Tesla S: a model citizen

As I situate myself in the driver's seat of Tesla's Model S show car -- a working model of the future-chic, fast-backed electric sedan upon which the Silicon Valley automaker now depends -- I think of all the electric-car peaceniks who would gladly throttle me to take my place as the first person outside the company to drive the car. It's a pleasant thought.

Yet their envy would be misplaced. This lovely, porpoise-sleek design study, unveiled to worldwide hoopla March 26, is just barely ambulatory -- more like a glorified golf cart than a harbinger of tomorrow tech. The windows are fixed in their frames. The power-steering motor groans. The seating position and outward visibility make a Lamborghini feel spacious. The car's signature design flourish -- a 17-inch, touch-screen control panel with haptic feedback in the center console -- may not even make it to production, concedes Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen. "The car is only about 90% there on the outside and about 40% there on the inside."

Still, the gimpy, far-from-real fiberglass prototype is pivotal for the company. It was, Holzhausen says, a "huge morale boost" for employees last fall, after the company suffered a round of layoffs and closed its Michigan office. More crucially, the Model S took center stage in early April when Tesla officials traveled to Washington to appeal for $450 million in government loans.

Tonight, company Chief Executive Elon Musk and the car will appear on "Late Night With David Letterman" (Letterman owns one of Tesla's Roadsters) as part of a cross-country barnstorming campaign to drum up public support for the car and the loans, with Tesla-hosted parties in Chicago, Miami and Seattle.

"People are interested in the Model S," says Tesla spokesman Rachel Konrad, "but they get much more excited when they see the car in person." The Tesla crew is hoping, she adds, that the parties will generate "a few qualified leads."

Tesla could go on even without the government loans, Von Holzhausen says, "but it would go on a lot slower."

Tesla's first car, the Roadster -- a six-figure sports car built on a Lotus chassis, as exotic as it is impractical -- proved that a proper electric road car can be built, if you start with a great car and throw buckets of money and batteries at it. And still, it wasn't easy. As of early April, only about 300 Roadsters had been delivered, with hundreds of deposit-paying customers still awaiting their cars. Musk has said he misjudged how difficult and expensive starting a car company would be.