Driving round in circles - oh dear indeed. It sounds like sour grapes - "Dammit, I will make this car fail!"

Once again though - the real headline is, as John eludes - the Model S is fast, smooth, efficient and can make the journey from Washington to Boston

Having watched the video now, it shows, at about 1:35 that, whilst the energy density of gasoline is so much higher, the difference between the two fuel sources is how easily you can convert the energy into massive amounts of force. To do that same rolling burnout without clutch dumping (a.k.a cheating) would require a massive capacity engine far beyond the scope of a home-brew project.

EV's are on a great trajectory.

+1 for an 800hp ActiveE :-)

That's a cheap tool in the grand scheme of things. Try a tire/wheel balancing rig starting at $30,000.

I don't think that we're over the hump with a lot of dealers yet. Many local Nissan dealers, when asked "Will you make your EVSE available to others?" are baffled "Why would I give away free electricity? I'll have people parking their car everyday at my garage at night to charge up."

"How many Nissan cars will you need to sell to ever-so-greatful-need-a-top-up passing i-MiEV, Focus, Smart or Coda owners to cover the cost of the electricity?" The math should win out but, only a handful get it.

Oh my sides hurt - I predicted this... but I was joking, "What's next after fake clumsy transmission creep, fake gear shifts?".

I'm stuck now, my old joke falls flat now, I'll have to come up with a new one, er, let's try "Fake gear shifts, what next, artificial exhaust smell?", er, "Fake gear shifts, what next, an oil dispenser under the car to drip oil on the roads to keep the accident rate in winter up?", er, "Fake gear shifts, what next, an artificial gas tank so you can go to the filling station for old times sake?" - you pick.

I ran off-peak for a year to 'test it out'. Whilst we did save about $100 per month, it was hard - only using the electric dryer after 9pm, feeling guilty about toping up the cars during the day, taking cool showers at 7pm because the heater doesn't kick in until 9pm, etc.

It seems that you need to move about 80% of your load into the evening/weekend hours to make it work.

Check out Stan's interview on Who Killed the Electric Car - interesting and very approachable silent hero.

Nice :-)

I'm in that 48% that thinks it high but not outrageous, actually, I'm really close to the 'It's good value' group. It might be personal circumstances, it might be that I'm driving a Roadster but, Tesla Service is not the same thing as having your BMW/Audi/Merc looked at. They visit your house/place of work and carry out the maintenance there or they pick it up in a low-loader and take it to the local facility. This will change with the S no doubt but I think that it will long remain a more personal service like Aston/Jag/Ferrari, etc. than Toyota (_shudder_). I suspect that the Volt service, which sounds great btw, is a loss-leader price wise. As my old Dad would say, dealers don't get enough - he was a dealer.

Absolutely!