Tesla Roadster Sets a New World Record on a Single Charge
Driving a 2008 Tesla Roadster, the owner Simon Hackett and co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas has set a new world record for a production electric vehicle by driving 313 miles (501 km) on a single charge.
“Emilis and I have decades of experience flying gliders competitively and we applied the same energy conservation techniques to our driving, with significant results! The car had about 3 miles of range left when the drive was completed. We travelled 501km on a single charge. Let that sink in for a minute.” said Simon Hackett about his technique.
To squeeze out the most from the car’s onboard batteries, average speed was kept around 35 mph/55 kph. Above that speed the air resistance starts to take its toll on the batteries, reducing total range. According to Simon Hackett the Tesla’s 53 kWh lithium-ion battery was rated at 244 miles but the car drove for 313 miles, having enough juice for another three miles.
The driver explain about the security seal, like in the picture above: “The security seal was applied to the charge port door when we started the journey. As this is being done as part of the Global Green Challenge, we have a full set of official verifiers here who will attest to the results and to achieving the outcome. We were followed along the journey by our support crew and a documentary film crew – so we have it on film.”
[Source: Treehugger/TeslaMotors]
