Two of the most stylish ‘ T’s ‘ on the planet have teamed up to present a special, one-off roadster. In honor of Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer’s 150th anniversary, the watchmaker has worked with Tesla on the 2010 TAG Heuer Tesla Roadster.

The new Tesla gets decked out in a special exterior with Foucault Field Grey paint designed to parallel the styling within TAG’s new concept watch, which will be unveiled on March 18 at Baselworld, a global watch exhibition. It also gets a unique interior, “incorporating TAG Heuer’s avant-garde design elements” and a special center console that will house TAG’s new watch. The roadster will also come with a TAG Heuer Meridiist phone and a one-fifth second Heuer Limited Edition Stopwatch.

Continue Reading

And we have yet another interesting concept being shown in Geneva. This one is actually the work of some students at the  L ‘Istituto Europeo di Design of Turin. Tesla commissioned a group of eleven students within the Master of Arts in Transportation Design program to craft a vision for the future. The goal was to create an everyday 2+2 car that epitimozes style, performance and desirability while maintaining an affordable price tag. The students worked under the direction of Luca Borgogno from Pininfarina, Andrea Militello of FIAT and Franz von Holzhausen, Chief Designer of Tesla Motors.

Tesla will present a full-sized model of the car at the Geneva Motor Show. [via WCF]

In a little more somber news than we’re used to in the auto world, three executives from electric carmaker Tesla were killed in a plane crash in Palo Alto, California this morning. The twin-engine Cessna 310 was piloted by one Tesla exec and had two passengers on board. The plane belonged to Doug Bourn, a senior electrical engineer at Tesla, but it’s not known whether he was involved in the incident.

The plane had taken off from Palo Alto Airport and was headed to Hawthorne Municipal Airport in LA. The plane crashed into electrical transmission tower shortly after taking off and exploded on impact, landing in an East Palo Alto neighborhood. Four homes were damaged in the crash, but fortunately no one on the ground was injured. The crash did knock out electricity in Palo Alto.

Continue Reading

At the Detroit Auto Show, Tesla is showing off its Model S sedan. Tesla states that the four-door has seating for 7, including a third row that faces the rear designed for children–like the one you used to sit in with your friend when mom drove you to the movies in your Ford Taurus wagon. Production of the Model S sedan is expected to get rolling in 2012. The car will have a more affordable base price of $49,900 (after federal tax credit).

Continue Reading

Note: if you’re totally disinterested in Tesla’s business plans, there’s a nice gallery of Model S glossies after the jump. Skip dinner and get to dessert. For the rest–

As it works toward production of its Model S, Tesla is poised to go public. The electric carmaker is looking to seize upon the heightening public interest and hunger for green tech by making the firm a publicly traded company. According to a Reuters source familiar with Tesla’s plans, its IPO filing is expected within the very near future, though no specific date was given. Tesla provided no official comment. [via Reuters]

Continue Reading

So far the story of the Tesla Model S electric vehicle has been a give and take of Tesla providing specs and looks and customers ponying up the funding in the form of down payments. Over 1,000 future Tesla owners have made the $5,000 commitment. Pushing it one more step from vaporware to the car in your neighbor’s driveway, Tesla has released some on-road pics of the car in action with Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen behind the wheel. While video would have been a tad more telling, the stills demonstrate that the car has some lively chops in addition to saying all the right things on paper.  [via Motor Authority]

Continue Reading