Tesla defies its roots, plans gas-electric car for 2009

We're not exactly sure what to make of this one -- the auto maker created to show up gas guzzlers and prove that electric whips could indeed prove viable in a society helplessly addicted to gasoline is apparently gearing up to turn a blind eye to its original mantra. According to a report over at CNET, the firm is planning to unveil not one, but two editions of its forthcoming Whitestar sedan. Although one will indeed cruise sans fuel, the other will be a gas-electric REV (range extended vehicle), purportedly designed to entice buyers who would typically be concerned about the range (or the lack thereof) of a purely electric vehicle. So, let's get this straight -- rather than holding true to its original rallying cry, Tesla's deciding to just a build a car that it knows will actually sell. Right-o.

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:02AM]

I'm so disappointed. :(

[Rafer @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:07AM]

Its quite a sad day for the electric car.

[Andrew Tanasescu @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:07AM]

Im so not disappointed.

Honestly, Every once and a while, I do take long trips to drive back home. (250miles). I love the idea of an electric car, but occasionally, it would be inconvenient. Ive been looking forward to the Whitestar from the day that word came out about it.

Btw Engadget, Im surprised you guys got this article before Autobloggreen or Autoblog.

[sevets @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:09AM]

sounds like a good way to drum up some capital for more electrical r&d!

[Eric @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:09AM]

@ Andrew
I'm not surprised either and agree with you at the inconvenience. Maybe Tesla figured that if they offer a hybrid, they'll actually be able to sell cars to regular people and actually turn a good profit.

[Brad @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:11AM]

They really should be a little more innovative with this particular decision and do a diesel-electric hybrid if they're going to do a hybrid at all. At least then they could use a fuel tank that is half the size and still get the same range as a gasoline-electric hybrid would.

[Che @ Feb 4th 2008 12:29PM]

Great idea. With a diesel-electric hybrid, you get all the advantages of a hybrid, plus more toxic emissions. Wonderful! (Diesels have many times more particulate emissions and also have higher emissions of smog-producing gases. Particulate emissions are the most deadly form of air pollution.)

[Nick @ Feb 4th 2008 1:10PM]

They can always make it a Bio-diesel car so as to keep the green theme going.

[Brad @ Feb 4th 2008 3:38PM]

Che,
You should update your diesel file, you are right only if you're talking about older diesels. However, this is a TECHNOLOGY forum so let's keep the comments relevant. New diesels have to meet the exact same emissions specs as gasoline cars do, there is no difference in standards anymore. Plus the CO2 emissions are drastically lower in the diesel engin vs a gasoline engine. And Nick is right, you could use biodiesel which would further reduce emissions while at the same time reducing foreign oil usage. It's a win-win.

[Tom Oliveri @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:13AM]

i think its a good thing that they are doing this, who wants a 100k car that can only do like 120 miles..?

this is a really good thing people.

let's just hope they keep the green focus..

[Nimajus Bagdonavicius @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:15AM]

Oh boo hoo... it's not like a company needs profits in order to keep developing products. If they make money off the hybrid they can further develop better electric vehicles.

The funniest thing is the way engadget writer sounds all disappointed and confused why would a company try to make money, yet his short little post is sitting in a site overfuckingloaded with so many ads everywhere. Right-o
Money>Ideals... welcome to Capitalism

[Misty @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:17AM]

Seems to make sense to me. Their original vision was laudable, but this one is, perhaps, a profitable one. And profit means viability; vision alone will not keep you from going out of business.

[Tom Saxton @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:21AM]

What Tesla is doing is much better than a hybrid. Cars like the Toyota Hybrid and Honda Insight have the gas engine in the drive train, so it has to run at all sorts of speeds and loads - very inefficient. Range extended electric vehicles like the White Star and Volt have a gas generator that runs full on at maximum efficiency, but only when needed.

So trips around town are pure electric, but when you need to make a road trip, turn on the generator and greatly extend your range. This makes it possible for many people to enjoy the benefits of a pure electric vehicle without needing to also have a gas guzzler in the garage for the occasional long haul.

[Andrew Tanasescu @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:31AM]

The goal is primarily to ween away from fossil fuel driven vehicles. It helps a lot to get some of the power from the grid. The generator is just for the occasional trip or the "Oh Sh!t", where you get lost beyond belief, or just forget to keep an eye on your charge meter.

[Bl1nk @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:36AM]

Gas companies probably demanded it.

[max andrews @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:40AM]

This is actually the best solution until next gen "super batteries" are available and cheap. Running a quiet, efficient small gas engine to power an electric motor can double or triple fuel economy and increase performance, while price stays basically the same as a normal gas car and you can fill up whenever you need to. The batteries are by far the limiting factor with EV's, this is an acceptable solution for the next four or five years until cheaper, denser, safer, faster charging, and longer lived batteries are available. It will be profitable to have a full on all-electric EV when the cost of batteries is < the cost of the gas engine they were using. I'm guessing about $4000

[James Cameron @ Feb 2nd 2008 1:59AM]

They care more about money than saving the environment. Just like any car companies.

[Reid B. @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:16AM]

I can't believe all the whining and hand-wringing. Where do you think electricity comes from? It's from a hell of a lot worse things than a gasoline engine which is an extremely efficient and clean means of power despite all of the uninformed propaganda to the contrary. You'd do the environment a hell of a lot more harm with electric cars you plug in your house and batteries. Not too mention the horrendous cost of electricity! You think your gasoline bill is high. Yeesh!

[Che @ Feb 4th 2008 12:34PM]

No. It has been proven many times that an electric car powered by grid electricity is much more efficient than a car powered by an internal combustion engine. Gasoline engines are not remotely close to being as efficient as large power plants. Even if you powered your car with a coal-burning plant, and considered transmission losses and battery inefficiency, it's still no contest. If you don't know what you're talking about, it's OK not to comment.

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:45AM]

diesel please

[AZ @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:57AM]

Reid: see 'enviromental friendly' methods of petroleum extraction vs. those of generating electricity.

fact is electricity can be cheaply generated and stored practically anywhere. Its the versatility, renewability, and cleanliness of electricty that makes it appealing.

[Skid @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:57AM]

Tesla are being pragmatic. Signs of a successful company.

[thehumanyawn @ Feb 2nd 2008 3:14AM]

Reid B.,
How naive you are. First of all, yes, most electricity comes from coal. But its been proven time and time again that it's cleaner to have everybody plug an EV in, especially ones equipped with Vehicle2Grid, than have them use gas. Second, EVs only cost about 1-5 cents per mile, while a gas car is about 10-15. Imagine this: if a Hummer puts out, say, 1 ton of CO2/year, and there are 1000 Hummer drivers connected to a coal plant, they are using coal as well as gas. But as people and PUs start using more renewable energy, if all the electricity that went in your car was renewable, how would that be worse than that Hummer? Hmmm, 1 ton of CO2 or nothing? Go beat your head into a wall until some sense returns to your seemingly non-existent brain. And when you respond, bring some facts from a respectable source, because a pseudo-report from Exxon-Mobil doesn't count.

[Krlll @ Feb 2nd 2008 3:14AM]

Just goes to show you the power of the oil companies.

[Graeme @ Feb 2nd 2008 3:16AM]

They said they were developing a hybrid gas/electric along with the all-electric Whitestar a few months ago...this isn't really anything new.

[mike @ Feb 2nd 2008 4:05AM]

come on! Give 'em a break already!
The truth is that the current range these guys are claiming they can get in an all electric car is just fine for a lot of people.
However, there are many other people whose lives simply wouldn't work with it!
It is that simple.
Some people NEED more range than they can currently offer, and hybrid makes sense for that.
Do you whine as loudly every time a soccer mom with 5 kids buys a mini-van instead of a two seat smart car?
And in related news...
How many of you people crying about it are surfing the web/checking your e-mail/ and whining on engadget on ultra low power CPUs which are more than capable of those tasks?
And how many are doing it on dual core processors which use much more juice and have never seen the high side of 15% cpu usage for more than 10 nsec?

I'm all for being green. But be sensible too.

Get over it...
-mike

[ug @ Feb 2nd 2008 5:08AM]

At this point the problem with electric cars isn't range, it's charge time. EVs discharge their batteries a lot faster than they can recharge (without a special high voltage system). So when you charge your EV, you are basically "time-shifting" electricity, compressing 8 hours worth of low voltage charging overnight down to an hour or two of high voltage discharging via daily driving. As long as that's the case, EVs will always be at a technical disadvantage. Realistically speaking (unless the hype on silicon nanowire batteries pans out) EVs will never go any longer on a charge than the Tesla Roadster does. But there will always be potential road trips that can exceed that range. Once you run out of juice, you have to plan for an 8 hour charge window, and find a place to plug in. So that puts a damper on using vehicles like this for road trips. I don't see that as a big limitation but just the idea that a car can't be 100% as capable as other cars is enough to keep people from buying it, especially when it's being sold at a premium. That kind of trick only works for Apple (i.e. Macbook Air).

If we had a fast-charge infrastructure and you could recharge in 10 minutes, then the range issue would go away. I don't know how fast you can recharge the Tesla with a suitable station. I know they are working with hotel chains. There are things they can do but it won't be overnight.

[Che @ Feb 4th 2008 12:36PM]

While it would be an infrastructure and financial challenge, swappable batteries would be easier technically (and faster) than any plausible fast-charging system.

[ug @ Feb 4th 2008 1:08PM]

It would be no easier technically since those replacement packs still need to be charged somewhere, and at a rate matching or exceeding the collective average discharge rate of all the cars passing through the station. It just passes the buck to the infrastructure.

[KC @ Feb 2nd 2008 6:59AM]

Well, it looks like Tesla will end up just another niche car company. I mean GM will have the Volt out before Tesla has their PHEV out and if the Volt pans out, every other major car maker will have a copy cat similar to it ready around the same time the Tesla 'Whitestar' hits the market.

GM could sell a couple hundred pure electrics to rich people with more money then sense if they wanted to as well. But like the other car companies they know that selling hundreds of thousands of vehicles to the working class makes them much more money.

Tesla is not the savior of anything. They are just a little niche automaker who has yet to put a single car in a customers driveway.

But I agree that if Tesla wanted to be different they would do the PHEV whitestar with a diesel.

[OriOn @ Feb 2nd 2008 7:05AM]

it's a fucking place to start+++

[Wei @ Feb 2nd 2008 8:34AM]

I guess until the day EV's are widely adopted, things will be hard on them. It would be nice if you can just go to a gas station or energy station and swap batteries like people do now for propane tanks. That way, you could take these road trips without worrying about the down time.

[KC @ Feb 2nd 2008 9:20AM]

@ Wei (since replies are broken)

Your little fantasy may be true for your grand children - swapping batteries like propane tanks - but in todays world those batteries you want to swap out like a pair of AA's in your TV remote are about the same size, but weigh even more and have about as many things connected to them as your current cars gasoline engine. You think pulling up to a garage for an engine swap sounds like it would be quick and convenient? Cause realistically that's about as quick and convenient as a battery swap in a an EV would be. Instead of an eight hour charging delay your vehicle may be parked for a couple days till the garage can squeeze you in for a battery swap. Real convinient.

Plus, where the hell would service stations store all their inventory of charged batteries? No two cars will have the same kind so they'd potentially have to keep multiples of hundreds of brands of battery on hand for people to swap their dead batteries for. Remember, currently these things are huge and require a forklift or crane to move around. You want Gas Stations the size of Wal-Mart Supercenters just so you can swap batteries at your convenience?

Oh, and how do you propose to solve the problem that current batteries do not hold a charge in a static state? Ever buy a cell phone that comes right from the factory with a fully charged battery? Nope. Any you won't with your EV either. The centers you propose would have to charge the batteries in advance for you, or they'd give them to you new and you'd still have a dead car that you need to plug in somewhere before you can drive it.

Batteries have allot of MAJOR drawbacks as an energy source for cars that are not going to get solved anytime soon.

[Che @ Feb 4th 2008 12:41PM]

@ KC You'd obviously need standardized battery sizes and service stations would need to be rebuilt with battery storage and charging in mind. You'd also need automated swapping and probably cars with standardized undersides to facilitate automated swapping from underneath the car. It wouldn't be cheap to build the infrastructure and may never happen, but it would make practical, convenient electric cars much easier to design and build.

[LondonConsultant @ Feb 2nd 2008 9:50AM]

"Tesla defies its roots, phases out unprofitable electric cars in 2012"...

[Scientology @ Feb 2nd 2008 11:17AM]

Why oh why can't anyone just make a straight electric car? Did anyone hear about that air powered car made in France?! I saw something on BBC a while back...

[zakarria @ Feb 2nd 2008 11:25AM]

A friend of mine recently showed me an asian designed hybrid that had a smallish gas tank that -only- gets used if the battery runs out, and a battery that can go... I wanna say it was like 50 miles per charge, and could get to a half charge in 10 minutes. The gas engine is basically there to only ever be used on long road trips. If you have an average daily commute, plug it in at night, and go out of state for the holidays a couple times a year, you'll be burning gas a couple times a year.

Tesla is most likely looking at something similar, and I can't say I'm particularly anti-that.

[Chris W @ Feb 2nd 2008 11:36AM]

This doesn't sound like a conventional hybrid. It sounds like a gasoline assist, possibly a plug-in with high end batteries. So for most of your driving (read 100 miles or so) you are pure electric and if you go further the gasoline motor kicks in and it becomes a conventional hybrid.
If it is one of those, I believe this is still in the right direction. It would be something that is, for all intents and reasons, an electric car that just has an engine in it "just incase".
Still say my ideal car would be something like this with one of the new "clean" turbo diesel 4 cylinder engines in it. 40+ MPG when under diesel hybrid power, and hell of a lot more when your just going around town on pure electric.

[Mark @ Feb 2nd 2008 11:49AM]

They'd have better sales if their cars weren't $90,000 at the moment...

[gamedude420 @ Feb 2nd 2008 12:31PM]

unless they can get a 400+ mile range with radio, air/head and other things on. and have a recharge time of under 10 min. then no way in hell will the electric car go mainstream

[gamedude420 @ Feb 2nd 2008 12:32PM]

meant to say air/heat

[derrick @ Feb 2nd 2008 12:35PM]

When Green Turns Black

[Meek @ Feb 2nd 2008 2:52PM]

Gas won't be leaving us for a good while. Although a shift to electric is preferred in all reality we will see hybrids adopted more frequently over the next 5 than we will see a fully electric car.

[dean @ Feb 2nd 2008 3:49PM]

The hybrid is necessary at this time. I'm thinking that the Whitestar sedan won't quite get the 250 mile range of the Roadster, but it may. Sedans are better suited for long trips, so having a range extender for people who need it opens up more market.

The Whitestar hybrid sounds like it will be just like the Chevy Volt in setup. That should give it a very high fuel-mileage rating, especially if a diesel is used.

This should be the future of cars for the next 20 years, phasing into electrics, with maybe Hydrogen somehow sneaking into the mix with Government funding.

[Gary @ Feb 2nd 2008 5:36PM]

Well, I can't say I'm surprised, really. Who has the money for a Tesla Roadster, besides wealthy sports car afficianados who also want an electric car? It's a very small market niche they were addressing. But, at the same time, I am disappointed to see Tesla do this, as it was there pioneering research into battery design and development (which should continue, despite the change) that spurred so much growth in this fledgling industry. Now the Tesla Roadsters that were produced will bid up to prices that only billionaires can afford.

[jake @ Feb 2nd 2008 7:14PM]

@GARY @KC @ a whole bunch of people (GRR engadget's reply buttons are all screwy!) I see many you keep say that Tesla can't be profitable selling the roadster because it is a niche vehicle and that EVERYONE knows selling cars for the masses is what makes money. If so, why is GM losing so much money? If Tesla didn't sell the roadster to "wealthy sports car afficianados" the company wouldn't even exist! There is clearly demand for it as it sold out before even 1 production model was made (BTW the first production model is out now, for the CEO Elon Musk). Niche cars make MORE money than cars for the masses. To sell competitively Tesla would need to be able to mass product their cars and even then the profit margins for one would be very little. Do you think Tesla would have survived if they tried to create a car like the Volt and sell it for $30k? Hell NO! Notice that both the Whitestar PHEV and the battery one will be priced at around $50k-70k. They have outright said the PHEV model will not save much money over the BEV version. For those arguing about the range being the problem in EVs, that's not really true, as long as it can get above 200 miles it would be enough for most people, the biggest problem is the people's feeling of being limited, they WANT to have that safety net, but to they actually NEED it? Not really. As mentioned the charging time is a problem, but quick charging is already avaliable and being tested in hawaii: 10 minute charge for 100 miles. Tesla has said they are going to develop quick charge for the roadster so people can charge in an hour. They also said they will consider the possibility of direct charge on the battery of the whitestar, bypassing the PEM, so persumably it can charge even faster.

Why is everyone taking this as another death knoll for the EV? They are still going to sell the BEV version, but they are offering customers more choice. PHEVs are a great way to get people to transition into EVs so I don't see why everyone is so grim.

[Phil Brisebois @ Feb 2nd 2008 8:03PM]

Enough about the conspiracy theories. The gas companies don't have to do anything, physics does it for them. They have the most efficient way to store energy, liquid hydrocarbons. Vehicles that them will always perform better than vehicles that don't, no matter who designs them. Until a 1lb battery can hold at least half the energy of 1lb of gas, the electric can will remain a difficult compromise.
The Tesla is awesome but it has a $20000 battery that hold 4 gallons worth of energy. You can't sell that in a free market and survive.
Whitestar makes a ton of sense. You have a $10000 battery and a gas/diesel tank to take you places. Commute on the battery, travel on the fuel. Brilliant.

[jake @ Feb 3rd 2008 5:33PM]

Following your argument, Tesla shouldn't be able to sell even one of their cars, but they surely have. The fact of the matter is even with 2 gallons of capacity in the battery it can already travel 200+ miles. It doesn't have to hold at least 1/2 of the energy per lb of gasoline to succeed. Even if you just half the current 900lb battery pack you will get 450lb, add that to the ~100lb EV drive train and you get around 500lbs all together, which is already comparable to ICE cars. Following recent news of nanowire tech giving 10x the capacity to li-ions, we don't even need that, we just need 2x. Even if we never reach that number the biggest problem with EVs don't really have to do with the capacity, it has more to do with the costs, as the battery pack costs $20k for 52kWh. But that has more to do with economy of scale, in manufacturing the cells and the pack.

[Kent Beuchert @ Feb 2nd 2008 9:19PM]

Tesla finally gets a dose of reality,but her fans still don't get it. Believing a battery-only EV is superior to a REV electric is a fantasy that I would associate with the very young and very ignorant. A few calculations demonstrate that a 40 mile plus range can redcue gasoline demand over 90% , and when the range grows to 50 (as it will for Tesla's competitor, the superior Fisker Karma REV) the demand drops and astonishing 95% plus percent, allowing ALL liquid fuel requirments to be met by ethanol, the newer formulations of which are FAR, FAR cleaner than an EV running on mostly coal fired electricity. Ah, the fools who bought into the fallacy of a clean, grid-supplied EV...

[jake_page @ Feb 2nd 2008 10:41PM]

I'd love to get an electric car - I just can't afford to 2 cars, and electric cars just aren't practical for more than 4 hours a day of use (ie no road trips!)

If I could get a useful REV that would allow 100 miles on battery and then switch to gas after that I would probably do 8000 miles a year from battery and 2000 from gas. I'd bet 90% of car owners in the US are in the same position. Come on, isn't an 80% reduction in fossil fuel usage a worthy enough goal for Tesla in a *4* year time frame!? Especially if they can make it almost affordable...