user wrote:
Tex wrote:


I hope for you this is the next *dangerous* product:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Kil...lectric_Car%3F

300 miles with new battery technology ...








Tesla is getting 225 and better. With snappy performance.

When EV1 was just introduced and called 'Impact',--what a tragic name
for a car, BTW--I saw a video of a test track race between Impact and a
Porsche 911. Off the line, Impact walked away from the Porsche like it
was standing still. It took the Porsche a full quarter mile to catch up.

I saw a similar video with an Impact and a Corvette.

At that time, Impact had 4 electric motors, one on each wheel. And a
decent range of a little over 100 miles per charge. Fresh thinking.
Brilliant engineering. Bean counters at GM put a stop to THAT. Dramatic
cost cuts revised that strategy and reduced it to one motor with a more,
or less, conventional drive train. Which also reduced the range to about
70 miles, due to the increased mechanical loads and losses, weight and
reduced motor efficiency.

Bean counters had done to the Electric Car what they'd done to
Fiero...made it so undesireable as a product it was nearly sale-proof.

****ed me off, too. I had money ready and waiting for the release of
that car. I would have fought a steel cage match with Gloria Steinem's
entire family to own one.

Tesla has proven that it can be done, and done well. And interest in
Tesla is high. And so is the interest in lower range, lower speed,
so-called Neighborhood Electric Vehicles--electric cars that are
strictly for making local runs. Trouble is, that in the last year, some
interesting obstacles have arisen to deployment of electric vehicles in
a couple of states. One being Wisconsin, where 12 counties and rising
have banned electric vehicles from the roads. Not just NEV's, but
electric vehicles in general.

And there are more states making this move. California is debating a
statewide ban.

There are a lot of reasons why. But the primary reason is because
there's no effective way to tax an electric vehicle. Road use tax is
tied to fuel sales. Fuel excise taxes are on fuel. Electric cars are
going to be charged, or refueled, in people's homes. There's no way to
collect these taxes on electric vehicles. And, especially in communistic
states, like Wisconsin, where the government tells a gas station owners
what price he must charge for a gallon of gas in order to protect fuel
tax collection, the concern is that consumers may get off the fossil
fuel merry-go-round and escape the repetitive and recurring taxation.

So, if you have interest in an electric vehicle, as I do, now is the
time to begin your move. Before--as happened with the gas
turbine--government involvement removes all advantages to making the
change.

One interesting advantage to an electric car, like Tesla....there's
no ignition system. So--is he...I think he IS....YES, including RADIO
CONTENT--dropping a rig like my Becker 2340 Mexico in the dash makes a
lot of sense. AM/FM/SW in a vehicle that is without most vehicle radio
noise sources.