Audi R8 vs Roadster

[TEG]

The Roadster and Audi R8 are both coming to market about the same time.

Both are featured in the upcoming "Iron Man" movie.
Various car journals have been sampling both recently.

There are some similarities...
Just over $100K
Mid engined
0-60 < 5

The Audi wins out on Luxury, and top speed, and has AWD.
The Tesla wins out on low end torque, greenness, quietness, & lack of shifting.

[tonybelding]

What does the Audi R8 weigh?

I'm guessing quite a bit more than the Roadster.

[raymond]

The European version of the Audi R8 weighs in at 3342 lbs. And because of its insane fuel consumption it is taxed so that the bottom line reads (converted from euros to US dollars) over $200.000! (vs. $130.000 for the Tesla incl. tax)

I'll take the (faster) Tesla, thank you very much.

[stopcrazypp]

A point to take note of is that in most auto blogs, both cars are considered overpriced for what you get, esp. with the buzz about the upcoming GT-R and ZR1, and the fact the R8 can't match the straightline performance of the older 911 Turbo and Z06.

I tend to think the Roadster has more value in it for other reasons besides from the performance specs on paper, but many sports car fans don't agree. People keep bringing up comparison with the Elise and Exige, and say "save your $50k, it's just an Elise with an electric motor, the Elise is already very fuel efficient anyways."

In regards to it's 100k price, I've seen this comment on autobloggreen's firstdrive youtube video "98 grand for that pos?? the upcoming Corvette ZR1 will be the same price, I'd get a ZR1 long before this crap. plan on going any distance in a tesla? then i hope you can deal with no radio, no headlights, no air and no heat on, the you may break 200 miles with the wind at your back."
The funny thing is that this guy seems to have been following the Tesla Roadster from the start and he still makes this comment.

Sorry for bringing in so many negative things, but the final production version of the Roadster isn't out yet, so we really don't know much about how it is going to turn out. Doubtlessly people will first try to compare using the current temporary transmission version with 0-60 in 5.7, which IS too slow for your money, esp. if they consider 4.4 seconds in the R8 to be slow in the first place. For comparison sake, the 911T and Z06 get around 3.7 secs for 0-60. The old two speed roadster was probably capable of that in ideal conditions if I remember correctly, but we don't know enough to know if the final can get sub 4 second times in ideal conditions.

I think it's more appropriate to do this comparison when the final version is out, and I'm pretty sure the magazines will want to do comparisons too. Right now we still don't know enough about the final production roadster to do any meaningful full comparisons of performance.

[TEG]

I get the impression that Tesla is committed to "hold the line" on the 4s 0-60 no matter what. They could change the gearing again (and drop the top speed a bit more) if it turns out that their projections don't hold up.

I also get the impression that they have pretty good software at predicting performance based on specs fed into a program. I don't think they would have offered up the 4s target with drivetrain 1.5 unless they had some calculations done to back up that estimate.

[ Disclaimer: I could be wrong about all this! ]

[AGR]

TEG,

The R8 has been on the sold and delivered to customer for several months....its an attractive car, with cachet, you can get a manual or sequential shift transmission in the R8.

An R8 is a very different car than a Tesla Roadster.

[Kardax]

The Tesla Roadster will be in a much better competitive position if the performance specifications ever stabilize...

-Ryan

[SByer]

The ZR1 is a GM. Uhm, eew.

GM, as we've talked about elsewhere. may finally be getting the reliability part of quality close to right, but they still miss on the other parts. Who wants a fat boy ICE, really? Z06es look pretty darned cheesy in person, and I don't see how the ZR1 will improve on that.

[domenick]

I'd take a Tesla over the Audi anyday. For one, the roof comes off the Tesla. I don't think it's supposed to on the R8. Not to mention, of course, all the icky gasoline crap.

[TEG]

Revised Audi R8
525 HP V10
0-60 in 3.9
full LED headlights