thats like 5 times what i paid for my car, and my tank gets me close to 500 miles, and it only costs me $30 to fill it up. How much would the electric bill be for charging one of these cars?

Solar & Wind!
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY BLOG - Solar-Energy-Wind-Power.com

This is a major move by a company. They took a loss to go this way. Investors agreed to it!

Open Energy Corporation - Investors - Investor Relations

Open Energy Corporation - Investors - News Release

According to the PESWiki article, the company is working on a sedan. There is a link to a blog that talks about it. According to the Tesla website, their thought was to create a car that would appeal to those who like powerful cars that are fun to drive, and show that a high performance electric car could be a reality.

As for expense, well... Remember how expensive VHS tape players were when they first came out? And DVD players? My guess is that the price on these electric cars will come down over time just like home electronics have, although if demand is high that might keep the price up.

Their website boasts of a penny a mile, cost calculated based on "PG&E Schedule E-9 off-peak rate." Looking up "PG&E Schedule E-9" on Google shows it to be a special rate for low-emission electric vehicles. Tesla's white paper on the battery pack says it holds "about 56 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electric energy". You'd have to find your own electric company's rate and do your own calculations. I would imagine folks could put solar panels on their garages and recharge from them...

What a great idea to encorporate solar panels into roofing products!

Beautiful car, Chris. But we need to address the problem of range. At approximatley 250 miles on a single charge, this would be a problem. This car would need many BATEX stations every 30 to 50 miles to be a major help to our society. I like it's reduced pollution ratios, though. Sorry, I won't tell you what I think of the price- you can probably guess. Market forces would drive this down somewhat following any government legislation; but in order enough to really help America; we would need something no more than $25,000 in cost. Great idea, though! This company is headed in the right direction. It just needs to figure in consumer pricing in its planning.

Now, I think this is a great idea! I'm not so sold on the palm oil idea though.

I agree that the mileage range is not quite there, but my thought is that if you pound on an electric sports car, it'll eat up the battery faster and you'd run out sooner, while the battery in a more sedately driven family sedan would last longer? Isn't this true of current cars?

I don't think this particular car would be able to use your BATEX station, since the batteries are custom made and I think they are rather hefty (over 400 kg). It does come with accessories to plug it into household current to recharge overnight.

And I agree on the price - it's way too high, but they are still selling.

For yet another perspective, read the Sierra Club's interview with Martin Eberhard.

Nuttyjoe, have you shared your BATEX idea with anyone besides this board? I think it's a wonderful idea that needs the nation's attention.

I was just thinking. Lightning. If we can find a way to capture the power from lightning and store or save this power for later use, could that be a idea worth pursuing? Talk about an unlimited power supply and something that does not require importing!I am not a scientist or any other -ist you can think of; but I believe this is an idea worth our time to pursue.