If you were to point to one car that started
the electric car revolution, it would be hard
to choose between General Motor’s EV1 and
the Tesla Roadster.
Its stats look quaint now, but in 2008 when
it was launched it was nothing short of a
transportation revolution.
Electric cars were slow with limited range.
This car could go over 200 miles on a charge
and get to 60mph in under 4 seconds.
Tesla had created the first practical and
thrilling electric car.
But it nearly drove the company into bankruptcy.
This is the Tesla Roadster Story.
(music)
The story of the Roadster starts way back
with the General Motors Sunraycer in 1988.
Before this, electric cars were slow, with
snail-like acceleration that was measured
in 0-30 times, as many couldn’t even get
to 60mph.
With the Sunraycer, GM developed a motor and
drivetrain that handily beat the competition.
They believed they could productise this technology
into a real electric vehicle and developed
the Impact prototype in 1990 that they tested
with customers.
Alan Cocconi was one of the Impact’s designers,
and he left GM to form AC Propulsion in 1992.
He worked on developing an electric drivetrain
that could be used by other car companies.
AC Propulsion demonstrated that they could
develop an EV that could get to 60mph in around
5 seconds which was unheard of at that time.
EVs up until then were known for being slow
and full of compromises.
AC Propulsion’s innovative drivetrain would
be used on the Volvo 3CC, Venturi Fétish
(yes, they called it that!), Courreges ZOOOP
and Wrightspeed X1.
In the late 1990s two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs
– Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning had
just sold an electronic reader startup and
were looking for a new challenge.
Lithium Ion battery technology for devices
such as laptops was advancing quickly, and
they wondered if this technology could be
combined with advanced EV powertrains from
companies like AC Propulsion, who were still
using lead acid batteries.
The two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs incorporated
their company as Tesla Motors in 2003.
They used computer simulation to determine
the best type of car to make the best use
of an electric powertrain and found a small
sports car would work the best.
By this time GM’s EV1 had been launched,
and research showed EV1 owners had an average
income of $200,000, and they loved their cars
with a passion.
With GM recalling and crushing all their leased
EV1’s, despite customer protests, an expensive
but compelling electric sports car seemed
like something that would sell.
AC Propulsion developed their own car, the
tzero, and attempted to get funding themselves
with no success.
As Tesla were using AC Propulsion’s drivetrain,
they borrowed the tzero to try to get funding
for their own electric car.
This was no mean feat.
The last successful US car start-up was Chrysler
in 1925.
And Tesla were based in Silicon Valley where
people knew more about writing software than
building cars.
Detroit looked on with wry amusement.
But Tesla realised that modern car companies
don’t make the whole car.
They focus on final assembly and engine development,
leaving component production up to a myriad
of suppliers.
Tesla decided to install AC Propulsion’s
electric drivetrain into an existing car.
They would integrate the parts together, and
provide the battery smarts, getting the most
out of an array of 18650 Lithium Ion laptop
batteries.
The car would be sold directly to customers
to save on dealership costs.
The founders paid to retrofit AC Propulsion’s
tzero with lithium ion batteries to test out
their concept but ran into a roadblock getting
enough funding to take it to the next level.
They heard that SpaceX founder Elon Musk was
looking to invest in an electric car company.
He invested $7.5M into the company and was
installed as Tesla Motors chairman.
Elon brought on EV engineering wizard and
eventual CTO J.B.
Straubel who’d developed his own electric
Porsche in the 1990s.
Elon continued to invest in the company, and
the enthusiasm of such a high profile investor
encouraged others to fund the new car that
was now codenamed “Dark Star”.
By 2005 Tesla had a deal in place to use Lotus’
Elise.
Lotus agreed to supply 2,500 cars, so that
would make up the entire production run for "Dark Star".
The team got to work understanding how the
Elise’s dashboard, pedals and other mechanical
parts interacted so they could integrate their innovative
electric drivetrain and Energy Storage System.
To provide space for all those batteries,
6,831 in the final design, the chassis was
stretched by 5”.
And it was quickly determined that putting
a bunch of combustible batteries inside an
aluminium chassis was a recipe for disaster.
Having a celebrity go up in flames in an expensive
Tesla wasn’t likely to help sales!
Tesla worked on ways to dissipate the heat
and effectively cool the batteries to eliminate
the chance of the batteries ever catching
on fire.
A test mule was built, but changes to the
Lotus body needed to be made, and Elon was
particularly vocal about this.
The fibreglass body was switched to carbon
fibre.
The tiny Elise doors meant the driver and
passenger had to sort of “fall into” the
car, so these were made larger.
Elon wanted high end features such as sleek,
disappearing door handles.
“Dark Star” was unveiled to the public
in July 2006 as the Tesla Roadster in a splashy
media event with celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
CEO Martin Eberhard promised a range of 250
miles, 130mph top speed and 0-60 time around
four seconds.
The car would use a two-speed gearbox to transfer
the electric motors power to the wheels and
back again through regenerative braking.
But demonstrations were carefully controlled
as the cars needed to be swapped out or else
they’d overheat!
Elon promised a larger four seat Tesla that
would appear in 2009.
But it would take until 2012 until the Model
S entered production.
Tesla promised the Roadster itself would arrive
the following year.
With prices promised between $80,000 and $120,000,
the car was a hit, and deposits started rolling in.
By the end of 2006 the first of ten engineering
prototypes had been built, starting with the
black “EP-1”.
26 validation prototypes were made, but Tesla
saved time and resources by using computer
simulations to pass US safety regulations
instead of crashing real cars.
The original goal had been to add batteries
to a Lotus Elise with AC Propulsion’s drivetrain,
but Tesla kept reengineering different parts
of the car, partly because of necessity to
get the car to work, partly through a desire
to make the “perfect” car.
By 2007 the car only shared 6% of the Lotus
Elise’s parts, and Tesla had done so much
work to AC Propulsion’s drivetrain that
their version didn’t use any of AC Propulsion’s patents!
There were problems getting the two-speed
gearbox to work.
The gearbox would be destroyed after a few
hundred miles from the forces of shifting
gears from the 14,000 rpm AC motor, and Tesla
went through several companies trying to get
a workable gearbox.
Using just a single gear would kill their
0-60 time, making the car much less desirable.
In the end Tesla had to bite the bullet and
accept a single speed gearbox, meaning to
get their sub four second 0-60 time they had
to shed a lot of weight from the car, costing
the team time and money in rework.
Multiple other production issues like painting
the carbon fibre body, visible body gaps,
and battery problems meant the release date
would slip from 2007 to 2008.
The company was burning through cash and getting
further into debt.
But production problems were just the start
of Tesla’s problems.
With parts of the car being produced internationally,
it took 6 months for the car to travel halfway
around the world before it was ready to be
sold.
Due to management ineptitude it was discovered
that the $80,000 car Tesla had promised customers
would cost up to $200,000 to make!
CEO Martin Eberhard, who had started the company,
had messed up and was demoted in August 2007.
A short while later both the co-founders had
left the company, leaving new interim CEO
Michael Marks to somehow try to make a profit
from each car.
The company became laser-focused on costs,
with team workers charged with drastically
cutting the price of each of the car’s parts.
Elon Musk got the already tired employees
working weekends to get the car out on time.
With delays bringing the car to market, and
venture capital running out, the company was
looking at bankruptcy if it couldn’t deliver
a car soon and make a profit.
The Roadster’s development was originally
priced at $25M, but it had already cost over
$140M.
New CEO Michael Marks wanted to prep Tesla
for a takeover from an established car company.
This was standard operating practice for a
Silicon Valley start-up, but Elon wanted Tesla
to be independent despite its financial problems,
and him and Marks crossed swords.
It led to the CEO’s eventual departure and
Elon took his place running Tesla.
Production started in early 2008 and Elon
took delivery of the first car in February.
The car’s price had increased to $100,000.
Initial production was slow, but steady and
increased throughout the year.
Reviews were generally good, with critics
praising how much fun an electric car was
to drive, while giving a practical 240 miles
of range.
In autumn 2008 the influential car show Top
Gear tested the Roadster and although they
praised its acceleration, they critiqued the
handling, especially compared to the Lotus Elise.
They highlighted its battery life, with it
doing just 55 miles when being thrashed around
the test track.
Tesla eventually sued Top Gear and lost, but
the upshot was that any publicity is good
publicity and it helped to bring the car to
the public’s eye.
Despite raising $187M, $70M alone from Elon
Musk, the company’s finances were in the toilet.
And getting new capital was tough with the
2009 Great Recession, especially when existing
car companies were going bankrupt.
They got an additional $50M from Mercedes
who took a 10% stake in the company, but it
was a 2009 $465M Department of Energy loan
that kept them afloat.
Similar loans were given to other car companies
such as Ford and Nissan at the same time,
but Tesla was the first to pay their loan
back in full in 2013.
Their financial problems were further eased
the following year when the company went public;
the first US car company to do so since Ford in 1956,
producing a large influx of capital from investors.
The Roadster got an update at the end of 2009.
The interior was improved, with better heating
and air conditioning, plus a centrally-mounted
screen for the first time, showing real-time
car data.
This foreshadowed Tesla’s increasing reliance
on the centre touchscreen for future models.
The suspension was adjustable, the motor improved,
producing 288hp up from 248, and the car had
better sound-proofing.
Tesla offered an open top for the first time
as the Roadster Sport with an improved 0-60
time of just 3.7 seconds.
To help promote the car and show how practical
an electric car could be, Tesla sent the Roadster
on a round the world trip in 2010, starting
in Geneva in March and ending in Paris in September.
And in keeping with this global trip, the
first right hand drive Roadsters appeared,
selling for £86,950 in the UK.
When Tesla started producing the Roadster,
they got an exemption from installing a two-stage
airbag from the US safety authorities until
the end of 2011.
So as that date approached, and they closed
in on the maximum 2,500 cars they could make,
Tesla’s marketing switched to sales outside
the USA.
By January 2012 the 2,500 Lotus bodies had
run out, and Tesla was switching its focus
to the Model S that would begin deliveries
in June that same year.
2,450 Tesla Roadsters were delivered to customers,
over double the number of EV1’s GM produced.
For Tesla, the Roadster project was a massive
learning experience, as well as a near death
experience, but they would take these lessons
and apply them to future cars.
Although Tesla moved on to produce other cars,
in 2016 they offered an 80kWh upgrade to give
the car longer range, and in 2017 Tesla announced
a new Roadster, set for a 2020 release.
The new car would use a shortened Model S
chassis and would have a 1.9s 0-60 time with
a 620 mile range.
But the original Roadster story wasn’t over
yet.
Elon still owned the first ever car Tesla
produced, Roadster number 1, and SpaceX were
looking for a test cargo for the first launch
of their new Falcon 9 Heavy.
SpaceX had a history of putting fun ballast
on new spacecraft, and sent a large cheese
wheel in the first Dragon capsule launched,
a reference to Monty Python’s cheese shop sketch.
And I’m sure they were the only people who
got that joke!
After asking around for suggestions, Elon
decided he would launch his Roadster.
The car was launched in February 2018, with
a tiny Roadster model on the dashboard and
a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit, dubbed
“Starman”.
I’m sure the Lotus workers building this
car in Norfolk in the mid-2000s didn’t think
their work would not only go into space, but
would leave Earth’s orbit and head out towards Mars!
As the car sent back live pictures from space,
it could be seen as a fitting tribute to the
car that started it all for Tesla.
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