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Smart Cars, Electrified and Classy

August 26, 2009 in Consumer News, EVs, Future Cars, small cars by kristen | No comments

Smart has a couple bits of news this week. First, as of November 2009, the electric Smart Fortwo will have a lithium-ion battery pack from Tesla Motors on board. It’ll sit between the axles, so as not to compromise the already precious space inside the Fortwo, with the motor in the back, where it’s always been. The new battery gives it a range of about 70 miles, and will fully charge at a 220-volt socket overnight.

The electric Fortwo is currently being leased to “select markets,” as they say, in Europe and the U.S. for real-world testing. It’ll go on sale to anyone who wants one in 2012.

If you want 41 mpg in a gasoline car, plus a dash of je ne sais quoi, check out the new Smart Fortwo Highstyle, in chocolate brown with 12-spoke alloy wheels. The interior gets an upgrade to leather and fabric, and the car is available with start-stop technology to increase the gas mileage even more around town.

Tesla to Add Sedan, SUV, to Its Lineup

August 19, 2009 in Biz News, EVs, Future Cars by kristen | No comments

Tesla S

I wish I were a bookie, or knew how to put odds on events. Starting a betting pool on Tesla chairman Elon Musk’s plans for the company’s future would be fun. The company is seemingly doing pretty well, despite internal disputes, lawsuits, changes at the top, and who knows what all. Musk keeps on keeping on, though. Tesla’s got a deal with Daimler to help build electric smart cars, and Musk recently announced the addition of an SUV to Tesla’s future lineup and reiterated the company’s plans for an affordable sedan.

During an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose last week, Musk said the sedan will sell for around $50,000, or half the current price of the Roadster, and be produced in much larger numbers. Like, 20,000 a year, compared to 1,000 for the Roadster this year. An electric SUV and a new, smaller, more affordable car will follow sometime in the future. But you can look for the Tesla S sedan in two years … or can you? Place your bets!

Image of the Tesla S courtesy of Tesla Motors.

Tesla Model S Four-Door Sedan Likely in 2011

February 16, 2009 in Biz News, EVs, Future Cars, small cars by kristen | No comments

Tesla Recharging

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk blogged last week about the latest member of his electric vehicle family: the Tesla Model S, a four-door sedan. The company has its collective fingers crossed that the U.S. Department of Energy will approve its $350 million loan to work on the new family-friendly car; if it all works out, production could begin in 2011.

Musk had a slew of good news to report, in addition to the high hopes he has for the Model S:

  • The faster, performance-tuned Roadster Sport will be available in June 2009
  • Two new sales and service locations will open in Chicago and London, with more in the pipeline
  • The company is expected to turn a profit by mid-year (but who knows how many high-level personnel changes there’ll be in the meantime)
  • He reiterated that Tesla has partnered with Daimler to supply the batteries and chargers for the electric Smart car

Tesla to Supply Batteries for Smart EV

January 13, 2009 in Biz News, EVs, Future Cars, small cars by kristen | 1 comment

Tesla RoadsterSmart EV

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced today at the 2009 Detroit auto show that the company will supply the batteries for the forthcoming Smart electric vehicle. Musk had just gotten the go-ahead from Smart parent company and Tesla partner Daimler this morning to make the announcement at the press conference this afternoon — the last auto manufacturer’s press conference of the show.

Musk said Daimler felt Tesla had the best engineering and technology, and so chose the small Silicon Valley electric car maker to supply the batteries for its Smart microcar. The Smart EV will use the same batteries as the Tesla Roadster, but in a smaller pack.

Musk also mentioned that his goal is to bring EVs to the masses, something that could be done through this partnership with Daimler. While the technology is expensive, it goes into expensive cars like the Tesla Roadster (which sells for upwards of $100k and is sold out through November 2009). By working with a large car maker to build EVs in volume, Musk hopes to lower the costs and partner with Daimler to build tens of thousands of cars, instead of the 1500 Roadsters Tesla hopes to build this year.

Tesla likes this partnership model so much that Musk says it’s looking for more deals of the same kind. “The notion of Silicon Valley versus Detroit is completely untrue,” he said.

Tesla Gets a New Gearbox

October 2, 2008 in Consumer News, EVs by kristen | 1 comment

Tesla Upgrades GearboxIf you’ll recall, when the Tesla Roadster finally started rolling off the production line, the company promised that the transmission shipped with the car was not the final edition. Anyone who took delivery of the car in that first run would be eligible for a free gearbox upgrade — as soon as Tesla figured out what that would be.

The gearbox prize goes to supercar parts supplier BorgWarner. The 27 current Tesla Roadster owners can ship their cars back to the factory in California for an upgrade, which delivers 30% higher torque (in a car that already had plenty) and an EPA-calculated range of 244 miles on a single charge.

The gearbox Tesla planned to use at first turned out to be not so durable under the high-torque conditions generated by an electric supercar. The new BorgWarner setup has a single-speed gearbox.

Tesla says the new gearbox was the final hitch in production (we’ll see about that), and that it plans on upping its weekly production from 10 to 20 in the next few months. It wants to be churning out 40 per week by early 2009. Right now, it takes about six weeks from ordering a roadster to taking delivery and driving it away.

Tesla’s Model S Aims for 2010

September 8, 2008 in Biz News, Consumer News, EVs, Future Cars by kristen | No comments

Tesla Motors, the fine folks who brought us the all-electric Roadster sports car, are working on a five-passenger sedan called the S. The company plans on bringing the car to market in 2010, after its California manufacturing plant is complete.

While the Roadster was based on a Lotus platform, the S will be completely developed in-house. It will also be a bit cheaper than the $100k Roadster, since its body will be formed from aluminum rather than carbon fiber. According to Autocar, a U.K. site, there will be three models of the S available: a 160-mile range for $60,000; a 220-mile range for $68,000; and a future 300-mile range version that hasn’t had a price pinned on it yet.

Tesla will use the same lithium-ion battery technology that powers the Roadster in the S series, and it expects to eventually sell 20,000 S cars a year. If the California company can pull off building a four-door EV sedan for $60,000, the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt — which still requires gasoline and will likely retail for more than $40,000 — may have a serious challenger on its alternative-fuel hands.

Tesla S concept

The image is obviously from Autocar.co.uk.

First Tesla Crash

July 30, 2008 in EVs by kristen | No comments

It had to happen sometime, but did anyone think it would be so soon? Jet Black Tesla #6 was involved in a fender-bender in San Francisco, with its nose under a Mercedes-Benz and it’s rear snuggled up to a Toyota Camry. The company thinks the car is repairable, according to Darryl Siry, Tesla’s marketing VP.

Read all about it, and see the pics taken at the scene 10 minutes after the accident, on Wired’s blog.