It’s the sound of pure excitement: lucky passengers gasping as they try out a test ride in the newest incarnation of the Tesla Roadster.
The video was released by the EV maker on Friday, and the reactions of the test passengers reflected the sheer speed with which the electric supercar accelerates, from expletives to cries of “holy smokes”, and “it’s insane!”.
Even just watching the video, which you can see at the bottom of the article, was enough to give us goosebumps here at The Driven.
And it’s no wonder – accelerating from 0-100km/hr in a 2.1 second flash would be enough to extract superlatives from even the dourest of customers.
The new Roadster, which is slated for production by 2020 and for which Tesla is already accepting reservations, is serious piece of EV engineering.
With a top speed of over 400km/hr and astonishing 1,000km range, it has been designed for aerodynamics and energy efficiency, says Tesla on its website.
But its the pure acceleration power that sends it over the edge: beating the 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder by one second in the dash to 100km/hr, the car can reach the dragstrip benchmark of a quarter mile in 8.8 seconds.
That’s 1.85 seconds faster than the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, making it the fastest production car, ever.
The last time Tesla had a Roadster in production was 7 years ago, in late 2011 – but at that time, still early days for Tesla, it was still built on the Lotus chassis.
Musk promised the Roadster would be back in 2014 – well, it’s a little late but that’s nothing new for the pioneering automaker.
The new incarnation of the record-smashing electric sportscar was announced in November 2017, with the carmaker teasing the media with new images of the Roadster in September 2018.
Thinking of reserving yours after watching this video? A serious sportscar needs serious amounts of cash: Tesla is asking $A66,000 to reserve the base model and a hefty $A326,000 for those after the Founders Series model, of which it will only make 1,000 units.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.