MotorMouths

Given the 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport’s $129,000 price tag and small cabin, it is a niche car for early adopters. But the bottom line is that this car has the most technically advanced powertrain in a production car today, with greater range and speed than any other electric car on the market.

The Roadster Sport is within pocket change of Porsche’s 911 Turbo, which, as a value, is simply a hell of a lot more car for the dollar. Yet, how do you honestly compare the Tesla with a conventional sports car?

The Roadster is a gem of engineering, a fabulous car to drive but, let’s be honest, not entirely that practical or affordable.

While the Tesla Roadster is a combination of zero tailpipe emissions and true performance car prowess that once was thought to be impossible.

The Tesla Roadster 2.5 S is a massively impressive vehicle, more spacecraft than sports car. It has the chops to go up against blue-chip names from Italy, Germany and England, but more importantly, it eases the anxiety of gearheads everywhere.

Even to a gear head such as myself with gasoline pulsing through his veins, my drive in the Tesla convinced me that a gas-free would not be the worst thing that could happen to autodom.

The Tesla is stupidly, mouthwateringly fast. If this is the future, it seems pretty good indeed. Tesla did it and did it first. Nobody can take that away from them. And that’s very much worth all the fuss.

Even at the price level of an Aston Martin, the Tesla Roadster Sport, I must admit, far exceeded my wary expectations. Is the age of the electric car at last dawning? It would seem so.

With no gears and a silent motor, the Tesla experience is like driving a golf cart. At least it would be if golf carts could hit 100 mph on the freeway on-ramp and hug the road like it was glued there.

The Tesla Sport model’s heavy premium doesn’t buy a much better car, not in the way this kind of money upgrades a 911 Carrera 4S to a GT3. But the price delivers an otherworldly experience, a visceral, satisfying rejection of the traditional fossil-fueled sports car.

Where the Tesla Roadster instantly steals a march on its rivals is its acceleration, a sub-four second zero to sixty time that effortlessly bests offerings from Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, etc.

The Roadster rises above the hype to solidify its place as a proper sports car. Could it be lighter? Certainly. Could it be cheaper? Most definitely. But today, in this world, in this climate, it stands in a segment of one.