Tesla? or Volt ... Who'll be first

That link requires a sign-in. Could you summarize for us please?

 

Very short article, but here it is:

Tesla sets Roadster date
SV FIRM TO BEGIN PRODUCTION OF ITS ELECTRIC CAR IN MARCH
By the Mercury News
Article Launched: 01/25/2008 03:05:43 AM PST





Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley electric car start-up, says it will begin production of its delayed Roadster model on March 17.
The company said late Wednesday that it has secured all emission and safety certifications for its first vehicle. Due nearly a year ago, the delivery of the Roadster has fallen behind schedule because of a series of manufacturing problems, most recently with its transmission.

 

due by March, check this out.

 

i don't think you can compare a $100,000 "homemade" electric 2-seater with a 200 mile range (they announced they were unable to meet the 250 mile range they originally advertised) with a $28,000 (my best guess) "production" plug-in hybrid 4-seater with an unlimited range.

The Volt, like the Prius, is designed to be your only vehicle.

The Tesla, like a Ferrari, is designed to be your 2nd or 3rd vehicle.

The Tesla will be out soon, and GM is dragging their heels on the Volt, Fisker may even get their gorgeous $80,000 Karma plug-in hybrid 4-seater out before the Volt is for sale, that would be embarasing for GM.

 

The validation prototype Tesla Roadster went 245 miles on one charge on the EPA combined city/highway course. Driven hard, it went a shorter distance; driven gently it went farther. (Just as any car does better when driven gently, and worse when driven hard.) 245 miles is 5 miles short of their original promise. And it is not "home made." It's a high-performance sports car with a scheduled production run of 650 in the first year.

With all due respect, your "best guess" for the price of a car (the Volt) that does not even exist yet in prototype, and which may never be built at all, is not a valid comparison to the Tesla Roadster or anything else. My "best guess" for the Volt, if they ever build it, is between $40,000 and $50,000. GM has not said what the Volt will cost. For that matter, they've said precious little about what it will actually be.

 

the tesla IS homemade cause they don't have a $2 billion automated factory like GM, toyota, ford, honda and every other MAJOR manufacture has. Its no insult, sometimes handmade cars are better(Ferrari,Aston Martins), sometimes they are worse(pre-Ford Jaguars).

Lotus is building the frame for the Tesla. They almost went with mazda cause of their legendary miata roadster. I'm not sure the exact reason they went with Lotus, maybe they think Lotus has more experience with RWD platforms or is better at building frames to handle cars that are heavier in the rear rather than the front.

Small companies like Tesla and Lotus don't have the $$$ to do extensive research in safety. I'm not calling them death traps, they'll meet all safety requirements, but they won't be as safe as humanly possible.

Another thing that makes the Volt superior is that GM has their vast infrastructure of service facilities. I think the Tesla is made in LA or somewhere around there. If you live in Florida and your Tesla needs repairs or warranty work, now what?

 

[sarcasm]And just how long have you worked for GM?[/sarcasm]

If you buy a Tesla, you either live near a service area or you agree to pay a big fee if your car needs service. The fee is to either bring a tech to your car or bring your car to a tech center.

BTW - The biggest thing that makes the Volt highly suspect is GM's history with the EV1 and their lack of commitment to anything that isn't profitable beyond this calendar year. Like many others, I'd love to see GM produce a PHEV with a 30-40 mile electric-only range at highway speeds. I don't like the way they promote a concept car and then make excuses for why it'll take "X" years from now before it's ready. Especially when the "X" grows and the car's benefits shrink.

 

So your definition of "home made" is that it's built in a low-volume factory? Well, by that definition, yes. But by my definition, a car built by highly-skilled professionals in a fully-equipped workshop, by the several hundreds per year, is not "home made." It is a low-volume car.

As far as scale of manufacture, the Ford Pinto, which was a bomb on wheels, was certainly less safe than the "home made" (by your eccentric definition) Jaguar, even though the Jaguar was not a reliable car.

Finally, you show how little value your whole assessment has, when you display such complete ignorance of Tesla motors. Allow me to correct you:

Tesla Motors is located in San Carlos, CA, a short train ride south of San Francisco. The purchase price is higher for buyers outside their several service locations, and that covers all transportation and service, whether it means getting a repair technician to the car, or getting the car to a service location. Even with that extra cost, the Roadster is half as expensive as high-end sports cars that have less acceleration.

The Tesla Roadster has been crash tested, and while it is probably not as safe as a Toyota or a Volvo, it is probably more safe than the average vehicle from GM, especially if you consider the roll-over hazard of the typical SUV which is the mainstay of GM's output. The real factor in safety is speed. The Roadster will go 120 or 125 mph, and at that speed nothing is "safe." A Prius can go 105 mph. My Xebra can go 40 mph. The Xebra at 40 mph is safer than a Prius at 105 mph, even though the Prius is much safer than the Xebra if they are both going the same speed. But the Roadster was designed for high-performance sports-car buffs, who want speed and are willing to take the chances. GM's SUVs are designed for housewives who've been hornswaggled by fraudulent advertising into the false belief that SUVs are safer because they are heavier than a conventional car.

Lastly, you are comparing a car that presently exists in validation prototype (i.e. essentially finished form) and will go into production this year with a "concept" car that does not exist in any form even remotely resembling a finished or usable form, and which probably won't ever be built, and which GM itself says is five years away, and has been saying is five years away for the past several years, constantly pushing it back, so that it's always five years away. GM could have built the Volt ten years ago. Why have they not built it yet?

To answer the title of the thread, Tesla will definitely be first.

 

Regardless of the arguments above, the Volt is a -Marketing exercise-, not a production car. I would be very surprised if it ever reached production.

The Tesla is an enthusiasts car. As proven by one of the above posters (an enthusiast for EVs). It's a low volume production car, -hand made- not -home made-.

The Tesla will beat Toyota by a few months. Toyota has announced they will produce the plug-in Prius this year (fall) with two of the current battery packs (NiMH), but for fleet use only. When the rest of us will be able to purchase one is anybodies guess. GM isn't even in the game. Unless you consider they already beat everyone with the EV1 of -several- years ago.

 

Tesla has been set to deliver for a while, where as the volt is vaporware, until proven otherwise...

But it seems Bob Lutz wants it not to be .. or at least wants us to think it isn't.

Want a Volt in 2010? Then take $40,000 to your nearest Chevy dealer - Autoblog

40k for a volt will be crazy... they need to rethink their strategy if it ends up being that.....

 

hmmm. i thought gm had already secretly shelved the volt project and has declined to inform us in a lame attempt to bolster their image until they finish development of their $60,000 550 hp, diesel-electric 14 mpg full sized pickup truck that they hope will revitalize their company...

is that a faint calvary charge i hear?? is that gm 4 wheeling over the crest of the hill in their new behemoth??

 

You cannot compare the Tesla Roadster with a plug-in Prius. And what's this about two of the current NiMH battery packs??? The NiMH pack has to be kept between 40% and 80% SOC to ensure long life. The present Prius will go about a mile and a half in EV mode, if it's at 80% SOC to start, before it kicks out of EV mode. Maybe 2 miles under ideal conditions on level roads. Double that for two packs. Add a mile assuming a 20% improvement, and you get 5 miles. Who's really going to bother plugging in a car for a 5-mile EV range???

The Tesla is an EV, not a plug-in hybrid, and the validation prototype went 245 miles on a single charge on the EPA combined city-highway course. (Farther under gentle driving, less under extreme driving. Most Tesla owners will drive extreme. That's why they bought it. But when they need to go a longer distance, they can.)

Five miles on grid power for a plug-in Prius, vs 245 miles for a Tesla. At least the CalCars Prius-plus gets the equivalent of 30 miles of grid power over a 60-mile drive (i.e. it uses 50% grid power for the first 60 miles, before its grid charge is used up and it is once again 100% gasoline powered.)

I think we're all hoping Toyota puts in enough battery capacity, and enough electric motor strength, for the plug-in Prius to do what GM claims the Volt would do. But that will require more than two of the present batteries. It will require more advanced batteries entirely. Maybe lithium. Maybe something they're not telling us about yet.

 

I did say that Tesla will be first, & just because I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of Tesla Motors, it doesn't change the following fact:

The Tesla roadster is designed to be your second vehicle.

The Volt will be designed to be your only vehicle, this makes it harder to design, as it cannot have any shortcomings.

& those of you still bitter at GM for only leasing out their EV1 instead of selling them, Honda has a hydrogen Civic coming out that will only be for lease ($600/month) in SoCal, you won't be able to buy a hydrogen Civic. So in that respect Honda is no better than GM in that they won't sell experimental technology, they'll only lease it.

 

Humm I think you're missing some important informations regarding your statement:

"The EV1 price was US$33,995 to US$43,995. One industry official said that each EV1 cost the company about US$80,000". Also the EV1 was build because of the ZEV mandate and sold (leased) as a regular car. It was not experimental technology. They produced around 1100 EV1 and had a waiting list for a lot more.

And then you compare that to the Honda FCX Clarity... a multi-millions dollars car ? "Honda won't be selling the Clarity, at least not in this initial iteration, because it is largely hand-assembled and stuffed with hideously expensive technology. The company won't discuss the cost of each vehicle, but nobody on the Clarity team blinks when it's suggested that Honda would have to charge at least $1 million apiece just to break even on the immediate production costs."Some reports have the value of these cars as much as $10,000,000 which may or may not be accurate for the current stage of development". "Between 100 and 200 will be available for lease". Well I think it's just okay that Honda chose not to sell them because nobody could afford one anyway and the reason to produce such a car is only to display new technology.

To compare GM vs Honda on that matter is quite inapropriate I think.

EDIT: oops sorry, about the topic... Tesla will be first because the Volt, of course, is vaporware.

 

Well in fact it was maybe more around a $80k value (I took that from wikipedia) and I don't really know for sure. The thing is that it was only a price point comparison.

If you remember "Who Killed The Electric Car" their price was surely close enough to what I wrote and surely not "millions" because many buyers were willing to pay the remaining cost after lease for around $30K. :mellow:

 

I love looking back at old predictions...