New Ideas and New Products

Electric car company Tesla Motors today launched their latest electric car. It’s called the Model S and it looks stunning.

This is the second car from Tesla Motors. They already have the more sporty roadster but the Model S is a saloon.

This car does seem to address a number of the big issues for electric cars:

1. Range. The Model S will have a range of 300 miles after one charge. That should be enough for most people. I know I wouldn’t want to drive more than 300 miles in a day.
2. Time to charge. This car can make do with a quick charge in 45 minutes or a full charge in 4 hours.
3. Acceleration. 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds. That’s quick.
4. Priced for the right market. At $49,900 this should be attractive enough to make people consider it instead of their Mercedes or BMW.
5. Looks. It doesn’t look like a tin can on wheels, it looks beautiful. It also looks safe.

It won’t actually be launched until 2011 so we have got a bit of a wait. But I do like the way that Tesla are producing electric vehicles that are desirable instead of some kind of compromise between satisfying your green conscience and actual performance and style.

Tesla could well be one of the beneficiaries of the Stimulus plan by receiving a federal loan to help them build out manufacturing capacity.

Electric vehicles have still got a lot to prove. I think reliability is a factor that we have no way of analysing right now. We still have to work out the infrastructure to allow these vehicles to be recharged. Not such an issue for someone who will buy this car but for the generation of electric vehicles that are affordable for your average driver and aren’t parked in a private garage but on the street.

Anyway this is great news. I look forward to driving past one of these in the not too distant future.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the British team that is attempting to build a car to break the 1000 mph mark. This supersonic car is to be called the Bloodhound SSC.

So I was pleased to see the mainstream UK media publishing the following story.

This piece is actually written by John Piper who is the engineering director for Bloodhound SSC. He talks about some of the challenges they are facing in terms of the stability of the structure of the car due to the immense forces it will be subjected to.

He talks about using a diffuser to stabilise the car and it is the use of this bit of technology which is causing all the arguments amongst Forumla 1 teams right now.