Tesla's Model S is here (a prototype, anyway)

After much bated breath and drawn-out anticipation, it's finally here: Tesla Motors' Model S electric sedan.

The prototype was unveiled this afternoon in Hawthorne, Calif., inside the SpaceX rocket factory, run by Tesla chairman and chief executive Elon Musk. Unlike Tesla's currently available Roadster, the Model S was entirely designed by Tesla and is capable of carrying more than two passengers. In fact, Tesla executives say it can hold as many as seven (!) passengers, as long as two of them are children.

"We're trying to accelerate the electric car revolution," Musk said to an audience of about 100 journalists and film crews. "This is not a handmade car. It's not a derivative on an existing gasoline car."

Tesla, based in San Carlos, Calif., last year began selling the only highway-legal electric car in the U.S., the Roadster, which has a sticker price of $109,000 and gets 244 miles on a charge. But because it's built in England at the Lotus factory, it's a low-volume vehicle, while its small size means it's not practical as a regular-use car.

The Model S is intended as a mass-market vehicle.

With production goals of 20,000 units per year, it will come with three battery options. The entry-level car will have a battery capable of a 160 mile range, while the sedan can be upgraded a 230-mile range battery or a 300-mile range battery. The basic model of the car will go from zero to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds, Tesla said, and in the second year of production, a "sport" model will come out capable of much faster times.

In addition, the smallest battery will be capable of a fast charge as quick as 45 minutes, much faster than the current charge times of four to eight hours. Musk said the battery will be located under the car, making it possible to swap it out in order to change it for a fully charged battery, and he said the company was planning to lease the battery in addition to selling it as part of a complete car.

"We'll lease the whole car and we're not opposed to third parties leasing the car as well," Musk said. But the main sales channel will be directly through Tesla showrooms. Currently there are two, in Los Angeles and in Menlo Park, Calif., but Musk said the company expects to open up to 40 in North America.

The starting price for the car is $57,400, Musk said, but he took pains to point out that the car will be eligible for a $7,500 tax credit. Pricing for the upgraded battery packs was not released.

Musk said that production of the Model S will begin in the third quarter of 2011, with deliveries beginning in the fourth quarter of that year. And in something of a surprise news flash, he said the car would not be built in San Jose, as had been expected. Instead, the car will be built in Southern California.

The reason for the shift, he said, was that low-cost Department of Energy loans Tesla is seeking to help fund the car require that the factory be situated on unused industrial sites that are at least 20 years old. The car's powertrain engineering, however, still will be performed in the Bay Area, Musk said.

Currently, Tesla's biggest rival in the alternative-drivetrain vehicle space is Irvine-based Fisker Automotive, which plans to introduce a plug-in hybrid sedan early next year. It will have a starting price of $87,900. Both it and Tesla's Model S were designed by designers with considerable experience in the auto industry: the Fisker vehicle by Henrik Fisker, who worked at BMW and Aston Martin, among other places, and the Model S by Fran von Holzhausen, most recently at Mazda Motor Co.

-- Ken Bensinger

Photos: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Michael S]

This thing reeks of vaporware. Anything automotive done by egotist Elon Musk has been more hype than substance.

[Ronbo]

A latter day Tucker. Ahead of its time, from a tiny player in an industry that requires size to succeed.

[CL]

Thats a pretty hot looking car. And people are already complaining about the price but it looks nicer then more expensive BMW's. Forget about the $7,500 tax credit though. Most people who will be able to afford this car will make too much money to get the full rebate (although I hope that will change).

[Arye Michael Bender]

A paradigm has shifted. The price will come down. The Tesla is an essential part of our collective future.

During this time of change, great opportunities open up for new players in an old field. Those unwilling or unable to adapt, may not survive. Those willing to embrace a more creative, sustainable future, should succeed.

Tesla should survive and thrive.

[David Berg]

Factor in what you would have been paying for gas over a ten year period - that could add up to a lot of savings (of course is there any reason to think about the improvement to the air quality?) Also the cost of maintaining a electric motor is significantly lower...

[supa g]

Am I missing something here? I love to drive my Honda CRV with 205,000 on it. About 20 miles per gallon, dented and scratched, cheap insurance, no worries, no car payments. I'll drive it into the ground, then get another 5+ year old car and do it again...... people are just silly for spending that kind of cash on a car anymore!

[Chris]

That thing is beyond gorgeous. I would give my eye teeth for it, no matter what was under the hood!

[Imee]

Hmm. This car seems to differ in appearance from site to site I visit... I'm very confused. But anyway, it seems cool enough to me. I'm not super impressed, but it's a good enough hybrid car and quite affordable in comparison to its contemporaries.

[Rich Monk]

Excellant!
This just shows the real capabilites of the human brain for a positive purpose. Great job!

[Buzz Adams]

Seems mostly hype. In the last thirty years there have been many cars that were going to change the world. If it flies good, but when you are charging it with electricity from a coal burning electric plant, how much of the total carbon footprint have you reduced?

[Deepwater805]

So where's all this electricity gonna come from? Wind, waves, whales? Methinks it's gonna come from hydrocarbons. Read: fuel oil. So what this really means is that someone buying the car, maybe thinking that they're gonna reduce their carbon footprint, but will actually just be shifting it to where ever the electrical power plant is. In other words: this means nada, nothing, nichivu....

[Joy A]

Great car, but it sure would be nice if they'd build it in America, instead of shipping good jobs out of the country.

[Matt in Eugene]

Deepwater805,

Although hydrocarbons are still required (for now) to produce the electricity to run this car, power plants are much more efficient at extracting energy from carbon-based sources than internal combustion motors are. If one power plant can take many cars off the road, the pollution savings would be significant.

Also, if we develop these cars as we develop alternative energy, both will be ready before we run out of oil.

[Monkus]

Joy -

The car will be built in SoCal. Read the whole article please.

[Richard Long]

Monkus

I live in SoCal....this is now a province of Mexico.

[Dick Tmaw]

Instead of bailing out GM and Chrysler, the govt. should encourage and help pioneers like Tesla company to bring down the price of electric cars affordable by the general public, especially the middle class that Obama trumpeted to champion.

[Zeek Wolfe]

Henry Kaiser in the 1940's was told by executives of General Motors and Ford that he had only a "white chip" to play in the game of auto manufacturing. His efforts to enter the industry were doomed. Elon Musk has only a white chip, the lowest value on the table, and that chip is largely borrowed in some way from the taxpayers. The Tesla is doomed to failure.

[Paul]

Nice car and concept, but considering that Los Angeles has rolling blackouts whenever people try to run air conditioners at the same time, hundreds or thousands of us charging cars is going to cause a lot of problems.

[JimF]

@Paul: Good comment about LA's rolling blackouts.

Building and operating a handful of plug-in cars works, but scaling out to hundreds of millions is much less clear. How many new power plants, a complete new electric grid, and systems to dispose of literally millions of tons of toxic batteries do we need?

"Zero emissions" not.

[Roy G. Biv]

Tesla is Silicon Valley's first great leap into designing ultra Green (along with its several solar and nano-oriented companies#. Congratulations!

SV not only can make ultra powerful IT products, but big box items for America and the world.

Brainpower is the new survival of the fittest. #Intuition is a step beyond.)

[occ]

Deepwater805: With due diligence, you would find out an electric car running on 100% coal-powered electricity is between 0 and 20% LESS CO2 (depending on your assumption) than gasoline -- at the very least it is NO WORST! In the 3 western pacific states, the grid mix is is better than 25% renewable (includes nuclear), and less than 40% coal! The entire US is less than 50% coal! So when your gasoline miles is replaced by EV miles, the CO2, pollution and foreign oil reduction IS SIGNIFICANT!

As for blackouts, for the next decade, most EV charges will be at home at NIGHT, and utility companies are already rolling out Smart Meter and charger software that would limit peak charging. The surge in electricity usage because of plasma and LCD TV proliferation was worst and contained by utilities WITHOUT problems.

3 years ago when Tesla had even less investments, naysayers touted the Roadster was vaporware...the same ones are saying this for the Model S...want a 2nd pie in the face?

Wake up! The future is electric. Dinosaurs who couldn't move got stuck in tar pits!

[Kevin Wright]

Imee: Tesla does not build hybrid cars. Tesla builds pure electric cars. Please read the article before posting.

Joy & Mr Long: California, while full of illegal immigrants is still a part of the United States of America, therefore the jobs created will be American jobs. Please read the article before posting.

Deepwater805 & Mr. Adams: There are always people like you two in a comment section who think we are just shifting the pollution elsewhere, but as Matt eloquently puts it the efficiency of even coal fired power plants is much higher than individual cars, and the power plants are rigorously updated unlike individual cars which pollute more with age as the pollution controls get older.

supa g: I don't understand why people spend tens of thousands of dollars on new cars every year, but they do. If people did not buy new cars, you would not have your used car. Go live in Cuba where they are still driving American cars from the 1950s since the flow of new vehicles was cut off after the revolution.

I am extremely excited about this vehicle, while I may not buy it, its success will bring other more reasonable vehicles powered purely by electric. Which I hope to power partly by the small solar panel on my roof.

[RevGadget]

What most people don't know is that the refining of gasoline is the second largest user of electricity in the US. The Refineries buy about 12.39 KWH of electricity per gallon of gas they make. The Tesla Roadster will go over 80 miles on that same electricity. That doesn't count the amount of power used to pump the oil from the ground, or the energy used to deliver the crude to the refinery, or even the fuel to deliver the gas to the station. I only wish I had those numbers to throw around. An electric car is so far ahead of gas it's silly.. We wouldn't need more electricity but less.

[Dawn MacKean]

Sorry, I couldn't read this story about electric cars as I was too busy hugging trees and bunnies. Not to mention telling stories about my ancestors in Eastern Europe.

[Deeperwater805]

Methinks they are going to need a long retractable cord.

You know, if they would have only taken my advice and presented the car with a hot Ukrainian model next to it nobody would even care how it was powered...