The first of the long-awaited and much-lauded Tesla Roadsters is rolling off the assembly line as I write this. After a lot of delays, a huge internal shake-up and a couple price increases, the company will finally start delivering Roadsters to customers.
The CEO is quick to point out that this is “the only zero emission electric vehicle in production today,” which is pretty much a big lie. There are lots of people making electric vehicles in America. But it is the only one with a top speed of 125 mph.
Though the $100,000 price tag is a bit steep, and Tesla will only be able to produce one or two cars a week (at least at first), 900 people have already reserved a Roadster. Included in that list are Dustin Hoffman, George Clooney, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Despite all of the uncertainty and delays along the way, that’s a big deal. Tesla already has proved that green can be cool.
Today Mercedes-Benz anounced they are going to launch a EV A-class car in 2010 with some help from Tesla using their Li-ion batteries they are also getting from Tesla for the EV Smart car - also to launch in 2010. The A-class is said to have a 120 mile range.
I’s been four months since the start of this thread and I have been monitoring Tesla’s progress ever since. But amidst all the publicity and hype that surrounds this posterboy of the EV revolution, I started to notice that one small detail is still missing. Tesla makes bold claims regarding the Roadster’s performance and sales, but so far hasn’t verifiably delivered a single specimen to an independent paying customer. This made me suspicious and and websearch revealed that I’m almost but not quite totally alone in this. The critical website www.thetruthaboutcars.com noticed too that despite the hype nobody has been able to actually verify any of Tesla’s claims, simply because Tesla doesn’t deliver any cars to independent customers sofar. read it all here:
At this point I’m starting to fear that the real reason Tesla isn’t delivering might have less to do with production issues and more with the fact that it might have exaggerated it’s claims somewhat/ a lot (especially regarding range) and that the actual delivery of vehicles might pop their bubble. Please proof me wrong!
PS: I know I’m on shaky grounds here. I had the audacity to post a critical reply about Tesla on Autobloggreen only to notice that the above mentioned link I provided had been edited out within an hour after posting it and I was barred from making any more postings on this website. You can read it here:
Thanks for bringing it up. Here you will not get censored as I believe a lot of people here like knowing all sides of everything, if only to make the best decision.
A lot of us have been hoping its real even though we haven’t really seen one yet. I am worried that its costing more than they’re charging, and not that they can’t do it. Research and development costs a lot and the parts they’re using are a lot too, I would guess.
[QUOTE=noisome;3909]Thanks for bringing it up. Here you will not get censored as I believe a lot of people here like knowing all sides of everything, if only to make the best decision.
A lot of us have been hoping its real even though we haven’t really seen one yet. I am worried that its costing more than they’re charging, and not that they can’t do it. Research and development costs a lot and the parts they’re using are a lot too, I would guess.
How much money do they really have?
Noisome[/QUOTE]
I know they got LOTS of money from the founder of ebay and the founder of google. and the guys incharge of the company aren’t getting paid for this venture, they are donating their time into it.
Otherwise though, they are doing this to get the hype going then release the passenger vehicle to which they are working on right now.
Actually Tesla is very succesful at raising funds. Here is a quote from an elaborate article about Tesla’s rather tumultuous history on money.cnn.com:
But Musk got his way, in large part because he was putting more and more of his own money into Tesla. He led Tesla’s $12 million second round of financing in the fall of 2005, and also convinced some of his high-powered friends, including Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and eBay employee No. 2, Jeff Skoll, to invest in later rounds. To date, he has personally put in $55 million of the $145 million Tesla has raised.
If you’re interested in a more level headed account of Tesla’s tumultuous history than that from the thetruthaboutcars.com guys I mentioned in my previous posting here is the link to the full article:
Like all startup’s the birth of the Roadster is a long and painful one filled with technical problems and personal drama. I quess we need to be patient and give them a chance. On the other hand I don’t like the secretive stuff. I mean to claim that the car that was destined for Tesla’s founding father -but since fired and now Tesla’s fiercest critic- Martin Eberhard was in a crash the day before it would be delivered…come on guys! It just fits too perfect in the picture of a company that doesn’t want any critical parties to get their hands on a specimen. As long as Mr. Elon Musk feels he has to resort to stories like this it’s clear to me that Tesla is not out of the woods yet.
