An Electric Car With Juice, Silicon Valley Firm Bets Its Chips on the Speedy Tesla Roadster

WP

The two-seat Tesla Roadster, with a top speed of 135 mph, can travel more than 200 miles before it needs to be recharged. (Tesla Motors)

Detroit is floundering, gas prices are rising -- now Silicon Valley is stepping in with an impractical-but-cool solution: A sexy, pricey and fast electric car that uses the same lithium ion batteries found in your cellphone or laptop.

The Tesla Roadster goes from zero to 60 in four noiseless seconds, has a top speed of 135 mph and can roam for more than 200 miles before needing a recharge.

This is not your father's electric car. The $100,000 vehicle, with its sports car looks, is more Ferrari than Prius -- and more about testosterone than granola.

Silicon Valley start-up Tesla Motors Inc. raised $60 million in financing from San Francisco Bay area tech giants to get this car on the road. Those famous Toyota Prius owners Larry Page and Sergey Brin -- yes, the Google guys -- have invested, as have executives from eBay Inc. and PayPal.

The company is headed by entrepreneur Martin Eberhard, the man once behind a gadget called the RocketeBook....Fittingly for a car designed in Silicon Valley, the Roadster comes with built-in satellite navigation technology and an iPod dock that allows drivers to control the music player via the car's standard Blaupunkt stereo....And, of course, there's a blog. At the Tesla Web site, Eberhard started making his case for the car and his company this week....While the flashy two-seater may be too expensive for most buyers to consider, the community of electric car aficionados has received Tesla warmly....