Electricnick, The EV Revolution

Revealing an all electric sedan that can carry up to seven people at highway speeds for a minimum of 160 miles was probably an eye opener for a few and certainly a jolt for car makers.  But now what?The gist, short of the obvious wait and see how the economy will do and how much financial backups Tesla can find, it will interesting be to see how the company evolves its new Model S.

First Generation Model S.  So we all know that the model will come in three variants, a 160 mile range one, 230 and 300 miles and seat 7.  It is loosely based on the same configuration as the Roadster, an electric engine delivering torque to the rear wheels.  The Model S will have a water cooled electric engine to help it cruise on highways for extended periods of time as well as help it negotiate long steep hills.  It uses 8000 lithium batteries delivering 42 Kw/hr.  According to Tesla, the new batteries deliver 20% improvement compared to those on the Roadster.   It has an on-board adapter to plug anywhere for a 4 hours charge time.  If you can have a 240 V system with 70 Amps, the Sedan will accept it.  The weight is around 4000 pounds, 1200 are the battery pack.

Future Leaps In The Model S.  Tesla is looking into a beefed up version of the sedan later that would increase the current 0 to 60 from under 6 seconds to under 5.   The current handling is on par with a Mercedes CLS class with a tried and true suspension system with breaks from Brembo.  We can only imagine future upgrades will re-tune the suspension, with lighter allow wheels and more.  One thing that Tesla did mention is due to the inherent structure of an EV, i.e. batteries are placed low on the floor plan, the front could house another electric engine.  At this point the weight rations is 45% front, 55 back.

So far Tesla has proven that an electric vehicle, EV can not only work but also deliver a lot of performance for a fraction of the price performance gas engines offer.  If Tesla continues to improve its electric drive and make it more affordable, they will have proven once and for all that EVs can successfully replace gas cars.  It’s not too difficult to foresee he Model S in different variant, from healthy family sedan to rivaling the Maserati Quattroporte.  Yet, we wonder if this is where Tesla wants to go forward, as an affordable EV maker.  It would seem most likely they will split up into 2 companies, one high end, the other for the masses.  Who does this remind you of and mostly, how does this work for you?