[texanidiot25]

Tomorrow I'm test driving the Nissan Leaf for an enthusiast website. Not a typical target, and certainly not a typical writer for the job.

My main point is to point out, maybe with some reluctance (we'll see how the car impresses me tomorrow), how electric cars are coming into the scene as more than a novelty or a glorified golf-cart... That it's here to stay, and how it maybe ready for the masses (more than just you as ecomodders, but as an average consumer car).

I sit here thinking to myself at what I’m looking at. It’s a piece that represents an end of an era. I’m not talking about my 1969 Chevrolet CST/10, that era died with the fall of communism; Carburettors, crank windows, terrible brakes, and horrific fuel economy. What I’m really talking about is the end of the modern car as we know it.

The vehicle I’m lamenting in is a 2008 Porsche Boxster S. A stout, tight little 2 seater sports car with 300 horse power, a crisp 6 speed manual, weighty steering and thick clutch. In many ways it represents some of the best of today’s technology in automobiles. Perfect fuel injection, easy but capable performance, glorious exhaust note, and more variable this-and-thats than you can shake a stick at. Even a Toyota Camry shares many of these advancements, minus the glorious song that the Porsche can sing.

Simply enough, gasoline cars are reaching a plateau. The technology is reaching it’s limits both mechanically and politically. As there is a bigger push for fuel economy, we’re seeing a new age being ushered in; the Electric car. Currently manifesting in hybrids as a way to help limp along the rather archaic gas engine to lofty fuel economy expectations, the realization that we are on a finite supply of Texas Tea is being is becoming a larger concern every day (or every election season, which ever you prefer). And the long forgotten sibling to the internal combustion engine is getting it’s long waited reintroduction. The all-electric drivetrain is back, for good.

The electric car has had a rough history in the last 100 years. Hell, the battle we are seeing now was fought out over 100 years ago. The introduction of the motor carriage opened up a new opportunity for an array of drivetrains. There was a time when steam, electricity, gasoline, and even some gas/electric hybrids (Porsche) fought for supremacy in automobile motivation, and it’s easy to see who won out. Gas was cheap, plentiful and very, very powerful. Not only that, but it also was quick to refuel, and as long as there was a supply of fuel the gasoline car could go anywhere. The electric car was left in the dust- there were severe limitations to it’s range and our electric infrastructure was no where ready to supply power where needed.

Enter the last 20 years, and after learning lessons from a few fuel crisis we are once again looking at the little electric car. Without conspiracy theories, the technology still wasn’t quite there for it, and the costs were too high to make a reasonable business case for much of anyone. However, in the last 5 years things have changed. We have an infrastructure that supplies electricity farther than any gas station, and most importantly a push for technology that can give birth to legitimate electric cars for mass production.

And this is where Nissan and the dowdy-looking Nissan Leaf comes in.

I need C&C, some revising, etc. Any suggestions are welcome, it's a very rough draft.

Thanks,
Phillip