Find Reviews by Make:
Our pals over at Autobloggreen have a full gallery of photos of Tesla’s new Model S which seats seven (Volvo-like rear-facing child seats). True to form, the the new EV makes it debut with a wide range of unsubstantiated claims about range (300 miles), recharge time (four hours), features, everything. Oh, wait. Tesla will fit the $50K “entry level” Whitestar sedan—I mean Model S—with a 160-mile (including limp home mode) battery pack. Owners of the”Tesla for the rest of us” have to pay $? to upgrade for a 300-mile (including limp home mode) battery pack. And the timeline for this Roadster redux? The third quarter of 2011. Something tells me it’ll be later, and they’ll take your money sooner.
23 Comments on “Tesla Model S Revealed. Again. More....”
Read all comments
Seriously, if you read the spec list (wish list?) on this car, does anyone really think that the finished product will be anywhere close to those claims.
If Tesla can actually produce said vehicle, a lot of people would buy. I fear they are just trying to get operating capital to continue operating for the next couple of years before they declare bankruptcy.
This is such a joke, but the MSM are just lapping it up without question. I wonder if they would question claims by Tesla that the car could fly.
Actually looks better than what i usually dream that it would
The styling is fine to me, but what’s with that humungous touch screen? I’m not sure what’s worse, that or the iDrive-type devices – at least the latter can be theoretically operated without having to look at the screen, if you’ve memorized the sequences. I’m fine driving inexpensive cars, but with tactile knobs and switches.
I see flush and aerodynamically clean, but gimmicky external door handles. Thankful here for the pull-type door handles that are about standard on just about every new car. Underhand, overhand, between the fingers – it just works.
I really can’t get over this “chassis of our own design” thing.
The car also has a time travel option.
So, the company cannot take an existing chassis and bolt in some electrics and manage to produce it on budget or on time. They want us to believe that in 2.5 years time, they can develop their own chassis, pass crash test regs, install the questionable electronics from the roadster and then build 1000 times the number of vehicles annually that they have managed to build in the lifetime of the roadster. IF this ever gets released and is anywhere near this price point, it will be in the shop more than a 1978 Oldsmobile Diesel.
The NY Times had a good article:
One interesting part:
“Tesla is also financing the development of the Model S with deposits from people on the waiting list, who can pay $40,000 to reserve one of the first 2,000 cars or $5,000 for later cars.
For those who are worried about what will happen to their deposits if the car is never produced, since the money will be spent on development and not held in escrow, Mr. Musk said: “The worst-case scenario is they would lose their money. They are at risk.” ”
There you go, a direct quote from Elon “Madoff” Musk. This is the definition of a Ponzi scheme – your money is spent on someone else’s car…
HankScorpio brings up another good point: “it will be in the shop more than a 1978 Oldsmobile Diesel.” What shop? Aside from buying these things as limited run collector car (I’ll leave other to debate the wisdom of that), who would spend this kind of money on a vehicle from what is no doubt the least viable car company in America? A company that loses money on every vehicle cannot stay in business. Who will service these? Where will parts come from?
Look, I’m all for geeks making cool things and selling them to other geeks. I’ve bought all kinds of that stuff myself (much lower price points, though). What I resent here is the arrogance, duplicity, and play for MY tax money.
On the whole, I prefer the Tucker Torpedo to the Tesla Model S.
Sure, the Tesla S gets a little better gas mileage, but the Tucker can not only seat seven – you can fit a Shetland pony in it!
http://jalopnik.com/335574/tucker-48#poll_=MTNxQTM
I find it interesting to read all these comments (and blog postings)to the effect “Tesla is making claims they will never deliver on”.
Hello, doesn’t the Roadster deliver all the performance and range that it promised years ago??
Folks, it’s actually quite easy to predict the range and performance of an EV; it’s not black magic. Tesla’s big challenge is to find the money to put this in production. If they find it, it will deliver. And regarding the deposits being a Ponzi scheme: No, Madoff didn’t disclose how their money was being used and might well be lost. If folks want to take a clearly defined risk in putting down a deposit with Tesla, who cares?
Musk may be an arrogant prick, but so was Henry Ford. The world will go on regardless of whether Tesla makes it or not, but why all the hate about them trying?
@ Paul Niedermeyer:
Maybe the Roadster delivers on its performance claims. I’d like to see a TTAC review to back that up, but I’ll give them that. Still, there are many other claims, ie. for sale in 2011, 20K units per year, profitable, which leave me not wanting to be an investor at this point.
I will say that Porsche could use a lesson on 5 door sports hatch rear end design from Tesla.
Paul,
1. Range claims are only able to be calculated with a reliable estimate of battery performance. I think they are making claims based on what batteries may be able to do in the future.
2. Has the range and performance of the roadster been verified by a third party? I was under the impression that it had not been independently tested yet. Please correct me if I am wrong.
3. Indeed, Musk is an arrogant prick.
4. I don’t care about people “investing” in Tesla by putting down a deposit. I do care about my tax money being pissed away on a “car company” that has a slim chance of actually producing a vehicle in mass quantities. The money could be put to much better use creating an electric economy car rather than a 50K + luxury vehicle with limited real world applicability.
Paul:
The Tesla Roadster was a relatively modest engineering project — take an existing Lotus, take another company’s electric motor, take yet another company’s controller, and add a battery. Tesla has finally managed to do this and is delivering cars. How late was this project from the initial projected completion date? 2 years? They are selling the Roadster for about $100k and are losing money on each one.
The sedan is a far more ambitious engineering project. They are building the entire platform from scratch. They plan to do this in less time than it took them to deliver the Roadster. And they plan to sell it for half the cost of the Roadster and still make money.
Given Tesla’s track record of failing to live up to its promises, why do you think they will succeed with a far more ambitious project when they have failed to live up to their projections in a far more modest project?
Personally, I’m sick and tired of people holding up Tesla, which has produced maybe 1,000 cars (sort of — Lotus does the bulk of the manufacturing for them) and lost money on every one of them, as the model for the industry.
Hey kids! I was actually there at the unveiling, so… I’ll say a word or two.
Despite the unveiling taking place in Musk’s own ROCKET SHIP FACTORY, he’s quite humble. I sat down and spoke with him one-on-one (with his assistant staring at me silently the whole time) and he’s anything but an arrogant prick. Right wing nut job, sure. But very pleasant and not Lutzian in the slightest.
In fact, the rest of Tesla was running about screaming, “0-60 in 5.5 seconds” but musk never once said anything other than “less than six seconds.” And with 400 lb-ft of torque at Zero RPM, that’s not difficult. The hard part is everything else.
First of all, like Paul N said, the Roadster is real and delivers on what Tesla promised. I got to drive it a couple of weeks back and when I left the Tesla shop it said I had 55 miles left until empty and after quite a bit of flogging it was only down to 43 miles left. I would say that I got forty five minutes of “spirited” driving in before I had to give it back. Lots and lots of stop and go.
One thing — freeways eat the battery. In four miles of 80 mph freeway driving, my range dropped by 5 miles. Keeping the engine spinning at 11,000 rpm (one speed gear box) eats juice.
But, repeated stop and go didn’t seem to drain the battery at all.
So, there you have it.
As far as the chassis goes for the Model S, it’s Teslas. Basically the 1,200 pound, 8,000+ cell pack is in the floor. Just like the 996 pound, 6,813 cell pack in the Roadster is behind the driver.
As RF points out, the pricing is, um, deceptive. $57,400 for the car and the 160 mile battery pack.
$7,500 federal tax credit brings the “price” to $49,900. No word on what the 230 or 300 mile packs cost. However, Musk did mention that the packs have been designed to be swapped out quickly. I don’t know what that means, as they weigh 1,200 pounds but conceivably a dealer could swap out the 160 mile pack for a rented 300 mile pack
Here’s some more detail
http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/03/26/tesla-model-s-concept-debuts/
@Jonny Lieberman: any shots or diagrams of the underside of the car and how the battery swap is done? It also sounds like what Project Better Place is doing – battery compatibility at all? I’m guessing no to that, nor 3rd party packs.
Richard:
Again, we were looking at a hand build prototype, so no — no nothing like that.
But again — the secret is the power control module — which works just fine on the roadster.
After that it’s just a matter of positioning the batteries and the motor (which is about the size of a 5-gallon bucket).
HankScorpio: If you understand batteries, it’s easy to predict range. And Tesla was right about its range prediction on the Roadster. The S will have a somewhat improved density battery, the cells of which are already verified. Please understand: Tesla doesn’t design or develop their battery cells; the just buy commodity cells from China, and package/control them to be usable in an EV. It takes some work, but it’s not black magic.
guyincognito and HankScorpio: There have been numerous tests of the Roadster in various magazines. Just like mileage in an ICE car, range will vary. But the Roadster’s tested range CONSISTENTLY follows Tesla’s claims/predictions: If you drive fast, range drops quickly (but predictably). This drop is disproportionally faster than in an ICE car. That’s the reality of EV’s. I’ve written several editorials on this in the past here.
No one is (credibly) claiming that the Roadster’s range claims don’t hold up. And the Model S will deliver it’s projected range too, providing it gets built.
You try starting a new car company sometime.
The problems Tesla have had with the transmission are going to get worse with a multi-passenger sedan. The roadster body gives a very slick Cd and a relatively small range of loading (one skinny driver and his wallet to two fat ladies and all they can stuff in the small trunk). Despite their best efforts, the sedan will have the aerodynamics of a house brick in comparison and the gearing required to get seven people out of the starting gate will run out of steam beyond any reasonable speed.
Most striking factor about the “S” to my mind? It looks like a stylish, re-worked Pontiac G6.
That’s a good thing for Tesla: the design isn’t a fanciful concept; in many ways, it’d look more at home on the street, today, than the gimicky, chunky Chevy Volt prototypes we’ve seen.
And it’s sad for GM. For only $9k more than the 40-mile Volt, you can have a fully electric car that quadruples the range and ratchets up the design sophistication by a factor of, er, lots.
sitting@home:
In point of fact, the topless roadster has a Cd of 0.35
compared to the Model S which is in the Prius like 0.26 range.
As far as gearing, maybe — but again, 400 lb-ft of torque (or whatever it will be — that’s about the range) is pretty usefull when going up hills.
In case no one read the link I posted, the Model S will have a more powerful motor than the Roadster and be liquid cooled.
In the Roadster, just the battery pack is cooled.
@ Paul Niedermeyer:
Don’t get me wrong, I helped Tesla get their first round of funding because I believed in what they were trying to do and I definitely understand how difficult the auto industry is. And I’m impressed with what Tesla has been able to achieve so far.
Still, I’m no fan of Elon and…I may be a tad bitter they didn’t offer me a job…but I do have serious doubts about their claims for the Model S, which I think deserve to be debated, especially since they are after my tax money. Maybe with current weight and performance targets, the battery range is easy to calculate but the overall performance, timing, and cost of the vehicle depends on so many variables that any claims are basically meaningless at this point in the product development cycle.
In any case, I accept your support for my auto company startup. It has long been my goal to be a full time armchair CEO. TTAC motors???
300 miles on a 4 hour charge!? When travelling, I’ve seen 1,000 miles in a day. My car can go further than that on a single tank, which takes all of maybe 3 minutes to refuel.
Not to mention the infastructure costs. Living in California, our electric infastructure is beyond straining in the summer (rolling blackouts). The draw from these things has got to be massive.
ConspicuousLurker wrote: 300 miles on a 4 hour charge!? When travelling, I’ve seen 1,000 miles in a day. My car can go further than that on a single tank, which takes all of maybe 3 minutes to refuel.
That’s a pretty big tank. Clearly, “when travelling” 1000 miles a day you wouldn’t use your *electric freaking vehicle* with a 150 mile range.
In contrast, I drive a never-changing 45 miles round trip on my commute ~250 days a year. If the Tesla S makes it? Sure, I’ll take one.
I’m with Lieberman & Niedermeyer. People should stop giving Tesla such a hard time. Sure they have lofty goals on this one, but so what? If they make it, awesome. EV’s are heading in the right direction imo. If Tesla doesn’t make it- so what?
Maybe I’m just numb and stopped caring about where my tax money goes after the all the bailouts. But then again I’d be a lot more excited about the Tesla model S succeeding in 3 years (they said “end” of 2011) than AIG staying alive for another few weeks on I’m sure an equivalent taxpayer expense.