Tesla's 'Bluestar' to be all-electric family car

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Tesla Motors has received many accolades for producing an all-electric luxury sports car. But its long-term plans may hold its most challenging task: making a mass-market electric car.

The company intends to make a "family car" that it hopes will lead to the sale of millions of all-electric vehicles, JB Straubel, Tesla's chief technology officer, said Wednesday. He spoke earlier on a panel on "green transportation" at the EmTech 2008 conference here.

Tesla Roadster

(Credit: Tesla Motors)

Code-named Bluestar, the car has been part of Tesla's plans for a few years. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk earlier this month was quoted as saying that the goal is to produce a car priced in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, possibly in partnership with other automakers.

Next out of Tesla's factories will be the Model S, a luxury sports sedan with a price tag of about $60,000 due out at the end of 2010.

From the same technology base, Tesla intends to develop a series of vehicles including a minivan, coupe, and light pick-up truck which could be used in fleets, Straubel said.

Technology from that Model S line may also make its way into the follow-on Bluestar line, he said.

"It could use the same or similar architecture, and we may partner with an existing OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to leverage their scale," Straubel said. "(But) lower cost is the target."

The goal is to be able to produce hundreds of thousands of these cars per year, he said. Leveraging existing technologies, such as its battery pack and powertrain, would help speed development.

"With Bluestar, we're looking at cost and lowering the overall expense to the user. If it's not cost-competitive (with oil), you are going to have a hard time scaling to a high level," Straubel said.

China and other fast-growing economies could be good markets for the Bluestar, he said.

Straubel said Tesla welcomes more electric car variants to the market, such as the Chevy Volt and Chrysler's recently announced line. The introduction of these cars and the release of the Tesla Roadster have helped changed the image of electric vehicles as "golf carts."

But he said that Tesla's all-electric technology, as opposed to a plug-in hybrid with a battery and internal combustion engine, gives it certain advantages.

The smaller battery in plug-in hybrids translates into more charging cycles, which means that they will need to be replaced sooner.

"You lower the wear and tear as you make batteries bigger. Also, you're pushing the envelope with bigger batteries and taking a bigger technology leap," he said.

Straubel said there are different motivations for interest in electric cars but energy security--a desire to reduce imported oil--seems to be the biggest driver, ahead of environmental concerns.

"Our goal is to change the transportation energy mix. To do that, you need a meaningful volume of cars," he said. "A family car is one market that means scale."

[jlfelder]

It is going to be very hard for Tesla to build up to the economies of scale that folks like Chrysler already have. And don't forget Chrysler has the capability for cost effective low volume production demonstrated in cars like the Prowler and Viper. They don't need to make 100,000 a year to be profitable like GM seems to need. Chrysler would appear to the Tesla's biggest threat of the traditional companies, not GM dispite the fact the GM is the one going at the same 5-passenger sedan target the Whitestar and Bluestar seem to be targeting. The Chrysler all-electric eV sports car is all the evidence needed to see that Chrysler has Tesla square in the headlights.

Do hope that Tesla pushes through. I hate to see the folks that got the ball really rolling to not be there at that party to celebrate when it all finally pays off.

[sjmanikt]

I'm all for the little guy, too. I wish Musk et al luck, because they truly were the impetus to get this particular ball rolling. Now it seems every major car manufacturer is jumping onto the electric / plug-in hybrid "we should make efficient cars!" bandwagon. This, despite years of evidence that Americans would gladly pay for them, even if it was a net loss (at the $1.xx / gallon gasoline prices that prevailed for much of this decade) to operate them compared to pure ICE-powered cars.

[KrunkAttack]

Wow... I didn't really expect to see "Tesla" and "family" in the same sentence after I saw their first concept car.

[NiraliSherni]

An EV costing about 20 to 30 K is something people can actually afford to consider. Tesla's offerings so far have been out of reach of most people.

[icemage06]

Well, I personally think all these hybrid cars that companies are coming out with are silly. I really hope Tesla gets the ball rolling with their fully electric vehicles. They don't use gas and have less parts to break than hybrids.

[mmgwhite]

How can people forget that the electricity to drive an electric car must come from a carbon based electrical plant for the most part in this country. Certainly not effective in reducing CO2.
Now on the other hand if we would just do nuclear power across the country these cars indeed would be quite cheap to run and greenest of green.
Think about it. Write your congress person. Annoy a liberal. Go nuclear.

[Scott Gardener]

I'm coming to believe that Tesla Motors holds the key to the future of the American auto industry. They're rising fast even as the Big Three, at least two of them, are spiraling to their death. Chrysler is the least likely to survive, since their late arrival to the green scene follows an era of putting Hemi engines in minivans. Tesla seems to be the front-runner of the alternate fuel start-ups, and everyone else (i.e. Fisker, Aptera, and a host of more obscure guys) are being compared to them. They're asking the government for help, but they're also saying that they can get by without them. Chrysler and GM by comparison are, like the drunken abuser being hauled away in handcuffs, moaning to his battered spouse, begging for just one more chance. Tesla got the Roadster from concept to production in five years, starting with nothing but an idea, while General Motors, huge behemoth they are in terms of scale, got the Chevy Volt from nothing to vaporware in about the same time length. GM and Detroit thinking was dogmatic, "do you know how much an electric car would cost?" Tesla took that and answered with a car worth paying that much, with the profits going towards developing a cheaper one. Screw the auto industry bail-out; the feds should give the so many billion instead to Tesla.


As for the nuclear issue; I do agree that the source of electricity is of paramount importance. But, even if one is still drawing power from contemporary crappy sources like coal, your CO2 emissions per mile are much lower due to the overall better efficiency of energy conversion. Replacing coal and oil with nuclear energy only improves the picture substantially. Most ecology-minded people today are backers of nuclear; this isn't the eighties any more. And, you can stop throwing around the word "liberal" as if it were a bad thing; the Rush Limbaugh days are pretty much over.