click the photo of Eberhard and his car for a high res gallery

We are now happy to officially confirm what yesterday seemed a likely fait accompli. Martin Eberhard, co-founder of Tesla Motors, has now happily received his very own "Founders' Series" Tesla Roadster. The car,shiny gray with double orange stripes and a matching interior, was silently delivered by Tesla employees early on Saturday morning to Eberhard's solar panel-equipped home. After signing off on all the paperwork and getting the official walk-through of the Roadsters special features, Martin and his wife, Carolyn, were left holding the keys as the rising sun highlighted the orange accents of the beckoning electric sports car. Time to go for a ride!

The trio spent the morning together traveling the very roads for which the Tesla was designed. We suspect Martin's grin only grew wider every time a slower-moving vehicle appeared in his cars sights, giving him yet another opportunity to experience the "never-ending torque" the Roadster delivers while overtaking. You can read all about Martin's first day with his roadster at his blog, Tesla Founders Blog. Bookmark it, as he promises to update that space frequently now with more photos and Roadster observations.


[Source: Tesla Founders Blog via Tesla Motors Club]

Not all episodes of Sundance's The Green programming block feature green vehicles, but when they do, they do. Tomorrow night (Tuesday, the 22nd), the Big Ideas for a Small Planet segment goes for a "Drive." And it looks like fun.

"Drive" follows the same breezy pace as the other Big Ideas episodes (like the first one, "Fuel"), with cool people talking about cool cars and all saying that the world can certainly become a better place. It's engaging and a good way to keep beating that "EVs are golf carts" stereotype (well, until we get to the NMG, anyway).

The four big ideas are as follows:

First, the electric sports car. This segment features – surprise, surprise – the Tesla Roadster. Man, that car is still so cool looking, even after seeing so many pictures and videos of over the last 10 months. Chelsea Sexton, of Plug In America, and David Friedman, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, give a condensed version of the last 100 years of the electric car and we also go on a visit to Tesla Motors. CEO Martin Eberhard introduces viewers to the car; and we tag along on a short ride and drive for people who've agreed to buy a Roadster. Phil, who I'm pretty sure is the same Tesla employee who drove me in the Roadster prototype last summer, takes some advance purchasers for a spin and we see "Who Killed the Electric Car?" director Chris Paine driving the Roadster. Scott Burns, the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, says the Roadster is the first car he's ever purchased without taking it for a test drive.

The second idea is high performance hybrids, and here we get to go 100 mph down the AMCI test track in a Lexus hybrid with Paul Williamsen, National Manager of the Lexus College. Williamsen's work is mostly training service technicians and he tells us that the LS 600h features a hydrocarbon absorber that holds onto hydrocarbon emissions until the catalytic converter is warm enough to process them. The Lexus hybrids aren't solely designed to reduce emissions, but more to increase power without adding emissions.

Idea three is the electric commuter car, here embodied as the NMG, what used to be known as the Sparrow. Dana Myers, founder of Myers Motors, Myers says that the average American spends four hours a year at the gas station, so plugging your car into your garage outlet at night saves time as well as money. He gives the camera crew a quick tour of the factory, and we see the engineers experimenting with a polymer lithium ion battery option in the NMG. It's not a 100 percent smooth, but they do get the tiny, three-wheeled NMG to zip with the new batteries. It sound like the NMG's range with these batteries might be between 50-80 miles, according to Myers.

There's more on the show, and a clip of the Tesla ride and drive after the break. Try not to be too jealous.

[Source: Sundance]

AutoblogGreen interviewed Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard for AutoblogGreen Podcast #1. We covered what's happening with testing of the Roadster, development and manufacturing of the WhiteStar sedan and more. This is a transcript of that interview.

ABG: This is Sam Abuelsamid from AutoblogGreen and I'm talking today with Martin Eberhard, who is the CEO of Tesla Motors. And for anybody who's been following AutoblogGreen, I'm sure you're familiar with Tesla Motors, but why don't we start off first, Martin, I'd like to thank you for joining us today and sharing what's going on with Tesla. And why don't we start off by giving a little bit of background on yourself and how you got involved in this project.

Martin Eberhard: Well, thanks, I'm glad to join you. I started off I guess as a consumer, somebody who was looking to buy a car that was a fun car to drive but also getting more and more concerned about the gasoline consumption of my driving. And I got interested in electric cars just about when the zero emissions mandate was about to be wiped out and so I was considering some of the electric cars that were on the market. I didn't particularly like them, but I thought about maybe I would convince myself to get one. And just about when I had talked myself into that, they disappeared from the market. I looked at some of the smaller electric car companies that you write about in your blog and none of those guys were I guess at that point actually producing any cars that you could buy. You know, a couple of them spent some time for example with AC Propulsion and I tried to convince them to build me a Tzero, unsuccessfully. And after a while I found that there weren't really any companies out there that were trying to make a real car company out of decent electric cars. Eventually, I managed to talk myself into doing it myself.

Continue reading the ABG interview with Martin Eberhard after the jump to learn more about the Roadster, batteries and WhiteStar.

NBC's affiliate in New York came to California to examine electric cars for a 2-part series, and a visit to Tesla Motors was in order. In addition to picking out a few seconds of quotes for the second part, the station is offering the entire 17-minute interview with Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard for your viewing pleasure. Anchor Chuck Scarborough asked Eberhard political as well as environmental and technical questions. The quote I liked best was used in the first of the two reports that offers an overview of electric cars in the U.S., focusing on plug-in hybrids. The manufacturers interviewed echoed earlier cries that battery technology is keeping them from offering plug-ins. But Eberhard says today's batteries are an "enabler" for him to create the Tesla Roadster. The three videos take up almost 25 minutes, so set aside a little time on your lunch hour.

[Source: Chuck Scharborough / NewsChannel 4]

Fans of the Tesla Roadster should check out the DVD of "The Prestige," which came out last week. As just about everyone knows, the roadster is named after 19th century scientist Nikola Tesla, inventor of the 3-phase AC induction motor that powers the roadster. A Tesla character, played by the enigmatic David Bowie (above), has a small but plot-twisting role in the movie. But don't believe everything you see about Tesla since this a mystery/sci-fi flick. As pointed out by Tesla Motors chief Martin Eberhard in one of his blogs, the movie shows a Tesla trick using incandescent light bulbs that were invented by his nemesis, Thomas Edison. Tesla invented florescent bulbs. Tesla's influence on the writer, director and actors in the movie is briefly addressed as part of a Director's Notebook in the Bonus Features section of the DVD. Titled "Tesla: The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century," the mini-documentary offers an insight into how Tesla's character influences the movie's captivating and puzzling plot. Don't let me spoil it for you, go rent it.

Over at the official Tesla Blog today, CEO Martin Eberhard gives his impression's of last night's State of the Union address including a reference to Bush's mention of "Nucular" energy. Eberhard makes a point about not commenting on anything other than the energy part of the speech, but it's clear from his tone, that he is not a fan of the current administration. He acknowledged that at last Bush actually uttered the words, "Global Climate Change", but seemed unimpressed by the rest. As expected he saw most of the speech as so much hot air. Eberhard also comments on revamping CAFE, and promotes being able to trade CAFE credits, since this would be a boon to EV manufacturers like Tesla, Zap! and Phoenix. Click through to read the rest of Martin's comments.

[Source: Tesla Motors Blog]