Car Racing - Tesla taking over the electric sports car market
Over the years, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the environment and taking steps to protect it from destruction. One of the biggest polluters of the planet is cars. So a group of people from Silicon Valley in America decided to make a car that would be cool enough to prove that electric cars could be a viable alternative to gas guzzling vehicles out there today. They rightly determined that the best way to approach the market would be to develop a very s**y, fast, and efficient sports car for the luxury market. The result was the very well designed Tesla Roadster, a car with performance to rival a Lamborghini, while being completely electric. The future looks very bright for this company with more products to come.
Tesla Motors was the brainchild of Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning and PayPal founder Elon Musk, who was one of the first investors. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were also early investors. Internet entrepreneurs being investors’ shows us that this is not a normal sports car company. The two founders had the idea that the only way to get people interested in electric cars, was to make a car that was so fast, so beautiful and so energy efficient that it would blow away the competition. The problem with previous electric cars was that they were very ugly and their performance was very poor. They wanted to create a car that would look like a Ferrari and perform like a Toyota Prius. They targeted the luxury sports car market because if they could impress the rich, then the technology could be made more affordable and different cheaper cars could be produced for average buyers. The founders went about making their ultra cool sports car by first finding an established car company that could build their car for them in limited numbers. They found UK-based Lotus Motors that produced very powerful, small and very desirable sports cars. The car that was born, the Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise chassis and borrowed a lot of parts from the car to keep costs down. With this start the company was ready to take over the world.
The resulting Roadster that was produced was an instant hit with the luxury crowd. It had blistering performance; it could go from 0-60mph in less than 4 seconds. Due to the fact that it is an electric car, it produces insane amounts of torque that really launches the car when the accelerator is floored. On the eco-friendly side, the car produces zero emissions while giving 100 miles to the gallon, which is double the performance of the Toyota Prius. With the car being produced in England in Lotus’ factory, it benefits from Lotus handling technology as well and is an all round sports car. The Roadster is capable of travelling 250 miles on a single charge and can be charged from an ordinary plug socket. All these factors have turned the sports car market on its head. A very s**y, powerful and eco-friendly sports car was something that no one had expected at all and the Tesla Roadster is cutting into Ferrari, Lamborghini and Aston Martin’s market share in a big way.
To prove that the new electric sports car was no slouch and could perform with the rest of the big boys, it was entered into the first e-miglia electric car rally. This first of its kind car rally featured 2, 3 and 4 wheeled electric cars. The race took place all over Europe through mountain roads, twisting city streets and many other tough terrain paths. The eventual winner of the rally was the very quick Tesla Roadster. It obliterated the competition and took the first prize and showed that an electric car is capable of being very beautiful, very fast and also very efficient. What we would all like to see now is a race featuring normal sports cars and a Tesla Roadster as well. That would be a very interesting race and would show how well the electric sports car can perform against its gas guzzling rivals. This race could be featured on television as well and make a great segment, Top Gear might be interested in something like that.
With a sedan planned for launch in a few years and a third car in the pipeline, Tesla looks all set to become the number one electric car company in the world. If their other cars are anything like the wonderful Roadster then their future as the world’s number one is set in stone.
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