Posted on 08/12/2006 12:36:57 PM PDT by tessalu
IT can keep up with a Ferrari, travel 400km on an empty fuel tank and is completely silent. The latest boys' toy for Silicon Valley multi-millionaires is a full-blooded American sportscar - only its blood is electricity, not oil.
The Tesla Roadster, which can go from zero to 100km/h in about four seconds, is named after Serbian electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, who invented alternating current.
The car is assembled in England and the electric motor is imported from Taiwan. The cars will be sold only in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Miami.
The first deliveries are expected to begin next northern summer, after the car passes rigorous federal safety tests.
Martin Eberhard, who founded Tesla Motors in 2003 with Marc Tarpenning, said: "This is what we hoped to achieve when we started the company: to build a car with zero emissions that people would love to drive.
"It didn't make sense to sell a car that only goes 90miles (145km) on a charge. You'd spend more time charging the old EVs (electric vehicles) than driving them. Lithium-ion technology ... has allowed us to achieve exactly what we thought it would in terms of power, range and efficiency."
Those who part with the $US100,000 ($130,000) for a Tesla will be given a home charging system, which, the company claims, will fully recharge the car in about three hours.
The Tesla marks a resurgence in electric car development in California, after the state quietly dropped a law that would require car companies to develop models with zero emissions. Infamously, this resulted in General Motors recalling and destroying its fleet of EV1s - a pioneering electric vehicle beloved by owners.
Other electric car companies operating in California today include Phoenix Motorcars and Universal Electric Vehicles, which also makes convertible sportscars.
Even petrolheads, however, may struggle to understand the specifications of the Tesla Roadster. Unlike a traditional V8 engine, with its eight pistons, eight connecting rods, crankshaft, valves, oil pumps and other mechanicals, the Tesla's engine has only one moving part. This gives it an efficiency rating of about 95 per cent, compared with the 20 per cent (or less) of an internal combustion engine.
As for torque, the sweet spot of power for an engine most loved by car enthusiasts, the Tesla's has been described as virtually instantaneous. The car is powered by a "3-phase, 4-pole AC induction motor" and a "two-speed electrically actuated manual transmission".
Instead of a fuel tank, there is an energy storage system, with 6831 non-moving parts all of them lithium-ion cells, regulated by a cooling system and a computer that shuts down the entire battery pack in emergencies.
The first performance electric car manufactured by Tesla Motors, the high-performance, zero-emissions Tesla Roadster, was unveiled before a throng of well-wishers, car buffs, and potential customers during Tesla’s “Signature One Hundred” event at Barker Hangar.
More than 350 invited guests spent the evening learning about the new sports car, speaking with Tesla Motors executives, and going for rides along the tarmac at the Santa Monica Airport, adjacent to the event. Many signed up to be among the first to take delivery of the Tesla Roadster, becoming Signature One Hundred Members.
Celebrities in attendance included actor Ed Begley Jr., producer Richard Donner, businessman Michael Eisner, PayPal founder (and Tesla Motors Chairman) Elon Musk, Participant Productions’ Founder and CEO Jeff Skoll, also of eBay fame, and producer and car collector Joel Silver. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped by prior to the evening’s activities to learn more about Tesla Motors and took a ride in the Tesla Roadster.
The electric-powered Tesla Roadster boasts the equivalent of 135 mpg and a range of 250 miles on a single charge, a combination heretofore unseen in a mass-produced electric vehicle. Its extended range is due to its state-of-the-art lithium-ion Energy Storage System. The Tesla Roadster is capable of accelerating from 0-60 mph in about four seconds.
Using a unique two-speed electrically actuated manual transmission, the Tesla Roadster’s power comes from a 3-phase, 4-pole AC induction motor. The motor is controlled by the Power Electronics Module (PEM) which also controls the inverting direct current to 3-phase alternating current, charging and braking systems.
The Roadster’s Energy Storage System (ESS) provides power to the entire vehicle, including the motor. Its durable, tamper-resistant enclosure includes: 6,831 lithium-ion cells, a network of microprocessors for maintaining charge balance and battery temperature, a cooling system, and an independent safety system designed to disconnect power outside the enclosure under a variety of detectable safety situations.
The Tesla Roadster comes complete with its Electric Vehicle Service Equipment (EVSE), a home-based charging system, which features an automatic safety disconnect system and can charge the Tesla Roadster in approximately 3.5 hours. An optional mobile charging kit is also available.
The roadster has a range of up to 250 miles (EPA Highway) on a single charge, roughly triple the range of previous mass-produced electric vehicles.
Body design of the Tesla Roadster, which included a collaborative effort by the company’s employees, was led by Barney Hatt, Principal Designer at the Lotus Design Studio in England. The result is a sleek, stylish sports car that will appeal to enthusiasts and environmentalists the world over.
Tesla Motors engineers have gone to great lengths to ensure that not only is the Tesla Roadster safe to drive, but also is safe when charging, at home or on the road. Their goal is to meet the rigorous Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS, as implemented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Research and Development for Tesla Motors is located at the corporate headquarters in San Carlos, California and in the UK. Motors are manufactured at Tesla’s facility in Taiwan, and final assembly for the Tesla Roadster is in the UK.
Eberhard and Tarpenning provided the early funding for the company, and were joined in 2003 by Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, who is the major investor in the company and serves as company chairman.
Musk worked with Eberhard and Tarpenning to attract more investors and approach venture capital firms, and in June 2006, Tesla Motors announced that the company had secured an additional $40 million in financing led by Musk and VantagePoint Venture Partners, one of the largest CleanTech investors in the Silicon Valley.
Deliveries of the Tesla Roadster are expected to begin next summer
Can ya operate the toaster while charging? Gotta suck up some serious juice!
God invented alternating current. Tesla harnessed it.
The plant will burn the coal more cleanly than the car could.
If this story is for real, it's huge. But that's a big "if." I've seen too many of these kinds of stories that just never seem to come to fruition.
Took only 5 paragraphs for the lies about zero emissions to start. EV's are such a joke, and this one will be no different. Only 130 grand for the privilege of saying you own an EV, how precious. Gas could go to 10 dollars a gallon and EV's still would't be worth the materials they are made of, because they are ON THE GRID.
They are a rolling lie, and they have to sit still for a certain amount of time in order to recharge. All the whining press about the fantastic EV's that GM was building and then destroyed because of blah blah blah but never because they were such a financial drain on a company that was already pretty much drained.
Well, the heat would obviously be free (from the waste energy you describe), and air conditioning systems CAN run on heat if they are designed to do so. Remember the old gas refrigerators?
Also, if any sizable portion of the public owned them, it would bring the current grid to its knees.
A car like this charged with nuclear-generated electric power is the ultimate combination.
See my webpage on nuclear power at http://RussP.us/nucpower.htm
Environmentalists love to lecture the country that we are not "paying the full price" of oil, yet they refuse to recognize the "full price" to the environment for electric and hybrid vehicles. I say disclose the full price and let the consumer make an informed choice. Enviros would rather just make the choice for everyone.
Aren't some of these areas already having problems with power outages?
1) Electric power is depreciating, in other words, the second time you step on the gas, it has less power than the first, the third time worse, etc. A "Range" of 250 miles means very low performance for the last 100 miles. An internal combustion engine actually IMPROVES it's power-to-weight ratio until the last drop of fuel is burned because its weight drops as fuel is burned.
2) If you think California had an energy crunch when it got hot and people turned on the air conditioners, just wait until you see the draw these charging systems pull. You'd have to build a dozen nuke plants to keep the power grid online if everyone had an electric car.
3) "Equivalent of..." BS drivel about efficiency. Let's see in the real world how long a charge lasts, how long it really takes to fully charge, and look at the electric bills before and after. My guess is that even at $3.25 a gallon, an internal combustion vehicle will cost less to drive per mile.
4) What do you do with the dead batteries? These babies are expensive, toxic, and heavy, creating a landfill disaster as well.
I had an electric motorcycle that was so worthless I sold it for 1/3 of what I paid for it in like-new condition. The batteries were weak after the first few minutes, it took WAAAY longer than the manufacturer claimed to recharge, the amps the charger drew was off the chart, and I had to replace the batteries at considerable expense twice in a two-year period.
Sorry, we are a LONG ways from having viable electric vehicles for the masses.
I am sure that Tesla would have preferred this car be called the Edison Roadster.
In CA, we couold get in our gas guzzlers and drive to the beach or the mountains to cool off during heat induced power outages, no such luck for ev drivers.
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