Tesla Motors announced last week it would be opening a showroom and service facility for their electric supercar, in the South Lake Union area, at 425 Westlake Ave. The showroom is expected to open by September, and have prototypes of the new sedan and a Tesla Roadster for prospective buyers. Last fall, Tesla Motors came to Seattle on a 4 day roadshow where the cars were mobbed and the enthusiasm was high at a closed course in a Bellevue parking lot.
The Tesla Roadster is the slot car you always wanted to drive. The roadster reaches 60 mph in 4.1 seconds, meaning you have performance to match the car's sexy carbon-fiber shape. Top speed is 125 mph, if you have the will to go that fast in an open- top roadster. On the skid pad, the roadster will hang on like that slot car you had as a kid, generating .90g, that’s centrifugal force pulling you sideways at 90% of gravity.
The Lotus Elise is similar to the Tesla Roadster, both are built by Lotus in England; the Tesla Roadster "glider" (less engine) is then shipped to Tesla Motors in San Carlos, CA, for finishing. The result is a lightweight, responsive, two-seater with supercar performance from an electric motor.
All other cars have a multspeed transmission to get the power to the road; the Tesla as a single speed transmission. As Aaron Robinson writes in Car and Driver, "… the car whirs to 122mph in one long, seamless windup from zero…. There is no slack from gear lash, no hang time while a transmission computer thinks about which gear to select."
It costs between $4 and $7 to recharge the Roadster, depending on where you plug it in, and will recharge overnight with the 240-volt portable recharging cord. The electric motor is a 375-volt AC air-cooled motor, producing 248 hp, 276 foot-pounds of torque, and is redlined at 13,000 rpm. Using the EPA city/highway driving cycle, the Roadster will travel about 220 miles on a fully charged battery. Needless to say, there are zero emissions from this source.
The battery that powers the motor is a Li-ion 18650, about the size of a AA battery. 6800 of these batteries are used in the battery pack that weighs 992 lbs. The Li-ion battery is very common in laptops, mobile phones, and many consumer electronics products, so is very reliable. The expected battery life is 100,000 miles.
What do the people who've driven this roadster say about it? Motor Trend said the car would be, "profoundly humbling to just about any rumbling Ferrari or Porsche that makes the mistake of pulling up next to a silent, 105-mpg Tesla Roadster at a stoplight."
In Slate magazine, Paul Boutin wrote, "A week ago, I went for a spin in the fastest, most fun car I've ever ridden in—and that includes the Aston Martin I tried to buy once."
At a time when the America car as we know it is in trouble and thousands of dealerships are closing, Tesla Motors is opening dealerships for its $109,000 electric sports car. That’s a very high priced market, and fewer than 500 cars have been sold, but this is still just the beginning. Perhaps you won't have to drive a Prius after all.
Click
No comments:
Post a Comment