climate, which will help to cool the tens of thousands of servers in the facility. It will also serve more than 800 million European Facebook users.

Unlike Facebook’s Oregon and North Carolina data centers that rely on utility (coal) power, the Lulea data center will be powered by renewable energy.

The first of the three server buildings is expected to be operational within a year, while the entire facility is scheduled to be ready by 2014, according to Facebook. It will require about 300 full-time positions during the first three years, the company added.

Image via Data Center Knowledge

The tech giant has been granted a permit to start preparing around 171 acres of land for a solar energy farm, the Charlotte Observer reports.

The facility will be adjacent to the company’s $1 billion data center, codenamed Project Dolphin.

Currently, Apple’s local data center runs on electricity from Duke Energy, a utility powered mostly by coal and nuclear technologies.

The North Carolina center will join a slew of the company’s other facilities that are powered by renewable energy. Currently, the company’s outposts in Austin, Texas; Sacramento, California; and Cork, Ireland, run entirely on green energy sources.

Apple’s requests for county and town building permits have not yet surfaced but are expected to provide more information about the company’s plans for sustainable energy for the data center, including just how much of the 171 acre lot will be used for solar power.

Currently, Apple’s plans show the property will have multiple gravel roads to give technicians access to solar panels as well as a way of preventing soil erosion and runoff.

Early last year, Apple ranked ninth on Greenpeace’s list of environmentally conscious companies, beating out Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

On the consumer side, Apple has been granted a patent for incorporating solar panels on devices like the iPod and other small consumer electronics.

The money will help Brammo solidify its position in the market against electric bike rivals such as Zero Motorcylces, and to reach new customers. Brammo also produces and distributes the Brammo Digital Drivetrain, and the Brammo Power battery back, which can be used by manufacturers in their vehicles.

“We are excited to add Polaris Industries as a valued strategic partner. Brammo and its partners are combining forces to gain dominance in the EV powersports market,”said Brammo founder and chief executive officer Craig Bramscher, in a statement. Alpine Energy also participated in the round.

Polaris makes a wide variety of vehicles for outdoor recreation, such as golf carts, off-road vehicles and snowmobiles. Polaris also makes light-duty electric vehicles, such as the Gem, which is like golf cart designed for grounds teams.

Based in Ashland, Ore., Brammo is the maker of all-electric motorcycles, such as Encite, the Empulse, Engage and  the Enertia (pictured).

Brammo previously raised $10 million Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital and  Best Buy Venture Capital

An intelligent thermostat seems like an odd project for the minds behind Apple’s iconic iPod, but in a strange way, the iPod folks may just be the perfect team to revolutionize home heating.

The project is the Nest Learning Thermostat, a Wi-Fi connected thermostat that learns your heating preferences and optimizes your home’s temperature to save energy. The brains behind it are Tony Fadell, former SVP of Apple’s iPod group, and Matt Rogers, former lead engineer of iPod software. The two are the founders of Nest Labs.

At first glance, the duo’s Apple heritage is plain to see in the Nest. The device’s design is simple and elegant, sporting a metal outer ring that lets you control the temperature (and which also resembles the original iPod’s mechanical click wheel), and an internal display that changes depending on what you’re trying to do. When it’s warming up your house, for example, it sports a nice toasty red. It also sports a leaf when you’re saving energy (usually by lowering the temperature).

But the Nest has brains as well as beauty. The thermostat learns your heating routine, and after about a week it will be able to automatically adjust your home’s temperature without much input on your part. “It never stops learning,” the company states (somewhat ominously) in its promotional video below.

The Nest is powered by six sensors that track things like the temperature (obviously), humidity, motion, and ambient light. The sensors allow the device to determine when you’re home, which makes it smarter than other thermostats that just rely on a time schedule. Multiple nests can also communicate with each other — so when you come home, your upstairs Nest could start to warm up your bedrooms.

Given the way the Nest optimizes your home’s temperature, the company says you could save around $173 a year in heating costs. With those figures, the Nest would more than pay for itself within a year-and-a-half.

Naturally, there’s also an iPhone app for the Nest that lets you remotely control the temperature and manage other settings. The company says an Android app is in the works. You can also manage all of your Nest devices online at the company’s website.

The Nest will cost $250 — much less than other smart thermostats on the market — and will be available in major retail stores like Best Buy. The company says you should be able to install it yourself in under 30 minutes, but the less tech-savvy may want to hire some help.

Fisker has already received $529 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to make its plug-in extended-range vehicles. The majority of the loans are going toward the development of the Nina, a mid-priced family car, to be built in a former GM plant in Delaware. The manufacturing delay means that the creation of thousands of promised new jobs will also be postponed. Fisker now plans to start production in 2013.

“Yes there have been delays, but we have created a totally new car, based on a new technology and started a company and raised finance for it in less than 4 years since the company was formed — and all in an economic downturn,” Roger Ormisher, Fisker’s director of global communication told VentureBeat.

A $169 million chunk of the government’s loan has gone to development of Fisker’s Karma, a luxury sedan made in Finland that costs $96,000 (pictured above). However, even though the factory is in Finland, Fisker and the Department of Energy say the loan money is not being spent abroad, but rather in the U.S. on design, engineering and integration.

The Karma has just been cleared for sale in the U.S., two years late and without meeting its promised efficiency standards. Last week the EPA gave it a rating of 52 miles per gallon in electric mode, and a low 20 miles per gallon in gas mode. Only 40 of the cars have been shipped to the U.S. from Finland, but the company still plans on ramping up production to 15,000 cars a year.

The Obama administration’s $38.6 billion loan guarantee program for green-energy companies is part of a “green jobs” initiative that was supposed to create or keep 65,000 jobs. So far it has given out half its loans and created 3,545 full-time jobs, according to the Washington Post. The failure of solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra in September thrust the program into the spotlight, with many questioning the decision to tie investing in unproven and emerging green technology companies to job creation. It’s likely that all of the program’s loan recipients will be closely scrutinized.

The Department of Energy has adjusted the terms of its loan agreement with Fisker to accommodate the delays. Fisker Automotive’s founder, Henrik Fisker, told the Washington Post of comparisons to Solyndra, “This is completely different. You can’t compare at all.”

Fisker Automotive has raised over $600 million in private equity financing, the majority of which has been used to create jobs, including 650 in Calif. and 100 in Delaware, according to Fisker.

[via Washington Post]