Tesla Delivers 100th Roadster

[smicker]

(Sorry for the crappy iphone pix)

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:40
MENLO PARK: TESLA MOTORS HANDS KEYS TO 100TH ROADSTER OWNER
MENLO PARK (BCN)

Tesla Motors today honored Menlo Park businessman Sam Perry, known nationally for being the man Oprah Winfrey clung to during president-elect Barack Obama's victory speech, as the company's 100th Roadster owner.

At a news conference this afternoon at the company's Menlo Park store, Tesla Motors CEO and chairman Elon Musk handed Perry the keys to a 2008 radiant red Roadster and told him that, as the owner of a Roadster himself, Musk has never been in a car where he received more thumbs-up.

"You can have something that's sexy and fast and fun, and that's also environmentally responsible," Musk said of the sports car.

The Roadster, launched in early 2008, costs between $2.50 and $5.50 to recharge and can run for 244 miles with a full charge, company spokeswoman Rachel Konrad said.

The purchase price of the car is $109,000, and there is a waiting list of nine months to a year, Konrad said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and actors George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio are among the other owners of the Tesla Roadster, Konrad said.

Tesla Motors manufactures about 15 Roadsters per week and hopes to make about 30 per week by the spring, according to Konrad.

Tesla Motors is a 5-year-old company based in San Carlos that develops and manufactures all-electric, zero-emission vehicles. The company recently announced plans to move its headquarters to San Jose.

The company plans to begin manufacturing a four-door, five-passenger luxury sedan in 2011.

(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors. )

[climb4fun]

Good to see those electric roadsters are selling.

I can't afford it at this price, though.

[JWA]

They didn't mention in the story if he was on the list beforehand or if they gave him one for the press mention. The fact that they talked about the limited availability and other owners but left that part out is interesting.

[AgentTripleX]

Looks like he's being attacked by cameras in your photos Smicker. I was there today too and he waited 2.5 years for his Roadster to arrive. He actually came in on a really cool bike.

[Aedo]

That is a cool bike!!

[smicker]

Originally Posted by AgentTripleX

Looks like he's being attacked by cameras in your photos Smicker. I was there today too and he waited 2.5 years for his Roadster to arrive. He actually came in on a really cool bike.

I think it's a Strida?

Products- STRIDA

[rob13572468]

Looks like tesla is finally getting their numbers together: I wrote this two months ago when they last revised the production down:

Two months ago when they last discussed production they were supposed to be ramping up right now to 25 cars/week but now it looks like they are only now going to be at 10/week. Also the article says they have delivered 27 cars so far which means that they havent even been able to hit the 4/week target so far. (some quick arithmatic puts it at more like 2-3/week).

So maybe they will break 100 cars by the end of 2008.

so with 100 cars out and 2 weeks left for the year they should actually be a bit ahead of the last projections. This is because they expected to be at 10 cars/wk and they are closer to 15 right now. At this point the projections for 30 cars/week by spring are pretty reasonable. Extrapolate those figures out and it looks like they will have 500 total cars shipped by the beginning of May.

That marks the beginning of summer as the true make-or-break point for Tesla: With the soft economy, 500 is the likely number that tesla can easily sell even in a recession... after that its an open question as to how many people can *still* afford to buy one. It will also be interesting to find out what the situation with the deposits are (since nobody seems to really know how many roadsters are paid in full beyond the first 125). I wonder how many people are out there who put down deposits and can no longer afford the car...

[rob13572468]

here is the latest update on the production numbers... in the engadget article, musk states the numbers produced as over 200 now...

While we have had some cancellations due to buyers experiencing personal financial difficulties, new orders continue to flow in every week from the United States and Europe. We have now produced more than 200 Roadsters for customers and there are more than 1,000 customers still awaiting delivery.

as we know the 100th roadster was delivered 12/10/2008 and in my various thread discussions with paul the production was supposed to be at 25/week to allow the 2008 production run of 600 roadsters to finish sometime in march or april (well first it was march and then april and then late april...) Since the current figures are around 200 (lets be generous and say over 200 really is 220) then that means the production has stalled at 15 cars/week for the past 2 months...

The problem is that now even if production magically jumps to 25 cars/week today there is no way that the 2008 production run can be finished even by june (e.g. 14 weeks until june 1st and 25 cars/week... 14 x 25 = 350 cars + 220 = 570.) Assuming 25/week the soonest the 600 cars could be reached is the second week in june. If tesla can do a more realistic 20 cars/week then it is more likely that production will wrap up around the second week in july...

[vfx]

Here is an update with some pics.
This article talks about lots of cars. and twenty per week.
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Roadster #200


Some pics have been colorized as the photog played with his camera. All pics are in the Menlo Park location, three different times.

[Flash G]

Big story on Tesla tonight on ABC's World News.


.

[kmhepler]

Didn't know that ABC World News was doing the segment till I caught what looked like a Lotus Elise on the screen while half paying attention tonight. Just looked for video but not yet on the web site. They sure did get a beautiful chassis and body, IMHO!

[vfx]

Here's the ABC link.

And for now the car's value is pretty good. Today on Ebay (auction number 230328861102 ) just sold for $160K in one day. Good profit on the guy's (2 years ago) 92K.


Edit.

At the end of this test drive they pull into the Menlo Park store.

[def]

I see these more often than elises on the 101 now days. Even passed a tesla box van in traffic...

[Spudboy]

Originally Posted by BallerStatus08

I agree. Way more of these rolling around than Elises, I see at least 3 of them everyday in Woodside.

LOL, Elise's outnumber Tesla's about 200:1 !!!

[Bane]

Originally Posted by Spudboy

LOL, Elise's outnumber Tesla's about 200:1 !!!

True... but I noticed the same thing as the two guys that posted before me when I drove through California last week.

Total # of Lotus cars seen: 0

Total # of Teslas seen: 2

The two Teslas I saw were in Northern California. One was in Palo Alto, the other was just south of Monterey I was hoping to see at least one Elise/Exige on my 1200 mile road trip... but I got skunked.

[cstetter]

Saw two on 101 on Friday. Didn't see any Lotus all weekend.

[...m...]

palo alto -> monterrey = tesla home territory / primary market

...there mightn't be more than two hundred on the road in that area, but they're almost all daily-driven...

[vfx]

PRESS RELEASE
Tesla Motors delivered its 250th car last Saturday March 14th. Lucky No. 250 was Dr. Rob Wilder, an academic and entrepreneur who created the first Index on Wall Street for energy efficiency and zero-carbon solutions. Rob lives in Encinitas, Calif., where he charges his Roadster from his home's array of solar panels. He picked "very orange" as the exterior color to symbolize the car's connection with the sun.