| | Tesla Roadster, 100% electric:
teslamotors.com
By Matt Nauman
Mercury News
PEBBLE BEACH - Who killed the electric car, a summer documentary asks. It turns out it's alive and well: Tesla Motors of San Carlos has revived interest in the electric car with a new $100,000 roadster.
Three hours behind the wheel Thursday in Tesla's first running prototype were convincing: The Silicon Valley start-up very likely will succeed in finding an audience for its fast, silent, environmentally friendly two-seater.
That's because you can't think of the Tesla roadster, on sale now but not scheduled for production until the spring, as just an electric car.
In many circles, electric cars are still thought of as upscale golf carts. That's simply untrue in the case of the Tesla. This is a sleek, lightweight sports car that can go from 0 to 60 mph in about 4 seconds. That's nearly as fast as such gas-powered sports cars as the 2007 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano and the 2007 Porsche 911 GT3.
The difference, of course, is that those cars burn gasoline. The Tesla uses 900 pounds of lithium-ion batteries and an electric motor. (Top speed is about 130 mph.)
Thursday, I was the first newspaper auto writer to see if that was true. The occasion was the Pebble Beach Concours Tour, a drive of classic cars through the Monterey Peninsula and down to Big Sur. Tesla is sponsoring Sunday's 56th Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and entered two cars in the tour.
Sharing Highway 1 over the Bixby Bridge with a 1927 LaSalle roadster and a 1921 Hispano-Suiza Chavet Torpedo was the Tesla prototype. Those cars, along with various Delahayes, Ferraris, Packards and Jaguars, roared as they climbed hills. The Tesla emitted a barely audible high-pitched whine.
Those other cars also emitted smoke from their tailpipes. The Tesla didn't. It's a zero-emission vehicle that doesn't even have a tailpipe.
The driving experience -- other than the silence and the clean air -- closely mirrors driving a regular sports car. Insert the key, shift into second and hit what used to be called the gas pedal. In the Tesla, acceleration is instantaneous with loads of mid-range torque.
Traffic, and slower old cars, prevented high-speed motoring, but when gaps emerged in the road, the Tesla filled them quickly.
Handling is precise, which is where Tesla's connection with Lotus comes in. The British automaker sells the chassis and suspension bits from its Elise to make the Tesla. Lotus designers also created the exterior of the Tesla. And the car will be assembled at the Lotus factory in Norwich, England.
Tesla's engineers made many modifications, and the two cars probably share less than 20 percent of their parts, said Malcolm Powell, Tesla's vice president of vehicle integration. But, like the Lotus, the Tesla's cabin is a tight fit.
Tesla said earlier this week that it has found buyers for its first 100 cars, due to be delivered in mid-2007. The company calls these initial models its Signature One Hundred series. Each will be manufactured with a special badge in the cockpit and come with all available options, including a navigation system and a hardtop roof.
Actors George Clooney (``Syriana,' ``Ocean's Eleven') and Dennis Haysbert (``24,' ``The Unit') are among the first buyers. Each of those 100 people have handed over a $100,000 check, putting $10 million in the company's coffers.
``Between the price of gas and concerns about global warming, and the obvious connection between oil and troubles in the Middle East, people care now,' Martin Eberhard, Tesla Motors' co-founder and chief executive, said Thursday.
The Tesla venture has strong financial support from Silicon Valley. The company has raised $60 million and identifies backers such as Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, former eBay executive Jeff Skoll and Jim Marver of VantagePoint Venture Partners. PayPal co-founder Elon Musk is Tesla's chairman. The company was founded in 2003 by Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, Tesla's vice president of engineering.
The Tesla's range is 250 miles fully charged. Tesla hopes to sell 500 to 600 cars next year and perhaps 2,000 to 2,500 a year starting in 2008. The company is also making plans for a cheaper, bigger car, perhaps a sedan the size of the BMW 3-Series, to be built in a few years.
As the Pebble Beach Tour was starting Thursday morning, one of the Tesla cars was parked next to a 1913 Waverly, an electric coupe owned by Paul Rydning of Arizona. The symbolic coincidence of the placement of the Tesla and the Waverly wasn't lost on Eberhard. In his company's San Carlos office, the various conference rooms are named after long-gone electric cars. One of them is the Waverly. |
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