The car was conceived by [Martin] Eberhard, an engineer, serial entrepreneur, and inventor (his name is on battery-cooling, electric motor, and power electronics patents filed by Tesla Motors). He was convinced that if he could outfit an existing sports car chassis with loads of laptop batteries, it would be feasible to build and he'd find plenty of buyers among the speed-loving, planet-conscious Silicon Valley set and beyond.
[The batteries] are capable of switching as much as 850 amps, which drive the AC motor as high as 14,000 rpm and send the rear-wheel-drive Roadster screeching off the line, with a range of 220 miles on a single charge. Acceleration is so fast (0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds) that you get pushed back in your seat.
That the Tesla exists at all is a small miracle.
Full article, at Fortune mag: Tesla's wild ride - Jul. 10, 2008
(photo from Fortune site)
GM's current (double entendre, and pun, intended) effort, inspired by the work of Tesla's creators, is the Chevy Volt. It is another contender in turning the long-awaited, anti-fossil fuel machine into something an actual consumer could drive someday. GM's Bob Lutz is quoted on a site devoted to the Volt as saying “if some Silicon Valley startup can solve this equation, no one is going to tell me anymore that it’s unfeasible.”
Recall that GM created the EV1, which died along with its kin from Ford, Toyota and Honda: "The most dramatic end," the Fortune article says, "would come for GM's EV1, when the Detroit automaker famously ripped the cars away from ecstatic owners and sent them to the crusher." The story is told in a documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?
And for a little more about it, visit the Wired.com blog, "Autopia" and browse starting with this off the path background piece from January of 2007.
I'll be keeping an eye out - on the roads - for these two, but not for a few more years. (Al Gore and his 10 years to gas-free be damned.)
- Jonny O
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