At yesterday’s Tesla event for unveiling the company’s all-new electric semi-truck, as a finale to the evening, Elon Musk took the motoring world by surprise when he showcased a new Roadster, the new version of its original sports car. Musk introduced it by calling it “a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars.” It’s the fastest production car ever made, according to him, with speeds of just 1.9 seconds for 0 to 60 4.2 seconds for 0 to 100. It can even do the quarter mile run is just 8.9 seconds. Those figures are absolutely wild and never heard of on a production car. “It’ll be faster than that jet over there,” Musk joking remarked, as an airplane soared over the exultant crowd crammed into Tesla’s Hawthorne, California facility.
But those numbers are nothing in comparison to the top speed hinted by Elon Musk. The roadster might have a top speed in excess of 250mph, which is absolutely crazy for an all-electric car. And the roadster can do all this with a 2+2 seating and a claimed range of 620 miles per charge. The Roadster is propelled by three electric motors, one at the front and two at the back, taking power from a 200kwh battery pack – twice the capacity of the Model S P100D. The electric supercar will be available in 2020 starting at $200,000, with the first 1,000 sold being Founder’s Series models that will retail for $250,000 a pop.
