When you purchase a car, you probably take a look at it first. If it looks good, then you think about its performance. If it suits, then you look for reviews of people who drove one and how it did on testing.
So far there have been no extensive high-mileage reviews of the Tesla Roadster, but there’s one German dude who actually managed to squeeze 40,000 miles (65,000 km) in the electric roadster in one year.
A stock broker who lives in Freiburg, Hansji¶rg von Gemmingen is one of the lucky owners of a Tesla Roadster. Though many around the world would afford it, few would actually buy an electric vehicle. Hansji¶rg, on the other hand, not only bought it, but intends to drive the thing his usual way, until “they literally fall apart.”
He had owned two Mercedes (one drove 902,000 km) and a Beetle (290,000 km) so far, and now he wants to drive the Roadster until the battery or some other vital components break and the car is not worth repairing anymore.
Because Freiburg is located in a beautiful, landscape-filled area of Germany, near the Black Forest, there are a lot of possibilities for him to explore them. He declares himself satisfied with the electric car and considers it reliable and fast.
After so much “quality time” behind the wheel, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by several things. Most people know about the Roadster’s legendary performance – tha’s always fun. But the Roadster is also convenient – especially for those of us who live in places with four seasons. I always had to pre-heat my combustion cars; there is nothing more inefficient than starting a cold motor or driving a cold car at maximum speed. But with the Roadster, I plug the car into my home’s outlet – and the Roadster is ready to roll every morning, no matter how cold it is outside. I could zip immediately onto the autobahn and drive 125 miles per hour (200 kph) without worrying about losing efficiency due to a cold engine.
He even drove on a 500 mile trip (800 km) to Berlin to attend a Tesla owners meeting of about twenty, and brags the European 220V grid outlets can charge the car faster than the Americans’ 110V.
Hansji¶rg even stops to give explanations to curious people and even allows them to test drive the car, just to see how it performs and how the future looks like for motoring. I guess his example is more than enough to demonstrate that electric cars are a viable option for all of us. Of course, when they’ll become mainstream and I’ll be older, I may afford one, but I’ll surely enjoy a cleaner ride then as I would now.
The only question that remains to be answered to is that of the battery, whose capacity is expected to drop some 30% after 50,000 miles. This was a question on the Tesla blog that has yet been unanswered by Hansji¶rg.
[via teslamotors/gas2]
