Internet entrepreneur Simon Hackett was the first in Australia to get one of the original Tesla Roadster sports cars. And he followed it up by getting several Model S EVs, when that high performing luxury sedan came onto market, and also bought the Model X electric SUV.
Now, he’s among the first to put his hand up for the new $US250,000 electric Roadster, the surprise package of the Tesla Truck launch last week that promises to be the fastest production car ever built.
“Yes, I’ve ordered one of the new Roadsters,” Hackett, also the director and largest shareholder in flow battery manufacturer Redflow, told RenewEconomy in an email.
“No, I haven’t ordered a truck.” (We asked).
Hackett said he is buying one to demonstrate his support for a clean energy future, and to prove wrong the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, the former front-man for the TV show “Top Gear” who often argued that EVs are no good and the internal combustion engine is the only future.
“I think the truck stands to make a huge positive difference to sustainable goods transport – which is a huge field of endeavour separate to and additional to passenger transport – and it’s excellent that Tesla are expanding into that realm,” Hackett said.
“The Roadster is about something else entirely. (It is ) about putting a stake in the heart of the last vestige of the Jeremy Clarkson anti-EV-only-internal-combustion-can-be-great attitude.
“By releasing a vehicle clearly designed to outdo every single primary metric by which a supercar is judged, they are creating a new example of the future supremacy of electric driven transport over burning fossil fuels.
“They are doing that by making the fastest road car ever made, by any (and all metrics). And – compared to its target market (Ferrari, Porsche, Bugatti, Koenigsegg et al) – it’s dramatically better value for money in doing so.
“I’m buying one because I want to visibly continue to support the innovation that drives change in sustainable transport. The same reason Formula E exists. The same reason the original Roadster existed – to be a signpost for, and a catalyst of, the future.”
Hackett is not the only one relishing the prospect of the Tesla Roadster. Fortune magazine noted how its acceleration from 0-100kms in 1.9 seconds would “smoke the wheels” off internal combustion monsters like the 2017 Bugatti Chiron or the 2014 Porsche 918 Spyder.
But that’s not all. Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk plans some more, noting in some tweets that the 1.9 seconds was just the base model.
“There will be a special option package that takes it to the next level,” Musk said. And Tesla and its fans will be making sure that the petrol heads, Clarkson included, will know all about it.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor-in-chief of Renew Economy, and founder and editor of its EV-focused sister site The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
