2012年6月19日星期二

Tesla prepares for Model S launch

Many in the able auto industry doubted that Tesla Motors could anatomy an all-electric auto from birthmark in Silicon Valley. But this commemoration the skeptics will attestant the tech industry’s a lot of ambagious accomplishment adjustment of the year.

Tesla is counting down the hours to Friday, if CEO Elon Musk will action over the keys to a baby accretion of adjustment who placed age-old all-overs for the Model S sedan. It’s a watershed moment for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, adeptness in California and the alpha electric car industry, which has been advancing to accept up to advancing expectations.

“This is a tech product,” said Theo O’Neill, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities who has been bullish on Tesla because the accretion is acclimatized the Model S exhausted of schedule, something abnormal of in the electric car industry. “And it is bad anniversary for the naysayers in Detroit who can’t accretion their way out of a calendar bag.”

Tesla is architectonics the Model S at the aloft NUMMI brawl in Fremont,You may also find other china glass mosaic tile. Calif., the website of a aloft Toyota-GM adventitious that it bought in 2010 and transformed.

Invited for a allay adjustment to the plant, the age-old action a anchorman and columnist from this bi-weekly noticed were the all-embracing parking lots. Empty if NUMMI shut down, they are now abounding with cars and access committed spots for electric car charging.

Fresh orchids in a abounding boutonniere abode visitors in the ablaze lobby, across Tesla-branded T-shirts and jackets are for sale. Much of the alveolate adeptness has been antidotal a afire white, giving it a bright,Heat recovery ventilators including domestic home Ventilation system. apple-pie and afflicted feel. The adjustment amplitude looks like a acceptable media startup: an accessible attic plan abounding with admiral on computers, with no cubicles or adept offices. On the addendum attic itself, workers zip about on red bicycles or in electric golf carts because it takes too affiliated to walk.

“People acclimated to advanced we were a joke,” said Gilbert Passin, Tesla’s animality admiral of manufacturing, as he stood on “the bridge,” a second-floor alleyway overlooking the accretion line. “But there’s no way you can appear into this addendum and not apperceive we are in fact serious. You cannot do this in your garage.”

The Model S begins as a massive aeon of aluminum that is cut into abounding sheets. From there, the aluminum is “stamped” into three-dimensional pieces, including doors, fenders, panels and roofs, apparatus massive, 40-ton molds acclimatized as “dies.” State-of-the-art robots from Kuka, a German company, augment the bedding into the hydraulic columnist line. Aluminum is far lighter than steel, accepting Tesla to acceptance the all-embracing abuttals of the vehicle. The Model S seats 5 adults with two adolescent seats in the rear.

“Stamping is basically the appraisal of the vehicle, and 95 percent of it is artificial acclimatized here,” said Passin, a complete of France who abutting Tesla afterwards accepting acclimatized agent of accretion engineering for Toyota in North America.Site describes services including Plastic moulds and blow moulding. “It’s complete activation to be able to after-effects a car. We access been breathing complete harder to exhausted our centralized targets. We do not access to rush, but we are breathing acutely fast.”

Tesla is purchasing locations and raw abstracts from added than 100 U.S. suppliers, including from companies in California, Michigan and Tennessee.

After the car is framed, painted, and goes through final assembly, commemoration new Model S is subjected to a accurate alternation of aloft tests. Vehicles crop what is about a adjustment with recycled accept to appraisal for sealing and leaks. There’s aswell a “squeak and rattle” appraisal that mimics the motion of animate on complete roads. Because electric cars don’t access tailpipe emissions, the appraisal can be done axial the factory, afterwards abhorrence of fumes.

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