Friday, May 6, 2011

Dude, Where's My Electric Car?

Warning:  The following is a thinly veiled rant by a gasoline addict feeling the pain of the pump. 

Ooh, big oil crunched it before they decided to maim our economic recovery at the pump.  You can read the spoiler for this movie at Wikipedia. 

In crazy news, the same guys who killed the electric car are bringing it back.  Funny thing, though, it has the same problems (short range/high price) that it did before even though we've evidently invested heavily in new technology.  Since these are the same people who got rid of the other electric cars years ago, as well as dismantling our public transportation systems decades ago, I'm vaguely suspicious.   

Don't we own most of the car companies now?  Shouldn't we be selling ourselves a decent car at a decent price?  Maybe even putting batteries at every gas station or grocery store (we do for propane tanks, so what's the problem?)

How is it that it's pretty darn impossible to make tiny functional electric cars for a decent price, but Tesla Motors is making roadsters for 100k?  I'm sorry, but it occurs to me that some enterprising soul with cheap labor and a liberal view on copyright infringement might buy one and take a look under the hood.  I certainly wouldn't want to condone such behavior, but it seems to happen with every other consumer good.  How is it possible that cars have tighter security than any other electronic device?

Oh, we can buy cheaper cars, but they have a forty mile radius and a 25 mph top speed.  Doesn't my kid's electric hotwheel getting faster than that?   

So, we'll have to build our own.  Here's the starter kit blog.  I'll get right to it as soon as I finish my fully enclosed greenhouse backyard.  Now, if only my neighbors didn't have so many trees...



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