Tesla Motors Sets Auto Industry Abuzz

San Leandro Times ^ | 04/19/07 | Steve Schaefer

[Verax]

Tesla Motors Sets Auto Industry Abuzz
By : Steve Schaefer :: Auto Editor : 4/19/07

San Mateo-based electric car maker offers sporty roadster.

When you think of electric cars, what do you picture? A golf cart? A meter maid? Do you recall the GM EV-1 or Honda’s EV-Plus? Maybe you picture a Toyota Prius Hybrid, which is only partially electric. What you probably don’t imagine is the high-performance Tesla Roadster.

The Tesla Roadster is an exceedingly quick lithium-ion powered electric sports car that looks good, handles well and is a joy to drive. It’s also priced below most high-performance sports cars and yet will be the most fuel-efficient, least polluting car on the road.

Check out these numbers:
Zero to 60 in about four seconds (Wow!)
250 miles per charge on the EPA’s Highway driving cycle (Your mileage may vary.)
Zero Emissions (It doesn’t get better than this.)
$92,000 (Good things don’t come cheap — did you see that first figure?)
1 (The number of pennies per miles it costs to drive one.)
2 (The total number of passengers, and they’d better be friendly.)
375 (This many are already ordered.)

Tesla Motors, named after Nicola Tesla, the late 19th-, early 20th-century inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer, didn’t start out to build an electric car.

Company co-founder Martin Eberhard decided on electricity only after carefully researching the various options, from gasoline to hydrogen to biomass and others.

If you’re running an engine on corn, for example, how many acres does it take to power one car? What’s the total amount of fuel needed to grow the corn? The numbers eventually led to electricity as the best choice. It turned out to be cheaper, with less environmental impact, and it can be generated in many different ways, from clean sources like wind or solar to the traditional powerplant.

Where Tesla Motors really blazes a new frontier, however, is in building an electric car that’s powerful, sexy looking and fun. If people who can afford anything are driving Priuses, how much more attractive is a car that has no emissions at all and is thrilling, too?

After arriving at this two-sided plan, the enormous work of developing a real car began. The company acquired enough venture capital to start development. Their first vehicle, the two-seat Roadster, is being developed with Lotus in Great Britain. As with Lotus vehicles, Tesla Motors’ goal is to combine strength with light weight, so plenty of bonded, extruded aluminum resides in the chassis while the sensuous body is made of carbon fiber.

The heart of the Roadster is its electric motor. Weighing only about 70 pounds, it isn’t all that different from the motor in your dryer. With just one moving part — the rotor — it is extremely simple and durable. With proper (and very infrequent) lubrication, it could outlast you. With all of its torque available from zero rpm through 13,000 rpm, it requires only two gears and no clutch to drive incredibly sportingly.

A special battery pack powers the engine, employing a grid of thousands of commercially available lithium ion batteries. Each battery runs independently; so if one fails, the thousands of others keep on working.

As in hybrid cars, the car uses regenerative braking to help charge the battery, although you still need to plug it in at home. However, with up to 250 miles per charge, you can drive your Tesla during the day and charge it at night. If you are traveling far from home, take your traditional or hybrid sedan or SUV instead.

If you attach solar panels to your garage roof and generate your own electricity, you can have zero impact on the environment as you drive. That’s a mighty appealing prospect.

Every single part of the Tesla Roadster, from engine to body to taillamps, has to be designed, tested and built. Sometimes a “soft build” is used for a small, limited run of pieces for testing purposes. Later, prototype vehicles are made with durable tools, likely metal, which can later crank out the production model.

At Tesla Motors’ offices in San Mateo, I stood looking at the triple-round taillamps on a beautiful black prototype. These beauties use LEDs, which consume less electricity and last much longer than conventional bulbs. The lenses are white, but the red shines through. However, the inside circle contains a red reflector. The designers wanted to put the reflectors below the lights, but it was too low to meet government standards. This is just one tiny decision out of thousands that must be made for any vehicle. Tesla, by starting at the beginning, has to consider every single one.

The Roadster is one gorgeous piece. Low slung, with voluptuous rear fenders and a tapered, louvered hood, it resembles a scaled-down Ferrari. The cabin contains two slim buckets and graceful instruments.

Gretchen Joyce, Tesla’s Vice President of Sales & Distribution, explained that the car can accommodate a fairly tall driver and passenger, but they had better be slim. She then demonstrated this using one of Tesla’s brave customers. This gentleman, looking fit and sixtyish, explained that he was considering a Porsche now that the kids were grown, but when he heard about the Tesla he was hooked. He will be waiting a year for his car, but along with other early adopters of new technology, he will enjoy something remarkable when he motors silently away upon delivery.

The $92,000 price may seem a bit steep, but if you consider the new technology and the incredible performance, it’s not really too much.

Tesla Motors is working on plans for a four-passenger sedan in the $50,000 range in the near future to be built in New Mexico. After the initial Tesla Roadsters earn the company some money and a great reputation, these sedans will offer the same benefits to a larger pool of buyers. The company expects to produce around 1,000 Roadsters a year, but the sedans could add up to 10 or 15 thousand units a year.

With a Tesla, you can enjoy driving but take care of the environment and reduce dependency on foreign oil at the same time. It’s a win-win-win situation.

For more information, go to www.teslamotors.com.

[Verax]

Tesla Motors has recently downgraded the range from 250 per charge to just over 200, but for a daily commuter it's unbeatable!!

After the early adopters buy 'em up, it should get down into the 40K range pretty quickly.

[Eccl 10:2]

Who makes the batteries?

[antivenom]

I have been looking at the XEBRA...but this takes the cake!

XEBRA

[SoldierMedic]

Tesla actually just made some changes to the design recently which added more weight. It no longer reaches that 250 miles per charge range, but it still goes over 200 miles per charge, which is quite impressive.

Tesla is currently working on a Sedan codenamed "White Star", which is set to be in the 40-50K price range.

[Verax]

LOL, oh man...LOL

Please don't buy that car (XEBRA)!

[Glenn]

Who makes the batteries?

Sony.

[daviddennis]

I’m sorry to hear about the reduced range. However, it looks like it’s for good reasons, and it’s not by much.

I really love reading the Tesla motors blog - it has a lot of fascinating information. Here’s what Martin, the Chairman, has to say about the range question:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/

D

[GSlob]

recharging 100kwh overnight would require quite a charger.

[SoldierMedic]

Also, the Roadster has such a steep pricetag because profits will be used for R&D for the Sedan model Tesla is working on. The rich can buy their enviromentally friendly car, and help fund a cheaper version for regular folks.

[thackney]

recharging 100kwh

Where did you get that number?

[Mobile Vulgus]

Betcha replacing the batteries is DOUBLE the amount of the car!!! Ha, ha.

That is the biggest trouble with electric cars. the batteries are crazy expensive.

[DBrow]

1 (The number of pennies per miles it costs to drive one.)

This is the energy cost or total cost?

if it’s the energy cost, if the car were gas powered and went 200 miles the cost of the gas would be $15 if the car got 40 mpg. The promo number works out to $2.00.

These guys are getting some inexpensive electricity for the cost to be so low.

If the wondercar got 40 mpg, it would burn 5 gallons of gas to go 200 miles, at a cost of $15. 1 gallon is 35 KWH of electricity, cars are 13% efficient (on average) so the amount of electricity at the tire to do the same work is 197 KWH, which around here would cost .12 per KWH or about 23 bucks.

[GSlob]

“Where did you get that number?” - Arbitrary. Order of magnitude has to be right: range 250miles, 4 hrs driving time on full charge, something like 20kw cruising energy consumption [similar to the output of gasoline engines on cruising], add more for accelerations and for less than 100% battery efficiency - the total battery would come close to 100kwh.

[SoldierMedic]

From what I’ve read, the battery efficency (Total power) starts to lag after 125K miles. Last I checked, the average driver drives about 11K miles each year, so you have at least 10 years of good battery. More than enough time for a replacement to go down in price, and up in capacity.

[Husker24]

It looks like somone finally stumbled on to what ive always known, If you want people to start buying eco-friendly vehicles, stop making them look like dork mobiles.

[Doohickey]

The writer sounds like he's getting in on an IPO or something.

Zero to 60 in about four seconds (Wow!)
250 miles per charge on the EPA’s Highway driving cycle (Your mileage may vary.)

Yeah, particularly after a couple of 0-60 launches.

[Doohickey]

Funny thing about supply and demand. If enough people demand electric (or hybrid-electric) vehicles, soon the batteries won’t be so pricey.

[DBrow]

Yup, I agree, and give them some oomph, not some golf cart.

This is a good direction!

If the price comes down and I get a permit for a windmill (unlikely in this town) I’d be all set!

[AZRepublican]

I think when these approach 400 mile range they will be taken very seriously by general consumers.

[Hazwaste]

“With a Tesla, you can enjoy driving but take care of the environment...”

Since only 30% or so of power generation in the U.S. is non-polluting (nukes & hydro), this will not always be true.