harikari.com

The Tesla Roadster:

• 100% electric
• 0-60 in 4 seconds
• 135 mpg equivalent
• 250 miles per charge
• about 1 cent per mile

Check out the Tesla Roadster website and get your order in for a 2008 model.

Martin Eberhard, the Tesla’s inventor, explains to Slate why the Tesla Roadster is different from previous electric cars:

Eberhard says traditional carmakers have failed with electrics for two reasons. First, they market them as “penalty boxes” for environmental do-gooders and gas-mileage-obsessed penny-pinchers. Second, they just don’t understand batteries. The Tesla’s giant lithium-ion battery pack gives it the power to hit 60 in four seconds, to run 250 miles without a recharge, and to charge rapidly at its home charging base (a one-hour charge will take you 80 miles; it takes a 3.5-hour charge to go 250 miles). You can even plug into a wall socket at a roadside stop in a pinch. That makes the Roadster a viable commuter car and weekend day-tripper. The company claims energy costs as low as a penny per mile.

Plans are already underway for a sedan to compete with BMW 5-series cars.  I can hardly wait to see what the big car companies decide to bring to the game.

Karma has a strange way of working itself out.

Today’s installment comes from Thinkprogess.com which is reporting that global warming looks to submerge the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport.

One “treasured place” in extreme risk is the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport (noted by the yellow arrow below). The area in orange shows land that will be submerged by a sea level rise of 6 feet; the area in red will be underwater after a rise of just 3 feet.