Monday, October 15, 2012

Tesla Model S greets the Big Apple

Tesla Motors recently completed its summer cross country road trip, from San Francisco to the Big Apple, in its Model S electric sedan. While that is slow going for most electric vehicles, the Model S can drive up to 300 miles on a full charge, depending on options. It can go even further under some driving patterns – using the 2-cycle EPA testing method with 55 percent city driving and 45 percent highway, the high-end Model S with an 85-kWh battery pack was able to go 320 miles on a full charge. "With this kind of range and a full charge, this sedan is unstoppable!" the company says in a new video of the Model S in NYC you can watch below.

Eventually, there will be more of the Tesla Supercharger fast chargers stations to make a cross-country trip even easier. As Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, the 30-minute Supercharger experience can be a good fit for passengers to stop and take a break, get a bite to eat before getting back on the highway for three more hours of driving. We are still early in the Supercharger deployment process (i.e., none of the stations are active yet, even if a half-dozen are already installed), so Model S drivers moving from San Francisco to NYC today will need to access a map of public charging stations and be ready for serious downtime during charging sessions.

What's next? Tesla says it will continue the Model S journey worldwide offering "the world a chance to see, drive and experience the car of the 21st Century." Somehow, we assume more videos of the car in interesting locations will be involved.