Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Tesla to sell Roadster in Europe

Governor Schwarzenegger can expect delivery of his $100,000 electric Tesla Roadster within a few months. His pals in the Old World won't have to wait too much longer before they can buy their own, for a cool €100,000 ($156,000.) The Roadster will be sold in Europe beginning in Summer, 2008, CEO Ze'ev Drori has told the Financial Times.

The upstart California auto maker decided to offer its vehicles in Europe for a number of reasons. Favorable tax treatment of electric cars as well as other incentives are among the measures the continent hopes to employ to lower carbon emissions. The weak dollar also makes Europe an attractive market. Although the chassis and body are made in the U.K., with no plans for a right hand drive version the English rich and royal are out of luck.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Isn't one of CARB's objectives to reduce the impact on the environment of auto emissions in addition to making sure Californians can breath?

Water vapor is the primary green house gas, even more prevalent than carbon dioxide. Hydrogen cars such as the BMW Hydrogen 7 emit water vapor. So that vehicle contributes to global warming.

There is no good solution for producing the vast amounts of hydrogen needed for hydrogen vehicles that does not consume large amounts of electricity.

Electric vehicles do not produce any emissions when in operation and if charged from wind, solar, hydro, or even nuclear do not cause green house gasses to be produced by power generation.

So how does CARB justify pushing hydrogen cars and discouraging electric cars when that decision doesn't have technical merit? It doesn't have to because its decisions are political, not based on technology, and one would suspect driven by the auto industry lobbyists.