Arguably, this is a smart decision for the target audience. A person driving a Tesla isn’t looking to eke out a few extra miles from a charge; they’re looking for performance.

When you leverage regenerative braking in the “apply-the-brakes-but-not-really-because-you’re-just-kicking-in-the-generator” sort of way, you give up smooth, linear braking feel. In a performance car, that’s not the right trade-off, but in a Prius that makes sense.

On the other hand, when you lift off the gas, the generator doesn’t have to kick in…but they kick it in. You can’t really call it “regenerative coasting”, though, so I’m not surprised they call it “regenerative braking.” Think of it as regenerative braking that stops the moment you explicitly touch the pedal, under the assumption that you want braking feel/performance more than economy at that point…and coast down if you want economy (which is what you should do anyway.)

In a way, I think that’s even more interesting: they get the range they do without more aggressive regenerative braking! That means for a less performance-oriented model they have that as a range-enhancing option.

I think that is the problem. This site has already labeled the car just as you have stated, without bothering to test drive it. Being skeptical is one thing, unfounded heavily biased negativity is another. If I ran Tesla I would tell this site to get lost.

It pretty obvious that “Tony” has never driven anything higher performance than a Lincoln Town Car and doesn’t know squat about sports cars.

Sure, the weight of those batteries made it prone to understeer. Can’t say I found anything approaching ‘violent understeer’ (wtf) though.

It’s easy to bash Tesla for many things, but driving dynamics should probably be way down the list, IMO.

Some “smart” car.

If the initial cars have some problems people aren’t going to loose faith in the company.

It Tesla tries to cover those problems up then people will loose faith in the company.

If I ran Tesla and a website called “The Truth About Cars” wanted to test my car I would quickly throw them the keys. Especially if their editorial policy meant that they were more than willing to spring for insurance, lodging, etc.

Sure the review would harshly label the car as an undeveloped piece of shit, but Tesla would gain the street cred of having notoriously tough reviewers review their car, and they could spin the flaws pointed out in the review to be part of an open source development program.

If Tesla continues to be cowardly and secretive about the car’s flaws they are going to stop being seen as an innovative new car company and start being seen as a smaller, overpriced version of GM.

“Early cars had two forward speeds, perhaps to reduce noise at speed, but they had clutch problems so now there is just one forward gear.”

And this electric car doesn’t have regenerative braking!

“Tesla claim that the car has regenerative braking but it really doesn’t, at least not as normally understood. When you lift off, there is some engine braking effect, as the motor functions as a generator, but there is no attempt to capture energy from actual braking.”

Wow, with all of that money Tesla hasn’t done anything much more sophisticated than the backyard electric car conversions tinkerers have been cooking up since the 1970s.

Tesla the man died penniless and nearly forgotten, a fate he didn’t deserve. Tesla the company is earning it’s fate.

It seems obvious that integrating a heavy electric drivetrain would change the dynamics of a car as light as the Elise, though. At its low weight, almost anything is a significant addition. Adding 100 lbs to an SUV or to an Elise… one of them feels it more than the other.

It sounds like a case of software or the power control module not being smooth with the traction control. My guess is with the amount of torque available from the motor that the car has very dangerous oversteer and the traction control normalizes the car. It’s still something they should have fixed before the gave test drives and definately before they started selling it, especially for that price.

That said, launching a car company is a messy business that takes longer than most folks tend to expect. Drudge-style headlines are easy to do but not always fair. I would be more concerned about Tesla’s credibility if it had offered its cars for full testing and they proved woefully unbaked.

Is it possible to successfully launch an automobile company in today’s environment, where people expect a pretty fast and flawless launch?

I’m hesitant to say all of this because I don’t wish to be viewed as defending a company that has not played its cards very well. I just don’t want to see the journalistic bar set so high that every new automotive entry is all but guaranteed to be “tuckered.”