Elon Musk’s new Tesla “Roadster” may leave most supercars in the dust.
by Wallace Wyss –
No, not strike against Tesla’s plant, it’s Elon Musk striking at all gasoline cars, with a new electric powered proposal, presented at a press conference with his electric truck, which he already has a customer for, a truck that could transform cargo hauling worldwide.
He even used the word “smackdown” in his presentation of his sports car, basically saying his new roadster will smack down any previous notion of supercar with such stats as:
0-60mph in 1.9 secs
quarter mile in 8.9 secs
250+ MPH top end speed
620 mile range “at highway speed”
Faced with such superlatives, I would ordinarily ask “What’s that boy smoking?” but I have seen previous miracles such as the Tesla avoidance of an accident in Holland (where the Tesla saw the accident before it happened and adroitly avoided it) and the Space X shuttle rocket landing rear end first on a moving barge on a moving ocean.
Now let’s look at the roadster, styling wise.
SIDE: First of all, it is not a real “roadster”. It is a fastback coupe with a removable targa roof section. Elon Musk may be innovative in engineering but how far can he stretch the English language? Only us writers have “creative license” to bend words.
The concave side with the little “ledge” has been done by everyone, especially the Camaro in the last two iterations, and even on the Bentley Speed Six prototype.
The rear fender also looks Camario-ish with its bulging sides and fat “catwalk” though it seems emphasizing rear wheelwells with fat tires can’t be done too much in an ecology car–that’s a trademark of muscle car eschewing mileage ratings.
The general lines remind me of the Fiat Dino coupe penned decades ago by Giugiaro for Bertone. I like the vent in the side, though BMW might object to a “lift” in inspiration from the same vent in an M series model, and you wonder with no gasolilne engine up front, what is there to vent? Or is that one last homage to the gasoline powered car? Why not go all the way and have dummy exhaust pipes?
FRONT: The most derivative view. Derivative of everything that’s been done by many sports car makers in recent years, nothing breaking any new ground. Still very little hood ornamentation. The Tesla hood badge is not very prominent and there is no grille cavity hence no center grille emblem. Oh I suppose you could put one in the area above the spoiler but you’d have to be very short to see it.
REAR: Again, nothing new, nothing that Tesla can claim its own, the same horizontal taillights as in dozens of cars. Looks like there might be a LED line continuing across the back–can’t tell in the dimly lit pictures from the presentation.
INTERIOR: Haven’t seen it, but I expect an especially large screen dominating the whole dash, the concept of separately housed gauges will be dead by then.
The car will be, at $200,000, roughly twice the price of the original Tesla Roadster (built around a Lotus chassis and body) and there’s a hefty $50,000 deposit required upfront. The company is already taking deposits (one wonders if you can buy a deposit and sell your place in line?).
Oh and according to the website The Verge, there’s a little premium to be one of the first 1,000 owners, add another 50 G’s for being in line for the Founder’s Series models.
This car will solve the problem of attention starved celebs in Malibu who might be slightly embarrassed by being in a gas guzzling Ferrari or McLaren. This way they can look sporty and still be patted on the head for ecology points (Unless of course the electricity it downloaded during re-charging was made by a coal fired powerplant).
And it will also underprice, by a vast amount, the upcoming Aston Martin Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG Project One sports car which are tabbed at around $3 million each and may be left in the dust by the Tesla Roadster.
I would have hoped for more exciting styling, but being a targa fan (having previously owned a 308GTS) I am happy with this first concept and hope that some detailing can be done between now and 2020 to have a design Tesla can call all its own that other automakers will copy.
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is a fine artist who depicts in oil the supercars of the “Golden Age” (before ecology cars killed them all). Contact him regarding a commission of a car portrait write Photojournalistpro2@gmail.com.
This car will speak, no SCREAM, directly to millenials and the tuner crowd who have matured, have families and are now corporate professionals. It will do well.
Thanks for the model correction. It is not a roadster, my ’29 A was a roadster. They also call my ’94 NA a roadster, it’s a convertible coupe
I too like the Targa style. best of both worlds, ’72 DINO246gts here at one time, (best looking of all).
I give him credit for being able to raise the interest free build financing LOL.
I have always liked the Lotus line, Elan s – se, and Elise. Like his “original” Roadster.
I do wish he would get the “every-mans” lower priced Tesla first.
At the hinted price it will sell quite well, especially if the economy doesn’t crash or the leftist take over.
Oh yes, nice looking car.
I have to admit I’m a dinosaur from another era, but there’s nothing to see here that could excite me or other lovers of cars that have unique styling and/or make delicious sounds. Just another quiet, fast-looking, car that looks like all the other super-cars being sold today. Even the high pitched rap of the current super-cars will sound good compared to no sound at all.
Plus, where’s the joy of ownership other than the opportunity to show off? Nothing to work on, nothing to enjoy as you get it ready for a 1,000 mile tour with other cars of the era. This car smacks of the “look at me” world we live in today.
I have to admit Musk is a master at drawing attention to his latest new thing, but it makes me wonder if all the new things will actually come to fruition if he can’t ramp up production of his Model 3 before the other manufacturers begin delivering their planned variety of electric vehicles over the next couple of years. There seem to be many issues at the factory that raise questions about the emperor’s clothes.
Elon Musk is a master at marketing but I wonder if he isn’t the modern day PT Barnum? Tesla has already used over one billion dollars of taxpayers money to subsidize these wonders, the company has lost many of it’s top hires and its behind on it’s own production estimates .
The LA Times claims that Musk has used 4.9 Billion US tax dollars to fund his projects. “” Tesla and SolarCity continue to report net losses after a decade in business, but the stocks of both companies have soared on their potential; Musk’s stake in the firms alone is worth about $10 billion. (SpaceX, a private company, does not publicly report financial performance.)
Musk and his companies’ investors enjoy most of the financial upside of the government support, while taxpayers shoulder the cost.
The payoff for the public would come in the form of major pollution reductions, but only if solar panels and electric cars break through as viable mass-market products. For now, both remain niche products for mostly well-heeled customers.”
So in short we have funded his company to build a car to compete with the new Porsche, with the hope that we have cleaner air.
And we have a new car that looks like a Fiat Dino coupe !
Mikey, you’re soooo pessimistic. While it bothers me (and maybe others) that a lot of his “success” is because he got us, the taxpayers, to fund him, the point is to raise enthusiasm for giving up our gasoline habit and going electric and I have to admit that wherever I go in expensive neighborhoods I see nice shiny Teslas serving as examples of how electric cars could be. The owners are admired for their taste and non-polluting life style (never mind that some of the electricity comes from coal-fired powerplants!). And before I decry government funding, I always have to be thankful for the government for funding the internet (originally a DARPA project to have a means of survivors of WWIII to communicate with each other from their wrecked cities) It turned out to have huge public benefits and I use it every day.
And also as far as not making money, wasn’t the founder of Amazon knocked for years for not making money and now I heard he’s counting his first $100 billion ( That’s “billion” with a “B”) So I think Musk might be following a similar plan.
As an enthusiast, I will miss the sound of engines when the electrics take over but also realize if we can just get to 30% electric car ownership in the US (I think now it’s only 3%) we can tell whatever Mideast countries that tick us off and presently supply us with oil to go pound sand (can I say that in public?). We wouldn’t care about the Middle East if we didn’t need oil.