[kach22i]

ABG First Drive: Hitting the road in the Tesla Roadster!
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/01/28/abg-first-drive-hitting-the-road-in-the-tesla-roadster/

It has the original XTrac two speed gear-box with first gear locked out allowing it to simulate the behavior that can be expected from the single-speed units that will be used for early production cars starting March 17. .....................................Moving the accelerator toward the floor induced an instant rush of acceleration that just never seemed to let up. In any electrically-driven vehicle, one sure way to appreciate this acceleration capability is to floor it going up hill..........................In the course of doing development on the drivetrain for the WhiteStar sedan project, a more powerful motor was needed for the larger and heavier car. In order to achieve this, the team developed a larger diameter motor with a liquid-cooled rotor................This liquid-cooled unit forms the basis of what's being done for Roadster DriveTrain 1.5. The current air-cooled motor will be replaced by a unit the same size with liquid cooling. This will allow it to run at higher sustained power levels without overheating.

Not the same production transmission and not the same production engine.......................stay tuned?

The part about going up a hill in an electric car is true, I drove a EV-1 once up a hill and it was awesome!