Internode Tesla Roadster at a petrol station in Adelaide on the last event day

How would you like your car to achieve the equivalent of 1.6 Litres per 100 km (US 150 MPG)?

Would you like to do that while paying between AUS$69 and AUS$126 for your energy costs (including a surcharge to buy 100% GreenPower), to take you 3147 kilometres from the top of Australia to the bottom?

(or to put it another way: between 2.2 and 4 cents per km over that entire distance using GreenPower)?

We’ve just demonstrated that its possible – if the car is a pure electric vehicle.

Here are the results we’ve achieved for the 2009 Global Green Challenge ‘Eco Challenge’ event – in a downloadable table that you can find here:

tesla-roadster-ggc-2009-results

The structure of the inaugural Global Green Challenge ‘Eco Challenge’ event was unable to fully accommodate the realities of what was needed to drive this car through every one of the often very long event stages.

On the ‘shorter’ (< 400 km) stages, the Roadster mixed it with all other cars without compromise; We drove the same distance in the same time, at the same speeds, meeting all criteria for being scored fully on that stage.

However, on longer stages (some approaching 700 kms), we had to stop to recharge the car once or twice (depending on stage length), and the event rules this year then meant that those delays took us over the maximum allowable elapsed time to complete the stage.

Had recharge time been subtracted, we would have easily met all other scoring criteria for all stages, including achieving the required minimum speeds.

Because this is an economy event, most competitors arrived exactly at the nominated maximum time for a given event stage, to minimise their average speed and hence maximise their demonstrated efficiency.

(Aside: The upcoming Tesla Model S will feature a rapid charge option (as little as 45 minutes). Both the Model S and upcoming vehicles from other manufacturers, such as the Renault vehicles to be deployed by Better Place Australia  will also be able to convert ‘recharge’ time into a rapid battery swap where required. Perhaps we’re only a few years away from the recharge time ceasing to be an issue for EV’s)

Because of these challenges specific to EV’s in this inaugural ‘Eco Challenge’ event, we received no official score in the formal event results – which are designed to assess litres per 100 km of petrol or diesel, and not Kilowatt Hours.

Our table (above) shows the real achieved performance of the vehicle over more than 3100 km’s, in conditions that were often hot (41 Celcius) and windy at times.

The official finish in Victoria Square, Adelaide

Note that the performance in the Adelaide Urban Cycle is better than the highway numbers. This is normal for EV’s – and an indication of just how suitable they are for the majority of people who live in urban environments, where there is simply no issue about wasted fuel at low speeds or when waiting at traffic lights.

We feel that we have tested the Roadster in a very harsh environment indeed – and in that environment, it has come through with flying colours. We couldn’t be happier about the results of our efforts.

Naturally, we’ve learned a great deal in the process of participating in this event.

We’ll apply what we’ve learned ‘next time’ and see if we can do even better!

Its got everything else but... no cup holder

The Roadster is an awesome sports car. Zero to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds. Huge range. Looks fabulous.

But its not perfect… there are no cup holders :)

(Edit: A reader kindly pointed out to me that I was wrong – there is indeed a (single) cup holder in my car. It is cunningly hidden under the traction control button! So there’s a victory for RTFM! – something my reader did, and that I, clearly, did not :) )

This morning, the Roadster was taken out for one of its last road trips for a while – the Urban Cycle course around Adelaide, heading up into the hills through Belair and then down through Magill and North East Road before returning to the city centre to attend an official welcome by the SA premier, Mike Rann.

After 3,147 kilometres, we’ve successfully driven our team all the way from Darwin to Adelaide, with the Roadster travelling completely on electric power – and we set a world record on the way. Nothing to laugh at!

Now, for those of you a little confused about the nature of this Eco Challenge, and whether or not it was a race, and if you’re wondering how well each of the cars did, I’ve got a few numbers for you. Unfortunately, these numbers do not relate to the two electric cars (the Roadster and the Deep Green Research Honda Civic) – those are coming tomorrow once the data-monkeys can crunch some numbers.

So. For the rest of the pack, their ‘performance’ is based upon a comparison with published Australian Design Regulation figures. This is how it panned out, for each of the VFACTS classes entered in the Challenge:

As you can see, everybody’s a winner! (Well, almost…)
See you tomorrow night at the presentations, we’ve been told there’s a few more awards that they haven’t announced just yet!

Congratulations to everybody involved – it wouldn’t have been the same without you!