Prime Time 7/8, Language in Use, Arbeitsheft

Language in use: Tesla’s next move You are going to read a text about a company that produces electric cars. Some words are missing from the text. Use the words in brackets to complete each gap (1–14) in the text. Write your answers in the spaces provided at the end of the text. The first one (0) has been done for you. It’s a Thursday afternoon at the Tesla Factory in Fremont, California, and the robots are … (0 hum ) . Humans in T-shirts and San Francisco Giants caps trade jokes as they help a massive … (Q1 robot ) arm guide a touchscreen dashboard … (Q2 assemble ) past the B-pillar of a partially built Model S. … (Q3 Far ) down the assembly line, finished cars rest in sleek rows according to their export destinations: Frankfurt, Oslo, Hong Kong. If Tesla’s goal were simply to become a world- beating luxury automaker, crafting pricey toys for the … (Q4 environment ) conscious elite, it would already have succeeded. But the aim of Elon Musk, one of the company’s founders and current CEO, all along has been to build an electric car for the masses. … (Q5 Specific ) , the company’s plan is a $35,000 “third-generation” electric sedan with … (Q6 compete ) performance and a 200-mile- plus range, all by the year 2017. If Tesla pulls it off, it will secure its place among the world’s great car companies while … (Q7 help ) to push electric cars into the mainstream. If it doesn’t, established players like Nissan and BMW will figure out the future of the car, electric or otherwise. The … (Q8 endure ) problem with electric cars is that batteries cost far more than internal combustion engines relative to the power they provide. Before Tesla, the … (Q9 prevail ) approach was to keep electric cars as … (Q10 afford ) as possible by skimping on … (Q11 perform ) and range. Musk turned that … (Q12 calculate ) on its head by casting price concerns aside and building the best cars he could – the Model S costs $80,000, and it outperforms the best gas-guzzlers in its class. It was a stroke of strategic … (Q13 brilliant ) , but it didn’t solve the underlying problem. Electric batteries are still nowhere near as cost-effective as gasoline engines (unless you count the societal costs of air … (Q14 pollute ) – but that’s another debate). Tesla is planning to solve this problem by building a huge battery factory. It will be the largest factory of its kind, capable of producing more lithium-ion batteries each year than were produced in the whole world in 2013. This will bring down the cost of its battery packs by more than 30 per cent. (Will Oremus, slate.com , 14 May 2014; adapted and abridged) 0 humming Q1 Q8 Q2 Q9 Q3 Q10 Q4 Q11 Q5 Q12 Q6 Q13 Q7 Q14 5 ✔ 97 19 Ideals and reality Nur zu Prüfzw cken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv