alan

Nearly all Lotus owners wave at me but sometimes look a bit confused / do a double take. Not sure if thats because it looks similar to a Lotus or because many years of Lotus ownership has conditioned me to wave at any Lotus I pass, perhaps a bit of both. Other Tesla owners do not wave at the Roadster, suspect few know what it is. In the last 10 years only passed another Roadster by chance twice - both times pulled over to have a chat. On the other hand if driving a Tesla Model S or 3 then other Tesla owners do often wave. So many on the road now that waving at others gets a bit silly.

Annual service is about £400 / year from Tesla, I feel its best to keep a good relationship with them in case some obscure flux capacitor needs replacing. There are a few Tesla specific bits that are in short supply. Some body panels are also hard to come by but some owners are getting them made in small batches. As you can imagine with such a small volume car the owners help each other out. As with all EVs there are so few moving parts there is little to go wrong with the "electric bits". Suspension / brakes / steering is mostly Elise or VX220 and its best to buy the parts from a Lotus specialist as Tesla have crazy mark ups. Rear tyres cost a lot - not because they are expensive (Yoko AD08s) but due to my heavy right foot. Had at least 20 sets. Apart from the S4s which I dont use much (but will never sell) we are a fully Tesla family. I must admit the Model 3 performance is a awesome car - official 0 to 60 is 3.2 but lots of people have measured sub 3 seconds. It really feels glued to the road with dare I say it Lotus like steering and handling. I dont know when the next gen Tesla Roadster will arrive but sub 2 seconds 0 to 60 will be mad.

Official range is 244 miles but driving normally (ie as if you stole it) the real world range is more like 150. Mine is 10 years old and 100K, range has dropped by perhaps 10 miles. It still does 0 to 60 in sub 4 seconds from every junction & traffic light. You ask what the charge time to 80% is . Not easy to answer - if the car was totally flat then you need to charge to 80% of the 53kWh capacity. To add 42.4 kWh to get 80% will take about 6 hours on a typical 32A (7.2kW) home charger. There are a few 70A chargers around which will do it in 2.5 hours. In reality like all EVs you just plug it in at night and in the morning its full.

I did not put that graphic together, just borrowed it. The acceleration figure has been proven in the prototypes (they gave people who put a deposit down on the spot a test drive) but whether the other specs are met in production or whether 2020 is realistic time will tell. Rightly or wrongly petrol & diesel cars are on their way out - plans to ban them have been announced in many countries. I think this shows however is that in terms of performance there is nothing to worry about from the move to electric power, rather it can be used to improve performance. My 1st generation Tesla Roadster looks really old fashioned now - 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds and a range of 200 miles. Ten years on the acceleration has halved, top speed doubled and the range tripled - that is an incredible rate of progress. Had Lotus continued with the Evora 414E then developed a fully electric Evora I wonder if they would then be having the same problems as Tesla face now - orders coming in faster than they can make cars. Yes its a huge problem for Tesla and the cash burn is scary but I would prefer to have the problem of too many orders than too few.

Awesome Stuart - well done getting it. Somewhat jealous as I see from your signature you also have the active suspension Esprit, was that the one that was stored outside? I tried to buy that one as well but they said no. At least after I asked they cleaned it up and put it on display inside. Apologies if you have described your experiences with the 414E somewhere already if so please let me know where.

If thats the 414E I tried to persuade them to sell them - quite a few willing buyers at the time but got the impression it was a project done because there was (government) funding available not because they wanted to make it. Such a shame - they were ahead of the curve with the move to EVs and are now behind.

I was down for one of the first Evora's but ended up with a Tesla Roadster. This would be the perfect upgrade for me.

Not used my S4s for a year so was pleased when it sailed through the MOT yesterday. Took the MOT certificate, still warm from the printer and jumped in the car looking forward to going for a blast. Turned the key - nothing! Owner of the garage thinks it could be the shortest time from passing an MOT to breaking down ever. Fortunately it was just a loose battery terminal, soon sorted and loving driving an Esprit again.

We have been suffering with the same and using traps to no avail, I think there is some technique to setting them. For the last week my Mother in law has been staying and setting the traps & has caught 4 of them. Let me know if you want to borrow my mother in law, you can keep her for as long as you want...

St Lucia is awesome but the Maldives has the edge. On the other hand if you get 2 holidays for the price of 1 in the Maldives its a no brainer. Time away on holiday is as much about who you are with and relaxing as the location.

Honestly there is nothing to worry about with insects - the islands are too small to have much in the way of wildlife other than the odd bird & they smoke / gas the plant life to kill off any mosquitos etc. December to March is the time with least rain & highest prices. July & Aug are the wettest & cheapest - most of the days it rains however its short sharp showers not days on end. I think the best time to go is April if you can avoid Easter - good balance of weather, water visibility and cost. If you like snorkeling & diving then the rain matters less. If you dont like spending time in the water & just want to sit on a beach it could be an issue in July / Aug. Actually if you dont like spending lots of time in / under the water then perhaps the Maldives are not the right place anyway as the islands are so small. Try something like Guana Island in the BVI http://www.guana.com/ One other thing to consider is that as a Muslim country alcohol is forbidden in the Maldives except on the resort islands & as the holiday makers are a captive audience the prices can be very high (think top end London prices and some more on top). Drink is usually not included in any all inclusive packages. For some reason thought this might be important for you to know....

Been there 4 times. Look at Cocoa Island - stupidly expensive but possibly the best place on the planet (trip advisor seems to agree with me). If you like snorkeling then Cocoa has one of the best house reefs - we usually spend 4 or 5 hours a day in the water. Turtles, eagle rays, sharks - basically the whole cast of Finding Nemo. Food, service, trips, scuba diving etc are all great. Only thing to be aware of is that like most of the islands it is tiny - you can walk around it in 10 mins. http://www.comohotels.com/cocoaisland/ BA do direct flights over the winter months otherwise you will go via Dubai or similar.

Should add to the above (but can not edit for some reason) that I agree that as a UK show shown worldwide they should have a bias towards British cars but seem to have almost the opposite. Also the Model X is £74,000 not £250,000.

I dont know when they filmed the Tesla segment but Model X's are being delivered to customers in the US even if we do not have them in the UK yet. The official (EU) range is 310 which will translate to about 250 real world. Doing a 0 to 60 in ludicrous mode will take perhaps 1 or 2 miles of the range based on the Model S. I took my daughter from south of Cambridge to Manchester Uni a couple of days ago - about a 400 round trip. Had to top up at the Keele services supercharger on the M6 for 10 mins on the way back - would have taken about the same to fill up with Petrol and grab a coffee. Wish Lotus had carried on with the electric Evora and not just done the project to get the taxpayer funding.