Tesla Plans Full Range Of Model S-Based Vehicles

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

According to a post by Diarmuid O’Connell, Tesla’s Vice President of Business Development,

The Model S platform will also be used for derivatives including a minivan, cross-over utility vehicle and a utility van for fleets and other industrial or civic uses

The Model S sedan already claims seating for seven, with a third row of jump seats under its rear hatch. But hey, why not build other models on the same platform? Nobody shopping a Tesla is going to care about overlap, price premiums or branding issues. The EV business model is still squarely in the “set a price and hope there are enough early adapters out there” era, and more models will help differentiate Tesla from competitors like Fisker. Besides, Tesla has made it clear that they don’t want to be a luxury car maker forever. Elon Musk sees high-end products like the Roadster and Model S Sedan as cocoon from which Tesla will emerge as a fully-formed, mainstream EV manufacturer. And if you’re going to worry about the Silicon Kids on the basis of this one blog post, it should be because of the following syntactically-challenged sentence:

We’re already engineering the Model S, a seven-passenger family sedan that will have a base price of $49,900 after a federal tax credit that will cost the equivalent of a car that retails for $35,000, given the relatively expensive cost of gasoline vs. electricity.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 12 comments
  • Sgirl5 Sgirl5 on Oct 01, 2009

    I remember reading that GM is involved with Tesla. That's a big turn-off for me.

  • Anonymous Anonymous on Oct 01, 2009
    In all fairness though, the disparity between gas and electricity will probably increase in the future, since oil resources are dwindling and electricity can be produced from a multitude of resources, and very cheaply off-peak. I don't know where you live, but where I live in California, the price of electricity is rising nearly as fast as gasoline. Over the past two years, my electricity bill has nearly doubled, while my usage has decreased by approximately 25%, an increase in unit cost of over 100%. I'd have to go back over 5 years to find the point at which gasoline was less than half of todays costs. This is in an area supplied by a major hydro electric plant and in a state with a significant amount of hydro generating capacity (though that is decreasing thanks to environmental challenges of existing dams when their lease renewals come up). I have no idea how he figures $15,000 in fuel savings, unless he is comparing it to a gas powered vehicle that gets 10 mpg or less like some of the V12 sports/luxury cars out there.
  • Shaker Shaker on Oct 01, 2009

    "Man, that's a beautiful car." (Amen!) With a hatch,too! They couldn't have picked a better look for some pretty expensive, electric Kool-Aid. I keep playing the powerball, though (fingers crossed).

  • KarenRei KarenRei on Oct 02, 2009
    I will be rolling out my new line of hybrid-solar powered ocean going container vessels. You know, if you're going to pick an analogy to poke fun at what you perceive as something being ridiculous, perhaps you should make sure that your analogy hasn't already been done: Toyota’s Solar Car Carrier It could be seen as a "mild hybrid" (solar only provides 6.5% of the power), but it's still a hybrid solar-powered ocean-going container vessel.
Next