Tesla Roadster now being delivered.

[Frequitude]

Wow. I'd put my name down for that! No I'd just like to see a comparison of electricity costs vs. fuel costs.

What's to stop people from just pulling up to a random public outlet at a mall, company parking lot, etc. and charging their cars? I'm curious to see how these places will react to this.

[Frequitude]

A neat option would be to have a small onboard gasoline powered generator for when you just can't find a plug in.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

A neat option would be to have a small onboard gasoline powered generator for when you just can't find a plug in.

Not sure if that's already been brought up here, but the Chevy Volt has a gas engine that will be used to charge the batteries when needed. It does not power the wheels.
Pretty neat idea as the range is good for highway and you almost never use gas in daily city driving.

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Wow. I'd put my name down for that! No I'd just like to see a comparison of electricity costs vs. fuel costs.

What's to stop people from just pulling up to a random public outlet at a mall, company parking lot, etc. and charging their cars? I'm curious to see how these places will react to this.

The website claims $4 for charge. A charge supposedly lasts 300 miles.

[octothorp]

I wonder if at some point they'll have a system where you can draw power from the car back onto the grid as well. Imagine if it was set up in such a way that if you had a blackout, your house could just draw power from the car battery to run essential items for a while. It would actually be amazing for a power grid to have this whole distributed network of batteries that it could draw from if needed. Obviously not plausible with current electric cars or grid infrastructure, but a cool idea for future systems.

[Nehkara]

Tesla Motors is going to be marketing a home solar power system to the people who purchase their vehicles that will produce approximately enough power per day to offset 80 km/day of travel in their electric vehicles. They hope this will decrease some of the concern about the burden their vehicles will put on the power grid.

They will offer them through the company SolarCity.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by Slava

I think that the issue with the Zenn (assuming that is the one you heard about) is due to the speed it can travel and such. I think that an electric car that meets the normal standards is legal though.

There is NO electric car that meets "Transport Canada"'s road standards. In 2007 they approved the Zenn, it was being used in BC and then TC reclassified it so that it can only be used within a gated community or on a campus. So the only one that was road approved was unapproved.

I have been saving my money for this baby here:
http://www.tc.gc.ca/programs/environ...ectrix-eng.htm
Note that Transport Canada purchased this vehicle in August of 2008 and they are in the "showcasing and testing" phase. Unlike the Zenn, this vehicle can reach 100km/h and thus would easily be able to keep up with commuter traffic. I doubt it will be approved any time soon. Transport Canada has show that it is willing to do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo and it is particularly good at placating those in power.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Nehkara

Tesla Motors is going to be marketing a home solar power system to the people who purchase their vehicles that will produce approximately enough power per day to offset 80 km/day of travel in their electric vehicles. They hope this will decrease some of the concern about the burden their vehicles will put on the power grid.

They will offer them through the company SolarCity.

That's still going to be a fairly large solar array to supply that much power. It could cost $25,000 or more, easily. Of course, they will still sell.