Update: see below the lovely black Tesla I captured just a few weeks ago on my visit to the offices of Expedia in Victoria, to talk about social media strategy and credit reports.

I had the great privilege of test driving a Tesla Roadster today with the help of Gian. Of course it does 60 mph in 3.7 seconds – check out the full official Tesla Roadster spec here. We chatted through some of the benefits, and afterwards I made a quick note of the top ten benefits from the test drive in typical ‘user-generated content’ fashion.

My quick and dirty top ten

1. The car is 88% efficient compared to 16% for a conventional petrol driven car. It charges itself as it drives when you take your foot off the accelerator.
2. The cell structured battery means you never have probs with recharging reducing the life of the battery.
3. You don’t have the problem with a conventional sports car of having to change gears to find the power torque – its a smooth flow of power to the driver.
4. There is no exhaust pipe to catch on speed bumps.
5. It’s made of highly resilient carbon fibre so it doesn’t dent or rust in the way a conventional car shell does.
6. The drive transmission, exhaust, etc does wear out like a conventional petrol engine motor can do.

7. It is expected that as the Tesla battery design is further improved, you will have the choice of 40% more power, or more boot space…
8. You can use the car for business. For promotion. For demonstrating corporate responsibility. For keeping a more charming profile on the street! And that means it’s tax deductible.
9. The success of Tesla is helping bring electric powered transport to the mass market by demonstrating its power and practicality. Electric motor powered fire engines came to mind for some strange reason?
10. It would take a heck of a long time (9 months) to run down the battery with no charge;-)

What I think I forgot to mention is that using the brakes actually charges the battery. Luckily Jeremy Clark didn’t forget, in this Top Gear test drive from a couple of years ago.

Cost/Benefits

So while a Roadster cost a little over £87K it’s good vfm when you calculate i all its benefits vs a conventional car’s. What’s more there is a corporate leasing option too – while Tesla don’t advertise this as available for the UK as yet I’m sure that’s worth discussing with Gian.

Bond, James Bond

While I am not a motor journalist (though there is a pic of me driving an ex-Russian tank from my pre-internet days as a newspaper reporter) I have written professional product reviews for eBay’s Shopping.com as their UK head of community; but this has got to be the product that tops them all. I hope the makers of the 23rd 007 movie ‘Skyfall’ agree, and seriously consider using the car in the next 007 film.

PS: I see my most famous college alumni Sam Mendes is directing, which is super neat. Maybe he would enjoy test driving a Tesla too?