Tesla Roadster

Faster than Porsche 911 and six times more efficient than conventional sports cars, it is also twice as energy-efficient as a Toyota Prius. It has far fewer moving (and breakable) parts than internal combustion engine sports cars, which need replacement such as pistons, hoses, belts and clutches. And to charge the Roadster costs just £3 – which is all you’ll have to pay for the next 240 miles.

Tesla’s goal:  to drive down the cost of electric cars

Tesla’s goal is ‘to produce increasingly affordable cars to mainstream buyers – relentlessly driving down the cost of electric cars’. The company makes the £94,000 Roadster and the Roadster Sport, an even faster model that from a standing start reaches 60 mph in 3.7 seconds. The next model down the line in late 2011will be the Tesla Model S, an all-electric saloon with a base price of around £47,000 - roughly half the price of the Roadster. Tesla is also jointly developing an electric version of the Smart with Daimler.

313 miles on a single charge!

The Roadster’s battery consists of several thousand consumer-grade lithium-ion cells. The battery’s condition is constantly monitored and fed to the Vehicle Management System. It provides a range of 244 miles, although Tesla drivers are reportedly achieving even better results. Competing in Australia’s Global Green Challenge in October 2009, Simon Hackett’s red Tesla Roadster completed 313 miles on a single charge – a distance that set a new record for a production electric car.

The Roadster is charged mainly at home – there are a variety of charging units from the home connector, which charges at 56 miles range per hour and costs $3000, to the mobile connector, which charges at 24 miles range per hour. And every Roadster comes with a spare mobile connector which charges at 5 miles range per hour.

Sales success leads to growing electric car network

By October 2009, the company, based in Silicon Valley, California, had delivered 900 Roadsters and had galleries in California, New York, Seattle, Boulder Colorado, London and Munich. Further galleries are planned in the near future in the US, Canada and Monaco.

Funding to accelerate production of electric cars

In June 2009, Tesla Motors received approval for about $465 million in low-interest loans from the US Department of Energy to accelerate the production of affordable, fuel-efficient electric vehicles. Tesla will use $365 million for production engineering and assembly of the Model S, which ‘carries seven people and travels up to 300 miles per charge.’ Tesla expects to start Model S production in late 2011 in a state-of-the-art assembly plant employing about 1,000 workers.

Tesla will use $100 million for a powertrain manufacturing plant. The facility will supply all-electric powertrain solutions to other car manufacturers, greatly accelerating the availability of mass-market electric cars. The new facility will employ about 650 people.

The loans are part of the American Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, which provides incentives to new and established car makers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles. “Tesla will use the ATVM loan precisely the way that Congress intended -- as the capital needed to build sustainable transport,” said Tesla CEO and Product Architect Elon Musk. “We are honoured that the US government selected Tesla to be among the first companies to participate in this progressive program.”

Tesla achieved overall corporate profitability in July 2009, mainly due to strong demand for the Roadster 2, with significant enhancements over the original model.

World’s first fast-charge electric car corridor

In September 2009, SolarCity and Rabobank, N.A. announced a partnership to create the world’s first solar-powered enhanced, fast-charge electric car charging corridor. When complete, the corridor will include four locations between San Francisco and Los Angeles allowing all-electric cars to make the trip using solar energy and provide for the fastest charge time available for public electric car charges. The SolarCity-owned and operated corridor, built in cooperation with Tesla, will provide a full charge in one third the amount of time of other charging stations.

The partnership say that allowing drivers to plug in and charge up at multiple locations along well travelled corridors will dramatically increase the convenience and practicality of the growing number of electric cars on American roads.

Nikola Tesla - inventor

The company's name pays homage to Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla, whose inventions around the turn of the 20th century sparked the development of the modern electricity system. Just as Nikola Tesla helped the move to light bulbs from candles and oil lamps, Tesla the company wants to accelerate the global move from gas-powered transportation to emission-free electric mobility.