A good product is not worth the buck used to build it if it doesn’t sell. With the car market being volatile and all, automakers are probably squeezing everything they can from their marketing gurus to keep the sales figures up. Tesla is one of them.

As part of the whole drum-banging campaign, Tesla has tapped former F1 Champion Damon Hill to drive the Roadster in the GreenFleet Capiral Arrive N Drive in California at the month’s end. This is aside from other activities that they have lined up previously.

Anyway, Tesla looks to be in good shape to sell their cars with only 25 production units left for the second quarter of 2009. If you’re looking into getting one for yourself, better head on to their website and have your reservation processed.

For the UK market, Tesla has 250 Euro-spec Limited Edition Roadsters that will sell for €99,000.

Source: Inside Line

Talk about WTF! Prey on people’s growing environmental awareness and lack foresight on makers and dealers alike. With gasoline prices reaching $4 a gallon, many are ditching their hulking gas-guzzling SUVs in exchange for gas-sipping hybrids. And yes, there is huge demand for hybrids.

While Toyota was just oh-so-happy about getting a million Priuses on the road, they might have to rethink things on how they’d got about selling a million more. Sales of hybrids took a hit recently and not due to market demand but because of production shortage as battery supplies are scarce. Toyota isn’t the only one hit by this as supplies for the Ford Escape Hybrid became limited as well.

Prius sales dropped a whopping 37.5% in May compare to 24,009 units sold last year. Toyota’s Camry hybrid is doing as well. The whole choke from production to sales is the fact that Toyota couldn’t make enough batteries to power the Priuses rolling out of factories. And, as an enterprising move, they held production down, to encourage buyers to purchase other models.

Tsk. Saving the world vs. making money.

Source: AutoWeek

The Tesla Roadster has set out to be the performance electric car of choice in the market, prompting a lot of orders for production. And for those in the US who have already put down their money for the orders, they can already rest easy as Tesla received the US FMVSS Certification (not without crashing some) meaning the Roadster can be sold in 50 states. And production will now commence by March.

With that milestone achieved, Tesla is now considering a track-ready version of the Roadster but engineers need to solve one problem - heat. The current designs feature and air-cooled system. A liquid-cooled system is an option, however, this might cause problems with all the electronics strapped on the car and getting that to work would mean the track car is a possibility.

The intended track-ready version reported to be dubbed as the Roadster 120 is planned to shed around 500 lbs. from the curb weight. Weight reduction will improve performance with regard to acceleration, handling and engine load reduction.

The prototypes can do 0-60 in sub-4 seconds but the production version is limited to 5.7 seconds. I wonder how will the track car do?

Source: Autoblog

So we’re all eager to see how the Tesla Roadster would play out. While it has received a lot of orders and have impressed us with its specs and numbers so far, one thing that I would consider in cars is safety. Especially if it the car’s for public consumption. Sure it can go fast, but will you survive a crash inside a Tesla Roadster just in case?

Well, the answer seems to be “Yes.” 30 mph isn’t that fast but the crash test was a success both front and side impact. Here’s the video.

The Tesla Roadster promises to be one of the electric cars that wouldn’t run like it’s running on a food processor’s motor. It claims to break the four-second naught to sixty number in terms of acceleration. While these are all really promising, the Tesla Roadster has met good market demand.

Bad news for Tesla fans, though, full production of the Roadster has been pushed back. An initial run will be made late this year in time for delivery by the first quarter of 2008. Only when Tesla verifies those cars, will they go all out with the production next year. 600 more Tesla Roadsters will be rolled out by the end of 2008.

The good news is that, the Tesla Roadster will go the distance. Literally. Prototypes yielded varying results ranging from 200 to 250 miles. The latest EPA test revealed something closer to the initial 250 mile range with 245 miles - 252 miles city and 236 miles highway (see how electric cars go inverse the may petroleum fueled cars).

Source: Tesla

I’m still a big critic of electric cars. While I won’t deny that they would eliminate pollution and lessen reliance on fossil fuels, I just think that the technology is still too young. I still find the hybrid as the more plausible alternative for now. But hey, who am I to complain about electric cars? It’s through these development efforts that great things happen.

Remember the Lightning Car Company? They’re now working on their 2008 Lightning GT. And it’s no wuss either. It’ll sport a 700 hp powerplant, go from 0-60 in under 4 seconds, and zoom to speeds of 130 mph.

Presently seeing a good demand is another electric car company, Tesla Motors with their Tesla Roadster. So if this keeps up, we might just be seeing a new age of electric car motoring.

Source: Car Domain