Fastest car on the planet is all electric/170 mpg

Imagine a superclean driving machine capable of beating a Lamborghini Murcielago, a Porsche Carrera GT, even a Winston Cup car - and which gets the equivalent of 170 mpg. I have seen that future and, even better, I am the only automotive journalist who has driven it.

Ian Wright, founder of Wrightspeed, has built a 1,536-pound, 300-hp electric prototype, the X1, with a 0 to 60 of three seconds. It has a 100-mile range and recharges in under five hours. In sum: insane power and efficiency - no tradeoffs. Drooling yet?


Once I had it pointed straight on a long, clear patch of road, I tried again. Since the X1 has only one gear, no clutch, and all the torque available all the time, there was no power crescendo, no shift time - just an unbroken and terrifying blast of speed that felt as if we were going to achieve liftoff. It was hard to keep my watering eyes focused as we rocketed down the road with the hurricane-gale wind threatening to remove my hair, if not my head.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/04/autos/electric_wright.fortune/?postversion=2007100510

The future would be shaping up nicely, if we had better people at the helm.

Corporations may be comprised of people but the rules and conditions that drive the decisions that must be made to keep them in business are not human. We need to take Corporations out of the drivers seat and put people back in.

BMW M6 is still the fastest car which is readily available.

Official test on the A5 in Germany by Kelleners-Sport using GPS for accuracy (the speedometer said 353 kmh = 220 mph). Sadly the car is only available in a limited version which stops at 250 kmh :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O89UWHnFUl0

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/09/14/ssc-almost-officially-takes-top-speed-record/

Readily available, if you have a large box full of money.

Re: the M6 - I think there are a couple of aftermarket companies that will remove the speed limiter.

Lots and lots of money for that ride, though.

has a top speed of 70 miles and hour and gets 200 miles to the charge????

And can sell to the average slob for under 15K?

The concept these days is to build a high end sports car to make money to then develop a car for the masses.

call me crazy, but didn't the racist henry ford, build a small cheap car that was affordable to his own employees????

there are far more french fry eaters out there than there are caviar eaters.

You need to remember that Ford didn't invent the automobile, he made it affordable. For decades prior to Ford automobiles were the playthings of the rich and tinkerers. Any new product goes through three phases:

1) Geeks that understand the idea build their own and tinker with the product.
2) Rich people get fascinated by the product and start clamoring to buy the latest fad.
3) The product is proven, mass production lowers costs, and widespread adoption occurs.

Right now we are in phase #2. We've past the days when garage shop geeks showed us that an electric car could work, and now it's just starting to be produced for rich people that can afford something that might not work that well. And face it, the first versions of these electric sports cars will be unreliable compared to regular cars. Once all the kinks are works out we'll see mass production.

I'm a product of the want-it-now generation. LOL

I know, you're right, of course, I just get tired of the wealthy and well off getting things before the rest of us are thrown a bone.

grumble grumble...

LOL

cheers.

Did this Ian Wright consider that? pfffft!

except for that 5 hour pit stop?

More than gas engines? I bet we don't ever see this car on the road.

Granted, we have a few times in the year when it's nice enough to tool around in a nice convertible, but without A/C that car will be a hard sell in these parts.

I'd love to have one and it'd be a kick to drive, but that's a very, very expensive toy for most people. No luggage capacity is a killer, too.

I don't know about "the electric cars in California" because I was referring to the car discussed in the OP.

Rent it -- and make sure everyone sees it -- !!!

For about five years in California -- late 90's to early 2000's -- GM had about 4,000 or more electric cars on the road. They would only lease them. They REFUSED repeatedly to sell them to the happy customers!!!

They were a huge success -- and certainly Pelosi knows this --

Yet, GM suddenly demanded that all the cars be turned in -- refusing again to entertain any thoughts of selling them. They rounded up all 4,000 or more of the cars -- which were beautiful and efficient -- and THEY CRUSHED THEM -- !!!!!

Knowing that, I think you have to ask yourself if GM thinks it is making cars or protecting the oil industry -- are they the same?

fastest, but it does have a top speed of around 70 and can go about 25 miles on a charge...plenty for to/from work and to do yardsales and errands on the weekends. Takes about an hour to recharge. Portland has charging stations downtown, so for us, it's actually useful. Hubby is currently converting a Ford Probe, as well.

Electric cars will be here. And they'll be practical and useful. The technology is better all the time. The car companies are going to have to get on the bandwagon, as more and more people are becoming like my hubby and I and just doing it ourselves.

Did you see the movie -- "Who Killed The Electric Car?" --
GM crushed 4,000+ electric cars --
Refused to sell them or to continue leasing them!!!

We could raise another corporation to make electric cars -- subsidize both ends of this --
manufacturing and purchase -- and replace every damned gas-guzzler on the highway in five years!!!
Or sooner!!!

here. And yes, I believe that GM and all the rest have been in cahoots with the oil companies for years. But when you have people like us out here, who do whatever we can to promote electric vehicles and when you see the amount of interest from the public, it gives you a lot of hope that the tide will and is starting to turn. Heck, we go to a local hotrod rally here, and our little electric gets a lot of attention from the motorheads, who are expressing more and more interest in their next "project" car being electric.

that this is a survival issue for them.
They recently moved 400 new engineers
into the Green division, working on the
Chevy Volt plug in hybrid.

Doesn't MPG mean Miles Per Gallon?. Specifically Gallons of gasoline?

So does this refer to the efficiency of the engine? Or the equivalent amount of oil to be burned at a power plant?