The Tesla story

Tesla Motors, an automobile company owned by the erstwhile Elon Musk has been taking the world by storm for a while now. What is it that makes Tesla Motors an enigma? Tesla Motors is a pioneer in electric cars. That is, it is a pioneer in making cars that run on stored electricity rather than conventional petrol or diesel.

Tesla Motors currently have 2 models under their brand. One is the Tesla Roadster which was the company’s first vehicle and the second is the Model S which is an all-electric sedan. The implications of such a concept have a wide reach both economically and environmentally. For example, using a Tesla car costs only 0.02$ a mile whereas using a fuel powered car could cost around 0.25$ a mile. Since the emissions from an electric car are virtually zero, it is an environmentally beneficial concept.

While the potential benefits of electric cars are plenty, they face several problems and hurdles. For one, electric cars are a lot more expensive than the conventional internal combustion engine vehicles because of the lithium ion batteries these cars use.

This is where the CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk looks at himself as an inventor and an entrepreneur. He is known for founding SpaceX, and co-founding Tesla Motors and PayPal (initially known as X.com). While at those companies, he oversaw the construction of the first electric car of the modern era, the Tesla Roadster, a private rocket known as Falcon 9/Dragon, and the Internet payment system PayPal.

The 2 models — the Tesla Roadster and Model S were both innovations and a pioneer in its own way. The Tesla Roadster is an all-electric sports car which has sold more than 2500 units since 2008 in 31 countries ranging across North America and Europe. The car is said to have a good range of roughly about 390 kilometres on a single charge and it boasts of great acceleration of 0–60 mph in 4 seconds. This car was in production till 2012 until a contract it had with Lotus motors to provide Lotus Elise gliders ran out. The Tesla Roadster went through various upgrades in 2009 and in 2010 and a right hand drive model also went under production at that time.

The Model S is an all-electric luxury sedan launched to compete with cars such as the BMW 5 Series. Tesla unveiled the Model S design to the public by introducing a concept version of the car in the Tesla Design Studio in Hawthorne, California. This car included a touch-screen dashboard with wi-fi, mobile connectivity access and remote-programming abilities. It seats five adults (plus two children in rear-facing child seats) and has a 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) time of 5.6 seconds. As of September 2012, the Model S has received 13000 reservations.

The Tesla Model X is a full-sized battery electric crossover sport utility vehicle in development by Tesla Motors. The prototype was unveiled at Tesla’s design studios in Los Angeles on February 9, 2012. Production is scheduled to begin by late 2014 as against the promise of early 2013 to focus “on a commitment to bring profitability to the company in 2013” and to achieve their production target of 20,000 Model S cars in 2013.

Tesla Motors have a unique 3 phase strategy. In the words of Mr. Elon Musk himself “the master plan is:

1. Build a sports car

2. Use that money to build an affordable car

3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car.”

As is evident, the cars produced by Tesla are a pioneer to a world, hopefully with less pollution and less fuel consumption. This novel concept, though repeatedly tried and tested over many years seems to have finally found an able home at Tesla Motors. The future generation seem to be more solution oriented and future inclined, at least when it comes to automobiles. Such an idea is sure to grasp the interest of the younger generation into looking for a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine vehicles. As production volumes increase, the prices tend to get more affordable and Tesla Motors is doing just that. Popularising a concept such as electrical vehicles is no mean task and this company has done probably what it takes to change the way the next generation thinks about electric vehicles.

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Sources : teslamotors.com, wiki/tesla_motors

Image courtesy: teslamotors.com