Alas, I don't have a ten-car garage or a ten-car budget, so I can't have one vehicle to go to the grocery store, one for scenic weekend driving, one for multi-day road trips with ten hours of daily driving, one for commuting to work, one for spinning tires in the sand on the Outer Banks, and so on. I have to compromise and pick a car that's adequate for most, if not perfect for any, purposes.
We have something like enough coal to last 600 yrs.
That's part of why, while researching alternative fuels, we should be researching better and cleaner use of traditional fuels. It is absurd to believe that we will stop burning coal in the near future.
It is also foolish to resist changes in how we use coal -- when London residents used coal for home heating, there was this nasty tendency for coal smoke to get stuck in a fog bank and kill a bunch of people.
Normally I am against projects like this
Why be against them? No taxpayer money (though possibly some tax credits) involved. I'm all for people trying new stuff. It if actually works, score!
but in this case, I am intrigued. First of all, I like the looks of the proto-type. And secondly, I believe, unlike previous tries, they are coming at it from a capitalistic viewpoint instead of mostly it’s good for the environment ploy. Building something with your eye on it being a moneymaker always makes the chances of success greater. I like their approach although I couldn’t afford their vehicle.
You pretty much nailed what I like about the Tesla roadster. Most electric cars have been boring little plastic econoboxen, less exciting, fast or safe than a Honda Civic, for twice the money.
The Tesla people took the opposite approach -- they built a car to compete with Lotus and Ferrari (at least in short distances). while they're selling they've sold one to all the Ed Begley Jrs in the world, the folks who have tons of money and want to make a statement, they can use that money to develop the technology until they build a car I can actually afford.
One thing I've sometimes wondered is whether it would make any sense to coke coal and then burn it, rather than burning it in one step. I would think that that separating the coking and combustion processes would separate the CO2 from the majority of pollutants, thus making scrubbing easier; the energy used for coking should be mostly recoverable.