All charged up and raring to go

There’s just one flaw with the all-electric Tesla: range

Beware: the smartphones of today have us surrounded. But this is nothing compared to the estimated 50 billion intelligent devices that will apparently be around by 2020. This is according to the in-the-know futurologists who readily admit the advances in technology often happen three or four times faster than even they predict. In reality, what they are saying is it could be many billions more.

Whatever the truth, I can see a time soon when smartphones will have to be banned in public places like cigarettes are. When was the last time you pulled up at a set of traffic lights and didn’t see someone surreptitiously texting from underneath the dashboard? Three penalty points for using a phone while in charge of a vehicle clearly is not working as a deterrent, yet it remains the elephant on the highway no one wants to talk about.

Which brings us inauspiciously on to this week’s test car, the Tesla Model S 60, which is basically just one big intelligent distraction on wheels. When I drove its big sister last year, the top-of-the-range P85D, I raved about the fact that there’s little to behold inside other than a steering wheel and a computer screen. Technologically, this car continues in the same vein, again way ahead of anything else currently available, although I remain confused as to whether this is a good thing or the start of us dealing ourselves out of the game completely. That, and of course the other elephant on the highway: the range, the range, the range...

Iremember the P85D as being completely brilliant, apart from the fact it came up just short of being able to get me to my mate’s place on one full charge. In theory, its ‘typical’ range was 300 miles, but that was only while driving like a nun on her way home from choir practice.

What we needed therefore was range, more range and even more range, yet what we have with the S 60, which is smaller, lighter and considerably less powerful than its sibling (380hp compared to the P85D’s 691hp, and a 60kWh battery instead of an 85kwh) is in fact even less potential.

The spec sheet says she is capable of just 240 ‘typical’ miles. It turns out that ‘typical’ is Tesla speak for when driven completely efficiently, without the radio on, or the windscreen wipers, or the heating, or heated seats, preferably on Christmas Day morning when there’s the least traffic, and only after the sun has come up so you don’t have to switch any lights on, draining away precious power.

Before I take you through the trials, tribulations and sweaty palm moments that the S 60 has caused me, first allow me to trumpet her inarguable brilliance in all other departments. This car is simply sublime in every aspect. She is comfy, spacious, luxurious and good-looking. She is simple to operate, handles fantastically and is an utter joy to drive.

She also happens to accelerate like a torpedo, as fast as any car I’ve ever driven, with the single exception of LaFerrari, which isn’t really a car anyway. Testimony to this is a particular combination of lights I pass through every morning on the way back from work, where it’s nigh-on impossible to get through the first set when they turn green, and then through the second before they turn to amber and then red.

But it doesn’t apply to this machine. Remember, no gears, so no matter how fast the lightning dual-clutch gear changes of the world’s supercars have now become, the Tesla is Usain Bolt while they have more in common with Linford Christie. The same single central computer touchscreen console as before continues to run the whole shooting match from within, enabling the driver to manage everything, from opening and closing the charge port to adjusting the heated seats, and even checking how your latest bid on eBay is faring. As for the satnav… it’s like logging into the next instalment of Avatar.

In short, this is a bloody brilliant vehicle. And let’s not forget those mysterious handles that emerge from nowhere, like ghosts out of a lake, as you approach the car with the smart key secreted somewhere about your person. I still think they’re the nuts. I know it’s a bit sad, and that other cars unlock themselves without all the fuss, but I love the whole Starship Enterprise vibe.

The only slight confusion I encountered was never quite being sure how, when or why the car would decide to lock itself thereafter. Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t, sometimes it invited me to turn off the power and then as I opened the door to get out, the whole thing turned itself back on again.

I could have read the manual of course (in real or virtual form), but where’s the fun in that? Where’s the jeopardy?

But now, here we go, cover your ears if you don’t want to listen to ‘Range Talk: The Sequel’ (I’m sorry, I know we’ve been here before).

The maximum range I could get her to charge up to was 180 miles in the time periods I had available, which then plummeted as I couldn’t help but drive her close to the stunning maximum performance she’s capable of. I really do feel like some modernday Quasimodo constantly droning ‘the range, the range!’, but despite all of the Tesla’s graphs and ‘charge set limits’ and ‘schedule charging’ and ‘non-schedule charging’, I became constantly paranoid about what I needed to do in order merely to be able to drive back and forth to work for a week. It was really quite stressful. The S 60 is, however, my son Noah’s favourite test car ever. He completely loved her, couldn’t stop

TO ME, SHE LOOKS LIKE THE FUTURE BUT TO MY SON SHE LOOKS LIKE THE PRESENT

telling me how good it was, morning, noon and night. To me she looks like the future but to him she looks like the present, no more or less than what he expects but so much better than 99.99 per cent of all the other cars he’s seen. And I suppose that’s both the best and most foreboding compliment Tesla could wish for.

You obviously can’t futureproof a six-year-old’s expectations – but doubling the current miles per charge would be a huge step in futureproofing the blood pressure of his poor old dad and millions like me.

Who wouldn’t love to own a car like this – providing one day Tesla give it as much go as they have show.