Tesla’s founders set out to “build [an] electric car with zeros emissions [that] people would love to drive.”  After years of development the Roadster arrived (slightly delayed) in customers hands in March of 2008.  It’s an all electric car with an advertised range of 244 miles.  Forget your Prius or Insight, this is the precursor to the real solution of America’s addiction to foreign oil.

Every American needs to know about Tesla Motors and what exactly they are trying to accomplish.  This is not just about making a quick buck for hedge fund managers in Connecticut.  A company like this is led by charismatic business leaders driven by the impetus of ideology.  Tesla Motors has the potential to be a game changer.  (And not in the technology world sense that a new operating system will make our lives more vivacious.  Aside: I can’t wait for Windows 7… )  The electric motor is coming to personal transportation and I believe Tesla is the harbinger.  In only six years this company has gone through some rough roads of bad decisions but the general trend of the business evolution is solid.  In fact it has been exactly what it has needed to have been.  Here are my three points on what Tesla Motors has done exactly right to best position itself for future automotive innovation and to become the icon of the personal transportation revolution:

One:

The Roadster was the product of ideology and passionate engineering.  (The ideology stemming from environmental concerns and the implications of addiction to foreign oil.)  At some point in the last decade lithium ion batteries (which power the vast majority of laptops) reached a certain critical level of development which made an electric car viable with a huge block of these batteries smartly wired together.  (The anticipated charging times and driving ranges were deemed acceptable for everyday drivers.)  This intersection of ideology and passion for technology was huge, I cannot think of a better way to motivate a product of such importance.

Two:

Developing the Roadster sport car first was paramount.  When developing new technology, test and development needs to happen under the most harsh and demanding conditions.  Normally the automotive industry does this with Formula 1, Nascar, or in northern Sweden and then adopts the proven technology to the consumer car.  Tesla unleashed their engineers to research and develop capabilities for a sports car.  The more moderate models to follow will be a piece of cake to engineer and in all likelihood cost considerably less.  This top down approach to the market also solves the question of volume.  As a new car company, it is smart to exclude yourself to all but the most wealthy of customers.  It is then easy to leverage the demand to sell at premium prices.

Three:

Tesla outsourced a lot of conventional components including the chassis to Lotus Cars of England.  Basically the Tesla Roadster is a Lotus Elise with the conventional engine swapped out for an electric motor.  (The Elise frame is quite light at just over 2000 lbs and contributed towards performance numbers.)  The Elise is a very cool looking frame but not a particularly well known car here in the U.S.  After all the attention Tesla has been receiving the Roadster may have more brand awareness than the Elise and may eventually supplant the Lotus image.

What does the future hold for Tesla?  The Roadster will remain out of financial reach ($101,500) for most consumers but will continue to stand as a solid proof of concept.  The four door Model S is due out in 2011 with an estimated price of ($57,400) and a 300 mile range per charge.  (Expect some generous tax credits for electric cars to bring the sticker shock down a bit.)  Beyond that there is talk of a third model costing around $30,000 as Tesla Motors gradually wades into the market of the average consumer.  Between then and now I am confident that the price of oil will be back into the triple digits, but this time pushed by demand and not a crazed speculation bubble.  It will then be well apparent that this company has had the astute foresight to lead the personal transportation revolution… or let’s change that to the personal transportation metamorphosis because these cars look so damn sexy.

Mom, for Christmas I would like a Tesla Roadster.

Synthetic motor oil is what places like Gypy Lube try to up-sell to unsuspecting patrons who are innocently looking for cheap (and necessary) preventative maintenance on their cars.  Instead of paying $25 for a conventional oil change, it’s completely possibly to have synthetic motor oil pumped into your car and be charged $71 billion dollars at the counter.  Holy bailout Batman!

Here’s the real story.  Gasoline is not perfect.  It contains many contaminants and unwanted particles that can build up inside the engine.  Engine oil acts as a passive cleanser to lift these unwanted particles and hold them until the oil filter can screen them out.  The filter or the oil doesn’t last forever and it is a universal automotive recommendation to change your oil and filter every 3,000 miles or 3 months.  

Conventional engine oil is distilled from crude oil pumped out from beneath places like Saudi Arabia.  The resulting engine oil has lots of different sized molecules, all of which were formed millions of years ago.  Synthetic oil is made from a chemical process in a laboratory resulting in a nearly all the molecules having the same size.  (But it’s expensive.)  This uniformity gives the oil special chemical properties that allow it to hold more of the unwanted or contaminant particles in solution, potentially extending the amount of time between oil changes.  The synthetic oil also has less viscosity, or it glides more freely between engine parts to possibly allow for better performance and gas mileage (but typically only in high-performance engines).  

Another job of the engine oil is to dissipate heat.  When engine oil comes in contact with a relatively hot piece of the engine, heat will be exchanged to the oil.  Synthetic oil does this more efficiently because of its uniform nature.  (For example, female socialites would be efficiently more annoying if they were all Paris Hilton, fortunately their diversity contributes to their tolerability…barely.)

Drawing from my informed wisdom, I opine that the average driver does not need to switch to synthetic oil to protect their engine.  Conventional oil does the job just fine.  But if you truly need something to talk about at the water cooler, be my guest and choose from among the following well branded choices: Mobil 1, Castrol Syntec, Valvoline SynPower, Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic, Quaker State Ultimate Durability Full Synthetic, and Lucas Synthetic High Performance.  The award for best product name goes to Pennzoil for naming a transition metal that has nothing to do with the product except the label.

So who would benefit from synthetic oil?  Basically anyone who spends time on a race track.  And for everyday drivers who own cars with turbochargers I would recommend it.  The turbo is a very particular piece of equipment that uses the engine’s oil to dissipate heat and maintain lubrication.  The turbines in a turbo are designed to spin in excess of 80,000 RPM (that’s more than five times the red line of a motorcycle engine!).  You don’t want this to seize up.  The greater viscosity will help guard against this in cold and hot oil environments.

While we’re talking about oil, let’s cover that mysterious 10W-30 label and what it means.  The “10W” stands for winter and the “10″ is an indication of the lowest temperature your car will be able to pump the oil from a cold start.  (As determined by the Society of Automotive Engineers or the SAE.)  The “30″ indicates the viscosity of the oil at 212° F.

Now wasn’t that fun?  I’m parched.  Who’s up for some Lipton Platinum Ice Tea?

Shock absorbers.  It’s one of those pieces of technology we each depend on every time we drive our cars but their praise is never sung.  And as long they are functioning properly the ride is smooth they don’t need a fleeting thought.  Usually the only time they are ever mentioned is in a sentence spoken with extreme irritation or disappointment (i.g. “The mechanic had to replace my shocks”).  

The wheels on a car are not mounted in a fixed position.  (That would be a VERY bumpy ride.)  Between the wheel and the car is a heavy duty spring.  It allows the wheel to make two corrective movements.  

1) If the car hits a bump in the road, the wheel will be forced up toward the car to lessen the upward movement for the car and its occupants.  

2)If the car hits a pothole, the spring will force the wheel down (faster than gravity) into the void to catch the vehicle and control its “fall”.  

The problem with a spring is that it oscillates.  If a spring were attached to the ceiling with a weight, and someone pulled the weight down and released it, the spring would probably bob up and down (oscillate) for a minute or two.  Various forms of friction (such as wind resistance) slow the weight down and eventually bring it to a standstill.  The friction is damping the spring system to bring it a halt.  This is exactly what shock absorbers do.  Shocks absorbers damp energy from the spring to bring the entire system to a motionless equilibrium.

Usually mounted inside of the spring, shock absorbers look like a telescoping tube.  Inside the tube is a combination of oil and gas separated by some pistons.  The gas will expand and contract, but oil does not.  As the piston moves inside the damper, oil rushes past it and produces friction proportional to the viscosity (thickness) of the oil.  (The higher the viscosity the stronger the friction.)  This friction is the fundamental damping force.

Now what if the viscosity of the oil in the damper could be changed on the fly?  The suspension would no longer be passive and would be considered semi-active.  Magnetorheological dampers contain oil with special particles suspended in the fluid.  When these particles are excited by a magnetic field, they tend to clump together and this clumping greatly increases the experienced viscosity.  

So when is it preferable to have greater viscosity in the dampers?  In racing situations it’s preferred to sacrifice comfort for quicker response from the suspension.  With just the flick of a finger, a sport mode can be activated which turns on electromagnets in the dampers and instantly delivers a stiffer and sportier ride.  And it’s just as easy to switch back for the more comfortable ride.

What car do you pick up to experience magnetorheological dampers?  I recommend the Cadillac XLR.  This technology is on a number of different sports cars, but only the XLR looks like it deserves dampers from Geordi La Forge’s garage.  Kudos Cadillac.

I wish I could say exactly how it feels to drive with magneto dampers, but I will admit I have never had the pleasure.  I then appeal to any of my readers to entrust their XLR to me for one day to enable one of my car reviews.  (I prefer “Radiant Silver” but would be willing to drive “Elektra Blue Tintcoat.”)