When I go to the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), I like to get downtown early, around 7 AM. That way I don’t have to wait in any lines for credentials and I can get my favorite free parking spot about a block from Cobo Hall. While waiting for the press conferences to begin today, I stopped at the Tesla booth to say hi to Rachel Konrad, head of communications. Tesla first appearance at NAIAS consists of a small booth next to the Lotus display. Tesla’s displayed a naked Roadster chassis, which laid the car’s Lotus roots bare. But Konrad was emphatic: only a small percentage of components are shared with the Elise. She said that 150 not-Elise Roadsters have been delivered. They’re completing 15 vehicles a week, with 1100 people on a waiting list. Their facility has an ultimate capacity of 40 cars a week. With production proceeding, albeit at a relatively slow pace, Tesla has grown their company beyond Tucker stage (50 units built). It remains to be seen if they surpass Bricklin (2854 SV1s) and DeLorean (~9000 DMC-12s). In the meantime, they’re building real cars. I know because I got to drive one…

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No really. (Remember: we don’t diss Autoblog any more.) Scribe Sam “Is There a Draft Out There” Abuelsamid has noticed a new technology on the otherwise Lincoln WTF– I mean Concept C that’s way cool. I think. “Take a close look at the brake caliper in the photo above. Typically, the brake rotor is attached to the wheel hub and the caliper grips the disk from the out edge. On the Concept C, the braking surface is attached to the inside edge of the wheel rim with caliper wrapping around the inside edge of the rotor… An internal caliper mount has the advantage of allowing a larger effective radius for where the braking force is applied. Since torque is defined as a force applied at a distance from a pivot point, the greater the distance, the greater the braking force. Such a setup allows more brake force with a smaller caliper, which in turn can provide better brake feel since the fluid displacement is smaller. The downside is that changing wheels becomes a much more complicated matter since the brake hardware is mounted on the wheel.” Man, I’ve got to get out more.

Hey, Reuters calls it the Detroit Auto Show. And it is an auto show in Detroit, no matter what the official organizers call it. And outside said event, United Auto Workers (UAW) employees protested the possibility that the union would comply with federal requirements on the $13.4b loan which saved GM from Chapter 11. “The group of some 50 or more workers marched up and down outside the conference center in chilly but sunny weather, chanting such slogans as “Bush says cut back, we say fight back” and holding signs including “No millionaire left behind” and “Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign.” And what’s with the MSM insistence on repeating the myth that the UAW’s ’07 contract contained “landmark givebacks on wages and health benefits”? Anyway, “The concessions that Bush wants us to make [that we’re not going to make and will remove from the loan agreement with Obama’s help anyway] are just a slap in our faces,’ said Tammy Jones, a furnace worker at Chrysler’s Hamtramck axle plant in Detroit.”

The New York Times reports that 600 GM employees “accepted a company invitation to demonstrate as reporters walked to a G.M. press conference Sunday morning.”