Tesla’s electric cars

HIMANSHU TANDON
Staff Writer

Tesla Motors Inc. is a Silicon Valley based automobile company that designs, manufactures, and sells fully electric cars and components such as drive-trains or lithium ion batteries.

Tesla Motors was co-founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and South African entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is best known for founding Space X and co-founding Paypal along with Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, Ken Howery, and Max Levchin.

Tesla motors manufactures and sells completely electric cars. Tesla’s model S can be charged overnight by a wall outlet or in approximately 22 minutes by Tesla superchargers, which will soon be along all major highways in the United States.

There are currently only nine active Tesla supercharging stations nationwide, seven of which are located in the company’s home state of California. The other two superchargers are located in Delaware and Connecticut.

The Model S comes equipped with an auto updating central computer, and navigation system automatically routes drivers near charging stations when necessary.

Tesla’s CEO Musk said, “By the end of next month, we will have tripled the number of stations since the beginning of the year.”

By 2015, Musk says that 98 percent of Americans will be within driving range of a Tesla supercharger.

By the end of this year, Tesla plans on having their innovative superchargers placed across the country, thus making a cross country road trip from New York City to Los Angeles possible with the Model S.

The Tesla Model S was named Motor Trend’s car of the year for 2013. The Model S goes from zero to 60 in an astounding 5.4 seconds. Tesla claims to have over 250 patents on the Model S and says they have more pending.

Musk said, “Yeah, well I think anyone who likes fast cars will love the Tesla … I mean this car will crush a Porsche on the track … and its twice the efficiency of a Prius.”

Motor Trend’s editor-in-chief Edward Loh said that the Tesla Model S won, not because it was the best electric car, but because it is the best car all around. Motor Trend selects their car of the year based on six criteria: advancement in design, engineering excellence, efficiency, safety, value, and performance of intended function.

Sophomore Ryan Divins said, “I’m glad Tesla won. Tesla is a pioneer in electric cars and it shows that it is possible to have an electric car that is fast, cool, and efficient.”

Tesla currently offers three battery options for the Model S, the 40, 60, and 85 kilowatt hour batteries that provide 140, 200, and 265 mile driving ranges respectively, which is comparable to most gasoline powered cars.

As an innovator for environmentally friendly technologies, Tesla was granted a $465 million loan by the federal government under the Obama administration. On Wednesday, May 22, Tesla paid back the money to the United States government nine years early.

Freshman Shreen Bhansali said, “I think that electric cars could become … popular in the coming years.”

Would you want a fully electric car like the Tesla Model S?