When PayPal went public in 2002, then executive vice president Reid Hoffman, spent some of his winnings on investing in an early round of Silicon Valley’s first solar thin film startup Nanosolar, according to an article in the New York Times. Hoffman, of course, later on founded LinkedIn, which went public in May of his year, but Hoffman hasn’t seemed to continue that sort of interest in funding early stage clean power and cleantech companies.

Those early shares of Nanosolar that Hoffman bought are likely worth a decent amount at this point. Other seed investors at the time included Spring Ventures investor Sunil Paul, Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Benchmark Capital.

Nanosolar was reportedly worth billion at one point in 2008 when it last raised money, but I’m not sure how the company is valued now. As the demand for solar panels, particularly one’s not made of silicon, has dropped dramatically this year, and thin film solar companies have struggled, I wouldn’t be surprised if that valuation has dropped, too.

Back when Hoffman made that investment in Nanosolar, then colleague at PayPal Peter Thiel bought a Ferrari with his earnings, says the New York Times. Thiel has gotten a lot of attention recently for calling cleantech investing “a disaster.” 

So who was right back then: Thiel or Hoffman? Will Nanosolar struggle like its peer Solyndra has, going bankrupt partly due to cheap Chinese solar panels, and making Hoffman’s seed investment worthless? (And idealistic compared to Thiel’s sports car splurge). Or will the company be one of the solar leaders and add more cash to Reid’s coffers if it gets bought for a high amount of goes public?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Flash analysis: lessons from Solyndra’s fall
• A 2011 Green IT Forecast
• Green IT’s Q4 Winners: Wind Power, Solar Power, Smart Energy

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The Samsung Galaxy S, an Android-powered smartphone that is touted to boast the fastest GPU in its class, is now available for pre-order from Amazon Germany. Folks living Stateside are still waiting for it despite it being approved by the FCC already, which means those living in Germany are most probably the second country after the UK to get hold of the Galaxy S in Europe. The Galaxy S sports a 1GHz ARM chipset based on the Hummingbird design which is touted to be superior in most aspects to a similarly clocked Snapdragon chipset from Qualcomm. Other hardware specifications include a 4.1″ Super AMOLED touchscreen display and a 720p HD ready camera. Folks living Stateside who can’t wait can always import one from Germany, although the product listing on Amazon does not show which 3G/HSPA frequencies are supported, so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work with higher speed mobile broadband from AT&T or T-Mobile USA.

Permalink: Samsung Galaxy S can be pre-ordered on Amazon Germany from Ubergizmo | Hot: Macbook Pro Review, iPad Review

The Bavarian Motor Works also known as BMW is one part of the family of automobiles owned by BMW MG. Also included in this family of automobiles is the Rolls Royce line and the Mini car company. BMW sells cars around the world, including the United States. BMW Los Angeles is a part of their family of dealerships.

With their corporate office in Germany, BMW oversees the production of automobiles around the world. BMW has manufacturing plants in Australia and the United States. BMW has a manufacturing plant in South Carolina that provides the X line of automobiles. This manufacturing facility produces over 150,000 automobiles for BMW each year, with expectations that this number will increase in the next five years.

BMW has plans to increase production in South Carolina to over 250,000 cars a year within the next five years. A large portion of these cars remain in the United States and are sold by BMW dealers throughout the country. Along with the X5 and X6, BMW plans to have the X3 manufactured in United States.

The X3, which has been produced elsewhere, is scheduled to be produced in the United States in 2010. This particular model is a second generation that is BMW’s answer to the SUV craze in the States. The X3 is actually the second of BMW’s Sports Activity Vehicles. When the X3 is made in South Carolina this will mean that all X series BMW’s are made in the U.S.A. Currently being made in the Greenville plant are the X5 and the X6. The X series of automobiles is a great example of the autos produced by BMW.

BMW manufactures many different series of automobiles of which the X series is just one of these lines. Another series of automobiles produced by BMW includes the M series. The M series stems from BMW’s proud racing history. These vehicles are a tribute to the years of racing victories that BMW has witnessed. There are three popular M series cars currently in production and these consist of the M3, M5 and M6.

BMW also produces a two-door convertible sports car. The Z4 is the second generation of this automobile that caters to the crowd that prefer the option of a convertible roof. The Z4 is popular among the young crowd with many of these automobiles being owned by young adults in their 20′s and 30′s. BMW has provided the Z4 with increased safety features and new body styling for 2010.

BMW has also entered the hybrid car market and offers the hybrid 7 among its line of automobiles. The hybrid seven is BMWs answer to alternative power sources and provides an ecologically friendly automobile in the form of a four-door sedan. BMW is marketing the hybrid 7 as the fastest hybrid sedan in the world.

The Hybrid and the M and X series automobiles are a small part of the cars that are manufactured and sold for BMW in the Los Angeles area. BMW car dealers Los Angeles consists of a group of independent car dealers that provide drivers in Los Angeles with many of the cars produced by BMW. Many of the cars sold by Los Angeles BMW Automobile Dealer are made in Greenville, South Carolina.

Sentence Spinner With the invention of the motorcar came the desire for speed. Cars quickly evolved from practical to sporty to satisfy the demands of those that were seeking to race. The first sports real cars started to appear at the latter end of the 1940′s. Jaguar, Ferrari, Lotus and Porsche all had sporting road car designs. When you think of today’s supercars you think of sleek design, high speed, high power and even higher price tags and the sports cars of the 1940’s were the first steps towards today’s technological wonders. During the 1950′s and early 1960′s sports car performance progressed. 1954 saw the arrival of the Meredes 300 SL Gullwing – the first road car to reach over 150mph. It was capable of a top speed of 165mph and is now considered by many to be one of the all time classic road cars. The Gullwing was first shown at the 1954 New York Motor Show and it wowed the public. It had distinctive ‘gull wing’ doors and was made from a lightweight aluminium body. The Gullwing had a 3 litre engine and 240bhp, and in its day was the fastest production car you could get.

1400 Gullwings were built between 1954 and 1957. The design was superceded by the open Roadster. It was Ford that created what many people believe to be the first supercar. Their GT40 made its debut at the Nurburgring in 1964 but it wasn’t until 1966 that Ford took their place in American racing history by finishing Le Mans in the top three positions, beating Ferrari. The GT40 has now won more top class races than any other road racing car in history. The Lamborghini Miura made supercar history because it was the first production car to feature a mid-mounted engine (normally only seen on F1 cars). It looked radically different to any road car that had come before. The Miura was unveiled to the world in 1965 at the Turin Auto Show by Ferrucio Lamborghini himself and was named after Spanish fighting bulls because of the aggressive body styling. In terms of pure speed, after the 150mph title was claimed, 200 mph was the next great speed barrier to try for. The prize for that went to the Ferrari F40 – the last car to be commissioned by Enzo Ferrari (and revealed on Ferrari’s 40th birthday). The F40 was available between the years of 1987 and 1992. Its top speed was 201mph and it managed 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds. The F40 is rated by many as the greatest supercar of all. The price of an F40 reached in excess of half a million pounds in the late 1980′s and even now is holding its price well. The SSC Ultimate Aero TT (made by Shelby Supercars) is the world’s fastest production car to date with a top speed of 257mph. The Guiness World record run clocked the car in at 255.8mph. The 2009 version can reach speeds of 270mph and is reported to accelerate from 0-60mph in 2.7 seconds!

Modern technology has allowed the creation of some amazing cars. They have come a long way but are not yet at the peak of design so it remains to be seen how the cars of the future wow us.

For a chance to get behind the wheel of a Lamborghini today you can do a web search for Lamborghini hire Herfordshire, Lamborghini hire London or another geographical type search to find a super car hire place near you.

Tesla Motors is planning an IPO soon according to a Reuter’s report. However at this point it’s still not clear when that will be although the company had previously stated it won’t happen in 2009. In fact, this rumor has been around for sometime, but in case you didn’t notice, the stock market wasn’t doing that well until recently.

Tesla has been ramping up development of its all-electric Model S sports sedan and building selling Tesla Roadsters as quick as they can make ‘em. Of course the $597.5 million in funding that the company raised this year probably helps.

The bulk of that cash influx, $495 million, came from a Department of Energy loan. Daimler also came through with $50 million in exchange for 10% ownership of the young startup, while another round of funding earned Tesla $82.5 from Daimler, Fjord Capital Partners, Aabar and other undisclosed investors.

A Tesla spokesman dismissed the report as a “rumor or speculation” which very well could be the case. But if the company keeps on the its current path, whenever the IPO does happen, the company will probably not have any trouble finding investors.