Sunday, October 14, 2007

WSJ Online on TeslaMotors

Joseph B White, Wall Street Journal's Detroit bureau chief, takes Tesla seriously and respectfully. His column in Monday's WSJ Online explains what's going on with the Silicon Valley automotive startup so many hope will push electric to the fore.

Other than one stupid paragraph about the EV1 and RAV4 EV that repeats the conventional received wisdom on why we have no plug-in choices - "GM EV1 and the electric Toyota RAV4 struck mainstream customers as geeky, slow and impractical" (really? Mainstream customers knew about the EV1 and RAV4 EV? The EV1 was slow? The RAV4 impractical?)- the article is well worth the read.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it any wonder that he should have such views on the EV1 and RAV4-EV? Look at whom he was interviewing? ... Tesla! ... Martin Eberhard and Elon Musk have said that the EV1 and RAV4-EV “sucked!” Sometimes I think we’ve got our worst enemies, doing the movement the most harm, right within our own ranks. Not sure whether you’d call that “shooting oneself in the foot” or a “circular firing squad”. Definitely not very smart or savvy businessmen. These guys are some of the dumbest I’ve seen. Start off by insulting and alienating your best allies and early-adopter customer base. Sheesh! Let's not blame the poor ignorant reporter for the lies and disinformation crap that Tesla has fed him.

Anonymous said...

"The EV1 was slow?"

0-60 mph in 9 seconds with an 80 mph top speed...I'd call that performance the lower side of "acceptable." It certainly wasn't fast.