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Tesla Opens Newport Beach Dealership

San Carlos-based electric automaker Tesla Motors Inc. opened a dealership and service center Wednesday at a former Rolls-Royce building on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach.

The dealership, owned by Tesla, sells an all-electric $109,000 Roadster and a $125,000 Roadster Sport.

The dealership employs about five people.

Tesla has 10 dealerships worldwide, including seven in the U.S.

The company has sold more than 1,000 Teslas since it began selling cars in 2008.

Under Tesla’s hood, there is a computer, which makes for a quiet engine and zero pollutants. In the trunk, there is a battery pack that takes up the width of the car. The battery charges in four hours and lasts for about 200 miles.

There are only 12 moving parts to a Tesla.

“It’s a very simple machine,” said Jeremy Snyder, general manager of the southwestern U.S.

The car gets serviced once a year, which costs about $600, Snyder said.

Tesla’s rivals are other high-performance sports cars, such as Ferrari and Porsche. It also is set to compete with Irvine-based Fisker Automotive Inc., which has an $87,000 plug-in hybrid due in dealerships next year.

“We’re a fully electric car, that’s the big difference,” Snyder said.

Fisker is set to sell its car through dealerships. Shelly Automotive Group, which sells Mercedes-Benz and BMW autos in Irvine and Buena Park, is Fisker’s OC dealer.

Tesla, founded by Chief Executive Elon Musk in 2003, recently filed plans for an initial public offering to raise $100 million.

Tesla also has received $465 million in federal loans to build its next car, an electric sedan due out in 2012. It will cost about $57,000.

Musk, who founded San Jose-based PayPal Inc., is also the founder and chief executive of Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

The car is named after scientist Nikola Tesla, a pioneer in electricity.

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