Sustainable Transportation Field, Electric Vehicle Category

Debra Poneman, Emcee

Tesla Motors designs and sells high-performance, highly efficient electric sports cars — with no compromises. Tesla Motors' cars combine style, acceleration, and handling with advanced technologies that make them among the quickest and the most energy-efficient cars on the road.

Tesla Motors' first production vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, is an all-electric sports car with a top speed of 125 mph (and that’s limited for safety). The cost of powering the vehicle is estimated at 2/100ths of a cent per mile.

Prototypes were introduced to the public in July 2006, and the Tesla Roadster was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in December 2006 as the recipient of the magazine's "Best Inventions 2006 - Transportation Invention" award. Demand has been high for the first "Signature One Hundred" set of fully equipped Roadsters, which sold out in less than three weeks. As of May, more than 600 Tesla Roadsters have been reserved and 400 more are on the waiting list.

Tesla plans to offer home roof-mounted solar photovoltaic systems to offset power used by the home charger. This will allow 50 miles of travel per day without burdening the power grid, thus making the package "energy positive" for a driver whose average daily mileage is less than that.

Tesla is also currently working on an announced but unrevealed sedan, code-named "WhiteStar," which may be introduced in 2009 as a 2010 model. It is being designed as an alternative to cars such as the BMW 5 Series and the Audi A6, with an estimated price of $50,000-70,000. WhiteStar is to be built in a new plant in New Mexico.

When Tesla set out to build a high-performance electric car, the biggest challenge was obvious from the start: the battery.

The Tesla Roadster's battery pack represents the biggest innovation in the Tesla Roadster and is one of the largest and most advanced battery packs in the world. It combines basic proven lithium ion battery technology with their own unique battery pack design to provide multiple layers of safety.

The battery pack is light, durable, recyclable, and it is capable of delivering enough power to accelerate the Tesla Roadster from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds. The battery stores enough energy for the vehicle to travel about 220 miles without recharging, something no other production electric vehicle in history can claim.