The head of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, was in the house at the Always On Going Green conference giving a talk yesterday and had lots to say about possible upcoming products from his company. First off, in contradiction to what we heard earlier from Tesla marketing guy, Daryl Siry, there may very well be an SUV in the pipeline. Although it might seem antithetical to the green agenda Musk espouses, he believes it would be a strong driver of sales. Of course, his idea of an SUV might be closer in size to a Captiva than a full-blown Tahoe but we guess we'll have to wait for an actual sketch before we make too many assumptions. We suspect he hasn't gotten the memo that the stationwagon is the new SUV though. If an SUV EV does come to fruition it would be built on the Model S platform most likely at it new factory in San Jose.

While talking about making cars less expensive in the future, he let slip that they are "confident in being able to get to a $30,000 car, or perhaps a $20,000 car, in partnership with a major car company," sometime in the future. Whether or not that major car company is Daimler is unknown but in a phone conversation with Earth2Tech, Mr. Musk said that "Tesla's partnership with Daimler won't focus on its Model S".

Speaking of the Model S, Musk said that the as-yet-unseen luxury sedan would feature a swappable battery. Not that they plan on jumping into bed with Better Place but having that function would make the vehicle easier to service. Of course, it also leaves the door open to some future battery-swapping-station scheme. We hope it also has the ability to accept a quick charge.

[Source: Earth2Tech / greentechmedia]

In case you haven't been paying close attention, things at Tesla Motors have been in a bit of an upheaval of sorts as of late. We've been following the story of the Silicon Valley startup since its inception and have seen the roller coaster ride make its various ups and downs along the way. From the first set of specifications and images of the electric Roadster though the initial round of funding provided by Elon Musk and the subsequent removal of Martin Eberhard, a company founder who has still not gotten his own Roadster, there has been a sense that Tesla may have gotten in a bit over its head, a bit too soon. Now that vehicles are (very slowly) rolling out the doors, it's a good time to sit back and reflect on what it took to get the Roadster to this point, and that is exactly what Fortune magazine has done. Click here for their entire article.

A few juicy details were mentioned in the article, especially related to the upcoming Model S. As you may be aware, the new mid-size sedan is now expected to be built in California, but the most interesting tidbit from the article is that the new model may in fact be a hatchback. Score one for practicality, and consider us even more interested in seeing the new model in the flesh.

[Source: Fortune]

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]

An earlier post here on ABG brought attention to the fact that President Bush viewed the Phoenix Motorcars SUT and a plug-in hybrid version of the Toyota Prius at request of the White House. We discussed the vehicles and why they were there, which was in an effort to promote alternative fuels and the technology required for their use to meet the goals outlined by the President in his State of the Union Speech. Now, we will analyze what the President said regarding the vehicles and the goals as set forth.

First, the President viewed a Toyota Prius which had been converted to plug-in capability. This was accomplished with the help of an extended battery pack with the necessary electronics and hardware to plug into an outlet. The presenter mentions that the vehicle returns about 45 mpg in hybrid mode and can run solely off electricity for about 40 miles. As pointed out in the video, 78 percent of the population could use this car for their commute running solely on electric power. President Bush said, "So, this is becoming a reality." The presenter answered, "It IS a reality, we drove this car here."

Please click through the break to continue reading this posting.

[Source: The White House]

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]