Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was launched into space, spectacular test-launch ballast carried by one of his Space-X Falcon Heavy rockets early in 2018. You’d have to spend millions of dollars to go fetch that one from its orbit, but Pick of the Day is another of the first-year electric sports cars — and a definite future classic — a 2008 Tesla Roadster advertised on ClassicCars.com by a dealership in Bellevue, Washington.
The car wears Radiant Red Metallic paint and has a black interior, the dealer reports that the car shows little more than 15,000 miles on its odometer.
We know, you’re used to reading about the cubic-inch displacement of engines and the number of gears in the transmission of Picks of the Day, but the electric revolution is coming to highways and byways so you need to start learning about such things as 3-phase 4-pole electric motors.
And instead of mpg, a key figure with electric vehicles is range; in this case, it’s 220 miles, at least when cruising down the highway.
Or you can floor it and hit 60 mph in less than 4 seconds on your way to a top speed of a buck and a quarter.
The Roadster was the car that launched the Tesla brand. It was based on the Lotus Elise and was the first EV to go into series production with lithium-ion batteries. Around 2,500 were produced from 2008-2012.
Roadsters set records for range (more than 300 miles) in Australia, won the Monte Carlo Alternative Energy Rally, and won an FIA championship with Erik Comas, a former F1 racer, winning a 3-day efficiency challenge.
The Roadster available on ClassicCars.com has both hard and soft tops, power windows, cruise control, valet mode and air conditioning. It was delivered new in Louisiana, and has a VIN that starts with a 5, indicating its assembly took place in the U.S. (early cars were assembled at Lotus in England).
It is on offer for $57,950.
To view this listing on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.
I certainly will never buy one of these energy hungry cars…..the cost in fossil fuels to produce the batteries, the fossil fuels used to recharge them and the tremendous cost to replace the batteries when they eventually fail, starting the cycle all over again. You can keep them….just don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are saving the planet. Who are we kidding?
So if his personal car is now floating …..orbiting in outer space, someday will be crashing down to Earth as space junk..maybe killing people..instead of putting it in a museum, maybe collecting revenue to help mankind…? as of today, I think less of Elon Musk.
I believe Tesla cars are great cars, quality is top notch, FCA and Tesla are joining forces, so
that tells me EV are here for real..
The Musk roadster was placed in an orbit where it is far more likely to be pulled farther from the Earth, eventually going into very deep space or into the sun- depending on what it might pass near or collide with in it’s travels. I don’t imagine that anyone is in any danger, and the Earth’s surface is around 70% uninhabited ocean anyway, so even if it did come back down what would be left after the ablative heating on reentry poses little threat. Remember, one of the shuttles (Columbia, I believe) disintegrated in the atmosphere primarily over the southern Midwest, spreading debris over several states; an enormous machine that was designed to survive reentry, yet I don’t recall any injuries or deaths of those in the path being reported.
Let’s take a deep breath, chill the panic, and let Mr. Musk be; as his own worst enemy, he could use a break.