Tesla Motors Fires Up Production Line For Electric Roadster - SJMN

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Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley electric-car start-up, said Monday it has begun "regular production" of its first car, the 2008 Roadster. The car is being assembled at a Lotus factory in Hethel, England. Tesla said it has taken more than 900 deposits for the $100,000, two-seat, zero-emissions Roadster.

Tesla wouldn't describe the initial pace of its production schedule, according to Darryl Siry, a company vice president.

Ze'ev Drori, Tesla's chief executive and president, said in a blog Monday that the company will be "gradually ramping up our production in a deliberate and controlled manner reaching a rate of over 100 Roadsters per month early next year." The cars being made now will arrive in the United States in about four weeks, Siry said.

In February, Tesla Chairman Elon Musk took delivery of what the company termed "P1," its first production model, at a ceremony attended by employees at its San Carlos headquarters. Musk has been using the car on his daily drive from Bel Air, where he lives, to Hawthorne, where Space Exploration Technologies, another of his companies, is based. "This is the most fun car I've ever owned, beating out my McLaren F1 and my 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo," he wrote on his Tesla blog.

EDIT

http://www.mercurynews.com/healthandscience/ci_8609980?nclick_check=1

[phantom power]

1. Elon Musk is also founder of SpaceX (and before that, paypal).

It's good to be a billionaire.

[CRF450]

2. Link isn't working.