93 miles on a full charge.

That is piss poor. You're better off slapping a turbo on a Prius.

To be fair, the article does state that it's 93 miles of very hard driving. If you drive the hell out of the thing it makes sense that the batteries will die fairly quickly.

Ever taken your car to Laguna Seca and burned up a tank of fuel? You'd be surprised how quickly it burns up.

The fuel went pretty quickly, but not in under 100 miles. I've done spirited driving in lots of cars and I never burned fuel at the rate that they sucked up battery juice.

But this wasn't a race track, it was some twisty backroads in the company's prototype vehicle, when meant they probably didn't push it beyond 7/10ths. I can only imagine the range (or lack thereof) they'd get if they actually put this car on the track and went balls to the wall.

Take into account the supposed 200 mile range. I'll demonstrate:

Eclipse Turbo:
- Normal range: 400 mi.
- Racing range: 170 mi.

Tesla Roadster:
- Normal range: 200 mi.
- Racing range: 93 mi.

Suddenly it's not so bad. Not only that, but the average American doesn't drive more than 20 miles a day.

So what you're telling me is that I can get nearly just as far going balls to the wall in an Eclipse as I would driving a Tesla like granny.

So why is somebody shelling out nearly $100k for this thing again?

Eclipse wins distance, not acceleration or top speed.

Doesn't sound like a fair trade-off considering how quick an Eclipse is to begin with.

Not to mention you can get a '95 GS-T for less thank $4k. This is why I drive an Eclipse and not a Tesla.

Still, what Tesla is doing (putting electric cars back on the street) is more important than anything Toyota or Ford has done in the past 50 years. Hybrids are a joke. If you want to have an efficient car, Tesla is paving the way.

BTW, Tesla is working on sedans and coups that are a lot less than $100k, and are said to have a much greater range.

Pioneering technology (or pioneering the manufacture of it) is always significantly more expensive than it is when it becomes mainstream and mass-produced. The question is whether their production (of their "lower-end" models) can hit the critical mass to allow them to bring their prices down to the point where they become within reach for the average consumer who would be interested in buying such technology.

This is debatable. If electric cars become the norm then yes, Tesla was paving the way. However other solutions are being worked on like Hydrogen and E85 that would be easier to implement than an all electric society. E85 especially would be a much easier transition and arguably could be better for everyone in the long run than electric cars.

The idea that electric cars are more efficient is something of a fallacy. All having an electric car does is offset the energy production from the vehicle itself to some generating station. Given that 85% of the energy generated in the United States comes from fossil fuel generating stations which to my knowledge are not significantly more energy efficient than a standard internal combustion engine, and given that there's an inherent loss in every transformation of that energy, electric cars could only really be considered more efficient if one only looks at it from an individual perspective. Easier on your pocketbook maybe, but not more efficient.

Hybrids are a whole different ballgame, though. A hybrid is all about more efficient use of the energy being generated by the internal combustion engine and is a self-contained system. While it's true they're hardly the saviour of mankind they're touted to be, they are slightly more efficient than your typical car that lacks an electric motor.

This is very true, and will continue to be until renewable energy becomes more dominant. If you charge your electric car with a solar-panel-powered generator, then you're cookin'.

the 1981 nissan sentra got an EPA milage rating of 42 city/50 hiway....what ever happened to that good idea.....?

xoxoxoo

Typical efficiency of an Internal Combustion Engine - 20-37%

Efficiency of coal powered electricity generation - 36-48%

Efficiency of gas fired electricity generation (very popular in the UK at least, the main reason we had a big fall in CO2 generation for a time) - up to 60%

Add in hydro power et al, and the efficiency of electric generation by far outstrips the efficiency of the IC engine.

Electric motors of an hp rating higher than 50 have typical efficiencies greater than 90%

Batteries are the limiting factor for electrical cars, but still, current technology could be used for the vast majority of journeys in europe, certainly and the US, i believe so, ( average journeys to work taking less than 30 minutes in every state for those who drove to work in 2000 )

Who killed the electric car? is an excellent movie, and i think they're making a new one: Who saved the electric car? - covering aspects of the renaissance involving the TESLA, Mi-Pa motors, the new GM initiatives, plug-in hybrids, efforts in 'homebrew' electric conversion and advances in battery technology, etc.

Other interesting electric car stuff:

The Lightning - which may be vaporware, but... company site
The Chevrolet Volt
Aptera Motors - this is a wild, wild car... videos on youtube
Ooh! Tesla videos on youtube and for those who believe it hasn't been crash tested - Miles Electric Vehicles - chinese, potential vaporware
PML Flightlink who make many of the motors that these new ev's use
Interesting batteries
This is a good jumping off point for more info on home conversions, etc

I must caveat this with: I am not an electrical or mechanical engineer, but love the idea of electric cars. *dreams*

Oh, apologies for the threadcromancy.

the Zap Xebra:

http://www.zapworld.com/files/imagec...ra-truck_0.jpg

is surface street legal. No freeways but then. . . I wouldn't wanna be on the freeway in that thing either.

Firstly, I do have a 1997 Jetta TDI that gets anywhere from 40-50 mpg depending on how I drive it. I do also purchase biodiesel, but it is not a silver bullet or anything, especially when grown from crops. The fact that we can recycle used oil and other predictable feedstocks pleads a very interesting case for biodiesel, though. While I do think diesel cars are currently a better solution than hybrids, there is no denying that hybrids are doing good work, and there is lots of research still to be done to improve their efficiency even further.

Secondly, before you go and start posting studies about energy issues, go and find a CREDITABLE source, not some bottom-feeders posing as a "market research" company with funding from auto companies. It's like all these idiots seeing Zeitgeist and totally refuting the fact that it is an exceedingly one sided documentary with no substance behind the claims that they make.

This article of Prius vs. Hummer has been challenged so many times because anyone can intuitively see it is simply not true. Here are three websites which you might find interesting:

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integr...sus_prius.html
http://atbozzo.blogspot.com/2007/06/...-yes-i-am.html
http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto...96.A12220.html

Considering you are from Canada as I am, the third one should be the first that you read, since it talks about Sudbury. Since I am not sure that you will read it, here's a bit of a quote:

--
The automaker has, in fact, only been purchasing significant amounts of nickel from the Sudbury, Ontario, Inco mine for its batteries in recent years, while the environmental disaster the headline is referring to largely occurred more than thirty years ago. And that ore is at the core of a semi-urban legend that leads to dumb headlines like "HUMMER Greener than Prius," and others we've seen recently.

Toyota says that nickel has been mined from in Sudbury since the 1800s, and that "the large majority of the environmental damage from nickel mining in and around Sudbury was caused by mining practices that were abandoned decades ago." Out of the Inco mine's 174,800-ton output in 2004, Toyota purchased 1000 tons, just over a half-percent of its output. The plant's emissions of sulfur dioxide are down 90 percent from 1970 levels, and it's targeting a 97-percent reduction in those emissions by 2015, according to Toyota.

Of course, metal-hydride hybrid batteries aren't the only use for nickel. One widespread use of nickel is for the chrome (chromium-nickel) plating that's widely used in trim and wheels for luxury vehicles. And according to the Nickel Institute, which represents trade groups, manufacturers, and nickel producers, about two-thirds of all nickel mined goes toward stainless steel, which is of course widely used in vehicles - exhaust systems, for instance. Another significant portion goes toward engine alloys - pistons, rings, liners and the like; in general, the larger the engine, the more nickel it's likely to have.
--

Not to mention the environmental recovery projects that have been taking place in Sudbury for decades...it is quite incredible. CNW attempted to twist the story for their own uses, and failed miserably.

Renault Will Bring EVs to America — By Way of Israel
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/renault-will-br.html
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/3690/car4zy4.jpg

Israel promises electric car network by 2011
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/200...rael-cars.html

I was sure that I read in another version of this article that the re-charging stations for now will still be powered by oil and other non-green methods. But maybe those plants that power the stations are more efficient then the standard gasoline powered car is.

I think it is more a change of thinking - we don't necessarily need a gas powered car.
Not that you must switch, but that a gas powered car is not necessarily needed.