We were shocked to learn late last year that there’s a new Tesla Roadster on the way. We were almost speechless when CEO Elon Musk started making claims that it could hit 60 mph in less than two seconds. Now a company test driver is claiming the insane figures we’ve been promised have only been “conservative” estimates.
In a video posted to the VINwiki YouTube page and recently picked up by Electrek, automotive test driver Emile Bouret talks about his time testing the upcoming Tesla Roadster. The electric Roadster talk starts around the four-minute mark:
After a few fun stories about his time working with Tesla on developing the Model S, he talks about his experiences at the announcement of the new Roadster, as well as the development after the car.
Here’s the quote from Emile in response to skepticism toward Tesla’s claims that the new Roadster will go from zero to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, hit 100 mph in 4.2 seconds, complete the quarter-mile in 8.8 seconds with an EV range of 620 miles and a top speed of over 250 mph:
I know there’s some skepticism about the figures that Elon quoted that day.
[...]
I think I can say without getting trouble that those are actual figures. Those aren’t theoreticals. Those aren’t calculations. We’ve done those numbers. And I probably shouldn’t say that numbers are even conservative, but they are. That thing is going to be a proper weapon.
So I know there’s lots of skeptics. People say, “Oh, yeah, but I’ll be dead before it comes out.” Have faith.
Emile also mentioned that, despite being the driver for the Roadster ride-along drives at the announcement event back in November, he got in trouble with Tesla for posting a video of him driving it to his Instagram. I don’t know why they would want to hide how reportedly insane this car is. I’m sure we’ll know more soon enough.