GP Video: The Tesla Sports Car
The Tesla Car is Airwolf: beauty, intensity and majesty in one package. When I saw this video, I had a bit of an epiphany: being green is more than birkenstalks and wilderness. It is empowering our engineers, urban planners and business folk to create for us a world that we want to live in.
They so want to do it.
Imagine this kind of creativity put into homes, public transit, government services.
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July 6th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Yes, the Tesla car is quite the groundbreaking piece of design.
I’d seen something on it earlier this year. It’s made by a small company in California. Pretty much the electric car answer to all the traditional sports cars. I see it as a niche market situation, but with wide potential repercussions and an ripple effect. If nothing else, it’ll inspire future movements in the world of design and automotive engineering, kind of like the De Lorean car inspired innovation in the 70s.
On my trip in Portugal and Spain, I noticed many of the smaller European car models but not much in terms of hybrids or Smart cars. The Smart car is just too small and too pricey for what it offers. But there were plenty of the small Peugeots, Renaults, Hondas, Fiats and other makes of combustion engine cars. I also saw a couple of iterations on the smart car idea, including a slighly longer model. Most of all, the streets and the countryside in the summer is full of motorbikes and scooters…they love their bikes.
My own thoughts on transportation were that if I were living in that part of the world, I would use public transit for most of my travel while having some type of a moped or a smaller cc motorcycle to go on the small country roads and access the hinterlands. Unless I had kids, owning a car would just not make sense, and even with kids, it might not be necessary (while in Canada, it’s pretty much a must).
July 6th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
What I love is that here is a cool way to save the environment: rethink transportation. I want an electric speed bike in my stocking next christmas.
We can DO this!
July 6th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I’ve actually had long conversations about the Tesla with other people.
My personal feeling is that this car will have a bigger impact than the number of them sold might indicate. A car like this makes electric cars “cool,” and really show how the perceptions that many people have, namely that electric car equates to boring and underpowered, are false.
The Prius really took off in California after it became known that it was the car of choice for Google founder Larry Page. Once word of that got out, every dot-com entrepreneur wannabe just HAD to have a Prius, and that put a lot of hybrids on the road.
Put a few Teslas in the hands of the Glitterati, and bam, overnight electric cars become hip and cool. Image is a powerful motivating factor, and this car (as Mark so brilliantly put it), has that “Airwolf” sex appeal to it.
If you want to make electric car sales really start to take off, stage a Nascar type event for electric cars. For that to happen, you’ll need a couple of companies manufacturing, emphasizing slightly different technology. This will drive innovation and change, and creat a mass appeal for marketers to tap into.
I hate to say it, but the green movement has been desperately low on sex appeal. Without the sex factor, people won’t really invest themselves emotionally in green products.
Given a choice between two vehicles of the same price, one being “green” and one being an ass-kicking, powerful beast, which car do you think most people are going to long for, and eventually buy?
The Tesla negates that factor. You get to be gren, AND have an ass-kicking, powerful beast. What could be better than that?
July 7th, 2007 at 11:01 am
After watching the movie ‘Who Killed The Electric Car’, I thought that we might not see this technology used until the large auto manufacturers decided to pursue it and make money for themselves. It’s exciting to see that the electric car hasn’t disappeared entirely. I do hope it takes off!
July 8th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I SO agree with what you said about our engineers, techs, architechts, and creators of STUFF. Hats off to them! The smarties! The nerds! The people that say to themselves, “There MUST be a way, I just have to find it!”
The best thing about the market economy is that the consumer is BOSS. It is so simple, that all we have to do is ask (and pay). : ) ! … and we shall recieve sustainable systems for anything in the marketplace.
July 8th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
But it is the responsibility of we consumers to clearly enunciate our desires: clean energy, walkable cities, healthy food, walkable strong communities, clean air and eliminate the entire concept of waste.
Believe me, engineers, architects and planners are literally begging to do work that makes them feel like they’re contributing to the welfare of the planet.
July 9th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Consumers are a huge driving factor, of course.
Unofortunately, the consumers in our society and, more broadly speaking, the Western countries (since I am not too familiar with other cultures) are heavily skewed towards two groups: the retirement crowd (”grey power”) who have lots of money, time and conservative tendencies, and the post-college, young urban professionals who may be contemplating those first few big purchases. With these two almost opposite ends of the consumer spectrum, there are very different things and images marketed to them. The “green” thing is catching on among the below-40 crowd but it’s not like I am seeing people invest in hybrids, choosing not to have cars, or looking for those small, energy efficient condos…let alone, building strawbale houses or other structures. In the meantime, I see lots of older people in big cars, country types in big trucks, suburban families commuting like crazy…we’re far, far removed from the realization of a compact, pedestrian oriented living pattern.
And, as after every trip to Europe, I feel our city designs are the one factor that has been killing all the positive efforts to move towards the green-friendly deisgn and building.
July 9th, 2007 at 9:32 am
I don’t know Jan. What do you think are the most critical purchases a person makes from a climate change perspective?
Vehicles are #1 for me, followed by home efficiency (heating, lighting, composting) and then purchasing local/organic foods.
For business consumers: shipping and waste seem to be the biggest things to work on. I’ve heard word of hybrid semi-trailer trucks being brought into the market, saving fuel and reducing GHG by about 90%.
Urban design is definitely hamstringing us in Calgary — see the interview tomorrow July 10, regarding this.