They won’t involve a HEMI, but they may create a buzz.
Tesla Roadster |
The California Air Resources Board has granted Santa Carlos-based Tesla Motors $560,000 toward the development of a new-design, 16-kW public charging station.
Although further context was not revealed, other than that the chargers would be initially deployed at "hotel chains throughout California" and that it would use Tesla's ACE connector, the new public stations could be used, for instance, to charge an electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid while the owner shops, dines, or travels a remaining distance with commuter rail - or, given they're to be at hotels, for an overnight road trip. And at 16kW, a capacity not possible with standard residential wiring, these new stations could potentially charge the vehicle much faster than at home.
This grant, which has been in the past been awarded to UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and the Electric Power Research Institute was received under CARB's Alternative Fuel Incentive Program (AFIP). According to Tesla, CARB says in its solicitation: "Electric fuel vehicles have the largest potential to reduce climate change emissions and petroleum dependency relative to any other alternative fuel vehicle under consideration."
The California legislature set aside $25 million in the state's 2006-07 budget for these grants, which are awarded for the development of low-emissions vehicle technology and biofuels. Overall, for 2007, there were 208 grant submissions and CARB and the California Energy Commission chose to distribute the $25 million available among 40 projects.
Tesla Motors currently employs more than 200 people altogether in California, Michigan, the U.K., and Taiwan. The company says that it will begin shipping its Tesla Roadster, a limited-volume electric sports car based on the Lotus Elise, beginning this fall. Tesla claims the nearly $100,000 Roadster's range to be more than 200 miles - better than any production electric car to date, thanks to its lithium-ion battery pack - while its powerful acceleration puts 0-60 times at around four seconds.
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