BMW's electric Mini

[excess_3]

> http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=19471 <

the electric car is coming

...snip...
WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., -- The BMW Group will be the world's first manufacturer of premium automobiles to deploy a fleet of some 500 all-electric vehicles for private use
...snip...

[Catch22Dem]

1. The electric car already came

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

[zbdent]

4. can do you one better ...

In Cleveland, the Crawford Auto-Aviation museum has one of the earliest electric cars made ... Yes, it has the GM one, but I'm talking about one that was made in 1904 or so ...

I think I saw a vanity plate on it ... "McCain 08" ...

http://cleveland.about.com/od/clevelandattractions/ss/crawford_5.htm

[BlueStateMind]

6. its kinda cool, living in the future

Electric Cars, household robots, Dick Tracy Radios.

It's a pretty cool time to be alive

[Auggie]

2. Sweet

[ContinentalOp]

3. 500? Wow, don't go wild there BMW.

:eyes: I've been complaining about this for a long time now. Why the hell isn't there a hybrid or fully electric mini? It's the perfect size, plus it's fashionable and would probably sell even better than the prius.

[IDemo]

5. I'll take one of these ->

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/the_hybrid_mini.php

A British engineering firm has put together a high-performance hybrid version of BMW's Mini Cooper. The PML Mini QED has a top speed of 150 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds. The car uses a small gasoline engine with four 160 horsepower electric motors — one on each wheel. The car has been designed to run for four hours of combined urban/extra urban driving, powered only by a battery and bank of ultra capacitors. The QED supports an all-electric range of 200-250 miles and has a total range of about 932 miles (1,500 km). For longer journeys at higher speeds, a small conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) is used to re-charge the battery. In this hybrid mode, fuel economies of up to 80mpg can be achieved.

[wtmusic]

7. Me too

Now where was that price tag...

[tinrobot]

8. In the stratosphere...

[TorxPower]

10. Wow that is a nice car

Seriously if we just start with converting all the coolest fastest cars over to electric first, then people will be more inclined to switch over and gasoline will seem like the "mediocre car" option.

[predfan]

9. Of all the technology on the market, what could be instituted TODAY that would save

nationwide?

Well, here's an idea. Carmakers sell new cars often with interest-free promotions........here's my idea. Allow the average American to buy any vehicle with a MPG rating of, say, 30 highway, up to 5 years old, finance it if needed, and take the interest off his taxes as a tax credit.

We replace old clunkers, of which I have a couple, with more efficient cars, and we lower our gas usage.

Whadayathink?