Note: I did have an embedded video from YouTube for this post, so you could see BBC’s Clarkson from Top Gear reviewing the Telsa. BBC took the video off YouTube because of copyright.
Until now, I’ve always said that when I win the lottery I’m going to buy a Ferrari. I’ve now changed my mind. I want a Tesla Roadster. There are a few improvements they need to make before I buy though.
On my estate (that’s not ‘my estate’ as in the country estate I own, it’s the ex-council estate on which I live). On my estate, our garages aren’t connected to our house; they’re about 30 meters away. I can’t run an extension cable out to the garage to charge my Tesla. That’s clearly a bit of a problem.
However, my current driving consists of four daily five-minute trips to and from the nursery, and the occasional trips to the gym, shopping, and visits to clients for work. Although three or four times a year we take a longer drive for weekends away or holidays, for the day-to-day travelling, the Tesla would be the perfect car if I could charge it.
I like to accelerate quickly to the speed limit, but then I cruise along with a long line of cars behind me who want to go faster. When it comes to a corner or a roundabout though, I don’t like to slow down, so I like a car that corners well. Unfortunately, the Tesla doesn’t seem to like corners, partly because of those eco-friendly low-resistance (and therefore low-grip) tyres, and partly due to the fact the batteries are so heavy.
So, here’s my suggestion to Tesla so they can make me a perfect car: make the batteries removable, and divide them into pods that can be carried from the car to the house for recharging. Make it so the car can run on as few as one pod, and the more pods that are fitted the greater the range.
They would have to do some clever stuff with the electronics so that the pods with the lowest charge are used first, leaving the maximum amount of charge in as few pods as possible, but the idea is that I (we) can remove the most discharged pods for charging at home or at work when there is no car-charging point available. Pods that are fully charged remain in the car until they’re used. For long journeys, just make sure all the pods are charged.
One more thing would be handy. Include a switch for the airbag so I could easily enable it of full-size passengers and disable it when using a child car seat.
So, Tesla, just a few minor points and a lottery win are all that stands in the way before I buy one. Of course, if you want to lend me one for review, or even give me one and stick a load of advertising on it, then that would be even better. Contact me through the comments if you’re up for it!
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