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What about http://www.teslamotors.com/ ?

This one pretty enough for ya? :-D

base price: $98,000

Not any more.

This one pretty enough for ya? :-D

base price: $98,000

Not any more.

This one pretty enough for ya? :-D

I dont think US automakers like Tesla Motors or Phoenix Motorcars will cry much about this. They are aiming for complete zero emissions vehicles anyway.
Look, the crying from automakers is silly, like the DaimlerChrysler announcement that "we cant make it". Well, tough luck. Innovate or die. Its a market and competition, you dont have any birthright to sit there and dictate things.
Auto industry is long overdue for some serious shakeup, and the ones that get with the future sooner will likely survive.

Wait, you're suggesting by "I dont know of any company that could afford to beat out the fossil fuel companies to do so." that there aren't companies in the US trying to make money off alternative energy? Further, lots of state governments are actively trying to promote alternative energy, which undermines the theory that the government is afraid of a tax revenue collapse. State governments are subsidizing alternative energy using those very tax revenues, in the hopes that home-grown alternative energy producers will create even more tax revenue in the future.

I hate to sound like a slashvertisement, but I think the following US companies and groups would all disagree with you:

Evergreen Solar (producer based in Mass.)
Heliodyne (producer based in California)
Google (installing panels on its roof)
Solar Energy Industry Association (US trade group)
Tesla Motors) (selling 100% electric cars in the US)
List of solar manufacturers in the US
US solar power installations increase 33% year-to-year

The New York Times has a story about this issue: "Venture Capital Rushes into Alternate Energy" suggesting that $1.5 billion in VC money was invested in 2006 alone in new companies who hope to profit from overthrowing the energy status quo. If you add private equity money then there was $18.1 billion in dealflow in 2006 in the alternate energy sector. Or listen to a 2004 story about the same issue.

It's nice to think that there's some great conspiracy against alternate energy, but the simple truth is that there is a lot of market action in the field and nothing stopping people from making money in it. There is a HUGE amount of money to be made from alternate energy and plenty of people are trying to make it.

Have you heard it burn rubber when the stoplight goes green? Electric motors like the Prius uses are amazing at producing off-the-line torque. Combine that with its low weight, and you find that the Prius actually out-accelerates most cars on the road.

As an environmental move, whether hybrid drivetrains represent a net win is a little ambiguous (until we get plug-in hybrids). But for performance, they have a lot of pretty exciting advantages.

I was on a University team which built a hybrid formula-style racecar. That thing blew the pants off of Ferraris. In fact, it was originally entered for the general Formula SAE event, which then outlawed hybrids as having an unfair advantage. (So we started another competition just for hybrid vehicles.)

Want to see what electric motors can do? Check out the Tesla Roadster. And it only uses an AC induction motor (hence "Tesla")!!

(The fact that it "only" uses an induction motor is important because induction motors, though cheap and durable, are not even the money-no-object "best" option: That would be a permanent magnet synchronous DC motor.)

The downside to electric drivetrains is that they have more components, and electric motors are heavy, so their more impressive torque needs to make up for the increased weight. But the fact is that, currently, hybrids do exactly that, and, as motors get lighter, the advantages will only get more and more pronounced.

Have you heard the quiet, confident, high-tech sound of a really powerful electric motor spooling up? It's truly a beautiful sound.

I compared my 2006 F250 Crew Cab Long Bed with a 5.4L Gas engine to the Tesla Motors Tesla Roadster Electric car ( http://www.teslamotors.com/ ). I wanted to see what was the breakeven point for the Tesla (how many miles I had to drive before the Tesla would make sense).
In my estimates, I am not counting Insurance, Maintenance, Taxes or Cost of Financing. I am also making the assumption, that I will never go to Home Depot, haul something or plan anything with my family.

I am also assuming that both vehicles will last forever.

My truck cost me about $32,500 and gets about 13.8 MPG.

The Tesla Roadster cost $100,000 and gets about 50 miles on a buck.

I am assuming that Gas prices are $4.00 per gallon and the mileage on both vehicles are the same rate (i.e. average cost of City/Highway).

The Answer:

I would have to drive 250,000 miles before the cost benefit of owning the Tesla Roadster.

Now the I must admit that the Tesla Roadster is more of a babe magnet than my F250, but I will not factor in the cost of a divorce from my wife.

Most people do less than 2 hours of driving during their daily commute. The first generation of electric cars wont supplant gas or hybrid cars as a families primary vehicle, but many households have 2 cars and one of them could be electric without any sacrificing or changes in lifestyle.

The nice thing about electric is that the distribution system is already in place, which puts it ahead of hydrogen as a transportation power source. Plug-in hybrids will bridge the gap when people need extended range or don't have time to charge. Tesla has a new 220v charging station that they use to quickly charge their car in a few hours.

from the Tesla faq
How long does it take to recharge?

That depends on how far the battery has been discharged and what source is being used to charge the batteries. A full charge using the Home Charging Station (included in the price of the Tesla Roadster) can be achieved in as little as 3.5 hours.

However, an electric car is a bit like a cell phone: it does not matter how long it takes to charge as long as a charge lasts all day. You plug it in when you get home, and unplug it when you leave in the morning. This is why the 245 mile range (city/highway combined) of the Tesla Roadster revolutionizes EVs. There is also an optional mobile charging kit that allows you to charge from any available electrical outlet (110V or 220V) wherever you happen to be.

Since it seems that actual stats (as you requested) were woefully lacking from the replies, I remembered seeing this a while back:

http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php

Of course, this is straight from the mouth of an electric car maker, so take it with your appropriate grain of salt. FWIW, as it were, or if we're being slightly more clever: YMMV? Regardless, the stats look pretty accurate. I'm guessing that if you google "well-to-wheel" you'll find more stuff as well. =)

http://www.teslamotors.com/display_data/twentyfirstcenturycar.pdf

Why does this question have to be asked EVERY time there's a topic about electric cars?

Refining and transporting gasoline is more energy-expensive than you'ld think, and piston engines really aren't very good.

Tesla has some possibly biased numbers indicating than they win big, with their 3-1 efficiency advantage down to 2-1 once you factor in the coversion costs you're talking about.

Tesla Motors' has a chart on their website regarding well-to-wheel efficiencies, they even look at it in two steps. Well-to-station (not good for electric @ 52.5% vs. gas @ 81.7%) and overall well-to-wheel (great for electric 1.14 km/MJ vs 0.515 for regular gas car). I like the fact they are being open and honest about this slight negative instead of hiding it by just reporting well-to-wheel http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php

It is true that power plants (even Natural Gas / coal) have very high efficiencies when compared to automotive, however transmission losses through power lines are the killer. This results in awful Well-to-station efficiency. What makes up for it though is the incredible efficiency of the electric vehicle. If you could combine the high well-to-station efficiency of "gas" cars with the electric drive train then that would give you the greatest distance for your gallon...

Amazingly GM seems to be looking at this "big picture" in the design of their series hybrid electric Volt concept car. This could of course be designed to be a plug-in-hybrid (if it's not already). If you know where your current source of power is coming from (nuclear, coal, NG) or can choose your supplier; you have more power to make an educated decision.

For example, If you live in California where smog is a killer and you know your power comes from nuclear you could choose to plug in as much as possible. If you live in Texas and want to support local big oil industry you could choose to only run on gas from a station and never plug in ;)

You'd have to look at the big picture and see if having the on-board electric generation can be more efficient than current big generation facility + transmission losses.

Well, we'll see with time, a couple of years will tell. In the meantime start saving for one of these:

http://www.teslamotors.com/
http://www.venturi.fr/

America's a different market. Up until recently, generally speaking, people wanted technology put into performance, not efficiency. You can have both (Tesla) but it will cost you. People from the Union of Concerned Scientists preach that with products available today, you can increase the fuel efficiency of any automobile on the market by 30-80% depending on the auto. Auto manufacturers are only just getting around to it because, finally, gas prices are high enough that Americans are asking for it.

As for Harley's: it's a taste. Like buying the biggest pickup truck you can find and jacking it up to 12 feet in the air. Or owning a hummer. Or a Ferrari for that matter. Now you might say, "a Ferrari? That's cool though!" Sez you. Still gets less than 10 mpg, you can't ever really use its speed without risk of getting caught, so you have an expensive, fuel quaffing car that looks pretty.

Personally, I hate Harleys. People make them loud as a cannon, drive down your road at 6 in the morning to go to work. "Loud pipes save lives," they say, which is utter crap because I can't even hear the tractor trailer next to me with my windows up, how the heck am I going to hear you coming up behind me? Whatever, it's a feeling of power thing, I gather, sitting on a big rumbling beast of metal.

Actually, a rather sporty and normal electric car is just out. It's expensive and, granted not available to normal people. But for the "average" rich guy, it's very affordable. http://www.teslamotors.com/

Tesla, the company that's making the ultra-fast electric car, claims that battery capacity doubles every 5 years. This means that, 30 years from now, a laptop that can run for 2 hours on a charge will be able to run for 128 hours!

Urm...like the fuel it burns? Remember, the Prius is not, unless you hack it, a 'plug-in'...it uses fuel like any other car, and more than some. Also, it's hard to recycle (battery pack) and performs poorly in a crash. So, not really a good role model then.

But a Tesla, http://www.teslamotors.com/, hmmmm

Of course, the electricity to recharge the cells is mostly generated by coal-fired power stations. Damn...

The sad fact is, (and yes, I mean 'sad' - I have kids, so I'm concerned about the future of the planet, which has visibly gone even further to shit in my lifetime), that hydrocarbon fuels are still the cheapest and LEAST polluting of all the options for personal transportation... If you talk to the non-nutjobs, the best plan seems to be hydrogen and electricity produced by nuclear power, but, of course, we can't say that in public...

Mine will (yeah, I wish)

I want my electric car!
I want my electric car!
I want my electric car!
I want my electric car!
I want my electric car!
I want my electric car!

http://www.teslamotors.com/

THAAANK YOU GOOGLE GUYS!

Global warming, we're all gonna die, blah blah blah shut up and sell me an electric car that isn't a crippled piece of junk. I have a garage and an electrical outlet.

Global warming, we're all gonna die, blah blah blah shut up and sell me a roof full of solar panels that aren't crippled pieces of junk. I have a suburban roof and a home equity line of credit.

Oh you can't do that? Then SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I've already got the compact fluorescent light bulbs. They're kind of annoying, but they make light, so ok.

I'm so sick of it. All of it.

Someone earlier mentioned the movie "Who Killed The Electric Car" and I whole-heartedly recommend that you view this if you ever get a chance. Consider the distribution of electricity in this country. Certainly, THAT is a doable technology TODAY!

You might want to watch Tesla Motors, although most of us cannot afford their current offering (about $100,000.00), 0-60 mph in 4 seconds with a 200 mile range proves the technology is here. They intend to offer a sedan around the $50k mark in 2008 and a commuter car around $25k in 2009.

Popular Mechanics also test drove the Electric Mini-Cooper which you can buy today for around $50k.

While a hydrogen powered vehicle might work for rocket scientists, it's essentially worthless to you and me. The longer we ignore VIABLE alternatives and focus on pipe dreams, the longer we will remain dependant on oil.

I don't think this has a cat in hell's chance to take off in the USA - I think the biggest problem for small/electric/economy cars in the US is the deeply-ingrained public perception that they are unsafe/crap/effeminate.

However, I could certainly see this being a useful addition to a household as a second or commuter car. For example, in our household, my gf drives 30 or so miles each way to work every day on the freeway and likes to have decent size car for that (not an SUV, btw, just a car). I work from home and do maybe a total of 10-20 miles a day running errands and driving to the golf course and back - something like this car could work quite well in that situation.

Having said that, what I really want is one of these

Is there a comprehensive list of reasonably available electric vehicles?

The Reva ( http://www.revaindia.com/ ) has already been mentioned elsewhere in this thread --- one which I actually considered purchasing is the Twike ( http://www.twike.com/ ) (really more of an enclosed three wheel recumbent bicycle) --- there are some others though. A quick search on Google reveals:

  - http://www.zapworld.com/
  - http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php
  - http://www.gemcar.com/
  - http://www.zenncars.com/

There was an article in the local (Harrisburg, PA) paper recently about a local who'd purchased an all-electric scooter, and another about a (school teacher?) who had refurbished an electric car from the 70s which was street-legal 'causeit was grand-fathered in.

Of all the above, the only one which seems to have full equivalency to a gasoline powered vehicle is the Tesla (which is ~$100,000 if memory serves) --- I thought about getting a Twike, but it's ~$20,000, and would've required me to rent a vehicle for vacations, or to drive our other car (an 8 year old Cavalier w/ ~130,000 miles), so got a Chevy Aveo ($9,999 when I bought it the other year).

William

Burning fossil fuels at a power plant, charging your car batteries, and running all electric is from 25-100% more efficient. This directly reduces green-house gases. Also, with the added flexibility to choose what kind of fuel we use, we could pretty much eliminate foreign oil imports. Toyota is spreading FUD. 8 miles? What a crock. All Toyota has to do is offer this product. Plug-in hybrids are a great technology that can save money, reduce oil imports, and reduce green-house gases.

BTW, every time I point out these simple sites and concepts that any dolt can easily understand, I get mod-ed down by a strange group that seems to read articles late. I have two theories on this: there are paid /.-ers who are paid to bury this kind of info; angry anti-environment /.-ers read articles late.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=24

1. Walk on down to my local Tesla dealership and buy myself a nice new electric roadster
2. Drive my new electric roadster down to Home Depot, and buy myself a beefy new portable Honda generator and a couple of rolls of duct tape
3. Now I have the best of both worlds.... if I'm going on a trip of less than 200 miles, I leave the generator at home and just drive the car. If I need to go more than 200 miles, I duct tape the generator to the back of the car (or put the generator on a trailer and tow it, if you don't like duct tape), and plug the generator into the car's recharge port. Presto! A home-brewed hybrid that doesn't even (usually) have to pay the weight penalty of carrying two energy sources around.

And the real question is.... why doesn't some car company do essentially the above, except properly?

The Tesla Roadster also only has two seats, a trunk barely big enough for one set of golf clubs or a wheeled carry-on bag (check out the FAQS) with the remainder of space holding the big battery pack.

The Prius has a full rear seat and cargo area, which limits the amount of space that can hold the battery pack. In addition, as has been pointed out, the Tesla also costs nearly 4x a Prius.

Now, you show me a Tesla four-door hatchback that can carry more that a set of golf clubs, and still match the performance specs of the Roadster, then you might be able to say that Toyota "needs a little schooling."

Get your $50k cash ready for the downpayment:

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

100% Electric
0-60 in ~4 seconds
135 mpg equiv
Over 200 miles per charge
Less than 2 cents per mile

Now if they could get the price of this down to a reasonable level like a Honda Civic I'd buy it...and a buncha other people would too I'm sure. This would be an IDEAL car for me :)

If this is all such great engineers can manage, it shows that batteries have a long way to go.

Perhaps they're not as good at this as they are at fuel based systems, because some people have done a lot better. Apparently, Toyota needs a little schooling.

...if you have one of these instead of some pie-in-the-sky fantasy hydrogen fuel cell car that will probably never happen.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

Let's face it, a 100% electric car is a far better idea than H2FC in every way, and they are available right now. The main issue is price and early adoption. Once more people start buying them, the cost will come down.

What the hell are you talking about? Haven't you ever heard of the mid-West? Or the West? There's 100 million people with garages. Just because you're an apartment dweller doesn't mean the rest of us are, or even that the majority are. If I had $50k in cash, I'd plunk it down for a Tesla Roadster reservation right now. I drive every day, and I haven't driven over 200 miles in a day in over a year. A Roadster would be perfect for me.

What I want to know is why does it look like 90% of the people posting to the comments of this have never heard of Tesla Motors? And why didn't the author of the article know about Tesla Motors (http://www.teslamotors.com/)? Why have people tried to claim that lithium-ion batteries can only be used in custom packs, when Tesla Motors is building the Roadster using standard laptop batteries? And finally, hello, Google is going to spend this money to push for PLUGINS. Guess what a Tesla Roadster is? A pure plugin! Google is very much scratching its own back here, since the major investors in Tesla are the Google founders.

Tesla Motors already has a very nice electric car that will suit most people's needs. The only bad thing is the price ( about 90K - they are paying off R&D ) http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php Google ( as well as the Federal Government and the auto industry ) should forget about hybrids and focus on enhancing all electric cars. These cars will work with whatever form of energy is used to generate electricity. Maybe the can donate money to battery research to either get longer range batteries are ones that charge fast enough for a pit stop.

Nice to hear an informed opinion. Biofuels will have their place, and I hope that farmers can finally make a few bucks on corn and soybeans. However, we need to think in terms of "quads", or quadrillions of barrels of oil. That means we need to stop focusing on low-potential technologies like burning sewage waste, and focus on the big wins. Google's right on the mark here, since converting 50% of transportation energy to the grid would push the needle tons in the right direction. At 2X the well-to-wheel efficiency, the grid and plug-in-hybrids represent a cheap and easy way to make a real dent in the energy problem http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/foreign_oil. php. Given recent major battery advances like A123 Systems http://www.a123systems.com/, plug-in-hybrids finally make both green sense and financial sense. So, why hasn't Toyota started shipping them? Conspiracy theories abound...

For those who like details, A123 batteries kill Tesla's argument that smaller batteries just die faster, and don't save money. Small A123 batteries will last longer than your car, and never need to be replaced. They also have way lower series resistance, and can push one of those tiny 300HP induction motors http://acpropulsion.com/ with as much current than they can take. There's simply no reason that a modern plug-in Prius couldn't leave a Porche in the dust (ok, accept for those small hard tires, and crummy handling). By plugging into the grid, we give ourselves the freedom to produce energy however makes the most sense, whether solar, hydro, nuclear, gas, wind, or (God forbid) coal, oil sands, and oil shale. And if this sounds like an add for A123, it turns out that they're simply the first to market among many who will shortly sell competing batteries. Google continues to show some real vision!

Didn't the Tesla just string a bunch of NiMH or lithium ion batteries together from laptops?

I only partially agree. There are chemicals in the battery that cannot be recycled and thus there is an environmental impact. as far as R&D goes, I'd like to see companies burn rubber, not gasoline

Hmm...well, hopefully by then, they will have designed them to be less butt ugly and more pleasing to the eye. Also, maybe they'll come out with some with better performance numbers.

In the meantime, I'm waiting a few years hoping the price of the Tesla will come down in price to be more like a Vette....now THAT will be green car I'm interested in.

:-)

Trouble with these are...the lack of SOUND. I mean, the rumble of the engine is half the fun, my old 911 Turbo with the Borla exhaust used to set off the car alarms of cars I drove past...was kinda funny.

I beg to disagree. Care to take details and numbers? For example, a 9KW A123 battery would power a Tesla Roadster for 40 miles, enough to cover 90% of the driving that such cars are used for. It's wheel-to-well efficiency dramatically cuts oil consumption (read about it yourself at http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/energy_effic iency.php, but a stock Tesla has a $40K Li-on battery that most of us can't afford. According to the Tesla guys, there's no room for both a powerful gasoline engine to make a hybrid. A small 80HP generator (say a rotary), would probably fit, and a 9KW A123 battery (as opposed to the 57KW battery Tesla uses), would be smaller and cheaper. A plug-in hybrid like that might attract a lot more users than the Prius. The Telsa guys are basically right... the "please don't hurt me" electric wimps that most companies have tried to sell in the past just don't sell. A smaller powerful engine that rarely gets used is the way to go with a plug-in-hybrid.

Oh, never mind, I don't really have to. The Tesla Roadster uses 6,831 Li-ion laptop batteries for energy storage. This could be a big problem for the future of electric vehicles!

Hey now, don't give him crap. He just doesn't know how to use google to actually look up the thing he is ranting about. Heck, the very first search page turns up Tesla Motors, the REVA, and freakin' Global Electric Motorcars, which is a Chrysler company, or even the upcoming Chevy Volt.

Maybe he thinks those electric cars suck (it's ok, a lot of other people think that too - but the Roadster and the Volt look pretty cool to me), he'd rather have a electric Civic or something like that. It's too bad there is a conspiracy to keep people from converting their existing cars to electricity. Oh, wait, no there isn't.

Google is the friend of the ranter... it keeps you from looking retarded.

Ummm, actually I don't believe that you would buy one immediately. Why would I question your statement? Because there are already companies that make electric cars and yet you complain that there aren't any.

I could also go into the economics of why one person saying they would buy an electric car doesn't help a society that works off of the principles of mass production, but I would just bore myself to sleep. Rather, I suggest that you (and all of these other people who would like, totally get an electric car, fer sure! could - and I'm just putting it out there - buy an electric car.

Or maybe you want to buy one in a different store, like Wal Mart? In which case, I can highly recommend this high-tech model.

Many of these are more-or-less performance oriented vehicles. . .

Tesla Roadster: http://www.teslamotors.com/

Tango: http://www.commutercars.com/

UEV Spyder: http://www.universalelectricvehicle.com/spyder.htm l

Wrightspeed X1: http://www.wrightspeed.com/x1.html

ZAP-X: http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=4560

Silence: http://www.silenceinc.ca/accueilEN.htm

VentureOne: http://www.venturevehicles.com/

Phoenix SUT & SUV: http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/

I don't see this being sold in any halfway-large volumes until at least after the other side of peak oil. Until then, it's a nice toy, but it doesn't make any econmic sense.

The Tesla that appeared in the last IEEE spectrum issue is also a nice looking car with also good specs when compared to this one.

Most light cars are dangerous, and it has nothing to do with Hummers (well, it could but you should really be concentrating on driving) Someone pulls out in front of you, moves into your lane, sideswipes you into a tree or concrete embankment, all are pretty hard on cars, especially ones that don't have enough strength in the passenger safety cage. European cars do not meet American safety standards. I believe the difference is about 150-200 pounds of metal in things like side bar protection in doors, increased lateral strength for side impact, and a couple of other items like that.

But all that aside. I can get awesome acceleration and speed and not burn an ounce of fuel. Look at the Tesla. Since they already claim 135 mpg equivalent, why have this prize for 100 mpg at all? I don't know a single person that wouldn't love to own this car. It's a little pricey, but 6700+ laptop batteries aren't cheap. It does have its limitations, such as not suitable for long haul driving due to the recharge time.