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
Even so, you can drive a ZAP 25 miles for 2 cents per mile ... or drive a Tesla 225 miles for 2.2 cent per mile (50kWH @ $.10/kWH = $5.00 per charge; 225 miles per charge @ $5.00 per charge = 2.2 cents per mile!)
Gotta love electric cars!
Hope it's not mine. It can already be hard for me to hear cars coming up behind me when I am on my bike, because of wind noise. I wonder how quiet these cars really are.
We use very little oil in the prodution of electricity.
I’ve seen them tooling around on 101 and near Alice’s Restaurant just south of San Fransicko. Nothing more than a Lotus Elise with the real engine removed. My Ducati will still smoke this toy.
Wow, hadn’t read about the battery weight before this article! The Lotus test mule that they designed these off of weighs less than 1700 pounds. These batteries weigh 1000 pounds!
I don’t want to be THAT crash test dummy!
That’s all fine and dandy, but what happens when a driver plugs their i-Pod in the dash charger? How will that affect your calculations?!? Hmmmmm? (sarcasm- I think)
“Nothing more than a Lotus Elise with the real engine removed. My Ducati will still smoke this toy.”
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Yes, but your gas bill, will be 1000%, of the car you beat.
Next month, perhaps 2000%...
Wonder if you get a heater for that hundred thousand plus bucks? Or an air conditioner? Driving around southern Cal. in the cool of the day is fine but not everyone wants to move there to drive the car.
A typical iPod will play 14 hours of music on a 1.5WH Battery. If you plug it into a fully charged Tesla (you don't have to use the dash charger, you can plug it into the iPod connector) it will play music for a little over 53 years ;0)
There will certainly be another means of applying a tax to pay for usage of the roads that isn't figured into the cost of the electricity. Similar to the way home heating oil and diesel for trucks is identical except for some dye and a 24 cents/gallon tax.
You get both ... you even get heated seats.
“And yes, if you’re foolish enough to run out of juice far from a charging station, you’ll get stuck.”
It can also use a 110V charger so you can plug it in anywhere.
I do not believe at all in the global B/S or almost any of the environmental silliness bur electric cars are and always have been a great idea for a lot of people.
1)They make no smog in the city.
This allows us to displace the smog to outside the city. I see no other way to rid the city of smog. If anyone has better idea on how to rid all the non coastal cities of their smog problem please let me know. Right now the left want to force us all onto trains which would be better?
2)An electric car in the USA is really a coal car. Coal is cheep and most of it is from USA mines. It also creates competition in the oil market for the first time in 90 years.
So do you want to burn imported oil today or USA coal? For the first time you will now have a choice.
3)Electric cars are about 3 time more efficient. A ICE burning gas is at tops 27% efficient and the Tesla car motor is about 90% efficient. There has never been any disagreement here.
4)Electric motors have around 3 moving parts that could last for a million miles if made right. The Tesla car has a single speed transmission.The motor does most of the breaking so the breaks will last for many years.
The only real wear item is the batteries and the next gen of LI batteries should me much less expensive and WILL have 2 to 3 times the life span.
GM is also making the Volt electric car,a full sized 4 door sedan. It has a built in generator that will allow for 300 mile range at full power on gas at 50MPG. Coming for real in 2010.
Coal cars are coming, lets dig!
You get the idea. If you want to do an apples to apples comparison, then choose some other two seat sports car that can go 0-60 in under 4 seconds.
For example a 2008 Porsche 911 Turbo sells for an MSRP of $136,500; has a 0-60 time in about 4 seconds and goes 325 EPA miles on a tankful. The Porsche has a greater range and better refueling options; the Tesla is less costly to buy and to operate ... and uses no foreign oil!
Neither car is comparable to a Mercury Mariner; they're completely different!
Like any rechargeable battery technology, with time and use, battery capacity diminishes ... so the maximum range would also diminish. The Tesla battery is designed to last about 100,000 miles.
Yes, it sucks...
Of course, this is the “halo” car for the company. It's designed for the “money is no object” crowd — who can have a supercar, and still be “green”. It's also designed to dispel the “golf-cart” image of electric cars & it seems to be succeeding very well at that.
The price is (unfortunately) way out of my range — but, the company is planning a more affordable sedan. They are also counting on advancement in battery technology — and, with the major car companies (especially GM, with the Volt) spending the big bucks to develop the next generation of batteries, I think their bet will pay off.
If electric, and plug-in hybrids live up to their promise; the price of oil will dive in a very few years. That's a mixed blessing for us in Canada — we're a major oil exporter, so we take in more money with high oil costs. OTOH, individual drivers will benefit from lower fuel costs.
"A rose by any other name..."
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