TECHNOLOGY The wheels come off Tesla’s electric dream
After years of over-promising and under-delivering, America’s latest technology darling, Tesla, now has a highly uncertain future. Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has promised that his electric cars will revolutionise transportation: first through emission-free transportation; then, through self-driving Teslas which would change the way people live and do business. The dream was always based on hype, which Musk provided in spades. At its simplest, electric cars are not “emissions-free”, if only because it takes huge amounts of energy to manufacture electric vehicles, including their high-tech batteries. Further, the power that drives them comes from the electricity grid, which, in Australia…