Faster Than the Speed of Tesla

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. The speed of a Boeing 747 is 614 miles per hour. The speed of the new Tesla Roadster is 0-60 in 1.9 seconds at over 250 miles per hour, making it officially the fastest street legal car to accelerate to sixty miles per hour and putting the top speed in a category with the Hennessey Venom GT, Bugatti Chiron and Koenigsegg CCR.  

All this, from what Tesla founder Elon Musk refers to as “the base model performance.” And from a car that seats four, nonetheless – not that those for-the-insurance seats will do a whole hell of a lot to your premiums when you’ve got over 7,300 pound/feet of wheel torque and you can accelerate to 100 miles per hour in 4.2 seconds. 

Let’s talk context for a moment. Your Bugatti Chiron will still take 2.3 seconds to reach 60 miles per hour. Your Porsche 918 Spyder, 2.5. Your Dodge Demon, coming in 2018 with a raucous 840 horsepower, still doesn’t clear the two-second mark, pulling in 0-60 in 2.3 seconds as well.

To put things succinctly, the new Tesla Roadster is fast as hell.

Part of that has to do with the superior engineering at Tesla. For one, they’re not a mass production brand. In 2016, they produced 83,922 vehicles across their entire lineup. Ford, by contrast, sold 87,512 F-Series in December 2016 alone. Tesla has the luxury of focusing their efforts and trying new things where many other car companies do not.

But the real reason that this car is so incredibly fast?

God save green technology.

Everyone is writing their own narrative about climate change and alternative energy. It splits across party lines and influences the way we buy, the way we communicate, the way we breathe and so much more. Depending on who you speak with, coal is king or coal is the king of hell. The issues regarding climate change are vast and complicated and can be looked after from myriad angles.

One thing is for sure though. Green energy makes fast cars. We’re talking instant torque. See, where a convention engine needs to get those revs per minute as the car moves – we’ve all see drag race movies and watched that needle tick before, a motor generator, different from a conventional ICE, starts at the top of the line at zero RPM and moves in the opposite direction, with that instantaneous torque eventually diminishing.

What that means is, whether you’ve got a Chevy Bolt for the average consumer or a Tesla Roadster, you’ll be able to beat just about anything off the line. In the case of the Tesla, you’ll also be able to keep up with it down the rest of the track.

With this newest record-breaking, Tesla shows us that they still rule the luxury corner of alternative energy car market and that their high performance and high price tags to match are nothing to scoff at. They have pushed alternative engineering into the spotlight, made green cars cool and helped to do away with the fear of driving electric cars long distances. The Roadster, for example, has a range of 620 miles. And it’s clear they have no intention of stopping, either. After all, this speed-azoid Roadster is just the base model, remember.

What Tesla will manage to pull off next is anyone’s guess. With workaholic, genius, mastermind, (who could easily be an evil villain, so let’s all thank our lucky stars on that,) Elon Musk at the helm, anything is possible. Just keep your eyes open, if the next best thing is anything like the new roadster, it’s sure to be blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast. 

Images selected from the Tesla Media Room