Tesla: Where Are the Keys to the Promised E-Car?
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 12.29.07
Tesla Chairman of the Board Elon Musk and the new CEO Ze'ev Drori are doing damage control. After intense Q&A at the first ever Tesla townhall meeting, both have published a year-end missive reaching out to the masses of dreamers and believers that have followed Tesla from inspiring announcements and exciting rides through slipping schedules and reorganization. Their message: have faith.
We use the word faith at the risk of further firing the feverish brains of the green is a new religion conspiracy theorists. But any person who has worked on a project creating something bigger than themselves knows that faith belongs to the process, and that is without mention of regulatory hurdles and customer expectations in the era of quality systems.
The good news: production unit one is off the line. The bad news: it has an anticipated transmission shelf life "measured in low single digits thousands of miles". Not suitable for delivery for more than road testing by auto journalists or to stimulate the hopes of superstar buyers like George Clooney, Michael Dell and Red Hot Chili Peppers' Michael Balzary. The planned solution is a compromise: the first Tesla electric sportscars will be sold with an "interim transmission" which has been proven reliable but which will not meet the promised acceleration of 0 to 60 in under 4 seconds, instead requiring 5.7 seconds to come up to speed.
The townhall meeting focused on not "overpromising" but did emphasize the unequivocal promise: "you'll get a great car." Without a commitment, Tesla indicates that a production schedule in the range of the "low 10's" of cars in the first half of 2008 can be anticipated. If accusations of "overpromising" can be made, they would focus around the optimistic energy unrepressably bubbling behind every reference to "ramping up" production as soon as delivery of reliable components can be assured.
Other key issues covered include the driving range tests and company capitalization. Tesla stands behind their "real-life" experience numbers of 165 miles in aggressive highway driving to 267 miles in conservative driving mode, but were forced to announce that the published results of official range testing by an independent laboratory are incorrect due to an incorrect calibration of a dynamometer. Re-testing resulted in an "official" value of 221 miles range, which remains a draft value until the testing is completed on a car with the transmission solution. Regarding capitalization: with backers like the founders of Google, JP Morgan and key eBay stockholders, Tesla can boast a lot of holders of the faith. In the worst case, CEO Elon Musk, founder of PayPal promises that Tesla will bring the car to market that has so excited the faithful in the electric car movement.
And we will say it again: what's in it for you and me? (Assuming you are not a key shareholder in Google, eBay or PayPal...) We won't be able to afford a Tesla anymore than we could afford a Ferrari or Maserati supercar. But the engineering and design achievements that inspire investments will trickle down to those of us in the hungry masses drooling after a new generation of transportation solutions.
Why does it even need a transmission? Perhaps they are talking about the differential? This is stupid, I could go to any professional race crew and have a transmission with a few months.
They should ask the owner of the White Zombie for help. Computer geeks don't know squat about cars. They are trying to design it like a rolling laptop. White Zombie:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RBTU2FUygKk
For Jacob: Hi Jacob, this is an additional idea for
Steve and the 'Aptera'--equip the Aptera with a
'run-flat' rear tire: It will lower to a still-safe pro-
file for lower speed drive to a repair center...One
wudn't want the rear tire to blow-out or fail sud-
denly! An owner cud also have a 'winter' and a
'summer' tire also: In summer, the somewhat smo-
other tire wud have good hot weather running
character; in wimter, an aggressive tread [and
auxiliary tirechain?...In either season, there wud
be no spinout or crash due to tire failure--just
a slowing and rougher ride? Pls pass this on to
Steve--thanks!..
Edgar, the transmission for an electric motor is completely different from that for a petroleum-fueled engine. The combustion engine generates power on a gentler curve, giving the transmission time to get spinning without a "cold kick". An electric motor generates immediately a high kick of energy, so it is not a easy as running down to the local pit and picking up some spare parts. This is a whole new beast.
Told ya so.
I think that this will be an excellent car when it's completed - just like any other real prototype, it'll come with delays, cost overruns and problems. But it's a great vision and after a few versions it should be revolutionary for the auto industry.
eknowit, They are putting electric motors into standard transmission cars right now, the existing standard transmission. Some of the ICE cars generate over 500 hp, Tesla is half that. Excuses are like a-holz.
I'm sure they will get it right eventually. It's not easy what they are trying to do. It's not like 5.7 seconds is slow (though it's slow for a car of this type and cost). But I don't think any of the early hundreds of buyers care about that.
Better slow than a lemon. Performance numbers can improve with a new model. Reputation for unreliability takes a lot longer to fix.
The car will never meet its design or promotion specs. It will flop. This is an electric Delorean.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/news-blog/tesla-birth-watch-14-spring-forward-leap-back/