How did Tesla Motors make an electric car go so fast?

Question

How can an electric car go 0-60 in 4 seconds?! Thats faster then a freaking Corvette! Somebody tell me this is not another hoax like cold fusion.

Answer 1

Really light car with lots and lots of batteries.  The chassis is designed by Lotus, and if you look at the Elise compared to the Corvette you can see why the Tesla can do so well on electricity.  It's the real deal.  It not only beats the 'vette but most Porches as well.  Imagine the look on some Porche driver's face when you blow past him in a car that cost you 70 grand less then he paid for his?  Electric motors have always been and will always be FAR supperior to any internal combustion engine in terms of torque and power consistency.  The problems are 1) storage and 2) political will.  Batteries are expensive to develop and corporate culture is very hard to change.  In fact, a deep-pocketed company like Chevy probably could have built a Tesla class sports car by now. The problem?  How does a Chevy manager get funding for, of all things, an electric car?  In a large corporate beurocracy where the safe idea always gets the money, the hippie electric car always gets the axe.  It takes a bunch of rich non-conformists in Silicon Valley to break the mold, and now GM and Ford will sell a few less Corvettes and GTs.

Answer 2

electric motors are just more efficient & have better torque characteristics than infernal combustion ICE. Thats why locomotives use them.

We only have ICE because of cheap oil at the start of last century.

The first car to exceed 100mph was electric www.speedace.info

Maximum torque from 0rpm, from cold, no compicated transmission, regenerative braking... low maintenance, only 8 moving parts in the drive train

the motor components on which the tesla is based is the tZero which has been running around for years http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero/

And why have the motoring establishment & media never told us, and why did GM crush all it's EV1s? see www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com

Answer 3

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Electric motors are extremely efficient, have lots of low-end torque, and can be made in any size, for any amount of power. The key is improved battery technology, so that more power is available for larger and better motors.

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But the Tesla is not alone. Here's an even better electric car, also designed by lotus, called the ZAP-X:

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http://zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=456...

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The ZAP-X carries 644 horsepower to 4 in-wheel motors. Top speed is 155mph. It gets 350 miles to the charge, and charging the batteries can be done in just 10 minutes. Plus, the battery pack will last 20 years, or 300,000 miles.

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Cost is $60,000. That's expensive, but cheaper than the Tesla!

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Answer 4

Its called engineering. Its amazing what people can do.

Answer 5

It's due to a lot of Lithium Ion batteries run in parallel (7000 of them actually, costing $50,000 for the batteries) allowing an incredibly high discharge rate giving it more power than typical electric cars which have 24 deep cycle 6 volt batteries in series.

Here you go, you'll be interested by this site, I can tell.

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

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Answer 6

It's the real deal.

Answer 7

Yeah.  Because electric motors have a LOT of power.  

That's why electric cars are banned from racing, especially  drag racing.  It's just not fair when the driver pushes a button, waits 11 seconds, wins, and hits the brakes.

http://www.evparts.com/about/mazda.html

That's why the French TGV uses electric motors.  That's how diesel locomotives push freight trains.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/diesel-loco...

Once you work with electric... gas engines suck.