Road Test: 2009 Tesla Roadster | Hacker News Reader

Road Test: 2009 Tesla Roadster

roadandtrack.com

6 pointssanj6 comments

the only car show that matters(Top Gear) tested this thing last week. And they said the car is a decent performer, but unreliable as hell. The thing ran out of juice after 60 miles of track time. And they had to test 2 cars, since they kept breaking and running out of juice.

Did have good performance though, they did a drag race with a Lotus Elise, and the Tesla beat it by about 1.5-2 seconds.

Also they ran it on their test track(same track for all cars they ever tested), and the times were pretty decent, compared to some big names:

Lotus Exige: 1:26.9

Aston Martin DB9 1:27.1

Tesla Roadster 1:27.2

911 GT3 1:27.2

Spyker C8 1:27.3

Evo X 1:27.9

(Top Gear) tested [the Tesla Roadster] last week. ... The thing ran out of juice after 60 miles of track time.

55 miles. http://www.google.com/search?q=top+gear+tesla+roadster+55

The Roadster has also been informally tested by a Hacker News reader: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=318154

it will be the laughing stock of any track day.

First off, as Wil pointed out, it doesn't like staying at 100mph+ for very long. That naturally makes it not a track friendly car. It will get passed up easily on the straightaways at some tracks (ex you can hit 140+ on the back straight at Road Atlanta). And the brakes will get roasted and it will run out of battery after just a few sessions. ... In summary the Tesla is not a car guy's car, it's a SV show-off car.

If this is Release 1.0 of the electric car by the time we get to 3.0 we'll be thinking of internal combustion the way we now think of horseshoes and harnesses.

It's still basically just version 1.0 and slightly over 100k in 20 years I expect few people are still going to use gas for "high end" cars. (outside of a few endurance sports.) Adding a fast swap battery pack and/or a transmission is not really that hard of a long term problem. It's a compromise and it's a lot cheaper than many high end cars people are comparing it to so other trade offs or a little more cash would go a long way.

PS: A Bugatti Veyron can't drive 20 min at top speed without refueling but I am not talking trash about gas powered cars.

the top gear show, pretty much said that the Tesla's technology is irrelevant. They covered a Honda hydrogen car(can be refueled at a pump), and said that is the future, since we have the infrastructure for it already.

They don't see the future as all electric, They see it as a Hydrogen fueled daily driver, and a gas powered weekend car

Hydrogen is far less efficient than battery tech so I don't see an advantages as far a a daily car. As to gas vs electric moters an electric car can have a two gear transmission without sacrificing significant efficiency where gas engines need a much smaller RPM range to keep em happy and at peek power output. At the high end HP and cooling are significantly less of an issue with electric and with a fast battery swap system they can even be fueled faster than gas powered cars. But the real advantage is how much you can mold the car's balance and weight vs gas. Not to mention the traction advantages when each wheel can have power rapidly applied independently.

PS: For now electric cars only have about 1/5 the energy storage vs. a full tank of gas, but in every other way they win and gas has a fixed energy storage limit where battery's keep getting better.

I'd like to see the performance numbers for maximum range mode.

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