Carmakers emulating Silicon Valley hackers?
Tesla Motors announced version 1.5 of the drive train for its $100,000 electric Roadster on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Fisker Automotive leader Henrik Fisker compares his company's upcoming Karma to the Apple iPhone.
What's going on here? Is the auto industry being taken over by Silicon Valley geek speak?
Marc Fleury, a geek's geek if there ever was one, opined on this very subject on Wednesday, as he reacted to the news of the upgraded Tesla drive train.
Fleury, a cashed-out entrepreneur who sold his company, JBoss, to Red Hat for more than $400 million two years ago, has a vested interest. He's No. 215 on the waiting list to receive a Roadster.
He knows that to get the coolest car on the block, he has to be an early adopter. But there's still something worrisome.
"Truth be told, when I visited their shop, I was a bit scared. It felt more like a Silicon Valley hacker den than a real car factory," Fleury wrote. "I wanted less U.S. hacker, more German engineer. I mean, after all, I am going to be driving this thing, and the fact that they call their drive train version 1.5 and a lot of the car is still 1.0 is enough to send a shiver down my software engineer spine."
Perhaps more troublesome is the delay: the delivery date has been pushed from February to December.
If there's one thing that following software and IT gadgets has made us all used to, it's overambitious product road maps.
As Fleury says, never mind the cool tech--I just want my car now.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
