Tesla Roadster sets EV distance record during Eco Challenge

By George Skentzos | October 30th, 2009

While the HSV Maloo may have claimed top honours, another stand out entry in the 2009 Global Green Car Challenge has been the Tesla Roadster which set a new distance record for an electric vehicle.

The Tesla Roadster, piloted by owner Simon Hackett and co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas, completed 501km on just a single charge between Alice Springs and Coober Pedy.

The previous distance record was set in April by another Tesla Roadster which was the only all-electric vehicle to complete the entire 241-mile Rallye Monte Carlo d’Energies Alternatives with around 61km worth of charge to spare.

“Emilis and I have decades of experience flying gliders competitively and we applied the same energy conservation techniques to our driving, with significant results! The car had about 3 miles of range left when the drive was completed. We travelled 501km on a single charge. Let that sink in for a minute.” said Mr Hackett.

“The security seal was applied to the charge port door when we started the journey. As this is being done as part of the Global Green Challenge, we have a full set of official verifiers here who will attest to the results and to achieving the outcome. We were followed along the journey by our support crew and a documentary film crew – so we have it on film.

“It’s late here and we have another 541k to drive (with an intermediate charge stop) tomorrow – and another two days of the event left after that. When we’re done, we will have driven over 3000 km’s in the Roadster over the course of only six days, from Darwin to Adelaide.”

The Tesla Roadster was the first production EV with a range greater than 320 km per charge thanks to another innovation as the first production vehicle to employ lithium-ion battery cells.

DGS

Hmmm, this mob are going to get in big trouble, not only do they make an electric car that looks good and can perform, but now it seems the bugger has useful range.

Total disrespect for the direction the rest of the EV world is aspiring to. (crap design, crap performance, bugger all range)

lazybones

At the rate the Koreans are going attacking everything on every front. They will probably be the first to have an affordable EV Sports car. 2010 will be an interesting year with all sorts of EV’s hitting the road.

Safety Frist

Like all the comments on the other vehicles, 501km at what speed? not real world relevence is it, really?? Drive it like you would any other Lotus bodied vehicle and how far will you really get?? Again thes are good cars, but it still holds out that, with current battery technology they are far from a practical form of everyday transport. As much as the XR6Turbo and the Maloo are Econo box performance cars.

D

I’m sure when driven normally it would be fine for most people to use everyday.

Safety Frist

This is the “WORLDS FIRST ELECTRIC SPORTS CAR” thus it is designed to be driven as a sports car. There are electric cars in England that are fine for commuting (and they cost way less than the Tesla) I am not trying to deride the principle of the car, I actually like it. It’s that in function it still has a long way to go. (personal opinion only and based on comparing to similar vehicles hence the mention of Lotus)

Tom R

Drive it like you would any other Lotus bodied vehicle? True.
But what about the Malloo and the XR6 Turbo, drive it like any other person on the road and….
Besides, those results are amazing, but dont forget they were absolutely babied.

Safety Frist

Tom, I am not denying that fact at all. I agree that the all the figures DO NOT represent real world figures. They only hilight what is achievable. As I said, I like the the Tesla, however it’s short commings are still way to much of a hurdle in real life. Sure you will use more fuel in the Maloo and Turbo when driven as a sorts orrientated car, but you can fuel them anywhere. Also if you were just out cruising on the Highway with either of those you can actually get consumption down into the 7′s easily by sitting at national limit on cruise control using aircond (well let me say that I can when I have a Turbo for the weekend and imagine the 8 would be similar) but the Tesla would still be restricted to around 250K’s on a full charge (by most reports)