Tesla rolls out its long-awaited electric sports car

Tesla rolls out its long-awaited electric sports car

www.sacbee.com

After nearly two years of development, the Tesla roadster, with the sleek lines of a high-end Ferrari or Porsche, and carrying a sticker price of $109,000,
The car, meanwhile, goes from 0 to 60 mph in just under four seconds and tops out at a speed of 125 mph. It gets 225 miles to a charge and can be fully recharged in 3 1/2 hours, Because it's powered by a 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack, though, it has no emissions.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.teslamotors.com

I believe that this has been in the works for years, and yet it's the back page of the local rag. Any thoughts on these actually hitting the road?

www.sacbee.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

You have got to be kidding me. After all of the environmentalists have complained on this site, after all of those who complained that they were "hiding" the technology, this is the response I get to an actual news-worthy story. You can do better ATS. I actually want a response. (unlike all of my threads, in all my existence)

P.S. this is the thread beating mine in the science thread.questionwww.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 2-5-2008 by jasonjnelson]

reply to post by jasonjnelson


In the works? They had this technology years ago.

I'm confused by your question. 800 of these cars have already been produced and sold. Now they have a dealership, and plans to build a passenger sedan.

Originally posted by Sublime620
reply to post by jasonjnelson

 

In the works? They had this technology years ago.

To be precise.. more like 100 years ago

And it was still way over priced back then too.

Waverley Electric Car 1910

first i dont mean to sound harsh but because you dont get instant flood of replys is no reason to get upset. second the problem with this is the same problem with hybrids, affordability. sure no paying for gas is a big bonus but the down fall of this is its a 100 thousand dollar car most people cant afford a 30 or 40 thousand dollar vehicle. so i dont see many people enviromentaly minded or other wise flocking to buy a car thats almost 4 times the avereage yearly sallary for a upper middle class person. also this technology isent new there are patents for extended range electric vehicles going back at least 30 years so while its nice to see them finaly being marketed and all it doesent exactly get me in a uproar. and the fact its named after tesla the master of electricity seems a covert slap in the face when you consider all he went through and how hes basicly ignored by history for all his many break throughs. and yet his name is bandied about on a luxury sports car alonge side of names like porshe, ferrarie and the beemer.

[edit on 5/2/2008 by krill]

My Frustration is merely a product of one too many threads, titled "sex with a clone" and "Bigfoot molests man" (wait, um, I did that)

Back to the topic, I totally agree about the cost and things, but let me illustrate a point.

When I was 16, there was a sports car that cost one million dollars. This is in 1995, mind you. The big draw? A reverse camera, for backing up. Now? Pretty much every toyota, and every mid priced sedan and SUV has one. This is just ten years later. ANY advance that science makes has the HUGE potential to be used by everyone, just at a more affordable rate.


Edit, because to can have too few O's

[edit on 2-5-2008 by jasonjnelson]

PBS just had a NOVA show about cars of the future not too long ago and the Tesla car was featured on it... i think it's one kick-ass car; i would love to have one...

here are the clips from the show:

Tesla Motors (2:25)
www.pbs.org...
Work being done on prototypes at the Tesla Motors headquarters in Silicon Valley, California

Tesla Test Drive (2:35)
www.pbs.org...
Martin Eberhard, cofounder of Tesla Motors, drives the Tesla Roadster on scenic California roads.

Tesla Drives By (0:48)
www.pbs.org...
A Tesla Roadster speeds by a fixed camera on the side of the road.

reply to post by m3rlz

Yeah, I'm very curious to look under the hood. Because of my job, I should see one soon.

I'm just curious about the output compared to the other electric cars and their limited ability to perform. Anyone here beat me to it? Look under the hood yet.

No emissions? What about the electricity production used to power the cars? What about the emissions caused when making the batteries? I'm sorry but these cars are simply shifting the emissions onto the power stations and other areas. They are doing little for the enviroment.

Thumbs down for me i'm afraid, when they get them to work on solar power, then we'll have something to talk about, oh but of course most people aren't aware of the amazing waste produced in the tradional cells.

Oh well back to that drawing board.

I personally take offense to the name. Tesla did do an electric car once. He requested that a brand new in production car be provided. (the make and model escapes my memory here). That the stock engine be removed and replaced with an AC motor that produced 100HP at 1800 RPM be installed and that the wire leads to the motor be long enough to reach the front seat. After his inspection to see that his orders had been followed he went to a local electronic shop and purchaced a few items including 12 vacuum tubes. These he placed in a small 12x18 inch box and hooked it up to the wire leads. Pushed in two rods and said "We have power."

It was said that the car could do 80-90 MPH and had no other power source than the box. After two weeks of simple people saying it was magic of some kind he removed the box and left. No one knows how the electronics were configured inside the box and to my knowledge there is no mention of this experiment in his notes and journals that are publicly viewable.

Anything less, just isn't worthy of the name Tesla in my opinion. Let alone a car powered by nearly 7000 laptop batteries that only has a range of 225 miles with a $100K pricetag. Heck my single laptop battery puts out 19.5V...although I doubt it would meet the power requirements of my pickup for more than 15 minutes since it dies under the strain of the wireless card in less than 30 minutes.

If the economy was what it was a year ago I would buy one but now cant afford one hopefully the come through with their word and make some affordable ones in the future.

Originally posted by Ahabstar
I personally take offense to the name. Tesla did do an electric car once. He requested that a brand new in production car be provided. (the make and model escapes my memory here). That the stock engine be removed and replaced with an AC motor that produced 100HP at 1800 RPM be installed and that the wire leads to the motor be long enough to reach the front seat. After his inspection to see that his orders had been followed he went to a local electronic shop and purchaced a few items including 12 vacuum tubes. These he placed in a small 12x18 inch box and hooked it up to the wire leads. Pushed in two rods and said "We have power."

I would be interested in any links you could provide for that story.

The fact that it mentions AC is a little perplexing as far as I am aware you cannot provide a linear speed control to an AC motor, there could of course be other components involved, I suppose a gearbox would be a get around but without more details I am little hesitant to believe the concept.

reply to post by sherpa



here is one link

Googling tesla pierce arrow brings up quite a few more...and in rereading the story, some of my details were not precise, like the dimentions of the box and maximum HP (80 HP) but pretty close for first reading about it years ago.


As for exactly how he did it, beats me. Tesla was way ahead of us in many ways. As for myself, I have been mulling over how to extend range by recharging the battery bank in route without adding significant load to the motor and thus additional drain to the battery. But then again, that is a DC motor for the speed control and using a transmission to ease the load and temperature for higher speeds. I think I have hit upon a very good idea...now to work on a model to test it out....money of course being the object as always it seems.

[edit on 2-5-2008 by Ahabstar]

reply to post by Ahabstar


Thatas some pretty neat stuff....
I agree that calling a supercar a Tesla, invokes the idea that it is self contained power. None of this electricity that comes from wasteful and polluting sources.

Originally posted by Ahabstar
reply to post by sherpa

here is one link


Thanks for that Ahabstar, it is indeed an interesting story, pity there was no more details on the transmission train.

I guess this dovetails into the "power form the ether" account that Tesla came up with and JP Morgan the financier was not interested in because you could not put a meter on it.

Why can't we find that technology now I wonder, has it really been suppresed so effectively ?


[edit on 2-5-2008 by sherpa]

Where to start?

Oh yeah the price for one. Sorry but that is way out of my price range, I am more in the range of a car that cost less than a quarter the price of that. I would have to put this car on like a thirty plus year loan in order to ever hope to be able to pay it off. The only people with the money to spend on a car like this are going to want a lot more out of a “sports” car, see my next point to understand this.

Second the top speed thing though not really an issue is less than many four cylinder economy cars on the market today that can get 300 – 400 miles on a 10.5 gallon tank (at least my car can depending on the driving conditions). A tank that can be filled in minutes to say the least.

Also as stated above this is doing little to help emissions considering that the battery is produced. This does nothing but put emissions elsewhere.

No the key should be to find a fuel source that can be used and burned with clean emotions or none at all. Even better make it to where the cars we drive now could be converted over to the same fuel usage with little or no cut into current performance. Then you could have some really nice sports cars and be doing nothing to harm the environment.

But technically unless we find another means of transportation we are still harming the environment. The tires have to be produced, as well as the body of the car, and any lubricants they might have in the car. Not only is producing them harmful but what happens when the cars are no longer in use? Say they get totaled, well then they sit in a salvage yard or go to scrap metal. Either way they car continues to pollute the Earth.

Raist

Maybe this will prevent us from going to war in the middle east anymore like McCain has just admitted..
www.abovetopsecret.com...#

reply to post by Raist


Hey, I would agree with you, except that a clean burning hybrid produces less waste than the batteries in this thing. The only way I could imagine a clean burning electrical car would be one that only uses the fuel from a underwater turbine that generates the plant. And then on top of that, they need a solution for the battery problem that exists, with the majority of current components being hazardous.