Tesla Roadster

  • 2012 Tesla Model S prototype

    Three years after it shipped its first production Roadsters, Tesla Motors is on the brink of launching its 2012 Model S luxury sedan. In preparation, it has announced a nationwide tour, giving eager fans and reservation holders a chance to get up close and personal with the car everyone has been waiting for since 2008. But the Model S Tesla is eagerly sending to cities throughout the U.S. isn’t a production intent vehicle, a nearly-finished beta test model or even one of its alpha testing cars: it is the hand-built 2009 drivable prototype we saw at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show. As the car...

  • Tesla Model S and Roadster
    Tesla Motors Earnings: Losses Rise, So Does Share Price

    Silicon Valley startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors released its 2010 earnings report yesterday, and--as you might expect from a startup that has sold only cars for three years--it lost money. Investors apparently weren't fazed by the rising tide of red ink. Tesla shares closed yesterday at...

  • Tesla Motors - Model S lithium-ion battery pack
    Life After The Road: Tesla’s European Electric Car Battery Recycling

    It may be the largest battery pack available in any electric car on the road today, but what happens when it is no-longer able to provide enough kick to push the 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5 from 0-60 in under 4 seconds? That’s the question answered by Tesla Motors this week as it announced...

  • BBC Correspondent complains about MINI E
    Chelsea Sexton Slams Bias On Both Sides Over Electric-Car Range (Guest Post)

    by Chelsea Sexton Slanted, anti-EV reporting is hardly a new thing, and I suspect we're in for a lot more of it in 2011 as plug-in vehicles hit showrooms. But the recent BBC "Mini Adventure," a 484-mile journey from London to Edinburgh in a Mini E, has caught fire like nothing I've seen in a while...

  • Getaround car sharing Tesla Roadster Sport
    Rent A Tesla For $25/Hour, Just Plan Your Charging Carefully

    The all-electric Tesla Roadster is probably the world's best advertisement for electric cars. While crude, cramped, and expensive, its 0-to-60-mph time of 3.9 seconds will make a convert out of any electric skeptic. But thus far, Tesla Motors has built only 1,500 Roadsters, and the car was always...

  • 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport. Photo by Joe Nuxoll.
    Photo Gallery: 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport, Ohm-My-God Sports Car

    Driving a Tesla Roadster is an unforgettable experience. To be fair, perhaps driving any car with acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds is unforgettable. But the fact that all the Tesla's torque comes from 6,831 lithium-ion laptop cells powering an electric motor--and the relative...

  • 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5

    Tesla celebrated the start of the 2011 Detroit Auto Show today by announcing that it had now sold over 1,500 of its iconic electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster. It was November 18, 2006 when we were first shown the sexy two-door car that very few believed could be as good as the then unknown silicon valley startup claimed. Just like the 2011 Nissan LEAF, initial production of the Tesla Roadster was slow: in the first two months of production in 2008, only three cars were built. Fast-forward a little under 3 years and the firm has gone global, with Tesla-owned showrooms in the North...

  • 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5 Cold Weather Testing
    Counting Down To 2011: Top ASC Article for March 2010

    Making our way towards the end of the first quarter of 2010, March is one of those months that generally include a lot of Spring Break tips for those going on holiday, as well as, reports about the New York Auto Show. The article that really stuck with us this year from March 2010 wasn’t auto...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan electric car, 'All Electric' badge, 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show
    Naming Electric Cars And Companies: Is Anything Good Left?

    Naming new car models is always tough. The latest head-scratcher is GM's decision to rebrand the replacement for its Aveo subcompact as the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic, a name better associated in the U.S. with hedgehogs or hamburgers. But that's nothing compared to the challenge of naming electric-car...

  • Tesla Roadster - Gran Turismo 5
    Gran Turismo Game Goes Green: Virtual Electric Cars

    Depending on your demographic, the new PlayStation 3 Gran Turismo 5 (GT5) video game is either your single most essential purchase this year, or a completely baffling piece of technology that you'll probably never buy. Ironically, the same could be said for the current wave of electric cars we've...

  • 2011 Tesla Roadster 2.5
    Tesla Shows Open Road To More Losses In Q3

    Tesla has announced its third quarter results. They show that revenues are down 31 percent from a year ago and that the car maker is losing nearly eight times as much money compared to the previous year. This quarter, Tesla lost $34.9 million, up 7.6 times from the $4.6 million from a year earlier...

  • Mr. Toad's wild ride
    Tesla's Elon Musk Says Plug-In Hybrid Cars Are, Ummmm, Frogs

    Working at Tesla Motors must be a lot of fun for many reasons. There's the chance of driving a lightning-fast 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5, for one. Then there's the chance that you'll be privy to hearing your CEO say something untrue. Or just wacky. Our latest example: On the sidelines of Tesla's...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt test drive, Michigan, October 2010

    Pretty much anyone who's driven one loves the performance of the Tesla Roadster, the first modern electric car with a lithium-ion battery pack. The 2011 Chevrolet Volt is a much less radical electric car than the Roadster in certain ways, and one of them is its accelerator response. Volt: Just like an automatic GM's engineers have tuned the control software to mimic the behavior of a standard gasoline-engine car fitted with an automatic transmission. There's the standard idle creep at a stoplight, and if you lift off the accelerator, the car coasts freely, with little regenerative braking...

  • Cast of Universal Studios release "The Dilemma," starring Vince Vaughan (center)
    Hey Ron Howard: So Electric Cars Aren't That 'Gay' After All?

    The news came via a Facebook status from another automotive journalist: "Interesting. Phrase 'Electric cars are gay' pulled from Ron Howard movie." To which we could only respond, huh? [UPDATE: Turns out that there's even a Tesla angle too.] Turns out the upcoming movie The Dilemma, starring Vince...

  • Tesla Motors, Palo Alto, California
    Touring Tesla: Electric Car Startup Struts Its Green Stuff

    It's debatable whether Tesla Motors should even be called a startup. It's five years old, it has almost 1,400 cars on the road, and it has 700 people working for it globally. Yesterday, in a bid to reinforce its credentials as a real automaker--the kind that can design, engineer, test, and build a...

  • Ben Collins (The Stig) With Tesla
    After Top Gear, Ben "The Stig" Collins Digs Electric Cars

    What happens when mysterious masked racing driver of the U.K’s most famous car-based entertainment show reveals his identity? Contrary to the opinions aired on the testosterone-filled, gear jamming show he actually quite likes electric cars, and he's not been afraid to share his admiration...

  • Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk with Tesla Roadster
    Tesla Motors Reports Wider $38.5M Loss, But Says It’s On Track

    As predicted, Tesla Motors posted higher losses for the second quarter during its earnings announcement today — its first as a public company. The electric vehicle maker says it brought in $28.4 million revenue, but lost $38.5 million ($5.04 a share), up from the $29.5 million lost last quarter...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan prototype - front
    So What Exactly Is An American-Made Car? You May Be Surprised

    We wrote about the 2011 Coda Sedan and Coda's EV cost calculator not too long ago, and described the cars as a "Chinese-built sedan" with a battery pack "containing Chinese-made lithium-ion cells." The Coda, we said would be "the first Chinese-manufactured passenger car sold in the U.S. when it...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan prototype - charging socket

    We've been watching it roll closer for years, and now it's all but here: A new era of electric cars. Just three or four months from now, the first highway-capable electric vehicles sold in volume by global automakers will appear in showrooms in California and other regions. By the end of 2011, they'll be followed by several more. This is our guide to all the dozen electric cars (in several varieties) that are now on sale in the U.S. or that manufacturers have said they will launch within the coming 24 months. Just to be clear, we're defining "electric vehicle" as one that has a high-voltage...

  • Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk at the wheel of a Tesla Roadster
    Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk Can't Handle the Truth

    Elon Musk, the CEO of electric-car startup Tesla Motors and rocket-launcher SpaceX, should be applauded for the mighty challenges he’s taken on and the powers of persuasion he has deployed to build his companies. But along the way, he discovered that he could stretch the truth, casually and...

  • CA 'Access OK' Clean Air Vehicle carpool lane sticker
    California Yanks Prius Perks: No More Hybrid HOV-Lane Access

    You may remember that in California, 85,000 lucky owners of three hybrid vehicles were granted special stickers giving them access to High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes, even with only a single occupant in the car. Well, their luck runs out on December 31, the last day those stickers are valid. While...

  • 2011 Tesla 2.5 RHD
    Sports Cars, City Runabouts Electrify 2010 Bridgestone Eco-Rally

    The small, seaside town of Brighton UK, some 50 miles south of London, has often been the destination for many a weary Londoner keen to take in its pebbled beaches, kitsch souvenir shops and traditional fish and chip suppers. But today it wasn't sticks of sweet sugary ‘seaside rock' candy cane or...

  • Tesla Roadster 2.5
    BREAKING: The Tesla Roadster 2.5 Is More Than Just A Few Tweaks

     Tesla have taken cues from the world of software design as it announces the latest set of upgrades to its world-famous Tesla Roadster. But unlike a minor software upgrade, the Tesla 2.5 model gives customers a whole lot more than a few performance tweaks. Just days after its IPO and with shares...

  • Tesla Roadster 2.5
    2011 Tesla Roadster 2.5: New Looks, Wheels, Seats, Less Noise

    Tesla's on a roll, it seems. Two days after its successful public stock offering, the company has released details of the latest updates to its Roadster electric sports car--known as "Roadster 2.5" after software-release numbering. The 2.5 version sports some new styling at front and rear...

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