Elon Musk: “I didn’t think SpaceX or Tesla would work” June 9, 2014 Billionaire tech titan Elon Musk – the brain behind Tesla electric cars, a project to colonise Mars and Hyperloop – has more ideas in a year than most people in a lifetime. But speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, the serial entrepreneur admitted that he hasn’t always had faith that things will come [...]
3 electric car myths debunked February 20, 2014 If Tesla Motors' results are anything to go by, it looks like electric cars are taking off. Yesterday, the firm revealed a gross profit of $156.6m (£93.7m) – over six times higher than than a year earlier. The forward-thinking company, which is headed by PayPal and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, saw record transactions of its [...]
The market’s already come up with something that makes Nick Clegg’s electric car plan totally irrelevant January 30, 2014 Nick Clegg’s on a drive to make Britain the world leader in electric cars. Today, he announced that the government will invest more than £9m to up the number of charging points across the country. The government’s partnered up with major car manufacturers who are backing the suspectly-named Go Ultra Low campaign – which they [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 22 November 2013 November 21, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Independence could lose sterling Scotland will be forced to quit the sterling currency union if it votes for independence next year, a cabinet minister has said, in the starkest warning yet for Scottish voters to remain in the UK. Speaking to the Financial Times days before the Scottish government releases its vision for [...]
A new breed of super-entrepreneurs could leave HS2 looking antiquated September 8, 2013 FOR A mode of transport that first arrived in the nineteenth century, railways have been remarkably resilient. All three major political parties currently support the creation of a new high speed rail network, High Speed 2 (HS2), a £43bn plan to connect London Euston, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, and the East Midlands in two phases. [...]
Driverless cars show the journey of discovery is a long and winding road May 31, 2012 SOMETHING important happened in Spain this week, and not just the continuing revelations of the depths of its economic crisis. Volvo announced that on a motorway just outside Barcelona a convoy of four driverless cars drove 123 miles on a public road, among other road users, perfectly safely. The vehicles travelled at 53 miles an [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 20, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Funds’ €60bn to buy European bank debt Hedge funds and private equity firms have amassed almost €60bn to buy loans from stricken European banks in coming years as many of the continent’s lenders seek to shrink their way to health, according to a PwC survey. PwC estimates European banks have almost €2.5tn of [...]
Time to reach for the stars: Britain’s new space industry has the potential to blast off November 2, 2011 SIR RICHARD Branson opened the world’s first commercial spaceport last month. As his new venture Virgin Galactic recognises, space is an industry where the sky’s not the limit. For too long the domain of superpower rivalry between America’s Nasa and Russia’s Federal Space Agency, space is now giving way to the private sector, funded by [...]
No cure for cancer and no jetpacks: the twenty-first century is a bust October 24, 2010 BUSINESS FEATURES EDITOR PULLING a dollar from his wallet, Peter Thiel, the 43-year old co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, flaps it to make his point: “Giving people freedom with money is really something deep and fundamental. Government may still have a monopoly on printing these notes, but so long as you [...]