They Can't Kill The Electric Car

There has been more than one electric car program crushed (see photo) in the past few decades. Some say that big-auto and big-oil scrapped the most successful programs because they didn't like the thought of efficient automobiles dragging down future earnings. I wouldn't put it past them, but the good news is that the economy is becoming increasingly global; if US companies don't innovate then others will. More important to the dream of electric vehicles (E.V.'s) is the battery technology that has been developed to power our mobile electronic arsenals (especially lithium-ion batteries). Now more than ever it looks as if E.V.'s are ready to make an appearance in the marketplace and help relieve our dependence on foreign oil.

The Tesla Roadster is what really convinced me that E.V.'s were already practical and nearly ready to be adopted by people other than the super rich. Tesla Motor's founder Martin Eberhard showed excellent entrepreneurial skills by steering the company in its early stages and by raising the necessary capital from such investors as Sergey Brin and Elon Musk (paypal founder). Despite adequate funding, this company was still run like a start-up with a tight budget.

The newly released Tesla Roadster is a dream machine, designed to make people forget they ever though that an E.V. was a glorified golf cart. The car can go 0-60 in under 4 seconds, that's better than a Porsche 911 Turbo. It costs about 2cents a mile to operate, that would be kind of like getting 135 miles per gallon. Finally, the car can travel 245 miles on one charge. The downside is the $100,000 price tag. But as batteries continue to become more of a commodity and the design team works on a more practical vehicle we may start seeing E.V.'s on the road. Tesla has such a vehicle in the works (due out in 2010), and this one has an estimated $50-60,000 price tag. Now we're getting somewhere, lets keep cutting that price in half.

With continuing improvement to E.V. technology and better alternatives to coal power plants, it's not hard to imagine an environmentally friendly solution to transportation. I know the idea for the electric car has been bouncing around relatively unsuccessfully for many years. But get excited, every new bit of technology brings us that much closer. Most ideas take 20 years to become an overnight success.

(p.s. That link is a good article about a different type of solar power plant)