I wonder how the market will react to the reemergence of the electric car?

I think that consumers are definitely ready for the electric car. However, since the market is controlled by a few large car companies, oil companies, and other corporations that stand to loose out, there will be a lot of resistance. These companies will be able to influence the market and the consumers so that they may not want to buy new electric cars. Hopefully, consumers will still by electric cars despite this - the market has to move in this direction eventually. This is especially true once gas prices go up to 7 dollars a gallon!

I think if electric cars are better performers than classics, there is no propaganda that could stop them.
Tesla's strategy is spot on. They recognized that previus atempts were all "punishment" cars. Mediocre performance, steep price. All they could offer was this "green thing". You can attract some customers this way, but not much and not for very long time.

When people start noticing beautiful and quiet cars cruising around and easily overtaking them at red lights, you wont need a lot of commercials telling people that you have a fast car. There is no need telling people that Ferrari is a fast and beautiful car. It is embeded into the name. The same could and should happen with electric cars

GreenSpeed said:

The only worry that I have about the roadster is that its sized like a elise so it will still seem kinda
unusual.

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Hmm, I wouldn't worry about size. The lacmus test is: is it pleasing to the eye?

GM's EV 1 way very odd, bordering to ugly. Toyota Prius is plain ugly. Elise is nice, and Tesla is nicer

GreenSpeed said:

I for one like gas prices rising now because it brings on the inevitable faster. Although I"m sure it sucks for truck drivers. Personally I think they should raise the gas tax and put a bigger tax on gas guzzlers and bigger incentives on reliable cars.

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You got that right.  Price has so much more to do with buyer decisions that we admit.  Maybe not for us on this board, but for the 99 + percent of drivers, who only ask "what does it cost" and don't care about global warming or freeing us from service to OPEC. 

There was a presidential candidate who ran on a platform of raising gasoline prices by about $2.50 a gallon in today's money.  He had it right as well, and had that tax been adopted, we might already have electric cars.  (I voted for him.) 

Vern

GreenSpeed said:

which candidate. Ralph Nader? not that I wanna start political talking just wanna know

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No, it was John Anderson, a moderate or liberal Republican.  It was in 1980, and he ran against Carter and Reagan on a 3d Party ticket. 

I hope we can start political talking, because this car is political.  But I don't mean "Bush is a #*%& !"-- I mean--  

   How to convince Joe Sixpack, my neighbor who drives a giant truck, that buying a Tesla will make it less likely that his son will die in Iraq;
   How to convince him that global warming is his fault and would be less his fault if he switched from his giant truck to an electric car,

and so forth.  Now THAT'S political! 

Vern

Vern Padgett said:

[There was a presidential candidate who ran on a platform of raising gasoline prices by about $2.50 a gallon in today's money.  He had it right as well, and had that tax been adopted, we might already have electric cars.  (I voted for him.) 

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Paul Tsongas wanted to introduce a large national gasoline tax. I thought his reasoning was pretty sound, but his campaign didn't go anywhere.

tonybelding said:

Paul Tsongas wanted to introduce a large national gasoline tax.  I thought his reasoning was pretty sound, but his campaign didn't go anywhere.

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Tony, thanks. We could have had more expensive gas long ago, and our government could have kept the extra money collected. We'd be driving electric cars now, perhaps, had that happened. Instead, we voted for cheap gasoline, and now we still have expensive gas, but we are not getting the extra money.

Better Reasons

I'm still not convinced about global warming being of human origin. Even so, I agree that it would be good to stop burning oil.

1) It's only going to get more expensive as China and India industrialize.
2) It's a base for all sorts of nifty industrial products, like plastic, and carbon fiber automobile structures...
3) It would be nice to cut the smog a bit. It's air polution level orange today, here in Dallas, TX.
4) The people who sell it use the money to make trouble for the rest of us.

I'm sure you can all come up with more reasons.

Even though I don't agree with Elon Musk's reasons, I admire the fact that he's trying to build and sell parts of the solution, instead of whining for Father Washington to fix it.

I think that the case for the electric car goes far beyond politics. We need to switch to something other than oil in the next few decades (some would argue as fast as possible, oil companies would say we have until 2025 to start worrying), and I think electric is the best option. On top of that, the current gas prices, and the costs associated with internal combustion engines in the first place, are an unreasonable burden on the consumer. If we invested even a fraction of the money we have on hydrogen into batteries, we could have viable, market ready cars on the road, and John Q Taxpayer wouldn't have to deal with any more costs than he does now. Once good batteries are developed by government research funds, those technologies would take care of themselves. And regardless of your views on global warming (I'm not so convinced either way personally), the burning of oil is a serious health hazard. Our cities are choked with smog, the air we breathe causes disease, and the water we drink is often contaminated. Also, our national security would be greatly enhanced by oil independence. We often think of the middle east, but what if Russia wanted to take advantage of us? Or Venezuela? They have the power.

Re: Better Reasons

bobw said:

I agree that it would be good to stop burning oil.
1) It's only going to get more expensive as China and India industrialize.
2) It's a base for all sorts of nifty industrial products, like plastic, and carbon fiber automobile structures...
3) It would be nice to cut the smog a bit. It's air polution level orange today, here in Dallas, TX.
Even though I don't agree with Elon Musk's reasons, I admire the fact that he's trying to build and sell parts of the solution, instead of whining for Father Washington to fix it.

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I like the way you put it.  So many Greens just want to spin conspiracy fantasies about how Big Oil is holding us back.  Elon is NOT whining, he's working.  Others might wait and whine, but the Tesla people are going forward. 

I felt the same way several years ago when I made a much bigger step than recycling or planting trees-- I put solar panels on my roof.  Sure, I could have blamed the Great Right Wing Conspiracy and whined and waited for government to do it for me ...

klausefluoride said:

I think that the case for the electric car goes far beyond politics. We need to switch to something other than oil in the next few decades (some would argue as fast as possible, oil companies would say we have until 2025 to start worrying), and I think electric is the best option. ... current gas prices, and the costs associated with internal combustion engines, are unreasonable ... If we invested even a fraction of the money we have on hydrogen into batteries, we could have ... cars on the road ... oil is a serious health hazard. Our cities are choked with smog, the air we breathe causes disease, and the water we drink is often contaminated. Also, our national security would be greatly enhanced by oil independence. We often think of the middle east, but what if Russia wanted to take advantage of us? Or Venezuela? They have the power.

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You got it right. 

We are at the mercy of terrorist governments and other unstable governments when we depend on foreigners for half our oil. 

Raise mpg standards, aggressively switch to E85, and subsidize electric cars.  Not the hybrid but the plug-in-hybrid, and then the Tesla White Star.

Well, according to GM's announcement on Friday, with claims that you can use older battery technology and a more powerful ICE-driven electric generator, which can, if required, drive the electric motor directly when the battery is flat!  Only the Electric Motor is connected to the drivetrain this time and they're calling it a Serial Hybrid. 

Given that this approach was entirely feasible ten years ago with the EV-1, it's good to see that GM haven't wasted the last decade and are putting their backs into the usual first-class marketing hype rather than innovative engineering.


More details from:-

http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2006/11/10/serial-hybrids-are-here/

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-...10,0,2883793.story?coll=hc-headlines-business