I honestly think it accelerates quicker than a plane on take off. It is absolutely mental.
Then you’ve got a huge boot in the back and a little one at the front loads of rear legroom and no road tax.
I have no idea what it cost but I’d quite like one!

My mate has one too the 85D. Never wanted a car so much – makes petrol and diesel look obsolete. Accelerates so quick it makes you feel sick. Autopilot is absolutely mental too.

If it’s the P90D it’s £86k

Did you drop milk off on your way around?

And is your mates name Ernie?

I think it’s a Model S. It self parks and he can make it pull up to his door from his drive.

Got one as a Taxi back to Nice Airport last year – – as above what a machine.
Driver was saying that it accelerates faster than most of Ferrari’s current offerings.

I’ve started seeing a couple fairly regularly on my daily commute – I guess on a lease they are within reach of middle-managers with a decent car allowance??

Make has the BMW i8 which is different but properly nuts fast. More annoyingly he pays nothing to enter that there London village and gets free parking and a free charge. He averaged speed limitx2 on a 50 mile stretch of twisty A road, which I obviously tutted furiously at.

What sort of KW rating are we talking about here? The way it’s described reminds me of a small size/high torque servo motor!

I honestly think it accelerates quicker than a plane on take off.

quite substantially quicker, by the looks of this video!

(the plane catches it up quick enough, mind, what with not being limited to 155mph and all that)

I honestly think it accelerates quicker than a plane on take off

Probably – planes don’t pull that hard, they just keep on pulling through 2, 3, 400mph without any bother 🙂

makes petrol and diesel look obsolete

Yeah but there are disadvantages that you might discover if you owned one. The frigging cost, for one. It’s all very well to compare it to a Maserati or whatever, but you can also buy petrol cars for £10k. You can’t however go out and buy a an electric car for that price, at least not one with significant disadvantages.

The cost of a Maserati is tied up in R&D and luxury. The cost of a Tesla is intrinsic – I bet most of that is battery, without which it’d be crap. Given the huge battery cost, it doesn’t affect the price much to stick some luxury gadgets on and call it a luxury car. Making an electric car go fast isn’t anything like as much of a technical challenge as with petrol. You just need to dump more current in the motors.

I honestly think it accelerates quicker than a plane on take off

You have obviously not been in fast cars before.

Seriously might look at the newer version Tesler if my BMW 330e falls through.

However, what puts me off is the awful dashboard, the fact that you cant actually use the power (read a report that says it wouldn’t even do one lap of a circuit before it cut to 50% power) and that its American, and from what reviews say although it doesn’t handle badly, its no sports car either.

FunkyDunc – Member

You have obviously not been in fast cars before. I have. I fully believe that the Model S feels (and is) quicker. It has full, 100% torque at ZERO RPM. With a bit of tweaking, they will do 0-62 in 2.8s.

With a bit of tweaking, they will do 0-62 in 2.8s.

It’d be doing well to keep up with me on my steel singlespeed then 🙂

brooess – Member

It’d be doing well to keep up with me on my steel singlespeed then

Did you buy the bike from a Belgian girl?

I’d really like a go/sit in one just to feel the acceleration. I didn’t realise how fast they were until I seen a few at Goodwood last year tearing off from a standstill pretty much quicker than anyting else there. There was a puzzled moment where me and my mate just looked at each other with a “WTF” look pasted all over our dials!

Couple of people at work have been passengers in Model S’s and described the acceleration as being like those rollercoasters that fire you from a standstill.

The two people I know with Teslas are both worth well over £10m – I don’t think zero road tax was a factor in their purchase ! One did sell a Lotus to buy him, he said performance was a positive factor !

Autocar tested it against a Caterham 620R

😆

Kinda puts me off em really – driving these days shouldn’t be about being Ludicrous!

Without wanting to be that guy how much does the range get smashed by doing some hard driving in one?

Oh look, Tesla vs a plane:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFtJR5yhutU[/video]

They do launch incredibly well, electric drivetrains can be far more finely controlled by traction control systems so it just uses as much power as it can get away with. I’ve been in plenty of fast cars and the Tesla does feel seriously quick off the line – up there with the likes of tuned GTRs. The lack of noise and drama can be deceiving, but that’s great for discreet use of the performance.

The issue with track use is battery cooling, there’s no way to switch off the regenerative braking so you’re constantly pulling lots of power out then putting it back in. Battery gets hot, car limits power. But then it’s no more of a trackday car or sports car than a big-engined S class or similar.

It has full, 100% torque at ZERO RPM.

And surprisingly enough people were saying on the other thread that they eat tyres 😀

I definitely want one and will buy one as soon as I am able. Model S has 750HP!

It has full, 100% torque at ZERO RPM.

So does a steam engine!

Autocar tested it against a Caterham 620R

One of them looked like he was really driving, the other looked like a guy about to go into a meeting about IT middle management stuff.

I think I know which car I’d prefer, Caterham keys for me please.

We have had one on tear down at work and the build quality is absolutly shocking, there are some nice ideas but really poorly executed.
They loose $4,144 on every car they sell !! Total loss for last year was $889 million

Thats a great business model 🙂

Thats a great business model

Pretty common for a startup, early models made at a loss with the expectation to make money once volumes ramp up.

Looking at the stats, the standard ones are pretty respectable, “ludicrous speed” upgrade is simply fast.

Pretty common for a startup

To lose $900,000,000?

I’d quite happily have a BMW i3 with the emergency oh-shit-I-forgot-to-charge-it scooter engine. Except they made it very ugly.

To lose $900,000,000?

Sounds about right, last startup I was in was $1,000,000,000 in the red and it was expected to clock up the same again before it was profitable.

How many crates did you fit in the back?

And did you manage to shift some eggs whilst you were at it?

Eh, Ernie.

Fast, yes but we seem to be forgetting that you’ll only get 200 miles off one charge and unless you live in London Village or Milton Keynes you spend hours buggering around to find a charging point.

I’ll stick with my S3 for now, gives most sports cars a run for their money and drives like a dream in crappy weather and I can get my bike in the boot.

I think electric cars are the future but there isn’t the infa structure in place yet. I envisage a time when the cars are charged as they go along (bit like scalextrics cars) getting their charge from contact with the street.

^ Eddy Grant had a similar idea.

there are some nice ideas but really poorly executed.

I’m curious (from an engineering point of view), anything you can share?

I think electric cars are the future but there isn’t the infa structure in place yet. I envisage a time when the cars are charged as they go along (bit like scalextrics cars) getting their charge from contact with the street.

Should be really quick around corners.

You can imagine sitting the seat and slowly squeezing the control lever. Will someone put you back on the track if you flip off?

^ Eddy Grant had a similar idea.

Oi!!

🙂

Fast, yes but we seem to be forgetting that you’ll only get 200 miles off one charge and unless you live in London Village or Milton Keynes you spend hours buggering around to find a charging point.

I’ll stick with my S3 for now, gives most sports cars a run for their money and drives like a dream in crappy weather and I can get my bike in the boot.
I could easily travel up to London and back on one charge, that’s a 200 mile round trip, it’s on the M4 where the ‘Ludicrous’ button is never going to be a temptation, and the ability to drive into the city without bothering with the congestion tax instead of having to park out at Hammersmith.
Roll on the lottery win! 😀

They’re brilliant things and while they might not appeal to those who love BMW or Mercedes’ special plastics, they have properly put a rocket up the car industry and shown that it is possible to sell electric vehicles.

The only issue is effectively having to carry around all your fuel all the time in weight terms, while having to top up pretty regularly.

At this moment in tech it’s probably more effective to do a hybrid but Tesla has made the ideological decision it’s all electric.

What they said about the startup mentality – how much has any car maker spent in getting to where they are now? It’s a huge investment whichever way you do it.