Preview: The Tesla Roadster

If you know me, you should know by now that I'm a proponent of alternative fuels.

My advocacy isn't based on some environmentalist, left-wing agenda I have. Rather, it's born of a practical belief that the dangers of remaining reliant on any exhaustible resource should be constantly driving fuel innovations in other, smarter, cleaner directions.

Why continue to build the world's economies around petroleum, giving undue power and wealth to violent, dictatorial regimes, when we absolutely have the resources to generate energy in other ways? There's no good reason.

But I'm not interested in the soapbox today. I'm interested in badass cars. And this is why I brought you here:

The Tesla Roadster.

Developed in Silicon Valley by Martin Eberhard, this Lotus-designed tarmac eater paces from 0 to 60 in under four seconds. Its top speed is somewhere in the vicinity of 130 mph. And its direct-drive, fully electric engine redlines at...oh, how about 13,500 rpm.

All this muscle is powered by 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, at a cost of around 1 to 2 cents per mile.

Really.

The Tesla has a three-speed gearbox (two forward and one reverse), and will drive the speedometer needle to a comfortable 70 mph in first gear. It'll do every bit of this without making a peep, because the motor is practically silent.

Wait, wait! I have a finger in my ear and didn't hear that properly. Did you say electric engine? Electric?

Yeah, I did. And I also forgot to mention that the Tesla Roadster will give you all of those ridiculous specs - plus its devastating good looks - for a projected $80,000.

In comparison, the Porsche Carrera GT, with a tach redline at 8,400 rpm, would cost you $440,000 - not to mention all the "compensation" jokes made at your expense.

The whole Tesla Motors project is impressive and fascinating. Eberhard is an electrical engineer who developed a portable eBook reader, and made a boatload of cash when his company sold. For venture capital to finance his electric sports car, Martin has recruited Elon Musk (co-founder of PayPal), Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and former eBay honcho, Jeff Skoll among others.

It's a who's who list of this generation's cutting-edge entrepreneurs. If these guys can't figure out how to push alternative fuels into the mainstream, then I don't know who can.

Anyhow, at this point I'm basically just rewriting the already excellent article Joshua Davis wrote for Wired Magazine. So, rather than plagiarize Davis, I'm going to direct you to the article right here.

Once this blog earns me a cool 80 thou, I'll be stopping by a Southern California Tesla dealership to pick mine up. You guys keep a black one on the lot for me, ai'ight?