Mar 26
I soooooo want one of these. 45 minute charge time? 300 miles per charge? And only 49k? Dude. Sign us up!
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson is powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS Feed | Return to Top
I soooooo want one of these. 45 minute charge time? 300 miles per charge? And only 49k? Dude. Sign us up!
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson is powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS Feed | Return to Top
The roadster is saweeeet too. Bit more pricey though.
You and me both, Scott. You and me both…
Finally, an electric car that doesn’t look like the driver should be ashamed of himself.
We put our money into a good location for kids & schools, so the rest of life has to be cheap.
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As much as I like it, it’s not cheap. /sad
I was planning on buying a Volt or an Ampera but this might just make me reconsider.
Very sweet.
Just get two.
The Tesla is very cool, but way out of my price range. The Aptera is super-geeky-cool in a “that looks like a spaceship” kind of way: http://www.aptera.com/
And the Wheego Whip is right about my price range, and will meet my commuting needs quite well: http://www.wheego.net/
I’ll still have to get a hybrid for those spur-of-the-moment trips my wife wants to make to her home town, more than 100 miles away (NEVER use more than one-third of your range on a trip that you want to come back from without refualing/recharging!), but the Volt might do that.
Honestly, I want the Aptera, but hey, the Wheego is pretty cool for the money. And the Tesla might as well be a tourist space flight, when I look at the price. Or a classic Jaguar Type D. I can’t afford that, either.
I wouldn’t trust them. The last Tesla Top Gear (a show about cars and such in the UK) tested didn’t even come near the specs they advertised.
It looks like my Aston martin – ah its good to be a dermatologist
Tesla is nice on paper, but until they or any of them for that matter…. (Volt has been in beta for almost a decade)
Actually mass produce the cars, all we can do is wish. My camry hybrid gets 38-40mpg most of the time, so I can’t complain too much, and it doesn’t say “Hot Wheels” on the bottom like someone’s Aston Martin -_-
How the crap is that thing supposed to seat seven? Squeeze four in the back?
Otherwise, yeah, do want.
They say they don’t know where the company is getting their funding.. according to the article on CNN it lists the funders and primary investors of Tesla motors as being the president of Paypal and and one of the founders of Google… I’d like one though, but next year the electric companies in PA are going to be upping their electric charges by up to 60%.. due to some nonsense about deregulation laws ending or something…
Vroom vroom! Wait…if it’s electric…that means no vroom vroom? Hmmm…buzz buzz?
Not sure if I read that right but do you really have to “Lease” the batteries?
One thing that people aren’t taking into consideration is the fact that charging it for 45 minutes and getting 300 miles outta that will make your electric bill sky rocket. That, and the fact that when you plug it in, your house will more than likely surge. lol
That’s a sweet car. But for all you James Bond geeks. Remember the Lotus that he took underwater. Well, it’s now a reality. Not by Lotus, but by another car maker. It’s called the sQuba. It’s an electric vehicle, and can travel on land at a top speed of 77 mph. On the waters surface at 3 mph, and underwater at 1.8mph. I know it’s not terribly fast, but imaging the look you’ll get when you drive your car off the boat ramps at the local lake.
I would much rather have a sQuba. http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2008-02-15-squba-car_N.htm
Azurall.
AIE.
Ummmm…. It has a 4 hour charge time for the 300 mile battery, and the 49k price tag is for the base line battery, which I believe is 160 miles. It’s kind of like an iPod. The more play time you want, the higher the price. And @ LelandC; you don’t have to lease the batteries, you own them. You just lease longer lasting batteries if you’re going on a trip or something.
For all the negativity surrounding alternative fuel vehicles we have to be happy that it’s all going in the right direction. These vehicles may not be ideal yet BUT companies like this have to be encouraged as the more research and development that goes into this area, the better it’ll finally be for us (the consumer) and
the future of the planet (and all you people with kids)!!
What about hydrogen fuel cells..?
Unfortunately, the current tech used to create hydrogen fuel to power the fuel cells creates just as much polution as natural gas and/or oil; that is to say, too much to be considered a viable “alternative fuel”. Not to mention the complete overhaul our fuel infrastructure would have to undergo to support it: essentially, people would either a) have to take a major risk and convert their gas stations to have “hydro pumps” along with the regular pumps (which costs time/money/sweat/etc) and bank all that hydro fuel becomes the next big thing, or b) stop having a use for gas stations at all, which would force gas station owners to either shutdown or convert to hydro fuel.
Of course, a cheapo gas station chain is NOT likely to bank on hydro-fuel if it’s not yet economically proven. And if gas stations are no longer used, then the problem would have already been solved and we wouldn’t need hydo-fuel cells.
Ah well. Maybe some day in the next few years…
Aptera looks good, but I’m iffy because of the price: they keep changing it, seemingly jumping from 20K to “around 30K” to 40K, and now they’re just saying it’ll range from about 25K to 45K.
I like the water car, but 1.8 mph is about 60 mph too slow. This car would be a big hit in areas with lakes and bridges (look at a map of WA and notice I-90 & 520 near Seattle).
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Just build ramps into & out of the water & there y’go. No need to build more expensive bridges.
And it’s amazingly not hideously ugly like most cars nowadays.
Or… You could just wait for one of these, shure the price tag will be a teny bit bigger but still
http://www.koenigsegg.se/pressreleases.php?view=16
Make that puppy into a pick-up truck and I am sold.
I prefer the two-seater convertible Tesla (based on the Lotus Elise).
But honestly I still suspect Tesla is vaporware.
@Matthew: Top gear faked that test. Google it.
It’s about time! I’ve been waiting a couple years to see their first mass-produced model (formerly known as the Whitestar) only… it’s still over two years away and they don’t have the funding in hand yet. Oh well, at least they have the DOE and The Governator on their side. They do have a $35K commuter car in the works too, which should be interesting.
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I like how the former CEO Martin Eberhard called other electrics “Punishment Cars” because they look like they were designed by people who don’t think we should be driving cars. There’s no way in hell I’d be caught dead in a Zap or any of those dorkmobiles!
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I think we need to look at internal combustion engines like we look at incandescent light bulbs–inefficient dinosaurs that need to go. Fortunately, there are a growing number of gearheads out there who are converting regulars cars into electrics. I love the fact that one can go two hundred miles for five bucks in electricity (quoting the Roadster on California night rates.)
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Anyway, here are my reasons for hope:
http://www.fireflyenergy.com
http://www.eaaev.org
Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now.
I agree with Matthew in sugesting you check out the BBC’s Top Gear, if you have BBC America it comes on Mondays, from they way their tests on the Tesla looked the car was very unreliable and the battery didn’t last nearly as long as advertised. But the speed was great on there test track it went faster than a Porche.
The replay of last weeks episode is tomorrow mid day or monday either before or after the new episode.