Look what I drove today...

[2MuchMark]

Check out what I drove today...











This car is a Tesla Roadster. Based on a Lotus frame, this is an ALL ELECTRIC CAR. And let me tell you, it is the coolest, nicest, most amazing car I have ever driven (and I've driven quite a few..!)



Here's some of the cool points. First, it's SILENT. It makes no noise. There's a start key, but all it does is chime once you turn it. It has no shifter, no gears. You press the R button to revese, and the D button to drive.



It's FAST AS HELL. This week is F1 Weekend, and the streets are full of hot sports cars, but not were as hot (or cool) as this. Acceleration is insane, and it corners like its on rails (to quote whats-his-name from Pretty Woman).



The car fits my 6'3" frame, but only just. If I was any taller I definately would not fit into this car. The steering wheel is smaller than expected which is actually cool. It has no power steering - which cool too because it makes this car feel like a gocart (remember how much fun they were?)



The only thing hard to get used to was how the gas peddal worked. When letting go, I expected the car to coast just like any other car does. What actually happens though is that the "Regenerative Braking" kicks in right away. This slows the car down as if you're stepping on the brakes. It made me nurvous because I was being tail-gated by this jerk-off in a Porsche. When I let go of the gas peddal I was sure he was going to crash into me from behind. As it turns out though, letting go of the gas peddal activates the rear brake lights. Super-safe!



Of course, the C O O L E S T thing about this car was that it was all electric. No gas, no smell, no oil, no noise, no pollution. The only sound it makes was a very gentle "whirrrr" when stepping on the "gas", and even that sound is cool.



Finally, the future I dreamed of as a kid, is here.



Fuck you, BP!

[kristin]

How fast did you get it up to?

Very cool that it's electric. When I was looking to get a hybrid it freaked me out how quiet they were, I thought the car had stalled.

[TrainWreckContent]

cool looking car

[ottopottomouse]

Originally Posted by **********

Fuck you, BP!

yeah, fuck you BP, because 10 out of 17 power stations in Canada are oil or gas fired


nice car but i'd still rather have an elise

[justinsain]

One came to my Cars & Cafe and when it was time to leave he accelerated and it was silent which was a stark contrast to all the other exotic cars leaving.

BTW She said " It corners like it's on rails ". He didn't know how to drive.

[DiF0r]

These Tesla cars look nice, would love to have one but they are a bit pricey

[dyna mo]

i wouldn't drive it too hard, top gear thrashed the one they tested.

[LeRoy]

Originally Posted by kristin

How fast did you get it up to?

Very cool that it's electric. When I was looking to get a hybrid it freaked me out how quiet they were, I thought the car had stalled.

Electric cars arent that fast. I'd be amazed if it can go 65mph

[dyna mo]

Originally Posted by LeRoy

Electric cars arent that fast. I'd be amazed if it can go 65mph

lolz, that tesla is crazy fast.

[czarina]

very cute and great for the environment!

[mattz]

awesome, would be fun to take that out for a day

[BSleazy]

How much are those selling for now?

[dyna mo]

Originally Posted by czarina

great for the environment!

hardly. it runs on over 6000 lithium ion laptop batteries.

[kush]

Wow I think I just decided on my next car!

[kristin]

Originally Posted by LeRoy

Electric cars arent that fast. I'd be amazed if it can go 65mph

Sure, maybe the new electric Honda Cube. But not a Tesla.

[brentbacardi]

Official stats from the website:

0-60 3.9seconds
288 HP
Cost.... $101,500

[DudeRick]

Sweet!

[2MuchMark]

There car is amazing thats for sure. Acceleration is the fastest thing I've ever been in, but more importantly it's the smoothest. When you step on the "gas", there's no delay while waiting for the motor to spin up and switch gears (or, you don't have to manually drop it to 2nd). It's just Instant Torque.

Really, if you like cars even a little, go test drive one of these things. If you don't like sports cars, wait a year or so for Tesla to come out with their Sedan, or for other car companies to come out with Electric. Seriously, they are THAT NICE.

[MattO]

There's a guy in my office building who has one I've been wanting to bug him for a drive.

[fatfoo]

It is very surprising that the Tesla Roadster is an electric car. I thought it was a gasoline car, until I read your description. It sure looks good in that bright red color.

"It is silent and it makes no noise" - amazing.

[MetaMan]

great chick car for sure!

i bet your vagina was nice and wet after driving it!

[Dvae]

Originally Posted by **********

Check out what I drove today...

Of course, the C O O L E S T thing about this car was that it was all electric. No gas, no smell, no oil, no noise, no pollution.

Fuck you, BP!

Really?

This seems shortsighted on your part.

How was the electricity generated?
And what about the by-products used to produce the batteries and eventually the disposal of?
Not to mention all the synthetic material in the building of the car as well as producing any metal parts certainly used fossil fuels?

Yes fuck you BP?

[Helix]

Originally Posted by Dvae

Really?

This seems shortsighted on your part.

How was the electricity generated?
And what about the by-products used to produce the batteries and eventually the disposal of?
Not to mention all the synthetic material in the building of the car as well as producing any metal parts certainly used fossil fuels?

Yes fuck you BP?

BuzzKiller...lol

[2MuchMark]

Originally Posted by Dvae

Really?

This seems shortsighted on your part.

How was the electricity generated?
And what about the by-products used to produce the batteries and eventually the disposal of?
Not to mention all the synthetic material in the building of the car as well as producing any metal parts certainly used fossil fuels?

Yes fuck you BP?

Actually here in the Great White North, alot of our electricity comes from Hydro electric damns up north.

And yes of course electricity can still be "dirty" when it comes from coal plants, but come on. Gas powered cars are the most inefficient beasts out there. They convert less than 9% of the energy they use into actually moving the car. The other 91% is wasted as heat and pollutants. It has hundreds of moving parts which all wear down and need replacing. It's also noisy as hell.

Electric cars have few moving parts, and convert more than 80% of their energy to movement. The car itself emits no pollution, needs no oil, makes no noise, and is as safe if not safer than gas powered cars.

Drive one - I promise you'll love it.

[NewbieNudes]

This car has been around for what - 2 or 3 years already, but good to hear a real world report on it. Interesting about the braking when off-gas.

[corvette]

nice ride ;)

[stickyfingerz]

Al Gore just got a hardon as he thinks how he can make some money off this "cause"

[EliteWebmaster]

I was thinking of placing an order for one of them but the waiting list was too long and at 100K, I spent my money on something better

[dyna mo]

Originally Posted by **********

Actually here in the Great White North, alot of our electricity comes from Hydro electric damns up north.

And yes of course electricity can still be "dirty" when it comes from coal plants, but come on. Gas powered cars are the most inefficient beasts out there. They convert less than 9% of the energy they use into actually moving the car. The other 91% is wasted as heat and pollutants. It has hundreds of moving parts which all wear down and need replacing. It's also noisy as hell.

Electric cars have few moving parts, and convert more than 80% of their energy to movement. The car itself emits no pollution, needs no oil, makes no noise, and is as safe if not safer than gas powered cars.

Drive one - I promise you'll love it.

there's a lot of assumptions being made in this comment which undervalue the efficiency of an internal combustion engine and overvalue the output of the electric motor.

generally speaking, the ic engine is less efficient but these #s are incorrect.

[stickyfingerz]

Honestly anyone that would buy one has to be a green idiot after watching a real world review of it. Yup sounds too good to be true, and yes it seems it is.

[Spunky]

Sweet enviro friendly ride but 100k for a vehicle is a waste,just a status symbol

[Fucksakes]

wow my 4yr old son drove the same car today, what are the odds

[Fucksakes]

he also got to ride a boat.. did you?



butt look what I got to ride.

[Fucksakes]

[nakeddutch]

Sweet ride - MOFO

[Fucksakes]

look what I drove last week.. 2011 jag.. guess where I was going....

[John-ACWM]

Nice, I bet it was a great experience!

[seeandsee]

it's not green as it looks, but is better!

[scarlettcontent]

nice wheels dude

[Jarmusch]

How many people did you ran over who didn't hear you coming?

[woj]

sounds like a great car

[ArsewithClass]

Originally Posted by seeandsee

it's not green as it looks, but is better!

Our car isnt green, but I use it on our tours. I thought we would use it on our latest site redesign also.

[2MuchMark]

Top Gear, is bullshit.

Top Gear is a comedy show that happens to be about cars, and as they have done with other cars reviewed in the program, they fabricated issues with the car to cause drama and gain ratings.

Many people are calling Top Gear out on their fallacies including:

Edmunds.com:
http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradv...e-claimed.html

Tesla Roadster Reviewed by Jeremy Clarkson Didn't Run Out of Juice as He Claimed
Last week Jeremy Clarkson, Britain's most famous auto reviewer, reviewed a Tesla Roadster.

----------
Clarkson and crew pushing Roadster after it supposedly ran out of electricity.
----------

His test drive was recorded on video and appeared on Britain's Top Gear Web site, which is owned by BBC Worldwide Ltd. The video also appeared on YouTube as well as many dozens of automotive Web sites and blogs.

Why? For one thing, because Clarkson has attained celebrity status in many circles, but moreover because he claimed -- and the video apparently showed -- that the much-publicized $109,000 battery-electric Roadster ran out of juice after only 55 miles and then broke down!

Shocking! Outrageous! And sure to generate maximum exposure for Clarkson.

Except the Roadster, which its U.S. manufacturer claims can go 220 miles on a charge, didn't run out of electricity and didn't break down. Those two salient bits of information were fabricated. As in made up. As in didn't really happen.

OK. So Clarkson would appear to be more interested in his popularity than, say, the truth. And he would appear not to care that his reviews have financial consequences -- for the people who make, invest in, own or have placed deposits on the cars he reviews.

So Clarkson's a bum, some might say, for the reasons just mentioned and for tarnishing the reputations of Top Gear and the BBC. Some might say, Big deal, like tabloid journalism wasn't born in England!


Bad Journalism

But here's what's most distressing to real journalists and people who value good journalism: The BBC -- a supposed rock of journalistic excellence -- has done all it can to bury the story of its video.

We challenge you to find a copy of it on the Web right now (update: see Comments, below). It could be found all over the Web last week, but this week? Sorry.

Well here's what's up with that: If you want to get a company that doesn't own the copyright to a video to stop showing the video, you threaten to sue for copyright infringement.

And that's what the BBC has done. The video was widely posted on YouTube last week, but today this is all we were able to find in the YouTube spaces the video had occupied:

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by BBC Worldwide Ltd."

Now it is possible that the video still appears somewhere on YouTube -- and please tell us if you locate it -- but that sentence prompted by the BBC is all we could find (and we did see it multiple times) when we conducted our search earlier today.

As for the photo appearing here that was taken from the video? The one showing Clarkson beside the driver's door and other people at the rear of the Roadster pushing into a garage after it reportedly but untruthfully ran out of electricity?

Uh, huh. Sure.

A spokeswoman for Top Gear said the car was videotaped being pushed in order to show what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge. That's interesting, because nowhere in the video were there words to that effect.

But if you believe her explanation, we've got a bridge we'd like to sell you.

Not to make a federal case out of this, but we did seek comment from Tesla about Clarkson's review. Company spokeswoman Rachel Konrad told us today that the portion of the review dealing with the short driving range and brake failure baffled the folks at the automaker's headquarters in San Carlos, California.

Each Roadster is equipped with a memory stick that acts much like a flight data recorder does, she said. That would be the so-called "black box" that accident investigators are always eager to get their mitts on when a jetliner goes down because it records systems information that might help them determine the cause of the crash.

The Roadster's memory stick works much the same way, constantly recording systems data when the sports car is in use. While Clarkson said the silver Roadster he was driving (he briefly tested a dark-gray one as well) had run out of power after only 55 miles, the vehicle's memory stick said otherwise.

Indeed, neither of the two Roadsters Clarkson drove had less than a 20 percent state of charge while the vehicles were in Clarkson's control, Konrad said, "So we at Tesla were all a bit perplexed as to why they aired footage of Clarkson and crew pushing one into a garage."

"Now we have an answer," she said.

Here's a few more:

Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson under fire over Tesla electric car test drive
The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...a-electric-car

Etc,

AutoBlog:
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/22/b...ar-complaints/

Etc,

Jalopnik:
http://jalopnik.com/5115617/shocking...n-out-of-juice

Etc...

[justinsain]

Originally Posted by **********

Top Gear, is bullshit.

Top Gear is a comedy show that happens to be about cars, and as they have done with other cars reviewed in the program, they fabricated issues with the car to cause drama and gain ratings.

Many people are calling Top Gear out on their fallacies including:

Edmunds.com:
http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradv...e-claimed.html

Tesla Roadster Reviewed by Jeremy Clarkson Didn't Run Out of Juice as He Claimed
Last week Jeremy Clarkson, Britain's most famous auto reviewer, reviewed a Tesla Roadster.

----------
Clarkson and crew pushing Roadster after it supposedly ran out of electricity.
----------

His test drive was recorded on video and appeared on Britain's Top Gear Web site, which is owned by BBC Worldwide Ltd. The video also appeared on YouTube as well as many dozens of automotive Web sites and blogs.

Why? For one thing, because Clarkson has attained celebrity status in many circles, but moreover because he claimed -- and the video apparently showed -- that the much-publicized $109,000 battery-electric Roadster ran out of juice after only 55 miles and then broke down!

Shocking! Outrageous! And sure to generate maximum exposure for Clarkson.

Except the Roadster, which its U.S. manufacturer claims can go 220 miles on a charge, didn't run out of electricity and didn't break down. Those two salient bits of information were fabricated. As in made up. As in didn't really happen.

OK. So Clarkson would appear to be more interested in his popularity than, say, the truth. And he would appear not to care that his reviews have financial consequences -- for the people who make, invest in, own or have placed deposits on the cars he reviews.

So Clarkson's a bum, some might say, for the reasons just mentioned and for tarnishing the reputations of Top Gear and the BBC. Some might say, Big deal, like tabloid journalism wasn't born in England!


Bad Journalism

But here's what's most distressing to real journalists and people who value good journalism: The BBC -- a supposed rock of journalistic excellence -- has done all it can to bury the story of its video.

We challenge you to find a copy of it on the Web right now (update: see Comments, below). It could be found all over the Web last week, but this week? Sorry.

Well here's what's up with that: If you want to get a company that doesn't own the copyright to a video to stop showing the video, you threaten to sue for copyright infringement.

And that's what the BBC has done. The video was widely posted on YouTube last week, but today this is all we were able to find in the YouTube spaces the video had occupied:

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by BBC Worldwide Ltd."

Now it is possible that the video still appears somewhere on YouTube -- and please tell us if you locate it -- but that sentence prompted by the BBC is all we could find (and we did see it multiple times) when we conducted our search earlier today.

As for the photo appearing here that was taken from the video? The one showing Clarkson beside the driver's door and other people at the rear of the Roadster pushing into a garage after it reportedly but untruthfully ran out of electricity?

Uh, huh. Sure.

A spokeswoman for Top Gear said the car was videotaped being pushed in order to show what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge. That's interesting, because nowhere in the video were there words to that effect.

But if you believe her explanation, we've got a bridge we'd like to sell you.

Not to make a federal case out of this, but we did seek comment from Tesla about Clarkson's review. Company spokeswoman Rachel Konrad told us today that the portion of the review dealing with the short driving range and brake failure baffled the folks at the automaker's headquarters in San Carlos, California.

Each Roadster is equipped with a memory stick that acts much like a flight data recorder does, she said. That would be the so-called "black box" that accident investigators are always eager to get their mitts on when a jetliner goes down because it records systems information that might help them determine the cause of the crash.

The Roadster's memory stick works much the same way, constantly recording systems data when the sports car is in use. While Clarkson said the silver Roadster he was driving (he briefly tested a dark-gray one as well) had run out of power after only 55 miles, the vehicle's memory stick said otherwise.

Indeed, neither of the two Roadsters Clarkson drove had less than a 20 percent state of charge while the vehicles were in Clarkson's control, Konrad said, "So we at Tesla were all a bit perplexed as to why they aired footage of Clarkson and crew pushing one into a garage."

"Now we have an answer," she said.

Here's a few more:

Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson under fire over Tesla electric car test drive
The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...a-electric-car

Etc,

AutoBlog:
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/22/b...ar-complaints/

Etc,

Jalopnik:
http://jalopnik.com/5115617/shocking...n-out-of-juice

Etc...

It really sucks when people in a position of influence lack credibility.

I hardly ever watch Top Gear but next time I do I'll take it as entertainment and not being informative.

[Chosen]

Cool, congrats

[ottopottomouse]

Originally Posted by **********

Check out what I drove today...

Originally Posted by **********

Top Gear, is bullshit.

My irony meter just broke.

[georgeyw]

Originally Posted by **********

Check out what I drove today...

<snip..>

Here's some of the cool points. First, it's SILENT. It makes no noise.

</snip>

You see that's the biggest turn off for me personally. I get that it's quick and doesn't look *too* bad.

Sound is the biggest thing about a car. I spent the entire weekend welding up a new exhaust for my car - nothing quite sounds like a V8 on full song

[goodboi]

Originally Posted by czarina

very cute and great for the environment!

Deplented batteries are great for enviroment.

[Rochard]

Originally Posted by LeRoy

Electric cars arent that fast. I'd be amazed if it can go 65mph

Top speed is 125, which is an electronic limitation. From 0-60 it's in the three second range, which is blazing fast.

[2MuchMark]

Originally Posted by EliteWebmaster

I was thinking of placing an order for one of them but the waiting list was too long and at 100K, I spent my money on something better

There's no waiting list anymore. They are now in mass production mode. Any model and in any color, delivered to your door in less than 6 weeks (or so the promise goes).