America’s Tesla Motors, the company behind the all-electric Roadster sports car (pictured), today announced plans for its next model, a new five-passenger hybrid sedan labelled the Model S. Unlike the current Roadster, which is largely based on an existing Lotus design, the future sedan will be an all-new design and will be manufactured at a newly built plant in California by late 2010.

Previous reports claimed the plant would be built in the U.S. state of New Mexico but California’s sales tax exemption on the purchase of manufacturing equipment and grants for training its new employees managed to persuade Tesla managers into choosing it as the best location for the future factory.

California’s Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority (CAEATFA) approved a program last Wednesday that gives makers of zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs) and other electric and hybrid vehicles significant tax breaks in an effort to entice production to California. Similarly, to aid their adoption by motorists in the state, the Alternative Fuel Incentive Program will offer buyers of ZEVs a grant of up $5,000 to help defray the purchase price.

Model S offers greater range, lower price than the Roadster
The new ‘multi-use sport sedan’, which goes by the internal name of ‘Model S,’ is confirmed to start at US$60,000 ($63,000), have a range of 360km and will first start production in late 2010.

Unlike the current all-electric Roadster model, the new sedan will be a plug-in hybrid vehicle complete with a compact internal combustion engine used to charge the batteries. The car’s sole drive system will be a high powered electric motor running on the batteries, which are expected to be of the lithium-ion type.

This design is similar to rival vehicles also in development such as General Motors’ Volt plug-in hybrid and the new Karma plug-in from competing Californian niche sports carmaker Fisker Automotive.

Roadster still proving difficult
Priced at a headier US$100,000 ($105,000), the current Roadster is powered by a battery pack of lithium-ion cells that allows it to have a range of up to 320km yet still offer blistering performance, with acceleration times of 0-100km/h in less than six seconds and plans for an even faster model in the pipeline. This high performance and zero emissions trait puts the Roadster in a class by itself.

However, this uniqueness has created problems for the company in recent months. An announcement that full production was underway was made in March of this year, and to date no true production cars have been delivered to the hundreds of prepaid buyers eagerly awaiting their Roadsters.

Difficulties designing and building a powertrain robust enough to withstand the demands placed on it by a high-torque electric motor and yet light enough for a sports car application are the primary stumbling block. The company is currently working to implement what it calls ‘Powertrain 1.5’ to rectify the problems with the current design, which has been restricted to a single speed gearbox for reliability. The future design will feature a different gear ratio, but still only one speed.

Tesla now has roughly two years to iron out the bugs and prove that it can deliver a reliable electric vehicle, a hurdle it must overcome if it has any hope of delivering a mass-market sedan model.

Tesla Roadster electric vehicle

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