It is, without question, the single weirdest experience you will ever have at the wheel of a car. The Tesla Roadster will outdrag a Ferrari, hitting 100kph in just 3.7 seconds, and the physiological effect on its driver is the same as in any other properly fast car; same raised pulse rate, same sensation of being pushed hard back into your seat, same schoolboy desire to stop and do it all over again.
But everything else is different. You don’t have to make a rapid gear change every couple of seconds; you just stand on the throttle and go. You don’t have to wait for the engine revs to build before you really start to accelerate; instead, all the power is available instantly. And most bizarrely of all, there’s no deafening yell from the exhausts. We’ve always associated acceleration this fast with the noise of 12 hard-worked cylinders. But because the Tesla Roadster is electric, it does it in absolute silence, other than the faint hum of tyres on tarmac and your own insane giggling.
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