I Need Help Identifying This Automobile

I had a chance to drive to Delaware a couple of weeks ago and it was a great trip (except for the exorbitant tolls). I saw a vehicle that I’ve never seen before a couple of times on I-95. One was a light gold and the other was a champagne color (maybe the same car?) traveling in the same direction as me (northbound). The only emblem that I could see was a large “T” on the center of the trunk lid. It was an expensive vehicle and was not a Tesla. It was long and low and reminded me of a new Bentley Continental GT but had a rounded shape front and back. Any ideas?

The only thing I can think of is the Tesla Model X instead of the more familiar Model S.

http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx

I looked up car logos (car-logos.org) and the only thing that looks like a T is Tesla, except for Toyota, of course, and you’d never miss that. Also Tatas, but they aren’t imported.

Model X isn’t out yet, so that’d be very odd…

Thanks guys. I guess it was a Tesla after all. A model S to be exact. It sure looked different in a champagne color but that is the emblem that I saw. It sure looked lower than that also but it was traveling well over the speed limit…both of them.

They were trying to get somewhere fast, before the batteries went dead.

Doesn’t it have some kind of auto-leveling system that lowers it at speed? Might have caused the low ride you saw…

Funny @insightful …made me chuckle. It might well have @texases but Tesla is off my radar because of the price. Beautiful vehicle though…very well designed.

"Doesn’t it have some kind of auto-leveling system that lowers it at speed? Might have caused the low ride you saw."

Texases is correct, although after that one incident of a punctured battery pack and resulting fire, Tesla announced that they were going to disable that feature in order to try to prevent recurrences of that type of accident. Somehow the owner of the car that you saw must have found a way to override the disabling of that feature.

The 1st time I saw a Tesla on the road, was trying to figure out what car it was and was chasing it in the fwy. Got very close to rear-ending it when everything came to a standstill, but at least was able to figure it out :slight_smile:

You have to hand it to the Tesla crew. They said they were going to design a car that people would want even if it WASN’T electric. IMHO they succeeded. The car is gorgeous.

Yes, if I had a spare $81,000 I’d spend it on an 85 kWh Model S. I believe the price is down, BTW. If I recall correctly, the base Model S used to be about $100,000 and the performance version was something like $110,000 to $120,000 (now a mere $95,000).

@galant … I couldn’t chase either Tesla or I may have done the same. I’ve only seen the two and it appears that Tesla drivers like to drive fast. We were always in different lanes and I don’t think the Fusion that I was driving could have caught it anyway. Right now…I’m somewhat enamored of the Tesla but it will probably wear off after I’ve seen a few of them.

No help on the car but we drove the Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio turnpike last year and the tolls were terrible. It sounded like they had doubled the fees unless you have the transponder. I don’t know what it cost but think it was $30-40 just going through one state.

Double fees without transponder is probably common. I’m pretty sure it’s that way on the Golden Gate Bridge.

As for Tesla, et al., when Elon Musk gets one of his SpaceX boosters to soft land back at Cape Canaveral, he will truly secure his place as a gutsy forward-thinker:

@missileman; I guess the only reason I got to the Tesla was the traffic jam. I live in LA, so Tesla of Fiesta, we are all in the same “parking lot”.

@insightful; I was recently in San Francisco and trying to go through the Golden gate trying to find the cash lane and surprised not find it. Had to pull over at the security cabin and they told me I will get my bill in the mail. It was $1 more than the transponder holder’s ($6). Not bad IMO. This was my first time there. I have lived in the New England area and they have a lot of toll roads that add up pretty fast.

All told, I have seen about 6 Teslas so far, and a few weeks ago I was driving directly behind a Model S on one of our local country roads. As others have observed, these cars are truly beautiful–in every way.

Even the stop lights are beautiful!

I agree. There are 3 or 4 that I see fairly regularly where I live, and I’d buy one in a second if I could afford it.

The first time I saw one in the wild I glanced in my sideview mirror at the red car rocketing up behind me and my first thought was “Hey, nice Maserati Ghibli! What the hell, that’s not even supposed to be out yet.” Then it whispered past me like I was standing still and I realized what it was.

Not a bad car to resemble (even though the Tesla’s faster :wink: ).

Elon Musk already has shown that he is a gutsy forward thinker by starting PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, all before his 40th birthday. The speed that the Falcon9 booster was developed is amazing.

This is one tesla badge, like this?

even the badge is pretty. move over '65-1/2 442 w/W30 package, I have two dream cars now.