Hasta La Gadget!

Brand new, fresh off the line Tesla Roadsters look almost like toys, especially to their brand new owners. But these Teslas really are toys — Hot Wheels to be exact. So if you can’t shoot for the real thing (and at over $100,000 who can blame you), you can have a scaled down version for just a few bucks.

While the real Tesla Motors is in trouble again, having raised the price of its Roadster by at least $6,700 and screwed some 400 buyers out of their deposits, these tiny replicas should sell just fine. And speaking of replicas, Autoblog Green has it on good authority that the toys are quite convincing, seeing as the Hot Wheels maker “Mattel reportedly had access to electronic files of the Roadster from Tesla.” Tesla Hot Wheels are available in Metallic Aqua, Metallic Watermelon, and Metalflake Silver. The fourth, Metallic Grey model is said to come out on Valentines Day.

In a troubling sign, Tesla Motors has effectively raised the price of its all-electric Roadster sports car by at least $6,700, Autopia reports, a move that the company says is necessary for survival.

The increased pricing affects not only new customers, but specifically the 400 who have already placed a deposit on 2008 Roadsters that haven’t been delivered. Those customers must now pay thousands extra for features they thought were included in the original deal, according to the report, even though some had already placed deposits of up to $50,000. The biggest change is that the “high-power connector,” which recharges the car’s lithium-ion battery in as little as three hours, is no longer included. Now Tesla wants an extra $3,000 for it. Without the high-power connector, it takes up to 37 hours to charge the car. Other options, such as Bluetooth, navigation, and metallic paint all have higher prices as well.

“That’s ill-advised,” said Eric Noble, president of the auto-industry consulting firm The Car Lab, in the article. “Your first buyers are your emissaries. Treat them wrong and all the advertising in the world won’t cure it. It’s just bad marketing.” Aaron Bragman, an IHS Global Insight analyst, said in the report that hitting customers up for more money after they’ve put down deposits is highly unusual. “They’re probably a lot closer to the edge than they want you to think.”

Electric cars highlighted the 2009 North American International Auto Show in Detroit with a half-dozen introductions, including the Cadillac Converj concept car, an upscale version of the Chevrolet Volt. For automakers, electric cars are a roll of the dice: They cost a lot more, even more than the $2,000-$3,000 a hybrid commands over a non-hybrid. A hybrid mostly runs on gasoline or diesel; the electrics being shown have much larger battery packs so they can go 30 to 40 miles. Where a laptop battery ($100-$200) has six to nine cells, an electric car might have the equivalent of 5,000. Some of the introductions at NAIAS: