Friday, July 21, 2006

Dream On!

The electric car is dead, right? Sony is distributing a documentary this summer that painstakingly details the car's murder at the hands of GM and the like. But apparently the film's director never heard of a little motor car company in California called Tesla Motors whose chief investors include Google guys Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Why Tesla? Well -- Nikola Tesla pioneered modern electrical engineering. And his namesake car company has juunveiledled its sole product -- a 100 percent electric sports car.

The Tesla roadster demo car is bright red. With Lotus- designed styling that rivals the legendary Corvette and a zero to 60 profile to match -- four seconds. Its makers claim it gets the equivalent of a hundred 35 miles a gallon with its lithium-ion batteries -- the same kind used in most laptop computers.

A few drawbacks. You will have to charge the roadster every two hundred 50 miles. And if you order one -- figure on paying at least 90 thousand bucks for it.