By Steve Schaefer •
September 1, 2009
On Saturday, I spent four hours in the blistering August heat of Palo Alto, California exploring the world of electric cars at the 37th Annual Electric Car Rally and Show. Sponsored by the Electric Automobile Association, Silicon Valley Chapter, the event offered a wide variety of vehicles, people and philosophies. I also enjoyed a remarkably tasty spicy chicken taco and two enormous icees.
With all the excitement over the $109,000 Tesla sports car and news of the upcoming Nissan Leaf, a four-door sedan for more regular folks, you might wonder what you can do today, without breaking the bank. The answer is, folks have been thinking about electric cars for a long time and converting them to 100 percent battery power.
By Keith Rockmael •
August 18, 2009
It was a one in 20 chance encounter. I felt like a paparazzi who got a chance to spy a celebrity but in this instance my camera caught a shot of the Tango, the car that makes look the Smart Car look like a Lincoln Continental. Only about 10-20 Tangos exists which makes the sighting more special. Actually my neighbor (a solar guy who already drives an EV-4) had the thing in his driveway in the Lower Haight and a crowd of passersby, tourists, and green auto enthusiasts formed around this electric only car.
As they say, looks can be deceiving. My neighbor said that the Tango can beat a Tesla in terms of acceleration. The Tango can accelerate from zero to over 130 mph in one gear. It accelerates from zero to 60 mph in about 4 seconds. We say Zoom to that.
Think a Ferrari is fast? Watch one get schooled below.
Electric cars are no joke. Yes, it’s true that many EVs are small, ungainly-looking oddities, but the other end of the spectrum—the realm of high-performance supercars—might surprise you.
After re-discovering a 1972 electric datsun that can accelerate from 0-60 in 3 seconds, we decided that an important question hadn’t really been answered yet: how do the electric cars we’ve been hearing so much about stack up in terms of performance?
Below, we’ve listed the world’s top 10 fastest electric cars, based on the best available information (and a little creative license). Note that our criteria does not take into account a variety of important factors like charging time, availability, and cost. All cars are simply ranked by the time it takes them to get from 0-60 mph.
Most of the machines shown here are either not available or otherwise out out of the realm of possibility for most, but then again, so are most high-performance gas-powerd cars. And that doesn’t keep us from admiring them. Please keep in mind that this post is not intended to be the final word on this topic.
Btw, if you’re interested in joining the first mailing list dedicated to bulk purchasing electric cars, check it out (you can also get cheap solar there too).
Arthur Shopenhauer said “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Above you see three cars, the Tesla Roadster, Wrightspeed X1 and the Tango… the Tesla in particular because of the company’s comparitively deep pockets, which would be in the Violently Opposed Stage (by the majors [...]
