Al & Ed's 2009 Tesla Roadster

Specializing in custom stereo upgrades, Elie Rothstein from Al & Ed’s in West Hollywood has transformed a factory 2009 Tesla Roadster into a bespoke sound beast without compromising power drainage from the vehicle’s electric engine. As the lead designer, Rothstein and his master technician, Kevin Brown, were commissioned to do the tuning by the vehicle’s owner, Dr. Taras, after he looked around for a high-end shop to customize his No. 254 Tesla Roadster.

“Dr. Taras was one of the first people to order a Tesla Roadster, and he was not happy with the level of quality of interior that Tesla was offering and found that the upgrade options were pretty pricey in relation to what you were getting for them,” Rothstein explains. “That’s when he started thinking for the first time about bringing the car to us. He declined any additional upgrades and took it as plain as can be.”

After several meetings where Dr. Taras was presented with various bespoke interior fabric options and ideas concerning the sound systems, a game plan was formed to completely redo the interior and provide a premium sound system for the Tesla. “We had initial concerns about limitations we would have with the car due to its unique 400-volt battery system that gets distributed down to multiple levels to run the car. This is very unlike any other car we’ve worked on since every other car had a car battery. Over here, we had to take in to consideration that if we were to pull too much amperage from the factory system, we could in theory harm the car potentially or limit its driving range.”

After receiving support from Tesla, Rothstein now had adequate information on how to approach putting in a custom stereo package. “Instead of trying to integrate aftermarket audio by interfacing it with an existing electrical system within a car that has limitations to begin with, we decided to think out of the box and make it completely independent and separate.” By calculating the weight and power that the chosen audio system would have, they installed their own recyclable battery hidden in the Tesla, which received its own power supply and charging unit, so that it could be recharged when the entire vehicle was recharging anyways. “If you’re going to plug in a cable to charge the car, why not plug in one more extension cord and charge the stereo system?” he says. “By doing that, we were able to not limit or prohibit anything from the Tesla, if anything we might have increased its range since the factory stereo was pulling amperage and now it’s not.”