Roadster Rally
This past Sunday, September 18th,  the Tesla Motors Club held a rally in New York&rsquo;s beautiful Hudson Valley. Seven owners showed up from New York, Southern/Northern New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
The rally started at 9am at West Point Military Academy&rsquo;s Engineering  Dept. parking lot where Roadster owners showed off their electric supercars and let  military families (plus yours truly) drive their cars.
After leaving West Point, the cars headed up Route 9W (famous for it&rsquo;s   curves, smooth ride, and beautiful scenery) to the Newburgh water front,   back down to the Bear Mountain Bridge, through Peekskill and ended at   Sleepy Hollow Country Club for lunch.
The 9am gathering  was intended for military Cadets to demo the cars, but  unfortunately not a single Cadet showed.
That didn&amp;#8217;t concern me, it only meant a better chance for me to drive one. The white Roadster Sport with black wheels was last to show, and I knew that was the one I had to drive. I asked the owner if I could drive it, and without hesitation he said, &amp;#8220;Yeah of course.&amp;#8221;
I struggled into the driver&amp;#8217;s seat as it sits about a hair&amp;#8217;s width from the ground, pressed the &amp;#8220;D&amp;#8221; button and made a not-so-easy non power steering u-turn toward the longest portion of the parking lot and stopped.
The owner turned to me and said, &amp;#8220;Floor it,&amp;#8221; so I did.
0-60 in 3.7 seconds without gear changes felt strange. It&amp;#8217;s like swimming under water and needing to take a breath but you never make it to the surface, and unfortunately the top-speed is limited to 125mph due to the electric motor&amp;#8217;s limit.
While I love the idea of fuel efficient cars, the whole electric  supercar thing just doesn&amp;#8217;t make sense to me. The range for this car in  perfect driving conditions is 244 miles (which is groundbreaking for an EV), but that&amp;#8217;s if you&amp;#8217;re paying close attention to driving conservatively. Who wants to spend their drive in a supercar focusing on driving conservatively and worrying about where the next charging station will be?
All-in-all it was a fun car to drive&amp;#8230;short distance.
Check out the rest of the photos from the rally here.