Tesla Roadster to Make First Road Trip

The Tesla Roadster hits the highway later this month for the electric sports car's first public road trip, a 200-mile journey from San Francisco through the Sierras to Lake Tahoe.

Sure, it's a publicity stunt but one designed to demolish the perception that electric cars are short-range put-put mobiles more suited to suburban cul-de-sacs than the open road. As the Silicon Valley startup gears up for production of the zero-to-60-in-four super car this fall, it will use the final prototype of the Roadster for the August 29 road trip. The Global Hyatt hotel chain is sponsoring the event and the Roadster will stop at Hyatts in Sacramento and Incline Village, Nevada, on Lake Tahoe. Hyatt is considering installing charging stations at some properties - Tesla in May won a $561,000 grant from the state of California to develop charging stations that can be deployed at hotels. While this is the first public road trip for the Roadster, Tesla has put the $98,000 car through its paces during long-distance testing, says Tesla public relations director David Vespremi.

The test car is a "fusion red" prototype that screams sex and speed. Vespremi - like other Tesla employees, he's a gearhead - backs the Roadster out of the garage at Tesla's Silicon Valley headquarters and turns onto a busy thoroughfare. We cruise at about 40 mph for a bit and then he punches the accelerator and the car shoots forward into the traffic. I’m pushed back into my leather seat, subconsciously bracing for impact as we silently rocket straight toward a tractor trailer ahead. David flicks the steering wheel and the car effortlessly swings around the truck and heads toward the entrance ramp to the 101. It’s rush hour and the metering lights are on. He hits the accelerator and we rocket up the ramp at 90 miles an hour, gliding around the traffic as we merge onto the freeway. The drive back to San Francisco in the Zipcar Prius is anti-climatic, to say the least.
(C)GW

Tesla all-electric Roadster to hit road by year end

Late transmission change delayed launch, but CEO says $100,000 car will ship this fall.

Tesla Motors' all-electric Roadster sports car will start rolling out to nearly 600 buyers lined up for the $100,000 vehicle by October or November, after a slight delay, the company's chief said on Tuesday.

"We will definitely ship in that time frame," CEO and co-founder Martin Eberhard told Reuters at a meeting of the Motor Press Guild, noting that the company had originally expected to begin deliveries during the summer.

The shapely two-seaters are being assembled by Lotus Engineering in England, with motors manufactured by Tesla in Taiwan and battery packs made in Thailand with 6,831 individual lithium ion cells from Japan.

A late change in the transmission vendor "was a big thing for us to do in the program, very painful, and one of the things that has driven us into a little later this year release of the car," Eberhard said.

The Silicon Valley-based Tesla has pre-sold 570 cars to the likes of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for his wife Maria Shriver, and actor George Clooney. The company will make 1,000 2008 model year cars.

The Roadster, which has a base price of $98,000, can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 4 seconds and has a range of more than 200 miles on a single charge on a household plug.

Investors beckoning
Eberhard and co-founder Marc Tarpenning launched Tesla in 2003 with the idea of making a high-performance electric vehicle and then branching out to more affordable cars later on.

Since then, Tesla has secured $105 million in funding, with PayPal founder and space industrialist Elon Musk leading the way and venture capital firms joining in recent funding rounds.

With delivery of the car approaching, Eberhard said: "We have a lot more interest in investing in this company recently."

Eberhard said that if they just limited production to the Roadster, Tesla would be making a profit in 2008.

"But Tesla's intention has always been to grow to be a full-fledged car company as quickly as we can do that," he said.

"We are taking everything we earn from the Roadster and everything we have raised from outside sources to build the next model car."

The next car will be the White Star, a five-passenger sedan with a price point of $50,000 to $65,000, to be manufactured in New Mexico.

"We are in the very early stages of it," said Eberhard, noting that he "would not place any bets" on a target of a 2010 model year.

That same year, General Motors Corp is supposed to launch the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric vehicle with a small combustion "range extender" engine.

GM is shooting for a popular price, over $20,000, with a battery that costs around $3,000.

Tesla wants to keep moving down the chain to a more affordable car and could end up competing with the Volt. But Eberhard said he is skeptical GM's second attempt for an electric car will come to fruition, at least at that price point, mostly because of battery challenges.

"If I sell 10,000 White Stars, it will be a screaming success for me," he said. "But 10,000 Chevys sold would be a disaster."

Tesla plans to open two stores, in Los Angeles and in Menlo Park in Northern California, and will expand later to the U.S. East Coast and Midwest.
(C)CNN