So how fast is the Tesla Roadster really? In a few seconds, we're gonna find out because framed by its porthole-size windshield is a deliciously straight stretch of Skyline Boulevard, a knockout snake of a road we've never heard of before in the coastal hills above San Carlos, California. San Carlos, in case you're not Google-Earthing at the moment, is the inviting, northwestern Silicon Valley 'burb where Tesla decided to settle its unpretentious research and development quarters about four years ago. Through the trees, we occasionally glimpse Stanford's 285-foot-tall Hoover Tower some seven and a half miles away.
Okay, then, I've got the brake pedal stapled to the floor. The mirrors are scoped for innocent traffic. Coast is clear. Dip into the accelerator and...remember that Mark Twain quip about the coldest winter he ever knew being a summer in San Francisco? Ditto that for this San Carlos place. Except it's now December, the Roadster's top is AWOL, and an Arctic front is leaning in from the gray Pacific. But back to business.
I lean into the accelerator, brace myself and...er, hold on, we'll get to that. I first want to tell you about the irony of this car's name. Haven't you wondered where "Tesla" comes from? Automotive historians might be acquainted with the story about Thomas Edison famously giving encouragement to a young employee named Henry Ford ("Young man, you have it. Keep at it. Electric cars must keep near to power stations"). However, the reality is that cantankerous Tom would soon embark on thousands of experiments aimed precisely at cracking the automotive battery nut, and in 1904 finally introduced-amid much stage-managed hoopla-his nickel-iron battery for electric cars.
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