Tesla Motors’ website is not helpful.
Does Tesla have any plans to develop other models? Particularly, say, a sub-compact or a NEV?
I wondered this as well.
AFAIK, the Roadster is RWD, and uses standard disc brakes to stop.
A motor in generator mode could absorm the kinetic energy of the vehicle in regenerative barking mode. As such, a car with motors in the rear and the front would have all wheel drive.
From the Wikipedia:
Planned models
Sports sedan
Tesla is also currently working on an announced but unrevealed sedan, codenamed “WhiteStar”, which may be introduced in 2009 as a 2010 model. It is being designed as an alternative to cars such as the BMW 5 Series and the Audi A6, with an estimated price of $50,000-70,000. WhiteStar is to be built in a new plant in New Mexico.
Future models
Future plans include a more affordable third model. The development and production of this future model, codenamed “BlueStar”, will be funded by profits from the WhiteStar sedan. According to Tesla, if everything goes according to plan, BlueStar will be released in 2012 and cost around $30,000.
I just did a paper on these guys and of elecric vehicles in general. Their offices are about 3 miles away from where I sit right now.
Their next step will be to design a $50,000 sedan, to be built in a factory in New Mexico and released next year.
After that, they will go to a $30,000 family car–exact style unknown at this time.
Tesla has a sedan called the Whitestar supposedly coming this year, although the recent lawsuits between Tesla and Fisker (the company hired to design the car) may prove to be a significant setback. I’ve heard that Tesla may turn to Lotus for the the design and engineering if the Fisker work turns out to be unsalvageable. Lotus designed and now builds the Roadster for Tesla.
ETA: the roadster does have regenerative braking.
I’m pretty sure the Scottish Terrier across the street is in regenerative barking mode all the time.
The Tesla has both ordinary disk brakes and regenerative braking. I think that RB is not 100% effective in all situations, and since it’s a sports car, they did not want to compromise on braking capability.
They are supposed to reveal the design for their next model, the premium sedan ($50,000 - $75,00) this spring, I think.
I have also heard rumors of some internal turmoil in the company. I hope that they do not go under - that would set the industry back a few years.
Battery technology is setting the industry back a few years. Nearly everyone was expecting battery technology to be further along than it is. The guys who started Tesla were familiar with laptop technology, so their idea was to hook up a bunch of laptop batteries and use those to power the car. Not a bad idea, except for the fact that they then decided what the performance specs of the car were going to be, and then tried to build a car. That’s when they ran into problems. They’re having trouble building a car which can meet those specs. So now, they’re shipping a car which can’t meet the advertised specs, telling customers that as soon as they can get a transmission which will meet those specs, they’ll retrofit the cars at no cost to the customer.
Now, I have my doubts that they’ll be able to do this, but even if they do manage to pull it off, that’s a huge unplanned expense (and complicated by the fact that they fired lots of folks over this). Granted, they’ve gone about starting up the company the right way, starting out building a high profit margin luxury vehicle (“luxury” in the sense that it’s something that a person buys because they want it, not because they need it) and using that to fund a mass production vehicle, but I think that they’ve gotten their time frames seriously screwed up.
It seems to me that the battery technology is adequate at the moment, and that it’s good old mechanical engineering that’s letting them down.
There have been a number of schedule delays on the roadster. Do you think they’re really get that sedan out next year? I’m not sure they’re even shipping the roadster yet.
If they could store more juice at less weight, they wouldn’t be dealing with a mechanical engineering problem.
They’re trickling out, with something like one a month being shipped. I think that they’re planning on having 100 units shipped by next year. (Which means that they’re hoping to spit them out faster in the near future.)