Reaching 60 miles per hour in just 1.9 seconds from a standstill in a stock production car is unheard of, and until the Tesla Roadster starts selling and delivers the promised performance, it will continue to be.
But however ludicrous it might sound, people - and not just Tesla fans - had no objection toward the number. You didn't hear anyone say "Nah, they're not going to do it. It can't be done," or anything like it. The only doubts regarding Tesla have to do with the company's business plan, meeting deadlines, and its ability to build the cars it designs in a reliable fashion.
The performance? It's almost as if everyone thought that if there were ever a company that could offer these figures, it would definitely be Tesla. Even the ridiculous 10,000 Nm (7,375 lb-ft) of torque was swallowed up as if it were nothing, though we're not sure the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank develops that kind of twist power.
The thought of a car that can almost teleport itself to 60 mph - and then need just another 2.2 seconds to reach 100 mph or 160 km/h - will definitely have a lot of people thinking about drag racing the Roadster. Hell, even Musk talked acknowledged that by mentioning the new sports car's quarter-mile time in his presentation.
One of the people who helped popularize Teslas as excellent drag racing machines, however, has a bit of an issue with this performance. He's the man behind the Tesla Racing Channel on YouTube, and when he says something on the subjects, he's talking out of his own quite vast experience.
In the latest video published, he raises the possibility that most people will refuse to race the Roadster once it comes out knowing from the start they would lose. Musk said the Roadster would clear the quarter-mile in 8.9 seconds, making it stupendously quick even for most modded cars, not to mention stock.
That's enough to scare plenty of contenders away, something the Model S P100D can sometimes do already - as demonstrated in a short section of the video below. Sure, that's a first-world problem to have, but it could leave you alone at the drag strip with nobody willing to keep you company. Well, that's the price you have to pay when you bring a gun to a knife fight.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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