Tesla Roadster
A wild and “electric” weekend … for this radiant red Tesla Roadster.

Saturday started at 9am after its regular nightly “standard” charge (90% level) with a 50+ mile drive to Woodland for the Electric Vehicle Charging Station Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the Woodland Gateway Plaza. At 10:00 five roadsters had gathered -- two brought from Menlo Park by company representatives, plus a Roadster owner from Oakland, and two from the Sacramento Metro area. In addition three Toyota Rav4 EV (totally electric), a plug-in conversion of a Toyota Prius, a Ford Ranger EV, and an odd “bird” (Corbin Sparrow – also 100% electric) were also gathered. Two more Roadster owners joined as late arrivals (one from Woodside, and another Sac Metro owner). This is where a Tesla specific charger (“HPC”), plus 3 other charging stations were unveiled, and where Rich invited this Roadster to the EuroSunday in Roseville the following early morning.

From Woodland off to SMUD in East Sac for some outdated electronics recycling, lunch with the family in Galt, and back home again. After this nearly 140 mile tour all my son could say “Quick – plug it in”. But after only an hour or so he was off. “Off” ?? you ask … Seems (with some “pretty please” and some training drives) he had convinced his parents how cool it would be to NOT hire a limo for Senior Prom, but take his date in a Tesla instead !
The Roadster made it back to its HPC (High Power Connector) at home, and my son – at 4:30am while we were sleeping – even remembered to plug it in again. At 7:00am I was off to the EuroSunday in Roseville with a full charge. With a mid-event jaunt to Granite Bay to pick up my sister-in-law, and back to the Nugget Plaza … You know the rest of the story … This Roadster was surprised to learn of its “Car-of-the-Month” award !

Back to Granite Bay to drop the passenger, then Galt for the afternoon, a few more errands in Elk Grove, and finally some rest/”re-charge” time Sunday evening at 6pm. Total miles added this weekend: about 340. This is not a “Garage Queen”. In less than eight weeks since delivery we have put 2,850 miles on it without hitting a gas station. Electricity cost on average for us works out to be about half of what a 30 mpg car’s fuel would cost at $2.50 per gallon. And that’s without taking advantage of a rate offered by our utility that could cut the cost by a factor of four (unfortunately requiring upfront costly upgrades to the house electric service and metering).

Background:
This is an ALL-ELECTRIC Tesla Roadster, one of the first 200 delivered (not counting an additional 27 Founder’s cars and a couple dozen Validation Prototype/Marketing cars). Quick summary: 0-60 in 4 secs, 125mph electronically limited (around 14,000 rpm on the motor), curb weight 2,723 lbs (990 lbs for the battery pack), range 244 miles (EPA combined cycle – practical range 200+ miles). More detailed specs at

http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/perf_specs.php and http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/tech_specs.php

We paid for it up front as required back in the Fall of 2006 when we made our reservation after seeing the engineering prototype, placing a huge gamble on the success of this startup company with basically zero traditional automotive experience. But we trusted the two founders, both California born, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. And thanks to Martin and Marc developing the non-punishment-electric-car concept, then searching for investors and finding Elon Musk to invest in their company, and Elon’s money and eventually other investors and VCs funding the development, the Tesla Roadster saw the light of day. By now close to 400 have been delivered around the country, and Tesla Motors last month announced their second model, a family sedan, for half the price of the Roadster (production start expected in late 2011).
Waiting 28 months (!) before taking delivery in early March 2009 was well worth it.
- Georg