Saturday, May 22, 2010

A Coil of Teslas

I guess this is Tesla week in the news. Thursday's big announcement about the Tesla/Toyota deal augured the celebratory mood at today's second annual Roadster Rally, SoCal version.


While about 50 Roadsters were expected, over 60 showed up. Here they are at the flagship Santa Monica Blvd. store queued and ready. This is the largest gathering of Telsas to date. The northern California group has a friendly rivalry going with the SoCal folks, so I'm sure they'll try to out do them later this summer.

Below is a series of pictures of the horse arena where one-by-one, the candy colored Roadsters were stage-managed into position by Eric Swenson, one of Plug In America's technical advisors.



































































































Only a little over half the Roadsters could fit in the arena, but no worries, it made for a great photo-op just the same. A great lunch spread with a drawing for gifts capped the sunny afternoon in Malibu.

The multi-colored cars reminded Chelsea Sexton of a bunch of skittles. I was trying to come up with a term that fit, when it occurred to me that a group of Telsas could only be called a "coil".

12 comments:

  1. If Tesla could only know his name has not, nor will it ever be forgotten. Great Pictures. Totally awesome cars. Love it, Just love it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. great news! i wish i had a tesla for displaying in westport, connecticut. know of any?

    leo cirino
    green task force supporter

    ReplyDelete
  3. I imagine the roar of the engines from all that horsepower was thrilling! Oh, wait, maybe not...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice! Paul, do you know of any up here in Orygun? I'd like to see one!

    Loobey

    UCE (University of Calif. at Eugene)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Awesome - we were just driving up the PCH yesterday to go surf, and saw four Teslas pass by southbound. We're from NorCal and interpreted it as SoCal folks being much better early adopters than us! But this explains it... :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great capture of the fun and passion for EVs! Can I work for Plug in America? I can help to educate the Gen Y and Gen Xers that EVs are the way of the future to help us reduce our dependency on foreign oil (plus so much more).

    Cheers,
    Sustaino (aka Jen G.)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great photos Paul! (And I have to say I like Chelsea's skittles analogy, although coil is good too).

    Hope the Toyota/Tesla teaming up means that perhaps Tesla (and Toyota) will come up with a car that's a bit more affordable for those of us for whom anything over $30k is above our heads, and for whom anything over $40k, is completely out of reach....

    ReplyDelete
  8. Christof, the announcement about the Toyota/Tesla deal indicated a $30K price tag for the car, but they didn't say whether that was pre or post tax rebate. It's all good, tho, the more in that game, the quicker we get affordable EVs.

    James, I'm sure there are some in Oregon by now. I think John Hirons should definitely get one. He's a big Lotus fan. He could sell that Mercedes Gullwing that sits in his garage and buy a dozen Teslas.

    Leo, contact the NY Tesla store and see if they'll help you locate one in your area. Many of the Roadster owners are very amenable to showing the cars to the public, at least the ones who are Plug In America members do.

    ReplyDelete
  9. We've got one up here in Seattle.

    ReplyDelete