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When I was growing up I had a dog named Rollo. He was a pleasant hound, excitable and curious. And it was his curiosity that led him to place wet nose to active electric fence.
I recall a light crackling, followed by canine yodeling. Rollo took off across the field — tail flat, ears flapping like flags in a hurricane, legs scissoring. Never had I seen electricity make anything move so fast.
Until Tuesday night, when I got behind the wheel of a Tesla.
In one of those pleasant commuting surprises, a traffic lane opened as I drove home. A quarter-mile of blacktop lay before me. Like any Atlanta driver, I floored it.
My head snapped back. Cars on either side of me appeared to slow to a crawl. I cast a quick look into the rear-view mirror; headlights of other cars and trucks got smaller, fast. At the same time, the taillights of other cars and trucks in front of me got larger. Fast.
A quick glance at the speedometer: 81 mph — this, in far less than a quarter-mile. And then, another realization: I was sailing along in near-total silence. The wind whispered at the edge of a window; something hummed behind my seat. What I heard most was my own heart, and it was racing as hard as the car.
That car: a 2014 Tesla Model S P85+. In less than three seconds, I had learned why that + was on the car.
I slowed, made the usual exit, and drove, slowly, the mile or so to the Davis home. There was no indication that the car had cracked past everything else on the highway — no gauge registering engine heat build-up, for example, or a gas needle that had moved to the left in my foolish sprint. I parked in the back yard, ran my hand over its hood: cool to the touch.
A son came out to look. He plopped down in a black bucket seat and took in the computer monitor on the dash. It glowed with a GPS map. “Awesome,” he said.
My wife took in its slightly flared fenders, the lowered front end, the elevated rear. She admired the color, a deep nighttime blue. “It looks sort of like the Batmobile,” she said.
In a twinkling, I understood why people get so excited about these cars. And why car dealers don’t like Tesla one bit.
The California automaker has opened another showroom in Atlanta. Now, the city has two — the new place, at Lenox Mall, and the original, in Marietta. It’s not a traditional showroom, filled with an array of cars. The manufacturer has only a few of its rechargeable, battery-operated machines on display. Buyers select the model they want (Tesla has three, each based on the Model S platform) then order direct from the factory. Delivery takes two to three months.
Georgia’s car dealers do not like this. They contend it violates state law that prohibits direct sales, which cut them out of the equation, with only a few exceptions. Dealers in other states also are lining up against Tesla. Surely, lawyers will get wealthy arguing over this. Some will buy Teslas.
They’re not cheap. The base Tesla starts at $69,900. That buys a 380-horsepower machine gets 208 miles between charges.
Mine, since discontinued as the automaker has streamlined production, was capable of 265 miles on a charge. An electric motor produced 416 horses.
My car, with an array of options, totaled $130,000. Deduct $12,500 in federal and state tax credits for its zero emissions and the price drops to $117,500.
Wednesday morning, entering Ga. 400 from Hammond Drive, I aimed —yes, aimed — the Tesla at the highway merge, maybe a quarter-mile distant. I came to a full stop. "Ready?" I asked out-loud. I heard the motor whirr. That meant yes. My right foot slammed the floor.
Even knowing what to expect, I was stunned. The car rose slightly as it hurtled downhill. The digital speedometer flickered: 30-50-60-66-72-80-84 — and there I let off. By the time I reached the merge, the car was going a respectable 62 mph. My pulse may have been twice that.
And so it went for the rest of the day — slow trips in heavy traffic, punctuated by sprints when the blacktop cleared. Imagine a thoroughbred among mules, a greyhound sharing the track with short-legged mutts.
It’s hard not to let such an animal run.
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