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Tesla's CEO Says 500-Mile Range Car Is Possible

Elon Musk has revealed last week that the upcoming BMW 3 Series-rivaling sedan will be called the Tesla Model III. Expected to be about 20 percent smaller than the Model S and to hold a $35,000 sticker price, the Palo Alto-based carmaker's numero uno dropped a huge piece of info in a recent interview about the possibility of a 500-mile range electric vehicle.
Tesla Model S drifting 1 photo
Photo: original photo by autoevolution
Speaking to the Brits from AutoExpress, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk declared that "we could do it quite soon, but it would increase the price. Over time you could expect to have that kind of range." That may seem like boasting at first glance, but Musk told later in the interview that "we’re going to keep improving battery technology and even with Model 3 we’ll expect a range of over 200 miles..."

When asked about how does Tesla achieve a driving range other electric vehicles cannot achieve, Musk has replied that not only the Model S has twice the battery density of the Nissan Leaf, but trumps its competitors at other vital factors including drag coefficient, weight, drivetrain efficiency and rolling resistance. However, the interview gets pretty sci-fi at final, when AutoExpress asks if his SpaceX program will go to the moon or Mars. "The long-term goal of SpaceX is to develop technologies necessary to establish a self-sustaining base on Mars, essentially to make life multi-planetary. I’m optimistic about it."

Really, Elon? Colonies on Mars? It's not 2071 and we're not living in the Cowboy Bebop universe, where the coolest bounty hunter of all comes from a colony on Mars. You have better things to do until you'll buy a house on that planet, things such as launching the Model X crossover and the previously mentioned Model III, for example. Oh, and the 500-mile range electric car too.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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