Slashdot Mirror

An alternative power car that doesn't look like crap. In fact to me it looks fantastic. Compare this to all the Priuses and Insights in the world, and those are just hybrids. Sure there is that Ford hybrid SUV, Toyota's large sedan and I beleive Honda has hybrid Accord as well that look like a regular car, but again, they also burn fuel in the car (yes, electricity has to get produced somewhere, bu doesn't have to come from coal - how about wind/solar/hydro, the more demand grows, the more we will see these eco-friendlier plants appearing).

Interestingly enough, their main site http://www.teslamotors.com/ says there is still couple an hours to go before unveiling. If this thing actaully performs as advertised, it will finaly give the name Tesla some more cradit that it surely deserves. I have already started saving for it (hope they have financing plans available)!

Since the range is a problem... manufacturers haven't been working on performance-oriented electric vehicles.

Why, sure they have! The only issue is that, because of the range problems, they're only working on vehicles competing in the "rich-guy's occasionally-driven toy" market (i.e., the market populated by exotics like the Lotus Elise and Enzo Ferrari -- not stuff suitable for daily driving, like the Corvette). Here are some examples:

• AC Propulsion Tzero
• Wrightspeed X1 (based on the Ariel Atom)
• Tesla Roadster (based on the Lotus Elise) [note: the company website has no useful information]
• Venturi Fetish [warning: Flash]