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
The honest answer, Cindy, Who knows?
The Hummer was determined to be more efficient and had less of an environmental impact then the Toyota Prius. So day to day cost and use or conversion of energy to the proper power format for this thing in the article above is not nearly the whole picture as it was with the Prius.
But will it cut dependence on foreign oil? At the pump, Yes.
No. The battery pack is made of cells that look like large AA batteries. There is no "battery acid." The electrolyte in the battery is not a liquid ... it's more like a paste ... and the cells (all 6831 of them) are individually sealed in steel containers which are in turn enclosed inside the battery box which is enveloped by the frame and body. Upside down, sideways, right side up or tipped on a corner, there's nothing to leak out of the cells ... even in a crash.
As the Democrat governors are prohibiting nuclear and coal electric stations, each buyer will be given a windmill to place on top of the vehicle to recharge it.
Tesla rocked. I want to see his notes.
I want to drive his gravity powered car!
(and no, that doesn’t mean it was great at going down-hill.)
50 kw-H X 10 cents/kw-H = $5.00 on your power bill. I don't believe the 225 mile claimed range if that's the actual size of the battery. A paid up AAA membership and a cell phone will be most wanted accessories.
... Hmmm ... I don't follow your math ... you seem to be high by a factor of 8.
The car has a EPA range of about 225 miles ... yes, your mileage will depend on how you drive ... but a 225 mile trip that consumes the entire 50kWH energy store consumes 222WH/mi. If it takes you 3.5 hours to make the trip (64 mph), then you consume a little over 14kW/hr. Remember that you are not accelerating the full mass at full throttle ... you're freeway cruising with enough throttle to overcome air and rolling resistance.
This is going to end up being a disaster for anybody who buys one. I just know it.
And yes, if you're foolish enough to run out of juice far from a charging station, you'll get stuck.
Electric cars? In California?!
I guess they must of taken care of their electricity shortage problem already!
Plus a gas(less) tax, in addition to the fuel tax we already now pay on electricity, probably..
Holy Tomale! Gadzooks!
37 per KWh!
Up here, in Wa. state. I'm paying 5 cents per KWh!
Gotta Love that Hydroelectric juice!
Tesla was one of the greatest inventors of all time. He invented the multi phase A/C motor!
The basic design has not changed much in 75 years. It was a giant leap from the DC motor it is hard to explain.
The high voltage transformer in all CRT displays are modified Tesla coils. Before this making high voltage was almost imposable.
We had DC power lines with short range and no easy way of changing voltage before Tesla proved that A/C was better.
I hope the Tesla motor car company does well and I’m sure they will with all the 2008 cars sold and I bet when people start seeing them around many more will be sold.
Thy do plan on making a lower priced 4 door electric but the coup need to sell well first.
They have a nice website.
It’s rare that I wish I were rich.
A ZAP PK can be purchased fo about $9500 after the Calif Reabate.
It wont go 0-60 in four seconds but it only costs Two cents a mile to drive.
And you can buy one right now no waiting list.
To me the reason I didn’t like electric vehicles before was the range limitation. On previous models was something like 100 miles, but more like 80 in practice.
If you carry extra people and cargo, it affects range significantly. Cruising at say 65+ miles an hour really kills the range also.
The batteries have improved a lot now, they say 200 miles for this model. But it’s an incredibly lightweight car, with almost no cargo room. Where you would expect to put cargo in even this small car, I bet it is taken up by more batteries.
In a few years batteries get even better, then maybe it is appealing to more people. Yes the power is produced by big plants, but those big plants might produce less pollution per unit than a typical gas engine. $5 a “fillup” isn’t bad.
I read somewhere that it would cost about the same as if you were fueling it with gas at 30 cents a gallon.
That's what I was thinking, I'm in Oregon and and the last electric bill had about 3.3 cents for the actual electricity and about 3.3 cents for distribution. That's about 6.6 cents per KWh where I'm at. I'd love to have one of these as my commuter. I only put on about 50 miles a day so I'd really only have to plug it in every couple of days given a 225 mile range on a full charge.
"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the law of entropy. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'"
-- C.P. Snow, The Two Cultures
This Tesla roadster, is a true game-changer. Sure it’s a bit expensive still, but so too, were the first desktop personal computers...
It is precisely, the sort of first step, which will begin to offer consumers actual choice.
It is ... Competition. To the old-school model of everyone on earth, driving a vehicle powered by something sold by terrorists.
This is a very, significant announcement.
I want one!! :)
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