[Posted on December 28, 2007 - 3:40 PM]
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DiggIf you have your heart set on getting a Tesla Roadster for, say, Valentine's Day, Tesla Motors Corp. chairman Elon Musk has some bad news for you. The company's electric sports cars are expected to debut in the first quarter, as promised, but they'll lack the speed of 0 to 60 miles per hour in four seconds that Tesla has touted.
That's because they won't have the intended dual-speed transmission. Apparently, two suppliers have failed to make the designed transmission, and the company is now moving onto other suppliers. In the meantime, the company is installing interim transmissions in the first units, which sell for a whopping $100,000 each.
Musk--best known as the founder of PayPal Inc., which eBay Inc. bought for $1.4 billion in 2002-- tells Earth2Tech that fixing the transmission will cost the company $40 million dollars, which he and other investors are raising in an internal round. That's on top of the $100 million Tesla has already raised from investors including Technology Partners, Capricorn Investment Group, Vantage Point Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, J.P. Morgan Bay Area Equity Fund, Valor Equity Partners and Compass Venture Partners.
The transmission isn't the only thing in transition at Tesla. The company recently hired its third CEO, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and sometime race car driver Ze'ev Drori, and unceremoniously ousted founder Martin Eberhard, who shared his disappointment with TeslaMotorsClub.com and Tech Confidential.
In a blog posted late Thursday, Drori says the new transmission will get up to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds. Some fans on TeslaMotorsClub.com say that's not fast enough. -- Mary Kathleen Flynn
