Tesla Roadster goes 245 miles on a charge

Whether you're driving a Tesla, a Prius, or a gas-hogging GM, driving style makes a big difference on range. But the Validation Prototype Tesla Roadster was put through its paces, and on the EPA test, it's combined city/highway range was 245 miles on a charge. The worst-case (extremely aggressive driving -- and with a high-performance sports car, driving can get very aggressive and inefficient) was 165 miles, and the best-case (conservative driving) was 267 miles on a charge.

Details here.

They also allowed some people high up on the customer list to drive the car and their blogs are here and here.

Finally, the CEO's latest letter to customers is here . (PDF file).

They plan on shipping 50 cars in the first quarter of 2008, and an additional 600 during the rest of the year. As a result, they will soon stop taking orders for the 2008 model year, and will start a traditional waiting list. The letter does not say whether that means you can get on the list without a very large deposit.

I think Tesla is going to pull it off and be the first to get into the EV market in a big way.

But I'm going to miss my cute, fun, little Xebra when the time comes to trade her in on a "real" electric car. Maybe I'll just have to keep her anyway, for cruising around the neighborhood...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Oct 13 2007, 08:45 PM) [snapback]525337[/snapback]</div>

You are correct: I did not get on the waiting list (in part due to the $50,000 deposit!) but I want to be able to drive electric to church. I go to the UU in Coeur d'Alene, and that's just a little beyond the round-trip range of the Xebra. So when I bought the Xebra I figured it was a stop-gap car until something came out that would go 75 miles at freeway speed. (A bit over 50 miles round-trip, plus a safety zone.)

Only, I love driving the Xebra so much, that now I'm having second thoughts about trading up. I could afford to buy another EV and still keep the Xebra. But I need the Prius for trips to Canada, and I have only a 2-car garage. Three cars would be a parking problem. If Tesla starts selling Roadsters in 2009 without a deposit, just come down for a test drive, buy it, and drive away, I'll have to face the question: The Xebra, the Tesla, or both. Not an easy decision to make. I need a girlfriend to take the Prius off my hands and go with me (in "her" Prius) on those hiking trips to Canada.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Oct 13 2007, 10:20 PM) [snapback]525360[/snapback]</div>

You'd be surprised. There are no unmarried females in my church between about 15 and 70. It's a very small congregation. But even when I belonged to the much larger Spokane congregation, I met no available women.

My UU congregation is so small that they put me on the board of directors a year after I began attending, and a half a year after I joined! And I didn't even want the job. They phoned and basically begged. Everyone else had already turned it down.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patsparks @ Oct 14 2007, 02:34 AM) [snapback]525386[/snapback]</div>

You are not the first guy to say something along the lines of "If I was a girl I'd be your girlfriend if you bought me a Prius." And married women say, "There's nothing wrong with you. Any woman would be lucky to have you." But single women avoid me like the plague.

So the offer stands, but I am pretty fussy. You have to be female, moderately attractive (you don't have to look like Alicia Silverstone) and a non-smoker. And willing to live in Spokane or somewhere else that I could tolerate.

 

Godiva: Location is definitely a deal-breaker: I've been to San Diego, and may have to visit again this winter. (There's a guy there who builds EV conversion cars, and if everything fell into place it could mean a visit to test-drive, though it's too early to say yet, as I've not yet spoken to him.) But I could never live in San Diego. I could live with a dog as long as it's large and friendly and there were cats in the house as well. I hate small yappy dogs more than I hate tobacco smoke. I think they should all be hanged. But I actually like large friendly dogs. Goldens are best, followed by any retriever, followed by anything large and friendly. I hate vicious dogs, or dogs that growl or snarl at strangers. A friend of mine had a golden named Godfrey, but they always called him God, for short, and made all the obvious jokes. He was a nice dog. You could even pray to him and it would do you as much good as praying to any other god. More, actually, because you could pet him, which is known to be useful therapy. You can't even do that with the make-believe one. (The one that Christians pretend to believe in.) But as I said, location is a deal-breaker: I'd never live there.

And speaking of the Tesla, as we were at one point in this thread, I wished I had one today. I drove farther up the big South Hill downtown than I've done in the Xebra before, and it took so much out of my batteries that I had noticeably less power by the time I got home than I normally have.