((PKG)) TESLA ROADSTER
((TRT: 06:22))
((Topic Banner: Electric Vehicles))
((Reporter/Camera/Editor: Jeff Swicord))
((Map: Arlington, Virginia))
((Main characters: 0 female; 1 male))
((Sub characters: 0 female; 1 male))

((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
I’m a tech worker. I’ve been in, you know, software development my whole career. I became interested in Tesla, which is around 2002 after all the dot com stuff. The Tesla Roadster, I guess, it was a light-bulb moment. The main thing that grabbed me initially was kind of this futuristic looking sports car. The idea that you power a vehicle without gasoline. When it came out, it was quicker than the Ferrari 430, you know, latest Ferrari at the time. The Roadster is truly the vehicle that sparked the EV [Electric Vehicle] revolution and it’s first car that, sort of, opened the door to all the other possibilities to come.
((MUSIC))
((Photo Courtesy: WIKI Media))
The first Tesla Roadsters, they started the production dates I think from 2008 I think were the first ones to 2011
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
I know were the final ones.
You know, I think it was like $90,000 or something like that. For the entire world, there were about 2,500 original Roadsters made because they had a contract with Lotus [the British automaker] to produce that many bodies for them. From my understanding, there’s maybe 1,500 surviving.
((NATS))
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
Charge port connector.
So you can see, so up in the front, there is no storage like a, you know, frunk. But when you open it up, you can see there’s cooling fans with the AC [Air Conditioner] up in front and some electronics. So that’s about it. And there is a trunk for storage. And, I think, they designed it specifically to fit golf clubs because a lot of people in California play golf. This part is actually the battery, and it’s kind of L shaped, so it goes underneath here. This one they call the Power Electronics Module, sort of like the whole brains of the whole car. And then here, it’s an active cooling system. All Teslas have this active cooling system, so you can see this green liquid is constantly swirling throughout the battery pack to keep moderate the temperatures.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
I believe that, you know, it’s eventually going to be a true collectors’ item. So, that is just the exposed carbon fiber.
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
It’s a, you know, like a rolling work of art. That’s it.
Elon’s also involved
((Photo Courtesy: WIKI Media))
in Space X. It was, I believe, one of his original
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
Tesla Roadsters, and they put a dummy in a flight suit,
((Photo Courtesy: WIKI Media))
colloquially known as Starman, and they shot the rocket into space. I mean, we assume
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
it is still out in space and didn’t get hit by an asteroid or something like that.
((NATS))
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
Tesla Model 3 came out in 2018. I think about the evolution of the automobile, you know, just as basically electrification in the future and also the self-driving aspect.
((NATS: Car’s GPS))
Now turn right onto North Queen Street.
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
Tesla’s approach to self-driving is machine learning. It’s a camera-based system to recognize physical objects on the road. Whether it’s cars or pedestrians or like a ball that goes in the road or something like that, the car knows what every object is, what needs to be avoided.
((MUSIC/NATS: Car’s GPS))
Now turn right onto 20th Street South.
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
Right now, the state of the software is, it’s definitely not a 100 percent, where I would not pay attention and trust that it will get me there. But I can see, for example, from 2018, the amount of progress that they have made and the trajectory it is going, I think it really is a matter of time, maybe, five to ten years ballpark. ((NATS/MUSIC))
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
Cars & Coffee, you know, car enthusiasts, they like to meet up and show of their cars and talk about the latest, you know, upgrades they made. They have Cars & Coffee in California and Texas, everywhere.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Kurt
Tesla Roadster Owner))
Sorry, I’m late.
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
But I do notice that, you know, now EV’s are more prevalent. Teslas are more prevalent.
((NATS))
((Kurt
Tesla Roadster Owner))
The driving, the charging, the battery maintenance.
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
So I met Kurt. He got a Roadster, I think shortly, yeah, maybe about ten years ago or something. He had a different Roadster that he did get into unfortunately an accident, and…but then he replaced. He got a second Roadster after that.
((NATS))
((Kurt
Tesla Roadster Owner))
I happened to be on rotation in the Bay Area [San Francisco] in 2006 when they unveiled the car. And it was very easy back then to get into their press events because nobody knew who they were. And I was hooked. I was ready to go.
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
You get hooked. But I remember thinking to myself, very, it was a very clear moment that, holy cow, this is the future. This is the way driving should be. This is the way transportation should be.
((MUSIC/NATS))
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))
I think, it will be probably a matter of time before gasoline cars will be for enthusiasts. Maybe they go to the racetrack, and they race real cars and stuff like that. So it’s kind of like, you know, if you’re like a horse owner, you know, you do that for fun, right?
But most cars, generally that you see on the road, will be electric. ((MUSIC/NATS))
((Mel Hsieh
Tesla Roadster Owner))

I take a lot of these pictures.

((NATS))