Consumer Reports gives Tesla Model S highest rating ever

• 

Wow.

Chalk up another huge accolade for the Tesla Model S electric car: Consumer Reports has awarded it 99 out of 100 points, and said it's the best car the magazine has tested since 2007.

In fact, the magazine's descriptions of the luxury sport sedan brim with adjectives.

The Tesla Model S "is brimming with innovation, delivers world-class performance, and is interwoven throughout with impressive attention to detail," writes the normally sober consumer publication.

Driving the Model S electric car is "like crossing into a promising zero-emissions future," and the version tested, with its 85-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, is "easily the most practical electric car we’ve tested."

CR reports that it gets a real-world 200 miles from that capacity, which is rated by the EPA at 265 miles of range. (The 60-kWh version is rated at 208 miles.)

The Model S was lauded for its quiet operation, its acceleration and roadholding, and its efficiency.

 

It wasn't perfect, CR noted, suffering a broken windshield that had to be replaced and a problem with the radio (fixed by a software update that was downloaded through the car's mobile-network connection).

The missing point was docked because the Model S takes roughly six hours to recharge its battery pack.

Jake Fisher, CR's head of auto testing, put even that drawback in context when he enthused:  "If it could recharge in any gas station in three minutes, this car would score about 110."

Clearly the CR staff pretty much fell in love with the electric sport sedan.

That stands in harsh contrast to its experience with the Fisker Karma range-extended electric car, which died during a track test and was raked over the coals in a scathing test report.

The Tesla Model S doesn't yet receive a "Recommended" rating from Consumer Reports, because the magazine doesn't yet have reliability data on the car, which has only been delivered since last summer.

To read the magazine's full test report, you'll have to have a Consumer Reports login.

But you can watch the magazine's video summary above.

View the original article here

NBA legend Michael Jordan marries model Yvette Prieto in Florida

Published April 28, 2013

FoxNews.com

• 

  March 18, 2010: Charlotte Bobcats majority owner Michael Jordan speaks during a news conference in Charlotte, N.C.Reuters

NBA legend Michael Jordan married Cuban-American model Yvette Prieto at a Florida church Saturday – the same one where mogul Donald Trump held his nuptials in 2005.

 Jordan, 50, and Prieto, 35, were reportedly married before approximately 500 guests, including ex-New York Knick Patrick Ewing and one-time teammate Scottie Pippen, at the Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach.

 The Miami Herald reports that a black tuxedo-clad Jordan, who is now majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, shot a thumbs-up upon arrival to the between 20 and 30 starry-eyed fans who gathered for the event.

 Jordan has three children with his ex-wife, Juanita Vanoy, to whom he was married in 1989. The hoops legend and Vanoy filed for divorce in 2002, but reconciled before their final separation in 2006.

Saturday’s ceremony was reportedly followed by a massive reception at Jordan’s palatial, 37,000-square-foot house in Jupiter.  The Herald reports that the gala affair was held under three enormous tents that spanned the length of two football fields.

 “I calculated a total under-roof space of about 600 feet long by 150 feet wide,” an unidentified worker told The Herald. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been working weddings for a while. It looks like he’s having about 2,000 people over.”

People Magazine reports that Prieto met Jordan at a Miami nightclub in 2008, and the couple have been dating since then.

View the original article here

Chevrolet SS model criticized in Israel for evoking name of Nazi organization

The recently introduced 2014 Chevrolet SS muscle car has been welcomed in NASCAR country with open arms, but GM’s latest halo car isn’t getting as warm of a response in The Holy Land.

It’s not the performance of the 415 hp V8-powered sedan that’s at issue, but the name: SS.

It’s short for Super Sport, but an official at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem says the name evokes memories of Nazi Germany’s paramilitary Schutzstaffel organization, infamously known as the SS, which was the primary force behind the Holocaust that killed over 6 million Jews in Nazi occupied lands.

“The use of this name is very inappropriate, Baruch Shuv told Yedioth Ahronoth. Shuv, who is also the head of the Orgainization of Partisans, Underground Fighters and Ghetto Rebels in Israel added that “it is not a name that bring will them pride or success.”

However, Chevrolet spokesperson Michael Albano tells FoxNews.com that “Chevrolet has no plans to export the SS to Israel.”

Chevy has used SS for over 50 years as a model designation for some of its highest performance cars without ever facing this level of official criticism. It is currently found on the Camaro SS, but the new sedan is the first car to feature it as a standalone name.

The Australian-built sedan is expected to go on sale in the U.S. late this year.

View the original article here