real ‘wind’ powered cars, don’t even need very expensive batteries to store the energy!

I appreciate the concern, I’m certain though that we won’t get squeezed out. Too many people don’t buy into what the big guys say and do, and the number keeps growing. It’s the big guys that should be worried… Especially the oil companies… Cheers.

Seriously though, we plan for the day when we produce enough of our own power to separate from the market and charge our customers less – a lot of work to do to get there.

Cheers.

He quoted to me possibly one of the most alarming statistics showing just how far we have got to go to rein in our unsustainable lifestyles.

It goes like this:-

If the total UK road vehicle fleet were powered by electricity instead of fossil fuel, we would need the equivalent of 46 additional nuclear power stations (over and above those that are already being proposed).

It is not going to happen, for so many reasons. So I suppose unless we can build several thousand multi-MW turbines most of us will have to bicycle around the M25 instead. Sadly, electric cars are likely to be rich men’s toys.

You can’t stop people wanting to drive fast cars, to take risks, to feel excited about beautiful objects. Unfortunately, currently, those feelings are umbilically linked to pollution and bad effects for us all.

I think this is the way forward, its much more likely that the ‘green’ brand will be taken up by the popular culture if we have flagships like very fast (inexpensive to run) cars.

It is not a luxury to create these items, but a necessity to replace them.

The car is under construction, going to update on that shortly.

It’s not a ‘gimik’ but it is about boosting publicity, to get people thinking and talking about how we’ll all be getting around in the near future, and to introduce the idea of a wind powered car.

Cheers.

I hope things will change. I would gladly swap my car for an EV if they become more mass-produced (and therefore cheaper) and I guess that if the figures you’re quoting are fairly near to the mark it sounds like they would be slightly cheaper to run as well.

I resent paying for petrol… the petrol prices and the taxes that our delightful government stick on top of the fuel are completely ridiculous… it’s like we’re being made to pay through the nose to destroy our own planet. I can’t see the sense in that.

I get public transport anywhere I can to help the environment, but I am not perfect and I have to have a car for certain journeys.

The main issues for me with transport in general are firstly the welfare of this earth and its future, or course, and secondly in this current climate I, along with everyone else, am increasingly concerned about the cost of transport and the cost of living in general.

I hope you’re right in saying that things will change… and that they change for the better.

Buying an electric car right now wouldn’t be cheap at all, not the kind we’re discussing here anyway. My best guess is that currently it’d cost between 100k and 150k – but these are early prototypes in small scale production. Just like the cost of the first mobiles or laptops the price will crash as production ramps up.

As for charging the scenario envisaged here is that garages would cease to exist and instead charging points would be available in supermarket, public and motorway car parks. These new generation batteries can be charged in around 20 minutes, so say, in which case on a long journey you’d just need to stop for a break somewhere with a charging point. That’s the scenario. Today there are virtually no charging facilities and very few cars like this on the road. This will change.

Hope that helps. Cheers.

One other thing I’m intrigued by is if you wanted to drive further than 150 miles in one go (on holiday for example), how would that be possible? There are no (or very few) charging points around, and I imagine it’s not like a mobile phone where you can just plug an ac adapter into a wall socket…

If my questions seem a bit simple, please excuse me… I’m kinda new to all this…

Although it’s clearly nice to visit family, it’s not a *need* like food or water or heat. You wouldn’t die if you had to use the Internet for phone for a year instead. (Some families would improve with distance too. B^>)

We’ve all gotten too used to regarding ‘nice’ things as ‘essential’.

Rgds

Damon

Any plans for an electric bike? Please can you include that sweet bike sound so that people talking on the phone whilst driving their electric cars can hear us coming.

Actually Lotus are providing technology to Tesla (there was an “In-Business” programme on the radio about it last year). Lotus has a very strong heritage in building high performance and light weight cars that handle very well – in fact that use to be the mantra of Colin Chapman (their founder).

Lotus were displaying a battery-powered Elise at an event at the National Motor Museum around 2 years ago. I think it’s a very good area for them to be putting R&D spend into, providing they have the cashflow to survive a long haul.

I do agree with other people here that fundamentally mass transportation will have to change radically – we won’t simply be able to replace petrol/diesel with electric.

@ Neil – You’re right. In energy we argue that green electricity and energy efficiency are two sides of the same coin – we need to use less and what we must use should come from green sources. I think the same logic applies to transport, we need to travel less and when we do travel it needs to be by cleaner means. Electric cars won’t be the magic single answer but will play an important role. Cheers.

@ all
There’ve been some good points made about the cost of the kind of car we’re planning, it’s affordability and the desirability of a more everyday car. No argument from me on any of that but I just wanted to offer this perspective as to why we’re starting with a high end sports car.

The first thing to say is we want to turn heads with this, we want to crush the stereotype of electric cars being Noddy cars and of green lifestyles being boring and about sacrifice.

Secondly the technology exists today (we think) to achieve the performance goals we’ve set, provided we use a small light car as a platform. That could be a sports car or a city car granted, but – the technology is not cheap and it’s doesn’t get cheaper if you aim for less performance, so it makes sense to wrap it in a more exotic package, where the performance will (more) justify the price tag. Like mobile phones and laptops, if the idea catches on the technology will move more rapidly, the price will drop and the products will move more into the mainstream. It’s a starting place. And it works (well we hope it will) at the high performance end, right now. Cheers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fuZShCmN8s

I am not saying electric cars are bad, but simply replacing current cars with electric is not the solution.

@Midnight Skuller – Thanks for the stats, it’s worth perhaps saying though that these are predictions for performance, they’ve not been delivered – not after five years and $150 Million of development money. With the gearbox being dropped recently performance is expected to drop big time, but we’ll see, when one of these finally hits the road. The PR is way ahead of the delivery right now. But I’m rooting for it. We’re going to spend a tiny (tiny) fraction of the time and money, and make a better car – because we think we can.

@Simon – Thanks Simon, I did get your e-mail, just didn’t manage to reply yet (sorry about that). Thanks for the tip, we’re up for supplying their cars, if it takes off over here. Cheers.