elessar

http://jalopnik.com/397533/tesla-ann...-60k-price-tag

In addition to announcing the Model S, Telsa boss Elon Musk has stated they hope to develop their technology to the point where future cars may be priced at $30,000 and below, but that won't be the case when the first models roll out in four years. So, no car, no price, no launch date. Nothing to see here, folks. Tesla, makers of the Tesla Roadster that hasn't yet seemed able to make it to market, have just announced plans for the Model S, a five passenger, all-electric "sports" sedan capable of 225 miles in a charge and a starting price in the range of $60,000. We have yet to see images of the car or details on the date, but the Governator himself was on hand to announce the Model S will be built in a new manufacturing facility somewhere in California. This was rolled out amidst new plans created by the California Air Resources Board to encourage zero emissions vehicle adoption. We'll pass on additional news as we get it, but for now the full press release is after the jump.

Governor Schwarzenegger Celebrates Clean Technology Investment in California, Welcomes Tesla Motors Production to California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today joined with State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Tesla Motors representatives to announce Tesla's decision to locate its new manufacturing facility for its Model S, Tesla's second-generation vehicle, in California. As part of the state's ongoing commitment to clean technology, the Governor also announced a new program that waives the sales tax on investment in new manufacturing equipment for Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs). This program was developed in conjunction with the State Treasurer and the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority (CAEATFA).

"Today's announcement is great news for California, our economy and our environment. We want these cutting-edge companies not to just start in California and do their research and development here-we want them to build in California," Governor Schwarzenegger said.

"Tesla's announcement today is just one of many we will celebrate as we implement AB 32 and reach our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. I have always said that we must protect our economy and our environment at the same time, and today it is clear that we are once again demonstrating to the world how to do that."

California's green-friendly atmosphere is encouraging clean businesses from around the world to invest in California, stimulating our economy and contributing to the fight against global warming. According to the California Green Innovation Index by Next10, a non-partisan research organization, in 2006 venture capital investment in energy technology companies in California was just shy of $1 billion, more than double the total from 2005.

Last Thursday, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released its AB 32 Draft Scoping Plan, the market-based roadmap which will guide California toward its greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. This roadmap will motivate companies like Tesla to come to California and bring their innovation, reduced emissions and thousands of jobs with them.

Last Wednesday, CAEATFA approved a new program that exempts new ZEV manufacturers from paying sales and use tax on the purchase of manufacturing equipment to encourage ZEV manufacturing in California. For Tesla, these incentives will mean millions of dollars in savings when the company invests in building their new plant in California. And if they choose a city that is in an Enterprise Zone, they will save millions more. Tesla will also be eligible for at least $1 million in Employment Training Panel Workforce Development Funds to train employees.

Tesla's Model S will be a fully electric, five passenger, multi-use sport sedan with a driving range of approximately 225 miles on one charge. The projected cost of the Model S is $60,000.

"These vehicles can play a big part in helping California successfully implement its groundbreaking laws to fight climate change," said State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who chairs CAEATFA. "By offering this financial incentive, our goal is to ensure zero-emission vehicles realize their full potential in our state. In the bargain, we believe the policy will bolster our emerging green economy, create good-paying jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I'm very pleased the policy helped convince Tesla to build its high-performance electric cars in California."

In addition, California's new Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicles Technology Program, AB 118 by Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), which the Governor signed into law last year, established a new program that will generate more than $100 million annually for development of new technologies, vehicles and fuels. Funding is expected to be available in March 2009.

California's ZEV program is the world's only enforceable requirement for the development and production of zero-emission vehicles. The following state and federal programs support ZEVs:

* Alternative Fuel Vehicle Incentive Program: Offers up to $5,000 for the purchase or lease of alternative fuel vehicles. Battery electric vehicles, such as a Tesla, typically receive the full $5,000 grant.
* High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lane Access: Vehicles are eligible to receive the white HOV lane access sticker allowing them to be driven in the HOV lane with only one occupant. This white sticker is different from the yellow stickers issued to hybrid vehicles in that their availability is not capped at a specified number of vehicles.
* California's Environmental Performance Label: Requires all new cars starting in 2009 to display a sticker to inform consumers about the smog forming and greenhouse gas emissions of each vehicle. Vehicles are scored on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best. ZEVs will receive a score of 10 for both smog forming and greenhouse gas emissions.
* Federal Tax Incentives for Recharging Stations: A federal tax deduction of up to $100,000 per location is available for qualified electric vehicle recharging property used in a trade or business.
* Local Community Programs: Offers public charging, free parking and supportive building codes for installation of home charging units.
* Low Carbon Fuel Standard: Requires fuel providers to reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuels sold in California. This first-of-its-kind standard firmly establishes sustainable demand for lower-carbon fuels without favoring one fuel over another. To start, the standard will reduce the carbon intensity of California's passenger vehicle fuels by at least 10 percent by 2020 and more thereafter.

Sly Raskal

iTrader: (1)

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/24/t...gets-pictured/

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article....rticle_id=7201

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/10/23/t...model-s-sedan/




This thing looks awesome!

stright-(paint)balling

yes it looks good but for 60 grand will it have M3 or C63 or IS-F like performance. and be equal to the about 400-450 hp. highly doubt it.

invisiblewar

^ get off the tip dawg damnit

stangg172004

GTR, TT, R8 lines. I like it!

sho_nuff1997

iTrader: (2)

Dude, it's not competing against any of those vehicles. This is an electric vehicle, meaning it needs no gas. Under 6 seconds is damn fast for electric.

stangg172004

^do not reason with the unreasonable...

Sun Diego CL-S

Waste not your breath, my brother.

Moog-Type-S

Props to Tesla!


...and again...why can't Porsche build a decent looking sedan?

iTimmy

If Tesla delivers what its claiming, they will literally turn the automotive world upside down in less then 10 years.

uzzmaan

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/03/26/t...ile-range-0-6/

I suck at adding photos, but I'm sure someone else will put them up soon enough. At first glance, I really like the looks of this.

bgsm1th

DAMN that looks good!
Elon is a mad man!

CarbonGray Earl

Why is it so hard for Acura to make a car that looks nice like this. Only a couple of car companies can pull off bold when designed in house; Acura or Honda was never one of them.

sr4dt

Car looks great and reminds me of the Jaguar XF.

If a small company can produce a $50,000 electric sports car, a mass produced version of the same would probably be cheaper by upto 10 %. Anyways this really looks like the future automotive of choice for people who are concerned with the environmental friendliness and would prefer a Green statement over the roar of a V8/V10....

invisiblewar

wow!!!! iwhi fa sho!

so cal eddie

Damn!! The gm ev1 only got 50 mpc and this gets 300. That was only like 9 or 10 years ago too. Imagine what we'll have in another 10 years.

WHEEELMAN

iTrader: (14)

Now that is one bad arse electric car. I'll take one please.

JD23

That's exactly what I thought when I saw pics of this car. It looks like what an Aston Martin sedan should look like.

imj0257

iTrader: (1)

that does look good.

Moog-Type-S

Goes to show the giant automotive mfg. are not interested in pushing the envelope for efficient next gen automobiles.

They are only interested in what is currently in demand.

WHEEELMAN

iTrader: (14)

You hit the mark, dead-on my friend.

You would think with all of their money and sources for materials, R & D, engineers, etc. the big car makers would already have something like this if not better.

neuronbob

NICE.

Good-looking and reasonably-priced.

Also reasonable charge time.

TL1999

i need to get one...

LuvMyTSX

I'd totally rock one of those if it were in my price range.

Yumcha

Merged...

biker

This would be a nice S-class alternative - till MB comes up with an equivalent vehicle. The charging issue will still limit its usefulness.

In the current environment I'd still worry about the viability of the whole project.

bgsm1th

Elon Musk, the founder and president of Tesla, sold Paypal 6-8 years ago for a couple of billion dollars, so funding for Tesla will not be an issue anytime in the near future...

knight rider

iTrader: (1)

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/index.php

that's nice...

oh also...

The anticipated base price of the Model S is $57,400.
All Tesla vehicles qualify for the full $7,500 US federal tax credit on battery-powered cars.
Teslas also qualify for state incentives, sales tax waivers and rebates

with that and the gas $$ you save this may be a bargain.

biker

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/03...med-automaker/

Funding is anything but certain.

spurfan15

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_15127946

In a stunning deal, Tesla Motors announced late Thursday that it is teaming up with Toyota to build its all-electric Model S sedan at the recently shuttered NUMMI plant in Fremont, creating more than 1,000 new jobs.

The pact, put together in utter secrecy, immediately injects new life into an auto plant once left for dead, is a jolt of positive news for beleagured Toyota and elevates Silicon Valley's role at the heart of the emerging electric car industry.

Under the agreement, Toyota, the world's largest car maker, will invest $50 million in Tesla, which will buy the NUMMI plant for an undisclosed sum. The joint venture was unveiled by Akio Toyoda, Toyota's CEO, who flew in from Japan for the announcement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a heavily attended 5 p.m. news conference at Tesla's Palo Alto headquarters.

The partnership between Tesla and Toyota was first hatched six weeks ago, when Toyoda visited Musk at his southern California home. The two went for a 30-minute drive in a Tesla Roadster, a two-seat sports car that is the only all-electric vehicle on the road today.

"I was impressed by Tesla's technology and impressed by the company's energy," said Toyoda, who noted that Toyota itself, founded by his grandfather, was once a start-up. "I felt the wind of the future."
Musk said the two men hit it off on the drive and had an instant personal connection that quickly led to talks of some kind of partnership.

"We drove around the Westwood area of Los Angeles talking about random things," said Musk. "He's a good driver. He put it through its paces."

Tesla will use the NUMMI plant to begin production of the Model S, a sedan that can seat five adults and two children and has a range of 300 miles. Once it reaches full production at the NUMMI plant, Tesla expects to produce 20,000 electric vehicles each year, which will sell for $50,000.

But the Model S would only occupy a small part of the NUMMI plant, leaving room for Tesla and Toyota to manufacture other models of electric cars there.
"Long term we think we could create 10,000 jobs, half from Tesla and half from our suppliers," said Musk.

The news was hailed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who wrote a letter to Toyota urging the company to look at a possible partnership with Tesla last summer.

"I congratulate Tesla and Toyota today," Feinstein said in a prepared statement. "As one who has followed NUMMI since its inception, I was very dismayed and disheartened by its closure in April. I celebrate the new life of opportunity which is inherent in this new venture."

Some industry analysts also endorsed the announcement.

"This seems like a good deal for both parties, especially Toyota, from being able to avoid the political fallout from shutting NUMMI down to being able to offer a new electric vehicle with just a low initial investment cost," said Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com. He said his only concern was the Model S that will be made at NUMMI would arrive years after competing electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, hit dealer showrooms later this year.

"Tesla's credibility has been greatly enhanced thanks to this partnership with Toyota," added John O'Dell, senior editor of GreenCarAdvisor.com. "Many had doubted the company's ability to deliver on all its promises, but Toyota must have conducted substantial due diligence before making this investment."
City council members from the East Bay city of Fremont, where NUMMI is located, were thrilled and raced across the Bay to attend the news conference.

Eric Kim, an analyst with the consulting firm AutoPacific, called the partnership a good public relations move for Toyota, which has seen its reputation battered in recent months over safety problems in some of its vehicles. However, he was perplexed at the Japanese company's reasons for being involved with Tesla, since Toyota is expected to have its own all-electric car on the market in two or three years.

"I really wouldn't have thought that Toyota woud have a lot to gain from Tesla," he said. "I had not anticipated this."

Among those not cheering were officials in the city of Downey in Los Angeles County. For months, they had been working with Tesla in hopes that the automaker would locate its factory there. The Downey City Council was hours away from voting on the terms of a lease for Tesla. Tesla executives finally told Downey city officials that they were going to Fremont instead on Thursday afternoon, catching staffers who have spent hundreds of hours on the nearly-final deal completely by surprise.

"We're shocked, appalled and disgusted," said Downey Councilman Mario Guerra. "We have been dealing in good faith with Tesla and feel stabbed in the back."

The announcement is a remarkable turnaround for the NUMMI plant, which Musk hopes to make the "cleanest and greenest" auto manufacturing plant in the world.

The 50-50 joint venture between GM and Toyota, struck in 1983, was seen as a boost for both carmakers. Toyota would get a car-making beachhead in the United States and GM would get a chance to learn Japanese manufacturing techniques.

But over time the manufacturing operation became something both GM and Toyota began to view as an unneeded expense, especially as the world tumbled into the recent recession, automobile sales began to seriously slide and GM wound up in bankruptcy.

The factory was doomed last summer after first General Motors and then Toyota announced they were severing their ties with the facility. When a bright red Toyota Corolla rolled off the assembly line at 9:21 a.m. on April 2, the last of 7.7 million vehicles produced at the plant, it finally ended more than 25 years of production at the last auto plant west of the Mississippi.
The plant appears to have gotten this new hope with the talks between Tesla and Toyota. The Downey plant had been planned to make the Model S, but a partnership with Toyota made the giant NUMMI plant more attractive since it gives the two companies room to expand.

Tesla, which was incorporated in 2003 has built its business model and future on the green-technology revolution sweeping the country.

Devoted to making all-electric cars and related vehicle components, the Palo Alto company began selling its first vehicle, the sporty Roadster, in 2008. The $100,000 car immediately drew the auto industry's attention with its advertised ability to hit 60 mph from a stop in just 4 seconds and a between-charge cruising range of more than 200 miles, and attracted a host of high-profile buyers like Schwarzenegger, the actors George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio.

"We love our cars here in California," said Schwarznegger, who used the news conference to talk about how California's strict environmental policies are driving innovation. "But we also love our environment, our coastline, our ocean, our sky. ... I don't have tell you how much this means to California, where we have 12.5 percent unemployment."

Hapa DC5

Sounds like a step in the right direction. Toyota could use a positive PR spin and maybe even a sporty electric Toy in the future?

Yumcha

Merged...

CL6

Another waste of tax dollars, more over-priced Big Union jobs, and another stupid electric car. Great.

brizey

Pretty much every car factory ever built anywhere has had some sort of government influence and help.

If that car comes within 10% of its specs, it will be anything but stupid. Joule per joule, the electrical infrastructure is more economically efficient and producing energy, and electric motors are superior at providing motive force than IC engines. The only thing the IC paradigm is better at is mobile energy storage. And batteries are getting better a lot faster than gas tanks are.

Moog-Type-S

Why Tesla would build cars in California is beyond me.

They must be stupid.....California is so anti-business it's mindblowing!

Tesla should build their coal powered vehicles in a more business friendly state.

West6MT

fixed for accuracy

biker

If Toyota has its way the new plant won't be unionized.

Whatever model comes after the S it still won't be as versatile as the Volt. When the batteries in a Tesla run out, you are done.

Biker, who wonders how many Tesla roadster drivers have had to get a tow due to lack of battery juice.

spurfan15

This is an ongoing barrier to buying an EV for many people. EVs tend to work for people who use their EV for commuting only. If they can charge it with a trickle charger over night, and drive a fixed distance each day, then it's fine. But it comes up short in attempting to drive very long distances, or doing spur of the moment trips where a quick refill is necessary.

One challenge will hopefully be solved in the near future. If ultracapacitors (like the ones thus-far-vaporware EEStor has been developing) can replace Li-on batteries in EVs, it would likely enable greater range and quicker recharges due to 1) higher energy density / volume, and 2) lack of chemical charge limitations. They would also not break down nearly as quickly.

Yet even with a charge bank as great as an ultracapacitor, we do not current have the infrastructure to charge EVs at high speed. Ideally, we'd reach a point where an EV could pull into an "energy station" and recharge in the same amount of time as a ICE-powered car takes to refill. Say a long range EV needed 100 kWh of energy to "fill the tank" and we want to charge up within 5 minutes. That requires 1.2 Megawatts of power.

In California, there are probably 10,000 or so gas stations, with multiple pumps per station. Imagine the case where there is one EV at each of the 10,000 "energy stations" across the state simultaneously filling up. That's 12 Gigawatts of power. A quick glance at the California ISO site shows today's forecasted power resource is roughly 26,000 Megawatts -- 26 Gigawatts. Obviously the available power is always scaled based on demand, but 12 GW is an enormous amount of power. A single nuclear reactor tends to be 1-1.5 GW, with a plant outputting several GW.

We will probably have to devise some sort of energy storage strategy at these stations to satisfy fueling demand. The fluctuation of car fueling is enormous depending of the time of day.

A 12 gallon tank of gas equates to about 425 kWh of energy (1.5 GJ). In fact, a single gas pump has a flow of up to 10 gallons per minute. This is a equivalent to a power flow rate of 21 Megawatts. Using my same model above of 10,000 cars filling up simultaneously in CA, but with gas, turns out to be 211 Gigawatts (wow!!).

The point is, fossil fuels have incredible energy density -- 45 MJ/kg for gasoline. It is going to take some serious infrastructure, possibly involving at-station energy storage using fuel cells or megacapacitors or something... For now, we have don't have neither the energy grid, nor the charging stations to support wide spread adoption of rapid fueling EVs (if they're made available). So we're stuck with overnight trickle charges for commuter EVs, or backup fossil fuel tanks (like on the Chevy Volt) for the occasional spur of the moment long haul.

MyCarIsntInMyWifesName

There's a great possibility I'd buy a Model S if it turns out as good as it does.

For most families you'd only need one "gas" vehicle for trips and whatnot.

Didn't they promise a sport model too?

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

The mouth reminds me of a GT-R.




National Acura Meet-June 6th/Kansas City-LESS THAN ONE MONTH AWAY!!!.
Click here for details and to sign up!



.