Tesla claims an anticipated range of 220 miles. But that is very much a best-case scenario. According to a digital readout to the left of the steering wheel, the charge plummets each time I nail the accelerator for an extended stretch. If you plan to use the Roadster to see how close you can come to getting your license revoked, then don't expect more than 180 miles of primo performance. Of course, if worst comes to worst, you can score an emergency refill - with the optional mobile charge kit - by plugging into a three-prong household socket. The quickest charge takes between three and three-and-a-half hours when connected to a 70-amp, 240-volt circuit.
Gearbox woes notwithstanding, batteries remain the biggest technical question mark about the Tesla. At the moment, nobody knows how long the battery pack will last, and replacement costs - currently in the neighborhood of $20,000 - are bound to be expensive even if, as expected, prices drop dramatically. Service is another thorny issue. History suggests that there will be plenty of squawks with a brand-new boutique car, especially one incorporating so much new technology, yet Tesla stores will be few and far between.
Thus far, Tesla has been a happy-face avatar of the brave new world of green machinery and a darling of the environmental set. (George Clooney and Matt Damon are among the A-list celebrities who've ordered Roadsters.) But this past year has brought negative publicity in the form of production delays and downgraded speed, range, and redline benchmarks. Then, in December, Eberhard was booted out of the company he'd founded. His successor as CEO, Ze'ev Drori, a semiconductor pioneer and club racer, is an intriguing choice who plays to Tesla's strengths. Still, some observers think the decision to go with a Silicon Valley icon rather than a car-industry veteran reflects a dangerous cocktail of naïveté and arrogance, and it's not hard to imagine executives in Detroit rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of seeing this fledgling know-it-all pull a De Lorean.
The car industry is a tough business, and it has ground up and spit out companies that were much larger, more established, and better financed than Tesla. But even if Tesla turns out to be history before too long, the future is now for electric vehicles, and anybody who thinks otherwise will be convinced by a few minutes of seat time in the Roadster.
Question & Answer:
Elon Musk
Chairman of the Board, Tesla Motors
Why have you invested so much time and money in this project?
I'm not an alarmist. I'm not in the camp with Al Gore. But because of the amount of time it will take to change our transportation system, we have to start now. The major reason I got involved with Tesla was to drive the transition of the whole automotive industry toward electric vehicles. And if we want to be more than a niche sports car manufacturer, then we have to increase volume and lower prices. The Whitestar [a BMW 5-series, Mercedes-Benz E-class competitor] will debut early next year and get into customers' hands in as little as three years.
Will you follow the Roadster game plan and base the Whitestar on an existing vehicle?
There's an 80 to 90 percent chance it'll be all Tesla rather than a modded Lotus. Tesla unequivocally will itself be a manufacturer. There's a limit to how much you can grow by being in another car company's ecosystem. You need to take off the training wheels at a certain point. We realize that we can no more compete with Toyota than an ant can compete with an elephant. Porsche is the paradigm for us.
Why are you using thousands of laptop batteries to power the Roadster?
Because they're available. If the batteries had been designed for cars, there would have been a different solution. But they could last seven, eight, nine years. We're planning on a four- or five-year/100,000-mile warranty, and the battery replacement pack will cost a small fraction of what it costs today. The bottom-line promise we make to our customers is that we're going to be fair, and we're not going to shaft them on the battery pack. ...next page >>