I'll believe it when I see it.

It strikes me that the Tesla car is counting on achieving its goals by 1) improvements in the batteries compared to [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1|EV-1], and 2) the light weight of the Lotus platform. There's something to that, but I think their claims are a bit too high to be taken seriously at this point.

How much is the cheapest Lotus these days? The Elise MSRP is $43k. The Exige MSRP is $51k. They're going to have a smaller run of more complicated cars, take out the motor but add a bunch of expensive and heavy batteries, make it safe in collisions, quick to recharge, reliable, and sell it for $80k? And make money? And Toyota or Honda can't do this?

I don't think so.

Color me a skeptic. The car business has attracted too many people who claim to have the magic future vehicle who only turn out prototypes. Remember the [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_W2|Vector W2]?

[link|http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/20/0021209|Slashdot] has an article on it too.

I think batteries are going to have to get a lot cheaper or a lot better for a fast, 250 mile range electric car to cost less than $100k.

I'd love to be proven wrong though. :-)

Cheers,
Scott.

[link|http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=4754|The Truth About Cars]:

By Robert Farago
August 14, 2007

This website has been skeptical of Tesla Motors\ufffd claims for their lithium-ion-powered Roadster since day one. While some readers think we\ufffdve \ufffdhad it in\ufffd for the California-based car company, rest assured TTAC is an equal opportunity muckraker. Anyway, yesterday, when Martin Eberhard revealed that he\ufffdd relinquished Tesla's top job, we held fire to avoid accusations of smug satisfaction. But Eberhard\ufffds email to Tesla customers piqued our interest. As Tesla has yet to deliver a single customer car, by thy words thy shall be known.

[...]

Cheers,
Scott.