Tesla Model S: 0-60 In 4.5 Seconds

thecarchik writes "We already know a lot about the all-electric 2012 Tesla Model S sedan — but at a press event ahead of tonight's exclusive VIP event at the former Toyota NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla was making a faster Model S for those with a sporty side. Cutting the brisk 0-60 time of the standard Model S from 5.6 second to under 4.5 seconds, the sportier version features the same 85 kilowatt-hour, 300 miles-per-charge battery pack found in the 2012 Model S Signature series. 'That's quicker than a [Porsche] 911 [Carrera],' joked Musk. 'Not bad for an electric luxury sedan.' But if you thought 300 miles was the maximum range a Tesla Model S could do, you'd be wrong."

320 miles

[vlm]

Summary cut off right where it got interesting, announcing 320 mile range. The Tesla is of course useless because a 320 mile range means I can only drive for 10 continuous hours without a brake in 32 MPH stop and go traffic and I love having a five hour commute each direction. In fact, everyone knows that not only does the average american watch TV 8 hours per day, they also commute 10 hours per day.

Re:320 miles

[colinrichardday]

I can only drive for 10 continuous hours without a brake in 32 MPH stop and go traffic

So how do you deal with stop-and-go traffic without a brake?

Re:320 miles

[gmuslera]

If you handle them a bit of plutonium maybe they could install on it batteries that hold 1.2gigawatts, and you'll never get late to work, in fact, you can get there too early.

Re:How about a Model T?

[Nethead]

I already drive a '93 Saturn SL1, how much lower can I go?

Re:How about a Model T?

[l0ungeb0y]

I already drive a '93 Saturn SL1, how much lower can I go?

'85 Geo Prizim?

'76 Gremlin

Re:How about a Model T?

[zippthorne]

You're seriously making the claim that emissions standards are holding back cheap electric cars?

Re:Wait for Top Gear

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know how thin the Department of Sinister Conspiracies in Service of the Obama Regime is spread these days?

It's bad. Our unionized-coddled-public-sector employee mandatory augmented lunch break scheme, and general socialist hatred of efficiency don't help, of course; but they just keep dumping more work on us. It's even harder because half of the conspiracies directly contradict the other half(we've had to let three spin-doctors retire with generous disability pensions due to workplace-induced vertigo caused by keeping the media toeing the Party line...

First they want to destroy capitalism by convincing the public that only the State can save them from greedy speculators and economic ruin: "No problem", I tap a couple of marxist academics(we were in the same anarcho-syndicalist squat when we were coasting through liberal arts college on our parent's money, old buddies), and they invent the notion of a "credit default swap" and our media puppetmasters fabricate the necessary backstory, while the economic wrecking squad does some penalizing of Wealth Creators just to make things extra believable.

Then, just as I was kicking back and enjoying some nice, family-values-destroying gay smut, my boss comes in all pissed off: "What the fuck are you doing? If you destabilize the EU, our One World Government will be set back by at least a decade! And how is Obama supposed to coast to an easy victory on strong economic news if you keep up like that?". The entire department had to work until 5pm that evening, coming up with a scheme to bail out GM and allocate 'stimulus' money away from small businesses and toward teachers unions. That sucked.

Worse, once we had GM on our hands, we had to simultaneously prop up their union makework projects and advance the progressive agenda of destroying the Freedom of the Open Road and forcibly implementing collectivist mass transit. We could hardly write grants fast enough to get our pet scientists to stop undercounting spotted owls for a minute and start re-classifying benign automobile emissions as dangerous pollutants.

Don't even start on what the guys in the Middle Eastern Affairs office have to put up with, trying to cast our Leader as strong on terrorism and get some good photo-ops, without getting too many of our Sharia brothers killed...

And now you say that we are going to have to track down every Model S released and ensure that nobody is able to take simple performance measurements? How many Black Helicopter kill teams do you think we have?

Re:320 miles

[yanyan]

Not to split hairs, but that's a genuine off-by-0.01 error right there.

Re:320 miles

[vlm]

A cattle catcher?

I don't drive thru walmart parking lots, thank you