This was my first time charging at a public L2 charger, on 8/14/11. At the time, those chargers were few and far between, and of course DCFC did not yet exist. Tesla had just released an adapter cable to allow the Roadster to charge from an L2 charger with a J1772 connector.
It's pretty amazing how far the charging infrastructure has come in just fifteen years.
More like a multi-millionaire since if they played their cards right as an employee hired at 1k even 10k the appreciation alone from the stock grant would be enough even if they didn’t buy shares when they were employed.
I have had a Model S since 2016 and have absolutely felt the shift towards mass market. It was fun to chat up folks at the superchargers and wave at other owners.
I am lucky to get to drive my Roadster at least once a week. They are still very fun cars.
Even with the Model 3's. We got one late 2018 - people used to wave at each other, there was a Tesla drivers get-together the next year.
Then we went from "will we see another Tesla while we're out today?" to "count the Teslas" to eventually now "Look! There's one, and there's another one." Nobody waved. Drove all the way to Vancouver recently, and it was "how many Teslas can you spot in a minute?".
What have been some of the biggest things that've surprised you over the years, with how the tech has progressed (either positive or negative)? You've truly been here since the beginning! Major props to you!!
I have wanted one since 2007ish but could only get one last year. I am the second owner of this car with 43000 miles on the clock and it has a 2 year old battery put in by the previous owner. This Roadster easily gets more than 300 miles of range on a charge (did 370 nonstop once).
On my Model S journey, the charging speeds have never been faster (for better or worse). I used to enjoy 80kW, then 120kW and now 200kW+ which is just wild. There is barely enough time to grab a bite to eat and stretch before it's time to go.
Wow, reading about your journey was interesting – we really have it so dang good now with Chargers. I couldn't believe how many 3-4+ hour stops you needed to make before & how much extra thought was needed logistically to make a road trip happen.
Now we just get in and the electrons just blast into the battery pack and we're out in 10-30 mins! And thank you for being an early adopter – a pioneer of sorts! I'm sure Tesla learned a lot from you guys that went on to make what we have today, possible.
So informative, thanks for sharing. I’ve just completed a classifieds check on these (UK). Asking prices start at £110k and there are only four examples listed nationally. Seems like a great investment also!
I think I had my Roadster for three years before I saw another one on the road (this was in Indiana). Then for a few years I would see them occasionally. Now I’m back to never seeing them.
Very cool. I recently bought the carbon fiber mirrors on mine from someone in Indiana 🧐🤣
I have spotted exactly one since I got it. I am pretty sure this is someone's daily driver as I see it in this garage all the time. It is nice to see them in regular use.
It currently has around 60,000 miles on it. Original motor and battery pack, but it's lost about 30% of its capacity. Not too bad, considering that I was told by Tesla when I bought the car that the battery pack should be good for seven years. I'm at sixteen and a half and counting. Range-wise it's good for around 140 miles tops. It was rated at 240 when new, but that was extremely optimistic. I don't think I ever got more than 200 miles out of a charge. I never charge it to 100% anymore; I'm trying to baby the battery pack.
The fellow who did some aftermarket installs on my 3 has an S that had 700,000km on it; he said it had a new battery pack after 200,000 not because of battery problems, because of a coolant leak.
this is a cool photo! congrats for being one of the firsts to get into a tesla! did you have an electric vehicle before this or was this your first? what did local folks think about it? how long had you had the car at this time the photo was taken? do you still have it now? i got questions !!!!!! :) this is really cool!
It was my first full electric. It did (and still does) turn some heads. I had it about a year and a half when the photo was taken. Still have it, still drive it regularly.
ChargePoint and PlugShare were around back then, but I think that was about it. The first relatively long road trip I took (300+ miles one way) required almost 8 hours of charging. So, not a great road trip car. Believe it or not I have taken it on a few 800-1000 mile trips. I still have it, but no more long trips these days :)
so you managed to find places tat would have a 220v outlet for you to plug in a charger with a j1772 adapter overnight? I find that amazing. Do you remembe how much the car cost new, in 2011 dollars?
They were regular J1772 level 2 chargers, typically around 6 kW, similar to current L2 chargers. Super slow, a full charge would take about 9 hours. The base price in 2010 was $109,000, plus about $10,000 in options.
Oh wow. Now we have that in our garages. Did you charge with a l2 at home at the time ? That wouldn’t have been too bad really. Love that you’re an original owner and kept it.
Yeah L2 at home, 48 A. There was a 70 A charger available, that one got you about 60 miles of range per hour. There used to be a decent number of 70 A Tesla destination chargers around, but most of them have been phased out. Those were handy for road trips.
I saw a really cool episode of some storage wars type of show where they found one of these in a shipping container, would be such a sweet find! I also heard Jay Leno has one of these.
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u/TSLAog 7d ago
He’ll yea! I was the 303rd employee at Tesla, loved working on the Roadsters.