Elon Musk, the man behind the ‘tech-tour-de-force-of-auto-industry’ Tesla, had tweeted earlier this week, “Tesla Semi Truck unveil will blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension”. He couldn’t have been more spot on!
Blew our mind clear off our skulls, it sure did. It’s just not the Semi Truck which did that. Instead, it was what came off the smoking truck towards the end of the event.
With nary a hint running up to the event, Tesla dropped a bombshell in front of a shocked crowd that probably had expected a bunch of Model 3 sedans to come out of the just-unveiled Semi Truck. But what emerged was this, the successor to the Tesla Roadster. For those who do not know, the low-volume Roadster was the brand’s first car ever before the Model S came and made Tesla a household name.
Not much about the new car was revealed beyond the fact that it’s a two-door, four-seat convertible with a detachable hard top and some insane specs. Insane, for lack of a better word!
This new roadster, Tesla claims, can go from 0 to 60 mph (100 km/h) in an earth-shattering 1.9 seconds.. covering a quarter-mile (0.4 km) in 8.9 seconds flat! With a claimed top speed in excess of 250 mph (402 km/h) and a hitherto-unheard-of "620-mile range" (>1,000 km), the Tesla Roadster will become the fastest road car ever built. Period.
Do we see the engineers at Bugatti, Porsche, Lamborghini and Ferrari sweating already?
Tesla’s newest baby has three motors, one in front and two in the rear, drawing power from a 200 KWh battery pack nestled somewhere on its floor, all-wheel drive and torque steering.
Prices are expected to hover around $200,000 and production is expected to begin 2020. Knowing Tesla’s history in delaying on delivery commitments, you know when the first cars would arrive at customers. Be wary of that if you’re putting in your money ($50,000 is said to be the reservation amount) on this!
Sleek, sexy and gorgeous, the new Roadster is all Tesla needed to steer clear off the spate of negative publicity surrounding the brand’s failure to ramp up the production of Model 3 sedans. In one sheer stroke of genius, Elon Musk, by his own admission, delivered a hardcore smack-down to gasoline cars and all but ensured Tesla remains in the headlines for years to come.
It's time for Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti to sweat. What's the point if Tesla can deliver such mindblowing numbers with this beautiful car?
ReplyDeleteNot yet, Tesla should start delivering on their commitments. If they do, it's definitely time for the current biggies to sweat.
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