The Tesla battery-powered two-seater roadster

Let us deal first with negatives surrounding the Tesla battery-powered two-seater roadster. One is the £92,000 price, before options, of a sports car virtually the same size – and out of the same factory – as the £30,000 Lotus Elise.

The Tesla comes with a three-year warranty and be grateful that it does. Because in what Tesla claims is the almost inconceivable event of a battery failure, a replacement pack of the lithium-cobalt batteries will cost £9,000. It is possible to buy another three-year warranty, but be ready to write a cheque for £4,000.

Drive the Tesla everywhere flat out and far from achieving the claimed maximum range of 220 miles, it could wind up lifeless at the side of the road after 100. And once back in range of a 13-amp socket it will require 15 hours to recharge fully. That can be reduced, but only by forking out another £2,000 either for an adapter operating off a 32-amp domestic cooker circuit – ready in six hours – or a more specialised converter that will recharge at 63 amps, and take three hours.

US-owned Tesla has focused its marketing efforts on north America and has only recently turned its attention elsewhere. The UK has one sales and service outlet, in Knightsbridge’s exclusive Cheval Place. The network will expand in due course, but only if Tesla’s intended launch of an “S” saloon within the next three years succeeds. Production of the “S” is intended to be at 20 times the volume of the two-seater and it will sell at half the price, taking it into head-on confrontation with major carmakers now working hard on their own battery-powered cars.

Tesla has not had an easy ride in the five years it has taken to bring its cars to market. Led by Elon Musk, the notoriously scratchy South African-born entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal, the internet payments system, and whose SpaceX space exploration company has landed a $1.6bn contract with Nasa, Tesla has already had its share of controversies. Given the genuinely pioneering nature of the cars it makes, there are reasons why Tesla could be at risk of joining the long list of specialist car companies that have drowned in debt and runaway development costs.

There are, however, plenty of positives surrounding the Tesla. After more than a century of truly viable electric cars being “just around the corner”, it looks as if Tesla has finally cracked most of the problems. Others clearly believe so, too; witness a decision by Germany’s Daimler-Benz to take a stake in Tesla and a US federal loan of almost $500 million to help Tesla further develop its technology and build a factory, in the US, for the “S” saloon.

In the UK, a full recharge will require just £4-worth of electricity – a fuel cost of about £400 if the car covers 15,000 miles in a year, compared with a bill of about £3,000 in a conventional car averaging 25 miles per gallon. Given zero carbon dioxide emissions during use, there is no road tax payable; there is exemption from London’s congestion charge, and local authority exemptions for battery cars from all parking charges are becoming increasingly widespread.

Don Cochrane, Tesla’s UK sales chief, predicts average service costs of around £200 a year, on the grounds that the 248 horsepower three-phase electric motor should never break, the simple gearbox has – and needs – only one gear and the battery pack is essentially maintenance-free and capable of powering the car for 125,000 miles. “As for servicing,” Cochrane says, “we’ll either collect it and deliver back or operate a ‘flying spanner’ service anywhere in the world.” Using satellite-based communications, every car can be electronically interrogated for faults irrespective of the country in which its owner lives.

Yes, the little two-seater is expensive and doubtless the planned output of 1,000 cars a year will be bought only by the super-rich intrigued by the promise of genuine high-performance fun as well as impeccable environmental credentials. And given range considerations, it will certainly not be bought as an “only” car, although Cochrane says some of the 700 owners so far in the US are commuting daily up to 200 miles, recharging at their offices during the working day.

I agree somewhat with Cochrane’s view that “the cars are enormous fun and attractive to people who think differently. They’re not necessarily green; they just want to embrace change.” The artist Damien Hirst, for one, is awaiting delivery and I’m pretty sure he does not intend it to wind up sawn in half lengthwise in a tank of formaldehyde.

It really is great fun and in terms of acceleration from a standing start it is right up there with the fastest supercars. Unlike a petrol engine, all the motor’s mighty 280lb ft of torque is on tap from standstill. That shoots the Tesla to 60mph in 3.9 seconds and the £110,000 “Sport” version with 290 horsepower will take even less time. This is deep into Ferrari territory.

The Tesla is, however, a genuine “supercar” only until around 70mph. From then on, as the torque effect becomes less dramatic, its performance becomes much like that of any other car weighing 1,220kg with 248 horsepower to hand. It is all spent at 130mph. And it is definitely not as spritely as the (300kg lighter) Lotus Elise.

It is very agile but, even allowing for extensive suspension modifications compared with the Lotus on which the Tesla is loosely based, there is no denying that the 450kg battery pack sitting amidships blunts its responses. Even that, however, should quickly change, according to Cochrane: “We’re at the beginning of a huge curve. In five years the battery size and weight will be halved and the range doubled.”

If that projection proves right, Tesla will not only have seen the future but also made it work.

.......................

The details

How much
£92,00 (under review downwards) before options

How fast
0-60mph 3.9 secs, top speed 130mph

How thirsty
Approx £4 for 170-mile recharge

How green
Zero CO2 in use, ignoring electricity generation

Also consider
Sorry, no close rivals