Fully Charged
Gas has never been higher.
CO2 levels in the air have reached critical mass.
Around the world, the pressure for higher gas mileage in cars is rising.
The popularity of SUVs is falling.
Hybrid cars are on the rise.
And not one single major car company mass produces a totally electric consumer vehicle.
Obviously, the technology just isn’t there yet. Or is it? I see golf carts all over the place, they’re just small cars, aren’t they? What about those Segway scooters that have an entire engine and power storage in a space the size of cereal box? Some random guy can make that but the major car makers can’t mass produce one single car that runs on electricity?
Wait a second, didn’t they try to produce an electric car in the 90’s? You never see any of those anymore, so obviously it was an inferior product or poorly received.
Well, no. First of all, just because something doesn’t take off and become a financial success doesn’t mean that it’s a bad product. Betamax has way better video quality than VHS, but it lost the video wars of the 80’s. People wanted longer recording times and sacrificed picture quality to have it.
GM produced an electric car called the EV1 in the early 90s as a lease-only vehicle. It was a test-run of sorts. The car had the same amount of power and seating capacity as a conventional sedan, but could only travel 60 miles to a charge. So, people opted for longer drive time and sacrificed fuel efficiency for it.
Strangely, after a few years on the road, GM pulled the EV1, taking them back from the lessees and crushing every last one of them. The reasons why are still very unexplained. But there’s a movie out right now called Who Killed the Electric Car on that very subject.
Other car companies have made token efforts to look like they give a crap about the environment and national security issues. Ford actually created a few electric Ranger pickups. Toyota produced an electric RAV4 SUV. But these were all just gestures, not serious attempts to create a viable electric option for consumers.
Another problem people have had with electric cars – and hybrids, too, for a long while – are how ugly they are. THIS is a fine example. They’re built by people who don’t like cars, and it shows. Even the EV1 was a bit of an eyesore. It’s no wonder the electric car hasn’t taken off, they’ve all looked like the kind of car you wouldn’t want to be caught dead in.
One-off groups of people in their garages have expanded on the technology and created cars that can go up to 300 miles per charge and get 200 horsepower, but their numbers are small, and though they try, they’re still not much to look at.
But finally – FINALLY – all those concerns have been squashed. All the excuses are shot to hell, thanks to a group called Tesla Motors. The Tesla Roadster is, to put it mildly, a f*cking bad-ass car. Zero to 60 in 4.1 seconds. 250 miles to a charge. And a body style created by former Lotus designers that would leave any Porche green with envy.
The car has just been introduced to the world and has created a hell of a stir. Now, frankly, any car that nice would create a hell of a stir, but this one especially. Because it’s 100% electric. And it’s making people all over shake their heads and say, “Wait a second. Hold up, now. You mean to tell me that you can actually put an electric engine in a body that looks really cool? Really, this is something that can be done?”
Yes, it can be done. And there’s no reason in the world that it’s not being done except that everybody thinks it can’t (and who might it be that gave us that idea?). Electric engines actually have a ton of advantages over gas engines. With fewer moving parts, there’s less to break. No oil to change. Imagine having a car that you never had to take in for any maintenance besides the tires.
And electric engines actually have monster torque compared to gas engines. With electric, the torque remains constant at any speed, whether you’re at a dead stop or at 70 miles per hour. That means faster acceleration at any speed.
People often wonder what charging up the car every day does to the electricity bill. The people at Tesla only say that in gas terms it equates to getting about 135 miles a gallon.
The Tesla Roadster is not a common man car – it sells for $80-100,000. But it’s the promise of this car, of the potential for electric cars that has everybody excited. There’s no reason why this technology can’t be put to more practical use for everyday driving.
And if this country is really serious about cutting down on our gas consumption and becoming energy independent, and stop buying oil from terrorists, it’s something that really should be done.
Here’s a theoretical: In the middle of WWII, the U.S. Government imposed rationing on just about everything imaginable. Steel, aluminum, certain foods, gas, even energy, enforcing a lights-out policy in neighborhoods where everybody had to have all their lights out by a certain time of night. So far in our ubiquitous “War on Terror” (which the Idiot believes is a bullshit marketing slogan, but that’s for another time), the citizens of the U.S. have been asked to ration nothing. To sacrifice nothing.
And so far, we’ve boldly stepped up to that challenge.
What if, in the interest of national security, the government imposed a limit of 1 gasoline burning vehicle per household, with exceptions granted by permits. Let’s say there were a few mass produced electric cars out there that the government would let you choose from, or they could pay or help pay to convert any gas-powered car into electric (with the car manufacturers agreeing to not void the warrantees, of course). This way, since the average driver drives only 20-30 miles a day or less, they can easily be accommodated by an electric engine, but keep a gas car so they can get out of town to go visit family and friends. If you live by yourself, you’re allowed your gas car. If you’re a family with 4 drivers, that’s 3 electric cars and one gas.
Would you get behind this?
Sunday, August 6, 2006
