The Tesla Roadster Sport – The Eco-Supercar
The Tesla Roadster Sport, a child of Silicon Valley, financed by 38 year old PayPal billionaire Elon Musk, it is the first fully electric supercar with commercial viability. An unconventional motoring start-up founded by Californian software engineer Martin Eberhard.
The aim of the company was to develop a car that ran on sustainable energy and was practical enough to use every day. The difficulty was developing the technology and putting it in a car everybody could afford. Eberhand decided that their first venture would have to start out like the high tech gadgets he had worked with, hyped-up, over priced and rare, becoming cheaper with time and volume. This would mean that the first line of consumers would subsidise the development of the company.
The first concept was born, a supercar to prove that green cars can be sexy, sporty and practical. Tesla went about designing the battery and engine system whist outsourcing the design and manufacture of the car itself to British legends Lotus.
The empty cars were shipped to California where the engines were installed and charged bringing the final cost of the car to around 80,000. It’s a modest price for a supercar but a steal of an investment into a company that could hold the future for the motoring industry.
After a brief meeting, the company received backing from South African billionaire Elon Musk, who sold PayPal to eBay, he was currently investing in commercial rocket science with an aim to put men on mars. Musk used his strong ties with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to convince them to also invest in the company, their links to a film company gave Tesla a chance to market the car to George Clooney, who in turn convinced Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and a list of celebrities to rival the Academy Awards. With celebrity endorsement came publicity and the company was the darling of the ‘cleantech’ industry.
The car went into production last year and currently has a waiting list of over 1000 including all of the investors along with a’ who’s-who’ of the rich and famous as jumping on the eco-wagon becomes increasingly fashionable.
Official stats claim the Roadster can achieve 0-60 in 3.7 seconds with a limited top speed of 125mph, this means it can out-drag a Ferrari while silently keeping you pinned in your seat from the instance you touch the pedal.
Tesla plan on selling the designs for their engines to some of the big European car giants which will see a huge rise in electric car technology, meaning even if your next car isn’t electric, the one after probably will be.
Although the Tesla is capable of speeding, it’s electronic speed limiter complies with motoring law.
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