The Tesla Roadster got introduced in the year 2006 by Tesla Motors. This is a high performance electric car and is a great alternative to the sports car. The car comes at a cost of around $109,000 and is only two cents per mile to power.
The Tesla Roadster has a motor that has no magnets. There are pattern metal wires and plates that bring about an electromagnetic field. This is the alternating current induction motor and was first started sometime in the 19th century. It was Nikola Tesla which brought this about and thus the company is named after him. The AC induction motors were picked up by him as he felt they are efficient as well as reliable.
The Roadster had its first kind with a two speed transmission. The first gear was around 0 to 60 miles per hour and the second was more than 120 miles per hour. But there were lot of problems that resulted in delayed production. The motor was redesigned and transistors with higher performance were added to give more power. Today the single speed transmission has replaced this.
The motor has two functions. First of all electricity is converted into torque and thus there is more acceleration. It also aids in slowing the car down when brakes are applied. Thus most of the kinetic energy within the car is changed into electricity and this is stored in the battery. There is the digital motor controller which is a computer chip and which regulates the power that shuttles between the battery and motor. There is so much acceleration that it really hurts at times. The engineers at Tesla had actually to dial the power so that they could have a start that was smooth.
Lithium ion battery cells have been wired and there are around 6831 of them which give the power and which gives the impressive speed that is seen in the vehicle. There is a lot of energy storage and this brings about a great range of driving. So more than 200 miles of driving range is obtained. The lithium ion cells are seen to store a lot more energy than that stored by the nickel metal hydride batteries which were earlier used in gas electric hybrids. There is a liquid cooling system in the Tesla Roadster which helps in reducing heat and thus even during the times when there is combustion of batteries, there is no heat set off.
The Tesla Roadster has a frame made of aluminium and carbon and this is the reason the car is very lightweight. This helps a great deal in extending the range. Electric cars are very well known for the benefits they bestow upon the environment. There are no emissions and they are also very efficient. They help in reducing carbon emissions. The electricity that is used to charge these cars comes from the power plants that are involved in the burning of fossil fuels. It has been seen that gas engines give their best torque. This is the main reason cars accelerate well. If the engine is maintained in its optimal range then it needs a lot of clutches and gears and these results in the acceleration getting reduced. But the electric motors ensure that this doesn’t happen and they give the best torque. So it is very easy to use this car. The fact that it is possible to use just one transmission with more than a couple of speeds makes these cars running on electric mechanism to be more receptive than those cars powered by gas. The founders of Tesla Roadster had taken a decision to AC Propulsion’s parts so that they could have their own prototype.
Tesla Roadster underwent a lot of changes while being made. Finally the digital system was applied as it was seen that this new system would bring about a greater performance and also fantastic speed build up. Thus today we see the Tesla Roadster as a promising electric car.