Best electric cars to buy today

My last thoughts on electric cars were quite pitiful. Don’t know why, maybe because I realized I would like to have an electric car, but can’t afford one or even converse to one. So I’m promising to do deeper analysis on this issue, just because I love cars and believe electric cars are our future.

I could of course find someone to blame for my unableness to buy electric car for a reasonable price – for instance General Motors because they discontinued producing EV-1 thus stopping or quite decelerating progression of electric cars that way making electric cars expensive comparing to ordinary internal combustion cars. But it is no use because we don’t know if we were to take the decision we might done the same.

Looking at car market today you can find several car manufacturers who might become next “Toyota” in next century by being one of the first who has kick-started an electric dream again.

Honors

First honors goes to the high-priced fetish, I mean Venturi Fetish, for being the first car being “mass” produced anew. Not really going into mass production, because there will be only 25 exclusive pieces sold for the price of 297’000 Euros + VAT approx. $463’874 each.

Two seater roadster with options to have a hard roof. Don’t know if the “exclusivity” and big price tag will help sell these cars having so many good competitors in the ring from all sides. If you had such spare amount of money it might seem reasonable to buy this car, just to show, that you have so much money and are able to think green. Because its’ V type shape hood and being first anew to produce electric car and good looks offering reasonable drive distance, and great dynamics is not those things to attract most buyers – it is price, price, price, price only then design and looks.

You must agree me, it looks good.

But for that price you could have a very, very decent sports car and have a gasoline reserved for quite a sometime. Just saw a Top Gear test accomplished in Jeremy’s style. Putting six super cars on the start line with only one gallon in fuel tank to find out that Audi R8 is the most economical super car – doing 5 miles to the gallon at a very fast pace.

Prices for this beast starts at $ 178’691 USD. Buying Audi R8 I am left with $ 285’183 doing some calculations I can say that roughly at $4 a gallon you can buy 71’295.75 gallons of gasoline and drive 356’478.75 miles.

If someone gave me a $470’000 I would buy an Audi R8 with no doubt. The growl in the electric car is still missing. And 356’000 miles I could drive off in 1424 days that is 3.9 years time, doing 250 miles a day driving like mad.

Oh, boy, how I would like to have an Audi R8 – drives excellent, sounds great, looks awesome, prices reasonably. And having seen it in Iron Man movie makes it even cooler, as Jeremy Clarkson might say – sub zero cool.

So, what else is out there able to satisfy your need for speed and overcome great distances?

Tesla. Named in honor of genius Nikola Tesla, an inventor, electrical engineer and scientist. Among his life’s many inventions (and more than 700 patents) is the induction motor and alternating-current power transmission.

The Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard starting the company decided that first car has to be excellent otherwise they won’t be able to compete in the market so being a Lotus Elise fan decided that using some of Lotus technology contacts and ideas would make a perfect fit for an excellent electric powered car. The main thing as I thought earlier is that they are not using Lotus Elise chassis, other what’s changed explained in detail by inventor himself here.

Because being it too spartan and uncomfortable for normal people to accept it, they have changed key facts – lowered lower doorsill and improved interior.

This car also is a two seat roadster with soft top roof what means it is a spot on competitor to Fetish and Lotus Elise which costs only $54,500 USD, meaning internal combustion propelled cars are still cheaper, but let’s hope not for long.

Tesla surprisingly costs “only” $ 109’000 USD meaning it stands near BMW Z4 roadster with loads of extras, but is much, more greener.

Drive fast, look good.

This wind blows from the island called United Kingdom. They seem to be keener on going “electric” than any other country in the world for now.

They are offering a very sexy, oh-my-god-how-after-Aston-martin super cool looking set of wheels which really could depict a lightning strike in all its speed and might materialized and frozen in a car body.

After these sleek looks and beautiful eyes your brains instantly gives you a message saying:”Out of your league, Man!” and it is true, because car costs, it costs – $ 295’000 USD. Just as much as Aston Martin DBS, car which is driven by James Bond, agent 007 in Casino Royale.

They both have similar driving distances and from stop to sixty in four seconds. Both are good looking. As a James Bond fan I would take Lightning as next agent 007 supercar.

A performance information of the above mentioned cars compared to my parents Opel (Vauxhall) Zafira 2.0 diesel, 96 bhp:

	Audi R8	Fetish	Tesla	Elise	Lightning	Aston DBS	Opel Zafira
0-60 mph (96 km/h)	4,6 sec.	under 5 sec.	under 4 sec.	4.4 sec.	4.0 sec.	4.3 sec.	12.6 sec.
Top Speed	187 mph (301 km/h)	96 mph (160 km/h)	125mph (201 km/h)	150 mph (241 km/h)	over 130 mph (209 km/h)	191 mph (307 km/h)	109 mph (175 km/h)
Distance able to travel	336.8 mi (542.17 km)	155.3 mi (249.93 km)	220 mi (354.05 km)	185.15 mi (297.97 km)	248.55 mi (400 km)	291.9 mi (469.88 km)	466.02 mi (750 km)

Results

So, what are conclusions?

For now these good looking, fast going cars are still a fraction too unaffordable. But looking at mileage it is not so bad for an electric car, if you keep remembering that it’s a sports cars performance you have under the hood sadly without a sports cars’ growl, but with jet engine like whoosh and hiss only quieter.

Only real problem I see while there is no infrastructure for fast battery recharging and as many of us doesn’t live in homes but in flats in a multistory buildings, not owning a garage or not being able to park your car in front of your house, you will “kill” yourself and neighbors with a wire.

Best it can be seen at the end of this video:

Skip to 3:50

So for now I will still sadly but definitely stick to the Opel.

Advertisement