In electric car stakes, it's Miles to go

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The Tesla Roadster goes over 200 miles . . .

The Tesla Roadster goes over 200 miles on a charge - and goes from 0-60 in 4 secs - and goes over 130 mph.

Of course it also costs $100k, but they are working on a cheaper sedan, and I'm sure their new sedan will be priced as much as and perform much like the average sedan you see on the road.

"only to yank them off the market because of dismal sales"

Oh puh-lease - tell that too the people who used GM's EV1s and were FORCED to give them up. This is an outright lie. People liked the electric cars. It's the corporations (and more likely big oil companies breathing down their necks) that didn't want the average joe to get an electric vehicle.

Tesla is having outstanding sales already, despite the extreme price tag - the first year model of the roadster sold out quickly, and there's already a long waiting list for the current model.

I don't believe "dismal sales" for a second. I think it was just an excuse to kill the electric vehicle.

"Tesla Motors will bring out a $98,000 sports car later this year."

You're a bit behind - they've already sold (and sold out) the current model. It's just the next yearly model that's coming out in 2008.

"The sports cars are being sold on the basis of speed and acceleration, an advantage that comes from having an electric motor."

Yup . Electric motor = solid torque and acceleration from a standstill all the way to the vehicle's top speed. The motor maintains its power no matter what the RPMs, so it can do so without changing gears.

If they can keep the range to over 200 miles, if they can keep much of the acceleration (don't need 4 secs, but I'd still like to beat a Mustang ), and if they can lower the price, then I think they'd have a real winner for the general market.


"They listened to two engineers argue about the feasibility of hydrogen cars. One said hydrogen cars would hit in about 18 years."

This is pretty much why I don't like the other technologies as much. They're mostly theoretical stuff that we don't know is even going to work so well. Worse yet, we already have a better solution that we know works. Why are we wasting money in this other stuff? We know the electric car works, and it's got all of the advantages of the more exotic stuff. It's a proven technology, and best of all, we have the technology today. We don't need to wait 18 years for an electric.

The problems of electric vehicles are 99% solved, with the only problems left being the mileage and recharge time - and even those can be alleviated today with plug in hybrids. I'm sure they will eventually be fully solved - probably a lot sooner than hydrogen.

"If electric cars are such a good idea, what will prevent the big companies from coming in and taking over?"

I hope they "take over"! I wanna see electric cars produced like crazy! I want to own one as my first new car. Mass production is IMHO a good thing for the electric car.

What we need is a new Henry Ford - a man with the vision to say "I'm gonna put this in everybody's garage." Forget 200 thousand. I wanna see somebody produce 200 million.

Posted by: CobraA1   Posted on: 08/12/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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