Zoomi Life

I’ve been pretty pissed at Tesla lately. Tesla Motors just recently announced price increases on all orders for undelivered Tesla orders, even for “locked in” contracts. That’s kind of a jerk move in my book. Those early buyers - the ones that put down a big chunk of change to reserve their cars when Tesla was nothing but vaporware - can very much be considered founding investors, and for Tesla to penalize them in that way is in my opinion no way to build a company.

But today, anger was the last thing on my mind when I thought of Tesla. Because today was the day I got to see, touch, fondle and drive a Tesla Roadster - Signature #98 to be exact. Now I don’t mean to be.. um.. suggestive when trying to describe my experience with this most ultimate of toys, but it’s really hard not to be, because the Tesla Roadster is basically electric sex on wheels.

The Tesla in question belongs to David Huang, Director of Business Development for DynaScan Technology Inc., a company that makes cylindrical LED video displays. DynaScan’s parent company, Chroma ATE, manufactures several of the power components in the Tesla Roadster. My friend Angus Clark, CEO of EVOasis (more about them soon), invited me to go up to LA with him for a Tesla show-and-tell with David, who was still giddy from his recent acquisition (he’d picked it up just a few days earlier).

The first thing that struck me about the Tesla Roadster when I saw it in person for the first time was its size. It’s a small car. I expected it to be bigger for some reason. The cabin is also extremely tight. With the hard-top on, it’s not easy for a tall person to get in or out of the car. I’m 6′1″ and definitely had to contort myself to get in. Once I was in the driver’s seat, the driver’s cabin felt extremely snug - if I was any taller I wouldn’t be comfortable for long.

The cabin itself is pretty spartan. The gear shifter itself has three positions - reverse, neutral, and drive. Several knobs sit on the carbon-fiber center divider that let you control cabin temperature and other functions. the dash itself had a JVC stereo, on the right, speed/RPM in front of you, and an LCD panel to the left of the steering wheel that shows various stats such as battery current draw and others. The cabin definitely has a spartan, hand-built feel to it. Some might even call it ‘unfinished’. I call it sexy.

Enough about the cabin - let’s talk about the ride. First off, it’s silent. Totally, completely silent. At least at low speeds anyways. You just cannot hear this car moving. I can definitely see that reverse gear audio warnings will become legally-mandated accessories in the future, as there’s no visual way to know that an electric car is ‘on’ and ready to drive.

At high speeds, the Tesla’s eerie silence is replaced the the coolest ‘turbine’ whine I’ve ever heard come out of a car. It’s the electric motor talking. It’s not loud, but it’s audible, and it sounds awesome, like a micro-turbine or a turbo charger spinning up. I love that sound. It speaks power, and the Tesla has plenty of it. Flooring the acceleration pedal pushed me back in my seat and I was doing 60 before I knew it.

The big thing I noticed while driving the car was the way that the accelerator performed. As soon as you remove your foot from the pedal, power ceases to flow to the motor and it starts to act as a regenerative brake on the car. This causes you to slow down faster than you would expect to in a gas-powered car. Once you get used to it, you actually end up using your brakes a lot less and relying more on motor braking, but it takes a little getting used to.

Overall, my experience in the Tesla was way too much fun, and entirely too brief. This is a high-end toy, and I wanted to keep playing.. David, if you ever need a Tesla babysitter, you have a friend in San Diego more than willing to help you.

I took a bunch of pics of David’s Tesla with the top on and off, as well as details of various elements of the car. Here they are. Enjoy.

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