Of course all of us here at TR know that geeks are not how they are portrayed in the media. At 30 the high school football player just has bad knees, the high school geek may have a 7 figure portfolio and his/her own company. Ecology freaks (I speak from the inside since we recycle grass into beef and lamb here) are also seen as pretty uncool.

The image persists but perhaps not much longer with Lotus (the company which made the cars Mrs. Peel of Avenger’s fame drove) is taking orders for the Tesla Roadster. The price will depend somewhat on the Pound vs Dollar exchange rate but it will probably sell for under $100K – about, what you may say as you would pay for a REAL sports car?

Well, say good by to your great grandfather’s electric car and hello to a roadster with 0-60 times in the 4 second range (probably faster than my modified Sunbeam Tiger.)

 Horsepower is not a good way to rate an electric car, but every good muscle car fan knows that torque is extremely important – with the Tesla, full torque is available all the time. 

The Tesla (http://www.teslamotors.com/) has a 200+ mile range on a single charge too, not the wimpy 50 miles or so other recent generation electrics turn out in the real world.

Living and working from my ranch, I don’t drive enough to really care about gas mileage but if I did, I would put this geekmobile on my wish list.

If you want one, this isn’t just some “concept” car like you would see out of Detroit, Lotus already sold out the first year’s production so the best you can do (off-eBay that is GRIN) is order a 2008 model which is likely to offer even better performance.

If you were wondering whether you are a “geek” or not, ask yourself if you you had even a moment’s hesitation in trying to decide how they came up with the name. If Tesla meant something to you, you are probably a geek.