Tesla says that 520 S Model all electric sedans have been reserved by customers in first week since it was announced. Each customer must pay a $5,000 reservation fee, which is refundable if they choose not to buy the car. The base price for the Model S, which will be available starting in 2010, is $49,900 after a federal tax credit of $7,500. A limited editon of the Model S is available for a $40,000 reservation fee.
The Model S is the second car unveiled by Tesla after the sportier Roadster, and it’s half the price. But it’s no slouch on performance. The car will do 0-60 in 5.6 seconds (the Roadster is 3.9 seconds) and has an electronically limited top speed of 130 mph. The car should go up to 300 miles between charges. Best of all, I believe I may actually fit in the Model S. The Roadster isn’t fully compatible with people my size.
If you want one, you can reserve it here. You should get it by late 2011.
Tesla says they delivered 104 Roadsters in March and about 320 all time. The company has raised $186 million in capital to date, and has applied for $350 million in federal loans.
Here is the Model S and Roadster side by side:
You could totally score some road noggin in that car.
$2.6M in
feesdonationsSeats 7 people? How the hell does it seat 7 people? Are there three rows? Is it 2/3/2 or 3/4?
Any one know the answer?
Also, why is safety not mentioned on site? Have they not yet tested safety?
Supposedly there are 2 additional drop down seats for children. For some reason though, there are no pictures on their site showing this.
Must be baby-buckets in the truck.
Where will Snow White fit?
“and here are places for three more people to sit! most other car companies call it a bonnet.. but not us!”
actually safety is mentioned on the site, check around. it was def there.
not bad!
2015 all cars will be electric or hybrids.
ElectricLocator.com – plug yourself
Hmm, I don’t get this hype about this car. Yes it looks nice but it’s very cheap. So if people go crazy and reserve their special Lamborghini it makes sense. But with a 50k car? Am I missing something here?
Supply. They don’t have a huge production line so they can’t just churn them out. If they can only manage a couple of hundred cars per month then if you want to be one of the first to have one you’ll have to sign up.
…and image. $50k is not that much if you want to drive an image badge. How much do people pay for the raising or lowering of their car/truck plus the rims, tires, custom paint, etc? I always laughed at the people who bashed the ROI on the hybrids when the owner was getting as much ROI as the person with the spinners.
your ROI measurements in this case are completely subjective.
Yeah, big ups for spinners!
love this great news for auto industry
More news like this one every day!!!
Hopefully they do not screw it up on the manufacturing process. Why are they trying to have their own independent manufacturing plant when they should be outsourcing it to an existing plant (NUMI?) when the auto industries existing manufacturing runs are shrinking? If they do make it then go on their own. Basically shut down an existing line for a month to retool, run, and reset without the HUGE overhead. Hopefully their egos are not getting in the way of financial logic.
I second Stefan..i was thinking the same..what’s the big deal? is it the eco behind the car that hypes it up or what. It does look nice but not waiting til 2011 nice.
Are you completely dense? it’s a fully lithium battery powered car with more than 2 seats and less than 100K like the Roadster. It’s not an Indian Tata car. It’s not a wanker looking Prius. It’s a hot looking sports sedan that claims great performance while saving the environment.
What’s there not to get?
Nurse Techcrunch gets it, which is rare amongst TC readers.
2011 – things will change by then. Also, what’s the deal with service for these? Do they have any service stations set up?
how fast is it without the governor
also, mad props to the early adopters for breaking in the tech so those who prefer fully proven machines can have electric cars someday
Enter the only worthy company part of the government stimulus!
Why the hell can’t we just give them $50 Billion instead of all the incompetent banks?
I so wish there was a people’s vote on the stimulus! If nothing else so I could see Bank of America go down in flames!
Couldn’t agree more. With the crap surrounding the current automakers in this country I’m surprised to see how little they’ve been funded.
the banks? have you looked at the fine print of the stimulus? even if you haven’t, the money going to GM and Chrysler is more of an apt comparison than the banks. After all, the banks will eventually pay the Tarp back, GM is forever doomed.
Yeah – let the banks collapse- who needs them anyway? I totally agree we should go back to the lima bean currency, stashing them in our mattress, and paying 100% lima beans for everything like our house, lithium battery powered cars. Who needs credit when you can grow lima beans.
Shut your ignorant mouth Daniel Larsson!
Dang – [some of] the readers here on Techcrunch are a bunch of ignorant morons.
I love the lima bean idea.. i mean, paper money is only money because u let it be that way.
plus we’ll all be growing even more lima beans and that helps the earth beacause we’ll all have more plants! hey! we can counter act all the tree killing in the rainforests! ha! like that’ll happen.
I do love the idea man, i really do.
The roadster looks pretty cool.
http://www.wannadevelop.com
Wow! that’s too big money.
I love this car.
I would like to make the reservation right away. But this reservation won’t be valid for Europe, from what I understand. At least not now. Hmmpf…
model s hasnt been approved for the top tier tax break yet. that and you cant say it starts at 49k after a tax break, thats just bad journalism
Thats marketing – not journalism.
The real question is, did you reserve one Mike?
i want to test drive one first if possible.
PONZI SCHEME!
I still prefer the look of the Fisker Karma despite the price difference. I like how it doesn’t come with a 2 speed transmission, which was the great delayer of the Roadster at the insistence of Elon. What a bad bad idea that was, Elon, but when you’re ego is in the way of actually getting a car out the door, bad things happen. It’s too bad that Daryl was the only one who fell on his sword, when you should have considered doing the very same.
I wish GM and other big car manufactures would get their head out of their a@#$…
and either buy companies like Tesla or start imitating them!
There’s a documentry on how GM built an Eco car a long time ago, but scrapped it as they thought there wasn’t a market for it.
Try they were bought out by special interest groups and the oil industry and instructed not to produce it.
Agreed
whokilledtheelectriccar.com
they were instructed by “special interest groups” to destroy every one of them. the only ppl that have them now are the 2 inventors. one each.
THANK YOU AGAIN US GOVERNMENT!!!
BUY them????? Crap this is a commie site!!!! No one here loves independent companies.
$2.6 mil…that should keep the wolf away from the door! Props to Tesla for combining style, performance, and innovation; flying in the face of the rest of the dysfunctional auto industry.
Ive test driven the roadster, nice car but very small and for its price in the current situation (gas being cheap) there are better options…
For families and based on the 0-100 time, this sedan looks like a real winner though. Shame its still a few years away
Very nice. It seems like an infinitely better deal than the Roadster, but I guess sometimes you really need to do 0-60 in 3.9 seconds.
this is the saviour of tesla. the car is much better looking than the roadster, taking it’s lines from aston martin, maserati and jaguar – and it’s affordable. i hope it sells by the bucketload
Who designs for these guys? It is absolutely marvelous!
Mike, when are you getting your’s?
Here’s a cool video revealing the Tesla Sedan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvzOdYVw6Pw
It is a fantastic looking car. On that alone it deserves to do well, but that it shows a path that more drivers are going to have to follow too means it doubly deserves to succeed.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
wow
It’s very well showing the performance of the car on paper, but lets get real, when these cars actually gets released will they still live up to its own expectations or will this just be an other nose-dive?
This is what I am thinking. Many of the above commentators allege that this company will save the auto industry, let’s not put all of our eggs into one basket…
do they post maintenance and service numbers anywhere? Will it cost me 50K now and another 50k keeping it running for 3 years. I’m pretty sure my local service guy can’t fix a spaceship.
According to their numbers it will actually be very cheep to maintain since their isn’t much that can go wrong in an electric motor.
Again their marketing is claiming the price will be more aligned with a car in the mid-$30’s due to it not needing gas or as much service as your regular car.
I love this car, and the sad fact is that it won’t be available in Australia for at least 2 years after its North American launch.
This car looks to be really cool and has a great price tag to it. Any chance of this car making it up north to Canada without me having to import it by myself?
Ok nevermind. I just read the details.
Be careful when thinking you will get that credit. If the credit is the same hybrid credit you get for buying a Toyota or Lexus Hybrid and you make over a certain amount of money the IRS won’t give you the credit. If it is some other credit then you will probably get it.
My wife and I purchased an RX400h and were expecting the $3000.00 credit, but when our combined salaries went over a certain level that year, well, xnay on the editcray.
No credit fo you!
Wow, hope to have that kind of thing someday.
We need an SUV