The lead mouth-piece at Top Gear, the incomparable Jeremy Clarkson, has a mixed record when it comes to greener vehicles. He did great with a round trip from London to Edinburgh in an diesel Audi A8, averaging over 33 mpg. However, his more recent encounter with the electric G-Wiz ended less favorably. The UK daily The Independent is reporting that on the next series of the best car show ever created, Clarkson will try again with battery power. This time around he will be going a little more upscale as he is to sample the Tesla Roadster. We checked with Tesla's SVP Darryl Siry to find out which version of the Roadster that Top Gear would be driving, drivetain 1.5, 2-speed or interim single speed. Siry was unaware of the British report. He confirmed that Tesla had been in contact with Top Gear producers but nothing has been scheduled or confirmed yet. He did tell ABG that "You can bet it will be with our best foot forward," implying that when the test happens it will be with the upgraded drivetrain 1.5.

Clarkson's a fairly big guy so it will be interesting to see how he fits in the car when the drive does happen. He will no doubt be pleased with the performance of the Roadster, and it will be interesting to see what kind of range the Top Gear crew will be able to muster when the Roadster is driven in their usual manner. It will also be interesting to see what self-improvement recording the Stig listens to as he takes to the track in the Roadster. Thanks to Jamie for the tip!

[Source: The Independent, Tesla Motors]

Tesla's SVP of marketing Darryl Siry has been on another sales tour of Europe filling in the magazines over there on the company's future product plans. For the most part there was nothing new that we haven't already reported on here over the past year. The upcoming Model S (formerly known as WhiteStar) will not be sharing a platform with any existing vehicle. That doesn't mean every single component of the car will be completely bespoke. It wouldn't make financial sense to build every single part just for this one car, so parts like brakes, steering hardware and perhaps even some suspension bits will be borrowed from other cars. According to Siry, the Model S design is about 90 percent done.

For the Model S and future programs, Tesla's engineers have reconfigured the battery pack to make it more practical for different body configurations. The Roadster's pack is upright and sits in the middle of the car behind the passenger compartment. For the new car, a low-slung pack that fits under the floor will be used. When we contacted Siry he declined to comment on whether Tesla would continue to use the laptop type cells for the new pack or switch to one of the new larger format cells being designed for automotive use. The under-floor setup mirrors the configuration being used by many other EV manufacturers. Continue reading after the jump.

[Sources: AutoCar, CAR, Tesla Motors]

Over at the Tesla Motors blog, future Roadster owner Ken Jacobs has written a guest post about his recent visit to England. While he and his wife were in the UK, they hopped over to Hethel, the home of Lotus and primary assembly site of the Roadster. They were given a tour of the factory and the assembly line where Lotus employees take the thousands of bits and pieces that comprise a Roadster and bolt them together. The regular Elise assembly line has been modified to simultaneously accommodate both the Roadster and the Elise. At the moment, Roadsters are still only being started at the rate of around 4 cars per week, although that should increase rapidly later in August as Tesla prepares to switch over to the updated drivetrain. Lotus assembles "gliders" whose motor and battery get installed once the rolling chassis arrives in California. Tesla is ships the cars by boat from England, a trip that takes several weeks.

[Source: Tesla]

Well, after at least one false alarm last week, it now appears that Martin's Roadster has been repaired. Of course, it is still impossible to say for sure, at least until we get an official update from either Tesla Motors or Martin himself, but a picture of what certainly appears to be Martin's distinctive Roadster was supposedly taken just yesterday, Friday July 18, and uploaded directly from the iPhone it was taken on to Flickr by user marliemars. The car appears to be damage free, though only a single side-profile is available. In any case, it appears as if the ongoing saga of the protracted delivery of the second Tesla Roadster ever produced may soon come to an end. Martin, we're sure you'll love your new car. We are, of course, waiting anxiously to hear if you've gotten a delivery date yet, and even more so to hear about your first drive. Thanks for the tip, Joseph!


[Source: Tesla Motors Club Forum]

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria recently got some face-to-face time with Elon Musk, who, as you surely know by now, is one of the "product architects" at Tesla Motors. There were plenty of interesting quotes to come from the interview, but a few truly stood out from the rest. For instance, Musk slams plug-in hybrids pretty mercilessly while also claiming that the "a majority of all new cars produced in the United States, perhaps worldwide, will be electric. And I don't mean hybrid. I mean pure electric," within just thirty years. What's more, Musk adds that one of his other start-up companies, SolarCity, has the solution to what he refers to as the "'long tailpipe' criticism," where EV opponents point to the fact that much of the electricity in the U.S. comes from dirty sources such as coal. A small solar-panel setup of about 10 by 15 feet [is enough] to generate 200 to 400 miles a week of electricity for your car," according to Musk. We can get behind the idea of charging our own electric cars for the week with our own solar array mounted atop the roof our our garage. Maybe in thirty years that won't sound so far-fetched.

[Source: Newsweek]

Among the readers of this site, one of the cars that elicits a lot of passion is the Tesla Roadster. The battery-powered Roadster and its provenance have elicited a great deal of discussion over the past nine months, in particular since the demotion and ultimately the departure of co-founder Martin Eberhard. This is a complex tale involving passionate entrepreneurs with that all-too-common but in many ways necessary human frailty known as ego. When humans interact, they often see the same results through their own mental filters.

People can see exactly the same thing and interpret it in many different ways. Unfortunately in today's media landscape, particularly on television, but also in blogs we often see a very cut-down sound-bite version of things. Sound-bites by definition are taken out of context. In and of themselves they often lead to incorrect or at least inaccurate conclusions.

With all of that in mind I was recently contacted by Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk. Musk wanted to discuss his role at Tesla, and hopefully fill in some of the gaps in the story. What follows after the jump is the phone conversion that I had with Musk recently as well as some comments from Martin Eberhard via e-mail exchanges. Eberhard's version of events is italicized.

Update: Just to be clear Elon Musk contacted me immediately after a previous article where I called into question his role in the development of the Roadster. He wanted to clear up what he felt were misconceptions of his role rather than to pitch a story idea about him.

For the last couple of months there has been an ongoing discussion on various sites (including our own) about the status of Martin Eberhard's Tesla Roadster. For those just now tuning in to this little saga, Eberhard was the co-Founder of Tesla Motors, and was supposed to get production car #2 but at least three other cars have now been delivered ahead of his car. Since we last discussed the topic several weeks ago, things have been pretty quiet on this front, but we now have some new information.

During a recent call with Tesla Marketing VP Darryl Siry, I asked about the status of Eberhard's car, given that at least two and perhaps three other cars have now been delivered. It turns out that the car is here in the U.S. and was due to be delivered to Eberhard several weeks ago. Unfortunately, on the appointed day while a technician was doing a final checkout drive to make sure everything was working properly, there was an accident and the back front end of the car sustained significant damage. Continue after the jump for more.

Over at the Tesla Motors Club, one of the posters put a couple of photos of a silver Tesla Roadster on the back of a flatbed truck in the Windy City. I checked with Tesla and they confirmed that this car is in fact P4, the fourth production model. This is the same car that had been temporarily used as a marketing car in Europe and was seen in Monaco and Cannes. It has now arrived in the States and is on its way to its owner who happens to be a Tesla board member that lives in Chicago. You might now be saying to yourself: "that's at least three cars that have been delivered and still no car for Martin Eberhard. What gives?" Stay tuned for news on that front. We'll have something for you very soon.


[Source: TeslaMotorsClub, thanks to Doug for the tip]

When you hang out at coffee shops in sunny Southern California, you never know who's going to swing by for a morning caffeine jolt. This past Sunday morning, a scribe for the new site AutoFiends.com was waiting on a friend when a pale blue two seater silently pulled in and grabbed his attention. What he at first thought was a Lotus Elise turned out to be a prototype from our pals in San Carlos. Wordsmith Steve grabbed his camera and stepped outside to talk to the driver of the electron propelled Roadster and realized it was none other than Jason Bourne, aka Matt Damon. Turns out Damon was test driving the Tesla with an eye toward purchasing one. As with most of the people who have had the still rare opportunity to get behind the wheel of the fabled Roadster, Mr. Damon was impressed. The example in question still had the two speed transmission with the lower gear disabled so the off the line acceleration was not all it could be. However, once in motion, the electric motor torque provided velocity increases "Like nothing else." Looks like Tesla has hooked another star. Now they just need to crank up the line speed and deliver some more cars.

[Source: AutoFiends, thanks to Jonny and Steve for the tips]

JB Straubel, Chief Technical Officer at Tesla Motors has just put up a new post at the Tesla Blog with an extensive update on the Roadster drivetrain updates that are coming later this year. As we reported at Tesla's recent schedule update, the Silicon Valley start up is currently planning a running change to the upgraded powertrain beginning with car #41 which should happen sometime in late summer. There aren't any huge surprises in Straubel's post, but there are some interesting details. When Tesla first told us about their plans for the 1.5 back in January, the plan was to modify the power electronics module to be able to supply more current to the motor thus increasing the output to a level that would allow meeting the vehicle performance targets without having to use a two speed gearbox.

Generally, pumping more current through an electrical circuit has the negative side effect of generating a lot more heat as the resistance increases. The indication we were given at the time was that the cooling capability of the motor would be increased to help dissipate that heat. Based on Straubel's description of the changes, it looks like they took a different approach instead, one that is all too uncommon in the auto industry. Instead of applying a band-aid and treating the heat symptom by adding cooling capacity, they chose to attack the disease itself. In electrical circuits heat is caused by resistance to current flow. Resistance is the electrical analog of mechanical friction. The more electrons you try to push against resistance in circuits the more heat you generate. Continue reading after the jump.

Tell me you wouldn't have tried the same thing?

I found myself in Los Angeles for a quick visit late last week and realized I wasn't too far from the brand new Tesla Motors store. Having read about the opening night gala event and curious about the chic new sales space, I wanted to go check it out. Trouble was, I wasn't close enough to walk, didn't have a car, and have heard too many bad things about LA's public transportation system to see if it was a feasible option for me. Luckily, I met up with Shannon Arvizu (TriplePundit) and she offered to drive the two of us down to the store to take a look at what they've got on display. Didn't take me long to say, "yes." I mean, even if there are have been problems with the development of the car and we're hearing rumblings about ego conflicts among some of the well-knowns who are involved, someone still needs to go and bring back a collection of photos for faithful readers, right? Right.

We headed down to Santa Monica Boulevard and found the well-designed store wedged between a Starbucks and the ING building. There are two Roadsters in the showroom, one in dark blue and the other is the silver VP10 (Validation Prototype 10) that Sam got to take for a test drive back in January. None of the cars in the store are for sale, as they're not the production versions, but that didn't stop a good half dozen customers from wandering in and making serious inquiries about being place on th waiting list in the hour or so that we were there. Between the two cars in the showroom sits a counter and barstools, the perfect place for store employees to talk to potential customers. A coffee bar and some Tesla swag are nearby in case you need either a jolt of caffeine or a fancy Tesla cap. Offices (doors open) and two wonderfully-decorated bathrooms round out the front of the shop.

The back half of the store features a garage bay with room for a three cars. This garage is incredibly clean today, and one thing we can count on is that the cement floor will never stained by a leaky oil pan (well, unless future models do come with the option of a range-extending ICE). The opposing wall houses a quick charger. But what really caught our eyes was a metallic blue Roadster aimed square at a garage door, looking like it wanted to go out. Read on after the jump to find out what happened next.

There has long been an interesting paradox in the realm of cars. For some peculiar reason, people who buy really expensive cars are willing to make more compromises to the foibles of the car and cut them more slack. How else to explain grief that owners of Italian exotics withstood for decades in terms of reliability, ergonomics and build quality. Buyers of mainstream cars that often have far fewer problems as a percentage of the number of vehicles built have a fit at every little thing that goes wrong. That same paradox exists today. The Tesla Roadster by virtue of its price and performance falls into entry level of exotic cars. Despite numerous delays in getting the car into production, and obvious compromised in terms of its functionality, most people have been willing to cut the car and the company a lot of slack, myself included. In my case my experience in the auto industry allows me to understand the difficulty of the task Tesla had. I never actually expected them to meet their aggressive timing targets and I've written on numerous occasions about the potential problems they might have. Nonetheless most people believed in the company.

General Motors on the other hand faces an entirely different standard with the Volt. In spite having a much more complex vehicle to develop with a much greater level of functionality and a shorter time frame than Tesla, GM seems to be being held to a higher standard than Tesla. At the slightest hint of time slips or cost increases, so many people jump on GM thinking that the car will never happen. Admittedly, we have yet to see a running prototype of the Volt (although they do apparently now exist) but that doesn't mean the company isn't fully committed to making the car happen. GM's task of creating a car that will be an affordable mainstream sedan for four passengers that meets modern standards will strangely mean that customers actually expect it to work all of the time. That's a situation that the much more expensive Tesla won't face to nearly the same degree.

[Source: Motor Trend]

As we saw with the Bono pic, Tesla Motors representatives took the Roadster to Europe for a little PR&R recently. Well, as Darryl Siry, Tesla's VP of sales, marketing, and service, writes in a new post about the company trip on the "feel" blog over on the Tesla Motors website, there wasn't as much R as he might have liked. So, for those of use who don't mind that Mr. Siry worked more than played on the old continent, let's see what he has to say (oh, and we thank him for his service, of course).

First up, pricing. The 2009 U.S. version of the Roadster will cost $109,000, up from $98,000 for the base 2008 model. A lot of the increase can be attributed to the weakening dollar, Siry writes, because Tesla pays for much of the Roadster in Euros and Pounds. The limited edition 2009 Euro-spec Roadster will cost 99,000 Euros, and is comparable to the fully-loaded 2009 Roadster. For more on the Euro-spec Roadster, look here.

Siry also gets into production of the current Roadsters, and says that Job 3 has been delivered (Martin Eberhard is still waiting for some custom paint work to be done on Job 2) and that production will be ramping up this summer and fall. Siry's got more for you here.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

That's Jason at the wheel - Photos by CK Sample III

Our old buddy Jason Calacanis is at again with Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster. He borrowed the Tesla Chairman's car for the weekend and Friday he took a bunch of his employees from Mahalo out for rides. Later he and someone named Conrad went out for a drive with Jason's Nokia N95 streaming the event live over a service called Qik. Needless to say, Jason and Conrad were mighty impressed with the ability of the electric sports car to pick up velocity. After driving it, Jason doesn't seem to have any second thoughts about ordering one.

Like Tesla founder Martin Eberhard, Calacanis is installing solar panels on his house to charge the Roadster and he seems completely committed to the idea of getting his transportation needs free of the grid and imported oil. While Jason is correct in his comments about the the vast majority of car trips being less than the the 220-mile range of the Roadster, he is a little off the mark when he describes the car as being free of compromises. The Roadster is an outstanding performer but as I said in my driving impressions back in January, it is most definitely not for everyone. Anyone with more than one passenger to haul around can forget it, as could anyone of more than modest stature. This is definitely not a car for everyone. The battery technology still has a way to go as well. Even in this little car, it takes a 1,000lb battery to get 220 miles. In a car that can take your family to dinner it would take up a lot of space and it will be interesting to see how WhiteStar is packaged. Check out the video after the jump.

That's Jason at the wheel - Photos by CK Sample III

For those unfamiliar with the history of this site, a little background. AutoblogGreen and our elder sibling Autoblog are both part of the Weblogs Inc. network of blogs. Weblogs Inc. also includes sites like Engadget and its off-shoots, Joystiq, TUAW, Cinematical and many more. Weblogs Inc. was founded by a gentleman named Jason Calacanis and his business partner Brian Alvey in 2004 and in late 2005 they sold the company to AOL who own it to this day. Jason eventually went on to some other endeavors and most recently launched a human generated search site/directory called Mahalo.com. Along the way he also decided to plunk down some of the cash that he accumulated from building and selling his various enterprises on a Tesla Roadster. Jason wasn't one of the earliest customers and unlike everyone but Tesla Chairman Elon Musk has yet to receive his new battery-propelled speed machine. Fortunately for Jason, Elon apparently took his kindergarten lessons in sharing to heart and decided to loan production Roadster #1 to Jason for a bit and Jason shared his good fortune with his own staff at Mahalo. Check out the Flickr photo set here and Mahalo's Roadster page here. And for the record, yes, it is a slow news day.

[Source: Jason Calacanis, CK Sample III - Flickr]