Tesla Motors, The Golden Boy In America
June 24th, 2008 by Damon Clifford
Over the last year and a half, Tesla Motors has been making headlines with their Tesla Roadster which turns heads and gets 220 miles per charge. One of the best PR campaigns and coverage for an electric car, Tesla Motors has been featured in Motortrend, Newsweek, Auto Week, Road & Track, AutoBlogGreen, and AutoBlog. Gas 2.0 Managing editor, Clayton Cornell, has written up a couple of great posts about the Tesla Roadster and the has some pics of the car when they were in San Fransisco. Tesla Motors is truly a bright spot in the electric car industry!
Tesla Motors entered their car into the Progressive Auto X Prize with a top prize of $10 million:
Tesla Motors has designed an all electric sports car that can travel up to 220 miles on a single charge, and goes 0-60 in under 4 seconds. The battery packs, which will last over 100,000 miles, can be fully recharged in 3.5 hours. Tesla is also working on a battery recycling program so used batteries can be returned to the company instead of wasted. The company plans to use similar technology to produce their entrant vehicle, which is expected to be a sedan. Tesla Motors is owned and chaired by PayPal creator Elon Musk. Ze’ev Drori is the president and CEO of Tesla Motors. Drori has an extensive executive background in high-tech and automotive entrepreneurship. He is also an avid Formula racecar driver.
The Tesla Roadster is an electric vehicle that is more or less set on a Lotus body. It is powered by a custom microprocessor-controlled lithium-ion battery pack. The Tesla Roadster is a 2-seat, open-top, rear-drive roadster that can get a top speed of 125 mph. Drive for more than 220 miles through the day and then it will take about three and a half hours to fully recharge at night. The cost of powering the vehicle is estimated at US$0.02 per mile!
The Roadster’s efficiency is reported as 133 W·h/km (4.7 mi/kW·h), equivalent to 135 mpg–U.S. If this is the case, Tesla Motors will certainly be one of the front runners for the Progressive Auto X Prize competition.
Tesla’s management team writes on different aspects of the Roadsters features and benefits on their blog. You get a much more intimate feeling for the vehicle and the type of driving revolution it brings to the table.
The first line of cars have gone through production and more are on the line right now.
You can join in on the discussion at the Tesla Motors Club forum for all things related to Tesla.
Check out the Tesla Motor in action (and how quite it is!):
Tesla Motors
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June 27th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Damon - In my opinion, this is a good thing that is coming from the higher gas prices. People are innovating and bringing new, exciting products to market. It is amazing the progress that has been made in alternative powered vehicles in such a short time-span. I hope the progress continues.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I agree with you Jeff,
The higher gas prices go, the more quickly innovative products will be conceptualized, produced, and brought to market.
If the price of gas decreases, the trick will be to maintain this momentum and not become complacent.
July 13th, 2008 at 9:04 am
I have driven electric cars. They all are similar: very small and uncomfortable. I am tall so it made me a big problem to drive.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
You should check out one of the Phoenix Motorcars SUT’s or SUV’s. They’ve shown that electric technology can be used in larger vehicles as well.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Tesla isn’t going to be the Golden EV company for long, not with upstarts like Fisker and Miles releasing their EV’s this year. Tesla = too much hype, overly expensive product. Doomed to fail. Check out this EV to see what I mean - here’s an electric sedan in the $40k range that’s 100% electric, looks great, and has all the safety features of a regular car:
http://www.zoomilife.com/2008/11/22/miles-automotive-introduces-xs500-electric-sedan/
With competitors like this appearing on the scene, Tesla will have a tougher time of it unless they can prove that they can get into the sedan space and make an affordable, reliable sedan.