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Post by **Lightning Rod** » August 2nd, 2008, 11:15 am

My first car was an electric. Well, it wasn't so much a car as a cart. It was a little red electric golf cart steered with a stick. It had three controls, the brake, the accelerator and the stick. It was perfect for a ten-year old.

My grandfather was the pro of a small golf course and when I went to visit him in the Summer, he would turn this little cart over to me. It was my ride. I would tool around the golf course on the little trails, which were dirt then, sometimes with my golf bag in the back and sometimes my BB gun.

Every morning I would get the little red cart out of the cart barn. This was a shed where we kept all of the carts at night. There was a row of chargers that juiced the carts up at night. I would drive around in the cart all day and at dark I would creep back to the barn (because the batteries were getting low by then) and plug the cart into the charger. I loved it. I was ten years old and I had a sports car.

I loved the smooth acceleration of the vehicle. And it was quiet. It felt like you were riding on air.

So, it's with a sense of nostalgia that I watch the re-emergence of the electric vehicle. With the usurious increase in the price of gas and the improvements in battery technology, electrics have become viable again. Not a week goes by without a news story about some tinkerer who has converted a Camaro or an El Camino into an electric vehicle in his garage.

The first airplane was made in a bicycle shop. This is one of the beauties of American ingenuity. The world shaking changes come from the bottom up.

I think we should all be Everready bunnies.

this is the one that I want:

http://www.teslamotors.com/

Post by **Doreen Peri** » August 2nd, 2008, 11:24 am

Electric cars are a great idea. It's about time.

Pretty car! ... I want one too!

Also, it was named after Nikola Tesla, The Master of Lightning.
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/index.html

Post by **Lightning Rod** » August 2nd, 2008, 11:43 am

Tesla is one of my heroes
a true iconoclast

a friend of mine built a Tesla coil and we used it several times on stage. It would make the hair stand up on your neck and arms.

www.mgvolt.com

Post by **stilltrucking** » August 2nd, 2008, 11:56 am

What a great idea
An electric car, I wonder why General Motors did not think of it about 20 years ago when California passed the law that said tent percent of all cars had to be electric by 2003, instead GM lobbied like hell to get the law repealed. And then destroyed the ones they had built.

The owners loved them. Zippy cars that could haul ass at highway speeds, and burn rubber from a standing stop. And they required no infra-structure like hydrogen. Plug it in overnight to your house current.
Who Killed The Electric Car

I love a good murder mystery.

Oh well water under the bridge a fucking shame though,

Thirteen years lost, China could have been building them now instead of all those infernal combustion engines they are putting out now.

This week, NOW talks to director Chris Paine about his upcoming documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" The film looks at the hopeful birth and untimely death of the electric car, an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving salvation to some, but a profit barrier to others.In a film that has all the elements of a murder mystery, Paine points the finger at car companies, the oil industry, bad ad campaigns, consumer wariness, and a lack of commitment from the U.S. government.

"[The film] is about why the only kind of cars that we can drive run on oil. And for a while there was a terrific alternative, a pure electric car," Paine said.

In 1996, General Motors (G.M.) launched the first modern-day commercially available electric car, the EV1. The car required no fuel and could be plugged in for recharging at home and at a number of so-called battery parks.

Many of the people who leased the car, including a number of celebrities, said the car drove like a dream.

"...the EV1 was a high performer. It could do a U-turn on a dime; it was incredibly quiet and smooth. And it was fast. I could beat any Porsche off the line at a stoplight. I loved it," Actress, Alexandra Paul told NOW.

Trailer: Who Killed the Electric Car?
[Requires RealPlayer]After California regulators saw G.M.s electric car in the late 1980s, they launched a zero-emissions vehicle program in 1990 to clean up the state's smoggy skies.

Under the program, two percent of all new cars sold had to be electric by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003.

But it was not to be. A little over 1,000 EV1s were produced by G.M. before the company pulled the plug on the project in 2002 due to insufficient demand. Other major car makers also ceased production of their electric vehicles.

In the wake of a legal challenge from G.M. and DaimlerChrysler, California amended its regulations and abandoned its goals. Shortly thereafter, automakers began reclaiming and dismantling their electrics as they came off lease.

Actress Alexandra Paul in her EV1, G.M.'s electric car.Some suggest that G.M. -- which says it invested some $1 billion in the EV1 -- never really wanted the cars to take off. They say G.M. intentionally sabotaged their own marketing efforts because they feared the car would cannibalize its existing business. G.M. disputes these claims.

Take a trip with us this week as we find out more about why the electric car slipped off the road. Next time on NOW.

"Who Killed the Electric Car" appears in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on June 28th and in other theaters throughout the country sometime this summer.

For more on the film, visit Who Killed the Electric Car?

Link From Now on PBS
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/index.html

Post by **Artguy** » August 2nd, 2008, 3:01 pm

During the depression our Prime Minister was a gent by the name of R.B. Bennett....during that time there was a famous photo of a donkey pulling a model A Ford, it was called the Bennett mobile ...perhaps a fitting time to resurrect that photo...

Post by **panta rhei** » August 2nd, 2008, 4:57 pm

speaking about tesla coil:

electrostatigirls

van de graaff generator
(see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_de_Graaff_generator
and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Graaf_Generator
(and listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmhP6YiN6s))

Post by **Dave The Dov** » August 3rd, 2008, 4:55 am

Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

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