Tesla Roadster goes to the drags, does a 12.7 second quarter mile
There's no doubt that the Tesla Roadster is a fine performance car. We've driven one (actually, two) and are therefore qualified to say that it's one mean green machine. The acceleration of an electric car is something truly inspiring to witness, with its torque coming on strong right when the accelerator is first pressed, and the Tesla's got the wattage to continue putting that power down for the full 1320. Proof positive of the Roadster's quarter-mile performance came from a recent trip to the Wednesday Night Drags at Infineon Raceway in California. An Autoblog reader was present for at least one of the orange car's passes down the drag strip and witnessed a time of 12.7-seconds. Anything under 13-seconds in the quarter is quite good and this performance puts the Roadster in firmly in Ferrari territory and bests the Lotus Elise that the Roadster shares many components with. We're not sure if this car was driven by someone from Tesla or if its a customer car, or whether it has the latest version 1.5 drivetrain installed. Thanks for the tip, JP!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Trev 6:12PM (10/30/2008)
that's cool :)
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Lad 6:32PM (10/30/2008)
Message to the owner of the Tesla: I'll be at the track on Novenber 8th and 9th with NASA. Bring out your roadster and I'll be glad to drive you and your roadster around the road course so you can see how it handles. Ask for the driver of the white '73 240Z turbo.
sikantis 6:18PM (10/30/2008)
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Doug 8:45PM (10/30/2008)
Please don't put spam in the comments.
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Doug 8:48PM (10/30/2008)
"We're not sure if this car was driven by someone from Tesla or if its a customer car, or whether it has the latest version 1.5 drivetrain installed."
Hard to tell from the photo, but the car appears to have dealer plates. That would mean it is most likely VP13, which does currently have drivetrain 1.5 installed.
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Perry 2:18AM (10/31/2008)
If this is an owner does putting this on autobloggreen void his warranty?
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jake 1:57AM (10/31/2008)
12.7 is good, it puts it firmly in the Ferrari territory and is better than the earlier estimate.
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Brn 10:56AM (10/31/2008)
This is probably the first time I've ever seen a quarter mile time published without also publishing the trap speed. Why is that excluded? Maybe because it's not all that impressive? I suspect the Tesla's power is mostly at the low end, with not a lot on the high end. There's nothing wrong with that, but omitting data is troubling.
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Gabe 1:10PM (10/31/2008)
If you look at Tesla's website, there is a torque diagram. Torque is flat until around 8000 rpms. Others have commented that 0-60 is superb but after that its a little less than impressive. It is also electronically limited to 125 mph, so anything more than a 1/4 is going to show its weaknesses. It's a canyon car, not a straightaway.
montoym 11:50PM (11/03/2008)
You would be correct. The post on autoblog showed a scan of the timesheet. 12.7@105mph
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/03/tesla-roadster-scores-a-time-slip-in-the-12s/
So, it gets off the line quite quickly, but hits a wall somewhere down the track. Based on the dyno graph and single gear, I estimate it's around 70-80mph.
That trap speed correlates more to a car running mid 13s to low 14s.