I have been offered a great opportunity, drive a Tesla Roadster without restrictions for 5 days. The opportunity to drive a $110,000 car for a week doesn’t come along very often for many people, so I thought I would share my thoughts on driving the king of all EVs.
Ever since I saw pictures of the Roadster I wanted to ride in it. The idea of driving it was so far out there I wanted just a single ride. About a year ago I was invited to attend the opening gala at the Tesla showroom in Boulder, Colorado. Aside from seeing a bunch of Roadsters and meeting Elon Musk, I got a free ride from a Tesla rep. The ride was exhilarating and I was blown away at the power and speed from the little coupe. I told everyone about it and vowed that some day I would drive one and even further in the future I would “own a car with a T on the hood”.
First impressions:
All I was told was the Roadster was an “early model”; I assume is it a 2008 and from the VIN I think it is production number 180. I picked up the Roadster Wednesday at an airport hanger to begin my 5 days of bliss. As I turned a corner I found the little 2 door sitting just inside a garage door charging away, just waiting to be driven, and fast at that. As is the case with the Lotus Elise base the floor of the vehicle is about 2 inches off the ground; as I told my friend, you don’t drive the car you wear it. The first thing I noticed in the car was a little LCD indicating a range of 180 miles. Coming from a conversion background 180 miles is unbelievable and made me want to use all of it in one day.
After some discussion with the owner I was handed the keys and before I knew it I was pulling out of the hanger. I was a little worried that even the lightest touch of the pedal would launch me off like a rocket. Thankfully that isn’t the case with the Tesla, a light foot results in a light and smooth acceleration, accompanied with what can only be described as an awesome pseudo jet turbine wind-up sound from the AC electric motor. The first little jaunt on to the road was modest, however once I got on to a good straight stretch it was pedal to the floor time. Let me tell you that the acceleration of the Tesla is un-imaginable. Tesla Motors claims a 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds and that little car does just that! With an electric motor there is no spin up time or turbo lag, all the power of the batteries is instantly dumped into the motor and your are off like a rocket. After the 300 yard jump test it was out to the main road to see how it felt in the real world.
Real World Impressions:
After a quick run around the area outside Boulder I was really impressed. I have seen and driven dozens of EVs in the past and because of that I had some biased expectations of depleting range and large impact from hills. I really put the little Roadster through its paces with about 20 miles of some hills, straight roads, curves and highway speeds. Even after punching it a number of times the response was instant and impressive. The hills I hit were small but steep, surprisingly the Roadster responded with almost equal heart-in-your-throat performance. When I wasn’t hitting it hard the ride was smooth and easy. There were a number of times where I was behind vehicles and the action of keeping distance was effortless rather than jerky. As one can imagine highways are a breeze to drive on and a the place where I really saw the power of the car. Going uphill in traffic and see a spot to jump to the other lane and fly ahead? No problem, instant torque and 600 amps of current makes it look like everyone else is standing still.
After about 35-40 miles of driving and meeting some friends to show off the “new wheels” I headed down the 25 miles to my girlfriend’s place in Denver. As before, the highway drive was smooth and relaxing, actually there were a number of times I forgot I was driving a Tesla and found myself just enjoying the drive. The rest of the day consisted of drives around Denver and some highway. There were also a number of rides with friends showing off the power of the vehicle (That means pedal to the floor). Eventually I headed back up the same 25 miles to the Boulder area to retire the vehicle for the night. In all I did about 85-90 miles of driving under a mix of light and hard loads. When I plugged the vehicle in using the portable 120v charge cord it read about 65 miles left in the batteries, which is really impressive.
The one downside of the Tesla, or really any electric vehicle with a large battery pack, is how long it takes to charge. After 9 hours of charging overnight I walked back into the garage expecting to see something like 150 mile range. To my surprise there the Tesla sat with only 109 expected miles of range. I did some math and using the supplied 120v charge cable at 12A (Standard wall outlet is 15A *0.8 = ~12) ~1.4 kilowatts is supplied to the batteries. This means that if the entire 53 KWhr battery was discharged it would take about 36 hours to charge to full. After this realization the added 44 miles of range (About 13 KWhrs, or 9 hrs of charging) didn’t seem so bad. The bottom line is while the 120 charger is great to have as backup you really need the 240v 70A charge station the Tesla comes with, using that it only takes about 3.5 hours to take the car from totally dead to 180 miles of new range. (or 7 hrs off a 240v 30A station). (Update: Thanks to Dave for the math correction)
Overall, at the end of day 2, the experience of driving the Tesla is unbelievable. The next few days are going to be spent on the road and really seeing the ins and outs of the king of EVs.
Drew