Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A green car that goes zoom-zoom


Okay, raise your hand if you like to go REALLY fast in your car. Wave it in the air if the idea of racing around hairpin turns on an alpine road has you reaching for the keys. Now jump up and down if you would love to have all this AND have it in a rechargeable, green vehicle.

How many of you are waving that upraised hand while jumping up and down? This a car is ALL of that and more. Sleek. Sporty. Fast. REALLY fast! 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. Powerful. A top speed of 150 miles per hour. And yes, it's green. Do you have any idea how hard it is to type when you're jumping up and down and waving one hand wildly in the air???? But for this car, I am doing it!

The car is a Tesla...a far cry from the boxy, acceleration-challenged hybrids appearing on the roads. This is a real car.

A green car, yes. Absolutely, but a real performance vehicle. Something that draws you onto the open roads of Canada or Germany.

This is an electric vehicle. A car you can recharge in under four hours, then drive for over 200 high performance miles without feeding it again.

Yes, this car is expensive. Very expensive. With a base price of $109,000, it's not likely be appear in suburban driveways any time soon. And the options could easily push it over the $200,000 mark.

So why am I writing a glowing review of a super-expensive green product? Wasn't I just trashing the overpriced greenwashed market a few posts back? Absolutely. But this isn't greenwashing.

This is proof that a product can be green and still match or exceed the performance standards of "traditional" designs. That being green isn't just about duplicating a non-green product in a more earth-friendly version. It's about the green product being remarkably better.

The Tesla gives the green-focused person who has been known to go weak in the knees over a passing Lamborghini something new to dream about. And a whole highway full of hope that someday soon, green will really come to mean better.

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