Scoble & Musk take on Calacanis in Tesla vs. Vette showdown
It can be interesting to see what happens when geeks with money meet up for dinner in Santa Monica. You're having a pleasant meal and the next thing you know you're racing down the road in a Tesla Roadster and a Corvette, live-streaming the video from two perspectives with cell phones. Tesla chairman and financier Elon Musk, serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis (co-founder of Weblogs Inc. of which ABG is a part) and super blogger Robert Scoble decided to go for a joy ride for dessert the other night and stream the festivities using a new service called qik. Scoble rode shotgun with Musk in production Roadster #1. Calacanis (who has a Roadster on order) was in his Corvette. Musk laid waste to the Corvette. Some guy named Ray who evidently claims to know a thing or two about cars claims this was due to Jason's inability to drive. In fact, Musk, as is his prerogative as fundraiser-in-chief at Tesla had his production model built with one of the short-lived two-speed transmissions which contributed to its extraordinary accelerative abilities. This Ray guy apparently didn't actually watch either of the two videos since Musk explained this to Scoble. Needless to say Scoble was duly impressed by the ability of the Roadster to increase its velocity with remarkably low levels of noise (at low speeds at least).
[Source: ValleyWag, thanks to Alex for the tip]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rar 10:45AM (2/20/2008)
This video should have been titled: four dorks who don't know how to drive performance cars try to have some kind of race? That said, the Tesla is a cool car.
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Rojo 11:27AM (2/20/2008)
For those like me that want to watch them synchronized, start the first video when the second is at ~49.5 seconds.
At no point did I see a real 'race' in this so 'driving ability' did not come into play. They had at least two stop-light opportunities and on top of that, Calacanis had one hand occupied while recording.
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Randy C. 5:03PM (2/20/2008)
To quote Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons "eexcellent!"
They weren't really racing, I doubt that they exceeded the speed limit by more than 10% anywhere on the trip. The tesla was just driving around and the Corvette was trying to keep up. What I love is the car GM can't figure out how to build right is out striping a GM "performance" car with ease.
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Karen Pease 7:30PM (2/20/2008)
Electrics have no problem with torque. That's a dumb stereotype (and one the Mythbusters will be busting this season :) ). The challenges are range, charge time, and battery cost. When you build a luxury/sports car like the Tesla, you can put in >50kWh of batteries and only inch up the total cost because the base cost is already so high. GM, however, is working on a mass market electric (the Volt), which is a bigger challenge because you have to keep all of the costs down, and you have to be able to mass produce all components at the same time.
Personally, I like Aptera's approach a lot better. "Can't afford lots of batteries? Okay, then we'll just make it so you go a lot further on a given amount of charge!" I.e., spending the money on streamlining and weight reduction rather than batteries. We'll have to see how well they scale to mass production, but they've got several years to work out that aspect.
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Joseph 7:08PM (2/20/2008)
In the first video Musk says the Tesla "will have about 380 newton-meters [of torque]"
The Roadster's drivetrain is getting an upgrade instead of a second gear in order to achieve the promised 0-60 time.
Edmunds Tesla First Drive: "we estimate that the new system will be rated at somewhere around 320 hp and 275 lb-ft of torque"
380 Newton Meters = 280 Foot Pounds of torque
It looks like Edmunds was correct with their estimation.
By the way, ABG, did you get the info I sent to you about Tesla?
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RQ 4:11AM (2/22/2008)
Awesomeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
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