Rise of the boutique carmaker

But industry upheaval has generated all kinds of action. Some mavericks are focusing on collaborative engineering and low-cost manufacturing in making their runs. Visionary Vehicles founder Malcolm Bricklin, best known for bringing the Yugo to the US, aims to import a vehicle from China-based Chery next year, for example.

All-electrics, too, have picked up some buzz. Beside Tesla, there is Commuter Car Corp. in Seattle, building the two-passenger Tango. AC Propulsion, the San Dimas, Calif., firm whose founder engineered GM's EV1, has an electric based on the Toyota Scion.

And if hydrogen fuel cells remain a holy grail for most majors, with gas-electric hybrids as a stepping stone, some of the big firms also are dabbling in all-electrics.

A DaimlerChrysler unit, Global Electric Motorcars, is building a small, fleet-type car. Toyota is weighing a plug-in version of its hybrid Prius. (Some impatient owners had been making the change themselves.) Mitsubishi introduced the third generation of its electric "i" car this week, though it's not planned for the US market.

Tesla's Mr. Eberhard acknowledges the complexity of creating an automobile in what amounts to a small high-tech shop, with clusters of engineers poking at wire harnesses and whiteboards covered with scrawl about actuators. High-voltage signs are everywhere.

On one table a battery case lies open. Inside, a blue tube for liquid coolant snakes around the 621 cells on each of 11 stacked sheets. It's one of a few tables that can't be photographed. ("There," jokes an engineer, covering it with paper after its display. "Now it's secret again.")

"There's a lot more to a car than there is to a typical Silicon Valley project," Eberhard says. "And remember that in our case, we're not just building a new product, we're also building a new company and a new kind of company, and that takes a fair amount of effort and energy and money and time."

Money came from a group of investors that included billionaire PayPal founder Elon Musk as well as Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. That has helped Tesla compress time.

"In order to get the Roadster on the market fairly quickly, all the choices we made were not the most cost-effective choices," says Eberhard.

The manufacturing is done in England. Some parts – windshield-wiper motors and the like – are bought from other automakers in a milder form of the sourcing done by companies like Georgia-based performance carmaker Panoz, a leader in "scavenger" engineering.

"We're developing a car for $60 million," says Mr. Harrigan. "GM would probably spend that on marketing [alone] for its new Chevy Cadaver or whatever."

Eberhard says he understands the importance of support and sales infrastructures. (Regional "depots" are planned.) As for a nationwide system that will help drivers get around from day to day, he points to the 250-mile range and a portable recharger pack. "You charge at your house and that's enough," he says. "I mean, how much cellphone-charging infrastructure do you depend on?"

He brushes off concerns about battery technology, citing steady increases in capacity and declining costs. Eberhard seems quietly self-assured, almost missionary. As one Boston headline writer put it last summer: "Who's reviving the electric car?"

But even if Tesla and others can push the innovation curve and generate broader interest, says Ryan Brinkman, senior analyst at the PricewaterhouseCoopers Automotive Institute, that's the full extent of their impact.

"I don't think that a small manufacturer is going to come in and revolutionize this industry," Mr. Brinkman says. "I would place the probability of that as close to zero." Domestic and foreign manufacturers, he says, have too many billions invested in technologies even beyond electric vehicles.

Eberhard is used to hearing firms like his sold short. "Excellent," he says with a laugh, "I love it. That way maybe the big guys won't see me as a threat for a long time."

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