ALL right, no beating around the high-voltage bush: What is the Tesla Roadster, the dead-sexy, six-figure, all-electric sports car prototype like to drive?
It's hard to be definitive, since the company could only allow me a 45-minute romp around Marina del Rey earlier this week and also because the prototype I drove has been loved half to death since the car was unveiled at the Santa Monica Airport in July.
The first gear of the two-speed Xtrac gearbox was closed for business, bits and pieces of the interior were worn, and the car's maroon carbon-fiber body panels had to be retouched recently -- I suspect because of all the suction mounts of all the cameras of all the news crews that have made the magi-like pilgrimage to Silicon Valley to adore this revolutionary machine. Simply put, the Tesla Roadster -- which will be on display at the L.A. Auto Show -- has been a media sensation. Among its honors, the Roadster was named one of Time magazine's best inventions of 2006 in the transportation category.
But I can tell you, even from my brief spin in this dog-eared prototype, the Tesla Roadster delivers on its promise, which might be summarized as "stupid fun for smart people." I think the Latin translation of same should appear on the company crest.
It takes a slight leg hoist and wriggle to get into the car and strap yourself into the thin carbon shell of a seat -- a holdover from the Lotus Elise on which the car is based. The seat will change in the production car since its narrow width doesn't exactly accommodate "American butts," according Mike Harrigan, Tesla vice president of marketing.
The cabin is tight and narrow, with driver and passenger as shoulder-to-shoulder as striking Teamsters. But the view over the hood is good and the sightlines from the rear mirrors are adequate. I turn the key. The instrument indicators wink, the bar-graph display by my left knee scales up and there's a gentle clunk in the rear of the car, somewhere in the neighborhood of its climate-controlled 50 kilowatt-hour battery pack and the 248-hp electric motor.
