Tesla Finishes Up Drivetrain 1.5, Now Ready to Crank Up Production of the Roadster

Tesla has put the finishing touches on version 1.5 of the drive train for their Roadster. Gone is the original 2-speed gearbox, now the Roadster sports a BorgWarner 1-speed transmission. Although half of the gears are now missing, torque output has gone up from 211 to 280 foot-pounds! Note that since this vehicle is electric, all 280 ft-lbs are available from 0 (zero) RPM’s. What’s more is that the total range on an electric charge has increased 10% to 244 miles.

Lets review these improvements: there are half as many gears which means there is less to break, they’ve increased torque by 37% and it now goes 10% farther on a charge… that’s a bang-up job! Tesla hasn’t updated the performance stats for the Roadster yet, but with all that extra torque, you can bet it’ll be faster than the original 3.9 second 0-60 time.

Tesla has been producing only 4 cars per week, but will now be outputting 10 per week, ramping up to 40 per week by next march. All Tesla Roadsters that have been sold to date can have their gear boxes upgraded for free.

Source: Tesla Motors via AutoBlog Green