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Like many owners I have met (in person, or via the web) I had multiple motives for buying a Tesla Roadster. As a confirmed “car guy” who competes in Sports Car Club of America road racing and has owned many sports cars, I was intrigued by the performance characteristics and styling of the car. As a long-term supporter of environmental causes, I wanted to support Tesla’s efforts to make an electric sports car a reality, and I hoped to help evangelize the energy and environmental benefits of electric cars.

Bill Arnett is a software engineer who envies Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers – people who tried to understand a large fraction of all human knowledge. During an attempt to retire and spend more time on hobbies such as photography and astronomy, Bill decided to learn HTML by creating an astronomy site. It became so popular that it generated enough revenue through Google AdSense to pay for his Roadster. Another recent project was an iPhone application that simulates mechanical watches.

Bill, an outdoor enthusiast, appears to be the first person to drive a Roadster in Yosemite National Park. After a May 14 road trip from his home in Silicon Valley in his Roadster, Signature One Hundred No. 55, Bill described his drive through Yosemite as “just about as good as it gets.” Indeed.

When I first heard about Tesla Motors, one of the major factors guiding my decision to purchase a Roadster was the graphic on the Tesla web site showing that it should be possible to get from my home in the Bay Area to Yosemite National Park. In truth, the route winds through the Sierra Nevada foothills and is far longer than the crow flies, getting quite close to the 244 miles per charge estimate from the US Environmental Protection Agency. But taking my Roadster to Yosemite remained an important goal. Here’s how I did it.

Through the...

Sam Perry is president of Silicon Valley startup consultancy Ascendance Ventures and a member of E2 – Environmental Entrepreneurs, the national independent business voice for the environment.

Sam gained fame last month after an intimate encounter with Oprah Winfrey was broadcast around the globe. Sam was caught in cameras standing next to the talk show icon in Chicago’s Grant Park on Nov. 4, when Oprah wept on Sam’s shoulder during Obama’s victory speech.

Several weeks later, Sam became the 100th person to take delivery of a Tesla Roadster. The company marked this important milestone with a Dec. 9 news conference at its Menlo Park, Calif., flagship store.

Ben Rosen, venture capitalist and former chairman of Compaq, is one of the most influential personalities in the technology industry. Under his leadership, Compaq Computer became one of the first companies to clone IBM's PC design, enabling Compaq to become the world's largest PC maker in the 1990s.

Less well known is Ben’s history as an automotive pioneer. More than 15 years ago, Ben and his brother Harold (father of the geostationary communications satellite) started a company to build a hybrid-electric powertrain for cars. Rosen Motors hoped to dramatically improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions – without compromising on performance and style. Despite the brothers’ enthusiasm and demonstrations to major automakers, their vehicle was never commercialized.

Ben is a prolific blogger and, having recently taken ownership of his Tesla Roadster, described the “exhilarating experience” in depth. We re-posted an excerpt below and you may view the entire post here.

Ken Jacobs was one of the first employees at the relational database pioneer Oracle Corporation. He and his wife Margaret are thrilled to be early adopters and advocates for the pioneering Tesla, the car and the company.

Two weeks ago, I highlighted how Tesla moved from waves to bits in our motor and charge controller in the PEM. You might have left with the impression that as of June 2007, when the DMC replaced the analog controller, our work as DMC firmware engineers was complete. Fortunately for us (this is fun, remember!), that was far from true.

Aaron 'p-nut' Wills is the bassist and youngest member of the band 311. Known for his “funk-slap” bass style p-nut has brought his own sound and entertaining style to the stage. Aaron had a recent opportunity to drive a Tesla Roadster around Santa Monica and through the hills of Malibu. Following are his impressions from the day:

So there it was. With a strange sense of accomplishment, I took it all in. The silver Roadster’s windshield was smashed, spider web cracks fanning out in all directions from under the mono-wiper. Along the driver’s side of the car, from nose to tail, the paint had been scraped away by what only could only have been severe contact with a concrete barrier. Checking out the passenger’s side, the damage was just as bad.

Smiling, I responded, “this is great!” and took a moment to reflect on how we got to this point. For those expecting a crash test blog entry outlining the rigors of safety certification, I’m sorry to disappoint. The same can be said for those hoping to read of a track testing catastrophe.

In the last installment of the driving dynamics blog, we explored the interplay between static mass distribution and power delivery in the Tesla Roadster. That’s a complicated way of saying that we looked at how the Tesla Roadster drives based on two key parameters: its chassis architecture (mid-“engine,” rear wheel drive) and power delivery characteristics (extremely broad, flat torque curve). By way of a quick refresher on the subject, the Tesla Roadster maintains the bulk of its mass, the battery pack, ahead of the rear axle and delivers its power to the rear wheels in a linear fashion.

Now let's look at some of the further intricacies of weight and driving dynamics.

It doesn’t matter where we were going, on which freeway on-ramp we were merging, or even how fast the car was actually traveling. All that matters is that I was driving, I had a journalist riding shotgun, and I was just passing the imaginary apex of a decreasing radius turn with speed to spare. A lot of speed to spare. Oh, and there was a very solid looking concrete barrier occupying pretty much all of the real estate just ahead of the Tesla Roadster’s short red snout.

And then it happened…

Imagine yourself strapped into a Tesla Roadster speeding down a rough cobblestone path intended to cause so much agitation that the ride stops being fun and starts becoming more like work. It's just a typical day at the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), an engineering and testing facility where we are punishing two of our Tesla Roadster Engineering Prototypes (and several of our engineers as well!).