A week ago, I went for a spin in the fastest, most fun car I've ever ridden in—and that includes the Aston Martin I tried to buy once. I was so excited, in fact, that I decided to take a few days to calm down before writing about it. Well, my waiting period is over, I'm thinking rationally, and I'm still unbelievably stoked about the Tesla.

The Tesla Roadster won't hit the streets until next year. If you see one on the street, then, you should ask for a ride. Even from the passenger seat, the car feels impossibly stronger, faster, and safer than it should be. The trick is Tesla's torque curve—the arc of the motor's strength as it revs from a standstill to top speed. Compared to gasoline-engined cars, the Roadster's torque curve feels—and is—impossible. That's because the Tesla's motor is electric.


I've always marveled at how long the antique internal-combustion engine has survived. By 2006 standards, my car's power plant is a noisy, heat-blasting, poison-spewing monster with way too many moving parts. One spin in a Tesla made me realize that the gas engine might finally be on its last legs—and not because electric cars will help wean us from Saudi oil and save us from global warming. Rather, the Tesla Roadster is a rolling demo that proves electric cars now outperform their gas-guzzling counterparts in comfort, convenience, and, best of all, speed.

Electric motors differ from gasoline engines in lots of ways, but the torque curve is the most startling. In a car with a gas engine, you press the accelerator, the engine rotates faster, and its torque output rises to reach a somewhat-flat plateau. At that point, the car accelerates smoothly as the engine spins ever faster. Eventually, the torque starts to fall off, and it's time to drop the engine's speed back below the sweet spot, shift up to the next gear, and start over. Why do sports cars have so many gears? To make sure the engine is revving in its maximum torque zone at just about any speed. Spin it too slow, though, and the engine stalls.