Elon Musk to show the Tesla Model S on Letterman Wednesday night
by Sam Abuelsamid on Apr 28th 2009 at 11:55AM 
Tesla Model S – Click above for high-res image gallery
The next stop on Elon Musk's road show to drum up pre-orders (and much needed cash) for the Tesla Model S is Manhattan. Musk is bringing the only "drivable" prototype of Tesla's new sport sedan to the Big Apple for a Wednesday night appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. Like rival Jay Leno, Letterman is a car nut but, for safety reasons, no running car has ever made it to the Late Show stage. In a first, Musk intends to drive the electric wonder car out to show it to the world.
Following the Letterman encounter, the Model S will be on display at the Plaza Hotel in New York on Thursday from 10-4 and again on Friday from noon-9. As usual, Tesla sales reps will be on hand to happily accept checks from anyone wanting to plunk down a few thousand dollars to get on the list to hopefully someday own a Model S.
Gallery: Tesla Model S
Gallery: Tesla Model S: LIVE REVEAL
[Source: Tesla Motors]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BlackbirdHighway 12:25PM (4/28/2009)
Rumor is that Letterman already owns a Tesla Roadster.
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Randy C. 3:21PM (4/28/2009)
Go get 'em Elon! Every Tesla all electric car on the road is another point in the GM is stupid column. (Long live the EV1.) Pretty soon it wont big the big 3 US auto makers it will be the big 4. Although recent events may make it the big 2 with only Tesla and Ford surviving.
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Gary 6:10PM (4/28/2009)
I guess that Toyota was also dumb for stopping production of the Electric RAV4 (although I'll give them credit for not crushing them), and Honda was dumb for givingve up on the Original Insight which had better Fuel economy than the Prius...
letstakeawalk 7:10PM (5/09/2009)
Don't forget Ford pulling out of the Think program...
jharlan 6:17PM (4/28/2009)
Teslas may be the most useful EVs on the market, but they are kind of pricey for ordinary people. It's likely to be a low volume production unless they can get the price down to 25 or 30K. The Hollywood crowd probably needs one in their garage to emphasize their symbolic "greenness".
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dwarg 1:53AM (4/29/2009)
A fair point, but the only way to introduce new technology, especially through a new company, is to cater to the high-end, high-margin crowd. Let them offset the development costs and gradually bring the price down for everyone as you can take advantage of economies of scale.
Tesla would love to sell an EV that everyone would want and could afford, but they couldn't do that without selling them at a huge loss that would put them out of business before a handful of cars hit the road.
harlanx6 10:12AM (4/29/2009)
That makes sense to me, Dwarg, and the inevitable competition in the EV market is going to drive prices and margins down. Tesla was first with practical, attractive, cars with great performance, and will be among the major players in the coming EV wars.
The key is that $50K battery pack, and the current battery wars are going to drive the price down for E storage also. That will be instrumental in the revolution away from the ICE.
musicmonkey 2:48PM (6/20/2009)
GM's been round and destroyed all the youtube footage of Elon Musk and Letterman ripping into the GM.
I did find a still living video clip by searching for 'letterman 04.29' on google (it was on a japanese/chinese website where GM's henchmen couldn't shut it down:) viva electric!
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