Fellow bloggers from our greasemonkey brother site Jalopnik got a first peek tonight at the much-anticipated Tesla Roadster, an electric-powered road rocket that can travel from 0-60 in four seconds with a top speed of 130mph. Singing the body electric is a 182-kilowatt AC-induction motor, a rear-mounted power plant drawing its energy from 6800 lithium ion batteries. Even though that engine's barely audible, it's capable of rotating at an astonishing 13,500rpm before it even gets close to the redline.
It's packed with lots of humble off-the-shelf components, yet we're hearing the vehicle might cost in the neighborhood of $100K. It takes 3.5 hours to charge up those thousands of batteries, and on a full charge it can keep on going and going, quick like a bunny, for 250 miles. Looks like lots of fun to drive, where its two forward gears let you enjoy that flat torque curve you can only get with an electric motor. Now if you'll just lend us $99,995, we'll be on our way.
Mechanical Resonance: The Tesla Motors Press Intro, Complete With Governator [Jalopnik]