By Nick Chambers •
July 16, 2008
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While the kinks are worked out, Tesla is starting to move Roadsters off the production line slowly.
27 Roadsters are currently in various stages of assembly, and the company hopes to reach a monthly production rate of 100 cars by this December.
In a blog post on the company website, Tesla CEO Ze’ev Drori has reprinted the content of a note he sent to customers last Friday in which he states that Tesla has finally “broken the logjam” and already delivered 9 Roadsters to California.
By Nick Chambers •
June 17, 2008
How would you like to drive an all-electric Mini? An EV Smart Car? A PT Cruiser? With the help of Hybrid Technologies, you can. They’ve taken many familiar vehicles, ripped out their engines, and replaced them with lithium batteries and electric motors.
On the surface it makes great sense and it seems there would be a huge demand for this sort of thing. Electric cars are nearly maintenance free. They don’t need oil changes and they have 90% fewer parts than gas cars. Plus, these EVs look like the normal cars that are already popular with many folks.
Arthur Shopenhauer said “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Above you see three cars, the Tesla Roadster, Wrightspeed X1 and the Tango… the Tesla in particular because of the company’s comparitively deep pockets, which would be in the Violently Opposed Stage (by the majors [...]
In San Francisco last week I happened to bump into a Tesla Roadster outside SF Green. The pictures are below, but I also wanted to highlight something Daryl Siry, VP of sales marketing and service for Tesla Motors said during the event.
Daryl commented that yes, $100K is a lot to pay for an electric car (he also mentioned the new Whitestar sedan would be around $70k), but he reiterated how expensive the technology is for small companies.
By Max Lindberg •
April 29, 2008
It had to happen, just when we were beginning to think that plug-in hybrid and electric cars were the best things since sliced bread, someone has intimated that there may be a health risk involved in driving those vehicles.
You remember, the power line scare back in the ’70’s (which really hasn’t gone away) and of course the more recent flap about cell phones emitting dangerous electromagnetic fields to the brain. In case you want to read more on these issues, a specific Google entry should suffice.Now, before you go somewhere else, hang on, there’s more to this electromagnetic field issue than you may think. That’s coming up, along with a short tip of the hat to the man who got us started on our way to the world we live in.
On March 17, Tesla Motors began limited production of their all-electric, zero-emissions sportscar, the Tesla Roadster. It’s a car that can go from 0-60 in 5.7 seconds without using a drop of gas, and promises to be the first of a wave of new plug-in electric vehicles available in the United States.
It’s been almost 2 years since Tesla debuted the prototype in July of 2006, but Tesla had to delay release until now due to problems with the Roadster’s two-speed transmission. The vehicle will go into production anyway with in interim transmission, and Tesla is offering a free powertrain upgrade, when it becomes available, that will boost acceleration to 0-60 in 4 seconds.
And the folks at Earth2Tech were there to snap some pictures (like the one above). A sweet ride that’s all electric…
By EcoGeek Blog •
August 3, 2007
Dear EcoGeek,
Who killed the electric car? Seriously, why can’t I buy one yet and when will I be able to?
Alan Carney
Dallas, Texas
Hey Alan, Much love to the people who made Who Killed the Electric Car?
, because they got a lot of stuff right. It wasn’t any one person, corporation or technicality that killed the EV1. As with all product failures, it was a combination of
[...]
Last week New Mexico ushered in an expansion of its Renewable Energy Standard (RES).
With a sweep of his pen, Governor Bill Richardson upped the existing RES of 10 percent by 2011 to at least 20 percent by 2020. The bill had passed the Senate 32-0 and the House 43-18.
While the old RES only applied to investor-owned utilities, the new law was expanded to include the state’s public utility districts and municipal
[...]
There's no definitive answer to that question (yet), but the Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is putting the hard sell on California-based Tesla Motors (creator of the very cool electric vehicle, the Tesla Roadster) to locate a new manufacturing facility in the Wolverine State.
