Tesla Roadster
Posted by Sam Philip at 10:30AM on Thursday 21 August, 2008 24 Comments
So quiet. An almost imperceptible hissing hum from behind my head. The exact noise of a spaceship from budget 70s sci-fi shows in fact, and a low whistle of wind noise.
Apart from that, nothing - just the outskirts of London disappearing at unprintable speeds past the wings of the Tesla Roadster.
For all the hype, the claims and the performance of this incredible all-electric car, it's the noise that hits you first. Or rather the lack of noise.
It's so quiet that you can hear the gurgle of the cooling fluid being pumped round the batteries, even at 70mph. It's disorientating. It messes with your sense of speed, lulls you into thinking you're idling along when in fact you're heading rapidly towards licence-losing territory.
Because the Tesla is fast. Seriously, seriously fast. Just under four seconds to 60mph, according to the official figures, but it feels even quicker than that.
Clunk the gear level into 'Drive', flatten the accelerator - no clutch to balance here - and there's no spooling up, no delay, just a sheer, bulldozing wave of linear acceleration that sucks you up to inadvisable speeds, inadvisably quickly.
There's none of the elastic spring that you get from a mental turbocharged Caterham or similar: all 295lb ft of torque is available from 0rpm, so there's simply an incredible sensation of being yanked up to speed by some enormous winch. If that sounds strange, that's because it is. Freakish. Amazing, though.
It's the Tesla's party piece, a party piece that, married to its near-silence, leaves pedestrians in very real risk of bodily harm. At least half a dozen times, unwary Londoners wandered off pavements in front of me. If this electric car thing goes big, we'll need some new chapters in the road safety guide.
Escape the pedestrians, though, and a few more problems surface. The Roadster's based on the Lotus Elise, but Tesla has had to beef up the rear suspension to cope with the 450kg weight of the battery.
This makes the Tesla just a touch more passive and understeery through the bends than you might expect and, combined with a dead-feeling brake pedal - a result of the braking energy regeneration system - and the lack of involvement from the single gear reduction transmission (which means no changing gear, manually or automatically), it all adds up to a driving experience a bit less involving than the Lotus Elise. It's good, but just not quite as good as that lunatic acceleration has you hoping for.
That can all be tweaked though, as we're driving a slightly pre-production Tesla but, importantly, one with the final drivetrain and battery pack in place.
That battery pack should, incidentally, give you range of around 220 miles if you drive sensibly. Get a bit overeager with your right foot, though, and you're looking at about half that - a figure that might cause some concern considering the eight hour charge time...
At least, it might if you were running the Tesla as your first car. Or even your second or third car. But you won't.
Yes, Tesla is taking UK orders now with deliveries next spring, but Europe is limited to just 250 cars and it'll cost you - get ready for this - a whopping £92,000 for the pleasure.
And, in a few years - between two and four, depending on how much you rag it - you'll need to replace the battery pack, which'll cost you around £12,000. Rather dwarves the five-pence-per-mile running costs, eh?
But none of that matters. The Tesla Roadster isn't a rival for the Lotus Elise, or a Westfield, or even a 911 GT3.
It's proof that, if the future is indeed electric, it can be a hell of a lot more exciting than the G-Wiz. Or the Th!nk.
Battery range will improve, costs will come down and proper electric performance will be within the range of us mere mortals within a few years. You'll enjoy it, I promise you.
Especially if someone can figure out a way to engineer a decent bit of noise in there.
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24 Comments for "Tesla Roadster"
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Surely it wouldn't be difficult or costly to engineer some noise into the car, a thumping V8 or V12 wail? And from the sound of it (or lack of sound), it will need something to avoid multiple pedestrian deaths. Those iPod people don't stand a chance.
I'd still rather have a Venturi Fetish. Might be a touch slower and double the price, but it's seriously cool. The Lightning GT looks interesting too. 4 in-wheel motors. very sub-4 seconds 60mph time and 130-150mph. plus only a 10 minute charge time (claimed)
Do you know how much it costs on your electrical bill to charge the car?
As for noise, I'd suggest some pedesterian scaner-and -speaker system, which would detect peds and play a proper 'roar' sound through some speakers behind the grille.
Set a megaphone up on top and play Ferrari engine noises from it.
Lotus has been working on the soundtrack to the electric car, a decent V8 roar should do nicely.
Instead of putting noise in the car, it might be wise to have it respond to a signal put out by a device pedestrians might carry.
For people who are not blind, if all cars became electric it would not cause accidents - people would just use their eyes instead of their ears to check for cars ("look both ways", as one learns as a child but promptly forgets). It's simply because people are not used to it that it is a problem at present.
For the blind, reserving a small frequency band for 'is there a car here?' would do the job. The device could broadcast on one frequency, and receive a response from the car on another. Pretty simple.
A technological solution, then - and it'd let our roads be quieter.
Surely it's more of a concern for when you're waiting at a quiet country lane junction, listening out for oncoming traffic before you pull away? It's hard enough when you can hear them, let alone when you can't.
I wonder if drivers of early automobiles wished for artificial horse sounds. Seriously, for the whole history of cars engineers have been trying to quiet them down, and now when success finally arrives everybody complains about it.
Adrian, as the article says, it will cost you about 2 pence per mile = around 4 pounds for a "full tank".
ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Engineer some noise into it??!! Some people just can't be satisfied. If you have London peds that want to "wander" in to the street before looking to see if there is a car coming... there'll soon be a few less Londoners "wandering" around. Did their mothers not teach them to look both ways before stepping off the curb? AND you have a horn... USE IT.
The silence of the car is a truly fantastic asset. Welcome to the new millenium... catch up would ya?
Please, mr tesla, do NOT put a V10 sound on it. Give it it's own sound. Would you buy a Nissan Micra which sounded like a Ferrari? You would? Oh right...
But seriously, don't go down the tacky route. Find a nice noise produced by the car. Not like a G-wheeze, which sounds just like the name suggests.
You're all nuts.
No sound system is going to be able to accurately re-create a sports engine. Just let it go and embrace the new.
I'm not sure I understand the pedestrian issue. Apparently Londoners are in the habit of stepping off the kerb based on sound alone? I'll agree it might be a valid issue for the Blind.
Many years ago I remember I watched on a TV show about incredible things a guy who made a computer controlled sound generator. He made it to make an ordinary car sound like a Ferrari or a Porshe or whatever you choose from a selection board.
The sound was connected to the computer that related the tracks to the gear changes and the speed.
This might be the solution? And a cool one at that.
We're used to noise in traffic, but if every single car was electric, we would hear them. We don't hear them now, because traffic make such noice.
The easiest solution for generating noise would be to add an aero element that generates sounds with speed (think of a whistle but emitting low frequency sound). It might lessen the car's range say by a mile, but would work great until all cars are silent in which case it would be unnecessary as silence would become the norm and people would adjust to it by then.
Engine noises? That's the best you blokes can come up with? For me, I'd want it to make the sound of the Jetson's flying auto.
Oh for crying out loud.
With so few of these on city streets, if someone steps off the pavement without looking they are far more likely to be hit by a bicycle courier and yet we don't campaign to make those noisier.
Try. Pressing. The. Horn. Or if the roof is down, turn up the stereo.
Someone asked about cost of recharging. If you use the present cheap-rate of 5p per kWh then 100,000 miles of modest motoring will cost around 1500 quid in electricity (assuming you get the average 220 miles per full charge of the 53 kWh battery pack.)
On the other hand, assuming petrol is £1:15 per litre and your car gets 35mpg then 100,000 miles of motoring will cost around £14,900 in petrol.
But then how many traditional cars that give 35mpg can also give you 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds and stay cheaper on maintenance?
How much is a new clutch on a Porsche these days?
Of course, the car is very expensive to buy. But remember the price of the first mobile phones and plasma screens?
So it's a less attractive Lotus Elise running on really big laptop batteries that is worse in the corners, doesn't really feel like a car, won't last as long (in terms of popularity and replacing bits) and costs about £65,000 more for it?!
AND it's charged by power stations, which makes it about as green as that paintwork!
Maybe if the roof had solar panels and could charge under a garage light, rather like the recent Eco ELISE Concept, then I'd consider blowing far too much money on it. No wait, I'm sensible.
It's already got a massive battery, it wouldn't be at all difficult or expensive to connect a big speaker to it and synchronise the revvy noises with the throttle.
There was a video on the BBC website not long ago describing how some people (maybe Lotus) had already done exactly that.
Noise? Use the Horn!
The electric Peugeot 106s had 2 horns, one was for pedestrians and one was for everyone else. Apparently the former made a high pitched chirping sound but was not as loud as everything else.
On second thoughts... maybe not.
Ice cream van chimes??
This noise could be like the mandatory shutter sound in some camera phones these days. Seriously, if someone won't look around before crossing the road they deserve to be knocked down.
If you pay a little extra, your electricity company will supply you with energy from a renewable source (if you trust them).