Oh boy. We should probably all be very grateful that is not the case.

The contemporary electric car is such a lovely romantic idea and I am not one to knock the dreamers but at the rate that the independent electric car makers are going we better keep our bicycles tuned up for quite a while.

Tesla has been a PR machine. Until recently. Delayed production has led to rumors and snafus abound. Imagine being the buyer of a Tesla Roadster. You have made a $50,000 deposit two years ago and you haven’t received your car. You hear through the grapevine that employees found out about a layoff through a blog written by the CEO to the general public. Not you, the early adopter. And then, just to make your day, you get a letter from Tesla telling you that when your car is eventually delivered you will have to pay more than you originally had agreed to paying. Even the proprietary charger that was included in the base price is now going to cost you extra. Its like buying a battery operated toy and getting home only to find out that batteries were not included even though the salesman told you they were. AND you are paying more than the $100K you signed for. {“Honey? Don’t buy the organic wine for a couple of months!”]

If that is the case then you have arrived as most of the country cannot fathom (but fantasizes) about being so “lucky”.

Aptera (yeh, I will be cliche here and say “that Jetson looking EV”) is having its own bumps. Recently they were all ready to go into production having built a 70,000+ sq. ft. facility a third of the way between LA and San Diego and no man’s land and hire on a full team for their Robin Reliant by Dr. Who vision of the EV.  Candidates were aplenty but, you know, sorry, the project is on hold for a *few* months now. They are looking for additional funding now and won’t be hiring in the near future.

What about ZAP (which is such an adorbs car that I almost forgive them) and years of false promises and bad press?

The independent gas to electric conversion companies are still around, struggling, asking for capital (remember when we used to call it money?) but are still at least a year from fully operational and that is with conditions and a $20K plus price tag to convert your car of choice.

Fact is, this is not Tucker the Movie. It isn’t even Lee Iacoccoa’s world. For years- and I mean YEARS- the venture capital world has funded and lost its love of the EV. Many a CEO has probably told their families that the dot com they walked away from which gave them a nice life would be so much better if they gambled their equity (SLASH fortune) into something green, something progressive, something that will mean something to the kids. Oh, the justification of the green. Dollars, I mean.

So now the EV independents are jumping on the bail-out bandwagon. They’re asking the government to help them when for the last several years their venture capital seeking expeditions has forced them to suffer in Aspen, San Francisco, London, Paris, Miami and other low rent districts. It has been so hard for them.

So what about GM and the myths about these PR machines? GM is a PR machine too and talks a lot of talk and has yet to prove anything EV but they are working (and I mean hard) to meet this. But why? Because of demand. Irony is that everyone loves the idea that their dollars count and for years and years Normal Joe’s have “voted” for high consumption guzzlers while their [INSERT FRIEND/RELATIVE HERE] was getting paid (and paid WELL with health care) for making the cars that they demanded.

Not that anyone really cares. It is fun to place blame. And, oh, that Joe? He is mad now. And his kids don’t have healthcare because he didn’t want to be that guy on the line.

… but everyone has an opinion despite the fact that if everyone complaining actually owned their past demands then they would realize the the fault does not lie in the car companies and that despite of the fact that you can’t wander without tripping over yet another EV company, the alt.fuel deficit all belongs to every one of us.

And yeh. I am back.

XOO,M

Sadly, after likely having waited for over a year to get his new electric supercar, this unlucky San Francisco Tesla owner reportedly crashed only hours after taking delivery. While there were no reports of injuries, that carbon fiber bodywork won’t be cheap to fix.

This crash actually happened right outside of my friend’s apartment building in San Francisco, though he is reportedly upset that he wasn’t there to gloat.

This is also only one of 8 Tesla roadsters on the road and a good test for the service department at the newly opened Tesla dealership in Menlo Park.

Michelle says:

Poor person! (We all pretty much know that the owner must be a guy but in the effort to be fair, lets stay gender neutral.) Certainly this will cause him to be the butt of a lot of jokes and I sure wouldn’t want to hear it when the pocketbook is almost as pained as the ego. For example, already overheard was this comment:

Seems the lack of emissions is outweighed by the inflated egos of the people who drive them [Teslas].

Okay- I admit, I LOL-ed when I heard that.

The question I have is about insurance rates and statistics so I called my trusty State Farm friend, Jim Seilsopour and he pulled a quote on what it would cost me (as the good driver that I am) to insure a Tesla. Have to tell you- I was surprised that my quote came in at only $1200 every 6 months. I pay about $1200 a year for a ‘2001 Kia and a ‘99 BMW so, I dunno, but that sounds really cheap! Seems that the way that State Farm deals with specialty cars (high performance and/or handmade) is to lump them all together as a category. Many mainstream companies would not insure a Tesla (think AAA or Mercury) because a total loss wouldn’t mean that a client with pockets that medium-deep would be insuring something else while their new car is being made and smaller agencies wouldn’t either because a $110,000 loss could make the difference between a profitable year or not.

Being made of carbon fiber and only the number 6 car (yep, I am disagreeing with Steve) is also an issue for most insurers because it means that the owner will have to wait for parts from a manufacturer that already has a production backlog.

The good news is that there are now 13 Tesla’s on the road with only one sadly sitting in a garage waiting for it’s carbon bits and other parts to be ready. So- please be kind to this landmark Tesla owner. He gets the honor of being an early Tesla owner/investor despite being a pioneer crashing one of the most dynamic cars of our generation.

Originally posted here