The Tesla Roadster was one of the first pure electric cars to be sold to the open public. However, Gizmodo has found a fatal flaw in the design of the car. Should the battery ever become completely depleted, the battery becomes useless – and a $40,000 (USD) bill is required to replace the battery. What’s worse is that this is not covered by the bumper-to-bumper warranty offered by Tesla.

Tesla needs to do something fast before this permanently damages their reputation. Being an early adopter should carry some risk, but this is too much to ask for for many owners.

Tomorrow is the opening of the Canadian International Auto Show. As always the AJAC has awarded the car and truck of the year at the show. This year it goes to the Hyundai Elantra and Volkswagon Touareg TDI.

For the past few years, Porsche has held an event up in Tremblent where you can experience the dynamics of the cars in harsh winter conditions. This year the attendees were able to test drive the newest 911 as well. Autos.ca has a writeup of the event.

Autocar pits these two turbo titans against each other. Predictable results below:

The new 911 Carrera S arrived in showrooms this weekend. I was able to get a walkaround of the car on Saturday and a test drive on Monday. Here are my thoughts on the new 911:

The new 911 Carrera S

Overall the car is larger in every way, but it’s hard to tell from looking at it unless it is side-by-side with the previous generation of 911. Everything has been made proportionately larger which hides the fact that the car is longer, wider and “taller”. The car itself is not taller, but the sides of the car go higher than the old car, this is very apparent when you are inside the car and try to rest your arm on the window sill – it’s much higher. These enlarged proportions don’t make the car look to weird even though it’s riding on large 20″ wheels.

Interior room is up quite a bit and there’s lots of headroom from the redesigned sunroof. The angle of the dash also gives more feeling of roominess even though the center console now intrudes into your space more. One thing I noticed is that the seat belts no longer have an adjustable height mechanism – a strange thing to remove when there is more headroom thus taller people can drive this 911 vs. the old one. The materials inside are nice and the controls are well placed with the exception of the HVAC controls which are hard to read when the shift knob is in the way. The center console is a bit busy with buttons but those buttons are now needed with all the additional electronic aids in the car (sport, sport plus, sport exhaust, PASM, PDCC, torque vectoring, etc.).

No complaints about how it looks with the exception of the busy rear badging. I’m not sure why it’s necessary to put “Porsche 911 Carrera S” on the back of the car. The previous cars only used “Carrera S”. The new sunroof looks a bit weird when opened, with the panel now sliding out overtop of the roof – i would prefer no sunroof.

Test Drive

The car I drove was the Carrera S. It had 20 sport classic rims, sport seats, regular exhaust, sport chrono and the “power assisted” steering (whatever porsche calls it). It did not have PDCC but all Carrera S come with torque vectoring as standard. Two things i noticed right away, the ambient noise of the car was a lot quieter – less road noise, less wind noise and less body noise on uneven roads. On the other hand, the engine sound is louder when you step on it, but quieter at warm idle – at cold idle it is actually louder than 997.

The pdk is smoother and quieter than the 997.2 – I haven’t driven one in a year but I can still tell. The additional fuel economy is nice and the launch control is a nice party trick but I think many owners will not use it. There were no manual transmissions to test.

This car is fast. Speed builds up super quick and smoothly with the PDK because there’s no hesitation on engine speed and no noticeable delay when it shifts. Tt’s quite amazing and i can already tell you now the PDK will be equipped with the vast majority of 911′s being sold. The sound of the new DI engines is a lot better than the 997.2 DI engines both louder and deeper. Outside the car sounds louder too (inside the car there is an acoustic tunnel that funnels sound into the cabin – you can tell it’s there).

Regarding the electric steering that many magazines have pointed out: to be honest, i can’t really tell any difference in real world driving. If i drove two cars back to back maybe i could tell but the car handled well enough for my driving (e.g. not on a track) that i would be perfectly happy with electric steering. Although i do wonder what happens when the battery is dead and the car needs to be towed. same with the electric parking brake. One of the reasons I think the less feedback on the steering was not that noticable is because overall the car is smoother and quieter and the new steering matches it’s nature. Maybe it was because of the assisted steering but on city driving, parking and right hand corners I don’t feel the increased length of track has increased the turning radius or turning effort. not a plus or minus, it feels like my 997.

REFINEMENT: This I could tell was what they focused on in the 991. everything that I’ve mentioned adds up to a much more refined car. The quieter, smoother ride. the less intrusive sound and vibrations from the road. the better materials for the dash, the “bling” of the interior all make the 991 more luxurious and less “go cart” than the 997. Since all indications are the 991 has better performance than it’s 997 sibling in acceleration, handling, and track numbers, all this refinement has not come at the expense of it’s “sporty” nature. It may feel less sporty and more refined, but the numbers still make it a better performing car that the outgoing car in all aspects.

If you’re looking for a Porsche, call John at Downtown Fine Cars – thanks for the test drive!

I’ve added Autocar’s video review below:

Porsche almost killed the 911 in the 1980′s – they saw the 928 and other models as the future of the brand instead of the rear-engined 911. However, a few insiders grew enough support to keep it going and saved the 911 from the history books. Now, Porsche acknowledges the 911 as the identity of the brand – as shown in this video released last week as part of their marketing campaign for the new 911. It arrives in dealers this spring.

If you’re wondering why there’s so much Porsche content in my blog, it’s probably because I recently retired from Porsche Report, my focused blog on the subject =)

YouTube’s Drive Channel is delivering some great car content. In their latest video, Chris Harris takes his GT3 4.0 out for one last drive before storing it for the winter season.

A lot has been written recently on the Nissan GTR’s power hikes and subsequent price hikes. The 2013 prices in Canada just came out and I wanted to share how the power scales with the price.

*Note in 2011 the base model was dropped and only the Premium model was offered.

While the price in the USA has gone up by 39%, the price in Canada is up only 26%. In fact while the 2013 model has a $15,000 increase in the USA, the price actually decreased in Canada. Horsepower over the life of the GT-R has increased 13%, from 480hp to 545hp in 2013.

The entire sportscar line at Porsche is being revamped. First it was the new 911 which is arriving in Feburary. Now it’s the new Boxster which debuted at the Detroit Auto Show. Porsche used the video above to show off it’s new curves. I like how the front and rear end is more differentiated from the 911. And also how the side scoop take a lot from the older (and also mid-engined) Carrera GT. Press pics are below.

Porsche takes the new 911 around the track at Silverstone: