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On February 1, 2008 Tesla Motors handed over the keys of the first production Roadster (P1) to Elon Musk, Chairman and now a proud Roadster owner. What has life been like behind the wheel of P1? Find out from Elon himself.
It has been a blast driving my Tesla Roadster every day for the past several weeks, using it as my daily driver from Bel Air to Hawthorne. I really think this is the most fun car I’ve ever owned, beating out the McLaren F1 and my 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo.
Car & Driver assessed the Roadster as having the best 30 to 70 mph acceleration of any car they tested in 2007 (and possibly ever), and that’s where I really notice the difference. While the 3.9 second 0 to 60 mph time is great, the passing response on the highway is mind-blowing and effortless. No need to think about downshifting and getting your rpm into the torque sweet spot — you’re always in the torque sweet spot with an electric car.
Something else I notice is that the 3.9 second 0 to 60 mph time of the Roadster actually understates its performance relative to a gasoline car with the same quoted time. The reason is that there is no clutch engagement delay with the Roadster, because there is no clutch. I did some side by side acceleration tests with a friend of mine that has a Corvette, supposedly with a similar 0 to 60 mph time as the Roadster, and it was no contest.
Another great thing about having no clutch, plus having traction control that prevents an acceleration spin out, is that you can achieve max acceleration every time with ease. Try to do that on a Viper or a Porsche Carrera GT and you’ll burn out your clutch within a week and destroy your rear tires.
Handling also seems excellent, although I haven’t pushed that too hard.
As far as criticisms, my biggest concern is that I don’t think our seats are comfortable enough. I’ve asked the engineering team to work on an upgrade right away. It will be provided at no cost to any customers that receive the existing seat design before the upgrade is ready. The back curvature and side support need to be improved. We are also looking at offering custom tailored seats, matched to each customer’s height, width, leg length, etc., as an optional upgrade.
Reaction from driving the car around Los Angeles has been great. It’s thumbs up wherever I go – something that never happens when I’m driving the Porsche. A big advantage of the Roadster is that I can show up to an event like Global Green or Conservation International in a hot sports car and actually get a better reaction than if I drove a Prius! The Roadster has twice the energy efficiency of that gas hog. 
Posted in the categories: Company, On the road
The plug/pump-to-wheel efficiency of the Roadster is at least twice that of a Prius. Full-cycle, well-to-wheel (WTW) efficiency is another matter. Presumably, Mr. Musk recharges P1 using a photovoltaic array installed by Solar City and actually extends P1’s petroleum equivalent efficiency nearly to infinity. For average USA grid generation, however, efficiencies well-to-plug are only about 30% and the Roadster’s WTW efficiency when fed that electricity falls to around the same as a Prius. The lesson? Use green electricity to recharge your Roadster!
Thanks for the update! This is really exciting. I think you are leading the way to help America get off its oil addiction as it applies to vehicles.
Very cool! Are you allowed to use the HOV lanes?
I find this amazing. I own speedy Ferrari, Audi, and Mercedes automobiles. I can’t wait to experience the Tesla. We have a tremendous petroleum deficit currently. I am committed to assisting Tesla to overcoming this unnecessary deficit. I congratulate Tesla in this monumental effort to displace outside and government control of our methods of transportation.
I’m not sure it is understood how important it has been (in my view) that Elon is personally committed to–and perhaps most notably is financially behind this endeavour of birthing TM. It had factored into my own willingness to part with vast sums (in own my pocketbook’s terms), since i felt he’d BOTH be willing and able to spend what it takes, and to go beyond more straight-laced-cost-benefit that’s killed so many EV ideas before. When the 2-speed transmission #1 proved a non-starter, it was Elon’s ability to make each early buyer whole (out of his own pocket in essence, i think) that allowed development of tranny 1.5 (which sounds vastly better) and the fast development time. There was not even a question at that point of it forcing Tesla under: I am not convinced that a typical funding source would have been so ‘understanding’. My point is that having a real ‘car guy’ who also has wherewithall to bring an EV car through painful years of birthing–and who gets it too that the whole point is to ultimately ramp EV numbers on the road and as fast as possible–is probably good fortune of the stars being aligned! The net result is that more aggressive folks today at Big Iron (such as Bob Lutz at GM) have been nicely incentivized to try to catch up too on EVs, moving much forward … it is a case of positive leverage, imo.
Rob Wilder
As others have said, it is definitely awesome that you as a chairman and financier are a car guy like so many of the people that want this car. Even the idea of you getting the seat remade and replaced on the upcoming cars is amazing! That is what all car companies should do. A real car guy should be the head of all car companies, not just someone who is a good leader. Maybe Jay Leno could replace a leader of the big three?
Thanks for the update Elon!
Elon: As far as criticisms, my biggest concern is that I don’t think our seats are comfortable enough. I’ve asked the engineering team to work on an upgrade right away…
When ever will this man be satisfied? I sure hope, never
Bring on P2!
Very cool
Great idea to make custom tailored seats 
Mark, it looks to me like Elon is already using well-to-wheel efficiency, and that the Roadster is still over twice as efficient as the Prius. If you restrict it to plug/pump-to-wheel, then the Roadster is about 3.2 times as efficient. See here: www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php
I do note that they are assuming 100% natural gas generation, which is a good deal more efficient than say a traditional coal plant. But even if we took your low-ball number of 30% well-to-station (which is about right for the least efficient old-school coal plants still running in the U.S., but significantly lower than the overall grid, and only about half the efficiency of new IGCC coal plants), it would still be about 20% more efficient than the Prius. And it doesn’t use gasoline, which is an extremely costly way to get your joules…not to mention the political/economic liability.
Still, sure, charging from green sources is even better.
The 110 Wh/km figure used on Tesla’s Well-to-Wheel page is quite dated. Tesla’s most recently reported lab testing result of 221 miles using the 53kWh of energy stored in the ESS yields 149Wh/km battery-to-wheel. The plug-to-battery charging efficiency measured in VP1 has also gone down from the originally reported 86% to a measured ~70% due to parasitic loads such as thermal management for the ESS. Adding in charging losses, the measured plug-to-wheel efficiency comes to ~209 Wh/km.
The 30% efficiency number for electrical generation in the USA comes from the US Dept. of Energy circa 2000. Hopefully the revision to Tesla Motor’s 21st Century Electric Car white paper will cite a more up to date source for US generation efficiency as many new, far more efficient CCGT plants have come online recently.
Great video! Thanks for the update and candid comments.
My sports car is a humble 240Z, purchased from craig’s list. Oh! but that I could afford the roadster; much less have an F1 to drive as a comparison. My only hope for a BEV is the third generation Tesla…hurry up and get it in the showroom. Until then I’ll have to wait. $30,000 I can afford on payments, $100,000 takes me out of the running along with many others.
How long does it take to recharge this beast, in a best-case scenario of an optimal recharge facility, or in what one could reasonably expect to find on the road anywhere?
Elon - Thanks so much for your thoughts on driving the car over the last few weeks, this is just the kind of blog I was hoping for. It’s amazing that the car could accelerate so much faster than the Vette and use zero petroleum doing it.
Congratulations Elon and keep up the good work guys!
Topher , it takes about 20 seconds to recharge: 10 seconds to plug it in when you get home at night, and another 10 seconds to unplug it in the morning.
The time for the actual charging process isn’t important if you’re sleeping at the time, just like a cell phone.
Great Post Elon!!
Thanks for sharing.
One thing to think about is that different people have different tastes in seats. Custom seats would be pretty rockin’. I myself always want straight-backed, flat-bottomed seats — which are very hard to find — as opposed to the “scooped” seats so popular among carmakers these days, which give me backaches.
Topher, if you really want to know all the details go to the FAQ section on this site. Charging at home with the Tesla-supplied, dedicated charger should take around three and a half hours from empty to full. Charging on the road will depend on what you find but most likely it will just be from a regular 115v outlet and then it’s going to take much longer to go from empty to full. I don’t remember exactly but I think it’s around 7 to 8 hours….please correct me anybody who has the actual figures. Of course you won’t always be starting from empty so it will often take much less time.
Excellent post! Good to hear that it is your daily driver, so that you are intimately familiar with its performance and comfort. Otherwise, you might not have learned about the seat comfort until later customers started complaining.
The new super “nanowire” lithium batteries developed by Stanford U and Toshiba will take 10X the charge at 60X the charging rate. So substitute “minutes” for “hours” above, and figure max range in the 2000 mi. range, assuming the same weight and unlimited charger current capacity. (They can also deliver charge very fast without overheating etc.)
Congratulations, both to Tesla Motors and Elon! This is a major achievement both for your company and for the world as we move towards sources of energy that will power our world in the future. It is truly inspiring to see the results of the innovation and hard work that turned the idea into reality. Keep up the great work.
Recharging at home means leaving the house each morning with a full “tank” and full range - very few people have that luxury with gasoline! The 53kWh ESS uses ~75kWh of AC for a full recharge.
240V/70A charger would require 4.75 hours for a full charge (about 50 miles of range per hour)
240V/30A dryer outlet would take 10.4 hours for a full charge (about 22 miles of range per hour)
110V/15A standard outlet would take 45 hours for a full charge (about 5 miles of range per hour)
Elon, you mention the 3.9 second 0-60 acceleration. Does that mean your Roadster has the shiftable 2-speed transmission, or a prototype of the final 1-speed transmission, rather than the slower “interim” transmission?
Elon’s car currently has a shiftable 2-speed transmission -ed.
At 2:58 into the video, Mr. Musk says that his car actually has the shiftable 2-speed transmission.
Ha! I loved the idea of allowing for selectable syntetic noise ranging from V8s to horses (and why no Ox carts?). It would help put things in perspective.
Now, about noise, I always wondered where the actual electric car noise comes from. I imagine it is related to the vibration created by energy pulse modulation, though I guess there are other secondary sources as well such as gear friction and motor vibrations.
A friend doing experiments with electric toy cars showed me he could play music with such vibrations while the vehicle was driving, by adjusting parameters in the pulse controller to achieve different notes.
Would that be possible in the Tesla? Might adjusting pulse parameters be used to deliver different engine sound profiles without affecting performance? I’m not talking about simulating a V8 noise with the pulse modulation, but about having different profiles going from a lower buzz to a higher, more futuristic pitch, and perhaps adding some vibrato to add a more traditional effect for those feeling nostalgic.
Tonight I saw Who Killed the Electric Car (WKEC) for the first time. I was immediately prompted to start doing research on electric cars that were available, and all roads seemed to lead to Tesla Motors. One of the roads is at www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/ — which lists the planned sequel, Who Saved the Electric Car (WSEC). Right there is a picture of the Tesla Roadster.
Elon’s video was incredibly fun to watch. My next car will definitely by a Tesla. After seeing WKEC I can’t imagine trusting any of these other companies that sent perfectly good cars to the crusher. And after seeing Elon’s video here — pure fun while saving the planet, I can’t wait to see WSEC. I’m glad that I saw WKEC today, rather than a few years ago. I only had to wait a few hours for my anxieties about Electric Vehicles to be calmed.
Yeah those seats did look a bit harsh. I guess it was all part of making the car as light as possible, like a 1930’s passenger plane. Wicker, anyone? Lol, but congratulations on Car 1, and you certainly deserve to get to play with it first. The world is going to beat a path, buddy. Hope you’re ready!
Wow, ” been driving this daily from my Bel Air home…..” I read that and I got a negative vibe, then he compares the tesla to a F1 and 911. 200 lbs of torque is nothing for a sports car. I looked through the entire site, I could not find info on warranty, more specifics of the cell’s used and warranty specs. I understand they are Li-ions but no warranty info?? Anyone know where I can get more details on this? How many cars will be made in 08…09?
I guess tesla is targeting a specific class, the rich, nothing wrong with that, we live in a capitalistic country. I feel left out as I currently can not afford 100+K for an electric car.
I sure hope someone develops a coupe for the middle class. We need electric cars too.
good job i’m impressed being a regular american middle class consumer. you’ve conquered mileage issues and charging times now your next problem. make it affordable to the middle class that really needs it to commute i think that is your next step and also making a passenger one. gas prices is putting a stranglehold on our economy if i seen an affordable one available to me in texas i’d buy it in a heartbeat. your vehicle is the beggining solution to our oil dependancy and outrageous gas prices, even if gas does go down it still cant compete with 1 cent per mile. your biggest challenge i see is affordability to the average consumer; availability and localized service centers.
Faster than my 2000 Ford Ranger EV NiMH….AWESOME…get them in the hands of the Hollywood types and lets see Tesla take down the entire auto industry! You are doing what THEY didn’t want to!
Very very cool! Here is the link from the Corvette’s angle
qik.com/video/22262
Custom seats would be awesome. One of my concerns has been that I am 6″6″. Am I going to able to fit in this thing?
Thank you for making this happen! Now, make it affordable, and better yet, help lobby to get us a complete tax write-off for purchasing one.
Peace,
Tom
The car is nothing short of “AWESOME!” Unfortunately though, it is so expensive that very few will ever own one. Would be a real affect on the entire country if they would make a cheaper version for just running around town for that short commute.
This is exciting stuff!
I cannot wait to see this car and the others in Tesla’s pipeline in Europe.
All the best,
Andrej
This is very exciting stuff.
I cannot wait to see Tesla cars on offer in Europe!
All the best,
A.
I went to the Auto Show last week. GM was touting their new, green car that gets an amazing 40 miles out of a charge!
So when are you guys going to start doing the auto show circuit?
Custom tailored seats are a superb idea. I am 6′7″ tall, and only really comfortable in a large car. I am waiting enthusiastically for your sedan. Anything you can do to accommodate tall drivers will make that car even more appealing. I thought about having a Prius reconfigured by moving the seats, but that raised questions about the airbags. It’s important that you anticipate the needs of different drivers as you design the new car.
Brian H has a point. If the tesla eventually mates with the new battery tech from toshiba in the form of the nanowire lithium, the tesla will become even a bigger giant killer than it is now. With time and development the 100k price tag will come down, hopefully to range where the majority of us can buy one.
For Andre and the others who posted about the price, this is from the “Our Company” section:
Just the Beginning
While the Tesla Roadster’s sticker price is in a league with other high-performance sports cars with similar specs, we recognize it’s out of reach for a lot of people. We consciously chose to develop a high-end sports car as our first car in order to develop the “performance DNA” from which we could create other electric vehicles. Our next model will leverage the Tesla Roadster‘s technology, resulting in a less expensive sports sedan that we can sell at higher volume.
So you’ve only got (I hope, ’cause I’m waiting too…) a few years to wait until the Roadster proves the concept and they can start pumping out a cheaper version for us!
Wow, I am very excited that Teslas are actually being produced and used in every day driving! I’m hopeful that you will produce other electric cars that look and handle great in a somewhat lower price range for those of us with moderate car budgets
Keep up the great work as you are truely making history and a better world to live in for us and future generations to come! Go Tesla!!!
Please - I beg you - make Tesla Motors a success and hurry with less expensive models. For those of us that can’t afford a $100,000 car, but would love to get our hands on a Tesla - $60,000 is much more attainable! Really anxious to see WhiteStar specs and pics!
Outstanding! Been following the progress for a while now.
WHEN ARE THEY COMING TO CANADA?????
I love this car. I was obsessed with the Tropica series cars that were being produced in Florida in the 1980’s. I was only about 8 years old at the time, but I already realized the amount of energy efficiency and sustainable ingenuity that an EV represented.
I look forward to having enough money to buy this car. It my ultimate fantasy and I thank you Mr. Musk and the Tesla Team for making the car a reality!
I am running for president in the year 2016 when I am old enough to run for office, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be cruisin’ in a Tesla for my campaign!
Can’t wait to see what the sedan will look like. Keep up the pioneering work!
All as I can say is outstanding and I am myself want to invest and let everyone I know about the Tesla and Elon Musk, way to go green!
I love the idea of having customs seats. With this hands on approach, the Tesla will be more than just a dream to drive, it will be a comfortable dream to be in. Patiently waiting for my dream, Tom Henri
The recent in-car video with Elon at the wheel was the most compelling facet of the Tesla marketing system seen here in OZ so far. Well done! I am saving my dollars for the more affordable sedan or version after. After reading in New Scientist recently about the nanowire-cathod Lith-ion developments, it strikes me that these 10x better capacity batteries will lead to a smaller, lighter and more efficient power storage pack and therefore more range - just the ticket to see these type of machines commonplace in Australia.
Would it be true to say that a reduction in required battery mass and volume will reduce the cost of the next generation sedan below the 50 grand mark?
Once again, nice work Team Tesla, that is setting the benchmark!! Now we need a tax break to save fuel rather than burn it.
Congrats Elon, Can’t wait to see a Tesla range available in Europe. Thanks also for sharing your experiences. Driving a Tesla as a daily driver is something all of us petrol-heads, sorry, electric-heads are dying to do as well…P.S drop me a line if you need any mountain testing doing in Europe Elon !!
Please launch Tesla in South Africa
a quando per l’Italia ?
Sounds like lots of fun! Would be nice to know what your “real world” driving range is, after you have averaged it out a bit.
We would love to see a Tesla at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance (www.ameliaconcours.org) next year. Many people from Miami come up for the show, and test drives of all sorts of high end vehicles that park in front of the Ritz Carlton.
Simply Amazing… I’ve been following the developement of the Tesla for some time and I’d just like to compliment the whole team that was involved in the creation of the worlds #1 car to ever be manufactured. I have no doubt that Tesla will soon be global house hold name, it’s just a matter of time. Once production picks up and the volumes require automation (which will help lower the cost) please feel free to contact me. Our company is a leader in technology for automated machinery. On a side note my brother (John Jeffrey) was one of the Catia AE’s that help the Tesla dream come true. One more time, simply Amazing… Great work to the whole team!
We need this in UK or the saloon version (white star?)I’m driving round in a GEM -E2 at 25 mph!!Fuel here is like gold and some have even taken to using veg oil (50-50)straight from the grocers at 74 p litre as diesel is £1.10
I need to be an agent-please help-lots of space in Liverpool,European Capital Of Culture.No road fund licence no MOT (mechnical roadworthyness test £45)
London now has for EV free parking free charge up to 3 hours,no congestion charge
What can I do to become an agent !!?? Ken Johnson
The tesla is a very interesting product. Green and sexy - the only blemish: it’s not yet available in Germany!
“Bush urges electric vehicles, saying U.S. must ‘get off oil’”:
www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/BIZ/803050463
This is a nice post.
I have a question about this paragraph:
“Something else I notice is that the 3.9 second 0 to 60 mph time of the Roadster actually understates its performance relative to a gasoline car with the same quoted time. The reason is that there is no clutch engagement delay with the Roadster, because there is no clutch. I did some side by side acceleration tests with a friend of mine that has a Corvette, supposedly with a similar 0 to 60 mph time as the Roadster, and it was no contest.”
1) It’s my understanding that currently the Roadster cannot achieve the 3.9 sec from 0 to 60 due to a different transmission than the one Tesla originally had planned on having? Anyone know more about this?
2) I don’t understand what Elon means by “understates its performance relative to a gasoline car”. Isn’t 3.9 seconds the same regardless of the car or technology being used? I mean, if you use a stop watch and accurately measure two cars going from 0 to 60 MPH in the same amount of time, how is one better than the other?
I like the comment Elon makes that he take this sports car to an environmental event and be well received. I even like that he calls the Prius a gas-hog when compared to the Roadster!
Go Tesla!
More fun than a McLaren F1? Maybe as a daily driver. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the P1 is a blast to drive, but the Chairman of the company may have some bias the rest of us won’t.
# Ricardo Parker wrote on March 6th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
## 1) It’s my understanding that currently the Roadster cannot achieve the 3.9 sec from 0 to 60 due to a different transmission
## than the one Tesla originally had planned on having? Anyone know more about this?
I think Elon got the special option of having a chance to drive the car with an older prototype version of the transmission (”drivetrain 1.0″) that is known to have reliability issues.
His car can do 0-60 in ~4seconds and can shift from 1st gear to 2nd gear. Apparently anyone else getting a car soon will get the same transmission, but locked in 2nd gear, good for 0-60 in ~5.7seconds. Everyone is expected to be eventually upgraded to “drivetrain 1.5″ with a single gear and 0-60 in ~4s without the need to shift to get up to stop speed.
It may be that P1 will be the only production roadster to get the prototype transmission with 2 gears actually available.
## 2) I don’t understand what Elon means by “understates its performance relative to a gasoline car”.
## Isn’t 3.9 seconds the same regardless of the car or technology being used?
## how is one better than the other?
I think the operative word here is consistency and perhaps ease. The Tesla Roadster can do 0-60 with little effort. You don’t have to “rev the engine” and “drop the clutch”. You just hit to pedal and go, with no chance of mistake. Manual transmission ICE cars (on the other hand) require careful technique to extract that performance. Just because a car magazine prints it doesn’t mean that the average driver can achieve those results. Even skilled drivers won’t be able to get them consistently. Often the magazines try multiple runs and then take the best of the bunch as the result. As long as the surface is level, and clean you should be able to get optimal acceleration with the Tesla. One car magazine gave it a 4.4 sec rating, but that was with a wet road. Any car can be traction limited and the Roadster is no exception when driving on less than ideal conditions. The Tesla just makes it a lot easier to extract maximum performance for any situation.
Just to add a little bit to what TEG has just said…..I think what Elon means is that there is no delay at all when the flag drops or when the light changes to green. The 3.9 seconds will be the same whichever car you’re in but it only starts counting down when each car starts moving. The Tesla will probably start moving half a second before most regular cars where it takes half a second to raise the revs and drop the clutch. So you’ll cross the line ahead in the Tesla even if both cars have the exact same 3.9 second acceleration when measured from their own individual starting points.
Re 0-60 times, i guess you still have a foot on the brake at standstill since they decided to build in forward creep. Coming up off this is probably the same as dropping the clutch at the greenlight.
And to the Tesla team, do you get a warm feeling when you read articles like TEG’s above, and think ‘WE DID THAT!’? You should, because you did. Heroes may not be too strong a word.
Shame you couldnt get a car to the Geneva motor show, todays papers are getting all excited over 60 mpg hybrids from VW etc. Or better yet, Top Gear! I dont know if you get it in the states, but basically if you crack Clarkson the UK is yours. range is a non-issue over here, as Bill Bryson spotted, we get daunted by the prospect of driving distances most Americans would ‘happily go to get a taco’. Our islands not even 200 miles across! Please, get Lotus to sort the regs, build a new production line, then ramp up to 3, 5, or 10 thousand a year. You’ll sell em as quick as you can make em! All that remains then is to hire a dynamic young graduate with a 2.1 in planning to test drive. Sigh.
being a fan of Nikola Tesla, a man who never got his inventions displayed and the publicity that Edison got. He was a man who was much more of a electrical genius than Edison. To give Tesla the name of this car is a testimony to his genius. I do hope this venture just keeps getting bigger and better. I do the oil industry leaves Tesla alone.
# Merz wrote on March 7th, 2008 at 11:24 am
## Re 0-60 times, i guess you still have a foot on the brake at standstill since they decided to build in forward creep.
## Coming up off this is probably the same as dropping the clutch at the greenlight.
Not at all like “dropping the clutch”. There is an art to getting the ICE revs right and letting out the clutch just right to keep the engine in the proper power band and applying just enough clutch to keep the tires from breaking free (or hitting traction control). Even professional drivers have trouble getting consistently best results from run to run. Another downside is that you are torturing the clutch trying to do these “best 0-60″ runs so you eventually wear out the clutch which is an expensive thing to fix.
No such problem with the Roadster.
You could compare the Roadster to automatics but most of them don’t offer the performance of a properly driven manual transmission. They also don’t have proper engine braking and tend to suffer in the efficiency area. (People call them “slushboxes” because you feel somewhat disconnected from your power source)
Perhaps the next best thing to the Roadster would be clutch based paddle shift, or CVT.
Both are fairly limited availability and tend to cost a lot. For instance, you can’t get either on a Corvette or Viper.
It will be interesting to see how those with Ferrari F1 paddle shift compare the Roadster driving experience.
In a way I think the Ferrari F430 spider F1 paddle shift is probably a good vehicle to compare to the Roadster.
It does cost twice as much, but offers similar performance and style.
Here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_F430
they say:
“Performance
Car and Driver magazine found the car’s performance worthy of the Ferrari heritage, and recorded a 3.5 sec 0-60 mph acceleration run in the F430 This makes it the third-quickest Ferrari road car ever made, after the Enzo and the 599 GTB. That being said, the 3.5 second 0-60 run was made on a European spec car, which has launch control, a feature designed to help launch the car from a standing start at high RPMs. Much like the E-Diff and the manettino, the launch control is a technology borrowed from Ferrari’s Formula 1 racing program. The launch control is unavailable in U.S.-spec F430s, presumably due to liability issues.”
Ok Tesla—Will production start 3-17-08 and can we get a “car counter” on the home page—maybe with photos of finished Roadsters?
TEG: Thanks for post ” TEG wrote on March 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm:
I understand exactly what you mean now about my second questions. Yes, I have not experienced the Tesla yet, but my understanding is that it evolves performance to a whole new level. The “0 to 60 MPH times shown in magazines are “the best possible time a driver could achieve. You’re saying the Roadster consistently gets this performance. That is awesome. That speaks volumes about the quality of the car, and makes me love the Roadster even more. Some day I’ll have one. This factor definitely raises the bar for performance cars. I.e., “A Ferrari may get from 0 to 60 in 3.9, but likely not consistently and only under ideal conditions”.
- Ricardo
Nice the 1st car finally getting out and all my colleges at work have to shut up about you guys never finishing this car. but stop bashing my little prius as you guys are not going to sell your cars in europe it’s still, the next best thing. (Well I startet playing in the lottery anyway).
While I’m aware of that demographic decision, does anyone know if the roadster would actualy be allowed to drive on the roads of england/Switzerland/Germany, or what’s missing in the standards/tests to do so?
Finally just 2 links to other interesting projects for green cars… unfortunately not close to production…
www.theaircar.com/
www.xpcarteam.com/
keep on the good work.
Thank you for getting me even more excited about the Tesla Roadster. I had heard rumors that there was a bit of an engineering problem with the delicate balance between top speed and acceleration, with original models having what essentially amounted to violent shift shock in order to achieve a high top speed. I wouldn’t mind a Tesla Roadster with a low top speed but great acceleration (and only one speed with no shift shock). Where I live, acceleration is really all I need. If I’m racing someone or trying to show off, I really only have about 1/8th of a mile to do it. A top speed of 120 mph does nothing for me, but a car than can do 0-60 in 3.5 seconds would be awesome.
I just read this today on MSNBC:
“At $3.58 a gallon, the San Francisco Bay Area had the highest latest average price for self-serve regular unleaded gas on March 7, while the lowest price was $2.95 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The average U.S. diesel price was $3.80 a gallon in the latest survey, up 22 cents a gallon from two weeks ago, and $1.02 higher than this time last year.”
Not even diesel is safe anymore — all fossil fuels are falling victim to the greed of the oil industry. Tesla, save us!
news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908
Stanford researchers have developed a Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery. Details are at the above link. Is Tesla Motors looking into or already working with this new breakthrough? If so, what will this mean for the consumer?
William: Yi Cui’s silicon nano wires for batteries are a major breakthrough, but they only address the anode end of the battery. A matching breakthrough is needed for the cathode end to realize the ful 10x charge claimed. The closest I have found is www.sionpower.com/ Their lithium-sulfur technology is based on improvements on the cathode end, but they have a cycle life problem and need to improve that to be successful. So making a lituium-sulfur battery with say 2000 cycle life and silicon nano wire anode would make the ultimate battery.
These new breakthroughs usually take about 5 years to bring to market. When that happens Tesla and others will certainly take advantange of them.
To Mike S.:
“Not even diesel is safe anymore” — all fossil fuels are falling victim to the greed of the oil industry.”
Are you familiar with Peak Oil? I recommend you look it up - Wikipedia has done a pretty decent job explaining it.
Tesla, save us! I hate to break the news, but Tesla cannot save you right now. The Roadster carries an almost triple-digit price tag. If you can afford one you can afford to convert any other car to electric, so you don’t need Tesla.
Battery technology is very promising, though, and I commend Tesla for their R&D, for all their efforts, and most importantly, for the huge impact they are having and will have in the industry. I have no doubt that others will follow. As Martin Eberhard once said, the Chevy Volt only exists (so far as a concept car only) because of what Tesla has been doing.
Bring Tesla to South Africa
IMHO, The US commuter market is screaming for a 40-50 mile PEV vehicle. It will for all reasonable purposes be a second/third car. Not for long travel -as PHEV will fit that niche. Hopefully something in the $20-25K price range. Is that “reasonable” to expect that?
BTW, I live in Albuquerque and have my shovel, hammer and air sockets ready to build the whitestar plant. Any ideas or inputs there Elon?
good wishes..
I love electric. Back when I was 9 years old I rode around in an electric vehicle. That was 46 years ago.
Right now I have a consumer car - a Prius and so does my wife. In fact we have had 3. My wife gave one away. She is the ultimate giver.
Here is my point - We need to keep all of us scientists and engineers “thinking” - that is the blog title after all - as we need to figure out where all of this energy that we dissipate to move us around actually comes from and the minimum impact on the earth as we do it.
My dad (and even I for a few summers) worked for General Electric. This was a firm set up by Edison to compete with Westinghouse and perhaps even Tesla.
In the ’50’s he was a nuclear engineer but that was short lived. He loved sailing and not using gasoline. At GE for summers - I worked in steam turbines, but many of my boyhood friends were small motor engineers.
My first ‘electric’ experience of ultimate acceleration was as a young boy. My dad took my regular kid’s wagon, cut a hole in the middle, dropped in a 6 volt car battery, strapped in a 1952 Desoto (Chrysler) 6 V starter motor and geared it to the wagon. Yup, cars then were often 6 volt, even fancy Desoto models. Then he bolted a sprocket on the two rear wheels and put a tiny sprocket on the motor. This had an incredible gearing ratio. So now he (and I) had a rear wheel drive electric vehicle that would go 0 to 0.75 mph in a neck snapping instant. Laugh you will. But it would pull - we could hook up 3 more wagons with kids in them and off I’d go. Even up and down hills.
The torque of electric motors is so cool.
I have a picture of our wagon with my brothers and sister linked up in their wagons - circa 1963.
John Bishop - fan of Tesla
Joshin wrote on March 11th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Bring Tesla to South Africa
Ja right! Just where are you going to get the electricity from to charge it? Not Eskom.
What’s a “PEV vehicle”? I don’t know anyone screaming for one, nobody even knows what that is!
Doesn’t the sun shine in South Africa? If you have sun, you can make electricity. You can’t put panels on your roof and turn sunshine into gasoline!
Thomas J;
PEV = Personal Electric Vehicle
PHEV = Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle
Recharging is an issue for those who want on-demand connection; the sun isn’t always up or bright enough.
With the indication from Toshiba that nanowire lithium batteries can charge 60X as fast, I’m thinking a charging station bank of ultra-capacitors with a honking great heavy output plug would enable rather quick recharging at around 500Amps, with the capacitors fed by a “normal” grid at 5-50Amps or so. But they’d need to have a charge capacity of 50-500 kwh to fill the nanowire battery bank, depending on design.
I just want to thank Elon and all the people at Tesla. I can’t say I’m lucky enough to be on the list of buyers yet. Far from it financially. I will probably still have to wait many years before I can get my own fully electric vehicle. I hope, when that day comes, that I will be buying a Tesla, but even if I’m not I will know, wholly and completely, that I have Elon and the people at Tesla to thank for it. We all know how far the electric car project would go (and indeed did go) in the hands of one of our current major producers here in the states. It takes someone like Elon to push progress with sheer determination and, let’s face it, brute force in the direction it needs to go. While the EV1 was a childless widow, I will forever see Tesla as the mother of all American electric cars.
Ever think of developing a motorcycle? Come on, you know you want to. It would be the hottest bullet bike on the market. Still, when I see one, I will again feel that I have Tesla to thank whether or not they built it.
Thank you so much. You are true visionaries.
-Jeremy, enthusiastic word of mouth advertiser and a really big fan.
Brian H, thanks, does that mean a PEV only holds one person? Is it related at all to an NEV?
my understanding is; NEV (Neighborhood Electric Vehicle) is a golf cart, a PEV is something with doors capable of 30-40mph with a couple occupants. Like an electric Yaris or SMART. Capable for running local errands/commuting without getting run over. A much larger example is the Ebox, but without the steriods.
I don’t need to be convinced that the Tesla is the best car out there (because it’s the only electric car out there that “works”), or that buying one would be a “no brainer”, it looks sharp, it’s design (outside and inside), is pure genius. That being said, this car is just another “Rich guy” toy. It’s not made for a middle class shmo like me. To bad, we’ll have to drool and dream and deal with the frustration that no matter how badly the middle class man/woman wants an electric car, we will always be denied. But that’s ok, were used to disappointments, what else is new?
Is it possible to get 240v/70A with a solar panel?
So, Heathel’s on GMT, right? So todays the start of production, as of two minutes ago! (Note, it may take several more minutes to type the rest of this post…)
Anyway, first to the many many people who dismissed this based on price. Please refer to the master plan, which has a sedan at $50k soon and a coupe at $30k not as soon up on the drawing board. But more than that, I wanted to specifically address the fellow (Ladson Isaac I think) who said he could afford $30k on payments, because I think that brings up a great point about these vehicles. I won’t say that the Roadster fits that kind of budget, but I would suggest that a Whitestar at around $50k might. The reason is that I assume you intend to buy gasoline while you pay off your $30k car, and furthermore that you intend to maintain all the tricky and relatively unreliable ICE bits while you’re at it. Of course once these cars are in the real world we’ll see for sure, but it looks likely that over a typical 5-year payment plan the total cost of ownership of a $30k ICE car will actually be more than the $50k Whitestar. So, sure, your payments are higher, but that will likely be offset by a huge reduction in out-of-pocket vehicle-related expenses. Even if it comes out a wash, the Tesla version is easier to budget, and exports less of the dollars to unfriendly foreign nations. Oh, and then there’s the carbon…
You know what? The above might make a great blog topic. I’d love to see a TCO comparison with an ICE car. Kind of goes along with that lifecycle analysis I’ve mentioned once or twice.
Next up, to all the people hoping for this car to be brought to their countries. Can’t someone buy a car (or have it bought) and then ship it over? I don’t guess I’d be suggesting that for a mass-market (and relatively low-priced) car, but if you really want to pay for the Roadster anyway (and that right soon) then can’t you get one for maybe another 10% or less on top of the sticker price? I don’t actually know how that works, I’m just speculating…but it seems worth looking into if you really want one.
And finally, JP, this PEV (of which I’ve not heard outside this thread) needs to be crash tested and all the rest if it has more than 3 wheels and it’s going to go more than 25 mph (in almost all states…it’s the federal standard which most have adopted). That usually means that there’s not a real good case for building a super-low-cost car that does (say) 40mph. You might as well make it highway speed, since you’re going to have to do all the work anyway. NEVs maxed at 25mph get to skip all the safety stuff, so that makes a ceiling for the low-end option. Anyway, few are screaming (in this country) for anything that won’t do the freeway, but I’d agree that there could be a significant market for relatively low-range (60-100 miles) vehicles as long as they can really do real commutes, which usually seem to involve at least one good highway-speed stretch.
(Yep…24 minutes later. But still, happy St. Pat’s and happy 1st day of production to everybody across the pond rolling these cars off the line!)
March 17 - tomorrow - is that the first day of deliveries to States or is it production line starting?
p.s.pathare asked “Is it possible to get 240v/70A with a solar panel?”
Think panels, several wired together. 240 volt 70 amps equals 16,800 watts, and the largest single panel I am aware of is only 120 watts. Still, with multiple panels wired together, you can get just about any wattage we want, ie 1,400 of 120 watt panels.
With a “grid connected” solar system, it doesn’t matter what solar wattage youve got, the grid fills in any extra power needed, and if the solar panel produce an excess, it is fed back into the grid.
I’m wondering what everybody’s take is on AC Propulsion? How was Tesla able to leapfrog a company working on this electric car problem for a decade and a half?
#p.s.pathare wrote on March 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
## Is it possible to get 240v/70A with a solar panel?
Most Solar panel arrays are hooked “to the grid” (power company power lines) through an inverter.
The Solar panels create DC and the inverter converts it to AC and matches the frequency to the power lines.
So, even if your solar panels are in the dark you can still draw 70A from the grid.
240V@70A=16.8kW That is a fairly large set of solar panels. A typical system would be perhaps 1/4 that size. Partly because of cost, but partly because of the south facing roof size of an average house.
I think to answer the question you are asking… There is no way to “overload” the Solar panels in a grid connected installation. They just help when they can and you get what ever excess you need from the grid.
In terms of having enough panels to generate enough power for the roadster - it depends on how much you drive it. A typical driver might only drive 50 miles in a day, not the 200+ the Roadster could do before the pack was empty. So a typical 5kW residential solar panel installation just about covers the typical daily driving distance for many drivers.
Due to “time-of-use” power price structures typical in grid tied solar systems, you pay less for power at night than during the day. A recommended thing to do is charge the Roadster at night and generate electricity from sunlight during the day. In that way the power you generate during the day (being considered “worth more at that time”) offsets your bill more than the drain the Roadster puts on your system even if it were an exact match (in generation versus recharge draw).
# chino wrote on March 16th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
## I’m wondering what everybody’s take is on AC Propulsion? How was Tesla able to leapfrog a company working on this electric car problem for a decade and a half?
I would say a number of factors, not the least of which were:
#1: Founders who were convinced that they could turn this idea in to a scalable business model, not just a small specialty niche.
#2: Deep pocketed investors who bought into the business model.
#3: A recent upsurge in interest for “green” technology vehicles.
#4: A partnership with Lotus that brought design and process improvements required for mass production and regulatory approvals.
After just watching Elon’s P1 demonstration video posted a couple weeks ago, I’m very confident that this technology can be deployed and adopted rapidly within 5-7 years. The two remaining hurdles are: (1) a world-wide re-powering station infrastructure comparable to the existing gasoline station infrastructure and (2) a solution to the political nightmare of managing massive layoffs at traditional auto companies. Who wants to talk about these things with me?
chino: read this blog www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=30
“Is it possible to get 240v/70A with a solar panel?”
Well, why not? That’s a total of 17,000 watts. The sun produces 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 watts. You can’t capture all of it with a solar panel, but you don’t really need to!
Sharp produces individual panels up to 216 watts. so you would need quite a few of them to get 17,000 watts, but you can combine as many as you want. Mr. Solar has systems up to 23,000 watts if you want to do it yourself: www.mrsolar.com/page/MSOS/PROD/ce/CE108216/SESSION_ID/377be78566af9e04ec73af261775d074
Or maybe you can use the solar outfit associated with Mr. Musk and Tesla: www.solarcity.com. They will set up the whole thing for you.
Keep in mind that you only need the full 17,000 watts if you want to drive the Tesla down to a completely discharged state, and then recharge it as quickly as possible. Most peopel go a lot less than 220 miles a day. I would personally go less than 50 miles on a typical day, and I would have a lot more time to recharge than the 3.5 hour minimum, so recharging would take considerably less power, Something around 3000 watts would do it for me.
Rodney,
consider this … 100 years ago only the most upperclass people could afford a ” motor car” the rest were delegated to simply owning a horse or two if they were lucky. Times are a changing and much faster than you think. I would be relatively certain that the middle class American will be able to afford an electric car within a decade and that is a HUGE step.
Hunter,
I think that would be a GREAT BLOG !!!!! TCO of Raodster to a typical high end sports car. From cost to purchase to insurance and fuel and maintenance. Include motor replacement at 100K miles etc…. over say a 10 year ownership. Would be great thing to do for the Whitestar as well right after the announcement.
TM,
I really feel the need to change my wall paper on the computer from Roadster to Whitestar. Going from Dream to Reality is a HUGE step
Chino, in addition to the factors TEG mentioned as to why Tesla has “leapfrogged” AC Propulsion, I would add the fact that they licensed all AC Propulsion’s core technology. Makes a good starting point. But on the other hand, I think the biggest reason is TEG’s first point, the different goals of the founders/investors. I should note that it seems like AC Propulsion is a profitable company. Sure, it’s not the size of Tesla, but it’ll be quite a while before Tesla’s running in the black, even by the rosiest estimates. There’s a lot of risk in Tesla’s strategy, and a lot more potential return.
As for your call for charging stations, there are some problems here. The biggest two are extreme power requirements and limited demand. The power one is pretty obvious; these fancy “10-minute-charge” batteries usually don’t mention the hard part, which is to provide a charging source that can fill up ~50kWhr packs in the target time. At 10-minutes (pretty pokey compared to a gas pump) that’s a 300kW source…at 240v that’s 1250 amps. Yeah, the grid can provide that, but it’s not typical or cheap, and that’s one pump at one station. And it’s 10 minutes…double it if you want a more comparable-to-gas 5-minute charge. But I think the bigger (and less obvious) problem with the charge-station idea is a lack of demand. Why are there so many gas stations right now? Because every car on the road has to go to them every time they need fuel. That is, virtually all the energy consumed in vehicles currently is purchased from stations. Consider the difference with EVs: with even a short 50 mile range, 90% of driving would be handled on charges at private homes; with ranges like the Roadster’s that number is even higher. So now we’re talking about only buying 5% or so of our vehicle energy from stations. So this huge station infrastructure can’t support itself. I think this means we’re headed for a lot fewer convenience stores with fewer “pumps” and a few pay chargers in parking lots of places where people go. It’ll be trickier to find a place to charge up, but it’ll be a lot less often that you have to.
Which brings me to the biggest concern you mention, the loss of auto-industry jobs. You’re going to need to add to that these convenience-store workers, gas refiners and truckers, a bunch of mechanics and lube-shop guys, and probably a lot more we haven’t thought of yet. We can’t fix this by protecting these industries; we can put a band-aid on it briefly, but this is a huge economic shift that has been in the pipe for a while. We as a society have to put these people to work doing something else, something productive that earns them good wages, and keep ahead of the industrial/technological curve. The future of America is not building cars…that’s rapidly becoming an old trick that everybody knows. We need to focus on the new tricks.
We are following -up the development of Tesla Motors and hoping some day in the nearest future it will be available to some good citizens of the Philippines who they will share to our deserving honest people. B. Rodriguez-DU1BR
Hunter,
You’ve given me several things to meditate over as well as opportunities to pursue. I appreciate the insight. I need to review Shai Agassi’s (www.projectbetterplace.com) solution more thoroughly, but his battery swapping stations may provide an answer to the long charging times and a-typical power draws you were describing. I also gathered from you that a world filled with Tesla-efficient vehicles does not require as large a re-powering infrastructure as ICE vehicles require a re-fueling infrastructure. This is a good thing, and I believe your point supports a view of rapid technology adoption.
Can you source (or anyone else out there) your claim that Tesla licensed AC Propulsion technology? I don’t mean to question your integrity, but I do have a habit of triple-checking facts. Thanks.
chino: besides the blog I pointed at earlier… How about: www.acpropulsion.com/vehicles/others.htm
Elon and Telsa as a whole.
First of all thank you so much for the exceptional level of transparency your press releases have established! It is so refreshing to regain of higher standard of faith and confidence in the leadership of a corporation.
Secondly, I am very glad to hear you reconfirm your corporate mission statement in mass marketing EV products for the general public. Producing a $50K USD and subsequently a $30K USD sedan will most definitely revolutionize and un-tether our global economy from oil dependency in the Middle East, Africa and South America.
On a much larger scope, this paradigm shift in the automotive realm gives the global community a straight forward, monumental, solid platform in addressing our carbon output dilemma, which we most desperately need to address, NOW! Your company with its innovative approach to launching EV products into the masses will truly be the political, environmental and over-all quality of life reform for the world.
Although, I am assured that the venture capital that you put forth for this endeavor will prove to be most lucrative and successful from a business sense, I applaud you, your colleagues and thank all of you for investing your time and resources for such a novel and altruistic goal.
Sincerely,
Larry
I currently own a hybrid, but am very interested in getting a pure electric vehicle. Reading your post really gets me excited on what the future hold in this technology. I can’t wait to see my first roadster!
Forget about the seats, for you are driving a Lotus and the seats are perfect on all current Lotus models.
Please, please, please…..make this available in TX….it would be very popular in Austin.
Hi, I live in South Africa. Will we ever see the Tesla coming to South Africa and how much would it cost in USD$. I think South Africa is a viable market for the Tesla as our fuel prices are soaring and more and more South Africans are looking for better and cheaper modes of transport. A popular choice for electric transport in South Africa would be the Toyota Prius, but its not a looker and doesnt provide the performance. Many wealthy Johannesburg yuppies and rich businessmen are looking for performance and buy Ferraris, Lambos, Mercs, Porsches etc . . . The Tesla would be a welcome breath of fresh air . . . litterally because South Africas pollution is very very bad in some of the bigger cities. PLEASE PLEASE BRING THE TESLA TO SOUTH AFRICA ! ! !