2008 Tesla Roadster is ClassicCars.com Pick of the Day - The ClassicCars.com Journal

Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was launched into space, spectacular test-launch ballast carried by one of his Space-X Falcon Heavy rockets early in 2018. You’d have to spend millions of dollars to go fetch that one from its orbit, but Pick of the Day is another of the first-year electric sports cars — and a definite future classic — a 2008 Tesla Roadster advertised on ClassicCars.com by a dealership in Bellevue, Washington.

The car wears Radiant Red Metallic paint and has a black interior, the dealer reports that the car shows little more than 15,000 miles on its odometer.

We know, you’re used to reading about the cubic-inch displacement of engines and the number of gears in the transmission of Picks of the Day, but the electric revolution is coming to highways and byways so you need to start learning about such things as 3-phase 4-pole electric motors.

And instead of mpg, a key figure with electric vehicles is range; in this case, it’s 220 miles, at least when cruising down the highway.

Or you can floor it and hit 60 mph in less than 4 seconds on your way to a top speed of a buck and a quarter.

The Roadster was the car that launched the Tesla brand. It was based on the Lotus Elise and was the first EV to go into series production with lithium-ion batteries. Around 2,500 were produced from 2008-2012.

Roadsters set records for range (more than 300 miles) in Australia, won the Monte Carlo Alternative Energy Rally, and won an FIA championship with Erik Comas, a former F1 racer, winning a 3-day efficiency challenge.

The Roadster available on ClassicCars.com has both hard and soft tops, power windows, cruise control, valet mode and air conditioning. It was delivered new in Louisiana, and has a VIN that starts with a 5, indicating its assembly took place in the U.S. (early cars were assembled at Lotus in England).

It is on offer for $57,950.