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Electric cars are slow, ugly and can only go a few miles between charges, right?

Not any more. The latest high-voltage sportscar to hit the streets is anything but. Stuart Milne powers up to find out about the Tesla Roadster electric supercar.

Up until recently, I'd dismissed electric vehicles - or EVs - as pointless, with as much performance as a milk float.

And a recent drive in a tiny G-Wiz electric city car didn't do much to change my mind.

But when the first official pictures of the incredible Tesla Roadster electric supercar landed on my desk, my jaw nearly hit the floor.

The Lotus Elise-based two seater looks every bit as good as exotica from the finest Italian styling houses - and it goes like one too.

Fans of rumbling V8 soundtracks will be disappointed to learn there's very little noise from the super-EV, but its performance will more than make up for it.

It's even faster than its 248bhp motor would suggest, thanks to instant torque - the feeling of acceleration which pushes you back in your seat - which can only be produced from an electric motor.

Tesla says the British-built sportster is capable of blasting to 60mph in a Porsche-bashing four seconds. Top speed is a staggering 130mph.

A far cry from the ugly G-Wiz that struggled to get to 36mph.

It can even travel further between recharges than the diminutive G-Wiz. Tesla reckons it'll manage up to 250 miles between plug-ins, which roughly equates to 135mpg.

These impressive figures are thanks to a state-of-the-art battery which weighs in at 450kg, but pack five times the punch of other batteries.

But it’s the motor that's key to the Tesla's amazing pace.

The motor spins to an incendiary 13,500rpm whereas most conventional engines will only turn half as fast before disappearing in an expensive cloud of smoke and bits of metal.

An internal combustion engine - which powers your own car - is around 20 per cent efficient. That means that for every amount of energy put in, only a fifth is converted into power to turn your wheels, due to the amount of friction and heavy metal it needs to move around.

The Tesla's motor is 95 per cent efficient.

Given the Tesla's many technological advances, it seems fitting it should be named after Nikola Tesla, the Croatian genius who first created alternating current; without which we wouldn't have radio waves, computers - or its namesake supercar.

Like Nikola, who worked in France, America and Hungary, the Tesla Roadster has an international flavour.

Tesla is an American company who handed the tasks of designing and building the Roadster to Lotus. The motor comes from Taiwan and it will be sold exclusively through dealers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Miami.

All this performance doesn't come cheap, but your £52,000 will get you the car and a home charging system which will charge the car in around three and a half hours.

But many owners will be happy to pay for the exclusivity. Around 650 will be made next year, eventually increasing to 2,000 a year.

If its looks are anything to go buy, they'll be shifting twice that.

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