More on the Tesla Roadster's public drag racing debut
With all the bad news around Tesla lately, you might want to hear something positive for a change. We told you last week about a Roadster heading out to the Wednesday night drags at Infineon Raceway. The orange Roadster recorded a pretty respectable elapsed time of 12.757 seconds over the quarter mile. Tesla SVP Darryl Siry sent us a scanned copy of the time slip for the run. The car itself was validation prototype #13 and it was driven by Tesla engineer Iain Morrison. The car had the updated 1.5 drivetrain with the high torque motor and single speed gearbox. As an inexperienced drag racer, Morrison's reaction time of 0.764 sec was nothing to write home about, but drag racing turns out to be a lot harder than it looks as I found out last spring. The 2.058 second 60 ft time and 12.757 sec quarter mile time were in the ball park of the best I managed with a 530 hp Shelby GT500 as was the 104.74 mph trap speed. The Roadster may not have the range to go endurance racing, but it makes a pretty decent drag car.
[Source: Tesla]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rokkit 8:34PM (11/03/2008)
Thanks for the article. sunglasses, it was great.
Reply
Will 9:45AM (11/04/2008)
People knock electric vehicles, but with no shifting required and torque off the line they can be fast in an inconspicuous way. I wonder what it sounded like as it went down the strip.
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Owain Ozymandias Buck 10:26AM (11/04/2008)
I imagine it sounded something like Satan's Blender, if other EV's I've heard are comparable!