Comments on: Taking a Tesla for a spin

After trying out the electric sports car, I was wowed by the technology implementation. But the company's ultimate success hinges on a couple of nontech questions.

[jcfdillon]

An Italian engineer, Angelo Di Pietro, who previously worked with Mercedes-Benz in Europe to improve the rotary Wankel engine, later moved to Australia and continued to perfect the rotary Wankel as an air motor. He recently appeared on the Science Channel demonstrating his amazing air motor. This motor has very few moving parts and is able to replace very large engines with its small form factor, smaller than a breadbox. The new improved rotary Wankel of this design may be the most efficient air motor ever devised. I hope CNET will cover this amazing new development in detail. Thank you for your consideration.

[rwm72]

Is this powered by compressed air? I have seen something similar attempted recently, and it looked very promising. However, weight of the vehicle had to be kept way down, and the noise was greater than a current generation car. Still, the range was amazing. Melbourne to Perth on the equivalent of one tank of fuel! (3421 km, or 2125 miles). Will have to check out the Wankel rotary version though. I hope CNET explores this topic in detail some time soon.

There have been a number of innovative engine designs that have ultimately been shelved, or not given proper development funding, often because oil wasn't an issue at the time... it is now though. Remember the Sarich orbital engine. Most Australians do. Bit of a conspiracy theory attached to that one. Either way, it should be looked at again, with newer tech available now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_engine

[An Old Fart]

"the vehicle was busting past 90"
Is that 90 MPH or 90KPH?

[ppgreat]

Take some your federal bailout money, license the tech to the rest of the world, and start making cars like this. Not ridiculous, uber-fast, sports machines, but speed-governed family sedans and SUVs. (Nobody needs to be going 0-60 at 3.9 in suburbia, anyway!! You can do a respectable 0-60 in 6 seconds and that's plenty for the vast majority of people.)

Do you see the kind of mileage these guys are getting to a charge?? Whither Toyota, Nissan, and Detroit?

In fact, go the the Big 3 and say, "Hey, we're more than happy to give you $40 billion dollars. However, you're going to have to have the majority of your lines converted in the next three years to plug-ins and plug-in hybrids. But after getting snookered by AIG, we're just not going to give you cash to do business as usual so that you're back at our door in a couple of years."

Now THAT would be change!

[NowComeOn]

If I have a million dollar to spare I'll buy 10 of this and give it to my friends. It's only $100K each, I know people blow through a million dollar in 6 months on women and booze.