Tesla Moves Deadline to Mid-March
With the approval of an air-bag waiver, without which the company claims they would have had to scrap their whole electric-sedan program, Tesla announces it’s first set of Roadsters will roll off the production line in a few months.
Beginning in 2006, Federal regulation changed, preferring an air-bag system that could regulate deployment according to a passenger’s body size. Tesla has already lost so much money (a whopping $43 MILLION over 4 years) that company heads said they were ready to scrap the whole program rather than work the newer technology in. Personally, I think they’re full of it. They didn’t want anything else to push back their product release, especially with other luxury sport cars waxing environmental.
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Tesla has three years to work the new standards for advanced air-bag deployment technology into their design. Has the waiver bought them enough time to work it out? Possibly. Hopefully. As much guff as I give the company, they’ve created a link between environmentalism and the rich and famous that may wind up having untold benefits. We’ll see … apparently, by mid-March.
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