HUMMING ALONG; While the Tesla company struggles, its roadster rules Electric Avenue.(NEWS)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

YOU COULD WRITE A PRETTY good soap opera about Tesla and its troubles. It would be the first daytime drama that would appeal to business students and engineers more than domestically incarcerated stay-at-home spouses.

But lost in all of the Internet gossip and cleaned-up press releases about Tesla's Travails is a pretty good sports car. We drove the new-and-improved version recently, called internally the 1.5, and were, most of the time, thrilled.

The first freeway on-ramp was only a block away from the company's Los Angeles showroom. So, naturally, we floored it. Howlin' acceleration is always better when you don't expect it, like a drag racer's first run of the season when all of the new parts work, or maybe like a first-time astronaut. But there it was, mashing us back into the seat as we exited Westwood at Santa Monica Boulevard and rocketed onto the northbound 405. Wahoo!

The Tesla Roadster is all redone since we drove Engineering Proto-type No. 10 almost a year ago ("It's Tesla-rrific, AW, Feb. 4, 2008). Old No. 10 was pretty well put together for a prototype. But it was a work in progress. This one has advanced in most departments since then, from new molds that produce better body-panel fit to a new, less irritating screen on the dash. A full-leather interior also is in the works.

As almost everyone who has ever googled Tesla knows, that first roadster's fatal flaw was a transmission that would stop transmitting at some point between 5,000 and 10,000 miles of use. It was burning out its clutches. No one in gearmaking apparently ever figured out what to do with a drivetrain that not only makes all of its torque at 0 rpm but then keeps spinning all the way up to 13,000 screamin' revs.

So Tesla engineers designed a new one-speed transmission, which would be used not just in the roadster but also in future electric cars from the company. They built a prototype and sent it to Borg Warner. Borg Warner made a better model based on Tesla's design, and that's what is in the production car. One gear, no clutch.