Tech Topics - Summer 2008 - (Page 28) Burdell&Friends He isn’t the only one impressed with the two-seat Roadster, built on a chassis developed with Lotus and powered by a 185-kilowatt electric motor that produces 248 horsepower. AutoWeek characterized its test drive of the Tesla as “thrilling,” while Motor Trend called the car’s dynamics “velvety” and noted its “almost snakelike” silence. Road & Track likened the car’s acceleration to a “roller coaster equipped with electromagnetic propulsion” — not too surprising since electric motors make 100 percent of their torque from zero rpm. Lomangino pointed out there’s no law that says green technology has to be boring. “Cars that are fuel efficient and better for the environment haven’t been much fun to drive and haven’t been very interesting to look at — that’s why some people call them ‘punishment cars,’“ he explained. “The Tesla is a reaction against that. It’s a beautiful car and a blast to drive — and it uses no gasoline.” Boring it’s not. The European-styled, carbon-fiber body panel vehicle accelerates from zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds with a top speed of 125 mph, according to the company Web site. On the dashboard, a vehicle display system touch screen presents information such as mileage, tire pressure and cruise range and allows the driver to select different operational settings for maximum performance or efficiency. The hard-shell roof is removable, and although there’s no place to carry the roof onboard, the car comes with a fabric top that snaps into place quickly when necessary. The key technology is each car’s block of 6,831 lithium-ion batteries engineered to last for 100,000 miles. A fully charged Tesla can run for about 220 miles, according to Environmental Protection Agency tests, and recharges in about three and a half hours — less time than it takes his laptop, Lomangino noted — when plugged into a 220-volt receptacle. It will also recharge from a standard 110-volt outlet but takes longer. “Think of the car like your cell phone,” he said. “When you get home, you plug it in to charge it. When you leave in the morning, unplug the car to drive.” In markets like California, where electric rates are lower at night, estimates place the cost of driving at between 1 and 2 cents per mile. He admitted the Tesla Roadster isn’t intended for long-distance travel — internal combustion engines still have their place, at least for now — but pointed out that the overwhelming number of day-to-day automobile trips fit well within the Tesla’s range. Reservations and deposits have already been placed for the first 1,000 vehicles due off the assembly line this year and next, and the company expects to ramp up production to 1,800 vehicles 28 annually by 2010. But with a $109,000 price tag, don’t expect to see a lot of Tesla Roadsters weaving through North Avenue traffic anytime soon. However, the company plans to produce an electric sedan in the next few years at about half the Roadster's retail cost, and if all goes well, may develop compact electrics for a mass market. “We think that electric is the best alternative going forward for the future,” Lomangino said. “We already have the infrastructure to distribute electricity, and you can make it from a variety of sources — solar, wind, hydroelectric — it doesn’t have to come from coal-fired plants. But even burning coal, electric cars are cleaner per mile than gaspowered cars.” The infrastructure issue inhibits hydrogen fuel cell cars as a near-term alternative, and hybrids are pretty much “mileage extenders,” he continued. “You are still dependent on gasoline, so what benefit does that really provide over the long term?” Raised in the Mobile, Ala., suburb of Chickasaw, Lomangino’s mother was a professor of German and his father a chemical engineer. When the time came to think about college, his in-state options for engineering schools included the University of Alabama and Auburn. But “it seemed like Georgia Tech’s was the best,” he said, “and I thought it was time to get away from the place where I had grown up too.” He took with him a love for cars that had started in high school with the acquisition of a 1986 Plymouth Colt turbo. It proved durable enough to last through undergraduate and graduate school at Tech and provided a mechanical engineering education of its own. “The turbo would overheat, and eventually it would weld the retaining TECHTOPICS Think of the car like your cell phone. When you get home, you plug it in to charge it. When you leave in the morning, unplug the car to drive. bolts to the manifold,” Lomangino laughed. “Then the turbo itself would fail, which is typically a bearing problem between the spindle and the housing. You had to drill out the turbo, remove it and put in something else. Just replacing the turbo was expensive, but putting in a new one was horrible.” As if that wasn’t enough, the Colt demonstrated a propensity for constant velocity joint failure. “I had an internship in Michigan, which has pretty rough roads,” he said. “Driving back and forth between Atlanta and Michigan was really rough on the joints. I went through a couple of sets of CV joints.” The Michigan internship with Ford Motor Co. became a real job after leaving Tech. There Lomangino spent nine years in a number of pursuits, primarily in an area called vehicle packaging. “It’s all about the layout of the car, things like ergonomics and the use of inside space,” he explained. “It also includes the mechanical layout. You see how things fit together to make sure everything has enough space to move around. Moving parts like tires, wheels and the engine need enough space to move without hitting other components.” Sensing it was time to try something different for a while, Lomangino left Ford and Detroit for a job with Silicon Valley- based Alien Technology, a producer of radio-frequency indentification tags. The pace was as new to him as the product. Instead of fabricating one product every few minutes as Ford did, Alien was popping out 10 RFID tags a second. “For the first couple of months I thought, ‘What have I done?’“ he laughed. “I didn’t know anything about microelectronics. But regardless of the field, good engineering is good engineering. You apply the same principles, and everything turns out well.” In the meantime, Lomangino had heard about Tesla Motors and even submitted his resume through its Web site, but received no response. Then one day at a local auto show for electric vehicles — held in a Palo Alto high school parking lot — he pressed his case with the Tesla Motors representatives there and landed a job interview. He started in December 2006 to help complete production of the Roadster and also begin work on an electric sedan, known internally as White Star. The excitement of something new and potentially revolutionary outweighed any apprehension about leaving a secure job, he said, despite the fact that the history of automobiles is filled with great ideas that didn’t make it. “An automobile startup is not for the faint of heart,” he acknowledged. “But we have some unique elements for success. We have great backing and we have a quantifiable demand for the car. And I think the timing is great in terms of where gas prices are going and the geopolitical considerations surrounding gas and oil supplies. “Tesla’s goal is to become the next great American automotive company,” he said. “We believe the way to do that is through electric cars.” | SUMMER 2008
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.