A frog in a blender! Ha. Old Joke.Never mind, that's not it. This is - the Tesla Roadster.
Horsepower and nature usually don't get along. And for quite some time this has created a conflict for me. I'm a big fan of the environment and I have a thing for fast cars. Auto racing is one of my favorite sports and I like power in the cars I drive.
Now it finally appears that these two foes, horsepower and environmentalism, may be blending together in new electric cars such as the Tesla Roadster.
Their motto is "Burn Rubber, Not Gasoline", making it clear right away that this isn't an electric car that runs like earlier models. Think Porsche, not golf cart. They back it up with a 0 to 60 time of 4 seconds that goes toe-to-toe with the 400plus horsepower supercars.
But the real hope, environmentally speaking, can be found in some of the other specs.
With a curb weight of approx 2500 lbs its lighter than your average car but the performance isn't coming from making the car out of plastic and aluminum foil.
Horsepower is rated at approximately 250.
More on the flip...
If they can produce that much horsepower and make it go that fast at that weight, the next step, to make an average family/commuting car, isn't far off technologically. And they're working on it.
And I like what Elon Musk, chairman of Tesla Motors, has to say about the conspiracy theories regarding electric cars:
Asked about the EV1, a General Electric electric car that was summarily shut down, Musk said the car's short life wasn't likely the result of a conspiracy between car manufacturers and oil companies. Instead, he said, the car probably failed because of big-company inertia."Don't explain...by conspiracy what you can explain by incompetence," he said.
I like it, but I'm not sure I believe it will hold true as things move forward. Are the oil and auto industries just going to shrink quietly? Doubt it.
So there are challenges on the road ahead, but this sort of development is very promising.
And, despite the best efforts of the Bush administration and other oil friendly politicians like George Allen, projects like the Tesla Roadster may yet prove that environmentalism does NOT conflict with our standard of living.
* No frogs were harmed in the making of this post
I think someone recently disappeared who was working on electric car. There is also a water engine that the military is now using. Maybe it was that guy who disappeared. I'll have to search my archives.
Update: Well,this really was a video of a fox local news station talking about the water engine and that the military is using it. Now it is gone.............