I Drive The Auto Electric (I wish!)

[zrath]

In October 2007, something interesting happened to a building not too far from where I live.
The building in question is on Santa Monica Boulevard, the block East of the 405 freeway.
It used to be a kid's furniture store. It closed and stayed vacant for a while.
And then, some time in october '07, this banner went up and construction began:



I was rather surprised.
Those of you who read this journal regularly know of my penchant for automobiles and vehicles in general.
So when I saw this banner, I immediately realized what it was and what it meant:
There was going to be a Tesla Motors dealership in my backyard.
Tesla Motors is a company based out of Menlo Park, CA, that makes one product, for now: the Tesla Roadster.
The Tesla Roadster is a heavily-modified Lotus Elise that runs on electricity.
It's a high performance sports car, and it's completely battery-powered.
It's also rather good-looking.
And pricey.
More on that later.
Over the next few months, I kept an eye on the building, determined to see if this would really happen.



The banner came down some time in March, and I took a couple of pictures of the storefront:



This was taken from inside a Santa Monica Big Blue Bus as we waited for the light to change.
The black building in the background is home to Ing, the company most known for its Orange Savings Account.
They have an Orange Bar in the ground floor which serves drinks and snacks and has Wifi and computers.
As you can see, there's no stopping any time in front of Tesla Motors. Parking is in the back.



This was also taken from the bus, and you can see it at the bottom, reflected in the showroom's windows.
We were in motion, which accounts for the fuzziness of the image. This is the left side of the building.
At that point, the showroom was not open yet. It would open in April.
I promised myself I would go check it out, but I had other things on my mind. :(
And then, on Thursday May 15th, I went to check it out.
Mitch Beiro (no LJ) was in town, we had just come back from lunch, and we had some time to kill.
I figured he might find a visit to Tesla Motors interesting, so we went.
Mitch was afraid they wouldn't let us in, since the car was pricey and we obviously didn't fit the profile.
I assured him that they would let us look, but I doubted we could get a test-drive, yes. :D
We got there, parked in back, and walked in.
And this is what we saw:



This is the Tesla Roadster from the front. The color bars on the wall are the available body colors.
As you can see it's pretty slick and handsome.



An elevated front-side view, with the friendly Tesla salesgirl in the background.
And here's the same car from different angles:







The Tesla Roadster doesn't have much in the way of trunk space, as you can see in the photo above.
Behind the trunk is the supercomputer, and behind that is the battery compartment.
The electric motor is in the front of the car.



And here we see Mitch poking his head into the cockpit, probably to rifle through the glove compartment.
Bad Mitch, bad! No Minerva Mink for youuuuu!! :D
Here are a couple of shots of the cockpit:





One thing that doesn't come across in the photos is how DEEP the cockpit is. There's no transmission
tunnel since there's no transmission, so the bottom is really flat and really low. It's like a hot tub.
Yeah, so this car is electric. How do you charge it?
Well, apparently, you need to have the guys from Telsa come to your house and install a charger.
And once that's done, you have this:



That big honking plug goes into the Roadster. The white and grey thing is the charger. It's 240 volts.
That's my left hand holding the plug. Yes, I wear driving gloves. :D
The big honking plug goes into here:



The white crescent under the socket is made up of LEDs that change color based on status.
White: default. Blue: good contact (after plug-in). Flashing yellow: charging. Green: fully charged.
When you flip open the cover to recharge the car, this screen turns on automatically:



It's located on the lower left side of the cockpit and it gives you the current battery status.

And now is the time when the Kzin starts spitting out tech specs!
Acceleration: 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds
Range: 227 miles
Top Speed: 125 mph
Charging time: As short as 3.5 hours for a complete charge
Base price: $109,000.00 (OUCH!)
Battery: 6831 lithium-ion cells (arranged in 11 sheets. 9 bricks per sheet. 69 cells per brick)
Motor: 3-phase, 4-pole electric motor, 248hp peak (185kW), redline 13,000rpm, regenerative engine braking
Transmission: Single speed (shift lever has 3 positions: Reverse, Neutral, Drive)
Chassis: Bonded extruded aluminium monocoque chassis
Brakes: 4-wheel ventilated disc brakes with ABS
Body: Carbon fiber
Features: a whole bunch of stuff, including a "valet mode" that limits speed, acceleration and range
(to prevent the kind of thing shown in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" - think Star Wars theme :D



So yeah, neat stuff.
Hopefully, enough people will buy this and the technology will get cheaper and more people will benefit
in the long run. Because we need people with money to be the pioneers to buy stuff and help the tech grow.
For more info on the Tesla, check out their nice website here.

Comments

[girlfmkitty.livejournal.com]

(Not sure if you'll get the reference, but here I go anyway):

So if you drive this thing, you also clone yourself? ;)

[zrath.livejournal.com]

LOL!
Urrrrr, no. :)

I love that movie. I wanted to work that into the title but couldn't.
I thought it might be a little obscure.
So I went for the Ray Bradbury reference instead.

[girlfmkitty.livejournal.com]

Never underestimate the power of Geekdom...

[zeeth_kyrah]

"I Sing the Body Electric" - you know, from Fame. I never read the Bradbury collection.

[zeeth_kyrah]

As seen from the front:
"Where's your flying car? RIGHT HERE!"

I was grinning throughout this article.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a car enthusiast, but that's something I'd proudly give a home to. Interesting to see the company's design aesthetics don't stop with the car, but continue throughout the dealership as well.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

I know if they ever get a sports sedan model, y'know a souped up family car, that'll definitely be my and Michelle's car.

[mikosquirrel.livejournal.com]

I've been quite excited about this thing even since before I developed an interest in cars (by means of getting a license and watching a lot of Top Gear).

I just think it's a shame the nose isn't really as good-looking as the back half.

[snapes-angel.livejournal.com]

Sweet! Well, except for the price tag.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Dear lord that car is unfuckingbelievably hot.

Do you know anything about plans to make a portable charger? I mean, if I had when I have that sort of money? I'd shell it out for that car so fast my hand would break the sound barrier. But I can't justify it if I have to stay within 100 or so miles of home. D:

[zrath.livejournal.com]

There's something called a "mobile connector" listed on the info sheet.
I asked the salesgirl about it and she said it was a mobile charger.
It's listed as costing $1,200.
That's all I know.