If you live in California, and you see a funny-looking Dodge Magnum,
it may be a test mule for Tesla Motors’ Model S/Whitestar model. The Whitestar is an electric sports sedan that should be out within the next few years.
After confirming yesterday the future sedan, today there are rumors saying that Tesla will supply Mercedes’ future electric cars with lithium ion batteries.
It seems that Tesla is much farther ahead in the development of long-lasting and durable lithium ion batteries than Mercedes is, which is why they opted to purchasing the batteries, instead of making them.
Mercedes will launch its first electric cars in 2010. One will be based on the A-Class and one will come from Smart.
Tesla announced today that the future electric sedan will be built at Bay Area. Sales will begin in two years.
The sedan, know internally as the Model S will the firm’s second-generation automobile, it is expected to cost about $60,000 and will go into production by late 2010, company officials say.
State officials said companies like Tesla are essential in helping to meet California’s ambitious goal under the landmark legislation AB32, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020.
"We believe that electric vehicles will play a big role in helping California succeed in implementing its landmark climate change laws," Dresslar said.
2007 Tesla Roadster
tesla roadster
Tesla is ready to reveal its plans for a brand new hybrid sedan planned for production at a new plant in Bay Area, California, no sooner than 2010. Tesla’s management preferred California to New Mexico for the new plant as there are more obviously advantages such as sales tax exemption on the purchase of manufacturing equipment and grants for training its new employees.
The new model nick named Model S will be a plug- in hybrid vehicle completed with a compact internal combustion engine. The sole drive system will feature a high powered electric motor running on the batteries, which are supposed to be of lithium- ion type. The price for this model is expected to be around $60,000. It’ s design is similar to rival niche automaker Fisker Automotive. Tesla officially claims that the rival has stolen the original designs to develop its own Karma plug- in hybrid.
Fisker is in trouble! Tesla sued them! Why? Simple: for stealing design ideas. Last year Tesla hired Henrik Fisker, a Danish-born designer who is known for his work on high-end exotic sports cars, to do the body design for a four-seat sedan, code-named White Star.
The Tesla lawsuit contends that Mr. Fisker and his chief operating officer, Bernhard Koehler, doing business under the name Fisker Coachbuild, fraudulently agreed to take on Tesla’s $875,000 design contract to gain access to confidential design information and trade secrets, then announced a competing vehicle. Last fall Mr. Fisker founded Fisker Automotive, which is backed by the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Both the planned Tesla sedan and Mr. Fisker’s recently announced Karma are meant to be hybrid cars using a small gas engine to power a generator that charges a battery, which in turn powers an electric motor. The design, known as a serial hybrid, is thought to greatly extend the range and efficiency of hybrid vehicles.
The Tesla lawsuit states that before doing the design work for Tesla, Mr. Fisker had no experience with hybrid technology. It says that he did substandard work for Tesla, essentially sabotaging it, and then used the revenue from the design contract to develop his company’s car.
tesla roadster
Tesla CEO Ze’ev Drori announced that the Tesla Roadster will hit the European showrooms in Fall 2009. According to Mr. Drori the car, which will be priced under €100,000, will be a big hit especially due to the tax benefits for zero-emissions cars.
The main targets for the car will be countries such as Germany, France, Norway, Denmark and Netherlands. You may wonder why these countries were chosen first, right? It is because all of them are building a recharging network for supporting electric cars. In Denmark for example, the network is built in order to suport the electric cars made by Renault. However, the car will not be available in the United Kingdom because the manufacturer builds for the moment only left-hand-drive cars.
>> read 
Tesla Motors announced it began regular production of its 2008 Tesla Roadster all-electric sports car.
First unveiled as a prototype on July 19th, 2006, the revolutionary Tesla Roadster generated an extraordinary response from people everywhere who were inspired by the vision that beautiful, high performance cars could generate zero-emissions and burn no oil.
Less than 2 years later, this vision has become a reality as Tesla Motors begins production of this breakthrough electric vehicle. The 2008 model year is sold out and Tesla is currently taking reservations for the 2009 model year Tesla Roadster. To date, over 900 Tesla Roadsters have been reserved in total.
Through the course of development of the Roadster, Tesla Motors has established a leadership position in EV technology which it plans to extend over the next years, leading to the introduction of its next model, a five passenger sports sedan, in 2010.
Congratulation to Tesla delivering its first production model to the auto maker’s headquarters in San Carlos, California. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk called “the first production electric car on the road since God knows when,” Mr Musk got another reason to celebrate as this first Tesla is his own considering he was the first one to place an order for the new Roadster sport car. GM you better hurry is you want to be able to call your Volt the second production electric car ’since god knows when’.
2007 Tesla Roadster Picture Gallery
AutoBlog Green got the chance to get behind the wheel of the future Tesla Roadster. The test drive was made between San Carlos and the Pacific Ocean. They tested the VP10 (Validation Prototype 10), a prototype version that has the XTrac two speed gear-box with first gear locked out allowing it to simulate the behavior that can be expected from the single-speed units that will be used for early production cars starting March 17.
The Roadster develops a peak torque of 200lb-ft from 0 rpm to about 6,000rpm. The two-speed transmission that had been planned would have provided additional torque multiplication in low gear to help achieve the four-second 0-60mph time, with second gear allowing the car to run up 125mph. Without the lower gear, the car takes about 5.7seconds to break the 60mph barrier.
The Conclusion of their test: the Tesla Roadster is a really fast sports car that had no emissions. It’s not for everyone, even among the relatively few who can afford it. But for those who can and want it, it’s a fine choice. It’s even usable for running around town.
>> read Pages: 
Post a comment
Picture Gallery
RSS -
Webmaster free news |
Linux System Management