Intoxicating Noise

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 05:39

The currently most impressive electric car in the world is the Tesla Roadster, which we were able to send around the blocks in Berlin for a first driving impression. To discover one on the one hand and on the other.

By Martin Woldt

So there it is, the electric-powered future of the automobile. The last time I had a Tesla device in my hands was probably about 25 years ago. Was a Czech reel tape, often in the repair shop and made my Led Zepplin recordings terribly noisy. This time it is also noise that makes me self-conscious about this California-based Tesla. In addition, it is rather intoxicating noise that sets in with the effortlessly gripping torque of almost 300 Newton meters when I touch the narrow aluminum gas pedal of the roadster on the Straße des 17. Juni in Berlin. The speed needle suddenly storms towards its red sector at 13,000 tours.

No acoustic outburst of anger

At the moment, when a Porsche or a Nissan Z 350 would throw themselves into the pack, roaring, the airflow swirling over the windshield is all you can hear. And as much as one might regard the acoustic outburst of a sports car with a gasoline engine as a kind of core sequence, the Tesla Roadster is not lacking in the bean.

The machine, which is only 1.13 high, scurries up Heerstrasse like an arrow and you have to get used to this low driver's position for a few moments, pressed into the unyielding sports seat. Positioned just above the height of a repair platform and below an E-Class loading sill, you discover the appeal of new perspectives.

375 kilometers range

Is the rust there in the wheelhouse of the Touareg next door, isn't this mini skirt more like a hip wrap? What there is to see in the car doesn't necessarily look more interesting. A narrow screen behind the steering wheel, the size of a mobile phone display and the quality of the display from five years ago, signals the charge level of the battery.

For the fact that other electrical concepts are currently out of sails after just a few kilometers, little happens after almost 30 kilometers. The roadster's battery charge should last 375 kilometers before it has to be plugged in again for 3.5 hours. The black bar actually didn't move when we handed the car back to the Tesla people.

Admirable technology

How was it? “Great,” I reply, knowing at the same time that I mean this irresistible linear acceleration (from zero to one hundred in 3.9 seconds) and the vague feeling that one day you will hardly miss the combustion engine. But whether you want to spend 120,000 euros on this Tesla, almost half of which in advance, is a very personal question.

The technique is admirable. Without the 450 kilogram battery that can store 45 kilowatt hours of power, the car would only weigh 770 kilograms. But the 99 battery modules with their almost 7,000 lithium-ion cells push the weight into established regions. To have wrested this range and reliability of around 160,000 kilometers from a lithium-ion battery and to present a drive efficiency of 87 percent is an engineering masterpiece and one side.

Creaky packaging

The other, how to package the electrical soul. The 3.95 meter long aluminum-carbon body often creaks and cracks noticeably in city traffic. The gearshift of the single-stage gearbox works like a model kit, the steering wheel like a computer console. The narrow center console with the feel of a stereo system from the 80s is pretty shaky. The real confidence that the brakes would catch the gigantic acceleration in no time at all in case of doubt did not arise.

One would like to test tight corners without traction control more intensively. George Clooney and Matt Damon may have paid for the vision above all with their vehicle, but there is still enough work to be done on the car, even if you take into account the pre-production character of the vehicles shown in Berlin. Tesla also seems to know that with a view to prepayment.

Delivery from 2009

Tesla plans to sell 2000 vehicles from the Roadster, which is manufactured in Hethel, UK, soon on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2009 the first 250 will be delivered to European customers.

You have to order it from Tesla directly in Los Angeles, California, before a German branch will soon open in Germany at least in Munich. There you can possibly find out more about the Tesla vehicle family that the American manufacturer is currently planning. For example, a four-door electric sedan is planned for 2010, which will also run on the current Lotus platform.