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
That $109,000 price tag could buy one 27,250 gallons of $4 gasoline. At 25 miles/gallon, one could travel 681,250 miles. How long does that battery last/? Only 100,000 miles? At 681,250 miles you would go through six batteries. How much are those batteries? About $25,000. So, to go 681,250 miles you would have to buy five extra batteries at $125,000. Add that to the original price of the vehicle and you will have spent $234,000.
Random thoughts:
1. Prolly rides like a buckboard.
2. Don’t worry about long trips. Put generator pedals in
the passenger space and take a friend. :D
3. Revolutionary idea: Make it (at least partially) self-
charging with a large prop mounted under the car, like
a riding mower. Once you’re on the freeway you’re off
to Timbuktu without having to stop to recharge.
“I’m not exactly sure how it works but don’t we need fuel for electricity?”
Same old liberal stupidity...can’t think past immediate gratification. Just like the ethanol scam....use the corn for ethanol production > drive up price of corn > convert agri-land use to corn production > create shortages of feed for beef, pork, poultry > less production of other ag products > higher prices for other ag products > food prices go up > liberals whine that the economy is in a tailspin > blame Republicans.
Of course you wouldn’t expect it for this roadster, but I’m wondering: Does any pure electric automobile have air conditioning?
What about the emisions from the mostly coal fired power plants that produce the electricity to run the vehicle?? Nukes are a NO NO in the land of the fruits and nuts.
And going 60 minutes per hour the whole time!
As with any new technology, the folks going in first pay higher prices, then the price goes down as the technology improves, and more mass production can be done.
You get both ... you even get heated seats.
Whoa! what's the range with the A/C on?
I'll even let them test it with the top up. <}B^)
Also, battery technology continues to improve, and they're working on units that are smaller, more powerful, and take less time to re-charge.
I wonder how the battery is situated. That 1000 pound weight compared to 2700 lbs for the whole car could really be a problem if not distributed properly.
Do you think it is relatively flat rectangle and lying above the frame? That’s all I can come up with.
A lot more than than your local friendly Motel 6 will be willing to give you for free.
Certainly not for the initial group of buyers. They're buying status and have the means to pay for it. That is the money the company will use to develop more affordable cars down the road.
You assume battery technology will not improve. It has been improving for many years, and will continue to do so. Batteries will get smaller and much more efficient. As the technology improves, and the market widens, the price will go down, the same way, as another poster pointed out, that PCs have done over the last 25 years.
Modern coal burning plants have MUCH fewer emissions than they used to have. As for the nukes, those folks who are willing to have them built nearby will benefit from lower cost per KWH. If Californians or folks here in the Northeast don't want any more nukes, they can just pay more for their electricity.
Are you referring to his heavy-metal band from the '90's, "Tesla"? You're right! That guy could really shred! ( the foregoing is attempt at humor)
1) You can’t win.
2) You can’t break even.
3) You can’t get out of the game.
Electricity costs about 7.93 cents/kwH here. Most of the power generation is hydroelectric, which doesn’t fund sand-pounding morons in the ME.
With a 225 mile range for 50kwH, that works out to about 0.22 kW/mile, or 1.8 cents/mile.
My 2001 “flying brick” Jeep Wrangler gets about 14 miles/gallon. Let’s be conservative, though, and say you have some smallish gasoline powered car that gets 28 miles/gallon. At $3.60/gallon, that works out to around 13 cents/mile.
Now a significant percentage of the true cost/mile comes from non-fuel expenses: The amortized cost of the car, repairs, tires, insurance, taxes and tolls. I have to believe that once these things are commonplace, the repair cost on an electric vehicle is going to be less than that of an Internal Combustion Engine, but maybe not if you factor in the cost to replace the batteries every 100K miles.
But any way you slice it, 1.8 cents/mile sounds a lot better to me than 13 cents/mile, especially when you consider that it is within our ability to move to nuclear and coal power generation and be completely energy independent.
I know it is tough to support an issue tha the liberals also support, as 99% of the time they are wrong, but in this case I think we have an issue that both conservatives and liberals can support. Being energy independent is a national security issue.
Next time, use a sarcasm tag. ;)
Here in Kalifornia, there are several 'electric vehicle charging stations", mostly relics of the old lease-only GM electric car in the 1990's. The stations are still here and it's still free to the user.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.