Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley maker of the all-electric roadster due out this year, said the vehicle won’t be able to travel as far as previously thought without a recharge.
The Tesla will now have a range “greater than 200 miles,” less than the 250 originally promised — because of design changes made to fulfill safety regulations and for other reasons. From a new transmission to new stereo subwoofer, the alterations have added “several hundred pounds” to the car’s weight, the company said in a letter to people who had put down a deposit for the car. Instead of a curb weight of 2,500 pounds, it is now over 2,600 pounds.
No change, yet, on the promise it will go 0 to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds. No one has yet asked for their deposit back, the company tells the Mercury News’s Matt Nauman (see full story).
The Tesla is backed by a number of high-profile investors, including Google co-founders and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, and has been touted by folks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been pushing an eco-friendly agenda more aggressively lately. It is part of a wave of investments in new clean technology companies. Investments in such clean-tech North American and European companies totaled $903 million during the first quarter, a strong 16.5 percent increase over the $775 million invested in the previous quarter, and a 42 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago, according to the Cleantech Venture Network yesterday.
3 Comments
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Terence Pua said:
What is the actual “cost of pollution” for an electrical recharge vs. that of gassing up?
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Enrique said:
I would think all depends on how you re-charged the car. Nothing, if it re-charged with solar energy.
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Ian said:
There is dramatically less pollution with an electric car than with a gasoline engine. A large amount of the nitrogen oxides (the main cause of smog) and other emissions can’t be captured from a car engine, but can be (and in the US, they largely are - though there is room to go) captured/eliminated with coal/gas/nuclear central power plants. CO2 is still a problem with coal and gas fired plants, but is still less than with car gasoline engines simply on account of much greater efficiency of central power plants over gasoline engines in cars.
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