Drive like Leonardo DiCaprio for $180,555

Disoriented, you wake up in a mansion high in the sunlit Hollywood Hills. You are suddenly slimmer, your hair has magically returned, and next to you is a woman you recognize from the cover of Sports Illustrated. Yes, you have turned into Leonardo DiCaprio.
You wander into the garage to find out what kind of car you drive. Bentley? Porsche? No, you own a Tesla Roadster, a tiny electric sports car that some call the Tree Hugger Ferrari. No gas tank. Zero emissions. You may be a movie star and one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, but you’re also an environmental activist, and your car has to send out a rarefied, dog-whistle-style message that will reach only the right ears.

Now back to mid-winter Canada, where I’m about to spend a day in a Tesla like DiCaprio’s. My mission is two-pronged. First, I want to see why the Tesla exerts such a pull over celebrities: in addition to DiCaprio, Tesla owners include George Clooney, Matt Damon, David Letterman and RIM founder Mike Lazaridis.

— Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail

Second, I want to see whether the Tesla justifies its considerable hype. To its exponents, the Tesla is a nothing less than a battery-powered messiah, carrying us into a new, green transportation future – to drive a Tesla is to thumb your nose at the auto industry’s carbon-fouled past. Wired magazine recently put the Tesla’s creator (Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk) on its cover and declared: “Charge! The age of the electric car is here.”
But is it?

Hans Ulsrud, sales manager for Tesla Motors Canada, met me in downtown Toronto with a new Tesla 2.5 roadster. I liked it – the Tesla had the exotic presence of a spacecraft that had fallen to earth. Ulsrud popped the rear engine lid and showed me the propulsion system, which seemed to consist of little more than a mysterious black box with thick cables running in and out of it like alien sinews.
He assured me that the Tesla would impress: “It’s like a slingshot,” he said. “You’ll love it.”
Ulsrud pointed out the controls, which consisted of a steering wheel, two pedals and some glowing screens and buttons. As I glided through the tony Yorkville retail district, nearly everyone turned to stare. I received extra scrutiny from a number of women who examined the Tesla in the apparent hope that it contained DiCaprio, Clooney or, at the very least, Dustin Hoffman (who also owns one).
I decided to test Ulsrud’s claims about the Tesla’s slingshot capabilities by lining up with a new Mustang at a red light. I haven’t actually tried riding a proton torpedo (the mythical Star Wars weapon), but it can’t be much different than what happened next. One moment I was at the light with the Mustang, and then I was suddenly all by myself, two blocks away, as if had been suddenly beamed into hyperspace.
Amazing. But also a little puzzling – why did the Tesla feel so quick? Its zero to 100 kilometre time has been tested at 3.7 seconds, which is unquestionably fast, but I’ve experienced some vehicles that can beat it, including the Porsche Turbo S (3.3 seconds) and a Suzuki GSXR 1000 superbike (2.9 seconds).
The Tesla delivers its speed in a far different manner than a gas-powered vehicle. Most obviously, there is no engine roar. Instead, you are rushed forward in near silence, as if you had been rear-ended by an intergalactic cruiser. (After I tried it a few more times I realized there actually was some noise, but it was like nothing I’d heard before – it conjured up the sudden discharge of a giant bug-zapper.)
I took a friend for a spin to test my theory that the acoustics somehow heightened the sense of speed. He concurred, breaking into an involuntary grin as we rushed forward.