Tesla

Global warming is bad. M'kay?

Automotive design has grown up around petrol combustion. It has formed the philosophy of the cars we drive, how we expect them to look and behave. As cars got bigger even diesel becomes acceptable for engines as it becomes the only way to drag the big lumps around is an affordable way.

To expect to be able to turn a lard ass ford into an electric car is laughable. Thats why the idiotic Honda Prius is such a poor performer on all levels and produces more real damage to the environment than some of the better small car offerings running on "traditional" technologies.

Either use cars less or make cars that do less damage (all the way from cradle to grave). Or even better do a bit of both.

The Telsa is basically an S2 Lotus Elise using traditional Lithium Ion batteries. The idea is to get it light enough to perform well - decent speed, low power consumption and distance between recharges. The Elise is a great place to start as its pretty light (though the S2 is of course heavier than the S1), its got lots of hard, expensive stuff sorted and the platform is stiff and strong enough to cope with having batteries stuffed all over the shop.

It challenges our conceptions of what an electric car should be and also manages to demonstrate that such a car can actually perform well - electric power can actually have some real advantages over oil over and above "green" issues. Make a better doohickey and the customers will buy it. Even better, make it a shiny, desirable doohicky that goes like stink and they will beat a path to the door.

If we can’t compete on price, Eberhard figured, then let’s compete on performance, and let the price fall where it may. And along the way, re-invent the electric car, making it highly desirable, even if not affordable to all. With this philosophy, the Tesla Roadster was born: beautiful, unbelievably quick, and yet the most energy efficient car on the road. With less constraint on price, Eberhard and Tarpenning conceived a completely new drivetrain, powered by commodity lithium ion batteries like those in consumer electronics – and achieved the longest driving range of any production electric car by a factor of two.

Eberhard grew Tesla Motors from two people to a team of 280 people in 4 countries, with expertise across the disciplines needed to create a car company. Along the way, he raised over £50m from both Venture Capitalists and angel investors. He led the development of the Roadster from inception through design and testing including the stringent safety testing required by the US Department of Transportation, and also including performance and range tests that validate his original claims of 0-60 mph in less than 4 seconds, and nearly 250 miles range per charge.

If we just try and design personal transport based on what we see and use now along with misconceived ideas of what is "green" we will fail to produce more environmentally friendly personal transport. What the Telsa shows is that you have to look a little deeper. Then you end up with something gorgeous and fast, rather than abhorrent and worthless like the G-fecking-wiz.