Wow, what a watershed week for the electric car! I try not to use exclamation points on this blog overmuch, but wow, wow, wow. Tesla Motors has gone to war with the New York Times, and seems to be winning.
It wasn't so recently that electric cars (or EVs) were "Three-wheeled bubble things that were slow and kind of silly" (Tesla promotional video), and that an American car driver who wanted to break free of internal combustion engines would have to build his own Frankenstonian conversion or do something silly:
Yes, that is a Porsche/bike.
Anyway, Tesla Motors made one of the first and best electric cars of the modern era, the Tesla Roadster.
0-60 in 3.9 seconds, 244-mile range. Bam.
The roadster was the motivating icon of the modern EV movement, paving the way for plug-in hybrids like the Chevy Volt and true EVs like the Nissan Leaf. While out of the everyman's price range ($109k base), the Roadster bridged the gap beyond the 1990s-era EV1 and marginal sub-consumer options like scooters and low-speed vehicles. And bridged it sexily.
Anyway again, Tesla's more sensible recent EV entry, the Tesla Model S, has been earning things like Motor Trend's Car of the Year (2013) Award while still being (unfairly?) panned by many parts of the mainstream auto industry. Tesla even sued the venerable British show Top Gear over staged breakdowns playing on public uncertainty about electric cars.
In the Times's recent article by John Broder, there are enough inconsistencies for Tesla to take real offense, and while their rebuttal seems a little touchy and riddled with overreaching conclusions of their own, I think it makes a very strong case. Re-rebuttals and meta analysis continue to fly in online news articles, but I think that Tesla has made its point and staked a claim for itself and for electric vehicles in the real world.
Sometimes there really is a sea change, and I think we're in the midst of one.
Buy stock now.
It wasn't so recently that electric cars (or EVs) were "Three-wheeled bubble things that were slow and kind of silly" (Tesla promotional video), and that an American car driver who wanted to break free of internal combustion engines would have to build his own Frankenstonian conversion or do something silly:
Anyway, Tesla Motors made one of the first and best electric cars of the modern era, the Tesla Roadster.
0-60 in 3.9 seconds, 244-mile range. Bam.
The roadster was the motivating icon of the modern EV movement, paving the way for plug-in hybrids like the Chevy Volt and true EVs like the Nissan Leaf. While out of the everyman's price range ($109k base), the Roadster bridged the gap beyond the 1990s-era EV1 and marginal sub-consumer options like scooters and low-speed vehicles. And bridged it sexily.
Anyway again, Tesla's more sensible recent EV entry, the Tesla Model S, has been earning things like Motor Trend's Car of the Year (2013) Award while still being (unfairly?) panned by many parts of the mainstream auto industry. Tesla even sued the venerable British show Top Gear over staged breakdowns playing on public uncertainty about electric cars.
In the Times's recent article by John Broder, there are enough inconsistencies for Tesla to take real offense, and while their rebuttal seems a little touchy and riddled with overreaching conclusions of their own, I think it makes a very strong case. Re-rebuttals and meta analysis continue to fly in online news articles, but I think that Tesla has made its point and staked a claim for itself and for electric vehicles in the real world.
Sometimes there really is a sea change, and I think we're in the midst of one.
Buy stock now.
