Before we could drive the 2009 Roadster, a brief tour of the HQ and "factory" was provided. Two curious things about the HQ's location; the first was that it's in Menlo Park. Thomas Edison did much of his most notable work in Menlo Park--only Edison's Menlo Park was in New Jersey.
Coincidence? Most likely, because when we asked how Tesla Motors came to have their international HQ exactly where it is, we were told that the city fathers needed to find a tenant for an abandoned Chevrolet dealership. Where plaid-suited salesmen once sold fuel-swilling Suburbans and Trail Blazers, Tesla Roadsters now go through their final assembly and plug in for a fill up at a cost of about $4. One charge takes the two-seater about 240 miles according to the EPA.
At the facility, several Roadsters were going through final assembly, a marrying of the powertrain to the chassis. The size of the battery pack is stunning, as it takes the complete width of the car and nearly the entire height, rising from the floorpan to almost the tops of seatbacks. Weighing in at almost 1,000 pounds -- half the weight of a running Elise SC -- individual battery arrays get delivered in wooden crates the size of stand-alone residential freezer. Carefully arranged within the massive, armored and cooled assembly are 6,831 individual lithium ion battery cells packaged for your protection and their long life.... Read full article