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
If Tesla motor car company goes under in the first few years the collectors value for the first few thousand cars built will be enormous.
Even if they make it, the early cars will be huge collectors items.
Rich people can’t loose sometimes.
What do you think a used DeLorean or Tucker is?
“Of the 51 original cars all but 4 still exist. This car is serial number 7 and it is expected to fetch around $300,000.”
What a joke.
This is about as "interesting" for me to read as hearing about Brad Pitt and whatshername...
Give me a break!
Actually, many recharge when you slow down and / or apply the brakes. That engages a generator that charges the battery as long as the brakes are applied or you are on a long coast.
Yes, there is no free lunch. Only a small portion of the expended energy is recaptures and serves to make the usable range of the vehicle greater than it would otherwise be.
And yes, the electric energy used to charge the battery from the grid does indeed generate various emissions. However, these emissions are generally easier to deal with since they are from a centralized source ... and depending on where you are, the emissions may be very low: hydro-power.
Virtually none of that electricity is produced by burning foreign (or domestic, for that matter) oil.
Yankee ingenuity and Serbian too, as Tesla was a Serb born in Croatia.
What a great car. My dad would have been first in line to own one, but alas he’s been gone for years.
Yankee ingenuity and Serbian too, as Tesla was a Serb born in Croatia.
What a great car. My dad would have been first in line to own one, but alas he’s been gone for years.
Lotus Elite, I think you mean. A hunded years ago when Lotus won the Indie 500, I worked for them in Chicago and actually owned an Elan. Wonderful zippy little car with enough room in back for two pre=schoolers. I’d be arrested for child abuse today for allowing them the enormous pleasure of riding back there with the top down—no seat belts, of course. I never met Jimmie Clark, but Colin Chapman was a great friend. He paid me the enormous compliment of allowing me to drive when we went places, saying I was the best woman driver he knew. Move over, Danica. LOL. Back then, the boys actually drove me around theIndie track==extremely against the rules. No girls allowed, you know.
Anyway, I would love to test drive a Tesla. I’d love even more being 24 again.
I do know that the electricity cost is about 135 mpg equivalency...also way less maintenance and much longer lasting engine compared to the outmoded internal combustion engine.
No, Elise. It uses the Elise's extruded aluminum chassis. The Elite was famous for the fiberglass monocoque body back in the 70s.
And you knew Colin Chapman?! Ah, to be in the presence of such genius.
Yes, Elise. Who knew? Do you have one?
I spent a lovely year in the business decades ago and never looked back. Great fun, but I never had enough larceny in my heart to stay with it. Shared an office with Carl Haas, now racing biggie and Paul Newman partner, and with Fred Opert, another big racecar dealer.
Fred and I picked up a couple of Lotus Super Sevens at the Port of Chicago one night and raced up Lakeshore Drive to Evanston with sparks flying out of the exhausts. No plates, not street legal, but I was buddies with a minor official at the Port who would fix anything for me. A rising Dem, he introduced me to the work of Saul Alinsky. LOL.
Fred imported a Lotus Formula One to exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, where it sat on a kind of pedestal, very well lit, in it’s own gallery. It was bunged up in transit so he had it repainted Mack Truck Green. We laughed our heads off at the reverent populace oohing and ahing about the beauty of “real” British Racing Green. A fun year! but my little boy cried his heart out when I sold our Elan.
Enough.
I guess it pays to keep those old electronic magazines after all. I TOO remembered the article. And I STILL have the magazine—just found it.
The article was in the January-February 1980 Elementary electronics magazine, in the “Ask hank, he knows” monthly column, where readers would write this guy with a question or comment, and the man would respond to them.
The comment you are referring to was called “What an outlet”. Someone, most likely a kid, wrote to say that “his friend’s father had invested in a new electric car that he said “detroit is trying to suppress”. “It is a small car that can drive 150 mils from home and return and be recharged in FIVE minutes, due to its “very unique battery system”. “Isn’t it a crime how new energy saving systems are being shot down”?
The coloumist responded with some basic comments on physics and thermodynamics, pointing out that EVEN IF the car only had a 40HP motor, and drove at an average of 50MPH for the full 300 miles, it would use 11,404 Watt-hours of energy to recharge in five minutes from a HOME would require an AC outlet to deliver 92AH, or 1100AMPS, for five minutes!! (I assume he was referring to the 120 volt line, a 230 volt line would halve this)—”imagine the size of the house wiring”. he then stated that you have to “replace what you use and about efficency and such and pointed out that to recharge a battery that fast would get the battery so hot that it would probably GLOW!! . He concluded that the kid should recheck his facts, he has some things mixed up!!
For those wanting to know...70A at 230 volts is enough to run a 3 ton A/C unit(12 seer or higher) AND an oven, AND a dryer ALL at ONCE, along with a few lights, tv’s and such!!
There should NOT be ANY ozone produced by the motors of modern electric cars. ALL of the ones I know of (INCLUDING the GM EV-1) used or are using an ECM DC or AC induction motor and they do NOT use brushes-—and thus —NO “commutator sparking” to produce any ozone. And as far as I know, those type of motors have only ONE moving part(the rotor) They do NOT use any mechanical switches or contacts either—all is done by PWM choppers and such that control them.
I STILL maintain that fuel cells are the WAY TO GO, for a truly viable electric car. a 40KW/H pack and maybe 2-4KW/H of “booster cells” for acceleration needs—(fuel cells are NOT good at “peak currents”, since they do not “store anything”),and you could have a NICE , full-size electric car or minivan, with about 200 HP or so, that could travel maybe 350 miles to a “Tank”(of hydrogen-rich fuel like methanol),and then could be refilled JUST like a gas car, and in a very similar way too.
In theory—gasoline CAN be used in a fuel cell—but is WAY too “dirty”(with too many “by products”) to be used efficiently and cleanly.
BTW—you do NOT need 150 KW/H to drive the motors, that is the PEAK draw for acceleration and such, as stated before. for “real world” driving, probably 15-20 KW/H is used. A 50kw/h pack WOULD be good for over 200 miles, maybe more. The EV-1 had an UNDER 20 KW/H pack, and was good for about 70 miles or so.
I was totally wrong to say that the electric motors used in electric cars produced ozone. I was mislead by a few websites that raised this issue; not knowing the facts.
Thanks for setting the issue straight.
Sure, but at 1/20th of the initial outlay, I still win in the end! I can fill my tank 11,400 times at the current fuel costs, before the eclectic (electric) car comes close.
EE had the BEST Antique radio column, from Jim Fred. I was still a young lad of 12-14 when I got these mags, and I kept ALL of them IIRC, and picked up a few others since then.
Personally, my VERY favorite electronics magazine was Radio-Electronics, followed by Electronics World. BOTH of them and EE and ALL of the others, are long gone today. But I have hundreds of all of them, some back to the 30's.
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