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Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, introducing a prototype of the Model S sedan, scheduled to go into production in 2011. Musk predicts it will be the first mass-produced highway-capable electric car. The Roadster's 1,000-pound lithium-ion battery rockets the car from zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds flat. Musk defines Tesla's mission: to make an electric car without compromises and rescue the planet from its unsustainable oil dependency. The Roadster's tagline? "100% torque, 100% of the time." Options for the sporty Roadster include a red leather interior. |
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In most sports cars, launching from stationary to 100 mph requires deft clutch and shift work. But in Tesla's exhilarating electric supercar, acceleration comes with the same ease and immediacy as flipping on a light switch.
Located under the sole of your right foot, the switch responds to the flex of a hamstring muscle and shoots the Tesla Roadster down the road, accompanied by what sounds like a giant laptop computer whirring to life. The nearly thousand-pound battery rockets the car from zero to sixty in 3.7 seconds and to a stratospheric redline of 14,000 rpm with just one long, grin-inducing gear.
If your idea of an electric vehicle is a puttering golf cart, or you think that real power can only come from a gas-guzzling V-12 or temperamental supercharger, Tesla is here to change your mind. With the only all-electric car on the North American market to its name, the six-year-old San Carlos, California-based company is as revolutionary for what it has eliminated as for what it has created: There's no stopping at the gas station, no oil changes (there's no oil), no smog check (there's no exhaust), and no franchise car dealer.
Most important, there is no torque curve—the key measure of acceleration—making Tesla’s electric motor ideal as a high-performance sports car. While peak torque in other performance cars requires agile shifting or an automatic transmission’s delay and lurch, the Roadster holds peak torque while standing still at a stoplight—a lightning bolt just waiting to be switched on. "100% torque, 100% of the time" is the company's compelling catchphrase.
After a rocky start, Tesla is now reaping the rewards of its innovation. Profitable as of this quarter, the company recently received approval for about $465 million in low-interest loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to accelerate production, and German car giant Daimler has bought a ten-percent stake in the company.
Tesla's position in the auto industry exemplifies the adage that geography is a form of destiny, for Tesla is headquartered not in Detroit, but in California's Silicon Valley, where paradigm-shattering entrepreneurship and technological brilliance form the everyday milieu.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and one of its five founders, is a Silicon Valley rock star. He sold his first piece of software at the age of twelve and was a cofounder of the Internet startup that ultimately became PayPal. The South African-born Musk has dreamed of electric cars since his days at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and talks about them as if he's on an Earth-saving mission. "It's important for the future of the world to transition to sustainable transportation," he says, citing environmental concerns and oil-related national security issues. "It just needs to get done."
After five years of development and capital investment (including some help from Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page), Tesla opened its second company-owned showroom and assembly facility in Menlo Park, California, in July 2008. It now has branches in Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle, with three more opening this fall, in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Miami. The base price for the Roadster is $109,000, minus a federal tax credit of $7,500. Tesla expects to produce 1,200 units this year.
The heart of Tesla's intellectual property is the patented liquid-cooled battery pack, capable of an industry-leading 244-mile range and rechargeable on a standard 120-volt electrical outlet. The Roadster is the first production car to use lithium-ion cells (6,831 of them) similar to those in a laptop computer. Its battery pack should last seven years or 100,000 miles before its power storage begins to wane, but until then, Tesla predicts the Roadster should require so little maintenance that it will once again explode everything we've come to expect from owning a car.
Groundbreaking technology is never cheap, and in order to justify the expense, Tesla had to make something head-turning and publicity-grabbing. "We could have made a $109,000 sports car, or a $90,000 electric vehicle that looks like a Honda Civic,” says Musk. “Which do you think would sell better?”
So the company set out to design an electric car that would not be a compromise, commissioning a chassis from Lotus and loading it with Brembo brakes, Bilstein shocks, and a JVC navigation system to appeal to affluent, tech-savvy consumers, who would essentially subsidize early-stage production—the same Silicon Valley model followed in the introduction of cell phones and flat-screen TVs. "The transition to electric cars can only occur if they are affordable,” explains Musk. “New technology in any field takes a few versions to optimize before reaching the mass market, and in this case it is competing with 150 years and trillions of dollars spent on gasoline cars."
Although the primary criticism of the Roadster has been its high cost, mass rollout of fully electric vehicles may come sooner than you think: Tesla’s second car, the Model S sedan, scheduled to go into production in 2011, will be half the price and feature a swappable battery, and a $30,000 subcompact could be available in five years. Meanwhile, stakeholder Daimler plans to begin using Tesla batteries in its Smart cars by 2012.
Americans’ attitudes toward electric vehicles are growing in favorability, and Musk maintains that "there isn't any problem whatsoever with consumer acceptance. The cars just need to be made. The goal of this company is to produce mainstream electric vehicles."
To that end, the company picked an auspicious namesake. In 1931, on his seventy-fifth birthday, inventor Nikola Tesla, the father of alternating current, was honored on the cover of TIME for his contribution to electrical power generation. If the thirty-eight-year-old Musk succeeds in shattering the century-old auto paradigm by getting us all into electric cars, he'll beat the scientist by miles.
Christian Chensvold’s work has appeared in L’Uomo Vogue, Robb Report and the LA Times Magazine. He is also the founder of Ivy-Style.com.
Photography credits:
- ROBIN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
- Courtesy Tesla Motors
- Courtesy Tesla Motors
- Courtesy Tesla Motors
- Courtesy Tesla Motors
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