Almost one hundred years ago, Henry Ford’s wife Clara would stroll around in her 1914 Detroit Electric Model 47 Brougham. Thirty years ago we faced oil shortages and the warning was clear. Five years ago GM sent the remaining EV1’s to the Mesa, Arizona desert to be stripped and crushed. Yesterday we paid over $4/gallon to fill our low MPG cars. Today there is hope.

Thanks to our friends at California based Tesla Motors, we should all be free of the big oil / big auto stranglehold on our societies transportation requirements within the next four years. Tesla is best known for its Tesla Roadster, the first production model for the company. The Roadster is a two-seat sports car based upon the Lotus Elise. Each Tesla Roadster is a powered by a proprietary Lithium ion battery pack and plugged into a home electrical outlet for its charge.

“Just after Tesla CEO Ze’ev Drori announced Telsa’s plans to build the Model S, Elon Musk began discussing its development of electric car tech to get the price of future cars to (and below) $30,000. When asked when that technology would be commercially available, Musk said that it shouldn’t be any more than four years from now.” TOPOLSKY, Joshua (2008), Tesla’s Elon Musk promises sub-$30k all-electric car in less than four years, engadget, [30 June 2008]

Electric has always been a more efficient choice for powering our vehicles. View the chart below (courtesy Tesla Motors) to compare the horsepower and torque of an electric vehicle vs an internal combustion based vehicle. Electric provides a smooth and clean power curve with zero emissions.

63% of our oil is used for transportation. With an electric vehicle in every garage and high-efficiency solar panels on every roof, we become nearly 100% energy SELF-SUSTAINING. Decentralized power generation means our power grid would become impervious to any terror attack or natural disaster. All this results in no dependence on foreign oil, no dependence on speculators, no dependence on greedy automobile or oil companies.

You remember independence don’t you?