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I don`t know if anyone has ever posted here about Tesla Motors, or if anyone even knows of this company, but occasionally I visit their website I always leave swooning. Everything about Tesla Motors is first-rate.

Tesla Motors picked up the electric vehicle ball after GM stupidly axed the EV-1. But instead of producing a dim-bulb econobox for mass consumption, they stuck to an ethic of uncompromising excellence and have created one of the finest American vehicles ever made: the Tesla Roadster does 0-60 in 4 seconds (faster than a Lamborghini or Corvette), sits on a Lotus chassis, comes with top of the line everything,  goes 245 miles on a single 3.5-hour charge (the EV-1 went about 140 miles), and is what my friends and I joke about being "drool worthy" — it is fabulously beautiful (more thanks to Lotus).

Moreover, TM is ramping up operations slowly, rolling out their high-end model first and going into wider production with lower-end models later. I remember seeing many new cars come online during my lifetime — Saturn, Hyundai, Infiniti, Lexus — and it always seemed to me they took an enormous risk moving straight into mass production, even if they did have huge established corporations behind them. TM`s strategy seems very smart to me in a couple of ways: it contains risk, and has also built up far more demand than they can meet anytime soon. People are clamoring for a Tesla sedan but as far as I know it isn`t even off the drawing board.

TM started taking orders for the first 100 production vehicles in 2006 and were sold out by August; in September 2006 they opened up orders for the second 100 vehicles and were sold out by October. The next round of orders was for 650 vehicles; these are also sold out. That might not sound so impressive, except that the Tesla Roadster retails for about $100,000. I have no idea what the initial investments in the company have been but so far TM has brought in $85 million in sales, and there`s not one Roadster out of production yet. Nice.

Everything Tesla Motors does, they do in a way that I admire. Their product is beyond excellent; it is as green as you can get; it is a significant leap forward technologically; they`re moving operations forward in a wise and deliberate way; they`re making the sales; and perhaps most importantly to my thinking, they are almost singlehandedly removing the granola crust from environmental consciousness and polishing it to a sleek, tech-savvy sheen.

Swooning, I tell you.

—paula

They are an interesting company for sure.  I have been to their site before and loosely followed their progress.  For a $98k+ product, everything they do better be slick and high-end.

I don`t think at all they are picking up where GM left off.  The EV-1 had a much different market.  The Tesla is geared toward the environment-loving wealthy, of which there is nothing wrong with.  I hear they sold out of their pre-orders of Teslas at one point.  More power to them!

It is just that commonly for new technology to get a foothold in a wider market, it has to be accessible to the masses.  For this reason, I question how much a difference Tesla will make in the automotive industry and if they will ever effect a wider car-buying market.  It`s too out of reach for most people.

The Roadster is out of reach, but it is the platform they`re using to move into more affordable models for the masses. I don`t have the link to cite for this info (it might have come from their website) but it is my understanding that once they have the bugs worked out of Roadster production, they`re going to use it as the basis for a more accessible sports car and then later for a sedan. I believe they`re planning an initial run of 10,000 for the less expensive sports car, and that it will retail for $35,000-ish.

—paula