Tesla Electric Roadster

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Griff

0 to 60 in seconds seems to be a good way to break oils hold on us.

Cool. How would you be planning to charge the batts? Nuclear power?

Amusing that they named it after Tesla...

Originally Posted by http://www.keelynet.com/energy/teslafe1.htm

But it is a mystery car once demonstrated by Nikola Tesla, developer of alternating current, that might have made electrics triumphant.

Supported by the Pierce-Arrow Co. and General Electric in 1931, he took the gasoline engine from a new Pierce-Arrow and replaced it with an 80-horsepower alternating-current electric motor with no external power source.

At a local radio shop he bought 12 vacuum tubes, some wires and assorted resistors, and assembled them in a circuit box 24 inches long, 12 inches wide and 6 inches high, with a pair of 3-inch rods sticking out. Getting into the car with the circuit box in the front seat beside him, he pushed the rods in, announced, "We now have power," and proceeded to test drive the car for a week, often at speeds of up to 90 mph.

As it was an alternating-current motor and there were no batteries involved, where did the power come from?

Popular responses included charges of "black magic," and the sensitive genius didn't like the skeptical comments of the press. He removed his mysterious box, returned to his laboratory in New York - and the secret of his power source died with him.

Speaking of early adopters: Have you Hugged a Hummer Today?