20 January / February 2011

If you happened to be in the Omni-New Haven Hotel garage on January 8, you

might have noticed a sleek, dark grey sports car tethered to an electrical outlet.

The Tesla Roadster was in town for road testing by potential buyers who signed up on the company’s website, according to Michael Sexton, the Tesla senior regional sales adviser for Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

A reporter also got to take the car for a spin, after Sexton spent the day on the road with nine “serious” candidates, including seven Connecticut residents and a Shelter Island ferry-boat captain who took two ferries and a train to get to the Elm City for the occasion.

A genial man who sold BMWs to diplomats before signing up with Tesla two years ago, Sexton, had driven the

Tesla 2.5, the latest model of this two-seat zero-emissions vehicle, in from New York the previous day, during a snowstorm.

The two-door convertible is powered by a battery pack with 6,831 lithium ion cells, which can store 56 kilowatt-hours of electricity. When fully charged using a regular 110-volt outlet (four to eight hours) or 220-volt outlet (3.5 to 6.5 hours), the two-seater can travel as far as 245 miles,

Getting behind the wheel of the coolest automotive plaything, ever

No need to pimp this ride, one of just 17 Teslas in the entire state.

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according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rating. Between rides, Sexton hooked it up to the outlet.

At six foot-fi ve, Sexton towers over the 44.35 inch tall Roadster, which has a lightweight carbon fi ber body and weighs 2,723 pounds, including the 1,000-pound battery pack behind the driver’s cockpit. Adjacent to the battery pack is box full of electronics comprising what Sexton termed “the brains of the car.”

The trunk has just enough space for two golf bags.

This baby is built for speed.

The regular Roadster goes from 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds; the Sport model Sexton brought to New Haven does the same in 3.7 seconds.

The price tag is likewise prodigious, starting at $109,000.

The Tesla at the Omni sells for roughly $161,000 and had a variety of options such as snow tires and an “infotainment package” including Bluetooth, HD radio, a rear camera, a satellite radio and a seven-speaker sound system with subwoofer, which Sexton explains is a big selling point.

The high-performance Tesla has a few low-tech features. There is no power steering and you must adjust the rear view mirrors by hand.

Turn the key in the ignition and the only sound you hear is a chime. Another way you know it’s running is by the digital displays lighting up on the dashboard. These displays allow you to monitor the ideal mileage range for the vehicle, how many kilowatt hours you’re using, tire pressure and temperature, how effi ciently you’re driving the car and “how much it costs, per penny, to charge, among many other things,” says Sexton.

Push a button on a control panel with options for park, drive, reverse and neutral, and you’re on your way.

The car is exquisitely responsive. Press the accelerator pedal and it surges, which feels thrilling, especially on a snowy night when a yellow warning light indicates the air temperature is below freezing and the roads may be slippery.

Acceleration also produces a high-pitched whine similar to an emergency vehicle siren.

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22 January / February 2011

“Most of my pilot drivers say it sounds like a turbine,” Sexton explains.

Lighten up on the accelerator and the regenerative braking system kicks in, instantly slowing the car and recharging the battery pack.

As the Roadster traversed some windy and hilly roads in New Haven and Woodbridge, the connection between car and driver was intimate— and visceral.

Most fi rst-time drivers are impressed with “the ease of driving and the quickness of the car,” Sexton says. “The biggest comment is ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this.’”

On January 10, Tesla Motors announced sales of the Roadster had topped 1,500 and the vehicles had traveled 8.5 million miles in the aggregate, saving 415,000 gallons of gasoline and more than 22,000 barrels of oil.

Owners include George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and David Letterman who, Sexton says, “drives his Roadster to work every day.”

During 2010, the company delivered Tesla Roadsters to owners in 30 countries.

Electric re-charging may be coming to a garage near you.

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As of January 10, there were 17 Tesla owners in Connecticut, according to company spokesperson Camille Ricketts.

At the Omni, Sexton introduced me one of them, Thomas Harbinson, president of IDA International Inc., a Derby company that designs and installs metal panel systems for building facades. The panels are fabricated at his factory, which is powered by solar panels that produce more than 100 percent of the facility’s electricity needs.

Harbinson admits he likes to drive fast and has had to attend court-ordered traffi c school, twice, for speeding. He owns several other sports cars.

Harbinson powers up his Tesla Roadster at his factory, where he recently installed a weatherproof outlet where any electric cars owner can charge their vehicle for free. A fellow Tesla owner recently stopped by on his way from Cape Cod to New Jersey after Harbinson wrote about the outlet on an owners-only area of the Tesla website.

Sexton also used the outlet while traveling to the Omni, where Harbinson met him for dinner.

Sexton explained that Tesla Motors has no direct connection to Nikola Tesla, the Croatian who developed alternating-current technology for electricity, among many other inventions.

Co-founded in 2003 by PayPal cofounder Elon Musk, who now is Tesla’s chairman, product architect and CEO, the company went public last June, a month after Tesla and Toyota announced a partnership to build electric vehicles. The Japanese automaker plans to invest $50 million in the company.

Panasonic invested $30 million in Tesla in November, and is

working with the company to develop new battery packs.

After making its debut in 2008 and undergoing several upgrades, the Tesla Roadster will be phased out in 2012, Sexton says, to make way for the Model S, a four-door electric sedan intended to

“appeal to the masses.”

Earlier this month Tesla announced that deliveries of the Model S would commence in the second quarter of 2012 and the car would cost between $50,000 and $60,000.

Sexton said the purpose of the road tests was to move prospective buyers “closer to sales,” and two of the nine candidates who tried the Roadster at the Omni are

“pretty much ready to do it.”

They way he could tell was “by the questions they asked, like ‘What cars are readily available?’ and ‘Can I talk to an owner?’”

The “vast percentage of Tesla owners are male ages 35 to 55,” Sexton says, but he’s also heard anecdotally that “Many of their wives have kind of commandeered the car.”

He also is selling more Teslas to “professional” women, such as one who wanted to invest in the company because of its environmentally friendly technology and fell in love with the car.

That’s not hard to do.

Since my wintry test drive I’ve been daydreaming about driving the Tesla again — and often — on warm days when the sunlight is streaming through my wind-blown hair.

Maybe some day.

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