I Fell from the Moon

Meet the Tesla Roadster. In the spirit of Nikola Tesla, the Austrian electric wizard whom dreamed of free energy for all, Tesla Roadster is a electric sports car more than worthy of that title. It's high-tech, looks quite good, and accelerates like crazy. Tesla Roadster is different from other sports cars mainly because of one thing... an electric motor. Thanks to its electric motor it does 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds.

Tesla Roadster comes in an era in great need for change. Gas prices soar and we're seeing wars for energy. Pollution is only increasing. So I'm hoping Tesla Roadster is the start of something new. A market of all-electric vehicles. This would mean cars that are cheaper to drive.

It does the equivalent of 135 miles per gallon and 220 miles per charge. That's 2 cents per mile. All thanks to its advanced lithium-ion battery. However, the price is less pleasant. It costs $109,000 USD. That's a bit more expensive than similar sports cars. Let's hope for cheaper EV's with a high range soon.

But why an electric vehicle? Why not a fuel cell, hydrogen, bio-fuel or hybrid car? They're all eco-friendly and go further. While these vehicles have the advantages of gasoline, they aren't as eco-friendly as a battery EV. They also have many of the disadvantages of gasoline. Some of them can even be worse for the environment than gasoline.

Fuel cells consume hydrogen usually. Hydrogen produces only water-vapor, also in hydrogen-combustion engines. However it's expensive to produce and energy will be wasted because it needs to be transported via trucks to gas stations. Large oil companies are also the ones who'll produce and distribute hydrogen, which means your money will go to the same hands as before.

Bio-fuels are derived from recently dead biological materials, unlike oil which comes from biological materials dead a long time ago. Bio-fuels are usually ethanol or plant oil. Since these plants consume carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere, they're carbon-neutral which means they don't pollute. But since these fuels are grown in fields, land suitable for food crops is used for bio-fuels instead. This means less food will be produced and food prices worldwide will increase. Bio-fuels are just as bad or even worse than fossil fuels.

Hybrid cars usually have two sources of propulsion. Gasoline and batteries. You can run a hybrid car off batteries only, but most hybrids have a very low range for their battery power, which means they'll switch to gasoline once you drive far enough with them. A hydrogen-battery hybrid could however be a good compromise until the range of battery driven cars improve.

A battery driven electric vehicle is still the most eco-friendly alternative. It's however not completely eco-friendly. Large amounts of today's electrical energy is produced from coal. Coal pollutes a lot more than other energy sources. However, it has been shown that you can run an entire home and an electric vehicle completely off solar power and still sell electricity back to the grid. Making such a home is expensive though because of the high production cost of solar cells. Recent advances in solar film might however make solar cells cheaper in the future. Let's also hope the world soon stops using fossil fuels for electricity too.

Tesla Roadster might signal a future with less pollution and more power in the hands of drivers. Advances in battery technology, engine technology and lower prices one these cars are needed however before the world can ditch solid fuels completely.

See more photos of Tesla Roadster in the Tesla Roadster photo album.