Posted on 05/02/2008 8:58:21 PM PDT by kingattax
LOS ANGELES — It's safe to say Jeremy Snyder gets a charge out of the two-seat Tesla Roadster whenever he pulls one off the lot — and not because it's equipped with an all-electric engine.
As he pulled one of the sleek new automobiles down a side street Thursday and put the pedal to the metal, its lithium-ion battery-powered engine didn't give off sparks. It just emitted a powerful hum, something like a much quieter version of a jet taking off.
"Accelerate pretty good?" asked Snyder, head of client services for Tesla, who knew the answer.
"I call it a turbine sound," he said of the sound. "Because it's an electric motor it's got 100 percent torque all the time. So it just pulls you like when you're taking off in an airplane."
After several years of development, the Roadster — with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 — officially moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla's first store opens. It's near the University of California, Los Angeles, in the city's toney Westwood neighborhood where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect.
"Because it's Hollywood and glamorous, this is the flagship store," Snyder said.
The next store is to open in a couple of months near Tesla's headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of San Carlos, where the car was developed with venture capital of more than $40 million from such investors as Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. More stores are planned for Chicago, New York and other cities by early next year.
Although a fully loaded model can set a buyer back as much as $124,000, that's still cheap compared with a high-end Ferrari. And its 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack gives off no emissions.
The car goes from 0 to 60 mph in just under four seconds and tops out at 125 mph. It goes 225 miles on one charge and can be fully recharged in 3.5 hours, which Tesla officials say should allow most people to drive it to work and back and recharge it at night like a cell phone.
Driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, however, would require stopping in, say, Fresno and plugging its adapter cord into a motel room wall socket.
Some critics have expressed concerns about the durability and safety of the lithium-ion battery pack, which weighs about 1,000 pounds, more than a third of the entire weight of the 2,700-pound Roadster, whose body is made up of carbon fiber materials. Tesla officials respond that the car has passed all required safety tests. They say the battery should last for about 100,000 miles of driving.
The company, formed in 2003, is named for inventor Nikola Tesla, an early pioneer in the field of electricity. The people buying its cars so far, said national sales manager Doreen Allen, are celebrities, early adopters, wealthy people and environmentalists.
Tesla officials say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, actors George Clooney and Kelsey Grammer and musicians Will.i.am and Flea have each ordered a Roadster.
It will be awhile before anyone can walk in and drive a Tesla home off a lot, however.
"Delivery is running about 15 months," Allen said, adding the company was surprised by the demand.
Tesla began taking orders last year for the 600 Roadsters it planned to produce in 2008 and had sold all of them by October, Allen said. The first ones began rolling off the production line six weeks ago, and Allen said all of the 2008 models should be delivered to their owners by March of next year. The first ones should begin going out the door later this month.
Meanwhile, orders are being taken for 2009 models, with plans calling for production of about 1,500 cars.
Eventually Tesla also plans to produce cheaper, family vehicles.
"There's a model in the works right now, a five-passenger sedan that will be styled comparable to the roadster but a lot roomier to accommodate families, and that is slated for 2010," Snyder said.
The Tesla Roadster, the world's first highway-capable all-electric car available in the United States, is displayed on its production debut in the Tesla Flagship Store on May 1, 2008, in Los Angeles. Vince Bucci: Getty Images
I want one!!
Smoke just about any car at a red light and never have to go to a gas station.
Yankee Ingenuity.
I drove one of these in PGR4. :)
You know...the blind are allready having problems with silent cars...there will be blood before they have to put artificial noise in these cars...
100,000 miles is not very long, although I suppose in the ten years it will take you to hit that it wont take thirty thousand dollars to replace the battery packs.
It is also interesting to not that a few years ago they were being sold for 92,000 on preorders.
Like a typical journalist, the reporter neglects my first question: How many kilowatt-hours does it suck up in those 3.5 hours?
I’m not exactly sure how it works but don’t we need fuel for electricity? This is great if we can be more energy dependent but I was just wondering if we will still need foreign oil.
I’m not exactly sure how it works but don’t we need fuel for electricity? This is great if we can be more energy dependent but I was just wondering if we will still need foreign oil.
The price will go way down. Not to be negative.. but how much will it cost to charge?
electric cars are no panacea.
Tesla was a lot more than a simple inventor/pioneer.
You can say that again!
On a British chassis. It's based on the ultra-light Lotus Elise aluminum chassis. Keep the weight down, your batteries last a lot longer.
Ah...I though so. Well if they could add some hidden wind blades...we could recharge on the highways.
Will battery acid spill on me if I crash and end up upside down?
For me, design is everything. Usually they design these things and make the look like a Prius.
You have battery acid in your car already. I think that would be the least of your worries.
“I want one!!”
—
And when you’re driving thru Butte, Montana and forward motion stops due to mechanical issues, you will....
Central energy generation is a lot more efficient than energy generated in your car. And when you plug in your socket, it’s highly like the raw material for that energy came from inside the U.S.A.
If they really wanted to be true to the Tesla name, they’d have the car powered by the magnetic field coming off the roadside power lines.
Tesla may begin delivering Roadsters with temporary transmissions[will fail in a few thousand miles]
Monday December 24, 08:01:39 GMT-0800 2007 · by grundle · 25 replies · 6+ views
autoblog.com ^ | Dec 13th 2007 | John Neff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1943844/posts
Yeah........ but I've only got one battery. Just a concern. Other than that I'd like to have one of these things.
Cindy, you can get yourself a hand operated generator, it will charge the batteries.
Most people will plug it into a powered outlet and depending on their power resource, it could be nuclear, diesel, jet engine, coal, wind or hydro, etc. that will charge the batteries. So unless you can change the laws of physics, YES, one form of energy or another will be converted to electricity.
Nikola Tesla, a pure genius, he invented tomorrow!
Call AAA...
I have an ER radio with all the lights and whistles that I crank:’) My question was though...would we be decreasing our dependence on foreign oil. Solar, water, wind, etc, I just want to be able to tell these guys to take their high priced oil and go pound sand.
What do you drive?. I though everyone has at least two batteries on their truck? :’)
Lithium burns when exposed to oxygen...
If you crash and short/rupture your battery pack it isn't likely going to be pretty, so to speak...
It has a 50kWH Battery Pack that recharges from a home charging station from 240V at a 70A.
'07 Chevy Silverado 4x4 crew cab.........., but only one battery way up front.
Man outta time!
Tesla’s Chairman and New CEO Talk Transmission Snags and Raising Another $40M
December 21st, 2007
They’ve set a goal of getting the company’s first vehicle -– the Roadster -– to a limited amount of customers in the first quarter of 2008. To meet that deadline they are overcoming a technology snag: the transmission.
Two suppliers failed to make Tesla’s transmission up to snuff, the executives say, and the company is now working with new companies in the hopes of figuring out a fix fast. The first cars they ship will actually have an interim, one-speed transmission, which the company will swap out for a two-speed transmission.
There is no free lunch.
Yup......... my luck would be to have the batts blow up on me.
The honest answer, Cindy, Who knows?
The Hummer was determined to be more efficient and had less of an environmental impact then the Toyota Prius. So day to day cost and use or conversion of energy to the proper power format for this thing in the article above is not nearly the whole picture as it was with the Prius.
But will it cut dependence on foreign oil? At the pump, Yes.
No. The battery pack is made of cells that look like large AA batteries. There is no "battery acid." The electrolyte in the battery is not a liquid ... it's more like a paste ... and the cells (all 6831 of them) are individually sealed in steel containers which are in turn enclosed inside the battery box which is enveloped by the frame and body. Upside down, sideways, right side up or tipped on a corner, there's nothing to leak out of the cells ... even in a crash.
As the Democrat governors are prohibiting nuclear and coal electric stations, each buyer will be given a windmill to place on top of the vehicle to recharge it.
Tesla rocked. I want to see his notes.
I want to drive his gravity powered car!
(and no, that doesn’t mean it was great at going down-hill.)
50 kw-H X 10 cents/kw-H = $5.00 on your power bill. I don't believe the 225 mile claimed range if that's the actual size of the battery. A paid up AAA membership and a cell phone will be most wanted accessories.
... Hmmm ... I don't follow your math ... you seem to be high by a factor of 8.
The car has a EPA range of about 225 miles ... yes, your mileage will depend on how you drive ... but a 225 mile trip that consumes the entire 50kWH energy store consumes 222WH/mi. If it takes you 3.5 hours to make the trip (64 mph), then you consume a little over 14kW/hr. Remember that you are not accelerating the full mass at full throttle ... you're freeway cruising with enough throttle to overcome air and rolling resistance.
This is going to end up being a disaster for anybody who buys one. I just know it.
And yes, if you're foolish enough to run out of juice far from a charging station, you'll get stuck.
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