Electric cars used to mean boxy weird-looking slow driving no fun monstrosities that blow off the highway with a stiff wind, but not anymore these cars are popping all wheel drive torque machine that gets from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds. They are helmed by a ceo who’s so eccentric and enigmatic, that he could just as easily be a bond villain but he’s not because he’s given us the future cars. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls this is everything you need to know to get up to speed on Tesla.
This might come as a surprise to a lot of you but elon musk did not found Tesla no, it was magic the gathering buddies Mark Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning who found tesla in the sleepy northern California town of menlo park. These guys were also silicon valley veteran who combined their expertise and earned a lot of success with an early e-reader company, which produced the rocket e-book the precursor to the kindle. One of their areas of expertise was the little power plants that fueled their little fake books lithium ion batteries Eberhard was also freshly divorced and was ready to buy a sports car just like every other freshly divorced 40 year old man in the world. He was looking at what was available but started to think about his impact, he must have overlooked the modest adorable miata because he got turned on to a little car called the ac propulsion t-zero. Ac-propulsion is a small company in San Dimas California, San Dimas high school football rules that last night I had a drink Eberhard headed over to see what their little yellow very 90s looking t-zero was all about. After one go dude was hooked Eberhard quickly became an investor in ac propulsion. He looked into shaping it into a legit car manufacturer not just some small boutique in RD workshop oh my gosh this little yellow pocket screams like the millennium falcon.
Why hasn’t any major car company made one yet? one problem that plagued the early evs is that they were all based on battery technologies that’s been around for almost 100 years lead acid batteries but mark and martin knew a thing or two about things called lithium ion batteries. What made Eberhard and Tarpenning start their own company tesla motors named after Nicholas tesla the inventor of lighting.
On April 23rd 2003 they made it official the way all startups do nowadays. They bought the domain name tesla motors.com they also realized that the auto industries had turned into an industry of suppliers. Ford doesn’t make every single part that goes on their cars a lot of the cars like windshields hoses, wires,springs and wheel they all come from other places. These guys knew a thing about this from their silicon valley experience with this crucial aspect in mind they were excited to cobble together a small simple sports car which emitted no CO2.
They set out to find chassis they could drop a big electric car and a mess of batteries into it and they settled on lotus. You know because they have such a great reputation for electrics on lotus on the ready. Tesla also worked out a licensing deal with ac propulsion to use their motors and controller, for the power train they were able to get funding from various small sources but needed one big whale to finish it off and give them the green light. In late April 2004 one of their silicon valley buddies who really liked cars became quite interested and gleefully chipped in a few million clams and that dudes name was Elon Musk. When tesla was found in 2003, Elon had just sold his silicon valley superstar PayPal. With musk now on board and plenty of cash in the bank. They hired Ian wright as their go to gearhead a kiwi with healthy resume of building race cars in 2004. Tesla first test mule was created, the roadster it was essentially a lotus Elise but with an electric motor batteries and various other tech man bits running different kinds of software to bring the whole thing together. It worked and they were stoked their functioning mule also helped them secure more funding to keep going a cool 13M dollars. In July 2006 the official launch party of the tesla roadster went down at the Santa Monica airport in beautiful mar vista California that’s my neighborhood. Please don’t come to my house tesla filled the first 100 pre-order at 100,000 dollars and they were off to the races environmentalist’s nerds and even car nerds rejoiced over the new exciting sports car and everyone was thoroughly stoked for initial debut slated for some time later the same year. In 2006 but there was some heads over design elements ergonomics use of all these things and the debut kept getting pushed back and back and back. Remember most of these cars were already paid for we’re not even talking about offering stuff to the general public yet the ship needed to be steered.
So Elon Musk took over as CEO and became the face of the fledging company and when tesla roadster finally debuted in 2008. The hype continued on a trajectory just like the roadster’s very own torque curve. A little over 24,000 cars sold world wide between 2008 and 2012. The motor is a three phase 4 pole induction electric motor with maximum output 248 hertz pers, its maximum torque is 200 pounds-feet and comes on immediately and stays maxed out until 6,00rmp. Later in its production its torque was boosted to 295 pound-feet for even crazier acceleration clawing to 60 miles per in under 4 seconds and smashing through the quarter mile in just over 12.5 seconds. The movie that launched this whole thing was asking for a 10 second car and this thing almost a 10 second car. After an expensive roadster it was time for a luxury competitor in 2012 tesla started making the car that would boldly announce to the world that they had arrived enter the tesla model S .The model S has a large comfortable interior with nice amenities and its controlled by a big old touchscreen in the front dash, it looks like an iPad. Its beautiful because the motor and batteries sit low and out of the way of the interior is super space .Its electric so there is no engine vibration and the power delivery is instant and consistent, with the option of adding ludicrous mode from the factory. This 588 buff horsepower 920 pound-feets beast lunges to 60 miles per in just 2.3 seconds and thanks to the regenerative braking system, when you slow down you can get back some of that electricity that sped you up in the first place. This thing’s a spaceship for the road while the model S has undergone various power upgrades drives train upgrades and facelifts. An April 2016, it is still the same generation usually there are enough upgrades and changes to a car most OEM’s just come out with a new generation a vehicle a new car. Have you seen the new mustang? uh its looks a little bit like the old mustang but newer yah cool that’s what we’re used to, but tesla they don’t do that they distinguish their generations by making them a different vehicle production jumped from 15 or so cars per week. In 2010 to nearly 1,000 per week in 2015 so tesla decided it was time for their second-generation vehicle. Remember tesla’s plan is to start from the top down first sports car then luxury performance sedan, then the next step is of course well uh next would be an entry-level consumer car that most pretty affluent families could afford with an MSRP somewhere between thirty thousand and fifty thousand dollars.
You are killing it today buddy you are killing it you, are absolutely destroying the tesla model x suv debuted in early 2015. While the model x shares 30% of the same parts as the model S. It doesn’t quite achieve the same range, that’s because it’s a thick boy topping out at 5531 lbps that’s 1,000 more lbps than the rusty 1990 ford f-250. My buddy Cameron had in high school even with all the corn stalks stuck under the grill, Cameron loved driving through corn fields despite its thick body status. The model X p100d with Luna mode has insane power, its crossover that jumps to 60 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds. It matches the zero to 60 of freaking Ferrari 488 and the design was something too Elon has owned quite a few kiss-ass cores his first car was a 1978 BMW 320i that he drove till a wheel literally fell off he even a McLaren F1 that he totaled, but the car that most directly influenced an actual tesla design is an Audi q7. That musk owns currently and then you know we’ve got things like that say the Audi q7 which is not bad. So he wanted to make a car with doors that car open in tight spaces with access to third row seats without folding the second row seats forward. Enter falcon doors model x was so highly anticipated that it received 30,000 pre-orders. Before it went on sale the model X production was slow to get going as supplying issues arose once again delivery started out at just 204 units in the fourth quarter of 2015. Elon was getting flack rumors of poorly run plants and crappy quality Musk brought in analysts and experts with stellar careers from the likes of ford and everyone else to turn around operation. He kept what worked scrapped what didn’t and the model x’s started cranking out. The model 3 the third mass market car in tesla’s lineup after it’s announcement the model 3 amassed 325,000 reservations in a week it was intended as a lighter smaller more attainable vehicle and this shows in its accoutrement since it’s debut in July of 2017. The rear drive single motor sedan has bumped production to top out at 5,000 cars per week, that is a lot of batteries cruising them strokes.
The tesla model 3 is the number one selling car of 2018 outselling Mercedes, Audi even the Toyota corolla pricing starts around 42,000 dollars with some higher tier models coming in at about 60,000 dollars. What about its power? well its not bad either the three jumps to 60 in 5.6 seconds and the top level all-wheel drive performance one gets there in 3.3 seconds and its got 450 horsepower 470 pound feet of torque in fact the new kick-ass swap is finding a total tesla and molding your favorite little chassis s3s s2000 and even this 1981 Honda accord have all become kick ass beasts that’s rocket to 60 without much of a peep. Not only are electric cars the future of commuting but mark big bro’s words, it’s the future of tuning. So what’s next for tesla? the new roadster that’s right slated for production in 2020 tesla is taking all the research development safety and so on and so on and so on and they are offering up a new version of the roadster dub roadster 2020 vision clear speaking of 2020 you’re guaranteed to lose your 2020 vision when you step on the insanity pedals those mad men are claiming that 2020 roadster will reach 60 miles an hour in 1.9 seconds and a 100 in 4.2. That’s as fast as an F1 car unlike the original the new roadster won’t ride on another guy’s chassis like Nolan does it would be an entirely tesla developed hyper car. Its freaking beautiful, it’s like the buffest shiniest horse I’ve ever seen the car is expected to go for around 200,000 dollars. But it still might be a great value compared to the other insanely fast vehicle that are on the market today, also they launched one in the freaking space Elon himself stated that it could potentially come with a feature called the space x option package this would add about 10 cold gas thrusters to improve maneuverability. These wild sci-fi sounding thrusters could improve downforce, if they are aimed up cornering if they’re aimed out top speed if they’re shooting back and braking. If they shoot forward what is he smoking in less than two decades tesla went from making cute little lotus things to being a full-fledged disrupter in the auto industry and now they are on the verge of hitting 60 miles per in less than 2 seconds, sounds crazy but so does everything else about this company.
