Most of you car nuts know of the Tesla and especially the type "S" model. 0-100kph in 3.2 secs etc. 3000 battery cells (reputed to be from a Laptop PC) with a range of 460km. 7 hr recharge. 4 wheel drive too.

Saw one today but 'naked'. Very interesting to see the chassis and drive line of one. This chassis has only 2 motors and is not the S but otherwise the same.

Note the very flat floor. (battery is under the floor) Huge boot and also another one up front is a bonus.
Lots of alloy castings in the suspension, front and rear. In fact whole car is aluminium. Still weighs around 2000kg. Interesting also to see a lot of the internal switch gear and such like is straight from Mercedes Benz who have a monetary interest in the company.

Note the 'fuel' consumption !


glenn

more:-

they even offered me a test drive........ probably some serious arm twisting would come after............

Amazing design and innovation has gone into this car. I've seen a couple of documentaries about it.

I wonder how much this model is going to sell for in Australia. I saw one on the M1 motorway last week with Qld plates on it "TESLA S"

Yes pretty incredible engineering for a low volume car. In total they sold 50,000 last year. Pretty good for a start up company. The alloy casting in the chassis and suspension are pretty incredible.

I think prices range from about $107k to $140k for the S model. They also have the X model not sold here yet. It has rear gull wing doors......

Gull wings? It's the new De Lorean! Would make a better candidate for a time machine as this sucker runs on electricity!

An interesting approach, going for the performance priority to get the motoring writers onside.
I was reading that it plugs into the wall for a slow charge. You can pay extra (quite a bit) for an onboard charger that charges it in something like 3 hours. Or you can pay even more for a home fast charger that brings it down to 30 minutes.
With the onboard charger we could get to Melbourne with only 1 charge, making it only a few hours slower than a Prius to get there.
If infrastructure is put in place to charge them up, they may be viable for distance travel. A half hour fast charge would be fine, especially if it is at Maccas!
For us, they already have all wheel drive in the top model, they just need a wagon body, and more ground clearance, and longer range instead of all that go, and they would be on the shopping list! Oh, and fall in price by two thirds!

Seriously, they are not designed for me, obviously. I like their idea of the power wall to store energy from solar panels. If they can get those to market affordably, it will be huge.

Cheers, Matt.

IN the USA they have fast charge stations and they are free ! There is apparently a couple of them in Melbourne and Sydney also. In USA they get tax benefits also for rego and low or no sales taxes.

Check out the utube video comparing it with the Charger SRT Hellcat The latter has 707HP for goodness sake ! Interesting comparison. The Hellcat is hell on wheels, can light up the tyres in any gear for example. Fastest acceleration is actually from 2nd gear starts as it just sits burning rubber otherwise. But the Tesla beats it on the drag strip with no fuss, no smoke.

And you can buy one in USA for $60,000. There's talk of that car being privately imported and converted here to RH drive but cost will be close to $180k

the Tesla has the usual buttons for changing things (on the huge screen)

one which caught my eye was the "Sport mode" and the other the "INSANE" mode !!!

The Hellcat has different cars keys, for the owner which gives the full 707hp and another key which gives reduced power. There is also a Valet mode which locks out 1st gear and gives just enough power to park it.

Don't forget that the Model S P85D (this particular model is the P85D!) succeeded in absolutely eating a HSV GTS Walkinshaw W507 and a V8 Supercar for dinner!

Here is that YouTube link. For the V8's vs Tesla. There is also a drag race video between a 2014 skyline and the Tesla, in which the skyline beats it easily. Japanese engineering still has a small edge over V8 muscle

http://youtu.be/6eGhjhx8O9M