E-mail from Tesla P.R. person: "Where is my baby?"
I look around. Gads, I'm still in Costa Mesa, a good 50 miles from Tesla's dealership in Santa Monica.
I knew the car needed to be returned today after our five-day stint, which included two days of testing and lapping, but only now was it dawning on me that the luscious orange Roadster Sport I'm screwed into needed to be returned this morning so that it could be cleaned up and recharged in time for its next journalist-driver (our pal Aaron Robinson; sorry, Aaron). But after leaving our office last night with enough battery charge for maybe 220 miles, well, what would you do? Return it with a three-quarter-full battery? Ohhh, no. Those miles were going to be put to good and proper use -- all while gradually nearing Santa Monica, of course.
I look around. Gads, I'm still in Costa Mesa, a good 50 miles from Tesla's dealership in Santa Monica.
I knew the car needed to be returned today after our five-day stint, which included two days of testing and lapping, but only now was it dawning on me that the luscious orange Roadster Sport I'm screwed into needed to be returned this morning so that it could be cleaned up and recharged in time for its next journalist-driver (our pal Aaron Robinson; sorry, Aaron). But after leaving our office last night with enough battery charge for maybe 220 miles, well, what would you do? Return it with a three-quarter-full battery? Ohhh, no. Those miles were going to be put to good and proper use -- all while gradually nearing Santa Monica, of course.
And so, daughter Catherine, age 10, got a ride to school. Her pal, Lukie, who lives down the street, appeared to need a quick jolt of big-g acceleration, and wound up with a smile that could have been painted on. Of course, Lukie's big sister, Edyn, couldn't be left out. And what about Patrick, their dad? We're all kids at heart, you know.
Then, heading up the 405 freeway I realized I'd better do some coast-down tests on a nearby road that's perfect for such things.
Okay, that part sounds strange -- let me explain. You see, for people like me, cars are simultaneously what you normal people perceive -- cool hardware, driving fantasies, and all that stuff. But in addition, hovering above them like floating small clouds, I also see bunches of swirling equations and graphs and vectors, with unknown coefficients just aching to be figured out. Don't see them? Next time stare harder. Among those coefficients is drag, what I'm after with my detour (and unusual for a sports car, the Tesla's front camber is zero to minimize rolling resistance). Oh, and my apologies to the befuddled traffic following me that must have been wondering why this idiot Tesla driver kept accelerating like crazy and then coasting nearly to a stop.
