Introduction to Tesla Motors

 Tesla Motors is a company that was created in 2003.  It was named after Nikola Tesla, the world famous physicist that is perhaps best known in pop culture for lending his name to the Tesla coil.  Unfortunately, that device caused more destructive than constructive influence, a fact that has been corrected for with the Tesla Motors brand.  Tesla Motors is poised to become one of the huge automotive conglomerates over the next decade or so if things go their way, so this is definitely a company that you will want to keep an eye on over the course of time.

 Tesla Motors, as previously mentioned, was created in 2003 when it was co-founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.  It has grown from humble beginnings into a company capable of some significant annual production.  Right now, they have more than 250 employees and are quickly growing from a small to a mid-sized company largely on the back of a single automobile that looks to be one of the big selling electric vehicles within the current present and within the near future.

 The one thing that Tesla Motors needs to get down if it wants to truly join the big time is stability in the upper management.  Over the course of the five years that it has been incorporated, Tesla Motors has actually had three different CEOs.  One would hope that the current CEO Elon Musk (known to many as the person that was responsible for co-founding PayPal) will stay there for a while longer.  He was responsible for the first round of investment in the company with a $7.5 million contribution of his own and should therefore be financially tied to the company for the foreseeable future.

 Electric Vehicles and Tesla Motors

 There is no history of non-electric vehicles in Tesla Motors.  The name of the company actually gives it away.  All of the automobiles that are constructed by Tesla Motors use the Tesla AC induction motor.  At the current moment in time that is actually just two models, but one can expect the fleet to grow before too long, especially if the Roadster finally catches fire in terms of saleable units as many have been predicting for some time now.  In any case, Tesla Motors has always been about the electric vehicle and chances are very good that they will remain about the electric vehicle throughout the entirety of their existence.

 As previously mentioned, Tesla Motors currently has just two models that have been created under their banner.  The first is the internationally famous Tesla Roadster which will be discussed in greater detail in the following section.  The second is the Tesla Model S, a car that is set to come out in 2011.  For around $50,000 after the government rebate, the Model S will provide 5.5 second acceleration to 60 mph as well as a full charge range of 300 miles.  Assuming this goes well and Tesla makes a profit from it, it is expected that a third automobile with a purchase price in the $30,000 range will be earmarked for manufacture in 2012, but that is certainly getting ahead of the picture at the moment.

 The Tesla Roadster

 The Tesla Roadster was the first baby of Tesla Motors and what a baby it has become!  It is a high-powered sports car beast.  That is really the only way to describe it.  Anyone that thought that electric cars would never be able to match neither the speed nor the style of their gasoline counterparts had to sit down and shut up when the Roadster was unveiled for the first time.  Although the price tag of over $100,000 is daunting for most people, the Roadster is most definitely able to deliver some very impressive bang for your buck if you can afford to make that particular purchase.

 For starters, the EPA has certified the two major aspects of the car in terms of the electricity that actually powers it.  As far as speed is concerned, 125 mph is the maximum that you can safely get out of the Roadster, allowing you to basically drive on any road in the world safely and at the speed limit with this particular car.  At the same time however, the Tesla Roadster comes with a charge battery that is able to allow it to drive around 220 miles on a single charge.  That number has fluctuated depending on the source, but the 220-mile assertion comes from the Environmental Protection Agency and therefore can be counted upon to at least be in the ballpark of what you can expect to get from this particular automobile.

 In the end though, what makes the Tesla Roadster easily one of the banner-carrying products for the electric automobile industry at the moment is the amazing reliability that it brings to the table.  Many electric cars have gasoline engine backups in case the electric engine fails at some point.  The Tesla Roadster has no such system, although it does have an extremely reliable battery that will allow you to drive through any neighbourhood without being afraid of what might happen if the battery on your car decides to die out.  In this sense, it is just as good as any gasoline-powered vehicle.

 Another thing worth pointing out is that the engine noises that you would get from a gasoline engine are not there with an electric engine.  Everything is actually quite low-tuned, allowing you to easily hear anything else that you might want to hear.  Since the start-up sound is also gone due to the lack of the combustion engine, the Roadster actually chimes when you start the car so that you know the engine is on.  The dashboard display carries a continuous reading of the electricity consumption so that you know exactly what is going on with your car.  It is far more detailed than the gasoline gauge that combustion vehicles have and when you do stop to refuel it will cost you an absolutely miniscule $0.02 per mile to actually get that done.