Production Tesla Roadster gets glorious hands-on: stifle your envy, please

Here at Engadget, we hold a special place in our hearts for Mr. Jason Calacanis, but regardless of whose name is on the pink slip, there's no denying that the vehicle you're peering at above just struck all sorts of jealousy in your chest. This Very Orange (seriously) Tesla Roadster is one of the very first to be produced with the revamped drivetrain, and according to the lucky (lucky!) souls over at AutoblogGreen who were able to give it a go, the "new, higher torque motor immediately made its presence felt." All that aside, we know you're here for the photos, so head on down to the read link when you've got ten or so free minutes to shuffle through. Let's just say you'll have a new appreciation for one Drew Phillips (photographer) when you're done treating your retinas.

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Nov 24th 2008 5:54PM]

I would love to be the first one to own one of these!

[StalematE @ Nov 24th 2008 6:01PM]

I would like to be the first one to have the ability to pay for one of these.

[GiF @ Nov 24th 2008 6:22PM]

If it has all those things does it have iPod connectivity?

[loocas @ Nov 24th 2008 6:23PM]

GiF up...

[ShogunMaster @ Nov 24th 2008 6:30PM]

I hope Engadget is giving these away during it's year end Gadget Giveaway!!!

[KAIKAI @ Nov 24th 2008 5:55PM]

well now.......if the price was in the range i could afford........

[rock99rock @ Nov 24th 2008 6:01PM]

I wish it came in a box, for a proper unboxing. (No, i didnt listen to TWIT when you were on Jason:) )

[fastm3driver @ Nov 25th 2008 12:02PM]

I did listen to TWIT and I have to say Jason just sounds like a kid with a new toy. He admits it only get 125 miles if you drive it like it should be driven. So in my mind this is like the Pontiac Fiero. A 2 seater commuter car that offers some performance for $110,000 plus. Tax and wiring up your house not included.
He also mention they could drop the price in half by removing the carbon fiber and stuff. This would be a incorrect assumption unless you expect all the performance figures to drop in half. The is the smallest car with two seats and is all aluminum. As soon as you make it say the size of a Prius(much bigger) you will double the weight. Then you need to add batteries to compensate and this thing is already 900 pounds heavier than the Elise!
Please; this is a barely acceptable toy that cost well into the 6 figures. Performance is less than a Vette at half the cost and with all the battery negatives.
Yes, there is some cool things about the on-board computer and yes you don't need to change the oil but a revolution this is not.
Stick to doing Dvorak. Just messing with ya... I think your an all right guy.

[Jonathan @ Nov 24th 2008 6:07PM]

I'd take a BMW instead thank you.

[Samboini @ Nov 24th 2008 6:15PM]

Black man's willy?

[rock99rock @ Nov 24th 2008 6:16PM]

You'll take a nice cool glass of stfu. And you will like it!

[The Walrus @ Nov 24th 2008 8:04PM]

You'll have a completely useless post and like it.

[El Taco @ Nov 25th 2008 12:52AM]

People looking at this car are not really looking for cars like BMW's. BMW is not really a competitor to Tesla

[Erb @ Nov 24th 2008 6:13PM]

Are you in need of an extra kidney? Know of someone who needs one? I have 2 good kidneys which is a little excessive. I'll give you one of them for A Tesla roadster! Please contact me at 555-555-KIDNEY-4-TESLA.

[Lowest Ranked @ Nov 24th 2008 6:19PM]

That's the longest phone number I've seen.

[GiF @ Nov 24th 2008 6:24PM]

Don't be shallow now, some people are very poor and in need of a kidney.

If that car is worth 500 000-1000 000 bucks I wouldn't pay that for a kidney.

[KarlW @ Nov 24th 2008 7:46PM]

Seriously. Just drug him and take the damn kidney, then drive off in your shiny electric car.

[John P @ Nov 24th 2008 6:15PM]

This is great, but I'll wait until more than one of them are shipped before I decide Tesla has gotten its head above water.

[GeekPI @ Nov 24th 2008 8:59PM]

Had you read the linked article, you would have found out that this is number 16 off the line of the 'Signature' series of Teslas, and that the original 'founders series' which accounted for the first 27 off the assembly line.

So, including this one, as of last week, there are 43 Tesla roadsters shipped. I believe they're now producing a couple a day now, and expect to ramp up production to more than a dozen a day by the new year, now that the 1.5 drivetrain is complete.

[John P @ Nov 24th 2008 10:16PM]

Despite this, Tesla is attempting to enter into the market at an extremely difficult time, and they do not have the economies of scale necessary to compete with companies such as Ford, GM, and Chrysler (despite their problems) when they bring out their EVs. And there is, of course, the Japanese companies who will also have the necessary economies of scale to make production costs low and profits high as well as the cash to keep them going in the difficult economy we're facing now.
Sure, it's great for the very rich, but the production costs of a Tesla roadster have brought them little in the way of actual income. Perhaps their recent management shakeups will help them out, but their decentralized approach to building the cars is hurting them greatly when it comes to the bottom line.

[Mike C @ Nov 25th 2008 8:58AM]

Dear Tesla,

Please give GM, Ford or Chrysler a call and see if they have any spare factories around. I think you might be able to work something out.

[Bob @ Dec 12th 2008 2:36PM]

@ John P

That is not even a valid point. These cars are being sold to people that have too much money to know what to do with. That means they don't care about the $100K price tag. Every car company has to start somewhere, not everyone could buy a Ford when they first came out. The price tag of a car drops as more of them are shipped because it gets cheaper to make them. They already have announced a $60K luxury sedan price tag, so that's almost 1/2 that of the roadster and they've only been in business a few years! If they can make these things for $60K, that tells me that Ford, GM and Chrysler DESERVE to go out of business. If a startup can make this stuff cheap this early on, there is no excuse for the big 3 OR Honda, Toyota etc. to not be able to make these even cheaper. All these hybrids are LAME excuses for "green" cars. My 2008 Yaris Sedan gets almost 40 MPG highway (never gotten less than 32 MPG city) and cost HALF the price of a Prius and I don't have to worry about replacing batteries or worry about the batteries going in a dump 5-7 years from now.

[Saad Rabia @ Nov 24th 2008 6:15PM]

I'm not buying a car unless it was a fully 100% electrical. I love the quite and clean engine. Tesla FTW; they need to reconsider the average consumer though, I hope they have that in plan.

[Brett @ Nov 24th 2008 6:25PM]

Did you even go to the read link and watch the video? Have you been paying attention to anything Tesla has been doing?
When does a SUV and Compact Car in the works not scream "average" consumer to you?

[Saad Rabia @ Nov 24th 2008 6:35PM]

Brett, I'm not so much into cars, meaning that I do not read car news everyday, to be honest... but I do read some news every once in a while. I watched the video but there was no enough information about the pricing and real availability of that "average consumer" car from Tesla. I hope that it will turn out to be great, though.

Can you link me with useful information?

[Brett @ Nov 24th 2008 6:41PM]

Sorry for my tone, but I thought I've seen you comment on engadget quite a bit and assumed you read it everyday :-P

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/24/teslas-4-door-all-electric-model-s-sports-sedan-gets-pictured/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/30/tesla-motors-elon-musk-promises-sub-30k-all-electric-car-in-le/

That's just some basic stuff.

[happy_penguin @ Nov 24th 2008 6:47PM]

This is what you need, Saad:

www.teslamotors.com/

[happy_penguin @ Nov 24th 2008 6:48PM]

Of course it would have helped if I had made it a proper link. :P

http://www.teslamotors.com/

[Saad Rabia @ Nov 24th 2008 8:48PM]

Thank you guys. I'm now more excited than ever. A world with of all electrical cars; soon. :)

[bangladeshiluv @ Nov 24th 2008 6:16PM]

RIP tesla

[andres @ Nov 24th 2008 7:30PM]

i think he means tesla as in the person...whoosh

[Bob @ Dec 11th 2008 8:43AM]

More like "Welcome Tesla." We should take that $15 billion in bailout money and give it all to Tesla Motors!!! The big 3 don't give a crap about any of us, they are still in bed with the damn oil companies. Look what they did with the Volt, they could have EASILY made that 100% electric, but the morons only gave it a 40 mile electric range!!!???

[charliex @ Nov 24th 2008 6:21PM]

jealous, me thinks not. it just looks wrong.

[Speney G @ Nov 24th 2008 6:25PM]

Love Lithium-ion batteries. Let's hope they don't have the same problems Dell et. al. were having with exploding batteries.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 24th 2008 7:00PM]

At this point, a skeptic would say: "Don't worry, the transmission will break before the batteries."

But I have faith in Tesla and their engineering. Bring on the sedan one already!

[FLaSHBaCK @ Nov 24th 2008 6:25PM]

Super Sexy

[BlissX @ Nov 24th 2008 6:36PM]

I wish I knew how to take stellar photos like Drew Phillips. My D60 feels unloved, I'm sure, by my newbie hands.

[KilgoreTrout @ Nov 24th 2008 6:39PM]

This may be the very first time that a USA made car turns out to be better than anything produced in Europe or Japan.
I hope to see those babies around europe's motorways soon.

[fish @ Nov 24th 2008 6:57PM]

Quote from Wikipedia

"Tesla Motors has facilities in England related to the design and assembly of the Tesla Roadster.

The Tesla Roadster is currently being assembled by Lotus Cars in Hethel, England."

[ugg.tryptophan @ Nov 24th 2008 7:08PM]

the tesla is basically a modified lotus, from england; there are no longer any cars made in one country

[Bob @ Dec 11th 2008 8:49AM]

Oh come on, gimme a break. That mindset is from the 80's, get with the times. Japanese cars are no longer "superior" to American cars, they are pretty the same quality anymore. It's rather lame that everyone still has the "inferior American cars" mindset, I guess that shows us just how much Americans are -followers- and think everything grandpa, mom and dad say is true and infallible. Well... That and the fact that everyone listened to the celebrities and college professors and voted Obama.

[Mr. B @ Nov 24th 2008 6:44PM]

I'd love to see Top Gear get a crack at this beauty.

[go seki @ Nov 24th 2008 6:53PM]

Time now to introduce our tame racing driver .. some say that he has an off-switch for a belly button .. and that he has a gift with electrical things like the lights of blackpool ... Yes its "Electric Stig" !

[KarlW @ Nov 24th 2008 7:49PM]

I'd love to see Jeremy's internal conflict. On the one hand, it's electric. On the other hand, it's British.

Maybe the infighting will make his hair grow back.

[KarlW @ Nov 24th 2008 7:58PM]

I should probably clarify that by British, I mean designed and assembled (according to Wikipedia) in Britain. That's British enough.

[Jeremy Korzeniewski @ Nov 24th 2008 10:50PM]

Top Gear's already got one on order for testing. Shouldn't be too long now.

JK

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Nov 24th 2008 6:45PM]

To my eyes, the exterior is not as nice as the Elise.

But the interior -- oh my. Beautiful.

If only I could afford one. I know it's tough times, but I wish Tesla the best. Awesome car, with enough performance for virtually anyone, and great range as well.

[go seki @ Nov 24th 2008 6:48PM]

Yes .. very good .. but is it a decent sports car? ie does it go round corners? does it go fast for extended periods? ie 3hours minimum @ 80% top speed ..

[Brian Krische @ Nov 24th 2008 10:06PM]

Well, it is basically a modified Lotus Elise. Which is often considered one of the cars with the best handling.

[fastm3driver @ Nov 25th 2008 11:51AM]

Yea right. It is like a Elise except it weighs 900 pounds more and cost about $60-70k more; or more than double. The top speed is only 120 so tracking it is out. Also, from Jason's own admission you only get 125 miles per charge if you push it. You also need to add a 220V-80 amp service to charge it in the minimum 3.5 hour time.