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Charging Ahead with a New Electric Car
had appeared in 1996 and, despite its cultlike following, the company stopped producing it after three years, saying the program was not commercially successful. The most advanced electric vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, was about to be released; it would travel some 200 miles on a fully charged battery, but at $109,000, the sleek sports car would be accessible only to the affluent; the company says about 1,200 of the vehicles are on the road. More affordable cars, at the time mostly in the planning stages, would be equipped with batteries averaging just 40 to 100 miles per charge. The power limitations had even spawned a new expression—“range anxiety,” the fear of being stranded with a dead battery miles from one’s destination.
Via: Smithsonian