Tesla Chief Engineer Peter Rawlinson geeks out with us about Model S design

Did you sit through all three of the lengthy, expository videos that lovingly and exhaustively detailed every aspect of the Model S's design and engineering? If so, you'll be familiar with Peter Rawlinson, Tesla Chief Engineer and genuine car nut who, in previous lives, held the titles of Chief Engineer of Advanced Engineering at Lotus and Principal Engineer at Jaguar. His latest creation, the Model S, shares some frame concepts the products of one of those companies and some styling cues from another, but it's safe to say this is an all new car that has been obsessively designed starting with a "blank computer screen" as he puts it. He was kind enough to spend some time talking tech with us, and you can read the highlights below.

The Model S, though naturally having a radical powertrain, has a suspension setup that doesn't look exactly other-worldly, but that's not to say it's entirely normal. It's double-wishbone up front and a multi-link setup in the rear, with the motor attached to a subframe and situated between the rear wheels. The battery pack keeping the show on the road is not situated behind the driver like in the Roadster, rather forming a sheet that looks to be about four inches thick. This sheet is is a structural member of the car, helping the chassis to resist twisting. It's the lowest point in the car (other than the tires), sitting about level with the hubs on the wheels. Peter indicates that this gives the car an unusually low center of gravity, which helps to reduce the amount it rolls in corners.

It's so low that the car, despite its considerable 4,200lb bulk, can make do with relatively thin anti-rollbars. We asked Peter if we're getting to the point where the CG is so low, beneath the roll center of the car, that it would actually cause it to lean into corners. The Model S isn't quite there, apparently, but according to Peter that is apparently not as desirable a suspension effect as one might think, causing an unsatisfactory driving sensation, among other things.

The car will be offered in four ranges, with battery packs offering 160, 230, or 300 miles worth of juice. Each pack will be the same physical size and each can be removed in under a minute -- assuming you have your sockets handy. About 30 bolts are entailed and, while we still don't have hot-swappable battery stations available anywhere, Peter indicates that's absolutely still a goal for the Model S. That said, 480 volt charging will be supported by the car, which in other EVs provides an 80 percent charge in about a half-hour.

The motor itself is a variation on that sitting amidships on the Roadster, this time liquid cooled, as are the batteries, enabling the car to maintain optimal temperatures. There is no transmission as such, just a simple reduction gearbox and differential. Peter wouldn't quote any drivetrain loss figures but indicated it'd be considerably lower than your average five speed setup, which can range between 10 to 20 percent of power gone simply due to friction. Additionally, the motor controller is integrated right onto the unit itself, with a direct bus connection that cuts down on electrical losses.

And what about that controversial interior? The one with the 17-inch, Tegra-powered touchscreen stuffed in the center stack? Peter calls this a "signature feature" of the car, and of course you can't argue with that, but we do have our concerns about usability. "Seeing is believing," according to the man and, given as we still haven't seen it, we'll go ahead and continue to have our doubts.

We're told the Model S is still rolling toward a release next year and still targeting that $57,000 price tag that Elon Musk assures us will be profitable for the company. What's it like to drive, and just how well can that touchscreen cope to the various greases and industrial components used in American fast food? For those answers we're just going to have to wait a bit longer.

Harman Experimental HMI with netbook internals, augmented reality aspirations hands-on (video)

Yes, folks, more fun infotainment systems to hope that your manufacturer of choice picks up before your 'Ol Bessie gives up the ghost and has to be put out to pasture. Regardless of which logo you prefer on your grille there's a good chance that Harman works with them, and so maybe they'll pick up this. It's called the Experimental HMI and it's basically a netbook for your dash -- minus the keyboard and junk. It's running an Atom processor and has a Flash-based interface, making it easy to develop for. The killer app at this point is an augmented reality navigation system you can see demoed in the video below, but it'll ultimately be up to the manufacturers to do what they will with it.

A few months ago, three teams split $10 million in prizes, finally claiming the Progressive Insurance Automotive X prize. They're all at CES, and we got a chance to speak in detail with one of the men behind one of them, Edison2's Oliver Kutter, about the design of the car and, ultimately, what's going to come next thanks to that $5 million in cash the company walked away with. Read on for the details from that conversation, including why this tiny thing could actually be safer than a traditional car, as well as a video walkthrough, and pictures of the winner of the two-wheeled X-Tracer too.

The Very Light Car appropriately weighs a few ticks over 800lbs and is powered by a 250cc motorcycle engine (the same one used in the funky little Yamaha WR250X). That may not sound like a lot of power, and indeed it isn't, but the idea here is of course efficiency. The team managed 102mpg during the competition, but have elsewhere scored 109, and that's just the beginning.

This is the third iteration of the car, and the company is already hard at work on the fourth, with electric power coming. That won't be the end, though, with more revisions to be made and, hopefully, a production version that could, believe it or not, seat seven. Part of the reason why it has so much room is because the suspension is entirely built into the wheels, a layout we unfortunately weren't allowed to see (it's hidden under the white bits of paper) but enables the axle to be completely rigid and the interior to stretch right to the corners of the body.



If your first thought is that this layout plus its tiny, low-rolling-resistance tires give it crummy handling, prepare to be humbled: the VLC pulled 1.18g on a skidpad, matching a $300,000+ Pagani Zonda C12 S. If your second thought is that it's a deathtrap, we'll be happy to dissuade that too. It's made of carbon fiber, for one thing, which is incredibly hard to damage. For another, its diamond shape gives it incredible rigidity from either frontal or side impacts. Finally, the placement of the wheels and tires outside of the body means they can be shed in a crash -- throwing off kinetic energy and reducing the overall force of the crash.

Ultimately the Virginia-based company is still a ways away from a version that you or I can try to go break our own records in, but with a fleet of experienced racing engineers fiddling with CAD files and laying up the carbon we'd like to think good things are coming. But, then, we are optimists.