Fox News has been in lockstep with the right wing media doing everything it can to keep the US from leading the technological revolution of the 21st century, including trashing GM’s Chevy Volt, and anything rolling that doesn’t guzzle gas like an M-1 Tank. Now, that’s apparently changing.
There’s news that the all-electric luxury Tesla vehicle is turning a profit for its upstart manufacturer, silicon valley based Tesla motors. CEO Elon Musk is the clear front runner for “next Steve Jobs” status in the business pantheon, and despite best efforts of the troglodyte right, the electric vehicle sector keeps gaining momentum. Recent indicators is that electric vehicles will be priced competitively with gas powered conventional cars sooner than thought – recent credible reports project a 10 thousand dollar price cut on the Volt – and the Lithium ion battery packs for these cars have dropped 40 percent in price since 2010, according to Bloomberg’s Michael Liebreich – (more on his recent presentation soon..)
The Tesla, of course, is an engineering marvel, a triumph of green technology, and according to “…the notably tough reviewers at Consumer Reports (who) had given the Tesla Model S sedan a 99 out of 100 rating, ….”we’ve never seen anything quite like the Model S. This car performs better than anything we’ve ever tested before.”
This is a revolution. Fox News, and every right wing disinformation vector on the planet, will not stop it. They ridiculed and reviled “Al Gore’s Information Superhighway” – but it came, nonetheless, and we are all better off for it. This revolution is even more powerful, in that it MUST happen for civilization to survive.
Get on board , get out of the way, or get run over.
Hey Solyndra, there’s still hope for some Faux News love. Even whiners love winners.
But them throwing around the “$90,000” price is somewhat disingenuous.
A Model S performance with all the trimmings is $115k before incentives but you can get the 60 kWh model with Paint Armor, for $71k.
I’m disappointed that you have to pay extra for Supercharging if you don’t go with the 85 kWh or the Performance model and I suspect this will become a standard feature once there are one or two more Tesla models on the roads.
The Nissan Leaf is a great success here in Norway as they have slashed taxes on everything for electrical vehicles. They are very competitive to other cars in the same class. I will most likely get one myself this year as I can drive to and from work at least 5 times on one charge. The savings on taxes and energy is huge, and especially good as 99% of our electric power here comes from hydro. I believe Norway is the country in the world with the most electrical vehicles per capita because of this. But we have also have high taxes on fossil fuel cars and petrol in general. So its easier to lower taxes on electrical vehicles to change peoples purchasing behaviour than e.g. adding tax to petrol and fossil fuel cars as you would have to do in USA to get a similar effect (although the most likely effect is that more people would vote for a Republican again then).
For the future though, I don’t think personal transport in these kinds of heavy cars is good with regards to energy efficiency. I have always thought we should make our roads closed “tube systems” on rails with simple electrical “carts” that takes 1,2,4 or 8 passengers. A lot of the weight on a car today is just for safety in case of a collision. If you can move the energy source outside (as in the thing is powered from the rail), then you can probably have a “car” that weights 250 kg or so – extremely energy efficient. But then again so is a lot of mass transit on rails as well wherever possible (and with enough passengers).
Just bought a Mitsubishi EV–seems very nice. After introductory deal and trade-in, cost was $12,000, financed at 0% …
What was your trade-in and for how much, might I ask?
Fox Tells It as they see it
. . . economic reasoning for electrics is stronger now. U.S. Petro Dollar since Nixon shock of 1977, based on oil, includes oil that has already been burnt, simply does not exist anymore, also unproven reserves, and now, with Thorium Energy debut in China, 2017, soon to take a drop in value, even lose exclusivity as the best Energy source. Final Answer: America on electric, not oil, as she watches her coal reserves diminish. Electric from Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydro, Tidal, Geothermal Biological and Thorium fissioning, all domestic, all very long lasting, some even eternal?
Will the transition take very long? It cannot. Japan and China out-bid U.S. for oil on world markets today, with their huge piles of American Paper – our U.S. foreign debt! anybody remember the Cheap Oil Era? Huge V-8 engines, gasoline at 40 cents a gallon? Today we face a $100.00 bbl for oil, and rising? Gold at $52.00/oz.? Today, up to $1600.00 /oz.? This stiff competition for world resources from China is driving the American Peon out of the market? From 450 CID V-8 engines to 4 bangers from Asia now to Electrics primarily from Asia? In only decades? not by desire, but through economic need? My Question: Can we expect massive societal change in the decades to come? Resulting from pressures on the world markets by the new Pan Eurasian Reality? Will Fox, or any other corporative news system even be able to see the forest for the trees? Through jaded corporate lenses?
“Tells it as they see it” – you’re giving them FAR too much credit.
Just as when they got bitchslapped Bob Lutz and others by for branding the Chevy Volt as a stimulus-guzzling ObamaCar, and Steve “Douchey Doofus” Doocy has to polish his best sourpuss to give a lame mea culpa, this is only happening because someone semi-sane in the rightwing corner has applied the pine-on-skull remedy to their collective crania.