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Tesla may begin delivering Roadsters with temporary transmissions[will fail in a few thousand miles]
autoblog.com ^ | Dec 13th 2007 | John Neff

Posted on 12/24/2007 8:01:39 AM PST by grundle

The skinny is that Tesla is having a difficult time developing a transmission strong enough to "survive the process of shifting gears while the motor remains at full torque", according to our own Sam Abuelsamid who has been following the Roadster's development from Day 1 and has actually rode shotgun in it. Two suppliers are currently working simultaneously to find a solution. Meanwhile, the company has gone ahead and built the first production model at the Lotus factory in Hethel, England. The first car belongs to Elon Musk, Chairman of the company and one of its initial investors. His car is fitted, however, with a transmission that he knows will fail in a few thousand miles.

Tesla also revealed that it is considering shipping some preordered Roadsters to customers early with similar transmissions that will be temporary and later replaced with the stronger transmission once it's developed.


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KEYWORDS: autoshop; energy; renewableenergy; tesla
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The fact that Tesla Motors chose to withhold this information from hundreds of people who already paid a deposit on this car is very, very wrong.
1 posted on 12/24/2007 8:01:40 AM PST by grundle
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To: grundle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C44JQU7Pc
Tesla Roadster


2 posted on 12/24/2007 8:04:23 AM PST by Calpernia (Hunters Rangers - Raising the Bar of Integrity http://www.barofintegrity.us)
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To: grundle

If I were an investor (or customer) - I would divest (or demand my deposit back).


3 posted on 12/24/2007 8:04:59 AM PST by TheBattman (LORD God, please help us to elect a Godly and patriotic man for President in 08, Amen.)
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To: PBRSTREETGANG; Red Badger; herMANroberts; Uncledave; 2ndDivisionVet; Fred Nerks

Ping!


4 posted on 12/24/2007 8:05:26 AM PST by grundle
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To: grundle

I’m hoping that Tesla will offer to to pay for any transmission replacements that need to be peformed, and that a permanant fix will be found soon.

I am so excited about this car, this is very disappointing.


5 posted on 12/24/2007 8:07:57 AM PST by SoldierMedic (Rowan Walter, 23 Feb 2007 Ramadi)
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To: grundle

The title you created “Tesla Roadster Transmission [’will fail in a few thousand miles’]” was not the title at the linked source you provided and had to be changed.

We’re trying to reduce the number of duplicate threads.
Please don’t alter titles of any published material.

Thanks.


6 posted on 12/24/2007 8:09:10 AM PST by Admin Moderator
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To: grundle

Usually this sort of thing can be handled through programming, but I know the torque curve of an electric motor is very different than that of an internal combustion engine. But still...


7 posted on 12/24/2007 8:12:31 AM PST by tje
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To: Admin Moderator

OK. Thanks for explaining it to me.


8 posted on 12/24/2007 8:20:29 AM PST by grundle
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To: grundle

Sounds like very stupid business to me; no gasoline powered car would survive more than a couple of months without a clutch of some sort and it sounds like that’s what might be missing.


9 posted on 12/24/2007 8:21:21 AM PST by damondonion
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: Baynative
No room for groceries or luggage...

Room enough for a chick.

And that's all that really matters. :-)

11 posted on 12/24/2007 8:26:03 AM PST by lowbridge
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To: grundle
Innovators always assume some measure of product and delivery risk. It is unseemly for them to whine about it.
12 posted on 12/24/2007 8:27:09 AM PST by NonValueAdded (Fred Dalton Thompson for President)
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To: grundle
His car is fitted, however, with a transmission that he knows will fail in a few thousand miles.

Ford makes Tesla? ;^)

13 posted on 12/24/2007 8:29:57 AM PST by Grut
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To: grundle
Given the success rate for these kind of endeavors I didn’t think they’d get this far. I hope they get this transmission problem solved and stay in production.
14 posted on 12/24/2007 8:31:49 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee ("A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.")
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To: Calpernia

15 posted on 12/24/2007 8:37:08 AM PST by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote!)
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To: grundle
Boy Genius Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind this car, overruled his design team and demanded a gear box. His engineers wanted a gearless pure electric drive, but he insisted. Hoisted on his own petard of hubris.
16 posted on 12/24/2007 9:06:18 AM PST by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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To: Calpernia

Good God. Note how the first post underneath it is a exhortation from a Ron Paul lunatic. What is that all about?

I sure wouldn’t mind having one of those things...if the transmission worked correctly...and someone bought the thing for me!


17 posted on 12/24/2007 9:29:23 AM PST by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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To: rlmorel

Lunatic or not; Ron Paul has a large number of people getting him visibility.

As for cars, I’m partial to classics.


18 posted on 12/24/2007 9:56:46 AM PST by Calpernia (Hunters Rangers - Raising the Bar of Integrity http://www.barofintegrity.us)
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To: NonValueAdded
Thanks for the link. That is a great article.

But that doesn't change the fact that Tesla should have told customers about this problem before they took money for the car. Tesla has repeatedly said that the car required almost no maintenence, so this newly revealed information contradicts that claim.

19 posted on 12/24/2007 10:45:58 AM PST by grundle
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To: Calpernia

I presume you are an advocate of Hunter’s campaign? I am as well...but I disagree about Ron Paul the “large number of people getting him visibility”. I think it is a smaller number of people slavishly spending their time and money to inflate his perceived influence. And a lot of them are Libs. And a lot of libs want to foster this viewpoint, because they somehow think he is going to draw more conservatives than liberals.

As for cars...I am partial to American cars from 1955-1972. I had a dream last night that I needed some work done on my broken down car, but had no money so I offered to do mechanic’s work in exchange (used to be a jet mechanic, so I can turn a wrench when needed).

They took me in, and offered to take me to lunch if I purchased a 1972 Plymouth Roadrunner from them. I looked at it, noted all the rust, and they said we were taking it to lunch. As we piled in to drive it to lunch (they made me drive)the bloody thing had a front end so out of alignment that I had to turn the wheels at nearly right angles to make it go straight...and the brakes were so dilapadated that when I put it in gear, it rolled backwards and smashed into a couple of other junkers they had there. Then, as I went forward, I sideswiped another junker because I hadn’t figured out the front end mangulation yet. I thought to myself, “This is one hell of a first impression I am making here...”

I have NO idea what that dream meant.


20 posted on 12/24/2007 11:51:48 AM PST by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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