Tesla debuts zippier Roadster Sport

For all you well-heeled auto fanatics, there is good news: Tesla Motors has made a faster car.

The luxury electric carmaker on Sunday lifted the curtain on the Tesla Roadster Sport at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Tesla said it has begun taking orders for the $128,500 sportscar, which will be available in late June.

The Roadster Sport has a bit more zip off the line than the original rocket-like Roadster, Tesla's first electric car favored by tech tycoons and Hollywood types.

The Roadster Sport: this Roadster goes to 11.

(Credit: Tesla Motors)

The Sport accelerates from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds, leaving the original $109,000 Roadster (zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds) a few steps behind.

The Roadster Sport is notable for another reason than performance: the powertrain in the car will be the same used in the Model S, a four-door electric luxury sedan Tesla intends to start making in 2011.

Also at the auto show, Tesla Motors rival Fisker Automotive is expected to unveil the production version of the Fisker Karma, a plug-in hybrid luxury sedan expected to be available by the end of this year.

Fisker Automotive on Monday is also planning on show off a new concept car, reportedly called the Sunset.

[8301]

If I didn't know better I'd say this country has a future in the automobile industry after all.

[quaglax]

Cool....an electric car (which the US needs now more than ever) that no one can afford! YAH!!!

[ecartman0]

$128,500 is more than my first house, so I should care why? Cars for the masses would impress me, something repairable reliable and cheap, I doubt this model offers any of these traits.

[tipoo_]

they need to start with high revenue cars like this so they can put the profits towards cheaper car development.

[solitare_pax]

Why does the mindless media follow this Tesla outfit around, when ZAP! Electric cars are around and a fraction of the price of the Tesla Roadster. Granted, they are not as sexy, and most look a little odd, but at least they are closer to a manageable price for the average consumer. I saw their truck recently in person - Small, but it looked like it had potential for doing local deliveries, or hauling small loads.

[mike_ekim]

Agreed. They made a car that is a bit faster and a lot more expensive then the last Tesla. Typical American car company.

Sadly, this car uses the drivetrain intended to be in the 2011 'luxury' sedan, which indicates that the sedan's price tag will be 'luxury', indeed!

[willdryden]

Zap is a POS and barely better than an NEV. Tesla is a real highway capable car. Yes, the price is high. It has to be if they want to use lithium batteries.

[websterphreaky]

Tesla is essentially Bankrupt and is one the many begging for a BAILOUT. Why? because the plurality (that's 30% larger than a majority) of Americans DON'T WANT THESE CARS!

Wake up stupid people ... where the hell do you think the Electricity to charge plug in vehicles is going to come from?? Heaven?? Free??

Obummer wants to KILL THE COAL POWERED ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY! (43% of ALL US Suppy - http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/ipp/ipp_sum.html). Obummer and his LIBERAL FRIENDS Don't want Nuclear!!, They Don't want to drill for more oil!! So how will you charge your friken Electric Cars, huh??

And just wait till you get you home electricity bill, especially went rates go up (which the DEMOCRATS WANT!)

Quite being STUPID SHEEPLE Americans!! And, the World!

[Zeeshan47]

Are you dumb or just stupid? A plurality is the forerunner in a 3+ way distribution. In a 40-30-30 split, the 40% wins plurality. Last time I checked, 40% is far less than 81%(51 constitutes a majority, and the 30 is out of your own imagination). That's just the most apparent example. Do you have any sources to back up any of the ridiculous numbers besides the coal one?

Oh and just to let you know, coal is inferior. I apologize if you're from West Virginia, but coal provides no advantages besides price at this point, and when a supply is used up to economic depletion(which coal and oil are inching towards everyday), it gets far more expensive, and let's not forget how expensive it'll be to find something new when that day comes.

Electric cars are inherently far more efficient than internal combustion engines. Even with the losses due to production and transport, electricity walks all over gasoline's behind. Lets take one of your quotes, "where the hell do you think the Electricity to charge plug in vehicles is going to come from??" and reverse that. Where the hell do you think the coal and oil to generate electricity and run cars is going to come from?

Oh and please stop insulting Mr. Obama. I am a proud republican and was just as disappointed as the next guy when McCain lost, but being a sore loser about it does not help anyone. He's with us for at least the next 4 years, so just make the best of it. It's people like you who propagate the stereotype that Republicans are bumbling ignorant idiots.

[assman]

Since when does Obama not support nuclear power? Coal is the dirtiest way to generate electricity so yes I would much rather have nuclear.

Besides, here in LIBERAL (!!!) Washington State, over 90% of our power is produced by clean and renewable hydroelectric dams. Are we allowed to drive electric cars now?

[Speiler9]

Despite shouting your point of view you are still making no impression whatsoever on me, in fact you just go to show you also have no idea what you are talking about. Taking electricity from the grid at least gives the option of producing it in a sustainable way, unlike gasoline.

[Melekai]

How to charge your electric cars? This sould be a good start.
http://www.snl.com/interactivex/article.aspx?CdId=A-8787333-10591

[subslug]

Maybe if the government offered up something to companies like Tesla who are actually trying to make a difference instead of using money to bailout failing corporations with dead end technology then the cost of these things could get within reason.

Just like with any technology though, at first only the wealthy could afford it. In time prices come down.

[lkrupp]

It's all about battery technology, which ain't there yet. Even the Chevy Volt is expected to cost around $40,000.00 including a $9000.00 battery pack that will have to be changed at some point. The TCO of these gadgets will be stupendous. And we will see these things sitting on the side of the road out of charge because the owners didn't [ay attention. Unless and until some revolutionary new energy source or battery technology is found electric cars for the masses are decades away.

The other matter that some poster brought up is the infrastructure needed to repair and charge these cars. Do you really think any employer is going to let their employees plug into corporate electric outlets to charge their vehicles during work hours? Free? Not on your life. There will be meters on every charging outlet and it won't be cheap. And has anyone done the math yet to determine how much more coal will have to be burned to produce the additional electricity needed to charge these vehicles? Or nuclear plants? What's the difference in greenhouse gas production between burning gasoline in individual engines versus producing the energy in power plants? And how about energy efficiency and transfer? Have the engineers and scientists calculated all this yet?

But electric cars have been deemed politically correct and so they are the darlings of the media.

[Speiler9]

ikrupp - you underestimate humanity's abilities - have you noticed the amount of infrastructure that we have created to get oil, refine oil, transport oil? Or the amount of energy we expend building weaponry? If there is the will to build a better future, we can make it happen.

[mrwater]

To give a brief answer to your questions, yes, someone with the technical smarts (among others, Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute, rmi.org) has analyzed these things to the point where they should be considered basic energy literacy. Electric motors and batteries work far more efficiently than internal combustion engines, to the point where we'd be better off using gasoline to generate electricity for cars than burning it in the cars themselves. Power plants have excess capacity at night, which would be an ideal time for charging at home. The Electric Power Research Institute says we can handle it.

As an employer, I can tell you that allowing employees to charge their cars for free would not be out of the question at all. Consider health insurance, for example, which is a far greater expense. From what I've heard, I'm now able to get a tax credit for paying my employees to use a bicycle.

I'm less clear about total cost of ownership for battery-powered cars using current technology. That cost can of course be manipulated through government policies, much as we make gasoline "cheap" by spending trillions of dollars controlling the Middle East oil supply. From what I understand, battery (or perhaps super-capacitor) technology needs to advance considerably, along with better efficiency in our transportation system as a whole.

[serraguard]

Ikrupp - I just thought I point your attention to some new "battery" technology on the horizon. There is a company in Cedar Park, TX who is producing a new type of ultracapacitor that may make these storage problems moot. Our ability to produce electricity has never been the problem, which makes it a uniquely superior solution to the gasoline problem than other combustion sources. Furthermore, with the development of the electric car will be the further investment in alternative energies such as solar power which will eventually supplant the coal industry and reduce our uses of carbon to the making of plastics and for lubrication.

This is not about political correctness but AMERICAN innovation bringing us out of the worst fiscal crisis our country has seen in decades.

[HeavyJim]

You want nuclear? Can we bury the waste in your yard?

[matthewbulat]

Powering an electric vehicle has lots of choices unlike oil. These choices can change over time from coal, nuclear, gas to wind, solar thermal, geothermal. Solar thermal can be used on existing coal thermal generation plants. Battery technology such as Ultra Capacitors will come in soon. These would allow quick charging and very high recharge cycles. Charging cars can be done at home using off peak power which little impact on the distribution grid. To find out how much you could save using an electric car I have created a calculator http://www.matthewb.id.au/media/Electric_Vehicle_Calculator.html It would show the cost of running a petrol car is much more expensive than electric.

[expatincebu]

I am NOT impressed. Where is the Henry Ford of electric cars? Where is cheap, simple, and versatile.

Why the sheep get excited of a millionaires play toy that they can NEVER afford is beyond me.

[MacHeads]

To ikurupp first and foremost the range of a Tesla is what 240 miles i mean you have to live FAR away from work to charge the car.. As to the burning of coal , sorry but where i live nuclear is the way to go for electricity as well as wind turbines . We have a field and several on site . Power train is ok for 100 000 miles battery being the same . As far as the electricity goes , Tesla's production a year is about 500 cars, a drop in a puddle of electricity compared to an ocean of oil. As far as the Volt myth goes let me put things straight . 1) An underpowered engine , 2) 40 miles on electricity , can we say "Lame" here ???, 3) i expect a much higher carbon footprint per watt on the volt than for previous vehicles unless it runs on ethanol and then again i don't think hybrids are a good alternative.

The zap is a good effort but first its limited range and appeal make it more of a novelty than the telsa.

As far as repairs go i would compare the telsa in TCO to the SLK55 AMG and i guess the numbers would quickly come down fast as the production scales up. Both roadsters share similar characteritics. Handling is of course very different from one to the other. I fortunately live in a country where electricity is mandated to be distributed everywhere it is available to electric vehicles that request it. It is an old law passed along as the national car producer introduced his first EV he first made for the needs of the national electricity company , the vehicles failed to come to market because of the battery technology used at the time , length of recharge time . If we are speaking of these "prototypes" the myths all apply here , we have come a long way from there now.

From an efficiency perspective a coal operated plant has a better efficiency per watt than a gasoline engine. There are filter processes involved that your car cannot even begin to dream of the reduce production of greenhouse gasses and particles. The filters however have to be monitored and checked.

Now i see you are a technical person asking energy transferance, a gas powered engine transfers at best 30 percent of the generated power to the wheels. An electric car is about 75 percent and tesla is striving to achieve 85 percent that gap is simply explained by the limitations of regenerative breaking.

What is new about the tesla and the game changer is the powertrain , the use of regenerative breaking and an efficient software for power management. Plus when dealing with an electric engine RPM limit (redline) is about 18K the roadster is about 15K rpm a more reliable over time number.

If you want to change something about the oil dependency problem you have to start somewhere , and Tesla is just that , the beginning , i would rather worry about the other car companies that failed or killed time and again their electric car projects since 1973 , the first OPEC crisis than about Tesla. In Europe for example the two main car manufacturers in France have been using the same chassis type for the last what 20 years and they wonder why they don't sell cars anymore ? The type of engines they have been shipping are too weak to live with particle filters that they should have equipped their models with since what 1998 for their whole diesel line of products (over 70 percent of all vehicles sold).,

We see the results today as kids and toddles get asthma in HUGE proportions but no one wants to validate the link between the two jumping at every kind of pretext to avoid a politcly sensitive conclusion. The asthma rate of the younger portion of the population is similar to what it was for children living in the vicinity of coal mines , of course detection of the condition now is much better than what it was in the early 20th century but still the proportion and the increase of cases since diesel has become commonplace. when you look up the triggers for asthma you see all the by-products of a diesel engine.

When a civilization is doing this to the youngest part of its population it sure is circling down the drain F ... Fast. If we want to change how people after us will look onto us we have to change if there would be anyone left at all.

[HeavyJim]

It amazes me how people twist the facts. Asthma is more prevalent in urban areas than others. In the vicinity of coal mines? I guess you have to make up facts to support your thinking.

[MacHeads]

Unfortunately i dont have to twist the facts ... look at the numbers progressions in the EU among the population slot going from 1 to 16 .. .This is not something i am proud to be right about .

[lwongveros]

I don't think Electric Cars are the way to go, at least not yet. They have the following disadvantages:

1. low range (around 200-250km or miles) per charge
2. the recharge time is highly inconvenient (13-15 hours I beleve?)
3. all those batteries means the car is VERY heavy which affects handling and is highly inefficient as a portion of that electricity will have to go into getting the inertia of the car moving as well as braking
4. environmental: imagine millions of electric cars on the road - when the electric batteries are spent and require changing, are they recyclable?
5. environmental: so where do we think electricity comes from when we recharge the car?! Usually fossil fuels again... the evil circle continues...

I think hydrogen cell cars are going to be much more realistic, longer range, requires a 3 min recharge at a standard "gas" station, hydrogen is abundantly available in our atmosphere, no heavier than a gas powered car, the only emissions is water....

[mrwater]

1. We could be a lot more creative and flexible in our vehicle use. Why not own a small, short-range vehicle for your daily use (90 percent or more of the time) and make other arrangements for longer trips?
2. I'd wager the majority of cars are sitting around idle for over 20 hours a day at least.
3. Batteries are heavy, but cars could easily be lighter overall through design and use of lightweight materials. Also, have you heard of regenerative breaking?
4. I'll leave this to someone more knowledgeable than me.
5. See my reply to Ikrupp above. Electric cars would use fossil power more efficiently, and the emissions from a power plant would be easier to control than those from millions of cars.

Hydrogen is not abundant as a pure, ready-to-burn gas. Think of it as an energy storage method. It requires energy to make it into a "burnable" form; because of inevitably imperfect efficiency, it requires more energy than it releases. It may have a key role in the future, but that's not at all clear.

[MacHeads]

1) Range is effectively more in the 300 kms numbers.
2) Recharge time depends on amperage so on a very basic wall outlet you are dealing with 12 15 hours charge. If you come to buy one of these it is very easy to get better amperage.
3) Lol .. .the tesla is only a ton ... not much more thats about half of what some sports vehicle weight.
4) The batteries are cared and recycled by Tesla;
5) Nope you can go nuclear and/or wind which is is available where i live.

Hydrogen is far from effective as a energetic carrier. Not to say for the infrastructure to make it available to your closest location. The tesla is aimed at short range to mid range transportation not Long hauls and thats 90 percent of use time. I consider it more as a second car than a main vehicle.

[willdryden]

lwongveros

You are wrong. Electric has been the way to go for the past 10 years and the car companies have ignored it.

1. 100 mile range is all that is needed for a "city car" Most families have 2 cars anyway.
2. recharge times are more like 4 to 8 hours depending on voltage (240V = 4 hours, 120V = 8 hours)
3. You remove almost as much weight in gas tank, gas engine, cooling system, and exhaust system as you add in batteries.
4. Yes. NiMH and lithium batteries are almost 100% recyclable.
5. People who use electric cars spend the money they save on not buying gas to add PV to their house. This also cuts their house electric bill..

Hydrogen cars take 15 to 20 minutes to fill depending on tank size and preasure. Hydrogen fool cell cars are too expensive ($500,000 for the fuel cell stack alone VS the $109,000 for the whole Tesla) Hydrogen in NOT abundantly available in the atmosphere. Almost 90% of the technical grade hydrogen required for fool cells comes from reforming natural gas. Do you really want water dripping on the road in front of you when it is 20 degrees outside?

In case you are interested, hydrogen fuel cell cars have to have batteries too because of the lag from the time hydrogen is introduced into the cell and when the electricity is produced.

[cancercomesfromoil]

Tesla has let America down. They need to go away now and let the others take the lead:

Cheating:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/21/profile-of-paypal-an.html

Battery Deal:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/08/16/some-complete-speculation-on-the-daimler-tesla-deal/

Lawsuits:
http://valleywag.gawker.com/380125/tesla-finds-the-electric-car-business-is-a-litigious-one

Cancer:
http://www.saxton.org/tom_saxton/2009/01/tesla-price-increase.html

Bad karma from the start:
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/tesla-s-musk-calls-cofounder-the-worst-individual-i-ve-ever-worked-with-

More problems:
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/more-sparks-from-tesla/

http://greenfuelsforecast.com/ArticleDetails.php?articleID=683

http://erith1.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/tesla-single-handedly-sets-back-the-electric-vehicle-industry-by-10-years/

Pissing off the customers:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/tesla-to-angry-customers-its-all-about-us/