[DeathChill]

Originally Posted by Dragoneye

I wouldn't. They seemed cool on the outside when I first heard of them, in fact -- I was excited beyond measure when I first heard of them...but as you dig deeper, you find that that once touted 250mile range....wait...240...no, hang on 230....nevermind it's 200....actually drops to something around 50 miles when you "use as advertised". And then it's off to a 8+-hour charge.

They've got some work to do, and lowering the price ain't the way to do it, imo...

EDIT: Okay, so I would consider buying from them, ...but like I said...they'd have to improve a LOT.

When you use as advertised? If you're driving it super hard obviously the charge isn't going to last as long, just like you won't be getting 24 mpg in the Camaro if you're mashing the gas.

That Top Gear episode was staged:

The segment also showed the car's batteries running flat after 55 miles, saying that the recharge would take 16 hours and also that the car then broke down. Tesla Motors' spokesperson responded with statements in blogs and to mainstream news organizations that the cars provided to Top Gear never had less than 20% charge and never experienced brake failure.[96] In addition, neither car provided to Top Gear needed to be pushed off the track at any point.[97] Finally, although Clarkson showed a limp windmill and complained that it would take countless hours to refuel the car using such a source of electricity, the car can be charged from a 240V outlet in as little as 3.5 hours.[98][99] After numerous blogs and several large news organizations began following the controversy,[100] the BBC issued a statement saying "the tested Tesla was filmed being pushed into the shed in order to show what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge. Top Gear stands by the findings in this film and is content that it offers a fair representation of the Tesla's performance on the day it was tested," without addressing the other misrepresentations that Tesla highlighted to the media.[101] After several weeks of increasing pressure and inquiries from the BBC, Clarkson wrote a blog for The Times of London, acknowledging that "that the film we had shot was a bit of a mess." [102] In the months that followed Clarkson's acknowledgment, the original episode -- including the misstatements -- reran on BBC America and elsewhere without any editing, though the BBC is still looking into Top Gear's journalism standards, according to British media reports.[103]