I got a chuckle out of this article about the Tesla Roadster. Good to see someone in the media putting a positive spin on electric cars

Just look. Look over here. It's a new sports car. It's a new sports car that looks deliciously like a Lotus Elise and reportedly drives like Michael Schumacher's wet dream and goes from zero to 60 in about 4 seconds with so much torque and freakishly instantaneous power it makes the gods swoon.

 

 

Nice, read, but I disagreed with one point.

"Did I mention the Roadster costs about 80K? Who cares?"

Uh, I care, because at 80K makes it nothing more than a toy for the wealthy. It's not a breakthrough to make an expensive electric car. The breakthrough happens when they're available for $25,000 to the average consumer.

 

This is a good point, although Tesla has mentioned that they intend to use the Roadster as a high-profit-margin as a startup product, and will reinvest the money into making more affordable vehicles as later models. If the roadster is successful, this seems like a very reasonable plan as they can develop economy of scale.

The $80,000 is a decent price for the roadster compared to similar sports sedans, which are at the same price point, but have high maintenance cost and fuel costs by comparison. Battery elecrtic vehicles, especially if battery prices drop, total electric can offer a great mix of high performance, great economy, very low pollution, and low maintenance cost.