> Right, like subsidized electricity to run them. How cool is that? No
> emissions _from the car_ but let's burn up a bunch more coal to fill the
> batteries with electricity. And get someone else to pay for it. Bleah,
> no thanks.
Oh ye of little faith!
(This was supposed to have occurred yesterday, but not surprisingly, there's nothing on Yahoo...):
Midstate inventor to unveil his 'Back to the Future' car
The rubber meets the road tomorrow for a Middle Tennessee inventor and his car, an all-electric version of the Back to the Future, stainless-steel DeLorean.
Carl Tilley of Lebanon has developed a device that an associate, Doug Littlefield, likens to ''a rather elegant battery charger.'' Tilley's innovation allows the gull-winged '81 sports car to run on 12 car batteries without gasoline, Littlefield said.
The promotional material, meanwhile, claims the car can drive ''hundreds of miles without recharging'' and can reach speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.
The electric DeLorean will debut at the Nashville Superspeedway, and auto racing great Bobby Allison will take it around the track. The event, which begins at 8 a.m., has intrigued some, including devotees of the Serbian-American electrical inventor Nikola Tesla, and drawn skepticism from others.
''Our goal is to prove the technologies and market them to entities large enough to market and sell them,'' Littlefield said in a telephone interview from his Vermont business. Telephone messages left yesterday for Tilley, whom Littlefield describes as a ''self-taught doer,'' and with Bobby Allison Racing in Alabama weren't returned.
The Tilley vehicle event comes on the heels of the Ford Motor Co.'s decision last week to walk away from a $123 million investment in electric cars. A spokeswoman told The New York Times there wasn't enough demand for the vehicles, which are limited in size and in how far they can go between recharges.
Other major auto companies also are skeptical of the feasibility of an all-electric car that doesn't require recharging.
''I'm speechless,'' said Max Gates, a communications manager with DaimlerChrysler in the Detroit area.
''In general, we found the challenge of electric vehicles quite difficult.''
If Tilley's invention succeeds, he will have surmounted a technical challenge that has stymied others who have labored to bring electric vehicles to the mainstream.
(....)
http://www.tennessean.com/business/archives/02/09/22041880.shtml?Element_ID=22041880
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/ dave /