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http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/04/technology/business2_wrightspeed/index.htm

just check out the article first.
PLEASE disregard the title "A car that could save the planet",
and find forgiveness in the bias nature of this article.
granted, the x-1 is stripped down and bare bones, which puts
it at an unfair advantage to the bugatti it came a split second short of beating.
not to mention its short battery life (100 miles per 4 hours of charging i believe)

what i really wanted to get opinions on is simply this:
do you think that the evolution of electric engines into a new breed of muscle car
will be what the industry needs to let go of gasoline? when we finally see an electric car, of a more fair weight for comparrison, smoke a bugatti on the quarter mile....will that finally be the first nail in the coffin for the combustion engine?

yeah, i know we still need HP for trucks and tractors, but lets focus on cars here.

Its funny you mention the muscle cars and that people will follow the trend of the cars. Honestly I do hope people can see some value in the electric and hybrid cars.

I am impressed with Camry Hybrid......................but to answer your question I love sports/muscle cars however I feel that hybrids and electric are an exciting way to pursue the future of automobiles.

Here is a quick comparison done at a car magazine with severl high profile hybrid autos talking about more then just gas economy as well.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=31&article_id=3430

the problem with electric engines is generating the electricity to charge them up

the fact is that an internal combustion engine is more efficient on it's own than it is to burn fossil fuels to generate the electricity to charge the cars....

the difference is something like 40% efficiency

now of course you could generate more electricity through renewable sources but given that we dont generate that large a percentage of our current electricity needs through clean sources then how can it be considered that we could produce the electricity to power all the cars as well without having to resort to building more nuclear (which while clean are also considered controversial due to the fact that they are extremely vulnerable to a catastrophic terrorist attack. or resorting to using more coal, gas and oil...we'd probably have to resort to peat as well

electric cars are a nice thought but they really arent that practical until we can generate the electricity to power them first

and i'd still prefer a bugatti veyron