The future of the electric car depends on the oil price.
At the moment its gone too low and people will loose interest
in electric cars because petrol will become cheaper.

There is some hope with project “Better Place” in Israel.
Much also depends on the bail out conditions of the American
car industry if the bail out has conditions like “they must make electric cars” It could be good.

There is a fundamental reason the car industry does not want electric cars. Electric cars have very few parts compared to ICE engines, and electric motors are very reliable.
So the car industry wants to sell us spare parts and the oil industry wants to sell us oil.
Why would they want a electric car?

I compare it to Dyson making a bagless cleaner. The cleaner people were not interested because they just thought about the bag sales they would loose.
Dyson had to make it himself.
So Dale well done for following his example
If you cannot buy what you want make it yourself.
Keep up the good work in promoting electric cars.
David
A Toyota Prius owner who would love to buy a real electric car.

Thanks for the reply. No I only drove the Tesla for a short distance around Belgravia Square London with an invite from Tesla at the Society of Motor Manufacturers HQ. The Tesla was featured on Top Gear last night. You should be able to log on to http://www.bbc.co.uk to run the programme.

Look forward to driving your car

Derek

Somebody told me this week that Nice have just gone into receivership, haven’t seen it in the news myself but the guy was an EV expert, so I’m sure it’s right. These are hard times to sell green or premium things, I think that’s going to hit the EV and EB (Bikes) sector hard in the next year. Only a hiccup though, nothing can prevent EVs from ultimately replacing the ICE car – IMO. Cheers.

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Thanks Colin, I very tempted to make a bike next, before the tractor. Cheers.

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Thanks Derek, I wonder did you drive the Tesla for 244 miles? Has anyone? We think the claims made are a little exaggerated probably. When setting the spec for our car we considered it more important that 99%+ of all journeys by car in the UK are less than 100 miles, we felt that therefore a 150 mile range was a good target. Destination charging will allow trips of up to 300 miles in that case. Thing about all this is it’s constantly changing. What can be done today (range wise and charging speed) will be doubled in a few years – for sure. Cheers.

I’m really happy to have come across your blog and found out about this project. One of the arguments I hear time and again about electric cars is that they are no fun. And as car makers aren’t coming up with the goods I’m so glad that someone is working on it.

So why not install charging points at all your offices and give a grant to any of your employees that buy a electric car.
They could have your logo on the side of the car as well.

The Ze o from the Nice Electric car company is on the market right now at around £14000.
This has a range of around 50 miles I am sure most of the people that work in your offices live closer than this?

Sorry to hear you can’t view the video – I will email you about this for more info.

In the meantime – the youtube version is now available here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPa7V7YcVQ

Best regards
Paul

Electric motorbike is also on my mind… Toss up between that and the tractor next…

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Hi Justin, we’ve limited top speed (by design) to just over 100 mph – it’s about a balance of speed and endurance as you say. Our feeling is that exotic speeds over 100 mph are a bit academic and 100 mph is a kind of emotional watershed that qualifies this as a ‘real car’. Range should be 150 miles plus, but I don’t have a figure at 100 mph – it will be less though.

Cheers.

I am very interested in the car, i personally think that everything about ecotricity is brilliant i truly can not believe more people do not know about its green credentials. Unfortunately i can’t seem to get the video to work i am assuming that a few other people are finding the same reason hence the lack of comments. Can’t wait for the next update.

Jonathan

I’m also thinking an electric motorbike will be a piece of cake after this beast!?