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The Guardian, last Thursday:
New manufacturer Tesla Motors, based in the technology hot spot of Silicon Valley rather than the automotive heartlands of America’s midwest, is hoping to launch its first electric sports car early this year.
Maybe not. Tesla’s roadster - a kind of eco-engineered Lotus Elise - is beset with development problems (“the first production models will come with an ‘interim’ transmission that will get you from zero to 60 in 5.7 seconds instead of the originally touted sub-4 seconds”) and the company itself is in turmoil:
A few weeks ago, we asked Tesla Motors whether a pending departure of one employee we had heard about was part of a wave of layoffs at the company.
No, said Daryl Siry, vice president of marketing. It was an issue involving a particular individual.
It turns out that that more terminations were going on behind the scenes. Ousted Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard writes in his blog that 26 employees, including some vice presidents, have recently been cut from the company. That’s about 10 percent of the company.
Tesla’s corporate vision statement:
Historically, it seemed to us that electric cars had been designed by people who thought we really shouldn‘t be driving at all - but if we must, we should suffer every minute of it. Electric cars have had terrible range and embarrassing styling. To those who say electric cars have been tried and failed we say, of course electric cars won‘t catch on if no one actually wants to drive them.
They’re even less likely to catch on if nobody builds them.
To those who say electric cars have been tried and failed we say, of course electric cars won‘t catch on if no one actually wants to drive them.
Oh no, my friends, people want to drive them. The problem is that those same people don’t like the capitalist system, so they’re not likely to have enough money to pay for them. But if they write a letter to Kev in Canberra, he might give them a free one if they’ve been really good this year.
The name Tesla is not generally associated with vehicles, and is hardly known at all in the general public. Those who knew of Tesla assumed Tesla Motors made electric motors for electronics hobbyists, and not a serious motor vehicle. Focus groups tested by Tesla Motors thought that Tesla Vehicle Motors was too long a name. The new CEO is looking to shorten the company name to Testicle Motors.
diggs—they should call it Tesla Vehicle Vehicle Assembly: TVA, a name you can trust with electricity!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 01 13 at 01:46 PM • permalinkIf the Tesla worked, it would be great - it’s certainly a step up from the Pious and other horrible hybrid/eco cars. I think Global Warming is a crock, but anything that helps the Middle East become irrelevant is good in my book. Our new Overlord Rudd should commission a study (he’s good at that) as to where the best location in Australia would be for a nuclear power plant - then build it. Repeat. Then invite Tesla here. If we can all zip around in 4 second electric race cars - it might highlight to the more backward areas of the world the advantages of living in a stable Capitalist Western Democracy.
10 & 12. I agree totally. I’ve wanted an effective electric car since I was a teenager. It absolutely shits me to think of how much I spend on petrol every year and where the bulk of that money goes.
Build me a car that works and a nice big juicy nuclear power plant to recharge it and f*ck the oil merchants I say.#1; We’re talking quickness on the on ramp, not top speed through the desert. Quickness is good when you’ve got a guy like me in my Freightliner who hates slowing down for cars that merge onto the freeway at 40mph.
Posted by dean martin on 2008 01 14 at 03:44 AM • permalink#1, Sonetka’s Mom
In order to sell the Tesla Roadster will have to have the performance specs of vehicles in the same price range.
The price of a 2008 model, if and when produced, will be around $100,000.
For comparsion, the relatively pedestrian 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 achieves 0-60 Mph in a scant 3.7 secs for the price of $70,000US.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2008 01 14 at 10:54 AM • permalinkThis is not a story Tim should be snarking about. If these guys can come up with an electric car that goes from 0 to 60 (I’m assuming mph here) in under 6 seconds, I’d buy the thing.
We should continue to be against government mandated energy controls, but market driven ones are GREAT! We’re all for saving energy ($) if it doesn’t force us to change our way of life, aren’t we?
For my part of ‘we’, the answer is ‘definitely’.
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``...the first production models will come with an ‘interim’ transmission that will get you from zero to 60 in 5.7 seconds instead of the originally touted sub-4 seconds”)
Is this a problem? Seriously? Can someone more knowledgable about cars than I am kindly explain what the big deal is about going from 0 to 60 in less time than it takes to draw a deep breath and let it out again? Where would this even be practicable outside of the Mojave Desert?