Reasons to Drive this Car

The Tesla Roadster only gets a meager 135MPG equivalent, but that article you linked makes it clear that the Loremo makes substantial sacrifices in terms of performance to achieve that sky-high fuel efficiency, including a 0-60 of *20* seconds (the Tesla does it in 4.0, on par with the flagships of Maserati and Lamborghini). Depending on the Automotive X-Prize’s definition of the word “salable,” I would hazard that the Tesla is closer than the Loremo … never mind that it’s actually on the verge of going into production (the first units are to be delivered later this year).

The one thing that the linked article didn’t mention was cost, likely because it’s too early to tell. The Tesla does clock in at a hefty $98,000, well out of reach of most consumers. However, I think Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard had the right of it when he said that someone needs to change the image of the electric car (and I would even expand that to the image of the eco-friendly car more generally) before people outside the tree-hugging fringe would take it seriously, noting the failure of the decidedly uncool EV1. Just based on my initial visceral reaction to the Loremo, this car would not measure up to that challenge, either. That should raise serious questions about its “salability,” even if it does eventually get up to that magic 250 MPG milestone.