Tesla Motors Begins Delivering Model S Electric Cars

Good news: this vehicle's range is in the 160- 300 miles per charge depending on the battery size.

Bad news: If you are looking for an "affordable" version, you will have to wait.. these puppies are pricey

It's nice to see something in the green genre ($465 million Fed loan), that still has the possibility of repaying the money lent. It won't be soon though, they are still operating at a loss, and hope that this vehicle can get them back on track.

w ww.mercurynews.com

...The stakes are high for the success of the Model S, and not just for Tesla. Its efforts represent a chance for California to add more high-end manufacturing jobs amid a continuing sluggish economy and a 10.8 percent unemployment rate. And the electric car industry, which has suffered from setbacks and sluggish sales over the past year, needs a boost.
"It marks, hopefully, the transformation of Tesla from a wannabe to a mainstream automaker," said John O'Dell, a senior editor at auto information site Edmunds.com.
Tesla's pricey sedans, which sell for between $57,400 and $77,400 before government rebates, are aimed at those with relatively deep pockets. But Musk said plans already are under way for Tesla to build a car that will cost less than $30,000 to make electric cars "affordable to the mass market."
Tesla said it will make 5,000 cars this year, and 20,000 next year. The first 1,200 to be delivered are the deluxe Signature Series Model S, which sell for as much as $105,400 before rebates. Tesla plans to offer the Model X sport-utility vehicle in early 2014....

One of the funny comments below the article asked if they could program a "ringtone" feature and have speakers replicate the sound of dual exhausts..

Anyways, a step forward, hopefully they can get down to making something more affordable in the near future..

HOLY #.

The Model S is one of the nicest cars I've ever seen. Full electric, 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds, top speed 130, glass panoramic roof, amazing digital dashboard. God, they god electric down pat and now have integrated digital glory into them. I want one.

Great! another washer machine with wheels, that costs WAYYY to much money.

I hear they are going to come out with a pedal power batmobile but they can't decide on whether to charge $200k or $250k. But thats later in the works, right now they just bought out power wheels, trying to knock out the competition.

I'm not sure if this is the same tech that GM killed in the 1980's, but it was bound to return with a vengence. I know that electric cars can accelerate very quickly, so performance isn't a question.

They're expensive, but I know you can loan me a couple hundred grand, right Jack?

Very Cool..

Telsa has been making electric cars for awhile now and are very good at it. As you say, they can be pricey.

Several years ago I made the acquaintance of surgeon who had one of their Roadsters.

Telsa Roadster

He only lived about 10 miles from the hospital and he loved it. It was his daily driver to and from the hospital.

From what I learned about it the numbers they give on the horsepower, torque and 0-60 are legit. Yes, it will take you 0-60 in a hair under 4seconds and it isn't just fun, its FUN.

But, the miles per charge was kind of like the mpg manufacturers list for regular cars. Take it with a grain of salt. Yes, if he drove it to get maximum battery life he said he could probably go around 200 miles. But, if he drove like he enjoyed driving it then it got far less than that.

Can they not build an econo box electric car for us poor common folk ?? Why can't they build a Volkswagen ( people's car ) with no frills instead of catering to the rich who don't care about fuel prices !!

There will probably never be an economical zero emission vehicle that is allowed to go into mass production. It will never happen unless power is forcibly removed from the powerful, and handed to the powerless.

I'm surprised how expensive it is! You would think an electric car would have a lot less movable parts than having an engine. I doubt this is going to take off in the marketplace if the price tag is so high. Considering the cost of electricity isn't cheap, and the time to recharge it isn't exactly the kind of car you would want to take on a road trip. What exactly are you gaining besides the advantage of no pollution?

I would think the public would want a car that can use cheap energy to power it. Hydro powered cars sounds more advantageous than electric. Anyone ever price the cost of one of those batteries?

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have the potential to reduce our dependence on imported oil and are also environmentally friendly. In theory, electric vehicles eliminate the need for fossil fuels, but in reality more than 40 percent of electricity in the U.S. is produced by coal plants. Hydrogen, however, produces no pollutants and is a renewable resource. Additionally, a hydrogen-powered car can be refilled in about five minutes which is close to a gasoline tank. This is a huge advantage over electric cars which take hours to fully charge. Finally, the range of an electric vehicle changes based on temperature, so people in snowy climates get a different range than people passing palm trees during their morning commute. Besting EVs again, hydrogen cars are consistant in every market.

reply to post by rick004

Can they not build an econo box electric car for us poor common folk ?? Why can't they build a Volkswagen ( people's car ) with no frills instead of catering to the rich who don't care about fuel prices !!

Because they can't.

"Green" technology is something of a lie. Most electrical power comes from coal in the world. To replace any mentionable portion of traffic on the road with electric cars is to replace petroleum combustion (very clean) with coal combustion (very dirty - regularly venting radium, Carbon-14, Uranium 238, and Thorium into the atmosphere... more uranium is contained in the fly ash from coal power plants than is used in the world's nuclear power plant fleet each year).

That is, of course, unless the country is operating on a natural gas to Nuclear strategy - but the power infrastructure of most countries still cannot handle distributing the kinds of power necessary for large scale deployment of electric vehicles - and "green" power would have to replace thousands of square miles with wind and/or solar power plants to even think of producing the world's power requirements - so we're deluded in thinking that's a practical solution.

Further complicating the electric car is that it is heavily reliant upon a number of rare earth elements presently dominated by China.

Make no mistake - the most profitable thing you could possibly do in today's age is find a mineable deposit of Neodymium and other metals within that rare-earth group. Of course - China would lower its prices on its stockpiles to drive you into the red (so you'd have to have considerable investor backing and be willing to get into a pissing match with China's established rare earth industry).

Which is why it simply won't happen for a long time to come.

Battery technology is too primitive and too expensive (most of that car's weight is tied up in the battery). It also doesn't really account for accessories like an air conditioner (powered by belts or an electrical system powered by the car's engine) or heater (powered by waste heat from the engine) or sound system - which could chew into a battery quite heavily by comparison to merely driving the vehicle.

Which is why this car is expensive - and why these cars almost exclusively target the upper middle class (for cars like the Volt) and wealthy (cars like this).

Construction of an economy all-electric car is a pipe-dream that will not be possible until energy storage technology is on a completely new paradigm.

Until then - hydrid-electric vehicles that eventually make a transition to hydrocarbon fuel cells is where it's going to be at for the economy vehicle. The quality of these systems will increase and the price decrease over the next decade with smaller and more specialized combustion engines generating electrical power - until fuel cells mature to the point where they can take over (could be as soon as ten years from now - could be as many as fifty, depending upon what advances are made and where).