Simon Hacket and Emilis Prelgauskas at their 313-mile mark in Coober Pedy, South Australia.
(Credit: Hackett)A record for a Tesla Roadster driven on a single charge was set at 313 miles (501 km) in Australia on Tuesday.
Tesla Roadster owner Simon Hackett and his friend Emilis Prelgauskas drove his electric sports car from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, to Coober Pedy, South Australia, as part of an alternative-fuel vehicle rally called the Global Green Challenge.
The Tesla's electric-charge port door was sealed shut at the start of the 313-mile journey and the trip was filmed for a documentary, as well as monitored by contest officials. The Tesla's lithium ion battery, which the company assures owners will last over 200 miles between charges under normal driving circumstances, had 3 miles to spare when the team reached its destination in Coober Pedy, according to Hackett's chronicles of the race experience on his company blog. (Hackett happens to also be the founder and managing director of Internode, an Australian national broadband and Internet services company.)
Hackett said in his blog the achievement is actually a record for any production electric car, not just a Tesla Roadster, which is why his team was so careful to record it. To squeeze as much distance out of the Tesla's battery as they could, Hackett and Prelgauskas tried to drive at a consistent speed of 55 kph (roughly 34 mph) for a large portion of the almost 12-hour journey.
"The security seal was applied to the charge port door when we started the journey. As this is being done as part of the Global Green Challenge, we have a full set of official verifiers here who will attest to the results and to achieving the outcome. We were followed along the journey by our support crew and a documentary film crew--so we have it on film," said Hackett.
While Tesla Motors is not an official sponsor of the contest or Hackett, the company has shown support by spreading the news of Hackett's success. It's not hard to imagine why as Tesla poises for a major retail expansion.
The stunt may certainly speak to consumers who likely drive nowhere near 313 miles in a single day, but are still reluctant to hem themselves in with a car restricted to a limited number of miles between recharges.
Tesla Motors in Los Angeles, Calif.
(Credit: Tesla Motors)Tesla Motors has garnered $82.5 million in "Series F" funding for the purpose of expanding its chain of stores in North America and Europe.
The deal was first announced Monday by participating investor Fjord Capital Partners. Tesla Motors then confirmed the deal to several news outlets on Tuesday. Daimler, already a 10 percent investor in Tesla, and Abu Dhabi fund Aabar Investments also contributed to the fund.
The California-based electric-vehicle manufacturer has had stores in Los Angeles and Menlo Park, Calif., for some time. It recently opened stores in New York, Chicago, Miami, London, Seattle, and Munich. It has plans to open a store in Monaco before the end of the year, and has said it's scouting for locations in Washington, D.C., and Toronto.
But don't call them dealerships.
Because the electric cars are light on service work, and don't need things like oil changes, Tesla plans to forgo the traditional dealership/service business model of yesteryear's car industry. Instead the company plans to maintain full retail control over its cars and brand, Tesla announced in early September.
Tesla Motors in Menlo Park, Calif.
(Credit: Tesla Motors)"Tesla takes its showroom cues from Apple, Starbucks and other customer-focused retailers. Tesla stores provide a welcoming spot to surf the Web, test drive cars and learn more about Tesla, the only production automaker selling highway-capable EVs in North America or Europe," Tesla said in statement.
News of the latest funding deal also follows the unveiling of Tesla's production model of the Model S sedan, as well as a tuner version of its Roadster, at the 2009 Frankfurt auto show this week.
The prototype of the Model S was unveiled in March as a way to augment Tesla's lineup with a more "economical" option to its Roadster luxury sports car. The Model S is expected to cost around $50,000--about half the cost of the Roadster.
The Tesla Roadster.
(Credit: Tesla Motors)If you love Paris and the environment, and you have a boatload of money, this could be your dream home.
A real-estate company called Welcome in France is offering a free Tesla Roadster with every purchase of one of its homes in a new ecological luxury-housing development on the outskirts of Paris, according to a report.
The development will use solar panels, geothermal energy, and its own water treatment facility, among other things, French car blog Le Blog Auto reported, but it's still under construction, and buyer interest has been slow due to the economy.
The Tesla is a new enticement to get ecologically minded (and presumably wealthy) people interested.
But with a helipad and golf course included in the development, it's hard to judge just how environmentally friendly the exclusive 40-home development could actually be.
(Credit:
Tesla Motors)
Tesla Motors has begun offering its Roadster electric vehicle for the Canadian highway, the company announced Wednesday.
Tesla said in a statement that driving a Tesla Roadster in Canada can be thought of as even more kind to the environment than in other places since the bulk of the country's electricity is generated from renewable resources.
"An EV recharged from the current Canadian grid, on average, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 85 percent compared to an equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle. In hydro-dominant British Columbia, Quebec, and Manitoba, the reduction would be an impressive 98 percent," said the Tesla statement.
Unfortunately for Canadians, they'll still have to travel to the U.S. if they want a showroom experience.
While Tesla plans to open in Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, as of now, delivery for Canadian Roadster orders will come out of its Seattle and New York offices.
The slight inconvenience will have no effect on compliance with Canadian safety regulations. The Tesla Roadster made for Canada will comply with all Canadian regulations for highway vehicles, according to the company.
Given how currencies have been fluctuating so drastically this last year, you may be wondering how it will be priced. Tesla is very conservative on this answer.
"The base price for Roadsters in Canada will be set closer to the start of deliveries, and pricing will reflect exchange rates at that time. In the United States, the base price is $109,000," said a company statement on the matter.
For a company who was written off by many as dead, Tesla has had positive news in recent weeks. In February, the company announced that the Department of Energy had been granted permission to issue Tesla loans in the millions to help it build a new plant in San Jose, Calif. The new Tesla Sedan is also set to be unveiled on March 26.
You may have heard about the the 6,831 lithium ion batteries that power the all-electric Tesla Roadster. But what about the user interface from the driver's seat?
It turns out that the Roadster has a small touch screen to control battery charging. It provides people with the temperatures of different subsystems, and it gives a read of how the batteries' charge translates into range and performance.
It also lets people schedule the charging for late at night, when rates can be lower because demand on the power grid is lower--a very handy feature.
CNET News sister publication Crave U.K. talked to a Tesla representative at the British International Motor show last week for a demo. The Roadster, which just started shipping in the United States, is scheduled to come to the United Kingdom in May 2009.
The fact that both California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom have added their names to the Tesla Roadster waiting list shows a serious Golden State commitment to the green technology behind the $100,000 sports car. On Monday, the company returned some of the love by announcing that it would be building its sedan manufacturing plant somewhere in Northern California. According to CNET Car Tech Senior Editor Wayne Cunningham, whom I spoke with in the Daily Debrief, this move is a win for both the company and the state.
Tesla Motors is currently headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area and, logistically, it just makes sense to keep its manufacturing close by (versus New Mexico, which was originally listed as a plant location). For the state, this decision will provide more green-tech jobs and reiterates its position as a green-tech leader. California has some of the most ambitious emissions legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020. Tesla doesn't plan on rolling out the second-generation cars until 2010, but in the state's eyes, the move to keep the plant local is a significant step in the right direction.
Tesla Motors is an innovator in electric cars--and it's got a lot of lawsuits, too.
Earth2Tech has dug up a lawsuit filed by Magna on February 22, 2008 that alleges that the car company failed to pay Magna for transmission work it accomplished. The suit, filed in the Superior Court of San Mateo County, seeks $5.6 million in damages.
The Tesla Courtster
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET Networks)This should be an interesting one to watch. Magna no doubt will try to bring a lot of details to light behind the delays that Tesla faced in bringing its Tesla Roadster to market. Tesla, for its part, will also likely highlight the problems it had with Magna's transmissions. Transmission problems were at the heart of the lawsuit.
Ultimately, Tesla swapped transmission suppliers and is working on one of its own. The company also replaced its CEO.
News of the suit follows on the heels of a suit filed by Tesla against Fisker Automotive. Tesla claims that Hendrik Fisker, founder of the eponymous auto company, unlawfully took trade secrets and other intellectual property while performing some design work for Tesla.
The engineers at Tesla Motors have designed a new single-speed transmission for its sports car that will let it hit the promised zero to 60 mph in four seconds.
The transmission won't come out on the first Tesla Roadsters coming off the line, the company said in a press release. Those early production cars will have a two-speed transmission that will only let the car get to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds. Problems with the transmission were part of the reason the company delayed the cars from the middle of last year until now. Some modifications to the engine will be necessary to accommodate the transmission.
So when will the first Tesla Roadsters hit the street? Soon. Chairman Elon Musk gets his next week, said the company. Production of the Tesla Roadster is set to begin March 17, it added. However, the company didn't give exact delivery dates. Considering that the company sells the car directly, there may not be a huge delay.
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