How cool would it be to tell your grandchildren that you'd driven the prototype of Henry Fords Model-T? Well, I have a story for my grandchildren... That's me...
...driving the prototype of the Tesla Roadster; the first mass produced(ish) Battery-Electric Sports car... how cool is that?
As the owner to be of a Tesla, I and others where invited to a test drive in anticipation of the delivery of our cars next year.
Today, we met in Greenwich CT on a hot and overcast day at the Hyatt Regency hotel.
We met up at 11:00 to await the return of another owner out on a 'blast'. As each run takes 20-30mins so we have to wait.
Anticipation
While we wait, you have to remember that it's not the first Electric Car of course; battery powered cars where around long before the petrol powered cars today but, as a come-back car for electric, this is how it should be.
There are other battery electric cars around today in mass production (ish); the impish REVA 'G-Wiz' has become a popular site on the streets of London; No one in London cares that the top speed is only 45mph because all 900 of them are too busy running around at an average of just 10mph along with the rest of the cars there. Londoners are more pleased with the G-Wiz because it is very cheap to run and dodges the infamous (heading towards) $40/day city congestion charge that New York managed to avoid.
The Tesla came about after founder Martin Eberhard wanted to own an electric car. He asked AC Propulsion to build him a TZero, a running electric car prototype; when they refused he said ok, I'll build my own then. He formed Tesla Motors in 2003 with Marc Tarpenning and picked up investment from ex. PayPal founder Elon Musk.
As most of Tesla Motors staff are high tech geeks rather than mechanics, their first move was to engage an engineering company to help with the oily bits; they chose Lotus Engineering in the UK.
I've been a fan of Lotus engineering since I first saw James Bond drive out of the sea in a white Lotus Esprit... cool. The next time I encountered an Esprit was when I took the keys of my uncles S1 in 1985. At only eighteen years old this was amazing and though I don't think that I ever thanked him enough (cheers Dave!) I hope to repay the favour some day.
The 1980's Lotus was the crazy product of a bunch of mechanics in a shed in Hethel, somewhere in Norfolk in the East Anglia county of England, a place that is famous for, er, well, coastal erosion I think. What was so crazy was that they made the thing out of spare parts; it was a parts bin special comprised of GM engine parts, some switches out of old Fords, all bolted to a home grown chassis and clothed in fibreglass. It was still brilliant though but when I asked my uncle "Why don't you fix the broken radio aerial?" he replied "To get at the aerial you have to take half of the side of the car off... so, I have some cassette tapes instead." I realised that Lotus, whilst good might be a bit immature.
So, back to Tesla; they're a new, perhaps an immature manufacturer comprised of computer programmers rather than mechanics who went to Lotus for help in designing the car I've put a sizable deposit on... gulp.
So why am I so excited about the Tesla, why is it as ground-breaking as the Model T? Well, it's the first electric car to blend all of the good things about motoring without the bad things that drag down current electric vehicles, so we have no emissions, virtually no moving parts and almost zero noise but mostly, it's the performance. Unlike the city commuter 'G-Wiz' it's top speed isn't 45mph, it's 125mph and its acceleration isn't "just sufficient", it's "more than sufficient", "sufficient" being an amount that approximates just how quickly you'd like to accelerate at any given time.
And there we are
So there I am looking at the electrified product of an engineering firm that brought us the home-brew super-car. I need not have worried, it seems that in the last 20 years Lotus have been finessing their game and, as a techy myself I shouldn't have doubted the technology.
The car we have today is in Radiant Red with the Alcantara interior; it's a prototype; there are bits of wire hanging down from the dash and we're locked into 2nd gear of the two speed gearbox on the first generation gearbox, but I don't care, I'm looking at a car that you might have drawn as a child, a cross between the Ferrari 308 that Magnum drove and the Millennium falcon (without the broken bits). Loosely related to the design of the Elise it's Elise sized but not Elise appointed; when you get in the quality of the interior is a cut above the super-stripped-out Elise.
There are so many reviews on the Internet covering the driving experience that I'm not going to repeat it but for me, the things that stood out where the way in which it flows away from the line, no surge, no noise, no jolt from the clutch just the sublime transition from standing to moving. In traffic, you quickly pick up on the odd way that the other cars around seem to pause when the lights change, surge past you then drop back again. I guess that we're so conditioned to gears, even automatic that we no longer notice the kangaroo progress... anyway, apply a good solid prod to the accelerator and all the other cars instantly go into reverse anyway.
Watching the instrument display reveals a 'Fuel consumption' bar-graph and, so obviously, a battery gauge just like you'd find on a mobile phone - half full for me. The fuel consumption reads in amps; at 'idle' there are 1-2amps leaking out to drive the electronics and a motor cooling fan but as you pull away it jumps to 80-100amps but, the best bit, when you release the accelerator, up to 50amps flow back in through the regenerative braking effect... that feels good; free electricity. (sort of)
As we drove through the streets of Old Greenwich town along US1 you quickly get familiar with the car; it's just so little of a learning experience, they really have got the controls right; accelerate to go, release to slow down on the regenerative braking. The only nervous moment happened when I stopped at the lights; as I slowed down on regenerative braking alone I forgot that to actually get down to zero you still need to hit the brakes at the last moment.
As an homage to regular automatic transmission, the Tesla creeps forward when you release the brake; I'm not sure why and would like to know; it seems unnecessary, I think I'd like to turn that off if I could.
The rest of the drive was all Lotus tuned hard-core sports car. Quick turn-in, decisive lane changes and suspension that's a firm as it comes; great stuff.
It was all over too soon
A few more turns, a few more prods on the accelerator and we're back to the hotel, now I'm back to driving petrol powered cars, I have a year to wait for mine but I'm looking forward to it.
Rich K. in the Tesla setting off for his run.
Posted
Jul 06 2008, 05:10 PM
by
Michael Thwaite