For those of you who missed the Jay Leno’s Garage episode on August 23, the one in which he got to ride along in a new Tesla Roadster driven by Tesla design chief Franz von Holtzhausen, the full episode is now available on YouTube. It starts with Leno driving a first-generation Roadster — the car that really lit the fuse on the Tesla campaign to replace every fossil fuel burning vehicle on the planet with vehicles that run on electricity.
Then Jay shows up at the Tesla design headquarters in Silicon Valley where he meets with von Holtzhausen. First, the pair go for a ride in a new Model 3, which Leno compliments for looking and driving very much like its big brother, the Model S. High praise indeed for someone who is one of the biggest car collectors in the world. Leno has just about one of everything on wheels and a pair of many of them. Then comes the piece de resistance — a ride in a prototype of the upcoming Tesla Roadster 2.
This is the car Elon Musk says will deliver a “hardcore smackdown to gasoline powered cars.” And Elon means all gasoline-powered cars — from Ferrari Testarossa to McLaren F1, to Porsche 918 Spyder, to Bugatti Veyron, the new Tesla will beat them all in acceleration, handling, top speed, and quarter-mile times.
Quite simply, it will be both the fastest and the quickest production car ever made. If you are not clear on the difference between those two terms, a car is quick if it hustles to 60 mph, or 100 mph, or whatever speed target you prefer in less time than its rivals. A car is fast if its top speed is greater than its rivals. The Tesla Roadster is both.
To recap, the new Roadster will have a 200 kWh battery, a top speed in excess of 250 miles per hour, a 0–60 mph time of 1.9 seconds, and the ability to do the quarter mile in 8.8 seconds. A range of more than 600 miles is anticipated. And that’s just for the base version! Not only that, the car is flat out gorgeous. It just looks svelte and purposeful without a lot of the weird swoops and creases embossed into the bodywork that have become design clichés of late.
Von Holtzhausen warns Leno that the acceleration will compress his eyeballs — then proceeds to prove it. It’s fair to say Jay Leno has ridden in a lot of quick cars, but his reaction to the Roadster is fun to watch as he holds up his hands in mock surrender and screams, “I’ll buy it! I’ll take it!” And when the car goes into production in 2020 (hopefully), expect him to one of the first in line.
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