Tesla has some SERIOUS competition

[87 Turbo II]

Half of you are missing the big breakthrough here. Weather or not you like SCC or how heard of they are, or how we will probably never see an Ultimate Aero, etc.etc., it doesn't matter. Even the "You'd be at the gas station for an hour" part missed the big part of this story. Sure THIS car is great and all, but the 10 min recharge spans across the entire AESP electrical system they developed, and SCC is going to license the use of it in every day affordable production cars. THAT's what we should be looking at, this SCC Ultimate Aero is just a way to throw the new technology in one's face, and prove it works, but it is far from the actual significance of SCCs developments.

[Kaiser]

Half of you are missing the big breakthrough here. Weather or not you like SCC or how heard of they are, or how we will probably never see an Ultimate Aero, etc.etc., it doesn't matter. Even the "You'd be at the gas station for an hour" part missed the big part of this story. Sure THIS car is great and all, but the 10 min recharge spans across the entire AESP electrical system they developed, and SCC is going to license the use of it in every day affordable production cars. THAT's what we should be looking at, this SCC Ultimate Aero is just a way to throw the new technology in one's face, and prove it works, but it is far from the actual significance of SCCs developments.

Electric cars have been floundering for years for a reason. They DON'T SAVE ANYONE ANYTHING. The batteries are significantly worse for the environment than any amount of oil wasted by leaking old combustion engines and what's left over after an oil change is disposed and recycled. Gas emissions and diesel emissions can't even add up to the toxicity of that battery. Combined with a lifespan that's ridiculous (10 years, 100,000 miles. Most of the cars I work on every day are past one or both of those markers) and the absurdity of the fact that even though the CAR runs on electricity, the electricity comes 8 out of 10 times from fossil fuel sources that produce more pollution even after scrubbers and smoggers than the same car's worth of gasoline would produce. It's not a breakthrough that people put big batteries and big electric motors in a car with a very deadly high-amp charging system. What would be a breakthrough is an electric car that needed to be plugged in only to keep the battery fresh and that would generate electricity on it's own while coasting and braking to keep up with the demands of the car's motors. Don't expect this any time soon, since the generator/motor setups would mean the car would cost about as much as a bentley for your average civic sized car (And even then you'd have next to no trunk space between the batteries and motors).

The answer is not electric cars, and it never will be. People got pissed GM killed the electric car, but it was the right thing to do. It's a flawed idea. Now we've got plug-in hybrids that will cost people more to operate over the life of the car than buying two small fuel efficient 3 cylinder diesels ever would, all while the same small fuel efficient diesels are getting 80mpg over in europe.