

they managed to sell only 1600 of them
Tesla libel suit against Top Gear fails again
Tesla and the company's lawyers are nothing if not determined. After a judge smacked down the electric vehicle manufacturer's libel suit against the BBC and Top Gear for comments made about the range of the Tesla Roadster, the automaker rallied with a second, amended lawsuit. It didn't take long for the the same judge to nix the new case, too, saying the amendment was "not capable of being defamatory at all, or, if it is, it is not capable of being a sufficiently serious defamatory meaning to constitute a real and substantial tort."
That sound? It's the smack of the judicial backhand.
The judge went on to say drivers know a manufacturer's claim about range is dependent on driving conditions and habits.
The dustup, as you may recall, began when Top Gear put the Tesla Roadster through its paces on the show's test track. While Jeremy Clarkson lauded the car's acceleration, the segment claimed the vehicle ran out of juice after just 55 miles of abuse. That figure is far south of the 200 mile range Tesla claims for the vehicle. CEO Elon Musk called the show "completely phony" not long after the segment aired and brought out the legal guns. The rest, as they say, is history.
An update.
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Guillen also is working feverishly on prepping the Model X crossover for launch.
The Model X, which will borrow much of the Model S underpinnings, is still on schedule for a mid-2014 on-sale date. Tesla CEO Elon Musk cautioned that the launch might be slightly later in the year, noting that he has been "optimistic about projections" in the past.
The Model X development is undergoing the transformation from the functional initial prototype that was unveiled last year to a production-ready prototype. The company will be making final decisions on the interior and exterior dimensions of the car in the first quarter of 2013, Musk said in an interview.
A key part of the Model X will be its dual-motor all-wheel drive system, which Musk predicted would give the crossover "the best road handling of any car in the world."
Following the Model X will be an as-yet unnamed electric sedan about the size of the BMW 3 series. With a target price of $30,000 to $35,000, the smaller sedan will arrive in the next three or four years, Musk said.
"The focus is on cost down," Musk said in an interview. "We've got the range. We've got the capability and ride and handling. Now it's a question of how to optimize it."
Musk expects the fledgling electric car company to turn a quarterly profit in 2013 as sales volumes of the Model S sedan reach an annualized run rate of 20,000 units.
Musk did not say in which quarter he expected the profit to occur, but added that doing so would make Tesla "a real company."
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20130116/OEM06/130119843#ixzz2Kw3SxoWB
Falcon wings on a family car can be both practical and impractical, in that while it can act as as umbrella when you're trying to strap little ones in, it can also give a small child a blueberry if they happen to be standing in the wrong place.
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