We recently confirmed the rumor that, yes, Mercedes is planning on building an electric car or two and now some of the details are starting to be firmed up. In an interview with German business daily, WirtschaftsWoche, Thomas Weber, a Mercedes board member responsible for research and vehicle development, let it be known that the company is building what was originally meant to be the fuel cell-powered A-Class (and possibly B-Class) as an all-electric model. Because of its "sandwich" construction and pre-existing electric drivetrain, these cars should be the first to join the electric Smart in the e-Mercedes lineup.

Another magazine, Automobilwoche, as well as reporting 2010 as the year of the e-Mercedes arrival, states that the supplier of the battery for the cars would be none other than the American firm Tesla Motors. The source of their information was not revealed and since this has not been officially stated by either company, it's still somewhat speculative. We know from talking with Tesla's Elon Musk that something is going on between them and Mercedes and it's definitely not a motor for the Whitestar, since Musk made it clear that Tesla products will remain gasoline-free. We also know that Daimler claims to have solved the thermal issues associated with lithium ion batteries of a certain chemistry by integrating battery cooling systems with that of the car. Then again, Continental has already been named a battery supplier for the Mercedes S 400 hybrid. If you care to enter into the supplier speculation sweepstakes, hit us up in the comments section.

Source: WirtschaftsWoche / Wall Street Journal]

We received a heads up overnight that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be making an appearance later today at Tesla Motors headquarters in San Carlos, CA. According to the notice from Tesla, Schwarzenegger will make an announcement regarding the manufacturing strategy for the WhiteStar sedan. Given this announcement and what chairman Elon Musk told us last week about plans to centralize production of its cars, it seems almost certain that the factory originally planned for Albuquerque, NM will never materialize. Instead it appears the sedan will be built at a factory somewhere in the Bay Area close to Tesla's headquarters. CEO Ze'ev Drori may even reveal the name of the new car (don't get too excited about this one folks) and hopefully give us a glimpse of what it looks like. Autoblog's Damon Lavrinc will be on site at Tesla HQ at 11:30 PST with all the gory details.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

During the course of our discussion (presented in three parts: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3).Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk described how he came to be a part of Tesla Motors and how he, as "Product Architect," influenced the development of the Roadster as and what will become the WhiteStar sedan. Based on his description of the events, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable title. Even as told by Martin Eberhard, co-architect doesn't seem inaccurate, although Eberhard might have preferred it to be otherwise. One thing that isn't in doubt is that Musk is not a founder.

Some in the mainstream media over-simplify things by referring to Musk as the creator of the Roadster, and if anything Musk's sin here may be more an error of omission. By not speaking up to clarify his role in the process previously, he has at least appeared to passively take credit for more than he should. If nothing else, as with so many successful entrepreneurs, his self-assurance can certainly come across as arrogance. I don't know the man personally so I can't really comment as to what he is like on a personal level. Aside from the financial aspects his role is probably most analogous to that of Bob Lutz at GM where he makes high level decisions about design direction which are then brought to fruition by the engineers, designers and technicians. Read on after the jump for the rest of my conclusions.

In the first two parts of our discussion, Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk described how he came to be a part of Tesla Motors and how he influenced the development of the Roadster. It's important to note that he never described himself as the designer or creator of the Roadster. Rather he considers himself the co-architect of the sports car.

With production of the Roadster now sort of underway and the updated drivetrain hopefully coming soon, it's time to look forward. As the self-declared Product Architect, Musk is playing perhaps an even bigger role with the next product, a sedan that we've known for some time by the code name WhiteStar. We had hoped to see WhiteStar this spring but that obviously hasn't happened yet. In the conclusion of our discussion, Musk gives out some hints about what to expect and what Tesla has learned over the past five years. Read on to learn more about what's coming next.

Make sure you read Part 1 and Part 2.

As we continue the tale of Elon and Martin, we pick up from the initial involvement of Elon Musk in Tesla Motors. Musk has put in the single largest chunk of money that has allowed Tesla to develop and now start building an electric car. Here we delve into the subject of his role in design decisions. As some in the mainstream media have taken to referring to Musk as the "creator" of the Tesla Roadster, this is a particularly contentious subject.

The whole issue of the choice of transmission suppliers is a particularly thorny one. Musk was insistent that Tesla should build a car worthy of the price tag. Anyone who has ever worked in the auto industry knows that is almost always a lot harder than it looks. The friction that clearly existed between Eberhard and Musk from very early on in their relationship definitely didn't help matters. (Note:If you missed Part 1 check it out first).

ABG: So, how did you get to the first stage, of the Roadster, the specs that debuted in 2006 with the first prototypes? How did that come about?

Read on after the jump.

Among the readers of this site, one of the cars that elicits a lot of passion is the Tesla Roadster. The battery-powered Roadster and its provenance have elicited a great deal of discussion over the past nine months, in particular since the demotion and ultimately the departure of co-founder Martin Eberhard. This is a complex tale involving passionate entrepreneurs with that all-too-common but in many ways necessary human frailty known as ego. When humans interact, they often see the same results through their own mental filters.

People can see exactly the same thing and interpret it in many different ways. Unfortunately in today's media landscape, particularly on television, but also in blogs we often see a very cut-down sound-bite version of things. Sound-bites by definition are taken out of context. In and of themselves they often lead to incorrect or at least inaccurate conclusions.

With all of that in mind I was recently contacted by Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk. Musk wanted to discuss his role at Tesla, and hopefully fill in some of the gaps in the story. What follows after the jump is the phone conversion that I had with Musk recently as well as some comments from Martin Eberhard via e-mail exchanges. Eberhard's version of events is italicized.

Update: Just to be clear Elon Musk contacted me immediately after a previous article where I called into question his role in the development of the Roadster. He wanted to clear up what he felt were misconceptions of his role rather than to pitch a story idea about him.

The erstwhile and undisputed co-founder of Weblogs Inc. (parent of this here site), Jason Calacanis, revealed some time ago that he had placed an order for a Tesla Roadster. At the time he had missed out on the opportunity to purchase one of the first 100 Signature series cars. Those are the cars that come after the 25 Founders series cars. The buyers of the Signature series cars had to pay up in full in advance. Following Jason's recent opportunity to borrow Chairman Elon Musk's #1 Roadster, Jason evidently decided he couldn't wait until 2009. Fortunately for Jason, venture capitalist Ray Lane gave up his spot in the sequence since Lane's firm, Kleiner Perkins, is an investor in rival start up Fisker Automotive. Tesla offered Lane's slot to Calacanis, who obviously grabbed the opportunity. According to Tesla VP Darryl Siry, a couple of other signature series slots have changed hands including one that was recently snapped up by Matt Damon.

Calacanis is scheduled to get car #16 in the signature series which is #41 overall. According to Siry, the switchover to the new powertrain is now scheduled to occur at around car #38, so Jason's car should come properly equipped and shouldn't require an upgrade. Since departing from Weblogs Inc. Jason has also done some venture capital work with Sequioa Capital and started another new company called Mahalo. Mahalo is described as a human powered search engine that uses an editorial staff to create a directory of what they consider the best of the web. Once he does get his Roadster, Jason is considering actually giving it away on Mahalo as a promotion for the site. Stay tuned for more info on that.

[Source: Jason Calacanis]

For the last couple of months there has been an ongoing discussion on various sites (including our own) about the status of Martin Eberhard's Tesla Roadster. For those just now tuning in to this little saga, Eberhard was the co-Founder of Tesla Motors, and was supposed to get production car #2 but at least three other cars have now been delivered ahead of his car. Since we last discussed the topic several weeks ago, things have been pretty quiet on this front, but we now have some new information.

During a recent call with Tesla Marketing VP Darryl Siry, I asked about the status of Eberhard's car, given that at least two and perhaps three other cars have now been delivered. It turns out that the car is here in the U.S. and was due to be delivered to Eberhard several weeks ago. Unfortunately, on the appointed day while a technician was doing a final checkout drive to make sure everything was working properly, there was an accident and the back front end of the car sustained significant damage. Continue after the jump for more.

Over at the Tesla Motors Club, one of the posters put a couple of photos of a silver Tesla Roadster on the back of a flatbed truck in the Windy City. I checked with Tesla and they confirmed that this car is in fact P4, the fourth production model. This is the same car that had been temporarily used as a marketing car in Europe and was seen in Monaco and Cannes. It has now arrived in the States and is on its way to its owner who happens to be a Tesla board member that lives in Chicago. You might now be saying to yourself: "that's at least three cars that have been delivered and still no car for Martin Eberhard. What gives?" Stay tuned for news on that front. We'll have something for you very soon.


[Source: TeslaMotorsClub, thanks to Doug for the tip]

While Tesla Chairman Elon Musk is taking credit for other people's work, the sales team is off continuing its European tour with a visit to Le Mans. While the diesel Audis and Peugeots were out tearing up the track and shattering track records, Tesla's Aaron Platshon was spotted tooling around the driver's parade in the silent, battery-powered Roadster. Hopefully, there is as much effort going into completing cars for delivery to customers as there is in lining up new deposits for more cars. Thanks to Jonny for the tip!

[Source: AutoFiends]

Yesterday we told about news from Tesla Chairman Elon Musk that the Silicon Valley EV startup had struck some sort of deal with Daimler. We speculated that it might be an engine supply deal for the range-extended version of the WhiteStar. Tesla Marketing VP and primary spokesman Darryl Siry declined to comment on the deal and Daimler has apparently said nothing. Lucky for us, one of our readers pointed to where Fox Business News had the video up on their site so that we could see exactly what Musk said. Unfortunately, it appears that at least on the topic of the Daimler deal, Musk said nothing beyond what we had already heard and there isn't much to be drawn from his statement beyond our existing conjectures.

However, watching the rest of the clip, it became clear that in typical Fox (and almost all of traditional media fashion) they weren't about to let facts get in the way of a good story. Reporter Liz Claman started off the puff piece by introducing Musk as the creator of the Tesla Roadster. Now whatever you may think of Musk and what has transpired at Tesla over the past 10 months, calling him the creator of this car is blatantly wrong. Martin Eberhard had the vision for Tesla and he and the team of engineers are the ones who created this car. Musk then goes on to describe the Roadster as "the only production electric car for sale in the United States of any kind." This is most definitely not true. It may be the only really desirable EV but there are plenty of others of various descriptions. Obviously all the neighborhood electric cars out there are for sale and are drivable on many roads. They certainly aren't in the same class as the Roadster but they are electric. And of course we must grudgingly acknowledge the Zap Xebra here as well even though it is technically a motorcycle. Nonetheless this is not a promising start to the five-minute interview. And given that we know of only two cars that have been delivered to customers (one of which was Musk himself) calling the Roadster in production is still very much a stretch. We know almost no one watches Fox Business News but this is ridiculous and don't even get me started on this reporter. The video is after the jump.

Back in April, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Fisker Automotive for allegedly stealing insider information having to do with the production of an electric vehicle. You may recall that Henrik Fisker was hired to style the Tesla Whitestar sedan, though his designs were ultimately rejected. About a month later, word spread that Fisker had asked to have the lawsuit enter arbitration, and a hearing was set for June 11. Fast forward to today, and the hearing apparently took place as planned and court documents show that Fisker's request for arbitration was granted.

Interestingly, those documents also reveal that the deal between Tesla and Fisker had a clause requiring the arbitration of any disagreements in a specific court. It appears that Tesla Motors went outside those terms by suing Fisker in a different court than was initially agreed upon. Not surprisingly, Henrik Fisker is "extremely pleased" with this outcome. Regardless of how things proceed between the two companies from this point forward, we can be hopeful that each company is able to bring a desirable and suitably green vehicle to market. Thanks for the tip, Doug!

[Source: CNET]

When you hang out at coffee shops in sunny Southern California, you never know who's going to swing by for a morning caffeine jolt. This past Sunday morning, a scribe for the new site AutoFiends.com was waiting on a friend when a pale blue two seater silently pulled in and grabbed his attention. What he at first thought was a Lotus Elise turned out to be a prototype from our pals in San Carlos. Wordsmith Steve grabbed his camera and stepped outside to talk to the driver of the electron propelled Roadster and realized it was none other than Jason Bourne, aka Matt Damon. Turns out Damon was test driving the Tesla with an eye toward purchasing one. As with most of the people who have had the still rare opportunity to get behind the wheel of the fabled Roadster, Mr. Damon was impressed. The example in question still had the two speed transmission with the lower gear disabled so the off the line acceleration was not all it could be. However, once in motion, the electric motor torque provided velocity increases "Like nothing else." Looks like Tesla has hooked another star. Now they just need to crank up the line speed and deliver some more cars.

[Source: AutoFiends, thanks to Jonny and Steve for the tips]

JB Straubel, Chief Technical Officer at Tesla Motors has just put up a new post at the Tesla Blog with an extensive update on the Roadster drivetrain updates that are coming later this year. As we reported at Tesla's recent schedule update, the Silicon Valley start up is currently planning a running change to the upgraded powertrain beginning with car #41 which should happen sometime in late summer. There aren't any huge surprises in Straubel's post, but there are some interesting details. When Tesla first told us about their plans for the 1.5 back in January, the plan was to modify the power electronics module to be able to supply more current to the motor thus increasing the output to a level that would allow meeting the vehicle performance targets without having to use a two speed gearbox.

Generally, pumping more current through an electrical circuit has the negative side effect of generating a lot more heat as the resistance increases. The indication we were given at the time was that the cooling capability of the motor would be increased to help dissipate that heat. Based on Straubel's description of the changes, it looks like they took a different approach instead, one that is all too uncommon in the auto industry. Instead of applying a band-aid and treating the heat symptom by adding cooling capacity, they chose to attack the disease itself. In electrical circuits heat is caused by resistance to current flow. Resistance is the electrical analog of mechanical friction. The more electrons you try to push against resistance in circuits the more heat you generate. Continue reading after the jump.

We briefly mentioned earlier that the NICE Car Company would be showing its Super Light Electric Sport Car concept at this year's British International Motor Show (BIMS) along with some other to-be-introduced models (including, we hear, a face-lifted Mega city) from the company. While that's pretty cool, NICE won't be the only electric car company in the house. Nope. Word on the street (ok, it was a press release) is that there will be a veritable cornucopia of electric car companies assembled to create what they are calling, "The Electric Vehicle Village."

Sponsored by Co-operative Insurance, the "Village" will feature 20 different vehicles including the Tesla Roadster and its antithesis, the Reva G-Wiz, as well as an offering from an entirely new brand, currently existing in apparent stealth mode called, "Quiet Cars." Beside the cars to look at, there will be demonstrations held of the Elektrobay on-street recharging station from Elektromotive. The event kicks of on the 23rd of July and runs until the 3rd of August. Organizers are expecting over half a million souls to pass through the gates. All the details can be read from the press release after the break.