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The first production Tesla has arrived in America.

The employees just shared their enthusiasm at the arrival of their carbon fiber baby on the company blog. Serial Number 1 was purchased by Elon Musk, of course.

Elon and Validation Prototype 10 (seen here) are at the Cleantech Conference lunch. By a show of hands, no one else in the audience could match Elon’s track record of having co-founded five companies and having five children under the age of four. 😉

Motortrend (March 08) published the first test drive results, and they aptly describe what I felt driving this car:

“I’m almost grimacing as I release the brake and pound the accelerator to the floor. Whrrrrrrr… There’s no wheelspin, axle tramp, shutter, jutter, smoke whiff, cowl shake, nothing. I’m being eerily teleported down the barrel of a rail gun, head pulled back by a hard, steady acceleration. Bizarre.”

31 responses to “the Tesla has landed”

  1. !MimosaMicheMichelle! Avatar
    !MimosaMicheMichelle!

    It looks very nice!

    Congratulations for you and other investors as well as the creator (s)! I hope all goes well in the sales department. Lucky future owners!!

    Reply
  2. Todd Huffman Avatar
    Todd Huffman

    Are you getting one? If so, can I get in line for a ride?

    Reply
  3. Johan of Denmark Avatar
    Johan of Denmark

    Hmm…must – start – saving… 😉

    Reply
  4. Josh Thompson Avatar
    Josh Thompson

    I’ll have to keep a camera handy in case I see one of these "out in the wild" on the road somewhere. I’ll be looking forward to it….

    Reply
  5. Resh B. Avatar
    Resh B.

    I’m scared to ask how much it costs… 🙂

    Reply
  6. eye of einstein Avatar
    eye of einstein

    all right..

    the future is now.. now..

    Reply
  7. sbove Avatar
    sbove

    I got very excited when I passed one of the prototypes on x-mas day in Berkeley…driven by an oriental-looking man and woman who, for some reason, would not look up and acknowledge my smiling thumbs ups ("who’s that idiot in the car next to us making strange hand signals?")…they seemed very focused on the traffic jam all around us heading into the maze…or maybe they were running out of juice after a long drive in from Napa??? Anyway, nice to see these going into production after all the drama around founder departures and rumors of unsolvable technical problems…Is it true (as the Motortrend author states) that the big issue was creating a reliable 2 speed transmission?

    Reply
  8. nels1 Avatar
    nels1

    sweet!

    i just saw this picture recently of the tesla being put through the crash test…ouch!

    Reply
  9. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Yeah, luckily computer simulations have gotten good enough that those were the first vehicles destroyed (i.e., it was all in silico before that).

    @sbove and Todd: yes, absolutely. Revving to 13000 RPM to go 0-60 in 4 seconds in first gear is a bit harsh. They have a solution cooking that is even simpler for the driver.

    Reply
  10. sbove Avatar
    sbove

    Why was Wrightspeed able to go sans x-mission? Lighter overall car?

    Reply
  11. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Oh, this will be the same…. I’m guessing that the X1 prototype has a lower top speed as the tradeoff in the early models. No shifting is a lot simpler to design, and to use… =)

    Reply
  12. TomOwen Avatar
    TomOwen

    Congratulatins to you and the team Steve!

    Reply
  13. aminorjourney Avatar
    aminorjourney

    Congratulations to you all. You’ve worked hard and been through some VERY tough times to get there.

    Let’s hope that this is the first of many succesful Teslas! When is production ramping up?

    Reply
  14. Ambidextrous Magazine Avatar
    Ambidextrous Magazine

    sweet! i sat in this car for the iinnovate interview. =)

    iinnovate.blogspot.com/2007/11/martin-eberhard-co-founder…

    and steve, the iinnovate team and i would love to have you on the podcast! are you free sometime?

    -min

    Reply
  15. minnibeach Avatar
    minnibeach

    wrong flickr account 🙂 that was me (min) above. again, would love to have you on our podcast, steve, esp. about your awesome flickrness.
    http://www.iinnovatecast.com

    Reply
  16. Gwênlyn Avatar
    Gwênlyn

    Ok, I’ll ask… how much will this cost?

    Reply
  17. schoschie Avatar
    schoschie

    AshwinK: around $100,000.
    http://www.teslamotors.com/buy/buyPage1.php

    Reply
  18. nels1 Avatar
    nels1

    in silico…thanks! i learnt a new phrase today:)

    Reply
  19. coherent fish Avatar
    coherent fish

    i want one

    Reply
  20. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    me too, Ulric. Where´s the queue?

    Handsome machine 8-)))

    Reply
  21. j_silla Avatar
    j_silla

    Great! By any chance are there any motorbikes, boats, snowmobiles, chainsaws… coming down the line from Tesla?

    Reply
  22. nels1 Avatar
    nels1

    here’s a great video by Robert Scoble interviewing Elon Musk during a test drive…and leaving the corvette for dead!

    qik.com/video/22264

    Reply
  23. trumpetflickr Avatar
    trumpetflickr

    Welcome to the future of Super Cars Tesla!

    Cool shot, I wish the company the best, it’s been rough.

    Reply
  24. chrisengineering2 Avatar
    chrisengineering2

    i love the the Tesla Roadster…I hope that their new sedan coming out is even better than this one.

    Reply
  25. Kevin Krejci Avatar
    Kevin Krejci

    I want one too… Here’s a shot of the front end of the same car at the Cleantech Summit.

    Tesla at IBF Cleantech Summit

    Reply
  26. charleswlyons Avatar
    charleswlyons

    First of all, it’s absolutely great to see the push that alternative fuel vehicles are making. Personally, I want an air car from MDI.

    However, even if we live to see the day when every vehicle on the road is zero emission/free fuel (such as recharging your Tesla via solar or wind), this will still ignore a major issue presented by any of the cars we drive today: space. The next time you take a drive through the city you live in, take notice of how much land is used for cars alone. Roads, from major highways down to alleys and driveways; plus parking lots take up an enormous amount of land. Even when built vertically, parking lots take an ungodly amount of land.

    I think a great interpretation of this is the story of the Sacred Rac (spoiler alert: read "Rac" and "Asu" backwards).

    Reply
  27. johnskabardonis Avatar
    johnskabardonis

    excellent shot, though I think the front fascia is just unreal
    still, the way this baby goes, I think this is the side most people will see…

    Reply
  28. boundless year Avatar
    boundless year

    Thanks for adding this to Named After People!

    Reply
  29. jt_drummeruk Avatar
    jt_drummeruk

    Hi there, thank you for allowing this for use under the Attribution 2.0 generic license. I will be using this image to illustrate an article in ‘the environmentalist’ magazine. If you would like, you can contact me at jay.thompson@consil.co.uk

    Best regards

    Reply
  30. Kevin J Hatton's Flickr Pics Avatar
    Kevin J Hatton’s Flickr Pics

    How cool is that!

    Reply
  31. Kevin J Hatton's Flickr Pics Avatar
    Kevin J Hatton’s Flickr Pics

    Ice Cold!

    Reply

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