Where Are All The Electric Cars?
May 15th, 2008
In the midst of rampant unemployment, and a bleak economic forecast the outlook for the summer of 2008 is grim at best. Housing prices continue to drop, while commodity prices continue to rise, and gas prices, ugh well lets just say gas is becoming out of reach for many if not all Americans. The economist inside of me is tempted to say this is a good thing, after all rising gas prices will lead consumers to switch to now relatively cheaper greener substitutes such as hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius. At least theoretically in the school of standard economic thought that’s how things should work. But as I grow older I’m slowly but surely discovering things almost never go according to plan.
Traditional economic thought would insist that the rising price of gas should lure entrepreneurial spirits to invest in the research and development of new transportation technologies to cash in on their piece of the pie. And in someways this theoretical model is met with empirical (real world) data. Companies like Tesla Motors have successfully developed viable vehicles that run entirely on electric power. So why aren’t we seeing more of these vehicles on the road? Well for one Tesla has produced a very limited number of automobiles, and their vehicles come at a high price, somewhere to the tune of $100k. Placing them far out of the reach of almost all Americans.
Companies like Tesla have proved the technology to build, and develop a viable electric car is there. Heck GM proved the technology was there back in the mid 90’s when they first rolled out the EV1. If your not already familiar with the GM EV1 it was a production vehicle which ran solely on electrical power. The vehicle was developed in response to California’s zero emissions mandate or ZEV. The mandate specified that by the year 2003 10% of all new vehicles sold within the state of California must be ZEV compliant vehicles. So much for that mandate eh? Well long story GM developed the EV1, and eventually after some under the table negotiations with big oil agreed to pull the EV1 from production. The thing is not only did GM pull the EV1 from productions, they literally bought back every vehicles from consumers for copious amounts of cold hard cash. Sound suspicious? Ya I would say so, if your not already familiar with all of this I suggest you check out the movie “Who Killed The Electric Car” which traces the birth and subsequent death of the electric automobile. Read the rest of this entry »
A Roadster That Gets 135MPG!
April 25th, 2008
Mean and Green
Tesla Motors of San Carlos California has pioneered a 100% electrical roadster that reaches 60 mph in under 4 seconds. Faster then a Ferrari this electric machine gets the equivalent of 135 mpg traveling up to 220 miles on a single charge. The battery fully charges in 3.5 hours which
Tesla boosts is faster then your cell phone battery charge time. Best of all you only need a standard power outlet to charge the battery.
Regenerative what?
Utilizing what Tesla refers to as regenerative braking the battery actually stores the energy usually lost when you slow down, allowing you get more miles out of your battery. So whenever you slow down you send a charge back to the battery, kind of like an added bonus for enduring traffic jams or driving out to that 7 million dollar tree house.
