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Tesla Electric Sports Car Comes One Step Closer

Tesla Motors have announced that they have taken receipt of their second-generation prototype for the Tesla Roadster, the high-performance, zero-emissions electric car. This brings the Tesla Roadster one step closer to commercial production.

Tesla Motors is one of several Silicon Valley companies to have produced working prototypes of electric sports cars, all of which have impressive performance stats. However, no other company has gone as far as Tesla Motors towards setting up a legitimate vehicle manufacturing business to challenge General Motors, Ford, Nissan, Toyota and the like.

Tesla began showing off its first Engineering Prototype (EP) a good while ago now, but after putting it through a long list of safety and performance testing, and having made the modifications deemed necessary, Tesla have now produced and taken delivery of their first Validation Prototype (VP) for final testing. This represents an important point in the Tesla Motors journey, and an important point for electric cars in general, as it now means that the main technical issues are out of the way and the car can be refined into a production road car.

Speaking on the company's blog, Malcolm Powell (Vice President, Vehicle Integration) said, "We've just achieved a significant milestone on our road to Tesla Roadster production. Our first Validation Prototype was assembled at the Hethel facility in the U.K. and was recently airlifted to our San Carlos, California, workshop to commence system testing.

"The Validation Prototypes (VPs) are the second generation of prototypes, succeeding the first generation Engineering Prototypes (EPs). Although many of the EPs are still undergoing testing, VPs incorporate many changes from EP learning. They are much closer in design to the final production vehicles and so enable us to do more refined testing and validation."

You can read the full blog entry on the Tesla Motors website.