World Record Distance (501km) drive in a production Electric Vehicle (Tesla Roadster)

On Tuesday 27 October 2009, Simon Hackett, Managing Director of Australian national broadband company Internode, who owns the only Roadster in Australia, has driven it with with co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas, to a distance of 501 kms (313 miles) on a single charge.

The world record-setting distance for a production electric car on a single charge was achieved as part of the Global Green Challenge (http://www.globalgreenchallenge.com.au).

There is much more information about the event and our experiences crossing the outback with this car, here:

http://blog.internode.on.net/category/events/global-green-challenge/page/4/

(and yes, we figured out after we made the video that the caption says 'Global Green Challenge 2010' - its actually meant to be 'Global Green Challenge 2009' ! )

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• simon
• hackett
• tesla
• roadster
• global
• green
• challenge
• electric
• vehicle
• ev
• emilis
• prelgauskas

[simonhackett]

@mattegeniet It was done at about 50 kilometres per hour. The theoretical optimum is around 45 kilometres per hour.

There is a great blog post on the teslamotors site from JB that explains the sources of energy consumption in the vehicle in detail and provides detailed curves of each source and hence of the minimum intersection point of them all (as above).

[simonhackett]

Its only ironic if you don't understand the point of the exercise. Which was to break the chicken and egg question of EVs vs charging infrastructure in remote areas.

I was proving the car could cut it in the desert, crossing the country and keeping up with older car designs. It could, and it did. Next time won't need the same mobile charging infrastructure.

[simonhackett]

I'll also just reiterate a note in the comments under the video when I first uploaded it - that this event actually occurred in 2009, not in 2010 (despite the lead-in on the video saying 2010.

Thats a typo in the video preparation that we didn't pick up until... a bit late :)

[simonhackett]

Yes, I halted the wiper travel vertically (by pulling the fuse) to help a tiny bit with the aerodynamics.

Other than that, I had the tyres pumped up to about 45 PSI but the car was otherwise 'stock' - standard tyres, standard everything.

I didn't even use the (slightly less draggy) hard top roof on the car, as mine hadn't arrived at the point where I did this record run.

its mostly about concentrating on driving efficiently.

[simonhackett]

All Tesla Roadster packs have a nominal capacity of 55 kWh.

The car had, we estimate, about 10% left at the point that I pulled up at the 501 km marker. i.e. circa 50 kWh consumed for 501 km's driven.

[mattegeniet]

@simonhackett about how fast did you drive? There should be an optimum speed at which you should drive, right?

[flguy32501]

Cut the speed in 1/2 and go 1000km

[markcaetano]

Lol, it's ironic how it was charging for 2.5 hours on a diesel generator.

[darelldd]

I need to know if the wiper blade is up on purpose for aero advantage?

[ORIANA250]

charge it up over night with a wind generator.