RideLust

The Nissan Leaf, as seen by Elon Musk.

In a sure sign that things are heating up in the electric car battle for consumers hearts and minds, Elon Musk has called the batteries used by Nissan in the Leaf ‘primitive’ and not even up to the technology used in Tesla’s first prototype. Musk’s comments, quoted from Earth2Tech by Autoblog, were made in a conference call with analysts and investors last Wednesday, where Tesla executives were also forced to defend their slim-but-increasing margins on the Roadster. Investors fear that the Model S sedan will lack profitability unless the cost of materials and production can be lowered significantly.

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I’m not a stock broker and I don’t play one on TV, but you had to see this coming. After shooting up a staggering 41% on the first day of trading, shares of Tesla stock are now selling below their IPO pricing of $17 per share. How much lower? As of today, they’re trading at $15.37, a drop of $1.63 per share from the IPO price and a drop of $4.63 from their highest price.

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While sitting at my desk wondering what to write about I started pondering if I would one day actually plunk down some money for an electric car. I started running cycles through my head as to the pro’s and con’s and wondered if it would ever make financial sense for me. I thought about my driving habits and tried to figure in such details as how many times a week I use the car, what the average distance traveled was, as well as my average fuel cost. If you’ve never done this and are in the market for a new electric vehicle such as Nissan’s new 2011 Leaf, a Tesla or the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, then you may want to jot down some notes.

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If you were lucky enough to get in on Tesla’s IPO this morning, you probably paid around $17 per share. Congratulations, you’ve already made money: shares were selling for as high as $19 today, before dropping back to $18.75 in afternoon trading.

The $226 million raised by Tesla will be used to open the former NUMMI plant in California, and has ensured that Toyota will invest another $50 million in the electric car manufacturer. Tesla, whose sole automotive offering to date is the battery powered Roadster, has plans for a practical electric sport sedan called the Model S. So far, Tesla has created functional prototypes of the Model S but has not lined up a platform on which to build the car. Toyota’s investment in Tesla should go a long way towards solidifying that relationship.

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With all the talk about electric cars I began to wonder if these automobiles are really the way of the future. In theory we all want to get better fuel economy, spend less and get better performance, but at what cost? We have automobiles powered by gas/hybrid and diesel engines now that are more than capable of generating upwards of 40 mpg, but in the end these engines are generally small and do not provide the performance that most consumers are looking for and herein lies the problem. There are a few cars out today that give us, as consumers insight as to the longevity and feasibility of electric vehicles for a mass market, but as they are too new to get any real data, we’re still somewhat in the dark.

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Here is some good news for all you eco-friendly people out there who want to save the world and get great mileage from the electric car you don’t own yet. The good ole’ United States government has a bill sitting in congress called the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010. It offers $10 million for the first battery developer to come up with a battery pack that can get a car 500 miles on a single charge. Now $10 million may not seem like a lot of money especially to automakers, hell the Obama administration has already dished out billions to help further the development of new forms of transportation, so why put this out now and why for only $10 million?

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Arnold Schwartzenegger, California’s Governator, broke the news yesterday about a joint venture between Tesla Motors and Toyota. Details are still emerging, but it looks like the companies will work together to produce the Tesla Model S sedan. Tesla has purchased part of the former NUMMI plant to build the Model S, and the state has offered Tesla tax breaks on capital equipment purchases as an incentive. The company projects short term employment of some 1,000 workers to assemble the Model S; long term, Tesla estimates that 5,000 direct and 5,000 indirect jobs will be created.

This is a huge win for Tesla, who now has a partnership with a major automobile manufacturer and access to platforms, engineering and test resources. It’s a win for Toyota, who gets to re-open a shuttered plant and associate themselves with a leader in electric vehicle technology and manufacturing. It’s a win for the rest of us, as the Model S now has a clearer road to development and production.

Source: Tesla Acquires NUMMI Plant, To Partner / Build EV Sedan With Toyota

The initial track testing phase of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize vehicles has begun at Michigan International Speedway. This video, courtesy of Consumer Reports, gives a good overview of what the competition is all about. Unfortunately, there isn’t all that much footage of cars testing, but some things are clear: the Aptera may be fuel efficient, but it doesn’t handle worth a damn and the Tango (the extremely narrow orange car in the video) really can back its claim of a four second zero to sixty time.

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The Huffington Post is reporting that a plane owned by Tesla electrical engineer Doug Bourn has crashed shortly after takeoff. The plane was en route from Palo Alto to Los Angeles and was carrying two other Tesla employees. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, was not believed to be on the plane.

We’ll provide more details as they become available.

Source: Huffington Post

Bigfoot. El Chupacabre. The Loch Ness monster. Honest politicians. People swear that they’ve had encounters, and swear on a stack of bibles that these critters exist. The Tesla Model S, revealed to the public just about one year ago, fits in the same realm; call it “auto-cryptozoology”. With clean lines reminiscent of a Maserati, it looked to be the out-of-the-park home run alternative to Chevy’s plain vanilla Volt electric sedan.

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