Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Ford, Tesla Motors
Will the Tesla WhiteStar be a battery powered Ford Fusion?
Our friends over at that august automotive journal known as Jalopnik have come up with an interesting bit of speculation about the Tesla WhiteStar. According to their tortured logic, the new electric sedan - to be built in New Mexico - may be based on the Ford Fusion platform. Evidently , the Albuquerque Tesla plant is in reasonable proximity to the Hermosillo, Mexico plant that turns out the CD2 triplets.
This seems like a highly unlikely proposition, since the platform seems ill-suited to carrying the quantity of batteries that would be required to provide what Tesla has promised. On the other hand, the amount of investment in the plant and the in car also doesn't seem correspond to the cost of developing and building a new ground-up vehicle in the volumes they have talked about. It seems probable that WhiteStar will be based on an existing vehicle, but the choice of New Mexico is more likely due to the financial incentives that NM Governor and presidential candidate Bil Richardson was willing to cough up than anything else. My buddy Ray has more at the Read link.
[Source: Jalopnik]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris M 9:57PM (2/20/2007)
Interesting conjecture, but wrong. If they were planning on using an existing chassis, why bother building a manufacturing plant? They could have it "contract manufactured", instead.
Darryl Siry, VP Marketing for Tesla Motors posted a comment on Jalopnik, dismissing the rumour. The planned "white star" sedan will have an original Tesla designed chassis, drive train and body, built by Tesla. To save development time, some components will come from other manufacturers, including Ford.
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siry 12:58AM (2/21/2007)
Sam, this is what I wrote in my comment on jalopnik - you should call your sources before propagating rumors!
__________
I can assure you that Tesla has no plans to develop an electric Fusion. For WhiteStar, the body of the car, the chassis of the car, and the drivetrain of the car (battery, power electronics, and motor) will all be unique to and designed by Tesla. They will be either manufactured by Tesla or to our specs by a contract manufacturer. We will assemble WhiteStar in our own plant in Albuquerque. These things pretty much define the car, and the WhiteStar will definitely be a Tesla, not an "electrified Fusion" or any other car.
As far as the rumor you cite, we have many agreements in place to buy all kinds of parts from a wide range of manufacturers. This enables us to build a car without having to design and engineer every little button and bracket on our own. One of the manufacturers we will source parts from is indeed Ford. Note that we use Ford components on the Roadster as well - for example, take a look at the electric trunk release latch on the Roadster and you will see a Ford logo. (We also use some GM parts, and parts from other suppliers.)
Darryl Siry
VP Marketing
Tesla Motors
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Sam Abuelsamid 9:18AM (2/21/2007)
If you read past the headline, you will see that I actually rebut most of what Ray Wert says. Ray's logic was "tortured" and I called the idea of using the Fusion highly unlikely.
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Lithous 10:39AM (2/21/2007)
"If you read past the headline"
Ohh, snap back.
I agree, Sam was simply reporting on something that a (much read?) car site had a post about and he expressed his doubt.
Granted, the title could have been more to the point of the doubt.
Anyway, I gotta go, I am going to go buy a Camry hybrid, they've been making them for 50 years now, it is about time I got one. Not.
Actually, I have a real question for Siry, will the sedan have at least 51% U.S. parts content? I prefer at least 60% normally but I could make an exception considering your newness.
Also, where is a link to the official targeted specs of the sedan?
TIA
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Paul 11:12PM (2/21/2007)
Ohhh... SNAP!
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Chauncey 10:04PM (2/22/2007)
Hmm, this guy http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/columnists/story.html?id=9abb948f-389c-49e1-aa8d-f83943280c44 says Ford is supplying the body panels, but Siry gets all pissed about it being called an electric Fusion, ...maybe they got a smokin' deal on the old ESCORT tooling?! LOL!
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