Tesla Electric Dreams come closer to reality

The electric car has been around a long time. Most of us in cities will remember electric milk floats and bread vans, but getting cars to a mass market is something else entirely. The traditional achilles' heel was range, but milk-float performance was also never likely to be a selling point.

Electric Car

The two-seat Tesla Roadster, with a top speed of 216 kph, can travel more than 300 kilometres before it needs to be recharged. Photo Courtesy of Tesla Motors

But it’s now the 21st century. Modern electric cars bear as much relationship to a milk float as your iPhone or whatever smart gadget you carry does to the brick-sized embarrassment that amazed you in the 80s. After many false dawns, electric cars now look practical and viable.

There are now electric cars that will comfortably travel 150 kms on a 6-hour charge, figures that will keep improving the way phones kept getting smaller. And as for performance, consider the Tesla Roadster. The prototype goes from 0-100 kph in an eye-popping (and silent) 4 seconds, with a top speed of 216 kph and a 300km-plus range. The silicon-valley based company is backed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Berlin is developing electric city-cars. Israel plans to electrify its entire fleet by 2020 and Denmark also has ambitious plans. The advantages are obvious. For a start, we import €6 billion worth of oil each year and we are at the mercy of world prices. The vision of a wind-charged battery driving an emission free car with resources sustainably sourced in Ireland is compelling. It may also see the car finally winning the argument with environmental anti-motorists.

Getting there will take a lot more than the first package of incentives announced but it’s a start. Sure as death and taxes, though, you can be sure that the things will still break down. No doubt the AA will still be there to fix them.