I will believe it when i see it.In my local auto showroom.

Saw the Tesla roadster on Nightline 2 nights ago. Its sleek but it costs 90,000 dollars! And its only for 2 people. This will be a great alternative..

Making a good looking 'green' car can only be good for encouraging people to buy them. But this looks nice and more affordable too - green cars shouldn't be confined to the rich.

Product Cycles -

The really cool innovative stuff starts out at the top of the spectrum and works its way down through the product lines. It's like that for most technologies.
A prescription drug costs maybe $.02 to manufacture but you pay for the R&D, approval process... and of course, the mindless beaureacracy (I don't even want to spell it right!) so it costs the consumenr much more. Heated seats, air conditioning, power windows, etc all started out in high end cars and worked their way down.
I would love to do a conversion but $$ issues, etc. An all 'lectric or plug in Prius with beefier better battteries and electric capability might be the way to go. It's also the same with solar and wind technologies- I recently saw a Home Depot in Nassau County with a sign outside advertising solar installation.
Just keep watch. I think this site is at the cutting edge of this stuff. When companies come out with good stuff, it will appear here and then the viral marketing will begin. So for now, let the rich guys cut their teeth on this stuff and work out the bugs so when we get it it will be New and Improved!

Good Luck!

vsk

Even at that price and form factor, people not specifically interested in a green vehicle may show a lack of interest in this vehicle. It's the range. Yes, it's fine as a commuter car and it'd have done me well back in college when my family lived only 60 miles from me, but so many of my friends, no matter how green they are, still drive trips further than 120 miles on a regular basis. They're going to have to rent a gas-burning car or own a second car in order to make this kind of an electric work, and $30,000 just to have to rent another car for longer trips isn't going to sound like a good idea.

A company that wants to be serious about making an all-electric vehicle work for consumers needs to find a way to make the battery easy to swap out and needs to come up with a way to include battery-swapping at filling stations around the country. Less than two hours of interstate time isn't enough for a day's driving.

Rhett, I'm certain a car like this isn't for everyone, and I can live with that. That might make the line to buy one shorter than WalMart's line on the day after Thanksgiving. I own more than one vehicle and this would make a great replacement for 95 percent of my driving. Sign me up!

Those who drive on trips that are regularly over 120 miles will have to wait for technology to improve, but for everyday folk who do the daily commute to work and back, this would be perfect. I know i'd get one it it's sub-$30,000. My regular trip to work and back is about 10 miles and I don't assume that people regularly drive 120 miles to work and back everyday.

So can someone tell me how exactly is CA going to handle it when someone comes out with a $20k electric car? Can you picture the power outages? How happy are folks going to be when they buy a green eletric car, and then can't use it? Or do we need to build a couple of dozen dirty power plants just so we can get by.

What we need is a way to generate the electric these vehicals are going to use, then switch to all electric.

I think it's perfect marketing to families. In many families with two adults, both adults have cars, because they both have jobs and live in areas where they need cars for transport.
I grew up in a family where my mom typically had a wagon and drove to her job in town and my dad had a sedan and worked about 35 miles away from home. If the sedan was electric I can only imagine how much energy and gas money he would have saved, and we could have still taken the wagon on longer trips.

For myself I was thinking that for most of my long trips I could handle stopping for a while after an hour or two on the road. It's kind of an enforced break to take the tmie to look around. While it might be a pain to get certain places, for someone who lives in the Northeast like me there will probably be enough places to stop, once the planning gets underway. It may be more problematic in the areas of the country where towns are spread out more.

Besides think of what this could do for tourism in certain area where people use electric cars.
"Free charge if you stop for a meal"
"Free charge with purchase of museum tickets"
I think this goes along the lines of slowing American's down, stop and smell the flowers, and take your time while your car charges.
It sounds nice in a way.

RE: " So can someone tell me how exactly is CA going to handle it when someone comes out with a $20k electric car? Can you picture the power outages? How happy are folks going to be when they buy a green eletric car, and then can't use it? Or do we need to build a couple of dozen dirty power plants just so we can get by.

What we need is a way to generate the electric these vehicals are going to use, then switch to all electric."

I doubt power outages will happen when the price hits $20k for two reasons. 1)Most users will be charging the cars at night during off peak hours 2) Unlike air conditioning, not everyone in the neighborhood will have one of these cars, so it won't be like the whole neighborhood with their AC units on during the summertime.
Current electric plants should suffice for charging these vehicles and the overall fuel efficiency is much greater than any other alternative fuel technology out there. Go to the Tesla Motors website and read their white paper. It's quite informative.

All pretty believable to me EXCEPT the part about 'recharges in 6 hours from a normal wall socket'. 6 hours at the maximum output of a 'normal wall socket' is 120V x 20A x 6 hrs or 14.4 kWH of energy transferred to the batteries. Unless the manufacturer has made dramatic and unpublished advances in motor and electronics, that just isn't enough energy to push a car this size 120 miles at 60 MPH. Today's DC conversions in a small car like a VW rabbit are requiring on the order of 10kWH to travel about 30 miles at 60, and state of the art AC systems do not do a whole lot better, certainly not four times better,

What are there, 300 million of us Americans? How many drive less than 100 miles a day? At least half? I did a report in college and the average American drive 30 miles a day. So even if you're driving 3+ times the national average, a car like this Miles car will still take care of your average daily needs just fine.

My point is, there is a huge (100+ millions of people) market for a car like this. Forget the cross-country guys or the long-haulers; fine, keep your gas cars for that. But the millions and millions of city-dwellers? They could easily make minimal if not zero concessions from their current daily lives to get into a car like this.

From a business standpoint, if this company gets 1% of that 100 million city-dwellers (my numbers are estimates obviously), that's one million cars sold. That's lots of money, and lots of environmental impact, both of which seem to be a priority for this company from what I've read.

Honestly, we all have to stop complaining and expecting every technology to be the silver-bullet-on-a-platter solution. We need to be willing to change our driving/living habits just a little, because if everyone does a little, in sum it will mean a lot. To our world, and ourselves.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the miracle electric car to hit the market. I've been following different electric cars for 17 years. This is definitely what electric cars need, more affordable choices that are more functional. After spending years looking at electric cars and hoping someone would produce a marketable electric car, I tried out a conversion which seemed like a never-ending project. Recently I traded it in for a XEBRA sedan and use it for virtually all my daily driving. The price and the ability to drive up to 40 MPH seemed like a no-brainer to me. So, there are options if you want to drive green today.

One problem I can foresee is if you drive the car, say to the mall or to work or something, and park it in the lot. Now, of course, if there was a place to plug in, you would be set. But what if there isn't? I came across this company http://www.solarelectricalvehicles.com/
that makes solar panels for the Prius and a few other vehicles. If this company made a solar panel for the XS 500 and it was installed on the roof and hood, you could get quite a bit of a recharge while the car is just sitting outside. Now, obviously, it would not be enough for total independence to keep you from plugging in the car but it woud help I think. For example, you leave home with a 100% charge, drive to work and expend 40% of the battery. Well, you would still have 60% to get home but with the solar panels installed, they could possibly boost your battery back up to 70% or 80% while the car just sits in the sun for 8 hours. Seems like a nice addition. What do you think?

Lots of posts here, couldn't quite read through all of them (sorry). For those concerned about range, there is a solution - it is possible to buy generators mounted on trailers, which could be powered by biodiesel etc which could be used as range extenders. So you get the best of both worlds - a commuter EV for everyday but without the weight of IC when you don't need one and the convenience of a hybrid for longer journeys. Simple and cheap.

Trailers are a GREAT idea, George. Way to go!

for me this car IS the silver bullet i have been waiting for. i live in rural virginia and i have to drive either 40 miles north or 30 miles south to get to a city(meaning it has more then 10,000 people in it).

i used to have to run once a week to a city that was about an hour and ten minute drive from where i live... each way, and i have never ever(satan can be my witness) drove more then about 110 or 120 miles in a single day.

this car would forfill 100% of my driveing useage, as it would for every single one of my friends, my parents, or my friend's parents. and like 75% of the people in my town(of about 3,000 people) commutes to work.

this car would be a great asset for every family. if one of the parents commutes, then they can use a plug-in-prius and the other one that doesnt have to drive as far can use the electric car.

also, building a bunch of dirty power plants and running the electric cars off of the power generated by those power plants would be far better then the cars themselves. this of course is because you dont have to burn as much fuel to get the same amount of power as a car does to get the same amount of energy because electric engines are more efficient (approaching 85-95 percent currently) plus they dont burn energy when they are sitting at a stop light like ICEs do. this makes them even more effecient.

plus power plants are massive for a reason, they utilize every btu of thermal energy possible to produce work that is made by burning the fuel. also because they are large and dont have to move anywhere like a car does, they can throw lots of technology into cleaning the smoke as it comes out, useing scrubbers and filters. this means that energy aside every gallon of fuel burnt in a power plan makes one third as much as a car does, and the particulate emissions and other emissions are reduced in a simular fasion over an ICE.

its simple, power plants have twice the effeciency ICEs do, have one third the emissions, and you have the option to fill that need with solar, wind, and nuclear energy sources.

now that that is put to rest, as ken said about the power problem... there wont be one... and if there is then there wont be a big one. in the world of tomorrow solar will forfill the energy needs of the day with help from wind, tidal, geothermal, and (clean breeder reactors)nuclear power, and at night, the rest can get by just fine with energy useage being lower.

also, why would one 220volt outlet in every house make a difference? that means that the power needs are only going to raise by a factor of 5-10% or so.

its perfection

i have been waiting for an electric car for a while. I was very excited when I heard about the chevy Volt. I put solar panels on my house so that I could power my Volt. Where is is Chevy? Get going on this. You have one anxious customer.

"green cars shouldn't be confined to the rich"

quite the contrary the rich can still afford the 3.88 a gallon, it's us in the lower/middle class range that need this, and its us that will make the difference on the planet because we make up the majority of the population, a couple hundered thousand celebrities and corporate CEO's arn't going to change a thing as far as the enviroment is concerned, we need em in the millions, and with china and India going the way they are possibly billions. AND FAST