2009 Tesla Roadster: Range versus Vrooom

By John Voelcker

John Voelcker

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John is Senior Editor for High Gear Media. In addition to news coverage and new car reviews, John creates and oversees all editorial for High Gear's... More

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2009 Tesla Roadster, Skyline Boulevard, San Mateo, CA

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OK, so we finally got to test-drive a 2009 Tesla Roadster this week. And we'll have the full writeup for you in a couple of days. Bottom line? As we wrote:

Thrust. Pure, seamless, unstoppable, rocket-to-the-moon thrust. That’s what the 2009 Tesla Roadster is all about.

Forget rev bands, shift points, heel-and-toeing. They’re so last century. The Tesla Roadster will make you a convert to electric power. You just have to drive it.

Not that we needed much of an excuse to toss up a Tesla pic. Everyone's always interested in what's happening at our favorite high-drama, who's-the-CEO-today, venture-funded, Silicon Valley electric-car startup.

In this case, CEO and cofounder Elon Musk wrote yesterday in his monthly e-mail that Tesla delivered its 250th Roadster this month, and is producing 20 cars a month, to increase to 30 a month this summer. That means they'll be through their backlog of more than 1,000 orders by the end of the year.

Tesla will also unveil its 2011 Model S electric sedan in Los Angeles this coming Thursday. We'll report on that as it happens.

Meanwhile, in almost three hours of hard driving, we covered 58 road miles, hammering the Roadster up twisty, hilly roads to our favorite Skyline Drive jaunt. But those 58 road miles dropped the indicated range from 202 miles to 110, so our 58 road miles used "92 miles" of range.

Today, we found an interesting chart that answers our question about range versus speed. Not surprisingly, you can go the furthest distance by keeping the speed down. Or, flipped around: Yep, Leadfoot Larry, if you keep the pedal floored, you will get less than 200 miles of range.

Trust us: It's worth it.

Tesla Roadster range versus speed

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[SOURCE: CleanMPG Forums]