New Tesla News

[lotuscar]

SAN CARLOS, Calif. — Tesla Motors has begun selling a line of merchandise, including coffee mugs, T-shirts and baseball caps, according to its Web site. But the $100,000 Tesla Roadster apparently is still running into roadblocks, according to the company chairman.

In the meanwhile, the deposed co-founder of Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard, said this week that he likely "will start a new company, possibly even an electric-car company," on the Tesla Founders blog. In his January 7 posting, Eberhard describes the Roadster as "a high-priced and impractical sports car." He writes: "There are a few interesting start-up companies that have approached me to have a look at what they are doing. Either way, I will continue the trajectory I have set for myself, and along the way I will endeavor not to repeat the mistakes I made when I built Tesla Motors."

Eberhard adds that he is "no longer associated with Tesla Motors other than as a shareholder and as the customer of Founders Series Roadster number 2. I am sad not to be a part of Tesla anymore, and I believe that Tesla would be a lot better off with me than without me."

The stumbling block with Roadster production is the car's transmission. "Our goal is to begin full series production of the Roadster in spring of 2008, albeit with a few components, such as the transmission, that will need to be upgraded at a later date," said Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk in his latest blog posting. "The transmissions in these early cars will be reliable and safe, though they will not yet meet the original performance spec for acceleration. The upgrade that we will provide at a later date will be free of charge to our existing customers."

In the meantime, Tesla Motors enthusiasts will have to satisfy themselves with the $12 Tesla Motors coffee mug, $38 Zero Emissions T-shirt or $24 baseball cap.

Musk reiterates that Tesla Motors will "build production cars in limited quantity throughout the first half of 2008." He says Model 2, a midsize luxury sport sedan, will be unveiled in the first half of 2009.

[cdn_alien]

That doesn't sound very promising. What was the disagreement between the founder and the company that caused them to part ways?

[goldengatehornet]

Their trannys can't handle the torque during shifts. There are still battery problems, I believe, that they don't discuss. I hope none of you have any investment in this 'etherware' golf cart. Nice idea but not ready for prime time, other than demo rides in two prototypes.

[Mr. Know]

As soon as you replace the dreamer with the suits...it all goes downhill.

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by Mr. Know

As soon as you replace the dreamer with the suits...it all goes downhill.

I dont know that thats the problem: I think the issue is that when people see or get involved with a concept such as the tesla they forget one very important fact:


Building a production vehicle is *hard*.


Building a reliable production vehicle is even harder and people get excited over a concept without realizing that while its easy to build a one-off of a product to show to people, building 100 or 1000 and having them all work as promised and continue working is a very difficult task. The auto industry is littered with small auto makers that had great ideas and cool vehicles and *still* didnt make it. There are large automakers that have all sorts of engineering talent and billions of dollars in capital to boot and still find themselves in serious financial trouble from time to time.

Keep in mind that I like the tesla concept... I just dont agree with about 10 different decisions that the company made developing the tesla. For instance, they went out of their way to quell rumors, adamantly saying that the tesla was *not* an elise. Then when they finally show it off... it an elise: granted it has different body work but its still an elise. how much did all that design and bodywork cost?

The point is that when you approach a difficult engineering project, you solve the tough problems first and foremost. That is where your time, energy and money should go. There was already a perfect vehicle to use before the tesla was ever started: its called the elise... They should have spent their resources getting a full elise from lotus minus the engine, trans, and gas tank and working from there, getting a reliable motor, battery, and transmission concept that would work *reliably* in a production setting before ever going forward with starting the company. Its a classic example of what happens when guys who build computers try to build cars: you get the auto equivalent of an alienware pc


I can totally see like 20 guys standing around the tesla prototype all wowing about the blue glowing charging port and the one lone engineer in the back says, "umm guys, when are we going to figure out how to make the car move?"

[mopho]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

I dont know that thats the problem: I think the issue is that when people see or get involved with a concept such as the tesla they forget one very important fact:


Building a production vehicle is *hard*.


Building a reliable production vehicle is even harder and people get excited over a concept without realizing that while its easy to build a one-off of a product to show to people, building 100 or 1000 and having them all work as promised and continue working is a very difficult task. The auto industry is littered with small auto makers that had great ideas and cool vehicles and *still* didnt make it. There are large automakers that have all sorts of engineering talent and billions of dollars in capital to boot and still find themselves in serious financial trouble from time to time.

Keep in mind that I like the tesla concept... I just dont agree with about 10 different decisions that the company made developing the tesla. For instance, they went out of their way to quell rumors, adamantly saying that the tesla was *not* an elise. Then when they finally show it off... it an elise: granted it has different body work but its still an elise. how much did all that design and bodywork cost?

The point is that when you approach a difficult engineering project, you solve the tough problems first and foremost. That is where your time, energy and money should go. There was already a perfect vehicle to use before the tesla was ever started: its called the elise... They should have spent their resources getting a full elise from lotus minus the engine, trans, and gas tank and working from there, getting a reliable motor, battery, and transmission concept that would work *reliably* in a production setting before ever going forward with starting the company. Its a classic example of what happens when guys who build computers try to build cars: you get the auto equivalent of an alienware pc


I can totally see like 20 guys standing around the tesla prototype all wowing about the blue glowing charging port and the one lone engineer in the back says, "umm guys, when are we going to figure out how to make the car move?"

It's not an Elise, it is based on the Elise. About the only thing on the car that is the same as an Elise is the dashboard (and even that has been changed a bit). Pretty much everything has been fettled with. The chassis has been lengthened, and changed to allow better ingress and beefed up to handle the weight of the batteries, as was the suspension. Wheelbase and track is different, suspension settings are different.

The point is that when you approach a difficult engineering project, you solve the tough problems first and foremost. That is where your time, energy and money should go. There was already a perfect vehicle to use before the tesla was ever started: its called the elise... They should have spent their resources getting a full elise from lotus minus the engine, trans, and gas tank and working from there, getting a reliable motor, battery, and transmission concept that would work *reliably* in a production setting before ever going forward with starting the company. Its a classic example of what happens when guys who build computers try to build cars: you get the auto equivalent of an alienware pc

How do you know that is not what they did, were you there?
It seems they started with an Elise and learned that you could not just plunk an electric motor and batteries into it and then away you go. There was LOTS that needed to be changed. There was cooling issues, there was HAVAC issues, there was safety issues, handling, crash testing, reliability testing, etc.

You are right, building a production vehicle is hard, but I got the impression that they realize this, and that is partly why the dreamer was replaced with the suits
Apparently, the 2 speed transmission is pretty much the only thing holding up delivery at this point, it hasn't passed 100k mile reliability tests, these tests take a long time to complete, so every time there is a change, it is like a month or so of testing. While the car doesn't "need" a 2 speed transmission to operate, they want it to meet the performance goals

[LongIsland]

Things don't look good. It might turn out to be a lousy car if they don't get thru this transition. Here's a take from the ousted.

http://www.teslafounders.com/

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by mopho

It's not an Elise, it is based on the Elise. About the only thing on the car that is the same as an Elise is the dashboard (and even that has been changed a bit). Pretty much everything has been fettled with. The chassis has been lengthened, and changed to allow better ingress and beefed up to handle the weight of the batteries, as was the suspension. Wheelbase and track is different, suspension settings are different.

How do you know that is not what they did, were you there?
It seems they started with an Elise and learned that you could not just plunk an electric motor and batteries into it and then away you go. There was LOTS that needed to be changed. There was cooling issues, there was HAVAC issues, there was safety issues, handling, crash testing, reliability testing, etc.

First of all, the car is still very much an elise. I am saying this in an off-the-cuff way because none of us have a manual or parts listing but i will bet you a dollar that even the final tesla will have a large percentage of parts that are taken directly from the elise. What i was trying to demonstrate was that the tesla is an elise much in the same way a pontiac firebird was essentially a camaro.

I am not saying that nothing has been changed, not am I saying that they havent done alot of work. The point here is that they spent *alot* of time energy and money making alot of changes that for now are really unnecessary. You are building a revlutionary new car right? whats the most important part... the battery-motor-trans combination. If the idea is to show that you can produce an electric car in large numbers and have it be reliable then you first demonstrate that you can have a company build a transmission that works and *then* you make the car look nice and pretty. Thats why all the real car companies including lotus use test mules to develop the various subsystems. right now lotus is driving around old style esprit mules that are being used to test systems for (probably) the new esprit.

I respectfully disagree with the prrmise that they had to make all those different changes to the tesla to make it viable. From an engineering standpoint the elise is more or less the perfect car to make into an electric roadster: put the battery pack where the gas tank is and motor/trans combl where the IC engine is. add additional battery packs in the front or back leftover space. Changing things like the side-sill height or the bodywork is superfluous and did not need to be done to sell the vehicle. Lets face it: most of us would buy a tesla even if it looked *exactly* like an elise simply because the idea of a lightning fast electric roadster is so cool. On top of that a converted elise would without a doubt cost *less* than the tesla.

Originally Posted by mopho

You are right, building a production vehicle is hard, but I got the impression that they realize this, and that is partly why the dreamer was replaced with the suits
Apparently, the 2 speed transmission is pretty much the only thing holding up delivery at this point, it hasn't passed 100k mile reliability tests, these tests take a long time to complete, so every time there is a change, it is like a month or so of testing. While the car doesn't "need" a 2 speed transmission to operate, they want it to meet the performance goals

You can also pretty much bet that the transmission problem is not going to be the only issue. Im guessing that we are going to see some serious reliability problems once these cars are on the streets and that the cars as delivered even with the good transmission will not perform up to what they have been promising.

The problems stem from the fact that designing computers is totally different from automobiles. companies who design consumer electronic products deal with a use/warranty period of one year. They dont worry about how a device will work after 10 years; in fact they understand a certain percentage will break within 90 days. Automakers on the other hand design 5 years ahead of time and with reliability goals that limit warranty pay-outs during the warranty period. This is not just a problem with tesla. Many automakers have been having problems with their electronics suppliers for new systems like the LCD nav screens that you see in all the new vehicles. The suppliers of these systems have experienced high return rates 2-3 years after delivery because they never had to warranty a product longer than a year.

With tesla laying off people left and right it looks like they made a few bad decisions: they sold the idea of the car based on the demo vehicles before they could be sure the production ones would work as promised. They also advertised performance figures too early also based on the prototypes and now have to backpedal as well because the production vehicles will not meet those figures. Finally they pre-sold vehicles at a set price before they were sure they could build the production vehicle and sell it at that price *and* make a profit. My guess is that with the transmission issues they have realized that they need to cut costs at this point just to break even.

I want the tesla to work... I really like the idea behind it but in retrospect it looks like the tesla guys should have talked to lotus more about how to go about the business. The whole thing is eerily reminiscant of the delorean story with just enough of a pets.com internet boom feel to really make it scary. Honestly once they decided to sell hats and coffee mugs instead of a working car i really expected to see the tesla sock puppet next

[mopho]

My point is unless you worked on the project, you are merely armchair quarterbacking

I had the full tour and have been in the car, I was very surprised at how much had to be changed from the Elise.

If the idea is to show that you can produce an electric car in large numbers and have it be reliable then you first demonstrate that you can have a company build a transmission that works and *then* you make the car look nice and pretty. Thats why all the real car companies including lotus use test mules to develop the various subsystems. right now lotus is driving around old style esprit mules that are being used to test systems for (probably) the new esprit.

First off, they are not exactly producing the car in "large" numbers.
Secondly, you're fooling yourself if you think real car companies are not making the car look pretty at the same time they are using test mules, as a matter of fact, that is often the first thing they do is come up with what the car is going to look like.
And I believe Tesla did use Elise test mules.
Big car companies have failures at the last minute that create delay's too, they just have more money and more resources to overcome the problems, or they release the car and have a recall.

The problems stem from the fact that designing computers is totally different from automobiles.

I am sure they have brought in people with some experience with designing cars.

From an engineering standpoint the elise is more or less the perfect car to make into an electric roadster

Maybe, but it is not the perfect car to sell to their customers. They were told by many prospective buyers that they would not be interested it if it was as uncompromising as the Elise.

Changing things like the side-sill height or the bodywork is superfluous and did not need to be done to sell the vehicle. Lets face it: most of us would buy a tesla even if it looked *exactly* like an elise simply because the idea of a lightning fast electric roadster is so cool. On top of that a converted elise would without a doubt cost *less* than the tesla.

Don't forget, it is not hardcore driving enthusiasts that are really want this car as much as it is celebrities and multi-millionaires that are more interested in the image it conveys. Most of these people want a little more comfort than the Elise offers and don't want to have to fold themselves in and out of the car (at least not as much), or have their fillings rattled out.
And the image of these celebrities driving an electric sportscar is probably what the electric car industry needs. Whether the public and technology buys into it remains to be seen

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by mopho

My point is unless you worked on the project, you are merely armchair quarterbacking

I'll cop to it... but I am an engineer with alot of experience in designing for automotive projects so I'd like to think that I have a bit of insight (even if its outsider insight)

Originally Posted by mopho

First off, they are not exactly producing the car in "large" numbers.
Secondly, you're fooling yourself if you think real car companies are not making the car look pretty at the same time they are using test mules, as a matter of fact, that is often the first thing they do is come up with what the car is going to look like.
And I believe Tesla did use Elise test mules.
Big car companies have failures at the last minute that create delay's too, they just have more money and more resources to overcome the problems, or they release the car and have a recall.

I never said that automakers do not design and develop at the same time: A major automaker will still test the major component concepts well before comiting to production. Its understandable that any car will have unforseen issues leading up to production but automakers are also notoriously conservative. Look at the chevy volt concept: they talk about it but they go out of their way to let you know that its a long ways off and even then its going to get what? 35 miles on a charge... Maybe its that a small manufacturer like tesla is willing to take more chances but then the financial risks can still be calculated ahead of time and additional money brought in for a safety margin.

Originally Posted by mopho

Maybe, but it is not the perfect car to sell to their customers. They were told by many prospective buyers that they would not be interested it if it was as uncompromising as the Elise.

Don't forget, it is not hardcore driving enthusiasts that are really want this car as much as it is celebrities and multi-millionaires that are more interested in the image it conveys. Most of these people want a little more comfort than the Elise offers and don't want to have to fold themselves in and out of the car (at least not as much), or have their fillings rattled out.
And the image of these celebrities driving an electric sportscar is probably what the electric car industry needs. Whether the public and technology buys into it remains to be seen

I understand the image issue.. again, thats why i made the reference to delorean since he essentially marketed the same way: to celebrities. we all know how that went once the performance figures were lowered.

I see it two ways: Either you are correct and a celebrity wouldnt touch an electric elise because of the compromise or they simply wouldnt care about the elise quirks and get the car anyway. I tend to think its the latter and here is why: celebrities dont keep these sorts of vehicle for long anyway. I did a project on an SLR for a client of mine who is (movie star) famous. I was surprised to hear that high end "showboat" cars like the SLR often are bought and sold 3 to 5 times in the first two years. A celebrity will buy the car, drive it around for a bit and sell it and get something different. Obvously a tesla and an SLR arnet even the same but the idea is: They dont worry much about whether the side sills are too high because they will probably only dirve it a few times to various nightclubs.

If you're correct and the car does need to have these changes to make it viable to celebrities than I dont see why they couldnt have made the price even higher. spending 100K and 150K on a tesla is nothing to a celebrity. In all it seems like they either got the concept wrong or the price wrong.

Finally if tesla is having this much trouble getting it a 100K car to production, how the hell are they going to bring in their everyday car in at whatever the target price is (39K?). Everyone is stuck on these figures that they delivered: a 240 mile range when the big automakers are scared to report a 60 mile range. Again I really like the tesla concept and i want it to work (i keep saying that) but it all seems a bit too good to be true.

[mgreenbl]

there appears to be a tesla showroom being built in west los angeles, near the intersection of santa monica and sepulveda blvds.

mark

[Gizmo3000]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

Finally if tesla is having this much trouble getting it a 100K car to production, how the hell are they going to bring in their everyday car in at whatever the target price is (39K?).

yah, that's the big question.
it's costing them $50k alone to essentially to electrify an Elise, so how on earth can they possibly come out with a $40k electric vehicle?

I certainly hope they can get their S!@# together!

[mopho]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

I'll cop to it... but I am an engineer with alot of experience in designing for automotive projects so I'd like to think that I have a bit of insight (even if its outsider insight)

Well I am not an engineer, but I have had the full tour and been in the car, so I offer a little different insight

I was skeptical and went into it thinking it was just going to be an electric Elise, but I was surprised at all the issues that had to be overcome to make it work, things as a non engineer I would never have thought about until seeing the car

I understand the image issue.. again, thats why i made the reference to delorean since he essentially marketed the same way: to celebrities. we all know how that went once the performance figures were lowered.

Tesla has come pretty close to the original performance target though

I see it two ways: Either you are correct and a celebrity wouldnt touch an electric elise because of the compromise or they simply wouldnt care about the elise quirks and get the car anyway. I tend to think its the latter and here is why: celebrities dont keep these sorts of vehicle for long anyway. I did a project on an SLR for a client of mine who is (movie star) famous. I was surprised to hear that high end "showboat" cars like the SLR often are bought and sold 3 to 5 times in the first two years. A celebrity will buy the car, drive it around for a bit and sell it and get something different. Obvously a tesla and an SLR arnet even the same but the idea is: They dont worry much about whether the side sills are too high because they will probably only dirve it a few times to various nightclubs.

And the last thing they would want to do is fall on their face in front of everyone at the club trying to fold themselves out of the thing.
The Elise is a hard sell as it is.

Finally if tesla is having this much trouble getting it a 100K car to production, how the hell are they going to bring in their everyday car in at whatever the target price is (39K?).

And how much trouble are they really having? Perhaps I am just less skeptical (or ignorant), but considering it is a small start up car company and their first car, it does not seem all that bad, nor surprising. It seems to me that all small car companies experience similar issues (Lotus may be small, but they have been making cars for 50 years, they have it mostly figured out by now)
I have a older video documenting Caterham trying to build a new car to carry them into the future (which would be now) and they too had a tremendous amount of trouble, spent years developing the car and got nowhere with it (I believe this was before the Caterham 21). And they have been in business for a while.

Everyone is stuck on these figures that they delivered: a 240 mile range when the big automakers are scared to report a 60 mile range. Again I really like the tesla concept and i want it to work (i keep saying that) but it all seems a bit too good to be true.

I can't divulge the details, but I can attest that the car can go much further than just 60 miles

Originally Posted by Gizmo3000

yah, that's the big question.
it's costing them $50k alone to essentially to electrify an Elise, so how on earth can they possibly come out with a $40k electric vehicle?

I certainly hope they can get their S!@# together!

As I have been trying to point out, it is much more than just an electrified Elise. In person, it is pretty easy to see where the extra cost is coming from (especially considering the low volume)

I don't know what the plan is for the $40k car, but I'd imagine by not using the aluminum chassis or the fiberglass body and with not so high of a performance goal (acceleration, top speed, and distance) a lot of the cost could be cut out.

[ewalberg]

Anybody that's sitting at home and knows virtually nothing about the car other than what they read hear and in the news is kidding themselves when they say anything about the similarities between the cars and about the failures in how they approached the production of the vehicle. Anybody who has any experience in the manufacturing and production know that when you have 2 products that have different specs VERY quickly things get changed... and that while many parts may be similar... similar is just that... still different... , and it doesn't take long before only a handful of parts are truly the same... and i suspect that's much the case here. Supporting an extra 500lbs (a 25% increase in weight), and to still accelerate faster is going to impact many things in that car... even if you don't change sill height.

That said, and considering who's buying them... maybe they should have charged more. I actually think it sounds like they're suffering from is too much self punishment over the cars not meeting specs. Get the damned thing on the road... how many stars are going to keep it for 100k miles?

Why the heck should tesla be the only company that DOESN'T use it's customers for beta testing. Put a 100k warranttee on the tranny so it gets replaced if necessary. People buy a $200k mercedes that they can't keep out of the shop, why the hell shouldn't tesla... people want to buy the car because they like the idea... wait too long and the idea goes sour in my opinion... people know they're getting the first car off the line... they paid for it and they probably wont even drive it for that reason to try and hold it's value... I say SHIP IT!

[Flash G]

Great take on the Tesla mess:

http://thecarnut.typepad.com/whipnotic_steve_parker/


.

[nockpoint]

Nice find Flash.

[Randy Chase]

David Vespremi, on this forum as DavidV, was also let go last month. Things are looking precarious, but I hope they can pull it out and make a go of it.

[Lotus Fury]

Bloodbath is right. I wonder what's next. I think the Tesla Roadster as a Halo car was a good idea but I wonder about betting the bank on something that is more of a curiosity. I can't see how valuewise, the Roadster was going to complete. Lower the price and take it on as a loss leader is the way I think it would need to go. $60k max maybe. I know they are also working on more of a commuter car also and I would say that's where to look for cash. Keep the price down to mid teens and they would sell very well for us city commuters. It's a niche type of vehicle and there's no use in trying to sell something that people aren't going to buy. The cost of ownership could be very low. Few moving parts, simple design, etc. Swapping a electric motors should be ultra easy.

I don't know enough about the company to say much more but it is a shame to see them in what appears to be the death throes. Good luck guys.

[doma]

Having spotted another tesla on the road today I sought out tesla info, discovered their current state, and am now sad.

I hope Lotus won't be harmed too much if Tesla dies. Hopefully Lotus didn't invest too much in Tesla support that it was hoping to get paid back by a piece of the action from Tesla car sales. Tooling, etc.

[tonybelding]

Originally Posted by goldengatehornet

Their trannys can't handle the torque during shifts. There are still battery problems, I believe, that they don't discuss.

What is your source for that?

I've been following Tesla very, very closely, and I've never heard even a hint from the company about any kind of battery problems. What I have seen is a lot of speculation from reporters.

Whenever there's any problem or delay with the car, some reporter thinks to himself: "It must be a problem with the batteries, because everybody knows lithium batteries explode!" Then he writes his speculation that Tesla is having battery problems. Then somebody from Tesla calls the reporter -- or his editor -- and chews him out and threatens him with libel lawsuits and forces him to publish a retraction, which nobody ever sees anyhow.