one day….

In the early 1980’s, I had a friend who worked for IBM.  He had something called a PC.  He would type in some strings of letters that made no sense to me, but allowed him to do what seemed to be relatively complex computations quickly.  That machine was $5000.  I wanted one.

The car pictured above is the new PC.  It’s made by Tesla.  I want this too. 

Is it fast?  Youbetcha!  It goes from 0-60 in less than four seconds.  That is Lamborghini fast.  Is it beautiful?  I think an argument could be made for it. 

But, most importantly, this car will travel over 200 miles on a single charge.  That’s right.  It runs on batteries.

For most of us, that would handle most, if not all of our travel needs.  Of course, with only two seats, we means two.

This car expensive, $100,000 expensive.  And, I’m not sure I could get in our out of this vehicle without some sort of hoist.  But, that’s not the point.  And to be honest, I really don’t want this car, I want what it represents. 

This is not the end, but the beginning of design and engineering.  If battery powered cars are anything like technology in other areas, costs will come down, performance will improve, and economies of scale will be a big part of that.

Because it’s expensive, the first needed to be sexy to get the price, the buyer at the higher margin.  But, the real test will be in the ability to produce something mainstream at a price most can afford, a minivan or SUV, or maybe something we haven’t considered.  I think we’ll get there.