Small Electric Car May Usher In Big Changes

An anonymous reader sends us to a profile in CNNMoney.com on a Norwegian car company that is building a compact, plug-in electric car, the Think City, that will go on sale in Europe early next year. It could hit US markets in 2009. The CEO is working with Silicon Valley VCs and with Google, Tesla Motors, PG&E, and Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Plans are to sell the car only on the Web. No dealers, cheap manufacturing plants, and a battery pack that you lease, not buy — there's potential here for shaking up the auto industry the way Dell did PCs.

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Re:RTFA

[cayenne8]

"It's no Tesla Roadster -- the current battery is speed-limited to 62 miles an hour. But it is nimble and quick and goes about 112 miles on a single charge. "

That's a problem with this new car...they gotta solve a few more problems.

1. Limited to 62 mph? You drive that slow on about any road around the US, and you'll get KILLED. On the highway, I almost get run over doing 80mph (on the days I'm driving a little slower than usual).

2.Range...112 miles on a charge? Not that good. Most people I know drive 40 - 70 miles a day just to work and back...that doesn't include any outings for lunch, errands, etc. Many people (thank God not me), drive more that 100+ miles a day just to commute to work...many in CA I believe do this. They gotta up the range on these things to be really useful. Unless you are a luck person to live close to work...this isn't gonna work. Also, how long to recharge these things?

3. Why oh why...are all these new cars so f*cking butt-ugly??? Man, if they'd get them all to look more like the tesla...that would be nice...lets get some sporty body styles back in there guys!!

However, with the bitching outta the way...this does sound cool. If they could get the Tesla dropped down in price to near that of a Corvette...I'd seriously be looking into getting one. Only thing with that I think I'd really, really miss...is the throaty sound of a powerful internal combustion engine with a well tuned exhaust note. Maybe they can tack on a mp3 player to make it sound vroom vroom...hehehe. Seriously, that is something I'd miss.