News crews focus on Tesla owner Simon Hackett after he and bearded co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas piloted red Tesla Roaster 313 miles through Australian outback on a single charge.
Doesn't sound like a lot of fun to us, but the news from Coober Pedy in South Australia is that a Tesla Roadster being driven in the annual Global Green Challenge rally for alternatively fueled vehicles has just set a new Tesla distance record of 313 miles on a single charge - achieved by rolling through the Australian outback at a painfully slow crawl.
Drivers Simon Hackett and Emilis Prelgauskas drove south from Alice Springs, in approximately the geographic center of Australia, to a rally point about 112 miles north of Coober Pedy, famed for its opal mines, at an average speed of around 35 mph.
They had an estimated 3 miles of range on the Tesla's lithium-ion battery pack remaining when they arrived.
The previous distance record for a Tesla on a single charge was 241 miles during the Rallye Monte Carlo d'Energies Alternatives early this spring. That car, which Tesla says was the only entry to complete the entire rally course, had an estimated 38 miles of range remaining.
Tesla Motors has opened a Colorado showroom, less than six weeks after the electric sports car maker said it received $82.5 million in equity funding to help it open stores.
The company debuted its showroom at the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colo., today.
It will serve as the EV maker's Rocky Mountain-regional hub.
Tesla's looking to boost sales fin what it says is the most environmentally friendly state in the U.S. Colorado provides state tax incentives that help lower the cost of EVs.
Tesla Motors Corp. reportedly has selected Panasonic to supply the batteries for its Model S electric sedan (left), scheduled to go into production in late 2011.
Tesla wouldn't comment on the deal - initially reported by GreenTech Media and based on information from unidentified sources.
It makes sense, though, especially based on today's other Panasonic news - that the electronics giant is developing a way to mass produce low-cost EV batteries using commercial lithium-ion cells made for laptop computers.
The battery pack in the Tesla Roadster EV uses 6,800 laptop cells, individually wired together and protected from runaway heat buildup by an internal liquid cooling system and use of thousands of fuses meant to isolate an overheated cell so it can't spread its thermal overload throughout the pack.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has estimated the present cost of the hand-built pack at $36,000, accounting for a third of the roadster's base price.
Despite the expense, use of the commercial laptop cells is favored by Tesla over purpose-built EV batteries, and the company plans to use the same or a similar system for its Model S battery packs.
If Panasonic can build them on an automated line in its existing battery plants, as it has claimed - the cost savings for Tesla would be significant.
Tesla gets highest marks for the oil-offsetting efficiencies of its electric roadster, and for the innovative "Tesla Rangers" mobile repair service it announced earlier this week - a way to serve the upkeep and repair needs of its (usually) wealthy clients who either live a long, long way from one of the handful of brick-and-mortar Tesla facilities or who simply don't want to have to be bothered taking their car to the dealer.
We had a vision of a smartly liveried "Ranger" zooming from customer to customer in a helicopter or small plane, or, for those who lived closer-in, arriving in a specially marked Tesla Roadster with a pile of parts strapped onto a special deck mounted luggage rack.
But reality intervenes. The parts, tools and test equipment take up way too much space.
Tesla Motors has begun a mobile service program featuring house calls for customers in the United States and Canada.
The company plans to announce later today that it now has specialized technicians, known as Tesla Mobile Service Rangers, who will make visit owners' homes, offices or parking garages and will carry equipment to enable them to perform an array of procedure on the Roadster EV, including annual inspections and firmware upgrades.
Customers will be charged $1per round-trip mile from the nearest Tesla service center, with a minimum charge of $100, which the company says is less than the actual cost of a house call. Parts and labor, of course, are extra.
Tesla Motors' forthcoming all-electric Model S sedan (pictured) has been designed so that its battery pack can be switched with a fresh battery pack in five minutes or less, the company's outgoing director of vehicle engineering and manufacturing said in an interview today.
Speaking with Green Car Advisor shortly after his resignation was announced, Michael Donoughe said the plug-in electric vehicle has been designed in such a way that its lithium-ion battery pack can be removed and replaced with another one in the amount of time it takes to fill the gas tank of a standard automobile.
"When you install the battery pack for vehicle assembly and when you're running at line speed, you have to do it in a fairly quick fashion," Donoughe said. "So you design for manufacturing and assembly, and as long as you're designing for manufacturing and assembly you can also design for manufacturing, assembly and swap. That's basically what we're looking to do."
Telsa, he said, is looking to ramp up quickly once the zero-emissions Model S enters production, which is still on target for late 2011. Six months from assembly of the first Model S, Tesla expects to be producing 400 a week, or roughly 20,000 annually, he said.
Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad said today that the company has already received more than 1,600 reservations for the Model S, including one from Donoughe.
Mike Donoughe, currently head of vehicle engineering and manufacturing for Tesla Motors, will join the Detroit management consulting firm St. Clair Consortium as senior partner effective Oct. 1. His last day at the automaker will be Friday.
Tesla has not publicly named Donoughe's replacement. Tesla Chief Engineer Peter Rawlinson is head of engineering on the all-electric Model S sedan and will retain his responsibilities in that capacity.
Donoughe joined San Carlos, California-based Tesla 15 months ago, shortly after Tesla had begun production of its first product, the all-electric Roadster sports car. Donoughe helped the company achieve fully ramped-up production this summer, when Tesla hit its target of 25 cars built per week.
Tesla, the only automaker producing and selling highway-capable EVs, has delivered more than 700 Roadsters in the United States and Europe so far. Donoughe also focused on enhancing Roadster quality and helped execute a cost-down program that helped Tesla achieve a significant financial milestone and reach profitability in July.
Donoughe is leaving voluntarily and in part for personal reasons. He plans to dedicate more time to the Rochester, Michigan-based Cornerstone Youth Development Fund, which he co-founded with his daughter, Kelly.
Cornerstone is a non-profit organization focused on making facility infrastructure, student tuition and teacher salary investments in Uganda and Detroit to advance the education and development of youth.
Donoughe's planned departure comes at the most logical and least disruptive time for the automaker -- after the successful completion of the Roadster ramp-up but before the start of production of the all-electric Model S sedan.
"Mike joined the company shortly after we had begun manufacturing the Roadster, and his enthusiasm and expertise helped Tesla achieve fully ramped-up production," said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. "He's leaving the company on very solid footing and at a logical time in Tesla's phenomenal growth curve. We wish him a ll the best."
In a statement, Donoughe described Tesla as "a company populated throughout with excellent and enthusiastic people. It has been a wonderful experience for me to have been a part of this talented team."
California took the pulse of the zero-emissions vehicle industry this week and found plug-in electric vehicle manufacturers worried about charging infrastructure and public expectations.
The California Air Resources Board is hearing from fuel cell and EV manufacturers in preparation for releasing regulations for its Zero-Emissions Vehicle Program. Targets for 2015 and thereafter are due out by Nov. 10, with final targets due by early next year.
In its fifth major revision of the program since 1990, it voted last year to reduce the 2014 sales target from 25,000 to 7,500 vehicles.
A philosophical difference emerged between conventional car manufacturers and electric-only car companies.
Nissan, which is shooting for a 100-mile range for its Leaf EV, is playing down its perks. When asked to compare gasoline-powered and EV batteries, a company executive said not to expect comparable performance.
"Since the battery's not part of the emissions, it's not required to last 10 years and 150,000 miles," said Brian Verprauskus, senior manager of corporate planning for Nissan North America. "The issue's going to be the degradation. If the customer is OK with reduced range after 10 years, it'll definitely last that long, but after 10 years, we think there'll be more advanced batteries and the customer's going to want to swap it out with a next-generation battery."
Tesla Motors, on the other hand, is emphasizing the ways EVs differ from conventional cars. "We're trying to market cars based on the new attributes of EVs themselves," said J.B. Straubel, Tesla's chief technical officer. "It's an offensive technology shift. We can offer some new competitive advantages to customers."
EV manufacturers said the installation of charging infrastructure remained the biggest bottleneck to widespread implementation. BMW, which ran into charging issues with its MINI E pilot program, said the industry needed to agree on a standard for in-home charging infrastructure.
System Initially Will Benefit Tesla Roadster Owners With Access for Other EVs to Come
California's hydrogen highway appears to have gone into hibernation as the state struggles with mounting budget woes, but battery-electric vehicles are getting a boost from a newly announced rapid charging network.
----------- Solar panels atop bank building (right) will power EV chargers in bank parking lot (below) as part of 322-mile charger network. ----------
What is being billed as the nation's first rapid-charge electric vehicle charging network, linking Los Angeles and San Francisco along the state's Highway 101 corridor, under a plan unveiled this morning by a private coalition led by a major solar systems retailer.
Funding to equip the network of five fast-charge stations - each costing from $7,000 to $12,000 - has been provided by EV-manufacturer Tesla Motors, using grant funding form the California Air Resources Board.
Owners of the Tesla Roadster EV will be the first beneficiaries of the network, which initially is equipped only with Tesla-compatible charging hookups.
But the network will be opened to other EVs as they come into the market.
It has been designed "to give new travel opportunities for electric vehicle owners and gives further momentum to the renewable energy movement," said Marco Krapels, co-chairman of the social responsibility committee at Rabobank N.A., one of the networks sponsors.
Silicon Valley's venture capitalists believe the Detroit 3 automakers cannot become competitive again unless they scrap their traditional business model and embrace new, innovative ways of doing business.
Speaking of the Detroit 3, Ray Lane, a managing partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Buyers, said that "for years they have been led by accountants and lawyers, not engineers and entrepreneurs. That's OK if the industry isn't changing."
So what do Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group need to do to regain marketplace dominance?
"Start over," said Marc van den Berg, managing director of VantagePoint Venture Partners, which backs upstart electric carmaker Tesla Motors and electric-vehicle infrastructure firm Better Place.
The only way the Detroit 3 can succeed is by completely overhauling the business model, moving beyond just designing attractive cars, Silicon Valley venture capitalists say.
"There is room for business model innovation and technology innovation," said Vinod Khosla, managing general partner of Khosla Ventures.
Khosla said U.S. automakers need to embrace innovation at all levels. He pointed to Better Place, which is building charging infrastructure and battery-swapping stations for electric vehicles.
"Better Place is saying,'Don't let the consumer buy the batteries,' " Khosla said. "That's a business model innovation."
Embittered former Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard has settled his defamation lawsuit against the electric-car company and its current chief executive, Elon Musk.
The terms of the settlement are confidential, but in a joint statement released today it would appear that Eberhard and Musk have ended their public display of animus -- as well as come to an understanding regarding who founded Tesla Motors, maker of the Tesla Roadster (pictured) and Model S zero-emissions plug-in electric vehicles.
"Elon Musk and Martin Eberhard, two of the co-founders of Tesla, announced today that they have resolved their dispute," the statement reads.
In his defamation suit, Eberhard claimed that Musk was stealing his thunder by declaring himself the founder of Tesla in interviews. Eberhard even tried (unsuccessfully) to have a judge declare that he founded the company.
The suit, filed last May, also accused Musk of wrongfully blaming Eberhard for production delays, failing to pay Eberhard's severance and many other misdeeds. Eberhard went so far as to have accused Musk of lying on his resume about his education and employment history.
But today the men sang each other praises, with Eberhard saying, "As co-founder of the company, Elon's contributions to Tesla have been extraordinary," and Musk stating that "without Martin's indispensable efforts, Tesla motors would not be here today."
Eberhard's lawyer, Yosef Peretz, said he could not discuss the terms of the settlement. But, he said his client was "very pleased" with the result.
It's amazing what a pile of money can do to improve one's mood. Of course, we can only assume a pile of money was involved, because both parties are prohibited from discussing it.
Targeting more federal money to support the auto industry, the House on Wednesday approved an expansion of government-led research into making cars and trucks more fuel-efficient.
The House plan would allow the Energy Department to spend up to $200 million more each year on research and development for advanced-technology vehicles and auto parts.
Lawmakers' aides said the additional $200 million would boost government-supported research in this area to around $550 million if Congress, as expected, funds the request later this year.
The measure passed on a 312-114 vote, attracting dozens of Republican votes, even though some GOP lawmakers questioned its cost.
Wednesday's House action represented the latest move by Congress and the Obama administration to aid the auto industry. The White House stepped in with billions of dollars to rescue General Motors and Chrysler and led the companies through bankruptcy, and Congress approved $25 billion last year to help the industry retool assembly plants to meet tougher fuel economy standards.
Congress also created a $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program of incentives that successfully spurred new car sales over the summer.
Fuel-efficient technology is in great demand because of higher gasoline prices and the expectation of tightening auto regulations. Administration officials on Tuesday released plans to raise the gas mileage standards to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 and link greenhouse-gas emissions and fuel-economy requirements.
Democratic Representative Gary Peters of Michigan, who sponsored the green vehicle technology bill, said "there is no doubt that in the years ahead more Americans will be driving hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles, and cars and trucks powered by hydrogen fuel cells."
"The only question is whether these new technologies will be researched, developed and manufactured here in the United States, creating American jobs, or whether this technology will be built overseas," Peters said.
Tesla Motors Inc., maker of a plug-in electric sports car that can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in 3.9 seconds, received an $82.5 million equity investment from a group led by Fjord Capital Management.
"It was an opportunistic investment," Elon Musk, chief executive officer of San Carlos, California-based Tesla, said today at the Frankfurt Motor Show. "We were not looking for money."
Daimler AG, which invested $50 million in Tesla this year along with Aabar Investments PJSC, the Abu Dhabi fund that's the German carmaker's biggest shareholder, contributed to the offering to keep its stake at just under 10 percent, Musk said.
The money may be used to fund Tesla's establishment of retail stores globally. The company, which introduced its all- electric roadster in February 2008, was profitable in the second quarter, Musk said.
No. 700 Goes to Student
Tesla Motors delivered its 700th Roadster today at the Frankfurt Motor Show, where the chief executive of the EV maker was on hand to present the vehicle.
CEO Elon Musk handed the keys of an electric-blue Roadster Sport like the one shown above to Lennart Hennig, a German law student in Bonn. Tesla has previously delivered cars to customers in England, Switzerland, France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Spain, Monaco and Sweden .
"I am a socially responsible consumer who considers the environmental impact of my purchases," said Hennig, 24. "I plan to drive this car every day so that people can see for themselves that the future of mobility is electric."
The 700th delivery of the zero-emissions Roadster came less than a week after Tesla opened a store in Munich -- its first regional sales and service center in continental Europe. Tesla opened its flagship London store in June and will open a store in Monaco later this year.
The same day Tesla Motors delivered its 700th all-electric Roadster -- to a German law student on the opening day of the Frankfurt Motor Show, no less -- Porsche's new president and CEO Michael Macht (right) announced that his company was working hard on an electric-powered sports car.
Sadly, he had no automobile to display.
Standing in front of reporters Tuesday, Macht said "that one day Porsche will have an electric sports car in its line-up."
Why didn't it?
Available battery technology is not "sufficient to meet Porsche's strict requirements," he said.
Tell that to the German law student.
Macht pointed out that Porsche has a long legacy with hybrid technology as it was exactly 109 years ago that Professor Ferdinand Porsche built the first fully functioning car with hybrid technology.
It was a nice little speech. One that would have gone well with an all-electric 911, and even better with a gasoline-electric hybrid 911. Only Porsche hasn't invented either.
When Jon Favreau, director of the Marvel superhero film Iron Man, needed a corporate executive for actor Robert Downey Jr. to use as a role model for the flick's hero Tony Stark, he sought out Elon Musk.
Like the fictional Stark, an engineering genius who runs a weaponry company and designs many of its armaments, the 38-year-old Musk is the CEO and top technologist for electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors and rocketmaker SpaceX.
The two tech execs even tool around in flashy cars: Stark in a superpowered Audi, Musk in a $109,000 zero-emissions battery-electric sports car that was the first vehicle off the assembly line at Tesla Motors, one of his two companies.
Musk appropriately got a smallish role as a scientist in Iron Man. In fact, throw in Musk's one-third interest in SolarCity, a company started by two cousins that has become a leader in solar panels for homes and business, and you have a guy who is probably as close to an industrialist as the Internet has ever spawned.
The son of an electrical engineer, the South African-born Musk holds both economics and physics degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. By the time he was 31, Musk had started and sold off two tech companies -- the second being PayPal, which was snapped up by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
That made Musk worth about $350 million, but over lunch recently he was very cagey about what he's worth now. "I have a very thin net worth outside my companies, maybe 5 percent of that."
That's because Musk has decided to plow much of his fortune into the areas he figures will most transform mankind over the next few years -- and perhaps not so incidentally make him another fortune. The areas are the Internet, space travel, and improving the environment, he says, "and I've already done the Internet."
If you find any of this interesting, go to Business Week. It's where all the above and much more can be found about the always compelling and often controversial Elon Musk.
Tesla Motors, which needs European sales of its $109,000 (base) electric Roadster to keep its cash flow plan on schedule, says it will open its first European store on the continent Thursday in Munich.
The German office follows opening in June of Tesla's London office and precedes an office opening in Monaco later in the year, the company said.
The European offices are part of Tesla's long-term growth plan.
The Northern California car maker said it will mark the opening of the German office by unveiling the production version of its Tesla Roadster Sport at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show next week.
The Sport is a racier version of the Roadster, with a more powerful electric motor and adjustable suspension.
Tesla seems to be pushing the Roadster in Europe as an eco- and performance alternative to sports and performance cars such as as the Porsche 911 and Audi R8, boasting in press releases that it has quicker initial acceleration than either while delivering twice the energy efficiency of a Toyota Prius.
The Roadster starts at $109,000, the Sport model at $128,500 and both are eligible for a number of incentives and tax credits in the U.S. and various Eurpean nations.
We're not sure which bothered us more: Watching Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk eat escargot, or watching someone in Northern California's Silicon Valley talk like a true "valley girl," which as we all know is a shallow creature that resides amid shopping mall and freeways in Southern California's San Fernando Valley.
The interviewer, Jesse Draper -- who attended UCLA, just down the freeway from San Fernando Valley -- does a decent job of getting Musk to explain what makes his all-electric cars special, during the Internet show's second episode of the season. There were several mildly interesting exchanges. Here's one:
Draper: "I have a hybrid. Why is (Tesla's all-electric Roadster and Model S cars) better than a hybrid?"
Musk: "When you say you have a hybrid, you have something that's really maybe 2 percent electric and 98 percent gasoline. And you need to say, OK, if all the world had your car, well, we'd still be 100 percent dependent on gasoline. The advantage to all-electric is that you can then generate your electricity from renewable means like solar, wind, geothermal, and that's a sustainable future."
The factory where Tesla Motors will make its all-electric, zero-emissions Model S sedan will be located in the Southern California cities of Long Beach or Downey, with a decision possibll as early as next week.
The plant, which is expected to bring 1,000 to 1,200 engineering and assembly jobs to the recession-plagued state, is scheduled to open in 2011. California has a 12.1 percent unemployment rate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In an interview with the Long Beach Press-Telegram, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said both cities were finalists for the plant. Musk said the possible locations were Long Beach's former Boeing 717 aircraft plant, which ceased production in 2006, or a former NASA production site next to Downey Studios.
Possibly complicating the Long Beach deal is an alternative city plan to convert the Boeing plant into a movie studio. Musk did not comment on which city had the inside edge. A Tesla source told Green Car Advisor today not to expect "any news on Model S facility this week, but we are close."
The Tesla source said the company is very serious about hitting the publicized $57,400 base price for the Model S and would reconsider an otherwise suitable site for the EV's production if the cost of leasing the site would jeopardize the base price.
Funding for the plant for the Model S, which is expected to have a 300-mile range between charges, will likely come from a recent $465 million low-interest loan Tesla received from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Community leaders in the Northern California city of Fremont, home to the soon-to-be-shuttered NUMMI joint venture between Toyota and General Motors, also have appealed to Tesla.
But the company said NUMMI's 5 million square feet is far too large for Tesla's needs. Both Southern California sites are about 1 million square feet.
3 Executives Named
Tesla, which currently has about 150 job openings, named three executives today.
An airline pilots union is calling for a government ban on shipments of lithium batteries aboard passenger and all-cargo planes after a series of fires in recent years involving aircraft.
This development might have an adverse affect on electric vehicles and most hybrid vehicles because lithium batteries are widely regarded as the best type to propel the vehicles.
At the very least, reports of a link between lithium batteries and fires aboard aircraft won't help public perception that such batteries are safe.
In statement released Tuesday, the Air Line Pilots Association said that federal regulators have been slow to act on the issue and that "the evidence of a clear and present danger is mounting."
The ban would not apply to devices containing batteries brought aboard by passengers, but as you can read in the adjacent boxed text, there has been at least one instance of a passenger reporting that his laptop computer was emitting smoke.
Since March of last year, six fires have been reported on board passenger and cargo jets linked to lithium-based batteries, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. None of the incidents resulted in deaths or serious injuries.
In a recent letter sent to Cynthia Douglass, acting deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Captain John Prater, head of the pilots' union, pointed to three recent incidents as proof positive of the urgent need to prohibit lithium-battery shipments.
During just the past two months, fire, smoke, or evidence of fire associated with battery shipments has occurred aboard three separate U.S. airliners, he wrote in the letter.
The incidents, which took place in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Honolulu, Hawaii, were similar to a 2006 battery fire aboard a DC-8 in Philadelphia, he wrote.
Honda Motor Co. plans to develop an electric car to debut in the U.S. market by around 2015 as tighter environmental regulations push demand for zero-emissions vehicles, the Nikkei business journal reported Saturday.
---------- 2015 wouldn't mark the first year a Honda electric vehicle appeared in the U.S. Right, the Honda CUV-4 test EV in California two decades ago. It led to the Honda EV Plus, below, shown at a line-off ceremony in Japan in 1996. ----------
A spokesperson for the company, Japan's No. 2 automaker, said it was developing an electric vehicle but had not decided when to launch it.
The company would not comment on a Nikkei report, published without attribution to any sources, that a prototype of the car would be unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in October.
The vehicle is expected to be about the size of a minicar, the Nikkei said.
Nissan Motor Co., Japan's third biggest automaker, unveiled its electric car "Leaf" earlier this month with plans to begin selling it in the United States, Japan and Europe towards the end of 2010.
Other major automakers such as Toyota and Volkswagen have also announced plans to launch electric cars in the next few years.
Tesla Motors, a small California electric-vehicle maker, has sold more than 700 highway-capable EVs since it began producing them last year.
Second-generation all-electric Smart ForTwo ED minicars will start rolling off a production line this November at the factory in Hambach, France, parent company Daimler AG announced today.
Daimler says that unlike its predecessor, the second-edition zero-emissions Smart ForTwo ED (pictured) is fitted with an innovative and highly efficient lithium-ion battery housed in a space-saving position between the axles. That "means that space is not compromised in any way in the intelligent two-seater vehicle," the company said.
That's a big deal, Daimler and Smart salespeople are fond of saying, because one of the major selling points of the vehicle is its size. At only 98.4 inches long, the vehicle is shorter than the width of most curbside parking spaces, allowing two or three ForTwos to park in a space intended for a single car.
What they usually don't mention is that this type of parking has been banned in Munich, amongst other European cities, and such parking in parallel-designated spaces is illegal in most American jurisdictions. But the vehicle's size often permits the car to be parked in legal parking spaces in which few other models could fit.
A 30-kilowatt (40-horsepower) electric motor is housed at the rear of the new ForTwo ED and provides "for good acceleration and high agility" with 88.5 pound-feet of torque that's immediately available.
By good acceleration the company means 0-60 kilometers per hour in 6.5 seconds, which equates to a respectable 0-36 miles per hour in the same amount of time. A 0-60 mph time was not available.
Daimler says the ForTwo ED can be charged at "any normal household socket" and says that in Germany, a full battery charge costs approximately $3 and is sufficient for a range of about 69 miles from the Tesla Motors-sourced 14-kilowatt lithium-ion battery.
It was unclear, and no Daimler was immediately available to confirm, if by "normal household socket" the automaker meant 110-volt outlet (standard in the U.S.) or 220-volt outlet (standard in Europe).
The availability of the new ForTwo ED will initially be limited to leased customers in Berlin and other cities in Europe as well as some American cities for real-world testing in tough everyday conditions. Daimler says that from 2012, the ForTwo ED "will be available to anyone interested."
In related news, the American-spec 2009 Smart ForTwo today achieved the "strongest roof" rating among competing minicars in tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
The New York Times is reporting today something we've been saying for months: That Toyota, maker of the mighty Prius hybrid and the No. 1 automaker worldwide by volume of units sold, is falling behind in the race to bring all-electric vehicles to market.
---------- Right, Toyota sold the RAV4 EV sport ute from 1997-2203. ----------
The article notes that Mitsubishi Motors has begun leasing its i-MiEV and that Nissan is set to leave its EV next year. But when oh when is Toyota's? 2012 is the answer the automaker gives.
The article quotes Masatami Takimoto, Toyota's executive vice president, as saying earlier this year that the electric car's "time is not here."
Electric cars "face many challenges," he said, adding that "to commercialize pure EV's, we need a battery that far exceeds the current technology."
Predictably, the Times reporter turned to EV proponents and analysts who have no experience running an automaker, let alone one that manufactured and sold an all-electric SUV from 1997-2003; that would be Toyota's RAV4 EV, many of which are still going strong and enjoy great popularity with their owners.
Which isn't to say the analysts weren't good for some interesting speculation.
"In a world where vehicles run on electrons rather than hydrocarbons, the automakers will have to reinvent their businesses," Russell Hensley, an analyst at the consulting company McKinsey, told clients in a recent report, the Times reported.
The newspaper also quoted analysts as saying that Toyota would like to profit all it can from the current technology before shifting to a new one - which makes sense, doesn't it? - especially because the company is facing a second down year after a loss last year of about $4.4 billion.
Tesla Motors announced today that Tesla Motors will develop and manufacture electric vehicle components in a renovated building (pictured) in the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, California.Tesla, the only automaker that is producing and selling highway-capable electric vehicles in North America, will lease an 350,000-square-foot building on a 23-acre parcel less than 3 miles from Stanford University. The automaker said the new facility will supply all-electric powertrains to Tesla and to other automakers, greatly accelerating the availability of mass-market EVs.
Tesla will also move its corporate headquarters from nearby San Carlos to the site later this year. Roughly 350 employees will work in Palo Alto initially, with space for up to 650 people at the facility.
In an interview with Green Car Advisor, Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel (left) said selection of the site was based on various factors, among the most important being convenience for existing employees and access to future ones.
He said the location "will give us great access to top engineering and technical talent, and it's also a very central location for all of our existing employees so that we don't have to risk losing some employees just because of moving our headquarters and our operations."
He said the new site will be where Tesla performs powertrain research and development, not automobile assembly. He clarified some reports that suggested Tesla's next model - the Model S sedan - would be built there, stating "We're not going to built the sedan vehicle here. That'll be a separate facility."
"This is more focused on electrical engineering and mechanical engineering rather than something you would traditionally think of as industrial processes," said Straubel, who earned a bachelor's degree in energy systems engineering and a master's in energy engineering from Stanford.
"Green cars" is taking on a new, and welcome, meaning over at Tesla Motors.
A little more than a month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said it would happen, the EV maker said it has finally started raking in some greenbacks as revenue in July finally came in faster than expenses raced out.
The company said in a press release today that its July income of about $21 million gave it a profit of about $1 million (there' a lot of "about" in this sentence because Tesla is a private company and doesn't have to report any numbers publicly and didn't present precise totals in its press release.)
Over at Autoblog Green they're estimating that the revenue came from $14.2 million in roadster sales - Tesla did say it had delivered 109 cars during the month, its best monthly delivery total so far - and the rest from its battery supply and charging systems contract with Daimler for the German automaker's Smart EVs.
While the state of the economy has a lot to do with Tesla sales� - or lack thereof - the company's market presence also impacts and Tesla - which began by selling its battery-electric Roadster (right)
on-line, now has showroom-sales centers in New York City, Seattle, London and California (one north, in Menlo Park; one south, in Los Angeles) and is planning to open six more this year - in Chicago, South Florida, Washington, Toronto, Munich and Monaco.
Tesla recently received federal advanced technology loans of $465 million to help develop and build its recently unveiled Tesla S electric sedan and, in its release, said it is "deep into the development" of the car, slated t sell for about $55,000 before any applicable federal tax credit when sales begin in late 2011 or early 2012. (It presently would qualify for a $7,500 credit.)
The public is invited to attend two major plug-in electric vehicle events in California in coming days.
The more newsworthy of the two will likely be the Plug-In 2009 Exposition held at the Long Beach Convention Center. It's there that green-car reporters from around the world will descend for more than three days of speeches, discussions and demonstrations revolving around plug-in electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
The public is invited to attend a slice of the event - from 5:30 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 11. The public portion will consist of vehicle displays (Chevy Volt, Ford 550 plug-in hybrid truck, Ford Escape plug-in hybrid, and a plug-in Toyota Prius to name a few), followed by a panel discussion.
Panelists will include: Peter Horton, writer/director, "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Philanthropist"; Bill Nye, "The Science Guy"; Chris Paine, director, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and "Revenge of the Electric Car"; Chelsea Sexton, founder, The Lightning Rod Foundation and a former General Motors EV1 specialist.
Cost is $10 and tickets can be purchased at the door. Visit the Plug In 2009 Website for additional information.
The lovelier of the two events will be the 2nd Annual Benefit Party for Plug In America, a respected nonprofit organization that promotes PEVs and PHEVs, held this coming Sunday from 4 p.m. till 8 p.m. at the Thomas Fogarty Winery in Woodside.
Among the vehicles on hand will be the pre-production Aptera 2e, a Tesla Roadster, a BMW Mini E, a Tango, a Tzero, an A123 Hymotion Prius conversion, electric motorcycles from Mission Motors and Zero Motorcycles, plus some one-off conversions and plenty of RAV4 EVs.
The event, titled "Plug-Ins, Pinots and Progress," will make for an excellent and informative afternoon-evening and, as benefits often do, will contain a spectacular auctions portion. Among the items that will be going to the block: a week's stay at a Hawaiian resort for 2-3 people, a Zero X electric motorcycle, and an A123/Hymotion L5 Plug-in Conversion Module (a $10,000 value) for all you Prius owners.
Bids can be submitted online. Tickets to the event start at $120. Visit the Plug In America Website for more information.
A judge is allowing to proceed a lawsuit by a founder of Tesla Motors that accuses the electric-carmaker and its chief executive of libel, slander and several other allegations.
---------- Click twice on images to enlarge. ----------
Martin Eberhard claims that CEO Elon Musk unfairly blamed him for Tesla's well-documented financial woes in interviews with the media and in postings on the company's blogs.
Eberhard also is suing to recover a $100,000 severance package the company took away from him for allegedly violating a non-disparagement agreement.
Yosef Peretz, who represents Eberhard against Tesla and Musk, says a San Mateo County Superior Court judge issued a written tentative ruling Tuesday refusing to toss out the lawsuit. The ruling says it appears Eberhard's lawsuit will prevail.
No trial date has been set.
Tesla responded to the decision with some equally adept backspin, saying in a statement "we are pleased that the judge struck down Eberhard's claim asking to be 'declared' one of only two founders of the company.
"We have long believed in the concept of a founding team, which includes Elon Musk as well as JB Straubel and other people who played indispensable and positive roles in Tesla's early history."
As for asking the judge to take the extraordinary step of dismissing the lawsuit, Tesla said "we still believe is an unfair personal attack and PR stunt that should not burden the court system. The judge acknowledged that it wasn't 'in his purview' to rule on the merits of the case at this very early stage, so we look forward to proving the facts in court in the upcoming months."
A spokeswoman for Tesla said the automaker also looks forward to a ruling on a request that the plaintiff "revise his original lawsuit and delete some of the most ridiculous and demonstrably false statements and innuendos, including implications that Elon may not have received his undergraduate degrees or been accepted to graduate school at Stanford."
About those degrees: Musk did indeed receive two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and he was indeed accepted into a graduate program at Stanford. He bailed from the program only a couple of days into it.
National Student Clearinghouse, a company that verifies academic degrees, past attendance and the like, verified Musk's claim that he received two degrees from Penn. We have attached them for your viewing pleasure.
We've also attached a letter from Stanford, substantiating Musk's claim that he was admitted into a graduate program at the university. Enjoy!
Lawyers for Tesla titans Elon Musk and Martin Eberhard go head-to-head in court tomorrow when the EV company and CEO Musk asks a judge to toss out the lawsuit
ousted co-founder Eberhard filed in May.
---------- There's no bromance here as Elon Musk, left, and Martin Eberhard, right, prepare to face-off in court. ----------
Eberhard, you'll recall from Chapter 1 of this saga
, is alleging that he's been slandered by Musk, that Musk is improperly calling himself a Tesla Motors founder and that his ouster and subsequent events constitute a breach of contract by Tesla.
For their part, Musk and Tesla maintain the Eberhard's suit is groundless and a thinly disguised effort to force Musk to stop publicly criticizing Eberhard's leadership.
Meantime, some analysts are worrying that the feud is grabbing all the headlines and overshadowing Tesla's electric roadster and development plans for the Tesla S sedan.
We'll keep you informed as the war of the egos wages on.
Also: Illinois, Colorado, Austria announce plans to invest heavily in plug-in infrastructures.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
When it rains, it often pours. That's certainly the case now, as the U.S. Department of Energy, the states of Illinois and Colorado, and an Austrian utility all announced in recent days that they will invest many millions of dollars to create recharging networks for electric vehicles.
That's wonderful news, because it brings electric-vehicle makers and potential EV makers a step closer to solving one of the two major problems they face: That being a lack of infrastructure to support pure EVs and plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles.
The other problem remains development of inexpensive, safe, reliable, lightweight and energy-rich batteries to power the vehicles. Many companies and governments are working on a solution to that problem.
The Energy Department on Monday awarded $47 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to eight ongoing smart-grid demonstration projects. The $47 million investment will add to the $17 million in funds DOE had awarded these eight projects last year, thereby accelerating the timelines for the projects.
Most of the projects relate to technologies to help transmission and distribution systems operate better, but a few are directly related to clean energy. For example, the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, will research, develop and demonstrate a coordinated and integrated system of mixed clean energy technologies and distributed energy resources, allowing the city to reduce its peak electrical demand by at least 15 percent.
Meanwhile, the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago will focus on implementing distributed energy resources and creating demand-responsive microgrids, which are small power networks that can operate independently of the utility power grid. In addition, the University of Hawaii will explore the management of its electrical distribution system to better accommodate wind power.
The Energy Department also just released the first Smart Grid System Report, which examines smart-grid deployments nationwide. The findings show that while many smart-grid capabilities are just beginning to emerge, the adoption of various technologies such as smart metering, automated substation controls and distributed generation are growing significantly.
The report also notes that smart-grid capabilities are socially transformational. As with the Internet or cell phone communications, smart-grid technologies have the potential to dramatically change how we experience electricity in the country, but improvements in physical and cyber security and information privacy will require consumers, manufacturers and utilities to closely follow a range of best practices for the smart grid.
Additionally, the Energy Department has begun the development of a Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse, tapping Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for the $1.3 million initiative to develop and maintain the clearinghouse Website, which will provide information to the public about smart-grid initiatives happening nationwide. The Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse was mandated by the Recovery Act.
In an effort to promote the viability of electric vehicles for personal transportation, and inspired by President Obama's call for Americans to develop "do-it-yourself" community service projects, two suburban Pennsylvanians are embarking on an ambitious cross-country drive from New York to San Francisco in a Tesla Roadster--with events planned at more than 20 stops along the way.
Dubbed the "Renew America Roadtrip" or RAR, it is the brainchild of Michael Craner, an electrical engineer and freelance inventor, and his medical-student girlfriend, Madushini Gunawardana, of Chester Springs, Pa.
They have been planning the trip for the past two-and-a-half months, and their intention is two-fold, they say: to promote "renewable, sustainable, [and] eco-friendly" initiatives, and to raise money for a variety of charities.
The pair started their adventure Wednesday with a small kick-off press conference hosted by the Westin New York at Times Square., one of the trip's sponsors. In December, the hotel became the first in New York City to be certified a "green hotel" by Green Seal.
Besides Craner and Gunawardana, there is also a network of more than 40 individuals who are supporting the "RAR," including fellow Pennsylvanian Wesley Noonan-Sessa of Pottstown, who will be following the couple along the route in an Altima Hybrid support vehicle loaned by Nissan., and Don Auker and Angie Groff, a Lebanon, Pa., couple who plan to follow the convoy across Pennsylvania in their own Tesla Roadster.
Stops are planned at the Ford Museum in Detroit on July 19, at a wind turbine in Stuart, Iowa on July 22, and in Las Vegas on July 27.
Craner and Gunawardana said they expect to arrive in San Francisco on July 31, when they plan to award the Tesla they drove to the highest bidder in a charity eBay auction to be held during their drive.
"It took over sixty years and six generations of gasoline engines for the Chevy Corvette to accelerate from zero to sixty miles per hour in under four seconds. The first version of the Tesla Roadster, which is the world's first Lithium-ion battery powered car, achieved that feat immediately. Whereas earlier generations of electric cars were plagued by poor performance, high cost, and short ranges, a new generation of affordable, high-performance electric cars is about to enter the U.S. market."
---------- Right, click on the image to enlarge it. ----------
Thus begins a very readable and interesting report commissioned by U.C. Berkeley's Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology entitled, "Electric Vehicles in the United States: A New Model with Forecasts to 2030." Its author is Thomas Becker, a U.C. Berkeley economist who specializes in international and environmental economics.
The paper estimates the rate of market adoption of EVs in the U.S. through 2030 and analyzes the impact of electric-car deployment on the trade balance, business investment, employment, health care costs and greenhouse-gas emissions. And, the paper forecasts three electric-vehicle adoption scenarios based on two oil price scenarios and possible purchase price incentives for electric cars.
Before moving on to a summary of the paper, there are some things we feel you ought to know about it. In response to a query from Green Car Advisor, the university acknowledged that Better Place - a huge advocate of electric vehicles in general and the major proponent of battery switching technology in particular - helped fund the program that conducted the study, which found that the U.S. can greatly benefit from EVs and battery switching.
The study's premise is that electric vehicles would be sold without batteries at a cost similar to conventional gasoline or diesel cars, and the batteries would be leased at a cost approximating the monthly cost of gasoline for a conventional vehicle.
That is a big part of Better Place's business model. The company envisions itself as a major battery leasing enterprise and operator of quick-change battery swapping stations.
We queried the university and Better Place after both issued reports Monday that shed an attractive light on electric vehicles. The timing of the reports seemed coordinated; the university and Better Place denied that the same release date was anything more than a coincidence. Click on "5-Nation Survey by Electric Vehicle Backer Shows Strong Consumer Interest in EVs" to read our piece on the report issued by Better Place.
Now, without further adieu, click on the "Continue reading" button, below, to read a summary of the U.C. Berkeley study.
Tesla Motors announced today that Roadster financing in the United States is now offered by Bank of America, thus significantly expanding the number of customers who can experience the all-electric sports car.
B of A financing makes the Roadster much more affordable than simply slapping down one hundred grand and change.
"For example, a customer approved for a 5-year financing term on a base Roadster could put down as little as $20,000 before taxes and net of the US federal tax credit. The monthly payment would be approximately $1,700 at a 5 percent annual percentage rate," the San Carlos, California, automaker said in a statement.
That monthly payment, as Tesla smartly points out, is typical for high performance cars, but Roadster drivers will enjoy hundreds of dollars per month in savings unavailable to gas guzzlers.
The Roadster, which gets an EPA-estimated 244 miles per charge, costs roughly $4 to refuel and does not require routine oil changes or exhaust system work.
And unlike high-maintenance internal combustion engines, Teslas get a 100 percent waiver on sales, luxury and use taxes in at least four states, and they qualify for commuter lane privileges, free parking and free charging in many regions.
Prospective customers may complete documents at Tesla showrooms or online, including electronic signature and customer verification. Tesla customer service staff can assist with the application in a showroom or by telephone.
Tesla has delivered more than 500 Roadsters, including those pictured above, so far. This month Tesla began delivering the 2010 model-year Roadster and the all-new Roadster Sport, an even higher-performance EV.
Tesla has showrooms in California and London. On Thursday, Tesla will open a regional sales and service center in New York. It's also opening stores in Chicago, Seattle, Miami, Washington D.C., Toronto, Monaco and Munich.
Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments has purchased 40 percent of Daimler AG's stake in electric-car start-up Tesla Motors, with the aim of launching a joint venture, Aabar and Daimler said today.
In May, Daimler acquired an equity interest of just under 10 percent in Tesla, San Carlos, California, automaker of the all-electric Roadster, several of which are pictured here.
Tesla is one of the biggest players in the burgeoning electric-car sector, while Aabar is viewed as a spearhead investor for the emirate of Abu Dhabi in non-energy assets.
"This investment allows Daimler and Aabar to leverage their shared interest in the development of low-CO2 drive systems," the companies said in a statement.
In March, Aabar purchased a 9.1 percent stake in Daimler, saying then it would pursue joint strategic projects.
Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad, reached late today as she arrived in New York for a store opening in Manhattan Tuesday, said, "Aabar is already a major investor in Daimler, so we welcome their investment in Tesla.
"This investment is consistent with the announcements made by Daimler and Aabar earlier on their intention to jointly work on strategic initiatives, including the development of electric vehicles."
In other words, Tesla's principals discussed Aabar before they finalized the Daimler deal, and today's development was not expected to change the strategic work that's being done now and planned for the future between Tesla and Daimler.
Aabar is an investment company controlled by the International Petroleum Investment Company, which is wholly owned by the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
IPIC is one of the investment vehicles used by the Abu Dhabi government to invest oil income. Abu Dhabi pumps most of the oil produced by the United Arab Emirates, the world's third-largest oil exporter.
Hundreds of solar panels contribute up to 40 kilowatts directly into the Auriga Leader's electrical system
.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
The Auriga Leader, the first pure car carrier partly powered by solar energy, called on the Port of Long Beach Wednesday to unload a cargo consisting chiefly of Toyota Priuses (pictured right).
Rising more than seven stories out of blue-green water, the ship sported 328 solar panels affixed to the top deck to offset diesel fuel consumption and reduce air pollution.
The 656-foot, 60,000-ton vessel can carry more than 6,200 cars at a time and regularly does so, transporting Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles from Toyota Motor Co. factories in Japan to this port 24 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
On Wednesday, under a clear blue Southern California sky, Captain Eugen State (pictured
) told Green Car Advisor
that on this trip some 60 percent of the vehicles aboard his ship were third-generation Priuses - a fact he said with pride.
While Toyota on Wednesday reported a 32 percent plunge in June-over-May sales overall, demand for the spunky hybrid actually rose 10 percent for the same period and its second-quarter sales outperformed first-quarter figures by more than 51,000 vehicles.
But enough about the car. On this day the news at Toyota's 144-acre spread at the Port of Long Beach was the seaworthy car-mover, not the cargo. Pure car carriers are notorious for fouling air while docked, and the world's biggest automaker was doing something about it.
In the seven months since the Auriga Leader was fitted with solar panels, the first vessel in its class to utilize solar technology to add electricity to its grid - as opposed meeting a particular need, such as powering a ship's low-watt lighting - curbed its thirst for diesel by an estimated six tons, State told us.
State emphasized that the panels constituted an experiment to see if such a system would work effectively aboard a car carrier. So far, so good, State said, adding that not a single problem had arisen since the panels were installed last December.
"She may be the first of her kind," he said, "for sure, she will not be the last."
When last we left the intrepid electric vehicle makers, Chef Executive and major investor Elon Musk was defending himself against ousted company co-founder Martin Eberhard's multi-faceted suit (libel, slander and breach of contract) in a lengthy blog posting.
----------
Tesla' Elon Musk drives Model S electric sedan concept at unveiling in May.
----------
Now the drama advances as Tesla Motors this week has filed a pair of motions in Superior Court in Northern California's San Mateo County, where Eberhard filed his action.
The Tesla motions (Musk is also a plaintiff) seek to have Eberhard's suit tossed on grounds that it is baseless on all counts and a thinly disguised attempt to stop Musk from publicly criticizing Eberhard's leadership.
We could go on - between them the motions take up 45 pages - but our little summary above pretty much says it all. Things will get nasty and nastier as each side calls the other liar and questions the opposing side's competency and integrity.
Stick with us and we'll keep you up to date and the suit and dismissal motions wend their ways through the corridors of justice.
Yesterday we reported
that Nissan, Ford and Tesla will be the first auto companies to receive factory retooling loans under the $25 billion federal program to speed production of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S.
Today, President Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu confirmed that the administration has granted $8 billion in conditional loan commitments to the three automakers for the development of vehicle technologies that, as the president put it, "will create thousands of green jobs while helping reduce the nation's dangerous dependence on foreign oil."
The loan commitments include $5.9 billion for Ford to transform factories across Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio to produce 13 more fuel-efficient models; $1.6 billion to Nissan to retool its Smyrna, Tennessee, factory to build electric automobiles and an advanced-battery manufacturing facility; and $465 million to Tesla to manufacture electric drivetrains and EVs in California.
The loans represent the first in a series of conditional loan commitments reached as part of the Energy Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. Chu said the department plans to make additional loans under this program over the next several months to large and small automakers as well as parts suppliers.
In a statement, Ford said it plans to invest nearly $14 billion in advanced-technology vehicles over the next seven years. "Our partnership with the Department of Energy also will help retool our U.S. plants more quickly to produce fuel-efficient vehicles and help meet the new, rigorous fuel-economy requirements," it said.
In its statement, Nissan said construction at Smyrna was scheduled to begin by the end of this year, with production slated to start in late 2012. It said modifications at the plant include a new battery-production facility and changes in the existing structure for electric-vehicle assembly.
"When fully operational, the vehicle assembly plant will have the capacity to build 150,000 zero-emissions vehicles a year and the new plant will have an annual capacity of 200,000 batteries," it said, adding that Nissan's EV "will comfortably seat five people, drive on any American road or highway, and have an initial range of 100 miles before recharging."
Model S News
And Tesla said it will use $365 million of the $465 million it received for production engineering and assembly of the Model S, an all-electric family sedan that will supposedly carry seven people and travel up to 300 miles per charge.
The Model S has an anticipated base price of $49,900 after a $7,500 U.S. federal tax credit. According to Tesla, it will have lifetime ownership costs equivalent to a conventional car with a sticker price of $35,000, thanks to the lower cost of electricity versus gasoline and a relative lack of service and maintenance.
Ford, Nissan and upstart electric car maker Tesla Motors will be the first auto companies to receive factory retooling loans under the $25 billion federal program to speed production of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S., the Detroit Free Press reported
late Monday.
Ford, which had applied for $11 billion in loans under the program, is likely to receive the largest loan. The company wants to retool an SUV factory to use for a new electric vehicle it plans to launch in 2011.
Nissan has asked for $1.1 billion to help retool its Smyrna, Tenn. plant to build electric vehicles that it has said will go on sale in selected areas of the U.S. next year.
Tesla has asked for $350 million to refurbish a Southern California factory, believed to be a recently emptied aerospace plant, for production of its upcoming Model S electric sedan.
General Motors corp. and Chrysler are not eligible for loans from the program until they emerge from their Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The loan program is only open to companies that can show they are "financially viable."
In all, 75 companies have asked for $38 billion in loans from the program, exceeding the available funds by 52 percent. A proposal to double the loan pool to $50 billion is pending in Congress.
Tesla Roadsters like these retail for $109,000 but originally cost the company $140,000 apiece. Company says production cost now has fallen to $80,000.
Tesla Chairman Elon Musk says the electric car company should start making a profit next month on each Roadster it sells.
The news of a pending Tesla profit wasn't broadcast from the rooftops but rather is hidden deep in Musk's lengthy response, posted in his blog this morning, to ousted company co-founder Martin Eberhard's breach of contract suit.
Discussing the internal controversy over the actual cost of building each roadster - a dispute that led to Eberhard's firing, according to Musk - the chairman says that production costs have fallen to $80,000 per vehicle from a high of $140,000.
"Due to the low production rate, the Roadster cost will never be what Eberhard promised, but an incredible effort by the development, supply chain and manufacturing teams has brought the Roadster material cost down from $140k to approximately $80k as of this month," Musk wrote.
"Combined with a steady production volume of 20 to 30 per week in the third quarter this year and a good take up rate of the higher priced Roadster Sport, we expect to cross over into profitability next month."
As The Tesla Turns, Part II: In Which Elon Calls Martin A Big Fat Liar
In an extraordinary blog posting that's just gone live this morning, Tesla Motors chairman and chief financier Elon Musk fires back at Martin Eberhard, ousted co-founder of the electric vehicle company, essentially calling Eberhard's suit a groundless pack of lies. (That's pretty much what Eberhard said about the reasons Musk has given for firing him.)
The background, as you'll recall if you are an avid Tesla-natic, is that Eberhard, who was forced out of the company in late 2007, filed a suit against Musk, Tesla and a pot full of John Does last month, alleging libel, slander, breach of contract and a number of other injustices that, he said, arose from a concerted effort by the current Tesla crew to wrest control of the company from him and to write their own version of its history - a version that downplayed his contributions.
At the time, Musk stayed mum, responding though company spokeswoman Rachel Konrad, who called Eberhard's claims inaccurate, a personal attack on Musk and just plain "twisted and wrong."
Musk apparently has spent of lot of time since then preparing his response, judging by the length of today's blog post.
No matter how one cuts it, the road rally Tesla Motors held for owners of its all-electric, zero-emissions Roadsters earlier this month in curvaceous countryside northwest of downtown L.A. was a glorious trip.
The route mostly wound through 60 miles of breathtaking canyons, beginning at Tesla's West Los Angeles showroom and making a stop at The Rock Store diner/bar/hangout before ending with a barbeque in Malibu at Greener Pasture Ranch, a stunning spread overlooking the Pacific that's the private home of a wealthy Tesla customer.
Held to commemorate the EV-maker's 500th Roadster delivery and the one-year anniversary of Tesla's first retail store, much of the journey took place on Mulholland Drive, a nicely banked mountain road that's appeared in countless Hollywood movies and is a local favorite with bullet-bike and sports-car enthusiasts.
Just behind the Kawasaki Ninjas and Honda Hurricanes in quickness on Mulholland two Saturdays ago were the Roadsters, which accelerate silently from a dead stop to 60 miles an hour in under 4 seconds, are six times as fuel efficient as rival sports cars and have a driving range of 240-plus miles per charge in ideal conditions.
Standard Roadsters - as if there's anything "standard" about them - redline at 248 base horsepower at 14,000 rpm, wear Yokohama AD07 tires on cast alloy, uni-directional, split 5-spoke wheels and start at $109,000. For another $19,500, buyers get an even quicker Roadster with custom-tuned suspension and ultra-high-performance Yokohama A04k tires on black forged-alloy Tesla-designed wheels.
Tesla Motors, based in San Carlos, California, is the only production automaker selling highway-capable EVs in the United States or Europe. The Roadster - the young EV-maker's first model (two more are in the works) - beats nearly every other car on the road in quickness yet is twice as energy efficient as a Toyota Prius. It costs roughly $4 to refuel and can be completely recharged in as little as 3.5 hours.
In addition to the West L.A. store, which opened a year ago, Tesla has a showroom in Menlo Park in the heart of Silicon Valley, about an hour's drive south of San Francisco. The company expects to open regional sales and service centers within months in New York, Chicago, London, Seattle, Miami, Washington, Monaco and Munich.
Go to the jump page to see a gallery of click-to-enlarge images from the road rally. Return to the gallery Tuesday afternoon to see additional pics and the inclusion of caption information.
Tesla Motors founder Martin Eberhard (right
) has filed a lawsuit against the automaker's Chairman Elon Musk, the electric-car company and 20 yet-to-be-identified defendants for libel, slander, breach of contract and eight other complaints arising from a slew of allegations that include wrongful damage to Eberhard's reputation and intentional damage to his Founder's Series Production Roadster, which Eberhard estimated to have a future worth of several million dollars.
In the 146-page lawsuit filed May 26 at the Superior Court for San Mateo County, where Tesla Motors maintains its headquarters, Eberhard portrayed himself as a "technological entrepreneur who has spent his life studying and creating innovative technology to improve human society and the environment,"
Musk, Eberhard alleges: "began a campaign to appropriate control of Tesla Motors and of Eberhard's legacy as the company's founder and visionary"; defamed and disparaged Eberhard in the news media; falsely accused Eberhard of being responsible for the Roadster's production delays and for Tesla's financial instability; and a many other not so nice things.
"These actions are remarkable, but they are also part of Musk's broader personal history of misrepresentation - his educational degrees and professional affiliations being symbolic samples - and of the extent of his involvement with other companies, such as PayPal," the complaint alleges.
Musk (left
), who is widely regarded as having co-founded PayPal, SpaceX and Zip2, in a brief email exchange with Green Car Advisor tonight, directed questions to Tesla Motors spokeswoman Rachel Konrad.
Konrad, reached by telephone, described the lawsuit as "an inaccurate account of history, as well as a personal attack. It's twisted and wrong."
She said Tesla Motors expects to file a counterclaim against Eberhard.
In a statement sent to the media late Wednesday, she elaborated:
"This lawsuit is an unfair personal attack and, more importantly, paints an inaccurate picture of Tesla's history. This lawsuit is a fictionalized account of Tesla's early years - it's twisted and wrong, and we welcome the opportunity to set the record straight.
"Martin was unanimously fired by the board, largely over the fact that the cost of the car was more than twice what Martin portrayed it to be at the time. Incidentally, Tesla will also be filing counterclaims and in the process present an accurate account of the company's history."
Green Car Advisor intends to return to this story in coming days, when we've had a chance to sort the fact from fiction and get beyond all this he said, she said stuff (although we'd be first to admit, it does make for compelling reading).
The aftermarket business for the plug-in battery-electric Tesla Roadster is heating up.
In a strange twist, one of the aftermarket entrepreneurs is Martin Eberhard, the deposed co-founder of the electric-car startup who blogged nearly 18 months ago that "I am sad not to be part of Tesla anymore, and I believe that Tesla would be a lot better off with me than without me."
Writing recently in his blog, Eberhard noted that he has been busy making mobile chargers for the Roadster.
"I originally intended to build one for myself," Eberhard wrote. "Then for a few friends. Now I am swamped with requests from Roadster owners who want a more flexible mobile charging solution. I plan to write a blog about my little charger one of these days. But then there is my 'real' job that already takes 110 percent of my time!"
For more on the subject, visit our sister site Edmunds' Inside Line.
In what is yet more proof that Tesla Motors is on its way to becoming a major automaker, the company announced today that it had reached an important milestone for the electric-vehicle manufacturer - the delivery of its 500th Roadster.
The lucky recipient is New Jersey philanthropist Martin Tuchman, chairman of The Tuchman Foundation, shown here beside his twilight-blue Roadster. Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad said he plans to charge his zero-emissions Roadster partly with solar energy, thanks to photovoltaic panels he helped install throughout his hometown of Kingston, N.J.
"My Roadster drives like a dream. It's amazing," Tuchman, a former automotive engineer and owner of a 1967 Mercedes 250, said in a statement. He said he plans to use his Roadster as his primary commuter car.
Tuchman took delivery of his Roadster last weekend, a few weeks before the anticipated opening of a Tesla showroom in New York's Chelsea Art District. Greater New York is Tesla's largest market outside of California, and local EV owners enjoy numerous incentives.
Zero-emission vehicles are exempt from New Jersey sales, use and luxury taxes. Single occupants of alternative-fuel vehicles may also use the high-occupancy commuter lanes on the New Jersey Turnpike.
These incentives are on top of a $7,500 US federal tax credit, which fully applies to all Tesla Roadsters.
Tesla will also soon be opening stores in Chicago, London, Seattle, Miami, Washington, Monaco and Munich. Tesla will begin deliveries in Europe this summer.
Tesla Motors and partner Daimler AG plan to launch two plug-in electric vehicles in the near future. And Tesla on its own will be replacing the current-generation Roadster -- its first car -- with a larger, four-seat sports car in 2013, company chairman, product architect and CEO Elon Musk said in a freewheeling e-mail exchange Monday night with Green Car Advisor.
Tesla and Daimler, working as partners, will come out with not one but two new plug-in electric vehicles in the next few years, starting with the already announced Smart EV roadster (pictured) late this year, followed by another affordable, zero-emissions electric vehicle. That second EV has never before been discussed publicly.
Additionally, Tesla will independently replace the current two-seat Roadster with a larger, four-seat sports car sometime in 2013, Musk said, adding that that vehicle will be available in hardtop and convertible models, and with rear-wheel drive or optional all-wheel drive.
With regard to the Smart EV, Musk disclosed that Tesla and Daimler "have been working on an 'everyman' car for over one and a half years. It is the Smart EV and the first of those vehicles will be on the road by the end of this year."
Final pricing on the battery-electric Smart car "is up to Daimler, but I know that this car will cost a lot less than $30,000 once it achieves mass production. The reason we originally started working with Daimler was because we saw this as the fastest path to putting affordable electric cars on the road," Musk said in the interview by e-mail.
"IF THE PROBLEM IS NOT ADDRESSED PROMPTLY, THE DRIVER COULD LOSE CONTROL OF THE VEHICLE, WHICH COULD LEAD TO A CRASH."
So reads a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notice issued today announcing the recall of 345 Tesla Roadsters, and from the sound of it you'd think the problem was on the scale of, say, steering wheels falling into drivers' laps at highway speeds.
But, nooo. We're talking about a bolt on a rear flange hub that wasn't tightened quite as tightly as it should have been.
So, will 345 Roadster owners be driving to Tesla repair facilities to have their, um, bolts tightened? Nope.
Instead, Tesla has decided its technicians will make house calls at owners' homes or offices. There, according to Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad, the technicians will unscrew the bolt, clean it, and put it back on with just the right amount of torque.
But wait, there's more: Since the technicians are gonna be working on the recalled vehicles - if cleaning and tightening one bolt per car can really be called work - Tesla has instructed them to perform full inspections of the vehicles and upgrade their software for free.
All this and it's not Tesla's fault that the bolts weren't tightened quite enough in the first place. The bolts were improperly torqued during assembly by Lotus, the contract manufacturer of the Roadster chassis. Lotus is conducting a similar recall on some Lotus Elise and Exige vehicles.
"This has nothing to do with Tesla's powertrain or intellectual property whatsoever," Konrad said.
If you tuned into Late Show With David Letterman
last night you saw the 62-year-old talk show host do a good impersonation of Sam Donaldson, the longtime reporter for ABC News famous for asking hard-hitting questions.
Letterman's subject: None other than Bob Lutz, the 77-year-old vice chairman of General Motors Corp. The interview came three weeks after Letterman had Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk on the show and the two shared considerable laughter at GM's expense.
In perfect Donaldson style, Letterman didn't pull many punches, asking "Maximum" Bob pointed questions such as why GM seems incapable of building a battery-electric car like Tesla's Roadster and why don't U.S. automakers do the patriotic thing and make more fuel-efficient vehicles so we're less dependent on foreign oil. Letterman all but said American troops are dying in Iraq over oil.
Lutz responded with his usual song-and-dance, variously blaming the U.S. government for stupid regulations, and successive administrations for making bad policy -- such as keeping the cost of gasoline in America low and yet expecting Detroit to produce fuel-efficient vehicles when little demand exists for them.
But perhaps sensing that Letterman wasn't about to let him off the ropes, Lutz said something he's not wont to say unless pushed:
"Let's face it. During the '70s, '80s and up through the early '90s, the U.S. car companies built some really bad cars. And a lot of people still have that memory from their family -- 'My dad said don't ever buy an American car because they're all crap.' -- and of course that was true at one point but it's no longer true."
The German Auto Giant Acquires a 10 Percent Equity Stake in the California EV Maker
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
Daimler AG, parent company of Mercedes-Benz, inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile, and Tesla Motors, the California newbie that remains the only automaker currently producing highway-capable battery-electric cars, announced today that they will partner to manufacture electric vehicles.
As part of the agreement, Daimler has acquired a 10 percent equity stake in the San Carlos, California-based EV maker.
The deal provides Daimler with advanced lithium batteries, a seat on Tesla's board of directors and the know-how needed to bring an electric car to market "at the highest possible speed," Thomas Weber, a member of the board of Daimler AG, said at a news conference at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart today.
In exchange, Tesla will receive "a double-digit million sum," Weber said, and the parts and engineering expertise it needs to mass produce its second plug-in battery-electric vehicle, the Model S sedan. Tesla's $109,000 Roadster is the only highway-capable production plug-in battery-electric vehicle on the market.
"Tesla brings expertise in the battery-electric front," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the news conference, which was carried live via Webcast. "Daimler brings expertise in everything else. This will be a very productive relationship where both Tesla and Daimler benefit."
The announcement comes as the Obama administration is due to propose stricter fuel-economy standards in a bid to reduce automotive greenhouse-gas emissions.
Darryl Siry (left
), Tesla Motors' former chief marketing officer, blogs that he sees a troubling pattern emerging in how the most critical aspect of electric vehicles - range - is discussed by companies and the media alike.
"These are problems that could have a significant negative effect on the way the public responds to electric vehicles if manufacturers don't change the way they communicate expectations about range," wrote Siry, who is now a senior analyst for clean technology at Peppercom, a strategic communications firm.
The basic problem is that when an EV is described, it usually has a single "range" number associated with it, Siry wrote.
For example, the Tesla Roadster has a range of 244 miles. When people talk about the range of a car that is planned in the future, they also offer a single number. For instance, the media has reported that several car companies plan to come to market with EVs that have "a 100-mile range."
"Every time a single range figure is given, it should have about three asterisks next to it," he wrote.
Here is a Tesla Motors sales update for those of you who have been keeping score at home.
The upscale electric vehicle manufacturer reports that it has booked more than 1,000 advance order for its Model S sedan that has an anticipated base price of $57,400 (before a $7,500 federal tax credit but not including taxes and fees).
Each potential customer is paying a $5,000 refundable reservation fee.
That adds up to $5 million in deposits that the San Carlos, California-based company can use to help fund operations and secure additional funding from investors.
Here's how Tesla explains why a deep-pocketed customer should be plunking down $5,000 for one of its plug-in electric vehicles: "If you account for the much lower cost of electricity vs. gasoline at a likely future cost of more than $5 per gallon, the Model S is equivalent to a gasoline car with a sticker price of about $30,000, such as a Ford Taurus, Honda Accord or even a Toyota Avalon or BMW 3 Series."
Tesla, which has yet to say where the sedans would be produced, also is waiting to hear whether it will receive a $350-million federal advanced technology vehicle development loan that is available to automakers upgrading or retrofitting existing manufacturing facilities rather than building new ones.
Tesla plans to begin production of the "S" late in 2011. The vehicle can be ordered with one of three battery packs that will travel between 160 and 300 miles between charges.
And, as we reported earlier, those with a bit more cash to spare can put down $40,000 deposits on specially priced, specially equipped "Mosel S Signature Edition" cars.
General Motors Corp. should have known it was in for a rocky ride on April 29 when late-night talk show host David Letterman used his monologue to describe the CBS Late Show as "the Pontiac of comedy."
It got decidedly worse for the struggling automobile company after Letterman invited Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk to sit down and talk about his upscale Tesla S electric sedan that's slated to be introduced late in 2011.
For most of the ten-minute Musk segment, Letterman talked like a real car guy (which he is), displaying an understanding of EVs, electric motors and lithium ion batteries. Musk was equally serious, comparing green car development to the evolution of cell phones that began as a rich guy's status symbol but now are an integral (and affordable) part of life.
Musk told Letterman that his firm has taken orders on about 1,300 of the upscale "S" sedans (right)
that will (before tax breaks) be sold at a base price of $57,400. Toward the end of the segment, Musk's associates drove a gleaming model onto the set. (Letterman promptly pretended to be getting electrocuted after reaching into the car and grabbing the steering wheel.)
After rehashing the ups and downs of electric-vehicle R&D in this country, Letterman complained that "we should be so much further ahead on this curve, much farther ahead than we are now."
Former 717 Airliner Plant Reportedly in Play as Potential 'Model S' Factory
From aircraft to automotive?
A Long Beach, Calif., news blog cited unidentified sources in a report Sunday that a Boeing aircraft facility in the city just south of Los Angeles is in the running to be the site for Tesla Motors' proposed Southern California assembly plant for the Model S electric sedan (left).
Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad was emphatic Monday evening in stating that the EV maker has "not signed any lease on any facility." But she didn't say that there are no negotiations.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the company is close to securing a facility somewhere near his Space X rocket facility in Hawthorne, Calif., which is next door to Long Beach.
The company needs a plant to launch development and manufacture of its $55,000 Model S battery-electric sedan, which Musk unveiled last month.
Tesla is waiting on word that it has been approved for a $350 million federal advanced technology vehicle development loan - a loan that is available to automakers upgrading or retrofitting existing manufacturing facilities rather than building new ones.
That opened speculation that Tesla would be looking at one of the several vacant or soon-to-be-vacant aerospace facilities dotting the California landscape. Musk confirmed last month that he'd found a place near Hawthorne and is busy nailing down a deal, but wouldn't say where or what kind of facility it is.
As the once-favored hydrogen highway becomes a mere side road on the route to oil independence with the Obama administration's push for rechargeable hybrid powertrains as the new favored alternative to the conventional gasoline engine, hydrogen pioneer Honda Motor Co. says it, too, will begin to pursue the way of the plug.
In an interview with Bloomberg news last week, Honda Motor Co. President Takeo Fukui said his company still sees hydrogen as the best long-term replacement for gasoline in the effort to slash automotive emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases tied to global arming.
Fukui, who is stepping down in June as part of Honda's regular executive shuffle, has in the past has been outspoken in his disdain for plug-in technology, calling it an unnecessary intermediate step form gasoline to pure electric power.
Honda has developed a hydrogen fuel-cell sedan, the FCX Clarity, that it leases to select customers in a Los Angeles-area test program, and isn't planning to abandon the effort.
But, Fukui said in a Bloomberg news wire article published this morning, the automaker also will accommodate the perceived preference of the U.S. government for plug-in hybrid-electric cars and trucks.
Unlike a conventional gas-electric hybrid that charges its batteries from on-board power sources such as regenerative braking, a plug-in hybrid gets its initial charge from the commercial grid, by "plugging in" to a wall socket or a special rapid-charging station
Plug-ins use larger battery pack than a conventional hybrids. They store enough power to permit the vehicle to be driven for an extended amount of time on all-electric drive before the grid charge is depleted and the gas engine kicks in.
Although others, including General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Volkswagen are developing fuel-cell vehicles, Honda has been the only major automaker championing hydrogen above other technologies and so far has stayed out of the rapidly developing race to bring plug-ins to market.
While federal support of hydrogen development has all-but evaporated in the U.S., the government is providing billions of dollars for battery development programs and for federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for purchasers of plug-ins.
Cheaper Batteries, Lots of Chargers, Government Incentives are Necessary Ingredients By Danny King, Contributor
The jury's still out on whether battery-electric vehicles will be a luxury or relatively commonplace within the next six years, according to a recent report that finds a lot of uncertainty still exists regarding battery performance characteristics.
---------- Electric cars such as the proposed Tesla Model S could proliferate, but would only trickle into the market without infrastructure development and government support, report says. ----------
Annual global battery-electric vehicle sales will range from as few as 500,000 to as many as 3 million units by 2015, depending on factors such as how long the cars can run on a single charge and how quickly they recharge, high-tech consultant Strategy Analytics
said in its report.
Battery-electric car manufacturers will build about 10,000 units this year, up from 4,000 in 2008, according to the report's author, Kevin Mak, industry analyst of Strategy Analytics' Automotive Electronics Service.
It will take cheaper battery costs that drive electric-car prices closer to their gas-powered counterparts, a comprehensive recharging infrastructure, cars with features such as batteries that may be swapped out, and hefty government incentives for battery-electric vehicle sales to hit that 3 million mark by 2015; without such advances, annual sales will be closer to 500,000 units, Mak said.
"More advances are needed to make recharging faster - battery swap is an alternative approach - and to make more accessible recharging infrastructures, to increase range through greater energy density in batteries, to enhance reliability, and to lower costs to make electric vehicles more affordable to consumers," Mak said.
One thing is certain, though. The number of electric vehicles will grow, even if very slowly. Companies ranging from larger automakers like Nissan to relative start-ups like Tesla Motors are planning to start selling all-electric vehicles to the U.S. public within the next two years.
Nissan Motor Co. plans to start selling its EV to U.S. fleet customers late next year and has reached an agreement with Japanese electronics giant NEC that will allow production of enough lithium-ion batteries to supply as many as 200,000 hybrid vehicles and electric cars per year.
Meanwhile, Tesla, which last week unveiled the $57,400 (base-price) Model S sedan that it plans to start selling in late 2011, said it has received more than 500 advance orders for the car, which can be equipped with a variety of battery packs good for 160, 220 or 300 miles between charges.
Others with EVs on tap include Miles Electric Vehicles, which is planning to launch its own highway-legal sedan late next year; Mitsubishi Motors, which will start selling a battery-electric city car, the i-MIEV, later this year in Japan; and Subaru, which has said it will sell a limited production EV in Japan in 2010. Several Chinese auto makers also have announced plans for EVs of their own.
Strategy Analytics cited EV battery-charging network developer Better Place as a potential factor in advancing the product enough for mass adoption.
The Silicon Valley-based company is working with Nissan and its partner, Renault, to develop electric cars and a recharging infrastructure for Israel and Denmark, though the car makers may not adopt Better Place's strategy of designing electric cars with swappable battery packs.
Ford's SmartGauge features a multitude of displays to help people become more fuel-efficient drivers.
By Robert E. Calem, Contributor
Regardless of the kind of car you drive, one of the keys to improving fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to drive smarter - don't hammer the accelerator pedal, don't brake harshly and do steadily maintain just enough speed to keep up with the flow of traffic without passing everyone in sight.
These often are not easy tasks.
To help, automakers have begun rolling out new features and technologies that call attention to uneconomical driving behavior and offer "rewards" for fuel-efficient driving.
Some of these features are passive, like instrument panels that change color as fuel economy improves.
Others more actively engage with the driver, such as an accelerator pedal that pushes back when pressed too aggressively.
Some automakers are even working on technologies that will be able to take the driver out of the fuel economy equation by allowing the car to practically drive itself with best mileage in mind.
Read on to learn more about the driver training features and technologies in cars you can buy today, and be able to buy tomorrow.
Smart Gauges Make Smarter Drivers
"The whole idea is coaching the driver, but as a good coach you don't want to preach," says Sonya Nematollahi, driver information engineering supervisor at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., while describing the "SmartGauge with EcoGuide" instrument cluster in the 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids.
Conceived by Ford in collaboration with IDEO, the design and innovation consultancy that also devised the Swivel 'n Go seating in Chrysler minivans, SmartGauge consists of two 4.3-inch, high-resolution color LCD screens - one on either side of the analog speedometer - that display a collection of digitally rendered gauges accessed through multi-layered menus.
SmartGauge with EcoGuide, fashioned by Ford Design Studio with features input from the industrial design firm Smart Design, uses the menus and gauges to offer increasingly detailed information in four modes: Inform, Enlighten, Engage and Empower.
"Like a good coach, we designed modes into SmartGauge to engage drivers at their experience levels and then guide them to new energy-efficient behavior," says Steve Bishop, global lead for sustainability at IDEO in Palo Alto, Calif.
----------
Green leaves 'grow' on fusion instrument panel as visual reward when fuel economy improves.
---------
"Video games engage their users in a similar fashion with levels. In fact, when we observed hybrid drivers, we found they were going for high scores, a gaming behavior that has never existed in cars before. We designed to accommodate it."
Steering-wheel mounted directional buttons are used to navigate through the modes, and the driver can customize the displays in each mode by adding or removing gauges.
Tesla Motors, which has shown that it indeed can make an electric car, also is getting pretty good at marketing.
The media flurry kicked up by the company's unveiling last week of a pre-production prototype of the Model S electric sedan (right) the company proposes to start building at the end of 2011 is a case in point.
The EV maker says the exposure has helped bring in 520 advance orders in the last week, each accompanied by a $5,000 deposit, for a car it won't start building for at least 30 months.
The Tesla "S," you might recall, is to be a sleekly styled five-seat hatchback that can be ordered with one of three battery packs, good -- respectively -- for 160, 220 or 300 miles of range between charges.
Base price, for the 160-mile model, has been set at $57,400 -- before a $7,500 federal tax credit for long-range advanced electric vehicles is applied, bringing actual cost to the buyer down to $49,900 (plus taxes and fees). Buyers in some states could also qualify for various state and regional credits and incentives.
Electric Car Won't Go Into Production Until Late 2011, If Financing Comes Through
It Goes: Tesla chairman Elon Musk takes Model S prototype for a spin during press conference.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
First of all, we're talking here about a plastic-bodied prototype of a car that isn't scheduled to go into production for almost two and a half years. Remember, please, that a lot can be done, or undone, in that span of time.
That said, Elon Musk and the rest of the crew at Tesla Motors pulled the covers off the proposed Tesla S battery-electric sport sedan today, and likely will be wallowing in publicity from the event for weeks to come.
The car, which seems to draw a lot from Jaguar and Aston Martin, was designed by former Mazda North America design chief Franz von Holzhausen, who calls the car's silhouette an example of "classic modernity."
He and Musk liberally refer to the "S" as the world's first mass-production, full-function electric car, even though production won't start -- if all the money can be rounded up -- until late in 2011 and Nissan Motor Co. has said it will begin selling a mass-production, full-function electric car in the U.S. in 2010.
Whether first or second, it's a very good-looking four-door, glass-topped hatchback that hides the hatch quite well.
Fast, Far, 'Affordable'
And whatever one may think of its roots, von Holzhausen says the "S" is a clean-sheet design he began after joining Tesla last August and listing to Chairman and CEO Musk's vision for the vehicle intended to replace the Roadster as Tesla's signature product.
That vision, according to dot-com millionaire-entrepreneur Musk (right), was to build an electric car that would hold a big family, go fast, be beautiful, offer enough range between charges to appeal to most buyers, and not cost an arm and a leg.
Let's get fast out of the way: Musk says the car will be capable of a sub-6-second sprint from zero to 60 mph, and will have an electronically limited top speed of 135 mph. A "sport" model to come later will do that same 0-60 in under 5 seconds, he said.
Musk, who staged the unveiling at his Space X rocket development facility in the Southern California community of Hawthorne -- no doubt to draw more press than he'd get up in Tesla's official home in the Bay Area community of San Carlos, near San Francisco -- confirmed that the base model of the "S" (the initial apparently doesn't stand for anything) will cost $57,400.
He actually said it will have "an affordable starting price of $49,900," but that, ladies and gents, is after you qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit that is supposed to still be around in 2011 when production is slated to begin.
The sticker price, meanwhile, will still be $54,700, which is probably affordable to lots of people, but we don't know any of them personally.
That's with a battery pack, by the way, that is slightly smaller than the one on the Tesla Roadster but is capable of powering the much larger "S" for 160 miles of combined city and highway driving.
Add bucks, probably lots of 'em, for either of the two optional larger battery packs the company says will be rated at 220 miles and 300 miles.
Musk says, though, that if you figure $4-a-gallon gasoline (and we do figure it will get there, and stay there, by the time the "S" and other electric cars and plug-in hybrids are hitting the market) that the cost of electricity to run the Model S will represent a real bargain, effectively cutting $10,000 or more from the lifetime cost of the car versus a 15-mpg sports tourer that swills 1,000 gallons or more per year.
He said he expects the "S" batteries to have a lifespan of close to 10 years and to cost less than $5,000 to replace when they do wear out.
Room for Seven
Tesla's rear-wheel design places the batteries and control electronics in a flat package under the floor, with the electric drive motor and single-speed transmission (all a good EV needs) incorporated between the rear wheels.
That frees up loads of interior space -- space for seven (seven!!) says Musk.
That's two adults in the front buckets, three in the backseat (they'd probably best be really good friends, though) and two children in an optional rear-facing seat that would install under the glass of the rear hatch, in what is ordinarily a cargo area.
Remove the kid seat and fold down the rear bench seat and the "S" has room for a mountain bike -- with front wheel attached -- or a 50-inch flat-screen TV (as cargo, not for watching) in the rear.
And under the long nose, because there's no engine, there is more cargo space -- along with the radiator and the air-conditioner compressor.
Some Technical Stuff
The standard battery will be made up of 5,500 lithium-ion cells, each a little larger than a standard AA battery, all linked together and fused and cooled for heat protection and to isolate any cells that might act up.
The 220-mile pack will have 8,000 cells (the Tesla Roadster pack has 6,800) and the 300-mile pack will also have 8,000 but they will be of an advanced lithium chemistry that enables them to store and release more energy than the smaller packs.
(Check out our video of the Model S Introduction)
All of the battery packs use cells that are more advanced than those in the Roadster -- making the 8,000-cell packs 50 percent more efficient yet 25 percent smaller than the Roadster pack.
We were going to file the first shots from our cell phone at the unveiling, but since the pictures have now been leaked, here's an early look at Tesla's Model S battery-electric sedan, slated to be unveiled, offiically, at 12:30 p.m., Pacific time, today.
Tesla Motors' West Los Angeles showroom on Santa Monica Boulevard was on President Obama's motorcade route this morning. The president, who wants to see lots of electric cars and plug-in hybrids on the nation's roads, didn't stop in for a look and hasn't, far as we can tell, ordered a $109,000 Tesla Roadster for the White House fleet. But we bet this photo, by a Tesla employee, shows up in a lot of the EV maker's promotional material in the future. Hey, we couldn't resist.
Tesla Motors said Tuesday is has begun marketing cars in Canada
and hopes to make its first delivery north of the border during the fourth quarter.
The company said it initially will serve Canadian customers for its battery-electric sports car through regional centers to be established later this year in Seattle and New York. Tesla hopes to subsequently open electric vehicle sales and service facilities in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec.
Canadian pricing won't be made public until later this year, but at Tuesday's exchange rate, the $109,000 base price in the U.S. would translate into about 140,000 Canadian dollars.
Tesla's ever-green sales pitch notes that, given Canada's heavy reliance upon renewable energy supplies, a Roadster plugged into the Canadian power grid would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 85 percent compared to an equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle. In hydropower-rich British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba, the reduction would soar to 98 percent.
How will the plug-in car fare in the cold and snow up north?
Not to worry, Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad writes in an e-mail: "...the Roadster handles the snow quite well. In fact, Tesla engineers performed much of the cold-weather testing on a frozen lake bed in Sweden, and Norway and Denmark are among our top markets in the EU, where we give test-drives all winter long."
That may be, but we weren't able to find any photos of a Tesla roadster plowing through snowdrifts. We'll bet the Canadians would like Tesla's long-promised Model S electric sedan even more than the canvas-topped Roadster.
It's been a busy week for Tesla. On Monday, the company announced plans to open a regional sales-and-service center in Chicago this spring, the first of seven new centers it plans to launch this year.
(Note: Story edited to correct timing of Chicago opening. Original posting said store would open in early March.)
Tesla Motors says it will open a Midwest regional sales and service center in Chicago this spring, the first of seven new centers it plans to launch this year.
The company, which makes the battery-electric Tesla Roadster and plans to launch a $57,400 all-electric sedan -- the Model S -- opened its first retail centers in Los Angeles (right) and Menlo Park, California, last year.
In announcing the Tesla Chicago center, company chairman Elon Musk said the expansion plans show that "Tesla has no intention of being a niche automaker."
The Midwest store "will introduce the company to even more people...and position us to launch a more affordable sedan for mainstream drivers," he said.
Its application under the federal Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program
is being processed and, the company, says, has passed the first stage of the federal review (all the proper pages with all the proper information and signatures were submitted).
Next up, the fed's financial viability check.
If Tesla gets the loan, the money for the "S" (left) could start flowing in as early as this summer, Musk said in a recent posting on his blog.
Celebrity Exposure Can't Hurt; Tesla Motors Almost Got Former President Clinton Into One of Its Roadsters
Fisker Automotive says it will bring Karma plug-in to market by end of the year.
By Greg Johnson, Contributor
It takes an awful lot of time and money to build and polish a brand. Detroit's Big Three, for example, spent a combined $7.2 billion on advertising during 2008, according to Advertising Age.
So what does tiny Fisker Automotive expect from the short-lived, 60-second spot that began running on KTLA-TV during that station's pre-Oscar broadcast from the red carpet in front of the Kodak Theatre?
"It was primarily to build awareness," Fisker spokesman Russell Datz said of the suitably glitzy commercial that showed the car's sleek lines, emphasized its 0-to-60 in 6 seconds speed and its "eco chic" status.
Hello, Hollywood
"We think that the Karma will be popular with the Hollywood set, so what better way to be associated with those people than by advertising when a relatively large audience will be watching?"
The Karma is Fisker's upcoming $87,900 plug-in hybrid sport sedan. KTLA approached the Irvine-based company about advertising and then co-produced the TV ad that ran twice on Oscar night. The commercial will continue to run on KTLA through today during the station's morning show and late-night news broadcasts.
For those who can't get enough Tesla-related news, Darryl Siry, who recently resigned as the electric-car manufacturer's chief marketing officer and top spokesman, has become senior clean technologies analyst for Peppercom, a New York-based "strategic communications" firm.
Siry, who said he left Tesla Motors
because of a disagreement with top management
over the company's direction, will operate out of Peppercom's San Francisco office and, the corporate communications and public relations firm said, will play a key role in its business intelligence group and its "GreenPepper" corporate sustainability practice.
Peppercom's clean-tech clients include diversified manufacturing giant Honeywell, whose products include turbochargers for the auto industry, and Solazyme, a biotech firm working on, among other things, biodiesel from algae.
Siry's connections in the clean tech segment through his years at Tesla will help at a time such companies "are facing big challenges...to build reputation and differentiation in an evolving and highly competitive market," said Ann Barlow, president of Peppercom West Coast and director of the GreenPepper practice.
Company offering customers a 'pay now' discount on packs to be delivered in 2016; opening 6 new showrooms
Something we missed in Tesla CEO Elon Musk's newsletter the other day: He says that the laboriously hand-assembled lithium-ion battery pack in the Tesla Roadster would cost about $36,000 to replace today, but should last at least 100,000 miles, or about 7 years.
---------- Composite shows Tesla battery pack on a hand cart and location of battery pack in car (purple area). ----------
To save customers some bucks down the road (and perhaps make a little cash investing the principal), the company is selling what amounts to Tesla battery replacement futures. Pay $12,000 now, Musk wrote, and reserve a replacement battery for seven years from now (if your original lasts longer, there will be a pro-rated refund; if you need a new one sooner, you pay a little more).
You are betting that Tesla still be be around in 2016 (we sincerely hope that's the case) and that the cost of a battery pack for the roadster hasn't plummeted by then.
Tesla apparently is betting that automated battery production techniques will have improved, and raw material costs fallen, to the point that it can provide you a replacement pack then for $12K now and at least break even.
New Warranty, Showrooms
The company also is selling an extended warranty, for $5,000, that doubles the bumper-to-bumper (except battery pack) coverage to six years and 72,000 miles.
Musk also told subscribers to his newsletter that the company has signed leases for Tesla showrooms in Chicago and London's Knightsbridge district and is close to agreement on leases for showrooms in Manhattan, Miami, Seattle and Munich.
Tesla Motors, which said yesterday that it would show a working prototype of its proposed $60,000-plus Model S electric sedan next month apparently has decided to keep the buzz going with this teaser shot of the car.
The tactic is working, witness this posting. The photo first appeared early this morning on the Tesla Motors Club forum and now is making its way through the blogosphere.
From what we can see and surmise, the car will be a fastback or hatchback five-seater with a short nose and will share bits and pieces of its basic shape with a number of other exotics, especially the Aston Martin Rapide (right)
.
We expect a few more detail shots to leak out before the official unveiling on March 26, so stay tuned.
Tesla Motors Chairman and CEO Elon Musk says that the company will unveil a "street-drivable prototype" of its long-promised Model S battery-electric sedan on March 26, and that the company anticipates receiving federal loan funds this summer for development of the car.
In a Tesla newsletter circulated today, Musk says the Model S is intended to be "one of the most functional, intuitive and beautiful vehicles on the road."
One of the most fuel-efficient as well, given that it will use electricity instead of gasoline.
In what appears to be a bit of enthusiastic overstatement, Musk also says Tesla received word from the Department of Energy (DOE) last week that "they expect to disburse funds" from the company's $350-million loan application for the Model S program "within four to five months."
In a follow-up comment, a Tesla spokesman said the DOE hasn't actually told the electric vehicle maker that the funding has been approved, just that the application is in the latter stages of the approval process, with the DOE now doing its due diligence regarding Tesla's financial and technical viability.
So it's still far from certain that the money is coming.
On the technical side of the equation, the company has shown with the Tesla Roadster that it is capable of developing and producing a real automobile -- albeit one based on an existing car.
But now the Tesla team will have to persuade the feds that it can build a car from the ground up and, if the rules are adhered to, do it profitably. That's something not even the world's largest and oldest carmakers are having much luck with these days.
Proving financial viability may be an even bigger challenge.
Far as we know, Tesla isn't making a profit yet, although Musk insists in the newsletter that a recent $40 million private investment financing "provided twice the amount Tesla needed to reach profitability" by mid-summer.
That's at present levels of operation, though, with just roadster production and marketing to worry about.
As always, we wish Tesla all the best (and can't wait to see the Model S), but we're not going to be holding our breath while we wait for it all to come together.
Tesla Motors' hopes for a $400 million-plus headquarters, electric-car assembly and battery manufacturing complex in the heart of California's Silicon Valley seem to fading.
The company, which first floated the idea in September, when it thought it could raise the money though private investment, became dependent on federal low-cost loan guarantees when the global economy began melting down and venture funding evaporated.
"We abandoned venture capital and instead focused on ... federal loans," said Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad.
But after applying for a federal loan guarantee from the government's $25 billion auto industry green-tech fund, Tesla discovered that the ground rules gave preference to plans that would rehabilitate existing factories rather than to those, such as Tesla's, that called for new construction.
As a result, Konrad told Green Car Advisor, the company has notified the feds that it is quite willing to use the proceeds of federal loans to acquire and retrofit old computer chip facilities in the San Fransisco Bay area (which includes the Silicon Valley) and abandoned aerospace plants in Southern California.
UPDATE: Clarifies that deal is limited to battery packs and chargers; electric motors not included.
Tesla Motors announced today that it has agreed to sell 1,000 lithium-ion battery packs and chargers to Daimler AG for use in Smart EDs, the plug-in purely electric-powered version of the Smart ForTwo.
The nonexclusive supply agreement with the giant German automotive company could run into orders for tens of thousands of battery packs and chargers, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a speech at the Detroit Auto Show.
As we reported in August, Daimler AG, parent of Smart, Mercedes-Benz, Maybach and other automakers, had picked Tesla to provide batteries for a 150-car test fleet of Smart EDs (as in electric drives).
We also reported in August that Daimler planned to eventually expand the test fleet to 1,000 cars. It would appear the Tesla-Daimler deal is specific to those cars.
Tesla, located in San Carlos, California, began delivering its first model -- the Roadster, a $109,000 battery-powered sports car -- last year and is readying a less-expensive sedan in its efforts to become the first profitable maker of highway-capable electric vehicles.
Daimler, which began selling gasoline-powered Smart ForTwos in the United States last year, has announced plans to introduce the electric variant to America this year.
Tesla Motors today confirmed rumors that it has reached a deal with Daimler AG to sell its all-electric powertrain to the German automaker.
Company spokeswoman Rachel Konrad said Tesla CEO Elon Musk was conducting an interview this morning with the Bloomberg News service when he received a message on his Blackberry informing him that Daimler had approved his request to announce the deal during his keynote address later today at the Detroit auto show.
Tesla, the Silicon Valley maker of the only highway-capable electric vehicle currently sold in the United States, had previously reported that it has a positive cash flow selling the powertrain that it puts in its plug-in-electric, zero-emissions Roadster, but until now Tesla has not identified the buyer.
In addition to the Daimler deal, Konrad said "we're also trying to finalize deals with another major automaker." No word yet on which automaker that is.
Bloomberg reporter Alan Ohnsman has just filed a story that provides some of the details regarding the Tesla-Daimler deal that were not available to Konrad when we spoke with her.
While Konrad had specified electric drivetrain, the Bloomberg piece only mentions battery packs. Specifically, it states that Tesla will supply battery packs for plug-in versions of Daimler's Smart vehicles. We are seeking clarification.
The first order will be for 1,000 power packs this year and next, Bloomberg reported, and Daimler spokeswoman Julia Engelhardt confirmed the contract, without elaborating.
"Assuming it works out well and we meet our cost and performance targets, the expectation would be that this is something that would be sold in tens of thousands of units per year," Musk reportedly said. "It would be a mass market, affordable car."
Tesla began delivering its first automobiles -- its $109,000 Roadster -- last year and is readying a less-expensive sedan in its efforts to become the first profitable maker of electric vehicles.
Daimler, which produces cars and trucks under subsidiaries Maybach, Smart, Mercedes-Benz and other companies, launched U.S. sales of gasoline-powered Smart ForTwo cars in 2008 and plans to introduce an electric model this year.
Fox Business Network reported last June that Tesla had "inked a technology deal" with Daimler, citing an interview with Musk. The CEO was not forthcoming with specifics, and very soon after stopping discussing it. In retrospect, it appears Daimler had asked him to do so.
Tesla Motors began taking orders today for the Roadster Sport (pictured
), a high-performance sports car based on the all-electric, plug-in zero-emissions Roadster.
The Roadster Sport can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds, compared with 3.9 seconds for the standard Roadster, the automaker said. The Roadster Sport comes with a hand-wound stator -- the stationary part of an electric motor, the non-stationary part being the rotor -- that increases winding density to help eliminate resistance while increasing peak torque.
In addition to Yokohama's Ultra High Performance tires, the Roadster Sport has improved suspension with adjustable dampers and anti-roll bars that will be tuned to the driver's preference.
The Roadster Sport starts at $128,500, or $19,500 more than the $109,000 base price of a standard Roadster. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in late June.
Maybe it's just us, but $19,500 ($20,000+ with tax) seems like a lot of money to spend on a slight improvement in quickness and handling. With $20,000 a person could feed 200 hungry children for 12.5 years, according Feed the Children
.
The Roadster Sport is the first derivative of Tesla's proprietary, patented powertrain. San Carlos, California-based Tesla plans to begin producing the less-expensive, all-electric, zero-emissions Model S five-passenger sedan in 2011.
Tesla has delivered more than 150 Roadsters to customers since production began early last year, and about 1,100 people are on the waiting list. Customers who haven't taken delivery may upgrade to the Roadster Sport.
Last week Jeremy Clarkson, Britain's most famous auto reviewer, reviewed a Tesla Roadster.
---------- Clarkson and crew pushing Roadster after it supposedly ran out of electricity. ----------
His test drive was recorded on video and appeared on Britain's Top Gear Web site, which is owned by BBC Worldwide Ltd. The video also appeared on YouTube as well as many dozens of automotive Web sites and blogs.
Why? For one thing, because Clarkson has attained celebrity status in many circles, but moreover because he claimed -- and the video apparently showed -- that the much-publicized $109,000 battery-electric Roadster ran out of juice after only 55 miles and then broke down!
Shocking! Outrageous! And sure to generate maximum exposure for Clarkson.
Except the Roadster, which its U.S. manufacturer claims can go 220 miles on a charge, didn't run out of electricity and didn't break down. Those two salient bits of information were fabricated. As in made up. As in didn't really happen.
OK. So Clarkson would appear to be more interested in his popularity than, say, the truth. And he would appear not to care that his reviews have financial consequences -- for the people who make, invest in, own or have placed deposits on the cars he reviews.
So Clarkson's a bum, some might say, for the reasons just mentioned and for tarnishing the reputations of Top Gear and the BBC. Some might say, Big deal, like tabloid journalism wasn't born in England!
The fate of Tesla Motors' next generation all-electric sedan rests in the same pot of federal money lawmakers want to use to bail out General Motors and Chrysler.
The maker of the $109,000 Roadster electric sports car (right) is seeking $350 million in low-interest government loans to develop a $57,499 four-door plug-in electric sedan tentatively called the Model S, CEO Elon Musk told Bloomberg news service Tuesday. The company won't build a planned $250 million manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, for the new car without the aid, he said.
You may recall that on Nov. 21 we reported that the young Silicon Valley electric-vehicle maker had applied for about $400 million of a multi-billion government loan package designed to help automakers produce more efficient vehicles and meet new fuel economy standards.
And, you may recall that on Nov. 3 we reported that Tesla's directors had approved $40 million in convertible-debt financing to step up production of the Roadster and the Model S and to expand its battery-electric powertrain sales unit. We were told that most of Tesla's major investors had pledged a combined $40 million to ensure that amount would be met.
But according to Bloomberg, Musk said the recently completed $40 million debt offering "wasn't very easy."
Fisker Automotive, which has designed and plans to manufacture an exotic plug-in hybrid sport sedan, has been awarded $1.14 million in legal fees and costs from electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors.
Fisker, its principals and an associated company had been sued by Tesla
for allegedly stealing Tesla trade secrets and using them to design its plug-in, the Fisker Karma.
Fisker chief executive Henrik Fisker (right)
, a noted auto designer, had been retained by Tesla in 2006 and 2007 to design a $45,000 battery-electric sedan the company wants to build as a follow-up to its electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster.
The case went to binding arbitration after Tesla filed suit, and Fisker announced last month that the case had been decided in his company's favor, the arbitrator ruling in fairly harsh language that Tesla's allegations were "baseless and neither brought nor pursued in good faith."
Today he released details of the final award: Fisker and the others are to be reimbursed $1.027 million they paid in legal fees defending themselves, and $119,000 in other costs connected with the case.
In his ruling, the arbitrator found that Fisker had been aboveboard in disclosing his plans for a plug-in hybrid to Tesla and that Tesla renewed its contract with him when it knew he was hoping to find financing for such a car.
The suit was filed not because Tesla thought Fisker stole secrets, the arbitrator wrote, but out of anger that the company found financing for its Karma (right)
project despite Tesla's in-house analysis that the project would fail.
That analysis, by the way, was delivered to Tesla's executive board in September, 2007, according to the arbitration report, by Tesla's then-marketing vice president, Darryl Siry.
Siry resigned his position earlier this week over what he called a difference of opinion with company chairman Elon Musk regarding Tesla' strategic plans.
Fisker had no comment today on the final award, and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment but last month, when the verdict was initially announced, said that it disagreed with the decision
but was focused now on the business of producing and delivering Roadsters (left)
.
All we can say is that we wish both of them the best and that we've really seen the end of Tesla vs. Fisker. The world needs more clean car manufacturers, not fewer,and we need them working, not fighting.
Darryl Siry (right), Telsa Motors' senior vice president for sales and marketing, has tendered his resignation.
"I have resigned my position with Tesla Motors due to some disagreements in strategy," he wrote on his blog Monday. "I believe that in such a situation it's best for a senior executive to part ways with the company so as to not get in the way."
The move indicates that turmoil continues at the electric-vehicle maker, which includes the firing of co-founder Martin Eberhard and, most recently, the demotion of CEO Ze'ev Drori.
Company spokeswoman Rachel Konrad insisted that Siry left of his own accord. "He was not ousted or fired or anything like that."
Indeed, she said, "to be perfectly honest, he helped recruit (his replacement) Michael van der Sande," a 43-year-old former senior executive at Harley-Davidson credited for building the brand in Europe.
Van der Sande (left
) joined Harley-Davidson in 1996 and was most recently vice president and managing director for operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, overseeing more than 370 dealerships in nearly three dozen countries.
Prior to joining Harley-Davidson, van der Sande held various marketing and dealer development roles at Nissan Europe and Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars.
If Tesla's Roadster and Chrysler's Dodge EV Concept provide a glimpse of the future, sports cars made after the internal combustion engine exits production might outperform their predecessors.
At a glance, the Tesla and the Dodge could be variants of one another, the Roadster being the convertible version, the Dodge the hardtop. Both of the zero-emissions vehicles are based on Lotus platforms, the Tesla on the Elise and the Dodge on the Europa S.
Spinning the rear wheels of both cars are electric motors receiving power from lithium-ion battery packs. The battery pack in either car can be fully charged in less than four hours.
After that, the pair differ significantly. For starters, the Roadster is in production. As of today, 70 have been delivered to customers, according to Jeremy Snyder, general manager of Tesla's Los Angeles showroom.
The Silicon Valley company is completing final assembly of the vehicle at the rate of 10 a week, Snyder said. That rate will double in early 2009, he said, adding that more than 1,200 people have placed deposits on one. Recent recipients include George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Dodge may never enter production. Chrysler has made three EV concepts--an electric-powered Chrysler Town & Country van, Jeep Wrangler and the Dodge--and Chrysler insists that one of them will enter production in 2010. But the automaker isn't saying which one quite yet.
The Tesla was designed to be an electric vehicle from the ground up. Not so with any of the Chryslers.
The Roadster is based on the Elise platform, but the chassis is completely different, having had its exterior sheet metal replaced by a carbon-fiber composite and a styling that is unique to the Tesla. The chassis is built around a longer, stronger version of the Elise's aluminum frame.
Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like.
"A business model based on gas--a gas-guzzling past--is unacceptable," Democratic Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said last week. "We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car."
But the car company Schumer and other lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a "sustainable U.S. auto industry" that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create, so says The Washington Post in story published today.
That's because car manufacturers still haven't figured out how to produce hybrid and plug-in vehicles cheaply enough to make money on them. After a decade of relative success with its hybrid Prius, Toyota has sold about a million of the cars and is still widely believed by analysts to be losing money on each one sold. General Motors has touted plans for a plug-in hybrid vehicle called the Volt, but the costly battery will prevent it from turning a profit on the vehicle for several years, at least.
"In 10 years are they (at GM) going to solve the technological problems with respect to the Volt? Sure," Maryann Keller, an automotive analyst and author of a book on GM, told the Post. "But are they going to be able to stake their survival, which is really more of a now to five-year proposition, on it? I'd say they can't. They have to stake their future on Malibus, the Chevy Cruze, and much more conventional technologies."
U.S. automakers faced a barrage of demands last week that they provide evidence and assurance that they would use federal bailout money to transform their companies to produce automobiles of the future, using advanced technologies and featuring hybrid or plug-in vehicles. And in his "60 Minutes" interview on Nov. 16, Obama said that before backing a big loan package he wanted to be sure "that we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere."
It is an understood truth that important research and development departments and their engineers remain important by learning all they can from the successes and mistakes of their competitors.
The latest proof of that is the purchase of a zero-emissions Tesla Roadster electric vehicle by Porsche's scientists in Weissach, Germany.
A Tesla spokesperson told Edmunds.com's Inside Line, "A Porsche senior engineer actually came over a few weeks back, and he was seriously analyzing the car in every detail." The spokesperson said that Porsche will have to wait a little while to get a Tesla, as the automaker is "pretty far down on the list of current orders."
Separately, a German source has told Inside Line that Porsche is none too pleased with the recently tested eRuf (pictured), created by tuner Ruf and California expert Calmotors using a 997 911 Carrera chassis and body packed with lithium-ion units.
No one is detailing exactly why Porsche is unhappy with the car, but Porsche is known to be working on its own lithium-ion-powered prototype.
Tesla has revealed that the full first run of 250 planned European roadsters for 2009 will come loaded to the max with top-line leather, a premium audio package, painted carbon fiber and other expected high-end touches, all standard in the 99,000 euro ($124,000) base price.
Silicon Valley electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors has applied for about $400 million of a $25 billion government loan package designed to help automakers produce more efficient vehicles and meet new fuel economy standards.
Diarmuid O'Connell, Tesla's vice president of corporate development, disclosed the amount in an interview with peHUB on Wednesday.
According to O'Connell, Tesla would use the direct loans for two projects: a manufacturing operation to create advanced batteries not just for their cars but for a whole spate of large original equipment manufacturers, and to built the company's planned Model S mass-market sedan.
"The Roadster was meant to be a profitable car, sold to a niche market," he said, referring to Tesla's $109,000 battery-electric zero-emissions sports car (pictured). "But the whole proposition is to drive the cost curve down and the volume curve out with Model S, our own $30,000 car."
Until now, Tesla representatives have said they expect the Model S to sell for $60,000, with a large portion of the price used to pay for the expensive battery pack needed to power the car's electric motor. A third model that's years away from production was to be offered for $30,000.
Fueling Alternatives, California's alternative fuel vehicle rebate program, has added the 2009 Honda Civic GX compressed natural gas car to its list of vehicles
that are eligible for a $3,000 rebate under the state-funded program.
The 2009 model joins the 2007 and 2008 Civic GX, as well as the BAF conversions for the 2007 Ford Crown Victoria, Lincoln Town Car and Mercury Grand Marquis, as eligible for $3,000 rebates.
Eleven other models are eligible for smaller rebates and two models--the 2008 Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen-powered fuel-cell sedan and the all-electric 2008 Tesla Roadster--are eligible for $5,000 rebates.
Additionally, the 2009 Civic GX might qualify for a $4,000 federal new-energy tax credit. The 2005-2008 Civic GX models meet the Internal Revenue Service criteria for that tax credit, but the IRS has not yet extended the tax credit to the 2009 model.
The Civic GX is fueled by compressed natural gas for nearly zero emissions. It is fuel-economy rated for 24 miles per gallon equivalent in the city and 36 mpg equivalent on the highway by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The vehicle's suggested starting price is $25,090.
More information about the Civic GX can be found at Edmund's Inside Line Website, where Green Car Advisor Senior Editor John O'Dell has been reviewing a 2007 model on a regular basis for many months, and at Honda's Website for the U.S.
Fueling Alternatives is funded by the California Air Resources Board and administered by the California Center for Sustainable Energy. A total of $1.8 million was appropriated and directed toward vehicle incentive rebates to promote the use and production of alternative fuel vehicles.
Rebates of up to $5,000 are available for California residents who purchase or lease new eligible alternative-fuel vehicles between May 24, 2007, and March 31, 2009, or until funding runs out. For more information, go to Fueling Alternatives' Website.
Crashes are never happy occasions, but the recent Tesla Roadster wreck
in the south of France has given the company a unique opportunity to study the way the car (left)
and its components behaved in a nasty accident.
Company officials are clamming up about the Tesla crash as, word is, the passenger who was ejected form the car is making legal noises.
But we did manager to worm out of Tesla marketing VP Darryl Siry word that the torn-up electric car has been shipped from France to the Tesla assembly site at the Lotus factory in Hephel, England, where a team of engineers will carefully take it apart and examine how each and every piece fared.
In a phone interview from France Thursday, Siry also told Green Car Advisor that the crash was a one-car affair that occurred when the driver, a Tesla sales rep, lost control on a wet road and skidded into a high curb, which tripped the car and sent it shiny side down.
"You never want accidents to happen," Siry said, "but when they do you hope that the car performs as planned, and in this accident it did. The safety systems worked exactly as engineered."
Things that worked included the occupant safety systems - (although there's apparently going to be a dispute over whether and how badly the passenger was injured) - and electrical safety systems.
Automatic electrical shut-offs cut the high voltage power to avoid the dangers of electrocution and electrical fires, and the battery crash cage kept the lithium-ion battery pack from being damaged when the car rolled over, said Siry.
"Now that it happened," he said of the crash and the opportunity to examine the wrecked car, "we're excited to be able to dig into it. It will be a valuable tool."
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor Tesla Motors
has insisted from the start that its electric roadster, despite being packed with enough voltage to jump start Geo. W. Bush's political career (well, maybe not that
much, but a hefty 375 volts anyhow), is quite safe.
Now, with this Tesla crash, the company has proof.
A Tesla sales director was demonstrating one of the company's European-market roadsters to a prospective customer in the south of France on a wet day last week when he lost control and the car started hydroplaning at what a Tesla representative said was a speed of 62 miles an hour - that's 100 kph, not 100 mph as some are reporting, sad spokeswoman Rachel Konrad.
In the resulting crash, the car was torn apart and the poor passenger ejected.
Konrad confirmed to Green Car Advisor today that both the sales director (still a Tesla employee!) and his passenger escaped with relatively light injuries.
The Tesla, as these photos from the website Wrecked Exotics testify, wasn't so lucky.
But while the car was badly torn up, there were no chemical leaks, no electrical fires and no one was electrocuted. Konrad said she's still trying to get a police report to pin down particulars of the accident - what the car hit, for instance -- and promised to get back to us with an update.
Tesla Motors said today that its directors had approved $40 million in convertible-debt financing to step up production of its Roadster electric sports car (pictured) and Model S electric luxury sedan and to expand its battery-electric powertrain sales unit.
Last week, Tesla founder Elon Musk said the electric-car startup was moving to close a commitment exceeding $20 million from existing investors to bolster a cash balance that had dropped to $9 million.
The directors opened a roughly 30-day financing round during a meeting Sunday, company spokeswoman Rachel Konrad told Green Car Advisor today, adding that most of Tesla's major investors had pledged a combined $40 million to ensure that amount was met when the round closes.
In addition to the new financing round from investors, Tesla also expects to secure another $200 million in still-pending loans from the U.S. Department of Energy. Musk said last week that the investor financing would suffice until the DOE loans become available.
Collection of the pledged $40 million will take place after the financing round concludes at the end of this month or early December, Konrad said.
Tesla Motors' chief spokesman said the company disagrees with the findings of a private arbitrator
who ruled late last week that the electric vehicle manufacturer's theft of trade secrets suit against auto designer and potential Tesla competitor Henrik Fisker were "baseless."
"The only comment is [that] we disagree with the decision and are focused on producing and delivering cars to our customers," Tesla marketing vice president Darryl Siry said in an e-mail exchange this morning with Green Car Advisor.
Siry's comment appears to signal an end to Tesla's suit, which was handed over to a private arbitration service under terms of Tesla's contract with Fisker. The EV maker retained the designer last year to help design an electric sedan for Tesla
Tesla later filed a suit claiming that Fisker, his business partner and two Fisker companies had stolen technical secrets and used them to help design the Fisker Karma, a luxury sport sedan with a plug-in hybrid electric drive-train that Fisker Automotive plans to introduce in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Terms of the arbitration decision have not been disclosed.
Tesla -- which recently slowed production of its battery-electric Roadster and laid off almost 25 percent of its workforce because of a cash crunch -- was seeking return of $800,000 paid to Fisker for his design services and now, at the least, is likely to be ordered to pay all of the legal costs incurred by Fisker in defending against the suit.
Acclaimed car designer Henrik Fisker (right)
said Sunday that a private arbiter has dismissed electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors Co.'s claim that Fisker, his partner and his companies stole its technology and tried to sabotage its development program.
Tesla earlier this year sued the designer and his business partner, Bernhard Koehler, and the companies Fisker Coachbuild and Fisker Automotive over alleged theft of trade secrets.
The arbitrator's ruling, according to a statement issued by Fisker, called Tesla's suit "baseless" and said it was not filed in good faith.
The case was not being heard in a regular court but had been sent to arbitration under a contractual agreement that called for any disputes to be resolved via the private hearing process.
Tesla, based in Northern California near Stanford University, is the manufacturer of the battery-electric Tesla Roadster and had hired Henrik Fisker, former head designer in the U.S. for BMW and Aston Martin, to help it with a second vehicle, an electric sedan code-named the Model S.
After parting company with Tesla late last year, Fisker -- whose Fisker Coachbuild specializes in redesigning and fabricating reskinned versions of mass-market luxury performance cars for well-to-do clients -- announced that he was preparing to introduce an all-new plug-in electric hybrid sedan.
Has it been a story that was, indeed, too good to be true?
Tesla Motors, the pioneering electric roadster maker that recently survived a rough road potholed with financial and management turmoil
, appears to have suffered substantial damage in a collision with the global economic mess.
The full extent won't be known for months, but the early outcome of the crash is ugly, with layoffs and downsizing in the works and yet another top management change already accomplished.
The privately held company's chairman and top financier, Silicon Valley multi-millionaire Elon Musk, said Wednesday that he has taken over the role of chief executive officer, bouncing recently-hired CEO Ze'ev Drori into the job of vice chairman and member of the board.
In a posting on the Tesla blog
, Musk - who last year fired Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard
in what was widely seen as a contest of egos - said in his posting that Tesla still is not generating positive cash flow and predicted that it will take six to nine months under an austerity regime to achieve that goal.
Musk said that for the duration of what he called "extraordinary times" that have impacted businesses everywhere, Tesla will focus on its two revenue-producing lines -sales of its battery-electric powertrain products to other companies and sales of its $109,000 Roadster to anyone who can still afford it after assessing the damage a collapsing market has done to their stock portfolios.
Work on a much-hyped "Model S" electric luxury sedan will be slowed until cash flow improves, he said.
The speedmeisters at German tuning haus RUF
are developing a plug-in electric version of the Porsche Cayman, and Americans may see it as soon as next month.
So says a German-language article in Auto Motor und Sport. According to the magazine, the car will feature a 150-kilowatt motor producing 201 horsepower and 479 pound feet of torque. Its lithium-ion battery will have a range of 155-186 miles.
RUF claims the car will have a top speed of 125 miles per hour. There's no word on what the electric Cayman will look like, but it's a safe bet RUF will base it on the 3400 K (pictured). That super-Cayman produces 400 horsepower and 324 pound feet of torque and does 0 to 62 mph in 4.4 seconds.
By comparison, the plug-in electric Tesla Roadster reaches 60 mph from a standstill in 3.9 seconds. The Roadster costs $109,000. There's no word yet on what the RUF EV will sell for.
Tesla Motors
, which recently abandoned plans for a factory in New Mexico after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offered the electric vehicle maker a hefty incentive package to settle in his state, has picked a 90-acre location in the heart of Silicon Valley for its new factory and headquarters campus.
The site, in the City of San Jose, will keep the company -- now headquartered in nearby San Carlos -- close to where its engineers and top executives live.
The San Jose Mercury News
, which broke the story
this morning, quoted San Jose's mayor as saying Tesla hadn't even been looking at his city until he and other officials put together a proposal and took it to the automaker.
Tesla has just begun production of its first car is its two-seat electric roadster (above)
. The company plans to add a four-door family sedan to its lineup after it completes its new factory -- as early as late 2010.
To lure Tesla, San Jose officials offered a 40-year lease on the city-owned property and said they'd provide the first 10 years rent-free, the Mercury News
reported.
Tesla will pay $1.5 million in annual rent during the second 10 years of the lease, and will see its rent increase 2 percent a year for the final two decades.
The city also would seek ways, once tax revenue from the factory starts flowing in, to rebate the fees the company will pay to develop the property.
To lure Tesla away from its New Mexico plan, the governor's office struck a deal in which the state will purchase up to $100 million in factory equipment for the company, then lease it to Tesla in an arrangement that will save the company about $8 million in sales taxes.
California also will provide Tesla up to $1 million in state job-training funds.
The new auto assembly plant and headquarters complex is expected to provide more than 1,000 jobs to the city -- an annual payroll in excess of $100 million.
Tesla plans to pay for the plant from proceeds of a $150 million loan guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy plus $100 million it plans to raise in a new round of funding.
News crews focus on Tesla owner Simon Hackett after he and bearded co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas piloted red Tesla Roaster 313 miles through Australian outback on a single charge.
UPDATE: 
