I live near Skyline Blvd in Woodside California, just 20 minutes from Silicon Valley proper. Skyline Blvd is a renowned mountain-ridge road that attracts motorcyclists, cyclists and Tesla test-drives. The neighborhood is woodsy, foggy and remote-feeling, despite it’s proximity to the center of the world’s entrepreneurial capital.
Tesla gives its long waiting list’s members test rides up here, and I’ve witnessed a few. It’s a disconcerting pleasure to see these cars’ lightning acceleration unaccompanied by the usual ICE cacophony.
The people doing these test drives, if I may be lookist and judgmental here, are more software engineer/geek millionaire than movie star. But that makes sense because these are the people on Sand Hill Road now driving Maseratis, Ferraris and Aston Martins from stoplight to stoplight at 8 mpg.
Tesla deserves credit for capturing the public’s imagination and making electric vehicles cool again. The company deserves credit for sheer audacity in taking on the challenge of building a car company from scratch. And Tesla deserves credit for executing and getting at least a few of its sports cars out the door and into the hands of paying customers, or at least into the hands of boardmembers and royalty.
Perhaps Tesla will succeed in ramping-up and using its hard-won knowledge to scale and build its sports car and new sedan in high volume. And I wish the company luck in its future fund raising, be it another venture round or an IPO, despite predictions of disaster.
But here’s the problem (one of them, at least): trying to shoehorn the EV concept into a conventional ICE chassis and transmission is difficult and inefficient. “The current ICE architecture is low efficiency, less than 20 percent,” says Lawrence Liang, CEO of EV Innotech, one of many EV start-ups, adding, “Get rid of the conventional drivetrain and put the motors in the wheels.”
The CEO of another EV company, now in stealth and asking not to be named believes: “You have to rethink every aspect of a next-gen vehicle, from drivetrain to weight ratio, from body materials to bumpers."
Tesla is just one of many new car companies going after the “green” car market and the following is a very partial list of those entrants. The list includes all-electric vehicles as well as hybrid architectures. Many of these firms are taking orders and some are delivering in small volumes. A few are in real mass production.
American Electric Vehicle: An “NV” or neighborhood vehicle, its Website suggests you unplug your toaster and plug in the Kurrent, which is appropriate as the car accelerates like and resembles a toaster.
Aptera: Backed by Idealab, et al., this futuristic three-wheeled motorcycle/car will be offered in an all-electric or hybrid configuration.
Commuter Cars: Angel and Sergey Brin-funded Commuter Cars produces the Tango, an expensive, all-electric two-seater vehicle, which is half the width of a regular car. Production vehicles aren’t available, but you can place a deposit in escrow.
Eliica: An all-electric concept car from Keio University in Tokyo. The Eliica is powered by lithium-ion batteries and resembles an eight-wheeled Citroen – but not in a good way.
Fisker Automotive: This high-end vehicle uses a small gasoline engine to turn a generator, which charges the lithium-ion battery pack, which powers the electric motor in the rear wheels. Fisker has received VC funding from KPCB (see A New Plug-in Hybrid Startup Amid Hybrid Wars).
