By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Electric-car maker Tesla Motors may be based in Silicon Valley, but slipping behind the wheel of its high-performance Roadster feels nothing like trying out a new laptop or PDA.

In a field test outside Tesla's new showroom in Manhattan's Chelsea arts district on West 25th Street, the car handled the mean streets by bouncing nimbly over potholes and providing G-force acceleration from its electric motor -- turning heads all the while.

With a sticker price of more than $100,000, the Roadster isn't aimed at the typical car customer, but the Roadster does feature rarefied versions of some common selling points of the new crop of mainstream electric cars.

Due in the next year or two are the gasoline and electric-powered Chevrolet Volt from a reborn General Motors , the all-electric Nissan Leaf, and the 2010 Honda Insight gas-electric car.

With mass-market automobile makers entering or re-entering the fray, the electric car may finally drive off the drawing boards and onto millions of driveways across America, if the new technology connects with buyers.

Judging by the driving experience offered by the Tesla, electric cars will be more silent than even a Toyota Prius hybrid, with very fast acceleration via powerful electric motors mounted next to the wheels for better traction.

Other than changing brake pads and tires, the electric cars carry few parts that can wear out, compared with the numerous mechanical components of a conventional car. Over time, however, batteries will need to be replaced. And watch out for air conditioning. While electric cars are A/C-equipped, air conditioning saps batteries.

When you coast or brake, you feel the car slowing down slightly as the wheels crank generators to refuel batteries. Electric-car batteries actually extend their charge from stop-and-go driving -- a big plus for urban motorists.

Of course, all electric cars boast zero emissions, with no tailpipe even necessary.

The electricity that fuels them isn't all green, however, with about half of the U.S. power supply still coming from coal.

Joe Powers, regional sales manager at Tesla's Manhattan sales office, said most people stopping in are curious about Tesla's roots, since it's still relatively unknown to most consumers.

He said he points out that the car traces its technology heritage to Nikola Tesla, the famed European inventor who cleared the way for alternating current to be used to this day in the U.S. electric-power grid, despite the objections of Thomas Edison, who pushed for direct current. Tesla also developed electric motor technology that his namesake company now uses.

Given the sales headwinds facing the global car market, Powers said prospective buyers are glad to hear that Tesla has some powerful allies, starting with Uncle Sam. Tesla recently won a $500 million loan from the U.S. government to develop its Model S sedan for the mainstream car market, to be priced under $50,000. And Daimler AG invested in the company as part of a plan to use Tesla technology in an electric Smart car.

Of course, people always want to hear about the environmental advantages of owning a Tesla, Powers reported.

 

"There's the green aspect -- the equivalency is about 135 miles per gallon," Powers said. "There's the national-security perspective in that we've moving off of foreign oil, plus it's a brand-new technology, so it's fun in that respect."

One quibble I had with the car's emissions stems from the fact that about half of U.S. electricity -- which provides the power to charge electric cars -- still comes from coal, one of the biggest causes of air pollution on the planet.

Powers argued that the Tesla nonetheless produces a smaller carbon footprint than hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius because electricity -- even the coal-fired variety -- is still more efficient than the gasoline with its lengthy production, refining, distributing and burning processes.

"Even if you were running your power on all coal ... it's still more efficient in terms of emissions per mile than a Prius," Powers said. "As we move away from coal [toward wind-, nuclear- and natural-gas-generated electricity] that'll continue to get better and better. But we're starting off using the resources we have in the best way we can."

While Tesla's upper-management ranks feature some of the brighter minds in Silicon Valley, the company hasn't skirted all bumps in the road.

A lawsuit arose this year between Martin Eberhard and CEO Elon Musk over rival claims as to who founded the company, after Eberhard, the former chief executive officer, left the firm. The company has had three CEOs in two years.

In October, Tesla laid off 87 employees and put the brakes on the production of its second car.

Tesla has found its footing in recent months, however, with Daimler taking a 10% stake and Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investments then buying 40% of Daimler's portion of the company last month.

While Tesla secured its big loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, it didn't win any significant portion of the $2.4 billion in grants given out this week by the Obama administration to producers of electric-car batteries.

And it'll face plenty of competition from deeper-pocketed competitors.

The Nissan Leaf, for example, will be priced around $25,000, about half the cost of Tesla's Model S sedan, and travel about 100 miles on a charge. The Japan-based car giant hopes to sell about 200,000 Leaf units per year after 2012.

Nissan is also considering a plan to lease batteries to Leaf purchasers so that consumers can avoid the cost of replacements when batteries fail to hold a charge, according to reports.

For now, Tesla offers the only production model for the U.S. market as the electric car -- a frequent topic of cover stories in Popular Science and similar magazines since midcentury, and more recently spotlighted in the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" -- finally gets ready for prime time.