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Tesla Motors' all-electric Roadster sports car will start rolling out to around 600 American buyers by October or November.
Chief executive and co-founder Martin Eberhard told a meeting of the Motor Press Guild: "We will ship in that time frame." He noted the company had originally expected to begin deliveries this month.
The shapely two-seaters are being assembled by Lotus Engineering in England, with motors manufactured by Tesla in Taiwan and battery packs made in Thailand with 6831 individual lithium ion cells from Japan.
A late change in the transmission vendor "was a big thing for us to do in the programme, painful and one of the things that has driven us into a little later this year release of the car", Eberhard said.
The Silicon Valley-based Tesla has pre-sold 570 cars to the likes of California Governor Schwarzenegger, his wife, Maria Shriver, and actor George Clooney. The company will make 1000 cars for the 2008 model year.
The Roadster, which has a base price of US$98,000 ($141,595) can go from zero to 100km/h in four seconds and has a range of more than 320km from a single charge on a household plug.
Eberhard and co-founder Marc Tarpenning launched Tesla in 2003 with the idea of making a high-performance electric vehicle and then branching out to more affordable cars later on.
Since then, Tesla has secured US$105 million in funding, with PayPal founder and space industrialist Elon Musk leading the way and venture capital firms joining in recent funding rounds. With delivery of the car approaching, Eberhard said: "We have had a lot more interest in investing in this company recently."
If production was limited to the Roadster, Tesla would be making a profit in 2008.
"But Tesla's intention has always been to grow to be a full-fledged car company as quickly as we can do that," he said.
"We are taking everything we earn from the Roadster and we have raised from outside sources to build the next model car."
The next car will be the White Star, a five-passenger sedan with a price point of US$50,000 to US$65,000, to be made in New Mexico.
"We are in the early stages of it," said Eberhard, noting that he "would not place any bets" on a target of a 2010 model year.
That same year, General Motors is supposed to launch the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric vehicle with a small combustion "range-extender" engine.
GM is shooting for a popular price, over US$20,000, with a battery that costs around US$3000.
Tesla wants to keep moving down the chain to a more affordable car and could end up competing with the Volt.
But Eberhard said he was sceptical that GM's second attempt for an electric car would come to fruition.
"If I sell 10,000 White Stars, it will be a screaming success for me," he said. "But 10,000 Chevys sold would be a disaster."
Tesla plans to open two stores, in Los Angeles and in Menlo Park in northern California, and will expand later to the American east coast and midwest.
- Reuters
