The Tesla Roadster could very well be the most influential and revolutionary sports car ever created. In an automotive world governed by oil and oil interested the Tesla Roadster had some of the industries largest players vying for its electric motor technology even before a single Roadster had been made. It sounds a crazy story, but it is one I am lucky to be able to let.
The Roadster came very close to never existing. Never mind that for years, decades even anyone tried to take on the problem of an electric vehicle was met with hostility by the industry. Their inventive spirit would crumble under a barrage of insults, "it can't be done", "it's not viable"
And for a large part in it's early years around 2007, Tesla motors was succeeding in proving the critics right. With over 100 million dollars of investors money, Martin Eberhard the companies CEO and one of its founders and only succeeded in proving that they could produce a vehicle that when expected to retail as $ 109.000 cost $ 140.000 to make, and still didn't have a working transmission, air conditioning and inferior seat linings.
The one thing they did have however was a battery and in truth they had succeed in the hardest part of all, the battery was the answer to the power problem everything else was just fine tuning, getting all the components on car to work with this new power source.
The battery park was the hardest design feat in the whole car and they had succeed in creating a powerful and strong and most importantly safe battery pack. Running off Lithium Ion batteries much like in a Laptop the power pack could produce 200 Kilowatts, translated into the road in the form of over 280 horse power and 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds.
And though the car and Tesla's finances were in trouble the future was here in the shape of that battery
In the next two parts I will explain how the roadster was saved and how that battery technology has found it way way to some unlikely places.
