Most people have heard of Tesla, run by Elon Musk. The company got its start in 2003 with one car and one mission, to “accelerate the day of electric vehicles.” Almost a decade-and-a-half later, the line has grown significantly. Tesla now makes electric cars, semi trucks, roof titles, solar panels and home and commercial energy storage systems. As it relates to electric cars, the company has outed their latest Tesla Roadster, an automobile due out in 2020, and will stand to set record speeds.
The original Roadster was born in 2005 when English carmaker Lotus agreed to sell Tesla bare Elise shells. Tesla then stuck lithium-ion battery cells and electric motors into them, creating the first all-electric car to travel more than 200 miles on a single charge. It was also super fast, clocking a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.9 seconds.
Today, Tesla is a leader in the automotive industry with many more money and resources at their disposal. This is why they’re paying particular attention to their upcoming 2020 Telsa Roadster, which will be state-of-the-art in design, performance and most importantly speed.
Unveiled as a surprise at the end of the Tesla Semi event, the all-wheel drive Roadster has some ridiculous features including a 200kWh battery pack, 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, 0 to 100 mph in 4.2 seconds, and the quarter-mile dealt with in 8.9 seconds. These are record-breaking speeds, but there’s more. Musk mentioned the Tesla Roadster was capable of reaching 250 mph in testing. According to the CEO himself, “The point of all this is just to give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars.”
Besides crazy speeds, the Tesla Roadster will also be able to seat four, and it will feature a removable glass roof that fits snugly in the trunk. Additionally, there will be plenty of storage, as well as the most advanced driver-assist systems to date.
If you’re wondering about driving range on a charge, the second-generation Tesla Roadster will be able to travel a whopping 620 miles between charges, and that’s more than some diesel cars can do. “These numbers sound nutty, but they’re real,” Musk said at the event.
So there’s no question that the specs or the upcoming Tesla Roadster are impressive, but the car will come at a significant cost. The base model will start at $200,000 with a $50,000 deposit required upfront; however, the first 1,000 Roadsters off the line will be dubbed the Founder’s Series and will require the full $250,000 up front. So we aren’t talking chump change, but compared to other exotic cars which range in price of over a million dollars, and with speeds that don’t quite compare to the Tesla, the Roadster will come out as quite the bargain.
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