Electric cars have yet to make an impact in the Gulf. The first one to pop in, the limited-range Fisker Karma, stalled before it even got started, although it was more due to a little thing called bankruptcy rather than any market dynamics here. The Lexus “performance” hybrids haven’t done well either, with their high prices and lack of real performance gains. And Nissan keeps showing the Leaf in public, but cannot apparently make it adjust to our weather. But the one electric car the rest of the world is excited about isn’t even offered in the UAE. That’s the Tesla Model S. So we were surprised to spot one in Abu Dhabi the other day.
Tesla Motors second model after the discontinued Roadster, the Model S is a large 5-door liftback, built by what is essentially a tech start-up company. First shown to the public at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show as a prototype, it hit the streets by the summer of 2012. Totalling 20,000 in sales so far, it even became the top-selling car overall in one or two European countries once it reached there in mid-2013, while handily beating out the cheaper Chevy Volt earlier this year in the United States.
Available in several variants with different battery sizes, the plug-in electric Tesla ModelS Performance model equipped with an 85 kWh lithium-ion battery pack has an official range of 426 km, making it the electric car with the greatest range available in the market. The starting price of the 85 kWh model is the equivalent of Dhs 295,000 in the States, with top-spec prices going beyond Dhs 350,000. A cheaper base model, with a starting price of Dhs 260,000 and a 60 kWh battery, has a range of 335 km.
