Going fast: Tesla receives validation prototypes

More electric car news – This week’s newsletter from Tesla Motors announced that it has received the first of ten Validation Prototype vehicles from its facility in the UK. The first Tesla production cars seem to be on track for delivery in fall of 2007. (The production run is sold out; You can get on the waiting list for the cars scheduled for delivery in summer 2008. )

The newsletter had a link to the company’s engineering blog: Looking through past posts I came across a good one by Wally Rippel, Tesla’s principal power electronics engineer, “Induction Versus DC Brushless Motors.” Here’s his summary and prediction about the future use of these two motors, “DC brushless drives will likely continue to dominate in the hybrid and coming plug-in hybrid markets, and that induction drives will likely maintain dominance for the high-performance pure electrics. The question is what will happen as hybrids become more electrically intensive and as their performance levels increase? The fact that so much of the hardware is common for both drives could mean that we will see induction and DC brushless live and work side by side during the coming golden era of hybrid and electric vehicles.” So cover your bets; and brush up on both types of motor technologies.