Can a niche player take on some of the automotive industry's giants? For the moment, the Silicon Valley startup, Tesla Motors, is happy just to finally be getting its low-volume, two-seat roadster into production. But longer-term, the electric vehicle manufacturer sees a time when it will be challenging the likes of General Motors and Toyota as the industry makes a dramatic push into "electrification."
"The viability of an electric vehicle is finally here," said Darryl Siry, Tesla's new marketing director, during an interview in a back corner of one of the exhibition halls at this year's Paris motor show. The question is whether Tesla itself is viable.
Founded and funded by major digital entrepreneurs, like eBay's Elon Musk, Tesla has struggled to get its first product, the $100,000 Roadster, into production. With its pack of 6831 laptop-style batteries, the two-seater boasts an impressive spec sheet -- with performance rivaling that of a Porsche 911 and, at more than 200 miles, range far exceeding previous electric vehicles. But the project came close to being unplugged by one of its most basic mechanical components.
EVs have a significant appeal to sports-car aficionados because electric motors generate tremendous amounts of torque the moment they start turning. But that can prove a problem if you're running all that power through a gearbox, like the two-speed transmission on the Roadster. The first two designs had an unpleasant tendency to fail catastrophically, forcing Tesla to turn to Ricardo to help develop yet another.
"We couldn't afford a third strike," said Siry. But the new box, built by Borg-Warner, appears to be holding up to the heavy loads, and the first production versions of the Roadster are finally being delivered to the more than 1000 customers Tesla claims are on its back-order list.
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