World's top 5 fastest street legal electric cars

You are claiming that filling up a 110 litre tank in Europe can cost you up to 242 US$. Okay, fuel prices are ridiculous over here, but not that much. Currently a litre of 100 Octane premium plus fuel (te best you can buy) costs about 1.35 Euro in Germany. One Euro currently is worth about 1,25 US$, which means that filling up a 110 Litre tank costs you 185 US-Dollars. Maybe fuel is more expensive in the UK than in Germany, but I doubt that it is more than 30%.

sampleman

- April 10, 2009 @ 12:04 pm PDT

The only problem with this article is that it's claiming these cars are comparable to supercars when they are not. Yes they are just as fast 0-60 or even in the 1/4 mile but that is not a measurement of a cars true performance. Most of these cars have very limited top speeds and can not compare in cornering due to the high weight of the batteries. Beyond that any non electric car not just a supercar could beat any of these electric cars in a cross country race due to the limited range without recharge or battery replacement. Don't get me wrong I like electric cars but they still have a lot of downfalls and one of them is actually still performance despite your articles claims.

MacBandit

- April 11, 2009 @ 10:04 am PDT

Top Gear did a review of one of the electric cars (can't remember which one...I think it was the Tesla) and they came to the determination that electric cars just aren't practical in their current itteration. for one, they cost 3 times that of a conventional gasoline car, and as a test, they found that the 200 mile range claimed by the electric car manufacturer is probably only a best range value because in their tests, they only got 50 miles on a full charge...an to make matters worse, when the battery dies, the car can't be charged on the spot and then driven away (if your gasoline car runs out of gas, you can dump in a gallon and be on your way in under 30 seconds) And because it takes up to 16 hours to fully charge the batteries, it could take 3 days just to drive 150!

Yeah, these cars are fun, and it's fun to dream, but until they can fully charge an electric car in under 10 minutes, from any conventional electrical socket, or from jumper cables from another vehicle, electric cars will only be a commodity...and they will only server to be high-priced replacement for golf carts that retired people use in retirement compounds.

Ed

web/gadget guru

Ed

- April 14, 2009 @ 12:04 pm PDT

Except in the Top Gear test, they admitted that they didn't actually run out of charge, they just after 50 miles 'simulated' what would happen if it did run out of charge. The 200mile range (actually 240miles) was verified at an EPA facility, by actually running it out of charge in the same standard driving simulation used to test fuel mileage of other cars. Best range would likely be much longer again. Remember the only reliable way to measure the consumption is by measuring the batteries charge directly, the fuel gauge like standard fuel gauge any other is going to underestimate the actual charge considerably, more so on the tesla, to stop you from getting stuck.

The average commute of most people would be fine even with 50 miles though. And given it will actually do more than 4 times this before it runs out of charge....

You're not going to drive interstate in it, but they could easily take over 99.99% of the driving usage for 90% of people, especially in families with more than one car.

Top Gear are notoriously bad at reviewing any alternate technology, they did one where they showed a hybrid car had higher fuel usage than a BMW, by running it at top speed around a track. Where of course the ONLY way a hybrid will be of any use is if it brakes, and thus stores that energy so it can use it again (ie City traffic), it's obviously going to be no different / worse when you're not actually using the electric engine at all because you haven't charged the batteries.

Basically, it's a much better show to deliberately trash new technology, even if you have to 'fake' it, or deliberately set up the worst possible case scenario.

'High weight of the batteries' - These cars are light, thus the reason for the limited range. It also uses less power to drive a light car so you need less batteries for the same range also. They're obviously not going to be used cross country or around a track 100 times. If you're going to do that, you get a car build for that, if you wanted to design an electric car for that you would build it with swap in / swap out batteries. But typical usage is nothing like that so there is little point in restricting what is already a niche market even further.

Rod Rye

- April 18, 2009 @ 08:04 am PDT

as is normal, when something new appears on the scene, there are always those shortsighted people who cannot see that there is a huge change in direction happening, right now !,,,,, the electric car, fast or slow is here just like the gas guzzlers were fast or slow, and thankfully their oil demise is drawing nearer

robinyatesuk2003

- August 22, 2009 @ 08:08 pm PDT

no need to say a word to the owners of "super cars", just watch the videos and weep !

robinyatesuk2003

- August 22, 2009 @ 09:08 pm PDT